From Meera Bai to Rumi: In Search of Eternal Love
Posted on | March 14, 2012 | No Comments
On a very personal note, I considered myself to be a spiritual artist even before I embraced Islam. I was born a Hindu and I was raised reading the Vedas, the Upanishads, The Ramayana and The Geeta. My mother, being very spiritual, directed me towards God and said that God has created me for a special reason and that I should try and find that special reason. I immersed myself in drawing and painting and it has been the vehicle for me to find out the purpose of my existence.
In Hinduism spiritual knowledge is usually defined as the realization of our oneness with the Supreme Soul. And we all have a divine element within us, a thought, which is also emphasized in Islam. In the Quran Allah says: Call on me and I will answer your (prayer). Al-Quran: Sura 40: verse 60. Lord Krishna says in The Bhagwat Geeta: I am easily reachable who think of nothing but me.- Bhagwat Geeta: 8:14
So how could I see the difference?
This image is from my new series called” From Meera Bai to Rumi: In search of Eternal Love”
Garden of Verses: Images of Compassion
Posted on | November 19, 2011 | No Comments
Berkeley artist, Salma Arastu, has created this new series of paintings which combine lyrical human universality and Arabic calligraphy in an effort to convey messages of celebration of diversity, unity, love and compassionwork as such:“Whereas in classical calligraphy the letters and the text have a strong and distinctive form and emphasize the distance between the majesty of the message and the one to whom it is addressed, Salma Arastu’s non – traditional calligraphy erases this distance between the word and the receiver and affects their union. She uses the same stroke of the brush for Arabic letters as she does for suggesting human forms. Both are fluid as if temporary expressions of the eternal universal vibration and energy.”Seven paintings are based on the students’ personal interpretation from Prof. Ghazala Anwar’s class Approaches to the Study of the Quran, offered at Starr King School for the Ministry, GTU in the Fall of 2010 for a project entitled Garden of Verses. The students came from a variety of religious backgrounds. Each student contributed a Quranic text and why it was meaningful for them. Most of the Quranic verses chosen relate to or are words of prophets mentioned in the Judeo-Christian Bible – Jonah, Jacob and Joseph, Moses and his mentor and Mary and Jesus, which would make it easy for a Western viewer to relate to the texts and ponder on their meanings.To view more of Salma arastu’s paintings visit www.salmaarastu.comFor a full schedule of events including gallery talks visit
http://www.berkeley.shambhala.org/program_details.php?id=81815&cid=178
Rumi poem-paintings
Posted on | October 3, 2011 | No Comments
Rumi Poem-10
The moment you find a companion in joy
Is the moment you find your life’s own fate.
Beware that you don’t waste that moment in vain
You will find very few such moments again.
Dedication Ceremony of “Celebration of Life” at Bethlehem Pennsylvania July 1st 2012
Posted on | July 9, 2011 | No Comments
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- Celebration of Life
Celebration of Life
Spirituality and Myself
Posted on | May 15, 2011 | No Comments
On a very personal note, I have been a spiritual artist even before I embraced Islam. I was born a Hindu and I was raised reading the Vedas, the Upanishads, The Ramayana and The Gita. My mother being very spiritual directed me towards God and said that God has created me for a special reason and that I should try and find that special reason. I immersed myself in drawing and painting and it has been that vehicle for me to find out my purpose of existence.Through my exploration with different colors, textures, line, forms and shapes while at the same time moving with different people, living through different situations, different cultures I have discovered that ultimately we belong to one God. As Michael Jackson has sung in his musical album The Man in the Mirror, I would like to further emphasize whether we are black or white, yellow or brown, perfect or imperfect our purpose is the same and we all have to return to one God. For me the two fields of art and spirituality merged to enable me to function as both a craftsperson and a philosopher, with spirituality infusing every moment of my artistic creations.
My work is directly influenced by my faith. This faith has given me energy, inspiration and an uplifting attitude. It has been my covenant with my Creator that by portraying beauty I want to spread that energy, joy and peace and love that He has bestowed upon me. I experience the presence of the Unseen through my art, either in abstract figurative forms or in the shape of Arabic calligraphy.
Rassouli, an Iranian spiritual artist from Southern California explains beautifully, “The images that I paint are not just my creations, but they come to life from a light that shines through me, illuminating the mystery of the soul coming into form through my hands.”7
Turning Rumi: Singing Verses of Love, Unity and Freedom
Posted on | January 25, 2011 | 1 Comment
I have rediscovered Rumi recently. I knew his poetry from other people or heard someone reciting it but suddenly I have found the treasure of his poems through Internet while searching for verses on love and unity. I searched for these verses because I felt I want to present a positive image of Islam, my faith, to non Muslims and Muslims alike through my painting caliber. I have always felt that there is a far richer purpose of God in leading me towards Islam and blessing me with so much talent and energy. Definitely not merely to earn a living or achieve fame! If I keep these two only as my goals, I would fail beyond imagination because these goals are ego-centric and in my love for God, I had promised to give up my ego and serve His purpose. Day by day He is showing me my path, my purpose and I have to create works for the benefit of the communities, nations and worlds. How would I do it? Perhaps by creating works which translate the Words of Allah in a positive manner to the world through my paintings? I started my series Words of Wisdom: Transparent Images last year and started creating Diptychs with Arabic calligraphy and flow of humanity images. While doing these paintings and searching verses from Quran on diversity and unity, I landed on Rumi’s poetry which explain Quranic thoughts of Love and Unity in simple language and depth which common person responds easily. Rumi is very popular in modern world and why not depict his poems for the good of the world? Idea has taken me over completely and I have been reading Rumi and drawing endlessly.I have begun my new series: Turning Rumi: Singing Verses of Love, Unity and Freedom.
To view some of these series visit: http://www.salmaarastu.com/category/index/1/2011
First Rumi Poem that speaks my heart and has inspired me to create my new works:
Why think thus O men of piety
I have returned to sobriety
I am neither a Moslem nor a Hindu
I am not Christian, Zoroastrian, nor Jew
I am neither of the West nor the East
Not of the ocean, nor an earthly beast
I am neither a natural wonder
Nor from the stars yonder
Neither flesh of dust, nor wind inspire
Nor water in veins, nor made of fire
I am neither an earthly carpet, nor gems terrestrial
Nor am I confined to Creation, nor the Throne Celestial
Not of ancient promises, nor of future prophecy
Not of hellish anguish, nor of paradisic ecstasy
Neither the progeny of Adam, nor Eve
Nor of the world of heavenly make-believe
My place is the no-place
My image is without face
Neither of body nor the soul
I am of the Divine Whole.
I eliminated duality with joyous laughter
Saw the unity of here and the hereafter
Unity is what I sing, unity is what I speak
Unity is what I know, unity is what I seek
Intoxicated from the chalice of Love
I have lost both worlds below and above
Sole destiny that comes to me
Licentious mendicity
In my whole life, even if once
Forgot His name even per chance
For that hour spent, for such moment
I’d give my life, and thus repent
Beloved Master, Shams-e Tabrizi
In this world with Love I’m so drunk
The path of Love isn’t easy
I am shipwrecked and must be sunk.
Ó Shahriar Shahriari
Vancouver, Canada
March 25, 1998
Image Journal: Salma Arastu
Posted on | January 20, 2011 | 2 Comments
The Tribal Joy
How do we live our days in the afterglow of the Christmas season, with its message of “peace on earth, good will to all”? I can’t think of a better way than meditating with the works of Salma Arastu.
Arastu is a Muslim visual artist who was raised a Hindu. Not the religious grounding we’d expect to represent the Christmas spirit. Yet her work transcends particular faiths in its envisioning of humankind’s unity in the love of the one God. Arastu’s paintings sing with the angels “Peace on earth, good will to all.”
Arastu was born in India, lived in Iran and Kuwait after her marriage and conversion to Islam, and now has her studio in Berkeley, California. Through thirty years of painting, she has developed an art of the continuous line that swirls in loops creating multiple figures seamlessly connected.
These figures are beyond race or gender; they are humankind at one beyond such superficial distinctions. Together, the figures dance in joy or bend over in mourning; they merge into their natural environment as they celebrate Creation; they bow as one in prayer; they turn gray with grief or bright red with hope.
You can get a glimpse of Arastu’s work at her website. There under the Series tab, paintings like “Around the Circle of Life” or the “Around the Tree” series are composed out of the continuous lines that I described above. Under the Paintings tab are works titled “Truth and Justice,” “Love and Mercy,” and “Living Together in Compassion,” this last incorporating calligraphy so naturally that the letters swirl in and out of the human figures.
I like best, though, to look at Arastu’s work in her printed collection, The Lyrical Line. There I can choose a painting for meditation. Following the flow of her looping continuous line, I’m reminded of the knitting I love to do: of the single looping thread out of which a whole garment is made.
But in an Arastu painting, what is created from the looping line’s flow are people in harmony. Arastu told an interviewer about the influence of calligraphy on her visual imagination:
I lived in Iran and Kuwait for a while and I was totally amazed by the beauty of the calligraphy. I started copying the figure and just followed the strokes— they are very continuous and lyrical. That’s how my figures became more lyrical, almost movement-like. Through the single stroke of a continuous line I want to bring all kinds of people in the world together. (At the American Society for Muslim Advancement website)
The interviewer also asks Arastu: “A lot of your paintings depict people that don’t have any sort of facial expressions. Why is that?” Arastu’s reply:
I started doing faceless figures because I didn’t want to give them any identity. Many cultures and religions have passed through me. After being born and raised in India, I married a Muslim man and lived in Middle Eastern countries. And for the past 17 years, I have been living in America. I didn’t want to separate Allah’s creations—they are simply people. I call it “the flow of humanity.”
“My work is worship,” she says later in the interview. “I cannot separate Allah from my existence. He is with me each moment and it pours through my art.”
Christians would call this an incarnational vision, the gift of “God with us” that Christmas celebrates. Incarnation is not a concept for Islam; yet God’s intimacy suffuses the Islamic spirituality that Arastu’s work represents. And all of her works sing the “Joy to the World” of our Christmas carol.
The Center for Religious Studies – Westphalian Wilhelm University of Münster (Germany)
Posted on | December 22, 2010 | No Comments
Living together in Compassion
Salma Arastu has been invited by The Center for Religious Studies (CRS) of the Westphalian Wilhelm University of Munster (Germany) to the Third International Symposium “God, the Beautiful, Loves Beauty” [Post Modern Views on the Relation Between Religion and Art]. This symposium, which will take place from June 2nd to June 5th, 2011, is expected to conceive of new approaches of how to pinpoint the relationship between the religions – mostly but not exclusively, Judaism, Christianity and Islam – and various artistic expressions (plastic art, film, music etc.)
Salma Arastu’s submitted working title is: “Art Informed by Spirituality, Islamic Values and the Concept of Beauty in Contemporary Culture.”
Visit the University Website (in English)
NCWCA: Salma Arastu’s Recent Public Works Projects
Posted on | November 7, 2010 | No Comments
Dancing With The Stars by Salma Arastu
Salma Arastu’s steel sculpture titled Dancing With The Stars was installed at the San Diego Port and a dedication ceremony was held on October 28, 2010.
Also on October 28, a collaborative public art project titled “Sacred Ground” was unveiled in Hartford, Connecticut.
Tom Bates, Berkeley’s Mayor declared October 26th Salma Arastu’s Day, and read a proclamation of her artistic achievements.
Congratulations Salma for your recent successes and recognition!
Courant.com: Artists Collaborate On Interfaith Project At Hartford Cultural Center
Posted on | October 19, 2010 | No Comments
HARTFORD — — A giant plywood cube sits among the flowers and shrubs in front of the Charter Oak Cultural Center.In a matter of days, a group of artists hopes to transform the box into a symbol of interfaith love and a catalyst for discussion.
The art installation, called “Sacred Ground,” is the brainchild of Donna Berman, executive director of the Charter Oak Cultural Center. She dreamed up the concept last summer after hearing about the controversy surrounding a proposed mosque near the former site of the World Trade Center in New York City.
“It was born out of my angst over what was going on at ground zero and the kind of hatred and bigotry being directed at the Muslim community,” Berman said.
The project originally was intended to educate people about Islam, she said, but later it became more about promoting the acceptance of different beliefs.
Berman invited artists from a variety of faiths to contribute. So far, four people have participated, each from a different religious background: Christianity, Judaism, Catholicism and Islam.
The artwork is designed to spark conversation and highlight what the different religions have in common — a commitment to kindness and compassion — Berman said.
“Even if people don’t agree with each other, there’s intimacy in conversation,” she said. “This is about messy, complicated, complex, down-and-dirty conversation that brings people closer together.”
Michael Proscia of Marlborough heard about the project while enrolled in programs at the cultural center. Proscia, who graduated recently from Penn State University with a degree in architecture, helped create the design for the 8-foot-cube and built it.
“It’s a really good message we’re trying to get out there, that people of different faiths can work together and create something that is unified,” he said. “Hopefully it will raise tolerance and awareness.”
Two sides of the cube have been painted. On one, the sun peers out from behind a hillside. On the other, the moon and stars glisten above a field. The outside of the cube will feature landscapes, while the inside will include religious paintings and symbols.
One interior wall is punctuated by a series of holes. Proscia said that is where visitors will be able to insert written prayers, a feature he modeled after the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.
Another artist, Jackie Allen-Doucot, brought along several children from the nonprofit Catholic Worker Movement program, which she runs in the city’s North End, to help paint the cube’s exterior.
“I like to think the next generation of kids could be more understanding and tolerant,” she said. “No one should be your enemy if you don’t know them.”
Salma Arastu, a Muslim artist living in Berkeley, Calif., heard about the project through an e-mail. Eager to participate, she donated two paintings, a mural and wooden cutouts.
“I get really disturbed by the things happening around us,” she said, referring to the proposed Quran burning in Florida and the mosque controversy at ground zero. “To bring people together — that’s my dream in doing my work.”
Her mural depicts different religious symbols, while one of her paintings features the words “peace” and “love” written in several languages, including English, Arabic and Hindi.
Arastu’s artwork will appear on the inside of the cube.
The artists are on pace to complete their work by Oct. 25, Berman said. The Charter Oak Cultural Center will host a public opening on Oct. 28.