United States, 1951
I was born in Iran in 1951 and educated in Switzerland, where my parents sent me to see the world through wider eyes. Those years shaped my sense of balance, form, and beauty — qualities I carried to Boston, where I studied interior design and received two first-place awards in the ASID Student Competitions.
My interior design career began in Tehran and flourished briefly, with promising residential and commercial projects, but lasted only two years before the Revolution changed everything. When I returned to the United States as an immigrant, it was a difficult time — during the U.S. hostage crisis, few opportunities were open to Iranians. I turned to freelance work in San Francisco’s design centers, doing window displays and furniture sales — finding ways to stay close to beauty, even when I could not yet return to design.
Later, I transformed a small flower shop into one of Silicon Valley’s most loved floral studios. Even after selling it, I remained a florist at heart, believing that even a single stem can hold a world of grace.
In retirement, I began to draw and paint, and collage soon became my voice. I chose the medium because it allowed me to include my mother, who had Alzheimer’s, in the artmaking process. I believe art holds healing power — and as each collage was completed, it brought light to her thoughtless days and joy to her quiet mind. Together we created over two hundred works, forming my first series, Skies of My Childhood — a body of art born from love, memory, and renewal.
During the pandemic, while living alone in a new city, I began my Pandemic series — large paper collages reflecting isolation, endurance, and the human need for connection. In 2024, after a year of recovery from breast cancer, I began Changed Forever, a continuing body of work about transformation and resilience.
My work today reflects a lifelong journey — from the Middle East to Europe to America — carrying traces of displacement, beauty, and renewal. Through torn paper and layered color, I tell stories of memory and the human spirit that endures through change. I create with almost nothing; what others discard becomes my material — fragments reborn into beauty, meaning, and life.