The Mahatma Gandhi Hat Company

This week I worked on some cards based on The Mahatma Gandhi Hat Company paintings I did last year. One day I was thinking about peace as we all do sometimes and I wondered what would happen if we all wore the kind of hat Mahatma Gandhi once wore. Would we keep peace on the mind? Would we see that we’re all one? Would we say hi to others in the hat, be it a No.1 or a No. 17 or whichever model the wearer had specifically chosen according to their needs? Would we forget about the conflicts that keep us separate even when we’re really not? Would we forgive and forget? Would we smile at each other more and be kinder? A lot of questions!

Those thoughts led to the paintings. Then a wonderful man came to our open studios this spring where I had the 4 paintings hanging on the wall.  I saw him looking quite intently at the paintings and laughing. Some people who saw them laughed immediately; some just stared blankly then made a quick departure! That’s the way it goes. But the man who laughed commissioned a series of cards for the center for peace he directs. It’s still pending institutional approval and I’m fine with whatever happens as I love the work and it will morph into other stuff. But with luck, one way or another, they’ll go here and there in the way that cards do. I like to think of them arriving in some foreign place in an envelope with a stamp, the way messages used to travel. I think we should send cards again and forget email so people have something beautiful to hold in their hands and to set on a shelf. They have reminders that people care.  And even though the cards are  not actual hats, perhaps they’ll inspire the recipients to create their own messages of peace. Or just to smile. That’s my hope, at any rate.

I love how they’ve come out—the back has a small portrait and a quote from Gandhi as well as the words that were on the original paintings. I got to combine painting and digital tools to get the simple bold graphic look that is how I love to work. Having the computer to help with color balance and shading etc as well as typography really helped. In the making of these cards I got a lot of ideas for how to take this project further. But for now, I’ve just had a really fun week making these.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tagged as: Art, peace