I have a gift that I discovered in my twenties. I could read art and know how the people who made it felt when they made their art. This gift has developed a great deal since I started working with people to lessen their suffering, using art-making in the process. Today much more information comes to me through people’s art. And more still comes through my own art-work, done in people’s presence, or when I am aware of them.
I used to be a graphic designer and an illustrator. I wrote for children and a little bit for adults. I came to NYC in 1985, 40 years old, married with three children and started a new career as an illustrator only. A few years later I became involved with Chan Meditation Center and studied meditation and Buddhist knowledge with the late Master Sheng-yen from Taiwan. For twelve years I was in a process of deepening my meditation. I had many more experiences and insights and my life changed. After having illustrated more than 40 children’s books and writing two of them, I left this career too and went to NYU to study art therapy.
ByGiora Carmi
There are the lines and there are the color shapes. They seem to describe the same thing but they have very different perspectives. Sometimes, in other paintings, the lines and the shapes do not necessarily describe the shame thing. If we compare this to music, then those paintings are like counterpoint. The lines have a…
ByGiora Carmi
Mooji showed up in front of me, when I was going through videos to enjoy but I moved on every time. Now I stopped and let him speak. He is like an old friend that I love deeply. So my heart opens. What will he say now? In everything that he says and in the…
ByGiora Carmi
Being tired and in pain I became sad. Pain is a simple thing but living with it creates additional problems. Now all of them weighed on me. I thought: I can’t go on like this any more. I did not even paint yesterday and today. My friend from Germany called. We started to talk and…
ByGiora Carmi
Be the light in you Beyond the clouds of thinking There are playgrounds With no words The sun will speak with you Of being wild and transparent Look The sun has made a boot for you And on the boot it wrote: Come. I used to be a graphic designer and an illustrator. …
ByGiora Carmi
I look at my last drawing. The shape in the middle feels like a heavy package with several parts, almost floating heavily in a space that seems to be organized like a room on stilts. There is night in the window and a warm light is reflected from the floor. There is something that looks…
ByGiora Carmi
It is on the longish side today and a bit psychological. I started to draw when I had a very strong pain. I held on to the act of drawing as to something that saved me from sinking in a bog of pain. I did not want to loose my humanity. I also held on…
ByGiora Carmi
It looks to me at first that I have nothing to say. Then it comes to me that the balance is important. It is like a very complicated collection of so many different shapes and colors, and it all has to be in balance. What do I mean by balance? I mean that when you…
ByGiora Carmi
In this painting there are three major systems: The lines, which are in purple, olive green and one little line is in blue. The areas of color that appear to be behind the lines. The red areas that are inside of shapes, delineated by some of the purple lines. Many times it is enough to…
ByGiora Carmi
The intention was to paint the inside of all the shapes in the drawing, And to come out with the colors at the top of the shapes. First let me do the way that each color comes out and up a little bit from its designated area, I said to myself. These are the tricky…
ByGiora Carmi
It has a sense of order. It has a sense of belonging (parts belong together), of keeping harmony. It has a sense of playfulness. Cleanliness. Clearly it speaks about front and back. But they are very close to each other. There is no depth here, except in the white that may go to eternity. There…
ByGiora Carmi
When I illustrated ’The Chanukah Tree’ I was in a period in my illustration in which I was very aware of every single brushstroke that I made. It had to feel a certain way. I can remember the feeling that I sought. Now imagine: How many brush strokes were there in the book and in…
ByGiora Carmi
In the foreground there is a gate and above it is the agitated activity of the lines that look like branches of a tree. When we come to the blue lines in the upper part, the character of the lines changes and becomes more like the movements of playing, wondering and inventing. See that? The…
