BOOKS
MY BLUE CANVAS - LIFE AND ART; MEMORIES AND MEDITATIONS
This book is a unique collection written in lyric prose portraying episodes and moments of the author’s life from a convivial childhood and youth to revolution, war, immigration and the tragic loss of a son. The volume also includes 230 images showing her art works created over the past thirty years. Born and raised in Iran, Pari studied and worked as an architect and urban planner in Iran and England, before moving to Canada in 1984 with her family after the Islamic revolution. In My Blue Canvas she discovers and reveals how art and nature sustained her through the process of healing, and how her Persian heritage and thirty years of living in Canada inspired her art, which draws richly from the timeless elements and aesthetics of the Persian artistic repertoire. The book includes images of paintings, jewelry, games and furniture created by the author. Some of the highlights include her interpretations of poetry by master classical and contemporary Persian poets, expressed in vivid watercolour paintings. My Blue Canvas narrates how the rich Iranian artistic heritage and the new bonds forged with the natural and social environment of Canada influence the author’s work and how the two cultures enrich her life. This book hopes to inspire all children of immigration to appreciate the positive attributes of both their cultures, the ancestral and the adopted.
Book Reviews by Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak | Carlie Condon | Ruhangiz Sharifian
IN THE MIRROR OF THE STREAM, SELECTED POEMS OF SHAFII KADKANI
The bilingual book, In the Mirror of the Stream, Selected Poems of Shafii Kadkani, with English translations and paintings by Pari Azarm Motamedi, edited by Alan Williams, and published by Sokhan Publishers in Tehran in 2008, was awarded the prestigious Parvin Etesami prize for translation in 2010.