Our Mandala Philosophy

Located in the corridor through which patients and their families traverse upon admission to the Towson hospital are 12 mandalas. Each of the mandalas represents one of our organization’s guiding principles. The mandalas, each a circle four feet in diameter, were assembled under the direction of the hospital’s art therapists. They are comprised of individual art works that were created by Sheppard Pratt staff during a special “studio experience” commemorating the opening of The Collection of Sheppard Pratt, a collection of art created by trained artists whose lives and works have been influenced by mental illness and/or addiction.

Mandala is Sanskrit for circle and, as an art form, represents the circle of belief. These mandalas incorporate a unique color technique, developed by Roberta Shoemaker-Beal, a pioneering art therapist who once worked at Sheppard Pratt, and Joan Kellogg, another highly regarded art therapist.

Our health system has adopted these 12 mandalas as a visual representation of our organization’s guiding principles. The guiding principles that each of these mandalas represent are applied and practiced every day by our compassionate staff.