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 two paintings in this entry. The first gives a good feeling. All the shapes feel good with each other. They are very close together and whatever happens in the picture, they all take part in it. But when I was painting, I knew that the big brown roundish shape in the middle of…
ByGiora Carmi
I am sitting in the big guestroom and the wall of the other side of our street looks at me as I look at it. Here: This ‘other side’, as everything else, is created by thoughts, and thoughts are independent entities, capable of self-reflection, which makes it possible for them to rethink who and what…
ByGiora Carmi
I have learned so much. I have painted so many paintings and read them. But I’m going to skip all of that and be current. I don’t like going back. The last two paintings are about being fascinated by things that block the mind, the imagination and the openness. I am showing one of them…
ByGiora Carmi
A lot of my stuff is still in the living room. Another collection is in the studio, in boxes, piled up seven layers, and on the floor everywhere. I still don’t have access to all my instruments and paper. I use what I have access to. So this one is made with watercolor on canvas….
ByGiora Carmi
Describing a body Of a man, standing In profile But turning his head and gaze To us He is just passing there And it is his business To be there, walking On his territory And we are the transgressors Who should apologize And leave with the promise To never do this again And since there…
ByGiora Carmi
Life can be woven differently Time after time Time in time Different I cannot write about it Like trying to catch A fish with a net that has Too big holes. I used to be a graphic designer and an illustrator. I became involved with the Chan Meditation Center and studied meditation and…
ByGiora Carmi
My studio is changing its face. It is the place where my new phase of life will be created. Not finished yet. I did a lot of physical work and felt good with it. Only the nerves in my feet suffered. For days I had very strong pain. But I think there is less of…
ByGiora Carmi
When I say the word HEALTHY, there is a rush of energy developing in my being, and moving through it to unknown depths. The same thing happens when I only think the word. If I do it a lot, and experience the vibration of the word many times, this experience starts to take roots in…
ByGiora Carmi
Everything is changing in my world. I am dismantling my studio. I am not doing art therapy any more. The studio will be rearranged, to support what I’ll be doing next. The free flow, that is who I am, has discovered at last that it had invented ways to stand in its own way. I hug it…
ByGiora Carmi
Yesterday I started a big series, as I figured it would be, of little drawings, quick, spontaneous, intuitive, as connections, asking and getting answers, discovering subconscious conflicts and fears and releasing them, using whatever will work best, and not leaving the process until I am without fear. This drawing was the first. I won’t describe…
ByGiora Carmi
This is a person too. You can see him dancing, even though not anatomically correct. But when I sat down to paint this, I did not know that this would come. I was thinking about how the energy in my body moves when I feel the fear. So what is the fear? It started when…
ByGiora Carmi
I like the painting more when I get very close to it. So close, that I almost don’t see all of it. This is also how I like to paint. The world around the painting disappears and all I have is the lines, the colors, the shapes, the textures. It is an extremely pleasant world for…
