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
Go deeper Though you will find Some human shapes Go deeper Though you will see An orchard Or a forest in the fall Go deeper still Though you may find Flowers of the field Go on Pass them Into the depths And continue through the earth And the whole milky way Pass the fields of…
ByGiora Carmi
I had an imaginary conversation With a teacher I let the conversation boil And took it off the stove To cool down I saw I do not need this food Any more My soup is ready Between the milky-way And Andromeda I wrote a letter this morning And forgot to send it The small waves…
ByGiora Carmi
I just wanted to paint or draw the pain again. In the past I used to draw the pain many times. The pain was not almost constant, as it is now. It would come every now and then and it would be quite devastating. I found then that I could draw it, the way and…
ByGiora Carmi
I called it A Portrait. I wrote this name and the measures on the back-side of the picture, so it will be ready for all the processes of selling. Why is this a portrait? Because I decided to make a portrait as I was starting. Before I did the first line, I wondered: What shall…
ByGiora Carmi
Thinking again about the choice of doing the blog as my direction. It may feel as if I am an ant, crawling on a topographical map, among hills and valleys in brown and green. And it can also be seen as if I am the sky that is getting involved with the hills, the valleys…
ByGiora Carmi
There are many ways to read art. This is one of them: Just start writing and see where it takes you. You can also say: Start to describe what you see. From there you start to be guided by your interests, associations, and yes, the universe supports you, based on your inclination at the time….
ByGiora Carmi
You will have to imagine the picture for this entry. Imagine a few wide horizontal lines, painted with a soft pastel in brown, any brown that you like. The lines overlap and, together, create one thing that travels now and now and now. It travels joyfully, like a dolphin in water. Sometimes one of the…
ByGiora Carmi
I started this painting in the afternoon after a day of revelations. I was satisfied. A door has opened for me into where all the questions about what I wanted to do came to rest. I’ll write about this sometime later. In the painting, the drawing in grayish green came into the paper from above…
ByGiora Carmi
I wouldn’t mind having a big room where on the clean floor somewhere farther than the middle this will stand just a line maybe dark grey as here and people will get a little book of white thick paper and a beautiful small collection of very soft oil crayons to do anything they want with…
ByGiora Carmi
I thought about this many times lately. It was like an old friend, knocking on my window to wake me up. Drawing is my most direct expression. When I started doing abstract drawings many years ago, I was thinking about sculptures that I wanted to make. I did not have the how to, the where…
ByGiora Carmi
The pink Is riding the ochre The pink is a saint We know this by the halo He’s also a juggler And even if his clubs Fall They never reach the ground Just like him The drawing lines Try to be A judge A piano A horse A boat in Venice To make the people…
ByGiora Carmi
As soon as I finished it and I wanted to go to bed, I felt that there was something good in it. I saw it in passing two more times that night and the feeling was still there. In the morning it became clear to me that I really like this one very much. This…
