human messages new vistas
a two women exhibition
think round fine arts Press Release
october 2017
Everyone is invited to join Heidi Hardin and Salma Arastu for ArtSpan’s 2017 Open Studio and beyond, for this exaltation of art, culture, and family. A full program of Family Art Making Workshops, Artist Talks, Guest Speakers, Interactive 3-D Digital Demonstrations, Performances, Muslim Immigration Story Telling, and much more, will accompany this exhibit on Saturdays, from 10-noon, beginning October 14 through December 30. Additionally, Hardin will lead K-12 School Tours with Art Activity, M-F, 10-noon, by appointment, Guided Walk-Through Meditations every Sunday from 4-5 pm, and Human Family Suppers on Tuesday evenings from 6-8. All classes, activities, and refreshments are free of charge. Please visit:http://www.thinkround.org/index/#/our-artists/a full calendar of events. Think Round Fine Arts is located at 2140 Bush Street, Suite 1, San Francisco, CA 94115. For more information or to RSVP for classes, meditations and dinners, please call Heidi at 415-771-2198 or email:heidi@heidihardin.com. Space is limited so please call now. Gallery hours are 9-noon, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and by appointment. The opening reception for Hardin and Arastu is on Saturday, October 7, from 4-8 pm, with Artist Talks and Interactive 3D Demo by Oro Fernandez of Hardin’s extended project: The Human Family Tree/A Walk Through Paradise…seven installations at 6 pm.
For more than thirty years, Arastu has created images with continuous, lyrical line and a variety of re-purposed materials in an effort to express joy in the universal spirit that unites humanity. Through her art, she has been able to transcend physical and mental limitations to create images of transformation. As a woman, Hindu, Muslim, artist, and mother, she sees this challenge as a unique opportunity to create harmony through the expression of the universal in her art. Titled, Celebration of Calligraphy, Arastu’s paintings surround and serve as context for Hardin’s 78 portraits of four Muslim families, one of which is Arastu’s.
Fifteen years in the making, Hardin premiers: Art of the Family (The Four Muslims), 78 portraits of families of different ethnicities who have traveled to America to make their homes and a new life. This installation is Part III of Hardin’s extended project, The Human Family Tree/A Walk through Paradise…seven installations. Paradise… is an evocative multimedia meditation on the experiences we share, regardless of faith, culture, or ethnicity, and centers on families who are followers of seven major world religions. Each successive installation focuses on a single religion, presenting 78 freestanding portraits, along with touching objects, environmental displays, and 36 original soundscapes and music by Hardin’s longtime collaborator and fellow UCSD alumnus, Los Angeles composer, Jonathan Sacks.
Snapshots from family photo albums transcribed into genre paintings offer an unexpected window into the shared human experiences that bridge the personal and the universal. A labyrinth of footpaths and columns replicating the mythic Tree of Life creates a ‘walk through paradise’ among the paintings for viewers. On a symbolic level, these installations explore ideas about cultural self-definition, the pervasiveness of the American dream, the universality of, and new directions imagined for, the human family and their faiths. As human longevity extends dramatically in the coming decades, and broken heartstrings from family trauma through new trauma incident reduction modalities are able to be healed, Arastu and Hardin, in this project, call for human beings to consciously decide to manifest heaven on earth, creating paradise here and now. This new vista urges forward Think Round Fine Arts’ nonprofit code of ethics: Earth is home. Humans are family.
THE BIAYE FAMILY
THE ARASTU FAMILY
THE GALI FAMILY
ANONYMOUS
ARTISTS’ STATEMENTS
salma arastu
“Celebration of Calligraphy” is a new series of paintings to enlighten and awaken the spiritual connection of universal humanity through lyrical and fluid imagery of Arabic Calligraphy and Islamic patterns.
Salma Arastu shares: “I find myself yearning to find infinite possibilities of the lyrical line itself on large canvases. I just want to plunge myself into the pleasure of contemplating the abstract flow of the swelling lines, and form compositions of lines and fields within given space and enjoy the celebration of calligraphy through lyrical visions. I paint to express the prayers of my heart and intend for the energy of the calligraphy, powered by the positive messages from the texts, to reveal the joy and celebration that I experience while creating them. Each verse I portray gives me strength and peace, and I hope instill these feelings in my viewers.”
heidi hardi
Heidi Hardin shares: “Having the opportunity to paint families of different ethnicities who are practicing the seven major world religions over the past twenty years has given me the courage, strength, and hope to face and accept the many traumatic events of my own childhood, growing up in an alcoholic, sex-addicted home. Trauma recovery research done by Kaiser Permanente and the CDC in 1992, correlates adverse childhood experiences (ACEs*) and its impact on human health across a lifetime. (Please visit for more information: https://www.ted.com/talks/nadine_burke_harris_how_childhood_trauma_affects_health_across_a_lifetime.)
Thanks to a new trauma recovery program offered by Kaiser in San Francisco, the Community Self-care Demonstration Program, otherwise known as Turning the Tide of Trauma, I have finally found an effective way to heal the devastation of being molested and raped as a child, as well as the eight other adverse childhood experiences I endured. Through this program and through my painting over the years, I have been able to find my own internal wisdom about these events and redefine my own reality with respect to them.
The Human Family Tree Project/A Walk Through Paradise…** seven installations is intended to mark the end of marginalizing the issue of childhood trauma here in the US*** and around the world and to celebrate the heart of its cause and cure: home and family. In the opinion of California Pacific Medical Center pediatrician, Nadine Burke Harris, “thirty years from now a child who has a high ACE score and whose symptoms of ACEs go unnoticed and untreated will be anomalous….This is treatable. This is beatable. The single most important thing we need to do today is to have the courage to look at this problem in the face and say, this is real and this is all of us. I believe that we are the movement.” Think Round, Inc. has joined the movement. Turning the Tide of Trauma is now a program of Think Round, Inc. Open enrollments happen bi-annually as part of our free programing. Will you join the movement?
*Ten ACEs (otherwise known as “childhood enders” by Save the Children) that will dramatically increase the risk of chronic illnesses (including asthma, heart disease, diabetes, lung cancer, addictions, depression, suicide) over a lifetime: 1) alcohol and/or substance abuse in the home; 2) incarcerated parent(s); 3) domestic violence; 4) divorce/abandonment; 5) sexual, verbal, physical, emotional abuse; 6) hunger/malnutrition; 7) mental illness in the home; 8) poverty; 9) lack of education; and 10) lack of care/affection.
**Paradise… is also intended to raise questions about how and why the major world religions discriminate against women and girls, and how this sexual discrimination pervades almost every aspect humanity’s secular and religious life. (For more information, please read Jimmy Carter’s A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power.)
***In the words of Dr. Robert Block, the former President of the American Academy of Pediatrics, "Adverse childhood experiences are the single greatest unaddressed public health threat facing our nation today."
To determine your ACE Score, please visit: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/02/387007941/take-the-ace-quiz-and-learn-what-it-does-and-doesnt-mean. If you have a score of fouris free, non or more ACEs, please call Heidi and enroll in our trauma incident reduction program, Turning the Tide of Trauma. It -medical, non-religious, and confidential. See attached flyer for more information.
installation views
think round fine arts 2018
To see more, please click the image below:
DETAILED CALENDAR OF ACTIVITIES RELATED TO THIS EXHIBIT
September
23 Wiser Conference:
Heidi Hardin speaks on The Human Family Tree/A Walk Through Paradise…
Diana Canant speaks on Turning the Tide of Trauma
Location: Marines Memorial Theater Union Square, 609 Sutter Street, SF, CA 94102
Time: 6PM.
For more information, please visit: 2017wiserconference.eventzilla.net and use:
PROMO CODE: PEACEMAKER for $25 tickets
October—December Class and dinner group sizes are limited to 8-10 people! You MUST sign up to be able to participate in classes. To register, please email or call: heidi@heidihardin.com or (415) 771-2198
SATURDAY, October 7th from 4-8PM
ARTISTS’ RECEPTION AND 3D DEMONSTRATION OF HFT
October
7 4-8PM Reception
6PM Artists’ talks: Heidi and Salma
Demonstration/3D modeled Paradise Project: Oro Fernandez
All Saturdays beginning October 14th from 10-noon
FAMILY ART MAKING CLASSES & EVENTS (for ten)
October
Salma’s workshops
14 Mandala workshop
21 Arabic Calligraphy Workshop
28 Salma’s slides and talk about her art and why she does it!
November
4 & 5 SF OPEN STUDIO –WEEKEND 4: 11AM TO 6PM
4 Multi-media presentation – In Search of Eternal Love
Heidi’s workshops
11 Portrait drawing class
18 Slide presentation with talk about Heidi’s art: Why she does her art
Biaye Family Talk Video other Muslim Subject Family Talks
Demonstration/3D modeled Paradise Project: Oro Fernandez
25 Culture Packs/Family portrait painting and storytelling workshops
December
2 Reception Think Round Fine Arts Fundraiser
Demonstration/3D modeled Paradise Project: Oro Fernandez
Heidi’s and Others’ workshops
9 Culture Packs/Family portrait drawing and storytelling workshops
16 Culture Packs/Family portrait drawing and storytelling workshops
23 Jenny Bender and Amanda Herman: Muslim immigration stories
30 Jenny Bender and Amanda Herman: Muslim immigration stories
Every Tuesdays beginning on October 10th from 6-8PM
HUMAN FAMILY SUPPERS (for eight adults)!
Please call or email to sign up to attend or lead one of our Human Family Suppers. All suppers will be held here at Think Round Fine Arts. We will be using the People’s Supper formats and guidelines. Please visit their website if you’d like more information about their dinners: https://thepeoplessupper.org/. If you would like to lead one of our suppers, we will provide you with our training and guidelines. Please sign up by emailing or calling Heidi: heidi@heidihardin.com or (415) 771-2198
Mondays-Fridays beginning October 9th from 10-noon
K-12 SCHOOL TOURS & ART ACTIVITIES
Teachers, please call or email Heidi for a date! heidi@heidihardin.com or (415) 771-2198
Sample Vocabulary we’ll learn:
Art Words - Color Wheel, Composition
Science Words -DNA, Genetics
Art Activities: How to draw a portrait in oil pastels, and frame it!
Sundays beginning October 8th from 4-5PM
Guided Walk Through Meditations led by Heidi Hardin (for ten)
Find your hooks and unhook from broken heartstrings or find your joys and celebrate them in this family-focused labyrinth by walking through Hardin’s paradise made up of front yards, backyards, queens, moms, kings, dad, boy groups, girl groups, adolescents, princes, boys, princesses, girls, infants! It’s a mindfulness meditation centered on your now with an eye to your future. After clearing your circle, you will be guided to centered within your body using short asana and pranayama exercises. Then, through an open-heart inner teacher practice, you will ask your inner teacher two simple questions: Where am I at right now? and What do I need to focus on to get where I am going? Your body will lead the way! You just need to listen and follow your heart to discover, there truly is “no place like home!” RSVP: heidi@heidihardin.com or (415) 771-2198
Still TBA
Magic of Why® Process Session led by Lynne Hardin (for ten)
Remember your soul’s intention this lifetime or heal broken heartstrings in this interactive journey within… For more information, please visit: www.magicofwhy.com Interested? Please email or call Heidi at heidi@heidihardin.com or (415) 771-2198. We will hold a seat for you in this workshop and call when the date and time is determined.