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
It is hard to not be able to sleep because of constant pain. It is even harder when the pain keeps coming in waves. You may wonder what is it. It is possible to see it as strong movements of energy through places in my legs that refuse to let the energy pass. It is…
ByGiora Carmi
I felt I needed to take some distance from the blog and from continuously describing my experiences, so that I could walk my path for a while without the notion of communicating what I go through.I see now that it was helpful. There was an anger that wanted to come out. It is hard to…
ByGiora Carmi
With all his knots he found himself flying above the landscape He was a line who wanted to flow in curves he was a thought that wanted to open up to thoughtlessness Then, a feeling in the middle of the body turned into a mountain range with trees And emptiness as it has always done…
ByGiora Carmi
Maybe you wonder who is this little line in the picture that I called the baby with the orange light? He represents, for me, awareness, which is always newly born. Right now it is looking at the rest of the painting in a previous blog, where there is some struggle. But he is from endlessness,…
ByGiora Carmi
And how does the last entry relate to my despair? Like Jonathan, I want to have my feelings acknowledged, so that I can let them go. I show my moods, my feelings and my beliefs to myself, when I paint. Before I start, I always ask that the painting will show me what is going on…
ByGiora Carmi
This is the beginning of the answer that I asked in the previous post.I sat with the eleven years old boy in the art therapy room. Let’s call him Jonathan. Christmas was coming and he wanted to draw a Christmas tree. I have been working with him for a few weeks by now and noticed…
ByGiora Carmi
I have been on the spiritual path from the day I was born. Calamities happened and revelations were revealed. I have experienced the highs and the lows of human experience.The tendency is to push toward the highs and use any method that I can find, to eliminate the down turns. These days I wake up…
ByGiora Carmi
H and I spoke about the light that I saw on the wall outside of my window. I mentioned opening a window and then opening the opening in the window.We talked about the pain. I thought about health and what my feet will do in a healthy situation. I have been making some kind of…
ByGiora Carmi
First started with a face. It is on the left.I almost decided to draw a face in a way that can be recognized. I started in this way and as I went along I answered impulses from the heart and distorted the face beyond recognition. Then I started drawing a little house. I thought about…
ByGiora Carmi
They are dancing and I want to dance too. You see, it is about being together, loving and loved. Somehow this protects you from sliding into the fire. But I am isolated. My skin is screaming. My mood rolls into itself and as a stone on the road it lets the little monsters play on…
ByGiora Carmi
A reading of the drawing: Bye… I’m on my way folks With a horse’s head, with a bandaged foot Stepping off my pedestal While trees still give away their leaves To the barren earth Don’t think too much, land Allow the dark cow to jump off and fly The black and blue will disappear In…
ByGiora Carmi
One is inside and he meets with the other one who is outside. Or is he? No. Is it the one outside who is meeting with the one inside of himself? But the one inside is not complete. He is just a profile line, open in the back. The mind that is around him mingles…
