MANDALAS

I have been painting these mandalas for close to three years, and I am happy to share them now. As a form, the circle chose me—any other expression was unsustainable. The sudden loss of my only child, my son Ben, brought on an impossible grief, and each painting has been a step forward. An exercise in focus and patience, a sanctuary from a litany of maladies.

In Hindu and Sanskrit, a mandala is a circle. “Manda” means core or root, and “la” is the container or vehicle. It is an ancient, geometric, sacred Himalayan symbol of the cosmos, representing everything within and beyond our world—including ourselves. Mandalas have been found in many cultures but are perhaps best known in the art and iconography of the Himalayas.

In Tibetan Buddhism, the form a mandala can take is far-reaching, and not necessarily physical. There are sand mandalas which can take intricate shape—but there are also teaching mandalas, healing ones, secret mandalas, and guru mandalas. These can be more about developing and enacting a state of mind—a Buddha, an awakened person, is also an example of a mandala. The practice and philosophy of Tibetan Buddhism has had such a profound impact on my life and artistic process that I often think of my art as an expression of that spiritualism.

Mandalas also have a role in the realm of the body. Clinical studies have demonstrated a real link between healing practices like mandalas and a host of positive health benefits. A boosting of the immune system, lowering of blood pressure, and the promotion of healthy sleep are a few. A reduction in pain and stress, and an easing of depression are others. Indeed, notable doctors from Carl Jung to Alexander Berzin have deployed mandalas as a therapeutic tool. To Berzin, “Mandalas constitute a sophisticated instrument for developing the good qualities we need to benefit others.”

The mandalas in this book are healing mandalas. A healing mandala is a tool; when viewed alongside deep meditation, they can help guide from a place of suffering onto the path of greater happiness. But healing is not a process that just brings you from A to B—it follows you through the many transitions of life, changing as you change. For me, it brought the realization that fear, like the other forms of ignorance, served only to bolster the ego, and peace of mind was attainable. To Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, healing is about “dismantling the self like a house of cards… about derailing habits of hidden assumptions and expectations.”

Painting has been my only constant for 40 years, and in the wake of pain more profound than anything I had ever experienced, I found that I had no other option than to continue. For months I spent my days doing little other than painting, meditating, sleeping, eating, cooking, and praying. There were of course other things I did—I taught online classes with two colleges—but I don’t remember them. This isolation and distance from life was deepened further by Covid-19. And so the intention within each painting session was simply to get through the day. The circles had no beginning and no end, the colors resonated with each other on some kind of instinctual level, and it was in this way that the pieces of me were put back together.

The seed of this series of mandalas may have been planted in me by a dream I had many years ago, in what now seems like another life. In it, HH the Dalai Lama handed me an armful of physical shapes and said, “This is a Mandala. Now go assemble it.” I can hear his words now.

Now, to the material side of things. The smaller mandalas are mixed media and oil paintings; eight-by-eight inches on cradled wood panel. Some of them are collaged with embroidered fabric remnants from Gujarat. Some contain Bodhi leaves from the Mahabodhi Temple in India, where Buddha Shakyamuni attained enlightenment. The larger are oil on canvas, and contain layers of drips, pours, and stains of color. In these pieces, the physical process of creation is more visible, where space was measured through medium-based effects of time. The formlessness of these transparent layers of colors also reveal to me their quality as bardos; as representing periods of transition. The mandala practice itself is a bardo, death is a bardo.

For me, the journey embodied by this series has brought the realization that life is precious and impermanent. But also, that my power lies in choosing happiness. The words of theologian Henri Nouwen helped me to this idea when he wrote that “the gifts of life are often hidden in the places that hurt most.” Chogyam Trungpa also, with his notion that, from a bodhisattva’s point of view, the world is a giant emergency room. There is suffering and there is happiness, and sometimes we find our cures. So, my greatest hope is that the energy, peace, prayer, and meditation that went into these works could help alleviate another’s pain, somehow. They were to me, in hindsight, like gifts from the universe - each painting a steppingstone back to life. I share them with the aspiration that others might find sanctuary in them as well.

UNDER THE BODHI TREE

Making art has always been a spiritual practice. I work with paint and found objects to create a richly textured surface of eastern elements within a transcendent spirituality of western abstraction. As an Iranian-American woman artist, the making of my work is process oriented and has become part of my meditative practice. The imagery leans towards minimal landscapes dotted with symbolism from Tibetan thangka paintings and other ancient influences from Persia and India, including block print designs, patterns and other motifs. My most recent series “Under the Bodhi Tree” incorporates remnants of embroidered tribal fabric, mirrors, sheet music and other discarded items that I have reused,creating new formal contexts suggestive of night skies, arid landscapes and floating gardens. Each piece in the series has a single leaf from the Bodhi Tree at the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodhgaya, India, where Buddha sat and attained enlightenment. I gathered the leaves, blocks and textile remnants during several trips made to study the art and culture of the Himalayas.

There are many cultural aspects of Gujarat in western India that resonate with villages and landscapes of my childhood in Iran. Another recurring motif in this series is the use of a traditional embroidered pocket remnant from Gujarat. This inverted cup shape of stitched and mirrored fabric represents a stupa in my work. A stupa is a structure serving as the physical embodiment of the Buddha Mind. You will see other Tibetan Buddhists influences, such as the stylized moon and stars, and a painted red border around most of the 2-dimensional works, again symbolic of the speech of Buddha Shakyamuni. Another recurring element in my work is the mirror. Mirrors have been used as mosaic pieces in both the art and architecture of Iran and India since ancient times. In Iran you will find mirror mosaics decorating the walls of palaces, while in India you will find them in palaces, but also on mud huts built and designed by the tribal women of Gujarat. In Buddhism, a mirror may symbolize wisdom or emptiness, as the mirror is able to reflect everything, yet contains no inherent qualities.

For several years I have been very interested in thangka paintings and spent the past three summers studying this traditional art form in India and Nepal. This interest began as an aid to my meditation practice because thangkas are used for this purpose. The process of learning to draw the specific symbols and deities for thangka paintings is also an aid to the development of one’s meditation and visualization practices, and if done with devotion and pure intention becomes, itself, a Dharma practice, with the Dharma referring to the Path of Buddhism.

What makes this series so compelling is the juxtaposition of the abstract contexts of experience and expression against the eastern concepts of process, intention and repetition. It may all come down to the perceptions of time and space. The traditional values speak in a contemporary language where the east is a metaphor for the west, and vice versa.

This creative practice is a focused, meditative process which brings me clarity of mind, allowing for more space in my life. This space enables time for reflection, and compassion. As part of my Buddhist practice, I dedicate any of this which may be perceived as merit to others so that they, too, might have more space and peace in their lives. There is too much suffering and conflict on this planet we call home, this place we think we own. I do what I do with the aspiration, hope and intention - esperanza - that others will benefit from the practice of this art form. It is transforming and spiritual without being religious. My work creates a space that allows for some quiet to enter.

MIRROR WORKS

I had the great fortune to live in Iran from 1969-77, from when I was 8 until 16 years old. My memories of the country are very sensual, based on the art, the culture and the landscapes. My mother was a foreigner, an anthropologist and violinist who did her best to expose her children to the wonderful arts of this culture she so loved. We traveled often to the north and south and were regular visitors at the kare-dasti handicraft stores in Tehran and the small factories in the bazaars of Esfahan where we watched the metal workers and block printers making their craft. These were incredibly mesmerizing, rich experiences for me as a child. When we drove to Esfahan or other parts of the country we would pass the ruins of old caravanserai along the highways, sometimes stopping to explore. I’ve made many paintings about those experiences; artifacts and architectural relics in the desert; silence, light and wind.

It was on a recent trip to India where I was able to develop my artistic sensibility through encounters with traditional craftsmanship and indigenous art forms. I stayed in mud huts in Gujarat and was flooded with memories of my youth in Iran. In this tribal region of western-India known for elaborate embroideries and textile designs, women traditionally build and decorate circular huts using mud and camel dung, decorating the interiors and exteriors with mirrors and leaves, using their fingers to create a relief of geometric pattern surrounding the small mirrors. This was a more primitive and simplified version of a tradition I had seen long ago when I was raised in Iran. Here it was a woman’s task to decorate the simple huts, whereas in Iran the mirror work was dedicated to decorating mosques and palaces by “masters”.

It was on this same trip that I visited South India and had the good fortune to wander through residential neighborhoods and discover the Rangoli or Kolam which are traditional linear designs created by women using rice flour on the thresholds of the home. They are auspicious, and temporal, preventing bugs from entering the home, as they feast on the rice flour designs that are created each day before sunrise, destroyed by the end of the day by the trampling of footsteps of anyone or anything that enters the home.

Back in the studio with bags of mirrors and camel dung along with my photographs of the Kolam which I began to research extensively, I developed a series combining these elements and images; ancient women’s traditions rarely seen unless one travels far. The mirrors are small offering fragments of reflections of reality rather than complete images. I like the mirrors because they are a constant source of light, even in the darkest moments, the mirror will always find a way to emit light. Having lived and traveled extensively all over the world, I relate well to the concept of a fragmented life, one that only time is gradually piecing together to make a whole.

These works are inspired by my eastern roots, but it is my life in the west that has provided a western context of experience, of abstraction, where the east becomes a metaphor of the west, and vice versa.

TRAILSCRIPTS

“trailscripts” is a body of abstract paintings created during a transitional, and experimental period of about 5 years between the “event paintings” and “Under the Bodhi Tree” series which are both much more specific in both form and content. As the title suggests, “trailscripts” implies a path and a form of writing – or message. At the time I was not sure where my work was going, but I knew I was in transition, on a path towards something more spiritual and more personal. “trailscripts” was about line as language, and language as line.
By 2009 I was on my way to learning about meditation and Buddhism and would eventually continue furthering my studies with courses in traditional Indian miniature painting and sacred Buddhist thangka paintings. I was exploring and experimenting with different types of line and learning about eastern philosophies and art forms. Although the work was inspired by sources as diverse as calligraphy, ancient Asian pottery, physics and specific works of Miro, the results were organic, spontaneous and paradoxical. The “trailscripts” paintings intuitively explore the language of line in a range of dimensions. I was comforted by the predictability of pattern and culture yet challenged by the spontaneity of chance and life.
I felt a need to develop a more personal relationship with my work. I was born in the Philippines in 1961 and lived in Iran from 1969-76, but as an Iranian/American, returning to Iran to explore my roots was complicated. Having lived in the west since then, I felt the need to somehow connect with my roots, so I visited India, where I traveled extensively. My imagery and use of line was becoming more articulate, combining elements of pattern and chaos from the traditional and decorative arts I was exploring.
These paintings represent a time in my life when I was searching for a more personal relationship to my work, as well as a more spiritual connection to my life, which I found through traveling and studying the arts and culture of the Himalayas. They are autobiographical in their intimacy and unconventional use of line and pattern. I was on a path that would eventually become less abstract. It took several years for me to fully understand, through hindsight, the true meaning and profundity of this series, “trailscripts”.

EVENT PAINTINGS

This is a collection of oil paintings about particle physics inspired by a lecture I attended by theoretical physicist Brian Greene. Primarily working in black and white for several years, these “Event Paintings” are about line; a perfect line whose trajectory and curve could provide the scientific scholar with a tremendous amount of information, as derived from the images from labs at CERN and BNL. I suppose what impressed me most about that lecture was that there are, mathematically speaking, eleven dimensions to reality. This was the beginning of my comprehension of the dissolution of self, and I didn’t even know it at the time. All I knew was that this concept provided a great relief for me, in that I was not as important or significant as I had been led to believe during my 40 plus years of being alive. In the “Event Paintings” I am working with paths and curves unseen until I began studying the effects of particle trails based on images from particle accelerators.

CHRONOLOGY
As an Iranian/American painter who was raised in the Philippines and Iran, with a Dutch-American mother and a Persian father, my roots are steeped in ancient patterns and textures. My formal education in the arts however was absolutely Western, with a BA from Bennington College and a MA and MFA from Rosary Graduate School of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy. It is in only in the past few years that I have been returning to my eastern roots through continued studies of traditional miniature, and thangka painting in India and Nepal.

My life’s journey has been based on making art for the past forty years. It has been the only constant for as long as I can remember. My process feels ritualistic, and I am often guided by intuition, and a sensitivity to the formal relationships in paint.

This site has a collection of my work from different series. The work after the "event paintings" reveals a search for a more personal and spiritual connection with my art, incorporating Persian calligraphy, block prints, collage and painting. These works are reminiscent of a past inspired by the culture of Iran, where I spent my formative years. The arid land and then the release of petrichor - referring to the distinctive aroma released when rain falls on dry land, activating certain compounds in the soil.

The "Flora and Fauna" works address artistic traditions of the past, examining relationships between symbol, pattern and chance. The paintings offer a unique dichotomy characteristic of anomalous encounters, in this case eastern and western. Integrating elements of the east in a western context, and visa versa, form becomes content as one becomes a metaphor for the other. The decorative becomes iconic. This investigation into and reinterpretation of Asian motifs is a personal, rather than purely historical quest into the universality of certain designs.

The “trailscript” paintings are inspired by poetry, travel and prayer of the east, and they mysteriously evolved from the “Event Paintings” which are based on lines and images of particle trails from bubble chambers which I discovered after attending a lecture on theoretical physics by Brian Greene. Many of these early works were featured on Brookhaven National Lab’s website for their 60th anniversary in 2007 (http://www.bnl.gov/60th/houshmand.asp) and later in Symmetry and Cosmos science magazines (http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000499).

Certain common denominators flow through each series involving exploration into concepts of tradition, chance, change, space and desire. These are process paintings with an aesthetic that has developed in and out of the abstract through process. The visual mark is an autobiographical code, a form of script, and is an event in itself accumulating into a creative process that allows the painting to grow without a conscious need to be in control. The concept of multiple layers of paint, hidden and revealed, reflects states of change and purification of concept, and every event in my visual world is the effect of an "image", as in Plato's notion of idea. Each layer addresses emotion, memory and intellect; markings that correspond with life genetically, culturally and experientially, only to be covered by another experience, ritualistic in process, tactile in sense, and visual in perception until the work becomes whole.