Today we’d like to introduce you to Sanaz Dillard
Hi Sanaz, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My name is Sanaz, but my friends call me Sunny. I am a Persian-American artist, tea curator, and small business owner, working closely with my husband and co-owner, Phil, a US Army veteran and current health care provider.
I am a lover…of art, life, and the mysteries of the universe. Come join my artistic journey as I explore themes of mysticism, love, dreams, and philosophy as influenced by great Persian thinkers (Rumi, Hafiz), Greek philosophers (Socrates, Aristotle), Stoics (Marcus Aurelius), modern sages (Jesus, Espinoza, Martin Buber, Mehr Baba, Simone Weil, Dr. Elahi Ghomshei), Puma Fredy Quispe Singona and artists (Sohrab Sepehri, Marc Chagall, Kayhan Kalhor, Yayoi Kusama, Howard Finster).
I work with acrylics and watercolors to create surreal and abstract forms and landscapes, and I often incorporate elements of Persian calligraphy. I love all forms of art, but some of my favorite styles are Folk and Outsider art, Impressionism, Surrealism, the Hudson River School, and spiritual art.
I love people and seek to have authentic interactions, each of which has the potential to become the subject of my works, which have been appreciated locally and internationally. My extensive readings on philosophy, literature, and art encouraged me to choose art as my career. I use my paintings as a tool to express my feelings, emotions, and life views. I also teach online Rumi and poetry classes in both English and Persian formats, in collaboration with the Atlanta Persian Cultural Center, Kanoon.
I was born in 1984 in Tehran, Iran. I started training in watercolors at age 16, and received a degree in English literature. I moved to Woodstock, GA in 2014 in search of freedom and a better life. I attended Kennesaw University in the American Studies program while working a variety of jobs to support myself and my son.
In early 2020, I was laid off from my job, so I listened to my heart and the universe and started my own art business, AsheqArt, LLC. Asheq means “lover” in Persian. I started by giving private lessons in my home while working on my art portfolio.
In the spring of 2024, my husband and I published a short collection of love poems, “I Stumbled into Your Heaven Today,” that we wrote together during the preceding years. We are collaborating on a children’s book, and I plan to publish my memoir and a book of my personal philosophy in the future.
During my art classes, I prepared tea for my students, a custom from my former homeland that I wanted to share with my new friends. They loved it! So, in 2023, I started the Asheq Artisan Tea Co., and I now sell globally sourced, locally hand-blended, artisanal teas online and at my downtown Woodstock, GA location in Made Mercantile. As I stated in Enjoy Cherokee Magazine, “Drinking tea is a social activity and a good excuse to discuss subjects related to love. The aromas and tastes make people relax and remember where they came from. We all came from heaven and we all return to heaven. When we drink tea we can remember our roots and forget about our troubles.”
These days I love to spend my time with my family, raising my 3 year old son, painting in my home studio, growing my business, and teaching watercolor classes.
With love,
Sunny
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
it definitely hasn’t been a smooth road. as a female immigrant artist, I have definitely faced some blocks in the road. being away from my family and dear friends back in Iran is a big inner struggle I face daily. I haven’t been able to visit my hometown Tehran and my family and friends back there for ten years now. I am constantly inspired by them and my memories and identity that has shaped and formed there as a young woman. living the American dream life is true but it comes with a price. I love meeting new people and authentic relationships with those who care genuinely caring about art, peace, culture, and love. I need to spend as much as time as I can in my sanctuary, my studio, where I have surrounded myself with memories and memorandums of my loved ones, my books, and arts that inspire me daily. I was very happy while me and husband Phil were living in ATL. The energy of life in the city made me feel at home and sometimes I could feel closer to Tehran. however here in Woodstock I live in a little dream, where I have capsulated myself in my solitude, but not detached from beautiful people. I can enjoy my solitude and peace as I escape away from the barriers and ugliness in life to a place of love, and hope, and light, an imaginary land, a dream land, which can be my canvas, or back yard, or the journals and sketchbooks, and I can create art or write poetry. I love to see how much Woodstock has changed in terms of the appreciation for arts and how people celebrate and care for art here. Thanks to our mayor and his wife Katie Caldwell.
We can still do better at looking at art in a more serious way. I would specially love to help women and marginalized artists here who can touch the soul with their art. when I first started my art journey here, I realized there are people who try to monopolize the art scene or be the gate keepers and there is a sense of division between the artists and the art community here. I hope one day art is the center of the scene of art and not anyone’s ego, or desire for power, or poor judgment. Female artists especially can benefit from supporting and inspiring each other and we can do better at it. While I am very invested in art in my city and I intend to serve my neighbors and community with a loving heart and authentic art I still love to be a universal maker, and I desire not to limit myself and my creations to just where I live–I love to fly and be part of the bigger art scene that is universal and matured.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am an artist, writer, tea curator and small business owner and a mom of two boys, one 22 and one to be 3 soon. I teach watercolor and poetry classes as well. love is in the center of all my works and my whole story. It is the theme of most of my works. I walk on the path of love and I want love to shape and form my ideas and I strive to be the empty reed flute that makes melodies when love blows in it. I believe my focus on love, in making art, tea, stories, poems etc can be one of the qualities that can be unique to me but not limited to me. I am a spiritual person and my goal is to do what i love in this world because life is too short. I am proud of being able to make it all way till here and to be able to live in exile and still be inspired and create. I love to find the common grounds in each and every culture and I love to use them in my works as a subject matter. music is also another source of inspiration. I love to dance and I love listening to good music. I can never paint or create without listening to music and I feel the dance and motion and colors can all go hand in hand and Marc Chagall is the best example of doing that for me. Nature also inspires me often and my connection with the moon and the sun, trees, skies, wind, water etc is the source of most of my creations. I love to ponder and meditate and contemplate on nature. I come up with all different images and ideas in my imagination and I love sketching them in my sketch books and keeping journal of my imagination. It is hard for me to say what sets me apart from other artists because I believe we should all be one and we are all here to offer our unique gifts, talents, and skills and to love each other. I am against copying others and I always appreciate noble, authentic, and unique works of art, so in that sense we are all unique and special, as long as we are not copying others and as long as we stay truthful to our selves and our core values. I am a humanitarian and human life deeply inspires me. I love everything–I am lover– and I care for each and every human I encounter with. I have a genuine curiosity about them and their well being and I appreciate everyone’s story. each of us has a story to tell and I believe stories and story-telling are great gifts human beings can give each other on this planet and during this short life. Each person’s story can bring peace, joy, harmony, sorrow etc and can be cathartic for the soul. All humane experiences and part of life; we can’t choose or control every situation but we can help each other when one is going through unnecessary sufferings and we can share our story to help and inspire them. I believe it is a powerful tool and being unique just by staying truthful to ourselves and our dignity, is a “divine” and important human quality as Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests.
We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
That old ways can be questioned, revisited, and rebuilt. That human being is resilient and can survive and endure hardships, if we can do what we love. during covid everyone had a chance, I hope, to review and reevaluate their values, the meaning of life, and why and how we are spending each day of our lives. life became more valuable and visible versus living life as a habitual way of being. The existential crisis we each went through gave us a better sense of who we are and we got to reshape and heal our broken parts, because we could spend time in our solitude– and for me it was just like my spiritual journey experiences in the past as a seeker, when for specific periods of time you had to fast, or be silent, or meditate etc. Covid era helped us spend time and be with our selves and loosing loved ones connected us again to accepting the mortality of life and the quality of being mortal. and how we can take advantage of each day that we are given as a gift by the universe.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.asheqart.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asheqart/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AsheqArtGA/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@asheqart8278
- Other: https://enjoycherokee.com/sanaz-mousavi-dillard/
