I'm so happy to announce the self publication of my mother's beautiful book Journey of Traditions! Back in the 1990s my parents lived in Pakistan where my mom collected beautiful textiles and artifacts. Over time she came up with the idea of sharing the beauty of South Central Asia through an exhibition. She wrote stories and painted these incredible illustrations that include the artifacts that will be in an upcoming exhibition.
On top of this she started a blog that includes some of the many artifacts they collected.
There is so much beauty and artistry in South Central Asia but sadly the news doesn't cover that. Through these objects, paintings, textiles and stories, the objective is to give a different perspective of this incredible part of our world.
The book came out so great! The stories are wonderful and the actual printing of the artwork looks amazing. It was definitely a labor of love. I'm so proud of my mom!
I love this painting, below. It's definitely one of my favorites. These wonderful performers were at the Lok Virsa festival in Islamabad, where there are all of these artisans that present their goods. Some were actually doing their wonderful crafts at the festival, from wood workers to to intricate embroidery. I'm not sure they actually call it a festival but that is definitely what it felt like.
I can't get over this sweet face!
I brought her painting outside to photograph. It's actually a fairly large piece and I thought it ended up looking cool among the vines. I just love the light from the fire and that wonderful sky!
If you are interested in her new book, which is just beautiful and would make a wonderful gift for a young person or an adult, check out her Etsy site here !
Please check out and follow my mom's new blog by clicking hereThere are so many beautiful things to look at! Enjoy!
My sister and I in front of this incredible Mosque, fall 1997. Badshahi Mosque is the second largest Mosque in Pakistan and fifth largest in the world. It is built of red sandstone and has a capacity of 100,000. And, it is beautiful.
Magic hour at the gate to the mosque ...
My apologies for the photo quality. These are old 35mm shots and since I haven't taken the time to figure out my new scanner, I just photographed the copies with my iPhone.
I decided to do a post of Lahore, after the terror attacks a couple of weeks ago.
There has been a lot said recently to the fact that so much media coverage and social media attention is given when attacks happen in places like Paris and Brussels but not so when they are in Yemen, Kenya, Turkey, Iraq and other "non western" places.
Maybe because when it happens in Paris, we think "Oh my god, it could be us. We aren't so safe after all!" The truth isn't pretty. For some, it's easier to disassociate when the people on the news don't dress like us ... or look like us ... or even worship like us.
But the truth is, we are all one.
It is all US.
Prayers for Paris? For Brussels? Of course! But prayers for all of our brothers and sisters who suffer, in places we've never been and have never heard of.
It seems that Lahore has gotten a bit more attention but I hope it's not only because Christians were targeted. Anyway, since it is a place I've been and have been thinking a lot about and remembering, I thought I'd share some of my 1997 trip to Pakistan, and Lahore in particular. (I've previously posted about Pakistan but hadn't yet posted about Lahore.)
Here's a little music by the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Pakistan's national treasure who played with other great musicians around the world, like Peter Gabriel, and in 1995 he received the UNESCO Music Prize.
Most or all of these pics are from inside the old walled city, not the more modern part of Lahore, like the University which I hear has an amazing art department. In fact, one of my favorite artists Imran Qureshi went there. I did a post about his installation at the Metropolitan in NYC! Click here for that. It's toward the end of that post.
Anyway, hopefully I have the places correctly labeled. If not, my dad will correct me. He has a photographic memory for places he's traveled!
Tomb of Jahangir
1627
This was the place we ran into a bunch of young students. The middle school age girls were so cute and I took a photo with them. I hunted for it, but no luck. I'm sure I will run across it a month from now when I'm not looking!
One of the famous "Gates of Lahore." I think it's the Deli gate, built by the Mughal emperor, Akbar The Great.
Wazir Khan Mosque
1634 AD
I've seen more recent photos and it looks like they've taken off some of the red-color? I'm not sure why. I LOVED it and in the evening, with magic hour, it glowed and the birds were flying around the minarets ... it was magical. It was my favorite architecture I was able to see in Pakistan.
Sunheri Masjid
The Golden Mosque
built in 1753
Below, is a video of Imran Qureshi, the Pakistani artist who I mentioned earlier in this post. Love his work!And the post of his installation at the Metropolitan Museum is here.
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who won the Best Documentary Short Oscar this year, talks here about another of her films calledSong of Lahore.about a group of Pakistani jazz musicians. I love this filmmaker!
Here is the trailer for Song of Lahore!The NYT called it "Elegant and Moving."
The DVD will be released on Amazon on May 20, 2016. I can't wait to see it!
Until then ... here is the group Sachal Studios Take Five video! (They also have an album!)
This pastel was done from a photo I took in 1997, in Pakistan. I was sure that photo was on our way out to Taxila (where the ruins of one of the world's first Buddhist monasteries lies) but my dad seems to think it was a lake not far outside of Islamabad.
Either way, I loved the colorful boats and put this piece in my last show.
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful,
we must carry it with us or we find it not.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
My Pakistan blog post created an interesting comment on Facebook. A old friend from high school who happens to be in the military commented about how "it's beautiful over there, but they don't like Westerners." Or words to that effect. Like many places in the world, there are people that like us and those that don't. Some like us but not our government or our policies and all sorts of various combinations. Unfortunately, according to the U.S. Department of State, it would not be the best time for us to plan a vacation to Pakistan.
Bashir, our driver in the bottom photo, stuck to my sister and I like glue in Peshawar. He hadn't done that in Islamabad, so maybe he knew something that we didn't.
Like I said, Peshawar was still my favorite place in Pakistan. (Though I loved it up in the Northwest as well.) I hope it becomes safer for "Westerners" to travel there again soon, so that many more people can share and experience in this unique and amazing place. We enjoyed it so much. It was extraordinarily interesting and in so many ways it was incredibly beautiful, including of course, the people.
Peshawar, Pakistan Fall 1997
As always, you can click to enlarge
but sorry about the scanning quality
of the prints!
I love all the turquoise on the buildings! Isn't it beautiful?!
My sister Penny at the hotel ... (and behind the kids in the photo above)
Looking down from our room ...
My parents and sister in the street with children ...
Here we are with Bashir, our driver. (Like I said in a previous post, if you aren't from there, you really have to have a driver!) I have to crack up looking at the Mickey Mouse camera strap on my Minolta and my giant VHSC video recorder! So much for blending in!
We live only to discover beauty.
All else is a form of waiting.
~Kahlil Gibran
p.s. Yesterday was my final exam in Italian 102 ... now on to study for Art History!
When I was little I would go over to my next door neighbors house to visit. She was an older lady who been a doctor at a time there were very few women doctors. I would sit on the floor and play with her little Scottish Terrier Alec, as she told me of her travels. She had traveled all over the world on steamer ships and across oceans to "exotic" places. At least it all sounded very exotic to me and that's probably when I got the bug. I dreamed of traveling the world too (and the more "exotic" the better!)
There is something about being in a place that is completely different than your own world, that is so exciting. The sounds, the smells, the sites ... all of your senses wake up to something new. In Peshawar , I woke up to hear the Islamic call to prayer, then the squeaking wheels of wooden cards and sounds of hooves on the road below in the early morning.
We stayed in an amazing little hotel called the Kahn Club. My sister and my room was on the top floor, up six flights on a steep winding and somewhat treacherous staircase. Our room had very high ceilings with those brass pendant lamps with tiny holes that, when you'd turn them on at night, the whole room turns into a beautiful kaleidoscope! The bedspreads were hand block-printed textiles when we were there. After searching all over google I found this photo of what must have been our room because of the high ceiling on the top floor. Click HERE to see it! Every room had a "jewel theme" ... the garnet room, the topaz room etc.
It was what I always dreamed of ... a far off land ... the smells of cumin and coriander in the markets and beautiful music coming through doorways out into the streets. It was amazing. I loved it!
Peshawar, Pakistan 1997
Scanned from prints from my old manual 35mm Minolta
Looking down from our hotel room at the Kahn Club ...
I love this photo below. It's out on the street but it reminds me of the fresh pomegranate and apple juices at the hotel. The restaurant had no chairs, but all floor cushions with low tables and served beautiful Afghan food including the most aMAZing sauteed eggplant with a yogurt coriander sauce. Heavenly. The restaurant was dimly lit, with high wood beamed ceilings and dark red brick walls with those same amazing brass fixtures that created beautiful patterns of light on the ceiling and walls.
I have old super VHSc tapes of the hotel and of Peshawar that I need to figure out how to put on the computer! Anyway ... more Pakistan to come!
I am off to finish my paper on the Italian Baroque in Rome and to study for my Italian Final on Thursday! Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend!
Well, I promised more Pakistan photos, so here goes! The only problem is that I am scanning prints and that is not working very well. The prints of these actually came out beautifully and they are pretty vivid with blues and turquoise but the saturation here is all blending together. Anyway, they were taken with my favorite camera, an old manual 1970s 35mm Minolta. The other Pakistan photos are all taken with the same camera as well.
These were taken after leaving Islamabad, heading Northeast to Kaghan (in the previous post.) I will ask my Dad if he knows exactly where. This kid was adorable and happy to be photographed, as I recall. We saw this place and had to pull off the road. (That happened a lot.)
Pakistan 1997
The earth has disappeared beneath my feet,
Illusion fled from all my ecstasy.
Now like a radiant sky creature
God keeps opening.
God keeps opening
Inside of Me.
~Hafiz
Stay close to any sounds that make you glad you are alive.
Have a fabulous week!! I will be studying for my Italian oral exam, writing a paper on the film Malena and of course catching up on my art history. We are now in the "Enlightenment" (though it doesn't feel like it!)
The semester is winding down and finals are coming up in a couple of weeks. (Actually the Italian oral final is a week from today!) But, in the midst of that, I was determined to make it to my pastel workshop last Saturday, and the little stone house below is the result. I kept it really loose and though I used a photo as reference, it looks more how Northern Pakistan looks in my memory. (click to enlarge)
Pakistan
pastel and watercolor underpainting on Wallace paper
My parents moved to Islamabad on business at the end of 1995 and my sister and I were able to go over in the fall of '97. With all the talk of Pakistan lately it brings up a lot of memories, although the Pakistan on television is familiar at times, it isn't like the experience I had of this fascinating and often incredibly beautiful country.
One weekend we headed northwest toward the Kaghan Pass at the foot of the Himalayas and the Karakorams. If you can see the narrowness of the road below, try to imagine when trucks and Land Rovers are passing each other. It seems impossible but they do it and it is terrifying! There were times when the drop off was 1,000 to 2,000 feet down to the river bed below. You'd look out the window and the tires would be just inches from the edge. Oy.
Beautiful Pakistan, fall 1997
We stopped at a shed in one of these little villages we passed through for tea. I am not so sure it was a great idea considering that the next day I had some ... stomach issues and had to stay in the room most of the day.
I'll have to print up some slides from the place where we stayed. I remember ordering a chicken dish in the restaurant and seeing someone walk by outside with a live chicken a couple minutes later.
I also remember my sister and I stuffing towels at the base of the hotel room door that went to the outside. There was a two inch space at the base, where the door should meet the ground, and where the coming of winter was blowing off the mountains and right into our room. It was freezing. However, we did have a very old, dangerous looking, electric space heater that we prayed wouldn't catch our sleeping bags on fire. I just kept thinking of the crazy climbers that sleep on K2!
Anyway, it was awesome. I love an adventure!
Our guide was so sweet and had the greatest smile. (He has my extra shirt and my sister's extra sweater tied around him.) I think his name was Bashir which was also the name of my Mom's driver. As a foreigner you have to have a driver.
The following year in 1998 my Dad got a call from the U.S. ambassador saying my parents needed to get on a plane and get out of Pakistan. As they took off, President Clinton was dropping bombs on an Al Qaeda camp across the border in Afghanistan. My parents never went back.
I am going to scan more pictures to show you of our adventures in Pakistan. I was there for three amazing weeks and when I got on the airplane to leave, I started crying. Somehow I knew I would probably never make it back to that amazing country and I would never again see the face of the sweet Razak, who cooked for my parents and who would stand on the front stoop and begin to cry whenever my Mom would leave town. I guess he knew that someday it would be for good. I knew I would never again see any of them and sometimes it sucks to be right.
I am just so glad I got to experience it and I can't wait to show you more!
Hope you are all doing great and I will be around to see you soon!
