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Fine Arts
[[3 Images of Zarina Hashmi's artwork]]

work to cook and clean for them, all the time telling them what great artists they are. How many women get that sort of support from their partner? Anyway, things were going well. I met an American gallery owner who had come to Delhi to buy work for her gallery. She bought a lot of my work and was ultimately responsible for my first exhibition in American. 

Q. Was it during your Delhi days that you started making your own paper?
A. That's right. I started visiting traditional paper-making centres and made paper for my prints. I found it very satisfying. I loved working with paper, making the pulp and colouring it with ground pigments.

Q. How did the scholarship to Japan come about?
A. The Japanese have a very long tradition of wood-block printing. I applied for and was awarded a mini scholarship: two weeks in Japan studying wood-blocking printing. When I left India, friends told me I'd be lucky to last the 16th day (the scholarship was for 15 days). Well, I stayed for one year. I've always been very lucky with the people I meet. I went to Japan not knowing a word of the language and then I met a French-speaking Dominican priest. He happened to be running a workshop and needed an assistant to some good friends and became accepted but I worked very hard, ten to fifteen hours a day.

Q. What took you to America?
A. I received a letter from an American who ran a gallery in Los Angeles. She wrote that there was a lot of interest in my work in L.A. and invited me for a one-woman show. I exchanged my ticket to Delhi for a ticket to New York, packed up and went. I have been in the States for the last ten years.

Q. When did you get involved in the feminist movement?
A. My involvement began very early because I knew the role assigned to me was not enough. My generation was the first out of purdah. It was the norm for a woman to be completely dependent on a man financially and emotionally. Circumstances worked for me; I was lucky. I worked very hard and found it very satisfying. The majority of women are not so lucky. The reason why there are so few important women artists and writers in history is because women were never given space. As Virginia Woolf writes, women were never given a room of their own. Most women, if they want to step out of marriage, have no place to go. Society turns against them. That is why the feminist movement is so important: it creates a situation whereby women can support each other.

Q. You participated in various international exhibitions and became established as a print-maker and paper sculptor. How did you get into this very unusual art-form?
A. I had for some time been interested in the possibilities of paper pulp. I created moulds and worked on paper casts. They have been very successful. In 1979, I was invited to teach at the New York Feminist Institute, and I'm very there at present. My life is very busy. I like to take time off to visit my family in Karachi and also to visit Delhi and visit the gallery I started.

82   The Herald, June 1985