A Story of Here and There

“When I opened Studio PAUSE, two blocks from my home, I knew that I wanted to welcome busy people into my work space so they could pause, see what I do as an artist, and make time to explore their own creative self. Here, the walls were colorful and there were artworks in progress for people to see and ask questions about. I knew how a welcoming environment of care, knowledge, and art would be unique.

Here, nobody knew about the deep cultural practice I had brought with me from India, where we learn at a young age the Sanskrit phrase “Atithi Devo Bhava” meaning The Guest is God. And we live it. Be it our father’s boss who is visiting one evening and I have to take him a cup of tea, or the fruit seller who is hot and sweaty at our door and needs a glass of water, they are all guests and they are all god. We ask how they are doing and listen to the answer. Then we respond. But I didn’t have to tell anyone this at my studio. I worked on it till people felt welcome and safe and that was everything. Yet, that deeply held practice made my space different, made my very work different. In 2018, I would learn that what I was doing was called community art, and lately, I have been told tby a curator hat I am an artist with a social practice.

Here, however, the year 2025 started very differently. The new storefront Studio space was located in the very diverse Columbia Pike neighborhood, and ICE began showing up and taking people away. The streets were deserted, restaurants empty. Fear was everywhere. I was commissioned by a local community task force to create a sticker for spaces, which would tell vulnerable neighbors they could trust us to keep them safe. Other initiatives such as the red colored, know-your-rights cards were being dropped off at ours and other locations for us to give those who needed them. And community members were driving food and diapers to those who did not feel safe to leave home. One woman who stopped by was totally stressed that her husband would lose his job. “Did you read the news?” was a common question. “I have so many immigrants as neighbors,” someone else said, in panic. “What happens to families when they take the bread-winner away?” a grandmother worried. I had them sit down, gave them water or tea to drink, and listened to them as I guided them to use their hands and make art. I watched them calm down in this simple act.

Here, we did not get a grant we had applied for and was told perhaps we were “too DEI.” At the civic association meeting held at the Studio I welcomed our Congressman when he spoke to 50 plus people who asked what would happen to their federal jobs, their health insurance. Later, the issue of birthright citizenship would come up and my husband asked me to start carrying my passport on me. “They will know when you speak,” he said, reminding me of my Indian accent. I carried my passport. But an immigrant woman who visited the Studio would tell me to keep photos of my passport on my phone instead. “Because they have been taking away passports. And then you have nothing to prove you are a citizen,” she said. So I did that.

Here, by July, I had completed the Stumbling Sticker project in collaboration with a pastor whose church was also on the Pike. The sticker design was that of a hand with a heart peeling off of it. It was about the people who had been taken, about memory, resistance, and care. One of the color combinations of the sticker design I had shared had a green hand and a pink heart. From my study of yoga I had used the two colors connected to the heart chakra or energy center. This was the color combination people liked best.

Here, we put 7 stickers on sidewalks from where neighbors had been taken and the pastor read a beautiful ritual, as close friends and colleagues stood around. When I put the sticker down I was very aware that all the others gathered around me were white Americans. If ICE comes now, they will take me, the brown person with the accent, I thought. I felt decidedly unsafe and we talked about it.

Here, I did not feel safe in my Studio anymore. I felt the desperate need to go away. Somewhere. Anywhere. But where would I feel safe? Where was I welcome? It would be a book arts masterclass I would take in Berlin, Germany, a few weeks later.”

The above is an excerpt from the book. After the “Here” section we see the “There” section.