interesting find !! this lot on artnet seems in keeping with what you describe.

Here is a link that might be useful: on artnet

Hi mitch,

I saw that series last night too -- this is definitely earlier and not of the same series, although the dark/light/emphasis on line is similar. This and the other piece I gave up (that's part of the long story--but lightning somehow struck twice and I like mine better, so it has a moderately happy ending :)) are both really suggestive of botanical subjects, really. And there's a typed label on the back of mine that says "Milton J. Wershow & Co.", which at least from my research suggests that that co. may have owned the piece at one time, because they're not a framer or anything like that.--the label looks to be from no later than 1980 (it's typed, faded).

She sounds like a fascinating person--I'm glad I discovered her work, even in this way. I'm also curious about how these two pieces traveled to a Goodwill in Beaverton, as well as about what she was working on when she did these. We have several deciduous vines in our backyard, including grapes and clematis, so it's something I respond to on many levels. I'd never really considered the geometric form/dynamics of dormant *vines* before -- trees and bushes, yes, but not vines. You can really see how the arms off the main stems reach out for whatever they can find.

Ha--I just found a catalogue to her 2005 retrospective! Going to purchase it today.

Here is a link that might be useful: I'm guessing there are pieces like mine in here

I'm sure you saw the NYT piece on her. Natural forms, such as seed pods, seem to have been an inspiration. She taught at UC Santa Cruz, so I don't think an Oregon collector is such an oddity.

Zarina Hashmi acquired a B.Sc. (Honours) Degree from Aligarh Muslim University in 1958. She further went on to study printmaking with S. W. Hayter at the Atelier, Paris between 1963- 67 and wood block printing at Toshi Yoshido Studio, Tokyo in 1974. Her exhibition in New York a few decades back was particularly well received.

She has been awarded residencies at Art-Omi in Omi, New York, and at the Womens Studio Workshop, Rosendale, New York. In 1985 and in 1990, Hashmi was awarded the N. Y. F. A. Fellowship in Printmaking/Drawing/Artists Books. She has taught at Bennington College, Cornell University and University of California at Santa Cruz. Her work is represented in collections like the Museum of Modern Art, Victoria Albert Museum, and the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

She has had several solo shows which includes the retrospective, Counting 1977-2005, with Bose Pacia, New York (2005), Cities, Countries and Borders, Chemould Gallery, Mumbai, India; Chawkandi Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan (2004), Maps, Homes, and Itineraries, Gallery Lux, San Francisco California (2003), Home is a Foreign Place, Korn Gallery Drew University, Madison, New Jersey (2002), Chawkandi Gallery Karachi, Pakistan (2000), Homes I Made, Faculty Gallery, University of California, Santa Cruz (1994), House with Four Walls, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, New York (1992) among several others. She has also had several group exhibitions which include Fresh Talk Revisited: New York Artists from Fresh Talk / Daring Gaze, Asian/ Pacific/ American Studies Gallery, New York University, New York (2003), From the Two Pens / Line and Color in Islamic Art, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA (2002), In Conversation, Gallery Espace, New Delhi, India (2001), among several others. She has several received several award in the course of her practice, like the Presidents Award for Printmaking, India (1969), Japan Foundation Fellowship (1974), Residency Award at the WomenÂs Studio Workshop, Rosendale, New York (1991), the Residency award at the Art-Omi, Omi, New York (1994), amongst others.

Working extensively in the abstract, minimalist idiom, Hashmi constructs symbolic maps that chart journeys and dis/locations, both physical and metaphoric, inscribing memories and experiences through the geometry of borders and ÂShadowlinesÂ. The Atlas of My World (2001), for instance, is a woodcut, which represents not just borders on a map but the barriers one crosses in life. "I started with the border that has most affected my life  the border between India and Pakistan. I decided to make an atlas from existing maps and draw the borders that I have crossed from country to country." The House with Four Walls is a portfolio of prints, through which the artist has revisited her childhood in Aligarh. The last series in this set is, The Home is a Foreign Place. While her works are rooted in this milieu, they have progressed to considerations beyond personal nostalgia and memory. The Images of Delhi (2000) comprised of three layouts: one recalls Lutyens Delhi featuring the Chandni Chowk, another, the walled city of Shajahanabad and the third is just a wavy line.The complex layered history of these three DelhiÂs is evoked through a cluster of intersecting roadways, illustrating how the synergy of an accumulated culture vitalizes Delhi today. Her retrospective, Silent Soliloquy (2006), Singapore, brought together a large body of lithographs, woodcuts, threadworks, pin drawings and etchings on paper, made in the 1970Âs. Weaving Memory, Bodhi Art, Mumbai (2007) draws upon the poetics of space and the politics of cultural migration to inscribe her memories of the people, places and things she has encountered.

The artist lives and works in New York.

Here's another page from Bose Pacia with more works of hers -- I *know* my piece is by her, I can tell from the signature (this one says Zarina, only, but the one I let go said Zarina H, and the Z is crossed, it's in pencil--it's just the same signature) but there's nothing with a botanical subject on this page.

Now I'm really curious. These must have been very early, and they're less "conceptual" than the pieces on the page below. They're still recognizably from the same hand, though (and not just the signature, the --well, the "aura", for lack of a better word)

Thanks, idee; I had seen that and maybe the connection is UC Santa Cruz, although the framer label on the back is "Art Services" in LA. Looks like I want to find the catalogue from the retrospective from 2006, since it includes earlier works.

If that Wershow sticker weren't on it, I'd be tempted to draw a line to an Indian family in the area -- there are many Indian immigrants here in the IT industry -- but the sticker makes me think it took a different route. Wershow was into many different businesses -- kind of funny to google the name...

Oh Fly, how exciting. I love the stuff on the second to last link! Are you going to have it re-framed or is it okay as-is? I just gotta say you do have the best Goodwill on the planet! My Goodwill and Craigslist are just drek. Non-stop drek. :(

Do you want me to put up a pic here? Just send me a copy and I'd be happy to post for you. Do you remember my brother is a vine specialist? Clematis in particular!

Hi amy,

YES, I definitely remember about your brother. I'd love to hear his reaction to this. It's such an interesting subject--not a "botanical" at all, really. I was also mentioning you specifically because I know we share an interest in modern art (at least I hope I wasn't dragging you to that gallery :)) and thought you'd enjoy it :)

I'll try to take a pic today, although the glass is reflective. I just googled the framer label on the back and that explains the amazing framing job. The print is in perfect condition (as opposed to the one I didn't take, which didn't have glass over it so it had gotten a small rip), mounted *on* a piece of paper so the very edges are visible (the print goes all the way to the edges) and then *that* piece of paper is under a matting. The outside of the frame is simple silver brushed metal, screwed into a wooden frame that has a crossbrace on the backside. I've never seen a crossbrace before; it's mitered into the sides of the frame so beautifully. The piece is larger than her later pieces -- the piece itself is 28.5" x 20". Maybe that's why they thought it needed the crossbrace?

The only problem is that it looks like at some point it must have been dropped on a corner - there's a small crack in the glass visible about 1/4" away from the right vertical, about 5.5" long. There's also some water damage to the *matting*, not to the mounting paper or the print, just the teensiest bit down at that right corner. But still, to have it framed equally well would be several hundred $$ anyway -- I *may* consider new glass (if the glass isn't UV protective--did UV glass exist back in the 70s?), but the basic frame construction is a keeper, for sure.

And re the Goodwill experience: I was thinking about that as I was going to bed last night. There these pieces were, wedged in between the over-polyurethaned 70s oak mirror and the poster of Desiderata (or whatever -- I'm just going on general memories) -- but that's one reason I love Goodwill...although sometimes I realize that there's a sad story about why something like this would end up there, but at least it has found an appreciative home now, regardless of its recent history.

One reason why I know there are sad stories about why things end up at Goodwill: my lovely father decided, after my mother passed, to clean out everything in the basement including what she had passed down to me and several things I was storing there (at their invitation) after grad school...just as an example, one thing was a signed Keith Haring poster that I *loved* but just didn't have a place for at that moment...it got thrown on the truck, along with many intensely meaningful heirlooms from my grandmother from *her* family. Makes me sick when I think about it. Didn't have glass on it either, so probably poor Keith got ripped in transition at some point...

Well, it wasn't exactly "after my mother passed", it was "when the person who would become my step-mother moved in". He wanted to erase any vestige of my mother's existence.

Bitter? Me?