How can art help you navigate your emotions? |Rebecca Hoffberger|

Timestamp Summary
0:00 The Visionary Art of Rebecca Hoffberger and Nek Chand
4:56 The Impact of Bitterness on Human Heart Health
6:52 The Power of Intuition in Art and Human Intelligence
12:28 The Journey of Self-Discovery and Embracing Artistic Identity
15:19 Transforming Pain Into Healing Through Art and Intuition
17:48 The Intersection of Intuition, Spirituality, and Artistic Purity
20:19 Inspiring Figures in Art, Culture, and Preservation
25:23 Discovering Generational Family Records in Haridwar
28:52 Exploring Gender, Tradition, and Spirituality Through Art and Ancestr

 00:00:00.28 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Now we can highlight and you can prompt me. 

00:00:00.69 

Charuka Arora 

Okay, lets start the conversation. 

00:00:03.28 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Okay, let’s go. 

00:00:04.81 

Charuka Arora 

Okay, welcome to the podcast, Rebecca. I’m very, very excited to have you. 

00:00:09.78 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Oh, I’m so happy to be with you, Charuka. 

00:00:13.17 

Charuka Arora 

um We’ve all already speaking about, you know, so many things, and I didn’t want to miss all of those things. That’s why we jumped in the conversation. But I want to introduce you as the artistic and the creative director of American Visionary Art Museum, which is extremely nuance in the sense of a museum. I didn’t know we don’t have an as such in India and you know I haven’t seen as much. um America’s official museum for visionary and self-taught artists and intuitive artists. This speaks to me on so many levels that I’ve already told you and I want to hear from you. What is this story about? 

00:00:49.78 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Well, first off, like you have something wonderful in India. And I got to meet him. He came with his one son and his wife, Padma Shri Naik Chand from Chandigarh, from the Rock Garden, had of 

00:00:58.87 

Charuka Arora 

Okay. Yes. 

00:01:06.93 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And you know, he did it in private on state land in the woods. And then he was discovered, and they were going to demolish it. 

00:01:14.21 

Charuka Arora 

No. 

00:01:15.28 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

But the Indian authorities said, oh, no, this is wonderful. 

00:01:15.52 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:01:18.46 

Charuka Arora 

know yeah 

00:01:19.58 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And they actually gave him a platoon of military soldiers to help make what is today the rock garden. ah 

00:01:27.17 

Charuka Arora 

It is one of the very popular destinations. Used to be specifically when I was growing up. 

00:01:32.41 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Yes. And of course, you know, it’s next to the Taj Mahal, the most visited site. And it was the dream of this. 

00:01:38.94 

Charuka Arora 

I’ve grown up there. 

00:01:40.66 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Yeah, I went to open a festival there of Raw Vision magazine. 

00:01:42.06 

Charuka Arora 

Yes, I have. 

00:01:46.62 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And ah but it was after Nick and his wife and son had already visited me. 

00:01:46.76 

Charuka Arora 

Oh, wow. 

00:01:53.13 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And he saw how the the our main building is covered in mirrored mosaic. And it is the largest program 

00:01:59.95 

Charuka Arora 

Okay. 

00:02:02.59 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

ah for apprenticing incarcerated teenagers in the United States. 

00:02:08.84 

Charuka Arora 

Okay. 

00:02:09.66 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

So he was so moved by the beauty of Mira, and he then started using a broken Mira in his bathrooms that he later built. So I just, so much admiration for Nick Chan, you know, ah and so glad as a little girl, you know, you had that wonder of going in and the waterfall with the beautiful maidens pouring in. 

00:02:18.06 

Charuka Arora 

Wow. 

00:02:22.89 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:02:30.44 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

The jugs have come down. No, I’m a huge fan. So everywhere around the world are people who may not even think of themselves as artists, but they’re compelled to get up every morning, whether they ever get in a gallery or anybody ever sees it, to make something from, you say, from their heart and their dreams. 

00:02:41.04 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:02:53.25 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

It’s usually a utopia. 

00:02:53.12 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:02:55.60 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

It’s rebuilding the garden of Eden in the backyard. 

00:02:56.11 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:02:59.88 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And I just, ah for me, what’s so inspiration inspirational is often artists who have had great trauma in their lives. 

00:03:00.37 

Charuka Arora 

yeah 

00:03:09.22 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And remember, Nick Chan and his family had the partition, experienced the partition. 

00:03:14.64 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah, about it. 

00:03:16.71 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And yet, when when you go to to the rock garden, you see Sikhs, you see ah devout Muslims, you see the world on stage welcomed into this beautiful dream that Nick Chant had, do you know? So I didn’t share with you something, but I really can’t wait. 

00:03:34.57 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:03:37.96 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

This is all new information to you. So I was explaining to you that i I knew when I did my great mystery show that I wanted to speak about the transplanted hearts that people receive from unknown donors and how their personalities would often change in very specific ways 

00:03:51.44 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:04:00.05 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

later found out to be ah attributes of the heart of their donors. So i I already knew I was going to write about that, but I read scientific magazines all the time, the the latest research. 

00:04:10.50 

Charuka Arora 

Oh wow. 

00:04:14.80 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

For me, that’s another form of creativity to discover, to be so in love with understanding this world that you want to learn from nature, you want to learn from everything, right? 

00:04:24.12 

Charuka Arora 

everything. 

00:04:27.09 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

So I’m 

00:04:26.60 

Charuka Arora 

Fast as in future. 

00:04:29.60 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

so So you’re going to love this, okay? So of because you’re of the name ah that you have, you know, art to heart. 

00:04:36.45 

Charuka Arora 

yeah 

00:04:37.61 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

So our human hearts, it turns out there was a researcher down in Queensland, Australia, who only like five years ago discovered all of our human hearts have um have ah taste bud receptors in them. not Yes, ah half exactly half of the amount that’s in our tongues, but not for sweet, not for salty, only for bitterness. 

00:04:56.60 

Charuka Arora 

react Okay, okay. 

00:05:10.20 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

our hearts Our human hearts contain taste bud receptors for bitterness. Well, why would that be? It turns out when we’re full of grief, when When we’re full of of anger, when we’re full of of jealousy, all the negative ah ah emotions, are our ah bodily secretions become slightly more acidic. 

00:05:28.25 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:05:37.68 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And what happens is as the blood passes through the heart, the taste buds, for bitterness alone, not sweet, not salty, bitterness, pick it up and they contract. 

00:05:37.61 

Charuka Arora 

Okay. 

00:05:50.73 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

It contracts. So if for many years when people who were very healthy um ah had ah great hearts, they’ve been to their doctors, their heart was great, and then they lost a child or some other great devastation, they would sometimes die two years later. And they would autopsy and the heart was worn out. 

00:06:11.49 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah, 

00:06:15.02 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

The healthy heart in two years got worn out. And they now think that the mechanism was because of these taste buds for bitterness. ah that And so we have these metaphors. Oh, she’s a sweetheart, right? And 

00:06:28.84 

Charuka Arora 

yeah, yeah. yeah 

00:06:30.64 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

ah we talk They talk about bitter hearts and sweethearts. We intuit that that, that actual fact that our human hearts have ah taste buds. So I paired that with a quote that we can’t find the attribution of, but I loved it. And it said that our hearts are wild creatures. That’s why… 

00:06:52.47 

Charuka Arora 

Oh my goodness, I love this line. 

00:06:54.44 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Are you ready? Okay. so um 

00:06:55.57 

Charuka Arora 

It also sounds so much like ah women who run with the wolves. 

00:07:01.20 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Yes, but the full quote is, our hearts are wild creatures. That’s why our ribs are cages. 

00:07:10.29 

Charuka Arora 

Stages, oh my goodness, I love that. 

00:07:13.94 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

that Isn’t that the most beautiful metaphor? 

00:07:14.67 

Charuka Arora 

This is so beautiful. 

00:07:16.19 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

and So that’s I put that in my essay with all of this research, both on the transplanted hearts and that gifted someone, ah and in the case of of people who died of violent death, ah there were people who who described who the murderer was and what they were wearing and the whole circumstance. So our our our memory, so you were ah telling me about how much you enjoyed that our museum, our National Museum, the American Visionary Art Museum is dedicated to the role intuition plays in creative invention of all sorts and 

00:07:51.15 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:07:54.58 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:07:55.84 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

It turns out that in Germany, there’s the famous ah Max Planck Institute and a researcher on human intelligence named Dr. 

00:08:02.02 

Charuka Arora 

Okay. Hmm. 

00:08:06.29 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Dr. Zenzer found that there were eight distinct forms of our human intelligence and our IQ test only attested two of them. 

00:08:12.20 

Charuka Arora 

Okay. 

00:08:18.21 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

So, but this is the great part. 

00:08:18.03 

Charuka Arora 

Okay. 

00:08:20.26 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

He concluded that ah that after all this study on human intelligence, that the highest form of human intelligence is intuitive intelligence. because 

00:08:30.76 

Charuka Arora 

I can I completely stand by that Yes, I feel like I feel like how much I have felt this so much in my life and ive I shared this on Instagram a quote yesterday also where I feel like as artists as any creators 

00:08:34.40 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

ah i know we’re We’re already ah kindred spirits, you and me. yeah so 

00:08:52.23 

Charuka Arora 

um we have this we build this muscle of so intuitive decision making where you’re you’re doing a creative act you don’t know where you’re being guided you don’t know what you’re making you just you are just being intuitively guided and we try to trust that intuition more and more and we become better with it i can feel this distance in my own life the more i create intuitively the better i 

00:09:02.91 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Bye. 

00:09:17.93 

Charuka Arora 

feel aligned as a person and the more i do it in my creative practice the easier it becomes for me to do it in beyond that because i know that it’s not it’s if my body is telling me if there’s there’s this ink i know i got to hear it yeah 

00:09:32.93 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Yes. ah you are so And you’re telling me that you’re you’re doing more writing now, too. and But so I’m going to back up and and and say something about our museum that I want you to understand. So I told you I created 41 original exhibitions, seven of them thematic. 

00:09:50.22 

Charuka Arora 

Yes. 

00:09:53.30 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And what I tried to do was identify the great powers that have always influenced human beings, whether it’s religion, food, war and peace, a government, money, any form of of end of touch, sex. 

00:09:59.00 

Charuka Arora 

Okay. 

00:10:02.55 

Charuka Arora 

Okay. 

00:10:14.57 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

ah So all the great influencers on our our human existence throughout time, not just now, Think of this, touch can be the most healing, the most nurturing, the most kind, the sweetest, the most life-giving, nurturing thing. 

00:10:26.84 

Charuka Arora 

Absolutely grounding. Yeah. 

00:10:37.34 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

It can be the most debasing, the most ah destructive, the most injurious thing. Anything, all the great powers, 

00:10:44.10 

Charuka Arora 

yeah Yeah. 

00:10:46.83 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

religion, sex, food, anything, are never intrinsically good or bad. 

00:10:49.34 

Charuka Arora 

yeah 

00:10:52.06 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And that goes from there. 

00:10:51.86 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah, go back, absolutely. 

00:10:54.53 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Because remember, Hitler used a degenerate art show to demonize other other people. And do I think that all all artists are noble and you know only think great men are human beings and they’re as bad and as good as anybody else? 

00:11:00.87 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. yeah 

00:11:05.29 

Charuka Arora 

know 

00:11:08.96 

Charuka Arora 

and 

00:11:10.55 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

So what I look for is a beauty of spirit that infuses everything. And in fact, um our I wrote am a definition of art that ah goes back to the most ancient prolific art makers. Did you know that the ancient Greeks, the ancient Egyptians, the New Guinea tribesmen who were very artistic, the Hopi indigenous, they never had any word in their language for art. 

00:11:36.89 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:11:43.24 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Did you know that they had a that meant well-made or beautifully performed and how they did all of life, you know, how they. 

00:11:43.15 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. Yeah. I saw it on your website. I read that. 

00:11:49.78 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:11:53.17 

Charuka Arora 

But you know, that’s even for today. 

00:11:56.09 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Yeah. 

00:11:55.92 

Charuka Arora 

Don’t you think so? Specifically if you come to India or different parts of the world. I didn’t call myself an artist for a really, really long time. And even today, when I meet so many artists um who’ve been creating, like, you know, I didn’t come from a degree, I didn’t come from an art school. And i’ had never I had never met an artist in my life before I actually decided to, I didn’t go to a museum, I didn’t know a gallery, but I had been creating all my life. But for me, that wasn’t art. I was just having fun. And also growing up in India and being in a patriarchal setup, 

00:12:28.15 

Charuka Arora 

being a woman or being a girl it was it was very common like you know i i may enjoy it then more but everybody so everybody had was crafty glittery or was making something it wasn’t something exceptionally um different or good or something that i had to call myself as an artist it was 

00:12:47.71 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Bye. 

00:12:48.90 

Charuka Arora 

It was after I had failed at so many things at life, I felt like I was meant to make. I was meant to make. So I studied fashion and I started a fashion business and I closed it down because I said, I want to make my by my hands. I don’t know. I have to close this business down because I do enjoy making fashionable clothes, but I’m not making them. I had this so much sense of urge that I knew I was meant to do something from my own hands and nothing else. that is when I thought okay maybe there’s something called being an artist maybe I can make money from it and I’ve been making from my hands for so long so I mean when I hear you I feel like oh my god if if I would have known this let’s say 10 years ago I would be like oh my god the questions I had and I’m sure there’s so many people so many people who feel they’re not at it because oh they you know but also if you look at it like you know ancient countries like India 

00:13:18.87 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

All right. 

00:13:45.16 

Charuka Arora 

we’ve been a place of makers all through and through like when I saw photos of the museum I wish to see it in person soon but when I saw I saw the photos of the museum I was like this is something that feels like like you know this is what a lot of times India feels when you’re going on the street you’re going to somebody’s house it’s so crafty like creative like it’s so intuitive and creative when it felt like like this so much that we undermine in our own selves I don’t know if that makes sense 

00:14:16.07 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

I did a year-long exhibition, I think it was my fifth, called Treasures of the Soul, Who is Rich? And the question, who is rich, is talked about in called Teachings of the Fathers. And the wise answer, it could be Teachings of the Mothers, the wise answer is the few who are content with their portion. And I had artists from, who may not even think of themselves as artists, but had made these amazing environments with almost nothing. with almost nothing, they solve possibility. 

00:14:45.94 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:14:48.62 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

So what does genius do? Genius sees possibility and connection where others don’t in the everyday. 

00:14:55.77 

Charuka Arora 

yeah 

00:14:56.64 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And you’re saying ah India has this rich tradition that ah that ah can’t we be just duplicated where you have so many makers and who do it with love. And they also do it with need. And they they have that sense that they’re um ah I have so many ah Indian artists that I have admired from the Singing Scroll artist, you know, ah to Sahar Khan, who does work to the the ah the female goddesses, ah even though he’s a mirazi. 

00:15:19.84 

Charuka Arora 

Okay. 

00:15:22.71 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:15:31.78 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And so ah he’s not um is demonized by fellow Muslims for always being the traditional musicians in Hindu goddess temples. 

00:15:31.82 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:15:42.07 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

So, but i I expect so many wonderful things from you, not only now witnessing what you are about, but um to I want you to have so much joy in the path you have found your your way to. 

00:15:42.04 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:15:55.65 

Charuka Arora 

yeah thank you yeah i 

00:15:58.63 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And it makes all the traumas that you have had, it’s you’re becoming an alchemist and that you are transforming the pain and the difficulty into something that can help heal and uplift others. And I so thank you for that. 

00:16:19.10 

Charuka Arora 

like i’m so these are so kind words thank you so much i really like I think, you know, I want to ask you a question. 

00:16:30.89 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Sure. 

00:16:31.38 

Charuka Arora 

Well, we’re also speaking about intuition, artists, um makers. There’s also this foundation that you, you know, you set this up in 1984, if I’m not wrong. 

00:16:44.03 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

I had the idea of the hunt in 1884. 

00:16:44.35 

Charuka Arora 

um 

00:16:47.12 

Charuka Arora 

What at that point, what was that like? you know I shared with you why i I had this flipping point where I felt like I had to be an artist. like I had to be a maker. I didn’t care about if I sell or don’t sell, gallery, non-gallery. I don’t care that about that even today. I still make the making, and it’s not for social media. I have a desk anywhere. This is a switch flip. What was that for you while you thought, OK, you want to create a place, a foundation, a museum? not only for the arts you had a very specific definition of what you wanted to create and as insane as it may sound I think it’s solidified a little bit now where people understand there’s a term called intuitive like you know or being a self taught artist is just taught but at that point what was your your driving force to create a foundation like this and create a space like this or something from your own personal influences that has you know brought you here 

00:17:48.33 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

um I think it’s it’s in some ways very close to your own path in that I was fortunate to live in a family that was very intuitive. they were i I don’t really use the word psychic because they didn’t watch themselves be psychic, but um I used to have like wild birds would land on me when I was little and I could hug a deer and it wouldn’t run away. And my parents were had great senses of humor, but they had a very intrinsic 

00:18:14.01 

Charuka Arora 

Oh wow. 

00:18:17.96 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

spirituality. And so um I always was fascinated by ah stories of, whether it was like Madame Blavatsky or Edgar Cayce, of people who had that ability to bring forth new thoughts and understandings by listening within, not by, I’m not i’m not anti-academic, But so much of art that goes pours through an academic attrition ah yeah ah tradition look has so much similar. 

00:18:56.81 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

They’re making something mechanical. 

00:18:58.43 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:19:00.33 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

way. But it’s even farther than this. I say, you know how we have young children in our families and let’s say they learn to sing some song that’s cute and at family parties people push them out to sing this little song. but That’s one thing and they could be cute, etc. But what I want is to come across that child singing to themselves in the woods that has no idea that you’re there. There’s that I’m looking for that level of purity, which is just between you, quite frankly, and like creator, the great spirit, you know? And um I find that that has a beauty to it. 

00:19:43.46 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

um i’m I joke used to joke that I’m looking for artists not looking for me, you know, because it was like, oh, okay, well, I hope that made you happy. So I work thematically because i I try to, I do these ah huge exhibitions that are like almost like plays that have all the great quotes from humanity of every culture you could imagine that have wisdom on that subject. Then I look at the science. What does science have to say about that? you know And then I find out, who are my heroes that are still alive that are working in this field? 

00:20:19.08 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Like ah when I did that um ah called 

00:20:19.33 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:20:22.38 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

um Food ah was it called yum the history and fantasy and future of food, right? And so I honored her um Carrie Fowler and his wife Amy Goldman Fowler who created the global seed vault because there’s like 124,000 different varieties of tomatoes alone and our culture 

00:20:43.35 

Charuka Arora 

Oh, wow. 

00:20:45.13 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Yeah, I mean, people have no idea. And ah and for me, they’re like works of art that will the the genetics of them will never be replicated. 

00:20:50.92 

Charuka Arora 

Same. 

00:20:52.79 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

It’s one time, right? 

00:20:53.37 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:20:54.61 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

and ah And so he thought to save that because what happens is there are like, I don’t know, 15 varieties of tomatoes that commercially travel well in a truck and have a good shelf light. So we end up, ah you know, ah cultivating those and the other things can die out. So I thought that’s a great work of of art. So I look for people who, ah um you know, ah Mother Teresa said, we can ah do no great things, only small things with great love. 

00:21:28.56 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And so this, like this is something so Vincent van Gogh, who, you know, only sold what two paintings at most lifetime, ah wrote to his brother Theo, who kind of kept him in food money. 

00:21:28.36 

Charuka Arora 

raped loud 

00:21:33.71 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah, yeah. 

00:21:40.42 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And he said, 

00:21:40.67 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah, I have it. 

00:21:42.66 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

ah he he ah His letters are works of art. 

00:21:43.90 

Charuka Arora 

I read his letters, I think they’re very interesting. 

00:21:49.14 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And my favorite thing that… 

00:21:49.18 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah, I think yeah, absolutely. 

00:21:53.03 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

is yeah I know we’re Kindred spirits, you and me. So ah up as a headline in big letters at our museum, I put the quote that is so Kindred to yours. He said, the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. Because if we’re only making objects, if we’re like, oh, and that’s sold at Sotheby’s, you know, for this, and look, I did set up something so similar, like, you know, really, is that what you’re spending your life on? And you’re not, you’re doing something wonderful with this podcast to in blow on the embers of people’s hearts to connect them 

00:22:38.44 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And maybe their way won’t be to make art per se, but maybe they will make the most glorious small garden anyone has ever seen. Maybe in the way that they love people. 

00:22:46.99 

Charuka Arora 

Oh wow. 

00:22:50.52 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

I want you, there’s an incredible woman you should interview ah ah that is um lives in in England now, ah but her name is Sue Kreitzman. 

00:22:54.84 

Charuka Arora 

ok ok 

00:23:02.33 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Her website is in the 90s, or maybe it’s Kreitzman, k-r-e-i-t-z m-a-n so prolific and She all the young designers now in London like, you know, love her like ah an auntie, you know, and so ah she she has this color walk where everybody’s Designers and just regular people can put on all the colors they love most and they walk and 

00:23:04.18 

Charuka Arora 

ok ok 

00:23:23.77 

Charuka Arora 

okay 

00:23:27.86 

Charuka Arora 

okay okay Okay, I’m going to do that. 

00:23:31.52 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

like a parade to Spital Fits Market, the Fields Market in London ah once a week. But go on her website and she was late. And she was a ah you know ah ah chef and she had recipe books ah during her youth. you know She wasn’t making art, but now she is prolific to the nth degree and um ah just an inspirational woman. I can give you lots of women that I so admire. 

00:23:57.38 

Charuka Arora 

Oh my God, i’m taking I’m taking lots of notes from you, lots of notes from you. 

00:24:01.32 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Yeah, another person, oh, it’s it’s two, the the foremost photographers of Africa who spent 50 years of their life ah filming ah African cultures, which are very, you know, non-generic, they’re very distinct and different, ah before they disappeared. It’s Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher. And when, from the moment, I just, you will love them, because I melted when I met i met Carol first, 

00:24:24.33 

Charuka Arora 

Okay. 

00:24:30.46 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

and And she has a voice quality very similar to mine. 

00:24:30.60 

Charuka Arora 

Okay. 

00:24:33.55 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

I just, her photographs are, what they have done is much more than photographs. They’ve they’ve preserved and documented ah cultures ah um that otherwise would be lost to humanity. um I’ll give you a list when we’re off air. 

00:24:48.53 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah, yeah. 

00:24:51.86 

Charuka Arora 

a I would love that. You know, there’s an interesting story I think that you would really like. I don’t know. So I recently had a trip. I don’t know if you know about the place called Haridwa. This is a religious place in India where, you know, when anybody who passes away specifically, if you’re coming from Hinduism, you know I practice Hinduism and after my mom’s passing, um I didn’t go for the first time because um um this is this this format is followed by the boys of the family. 

00:25:23.14 

Charuka Arora 

and Until two years back in one and half year back. I am with my partner We’d gone to Haridwar and it’s become Rishikesh Haridwar has become a place full of solace to me I um I just I feel very connected to God and you know, I find a lot of positive energy and Something tickled me and I was like, you know I want to go back to this place where I had only after my mom’s demise I’ve known that for 

00:25:32.09 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Thank you very much. 

00:25:52.15 

Charuka Arora 

you know So there is this whole practice in India that’s been for centuries, centuries, where we this is you’ll you’ll go to these traditional lanes. These are very small people. And you’ll tell someone around that area, in the market area, you’ll tell people, you know I am this. My name is Charuka. And I come from this family. And I’m based out of this city. And I’m looking for someone to tell me my family history. and every every family is divided into bunch of you know it’s like a whole tree and this whole systeminization that i just couldn’t even comprehend so they they told me okay this is this is your caste and this is something you should go from here to here this is this person there’s this pundit who will help you and know who your family is i went there there was this 

00:26:39.64 

Charuka Arora 

of this pandit setting who was I don’t know fifth seventh eighth generation pandit of the same who’s been taking care of our family records and our family record does not mean me or small little family it means a hundred thousand lakhs of people who come under that tree and he opened a book 

00:26:57.99 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Yes. 

00:26:59.89 

Charuka Arora 

and it was like ah old vintage rolls of papers and they were all they were like 200 years old and they survived partition they survived all things that we can imagine the floods like and he showed me where my my father had my grandfather had come and he had brought his father’s ashes and you know in India we have a religious practice of you know um yeah you know putting the ashes in the water in the Ganga river and you know so I saw how uh in one whole book there was this I have I still have it in my phone where he told me what my father date exactly the date the signature when my grandfather came with the ashes of his father his father came with the ashes of their father when they came as ashes with the ashes of their brothers and it was I knew 

00:27:50.72 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Yeah. 

00:27:55.79 

Charuka Arora 

ten generations beyond and they could tell me 20 more where even where pre partition my parents my family came from Pakistan which city in Pakistan how many come villages did they move and I was i I couldn’t comprehend on how artfully like how this is so much like this creation and managing this and ancestrally passing this down it was It was no less than an artful experience. It’s like, you know, I feel art also either you share something or it shares something with you. Like if I have something to say, I am forced to make, I have no other way. Like I am forced to make, I have to say something. Or art to me is when it evokes something to me. I feel something even if it’s a rock or if it’s an experience like this. And I was like, I don’t know. I just wanted to share the story with you. I feel like you will find it very interesting. 

00:28:52.39 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

I want you to know that I raised my children reading the comic books, you know, from the grandfather series on all the kind of the characters from Baga Gavita and, ah but 

00:29:03.54 

Charuka Arora 

Oh my goodness. 

00:29:04.97 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

I know how to do arty. I know how to make gi. I can sing to a Viva Mata. 

00:29:08.68 

Charuka Arora 

ah 

00:29:12.86 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

ah So i i I love the beauty in in the traditions of anything ah that that honors the infinite in the best we can in every culture. So I did an exhibition. ah ah Dedicated to the poet Rumi, Jihaili Din Malani Rumi, he was the first the first Sufi. 

00:29:33.71 

Charuka Arora 

okay yeah yeah 

00:29:39.61 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And you know, the first whirling dervish ah was ah and from his love of God, so great that he he ah started to spin in that ecstasy, right? So um And what you know he speaks a lot about being at getting to the point spiritually where you’re neither male nor female, you’re neither Jew nor Muslim, not Christian, or you’re like naked in front of your original creator. 

00:30:00.39 

Charuka Arora 

Okay. 

00:30:03.59 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. Yeah. 

00:30:10.22 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

But your experience of finding this rich ancestral history, you know because I can’t imagine your pain when your mother died and only the boys were the ones to go ah escort her her body to the Ganges, right? 

00:30:23.66 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:30:25.65 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

um You know, really or like crazy. 

00:30:26.86 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:30:28.54 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And yet you all had an email president that we’ve never had. 

00:30:30.50 

Charuka Arora 

Hi. 

00:30:31.95 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

I mean, a prime minister, you know, in Andiragandi that, no so there’s these these contrasts ah with within ah your tradition. 

00:30:33.93 

Charuka Arora 

Yes. In Jagandi. 

00:30:39.97 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:30:42.61 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

um ah But ah I love the person you are so much. I’m so glad to meet you today. 

00:30:52.87 

Charuka Arora 

thank same yeah you know when you talk about when we were speaking about womenhood and When we were speaking about womenhood and women, you know um I don’t know if you know about Shiv um in India. 

00:30:56.13 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

It’s, I think, frozen. 

00:31:08.25 

Charuka Arora 

he you know Shiv goes by a lot of names. Shivji is something I truly practice and I truly believe in. So there’s Shiv and Shakti. It’s the feminine energy and the masculine energy both that come together to form Shiv. It is the existence of the Shakti that makes the possibility of Shiv and I in my own personal practice, in my own art practice 

00:31:25.21 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

yeah 

00:31:32.54 

Charuka Arora 

I explore the idea of Shakti, who is Shakti and who is who what is masculine energy with that with the feminine energy and can both of them exist without each other um and how do they come together and I feel like this is how we look at gender is so um singular versus our experiences I think could really help us navigate are we in a masculine energy or are we in a feminine energy and How they both come together? 

00:32:07.37 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

You know what’s so funny? You know, we have all these legal forms, I’m sure you have there, where they ask you, are you male or female? 

00:32:13.23 

Charuka Arora 

Yes. 

00:32:14.18 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And I always write over it, divine. Because I just, you know, like, really? I don’t know. You know, um i but I very much feel, you know, I’m a mother, I have, you know, children, I’m sure that could be your grandmother, you know. 

00:32:27.91 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:32:30.29 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

um ah And, ah but i i’ I’m very aware when we were little kids, that we just had that sense of us and the divine, correct? We weren’t like, oh, I’m a little girl loving God. 

00:32:43.10 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:32:44.74 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

No, you know it’s this intimacy that doesn’t have boxes. 

00:32:45.47 

Charuka Arora 

yeah 

00:32:49.44 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

So when I did the All Faiths Beautiful from atheism to Zoroastrianism, respect for diversity of belief. um I did it after 9-11 because so many, ah all Muslims were being demonized in the United States at the time, And I wanted to show the beauty of that Islam also had a beautiful, even the word the spoke of peace. It doesn’t mean that practitioners of every religion I can think of don’t mess it up and actually do horrific things. But ah so i i it was such an amazingly positive um exhibition with the most beautiful thoughts from every ah spiritual tradition you can imagine. 

00:33:36.42 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

um and 

00:33:36.84 

Charuka Arora 

Wow. 

00:33:38.85 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And many years ago, I’m not like, ah they said I was, ah that I had been King Janaka. Is it Janaka? I don’t know the the thing that in a past life, and I didn’t even know who that was, you know. um But I i just, i I love goodness and beauty. And I see it in animals. I i saw your dog made a cameo appearance and I’m a big dog lover too. 

00:33:56.63 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:34:02.88 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And I featured, 

00:34:03.65 

Charuka Arora 

I love animals. 

00:34:05.99 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

and And we’re talking about the power of intuition. And ah they found that ah they were using Labrador Retrievers ah to to be able to smell ah skin cancer in people. 

00:34:09.23 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:34:19.60 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And um they were, this is really interesting, they they were like 98% accurate, but in some people that that all of our tests could not see that they had any skin cancer or any kind of cancer at all, ah that some of the dogs would say, no, no, no. 

00:34:20.26 

Charuka Arora 

Wow. 

00:34:35.37 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

this person does. 

00:34:35.96 

Charuka Arora 

It is. 

00:34:36.91 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And five years later, those were the people who would developed it. 

00:34:40.07 

Charuka Arora 

on 

00:34:41.42 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

So they so ah the the joke was, take take the sample to the lab and set you know, like a lab into a retreat or not the lab. 

00:34:41.85 

Charuka Arora 

wow 

00:34:47.47 

Charuka Arora 

Wow I love the joke as well 

00:34:52.32 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

But you know, yeah Yeah, but but even remember in 9-11 where when the planes hit the tall towers there was a man who worked in the tall towers with this a seeing-eye dog he was blind and the seeing-eye dog got through the heavy heavy smoke got him out to safety and then ah got him seated in a safe place and then went back in and led I think it was over 120-some people out through the dense smog where they couldn’t see to safety and to the point where he burned all the pads off of his his paws we’re were just gone from the the heat of that ah attack. 

00:35:32.24 

Charuka Arora 

la 

00:35:34.89 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And um you know that kind of of of love and fidelity that can come… 

00:35:41.11 

Charuka Arora 

Then only we come from animal. 

00:35:42.34 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

ah see i yeah Yeah, it comes from a source, one source. And so I try to, ah you know, ah Dorothy McLean, the the the the psychic intuition intuitive at Fintorn in Northern Scotland, she said, you ah unity does not mean uniformity. Each to its own strength, right? 

00:36:05.07 

Charuka Arora 

Oh wow. 

00:36:07.88 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And so what we do is just you know transcend anything that boxes you in and say, no, you are this divine creature. 

00:36:08.19 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:36:17.23 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

may you know you are this you know You come from one source. And with that spark of life, you have the opportunity to to create greater loving kindness and more wonder on this earth in the time that you’re here and no matter what you’ve done before that you messed up or whatever doesn’t matter because at any point and choose to tap in like you do to that it that’s still small voice within 

00:36:39.49 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:36:47.04 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

and to bring through your own way. 

00:36:47.06 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:36:49.64 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

It doesn’t have to be a work that can hang on a wall or whatever, but you you can make this a beautiful earth that we were given through no no work of our own, right? 

00:36:52.87 

Charuka Arora 

yeah 

00:37:01.96 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Well, all we’ve done is mess it up, anything. 

00:37:02.44 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:37:04.38 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

um we right you know We can to make one corner of the world the best. 

00:37:04.15 

Charuka Arora 

Absolutely. 

00:37:07.72 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:37:11.77 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

So I’m very excited to follow you on what your next steps will be in life. 

00:37:18.28 

Charuka Arora 

thank you so much okay yeah yet i love that idea oh 

00:37:19.08 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Maybe you’ll do arts cafe where ah the handwork of women from all over can be showcased. And mothers and it could be, ah I think that, you know, and with the most beautiful, all the the the cakes and the pastries made with such love, the food becomes prasad, you know? 

00:37:40.79 

Charuka Arora 

india is one of the best putto offer why i feel like it’s that is what i think india is if i were to 

00:37:44.67 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

I agree. 

00:37:48.26 

Charuka Arora 

If I were to ever say anyone, i and I keep saying to my friends, I’m like, when you come to India, I’m going to feed you. i’m you know There’s this so much love in food that we share. It does not matter where you eat and you know our mother’s food and the way we are so crafty with our room without food and how homely it feels. And how and I feel like you know this is another thing that I feel. Ever since my mom’s passing away, I love food. i love I love my mom’s food. But ever since my mom’s passing away, I was never a very like pro kind of, a you know, I knew how to cook, I would cook, but not somewhere it felt like a soulful connection. And my mom was an excellent, excellent cook. And she wouldn’t, and she would feed me with like, because I was somebody who would really enjoy eating food. So she would wait for me like, you know, what is, what is that I want to eat? And I would keep telling her, you know, I want you to make it and things like that. 

00:38:47.01 

Charuka Arora 

since her passing I think even till today it’s been over three years I feel like I haven’t fed myself like I’ve eaten but my soul hasn’t felt that way but if there is any point I feel like I want to connect like and it’s not something that I thought I would but I started making because I wanted to eat food made by her and she’s the one who taught me but when I started making started cooking 

00:38:57.58 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Yeah. 

00:39:12.71 

Charuka Arora 

and i realize and i’m very intuitive while i cook because i don’t know i just feel like there’s only one image in my mind how my mom it’s like when now when i’m making the food it is my mom who’s making the food not me and i feel like there’s this like i’m being guide guided by something that is beyond me like i’m being it’s it’s and i and i have never felt that that way before her and now i feel like it’s become this point of um it’s It’s like when I’m painting or when I’m making art, I don’t know. 

00:39:46.00 

Charuka Arora 

I’m just going with the flow. And that is what has been happening with me when I cook. And I feel like it is not God who’s been guiding me. ah It’s my mom who’s been guiding me. It’s so intuitive and it feels so creative. And my mom, I think, was one of the most creative people I know. And I feel like that is how like your intuition becomes a part of you and part of everything that you do. 

00:40:06.09 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

absolutely 

00:40:08.92 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Well, it’s a way of loving the essence of your mother in a way that can never, ah never be taken away. um I wanted to read for you, I did an exhibition ah called Love, Error, like a mistake, Error and Eros, Love Profane and Divine. 

00:40:24.46 

Charuka Arora 

Okay. Okay. 

00:40:32.99 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And we looked at all the different paths of love, I mean, from every tradition. And ah there’s a ah beautiful saying that says that, what is your mother’s name? 

00:40:43.37 

Charuka Arora 

Sangeeta. 

00:40:46.76 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

What was your mother’s name? 

00:40:49.07 

Charuka Arora 

Sangeeta. 

00:40:51.42 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Sandita with a D, Sandita. 

00:40:51.75 

Charuka Arora 

Yes. 

00:40:54.89 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Okay, Sandita, this is for you and we thank, oh, 

00:40:54.76 

Charuka Arora 

Yes, Sangeeta. 

00:40:59.84 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Okay, this is interesting too. The word, ah the only distinctly thing that women have is a womb. And ah in the, um ah all the sacred languages, ah in in Hebrew it’s called Rechim and ah in ah and ah Islam it’s Rahim. And guess what? The word for compassion in both languages comes from the word for womb. 

00:41:34.38 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

a Word for compassion comes from this distinctly and it is considered compassion, this divine attribute, right? So what is a womb? 

00:41:43.20 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:41:44.96 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

It’s not a prison. A womb is is a vessel that nurtures and protects and then releases and then if it 

00:41:54.23 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. When you’re ready. 

00:41:57.39 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

for the womb of the world, the ah the atmosphere. we We go from womb to womb. 

00:42:04.30 

Charuka Arora 

I love that. 

00:42:06.19 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

and i ah but so we we ah But listen, this is a great thing. This is dedicated to Sandita. It says, there are 10 strong things in the world, say the rabbis. Rock is strong, but iron cleaves it. Fire melts iron. Water extinguishes fire. 

00:42:30.73 

Charuka Arora 

Right, Jeff. 

00:42:31.78 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Clouds barrel off the water. Wind drives away the clouds. Humans withstand the wind. Fear un-mans the man. Wine dispels fear sleep Overcomes wine and death sweeps away even sleep but strongest of all the Strongest of all is loving kindness for it defies and it survives even death so I I’m sure your mom is right with you when you make those things that you love and maybe you mean it make us maybe you’re capable 

00:43:13.05 

Charuka Arora 

and 

00:43:15.34 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

with art and craft is sanditas, you know? 

00:43:17.91 

Charuka Arora 

hello Yeah, I’m sure it is. I keep on saying whatever I do, if I’m a creator, if I create anything I make, I haven’t gone to an art school. It is how I’ve grown up with her. have how you know we would in India um we would go to small tailors and she loved clothing and she loved fashion and you know we would just ah bring ah clothes together and stitch them together and and I use a lot of embroidery in my work and that’s also how I feel like that is one way I connect with 

00:43:49.13 

Charuka Arora 

and or I’m taking that forward is because when I use embroidery I’m feeling like I’m just sitting with her and I’m doing this mix and match or this is going to look this or I’m just it’s just how um life unfolds in itself and guides you like you know I didn’t know when I was five years old or six years old that when I’ll be 27 I’m going to I’m going to lose my mom and thereafter everything I’ve done before that is going to become a guide for me to follow that path in my life. And I keep on looking at it. I’m like, Oh my God, I wouldn’t have been able to do this if I wouldn’t have been able to. If I didn’t do that with my mom, that didn’t happen. 

00:44:31.45 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

well chakurra you know what I think is that you chose that womb. You know, you, you dwelled inside your mom for that time. And then she fed you in this other way. And that beauty of her soul can never be taken away from you. That belongs to you in such a unique way. And I think that when you give thanks and gratitude ah to that, that of all the moms in the world, you had the special one for you, just for you. 

00:45:00.61 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. 

00:45:03.10 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And, ah you know, so, you know, just thank you for sharing a bit of her, you know, um even the great physicist who was totally, ah you know, ah totally self trained Ramana Chan, he had the he attributed his brilliant formulas ah to Namagiri, the household goddess, you know that. And he he actually wrote them on toilet paper when he sent them it the on the paper he had around. 

00:45:25.26 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:45:31.21 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

to, off to England. And this is the fascinating part. Not only did the Oxford, and at that time there was a lot of prejudice. Look at this work. 

00:45:40.54 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:45:41.58 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Oh, it was brilliant. Did you know that there were some formulas that were never able to be ah physics formulas translated for what they meant at the time? And today, 60 years later, they’re considered the greatest 

00:45:53.90 

Charuka Arora 

Okay. 

00:45:58.74 

Charuka Arora 

Great gift. 

00:46:00.64 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

ah physics interpretation of black holes. There was no ah black holes. 

00:46:04.93 

Charuka Arora 

Wow. 

00:46:07.34 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

So ah when, ah you know, again, the fact that he gave, he didn’t say, oh, I’m a boy who’s really smart and math. 

00:46:14.02 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:46:15.29 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

No, it’s the household goddess Namagiri that gave this precious understanding to share with humankind. 

00:46:17.56 

Charuka Arora 

I 

00:46:25.21 

Charuka Arora 

love that. Tell me something, I’m very fascinated about how do you find ideas and artists and themes that you want to curate for the museum and what is your process and I’m sure it is not it is not the usual one because it’s not by oh who’s who’s holding off more, who’s demand and who’s supply, who’s branding and no, I’m sure it it is as intuitive as it sounds. Tell me more about that. 

00:46:54.64 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

ah You’re absolutely right. In fact, I knew the first 11 exhibitions thematically before I opened the first door. And we keep our our thematic shows up for at least 11 months because there’s so much work to put together and so ah immersive for the visitor. 

00:47:07.28 

Charuka Arora 

OK, so. 

00:47:13.47 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

So um what ah thank you for asking that. um it’s You have to remember the art world because there’s a lot of money in contemporary art. is very oriented to what’s sold and what’s being shown and this and that. 

00:47:29.14 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:47:32.03 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

I could do that because that’s being taken care of. 

00:47:31.69 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:47:34.30 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

I don’t need to be a worried about that. 

00:47:34.82 

Charuka Arora 

Think about it. 

00:47:36.74 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

So I pray every single exhibition, and I don’t ask my friends you know to to believe in God or anything, but for me, I realize that there is a supreme intelligence who knows what will be happening in the world at the time that my new exhibition, we we are never come to visit us in September into the beginning of October because we’re switching out shows, okay? 

00:47:58.88 

Charuka Arora 

I, oh goodness, I have to. 

00:48:01.54 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

So ah when that will be happening in the next year. So I beg in my inner voice to understand what will be the greatest help to humanity at that time. 

00:48:09.74 

Charuka Arora 

Yes. 

00:48:14.44 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

and without fail, an idea comes. And sometimes it’s an idea, and I only have nine months to try to curate it. I mean, it’s it’s really intense. But once I know that I’ve heard the right thing to do or understood, it almost like self-assembles. It’s amazing. um so ah So let me tell you this. I have some atheist staff who I love, but they they they believe in my intuition to the point where they’ve said, what did you pick this year? because ah what has happened when I did Holy H2O, fluid universe, as a theme. 

00:48:51.60 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Okay, I got that in 2003. When we opened in the fall of 2004, what happened? There were more class 5 storms than in recorded history, than the tsunami in Indonesia, the greatest loss of of life and recorded history. And then the last week was the inundation of New Orleans by Katrina, the the storm. And in between, um ah the ah ah London decided to run a mass spectrometer reading on the public water. 

00:49:24.99 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Most municipalities are just always checking, because it’s recycled, that the water supply doesn’t have poop in the water, doesn’t have, you know, 

00:49:29.99 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:49:33.91 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And so they’re that’s what they’re set up to clean out. you know all the But they’re nuts to their horror when they read ran a mess mass spectrometer on the water of London. They discovered that ah all from 60 years of women peeing out birth control hormones from the birth control pills, that that had re-concentrated in the world and the and the water. And then they understood why the male fish in the River Thames throughout London aren’t reproducing because of the body burden of all the female hormones. 

00:50:07.54 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

But then they found that from people who take Prozac, all the small molecule neuroleptics that are used in psychiatry and depression and all of that, that comes out through the human urine. 

00:50:13.32 

Charuka Arora 

Thank you. 

00:50:20.51 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

and re-concentrates in the filtration water. But our our systems are not designed to take out hormones, nor are they to take out neuroleptics. 

00:50:28.92 

Charuka Arora 

Oh, 

00:50:31.34 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

So it re-concentrates. And people are like, oh my gosh, look what people are drinking, right? And um yeah so everything had to do with water that year. So when I did the art of war and peace toward an end to hatred, we opened, 9-11 happened. 

00:50:41.34 

Charuka Arora 

wow. 

00:50:45.48 

Charuka Arora 

Wow. 

00:50:49.42 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

when I did parenting and art and like I when it came to me that I’m going to look at the power of parenting it was called parenting and art without a manual the good the bad the horrific sublime and I had artists who told the most fascinating stories good bad and ugly um about 

00:51:03.49 

Charuka Arora 

All right. Oh, wow. i 

00:51:12.97 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

their love and their torture and whatever else happened and a set that’s another example you know um and I had in my permanent collection I had these a family ah made out of piano interior parts because people move so much today they don’t want to take pianos with them so they junk them there are more pink pianos that are thrown away than you can imagine because people 

00:51:38.39 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:51:39.85 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

oh And so this artist takes those parts and he made these family and the the the smile on the child were from the the keys, it made the teeth, right? 

00:51:44.13 

Charuka Arora 

Jeez. 

00:51:51.14 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And ah ah all the interior parts, the wooden, you know, hammers and things that made these gorgeous sculptures. But what did I pair it with? I paired it with a quote ah from Michael Levine who said, um parenting makes you no more apparent then having a piano makes you a pianist. Isn’t that brilliant? So you see, it’s this, the wise noble thought, right? 

00:52:15.28 

Charuka Arora 

I love that and it’s so true specifically in today’s time. 

00:52:22.59 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And the works of art and ah the words of the artists themselves, the testimonies on the subject. 

00:52:22.56 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:52:29.33 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

So I hate the way ah bios are written on artists, you know, oh, they studied here, they studied there, they showed here, they showed, I never, never put a right, I say like the stuff that if they were your best friend, what they would want you to know about them. 

00:52:32.68 

Charuka Arora 

oh Oh, goodness. 

00:52:44.95 

Charuka Arora 

I can’t wait to visit. I truly can’t wait to visit. 

00:52:48.82 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Well, you can come stay with me, okay? You don’t have to pay any hotel. Get here and I’ll pick you up at the airport and you stay with me. 

00:52:56.33 

Charuka Arora 

I’m packing my bags and coming straight to the museum. 

00:53:00.61 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

i love 

00:53:00.48 

Charuka Arora 

I’m sure I’m going to have a bath. I’ve looked at the images and I’m blown away. 

00:53:06.42 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

ah Well, now you understand a little bit more the depth of the feeling. um ah 

00:53:11.52 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:53:12.94 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

ah Because again, we always default to like ah the power of intuition. And even if you’ve had vast training, I’ve looked at where um you know Einstein was looking at a street lamp in a foggy rain. 

00:53:18.32 

Charuka Arora 

No. 

00:53:29.75 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

when it dawned on him, he equals MC Square, like he understood. 

00:53:31.69 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:53:33.89 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

So, you know, I’m looking what I call the aha moment. ah And i I did this thing on visionary experience in general. 

00:53:37.58 

Charuka Arora 

Yes. 

00:53:41.44 

Charuka Arora 

OK. 

00:53:42.84 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

How do people get fresh ideas, you know? And if you look at the most famous, um not that I admire them all, but the ah the the moguls, you know, um ah that that create new industries, you know, whether it’s Apple, 

00:53:58.30 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:53:59.38 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

They never finish college. They may get into Harvard, but they never finish because they’re so burning with their own ideas, right? Yeah, that they need to produce and be creative. So um again, I’m not anti-academic, but what I’m saying is that, um oh, ah actually, I don’t know if I can find it fast enough, but Oppenheimer, I’m going to give you the quote from the top of my head, ah the creator of, of you know, 

00:54:28.17 

Charuka Arora 

of the atomic bomb. Yeah. Yeah. 

00:54:29.52 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

um but yeah ah he He studied the Bhagavita for the hidden understandings, as did Niels Bohr and many other physicists. 

00:54:34.92 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:54:37.83 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

But um he said, um there are children playing out in the streets who could answer some of my greatest problems in physics because they have modes of understanding that I long ago lost. So it’s it’s it’s not saying we should be childish. ah There’s a word called neotene, which means retaining child-like qualities of wonder, curiosity, enthusiasm, delight. 

00:55:05.51 

Charuka Arora 

Like, hold. Yeah. Opener. Possibility. 

00:55:12.39 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Yes, exactly. 

00:55:14.79 

Charuka Arora 

I love that. 

00:55:15.53 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

So I can’t wait. so 

00:55:16.43 

Charuka Arora 

Bhavad Gita I think is one of the most, it’s something i I love to read in the morning. I love to read before bed. It is, I think, one of the most, most profound texts one can ever ever read ever read for sure i didn’t know it for a very long time myself but ever since i’ve had it in my life i don’t think it just it’s it’s not a book for sure it’s it’s it’s way more than that yeah 

00:55:42.71 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Absolutely. yeah and And just even ah the the the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna. 

00:55:50.24 

Charuka Arora 

hi june yeah 

00:55:51.79 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

you know And again, that explodes this idea of of kind of the illusion of life. And he says, you’re you know you’re already dead, which is another way of saying you’re almost already i you know alive. 

00:56:02.28 

Charuka Arora 

Yeah. 

00:56:06.16 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And um I do believe you know in the great yugas, ah almost all the indigenous people and now the scientists have borne out that ah we surfaced creatures of Earth. There have been five extinct, extinct um and episodes on the Earth you know, the then the the Mother Earth ah Gaia, you know, ah reinvents herself and and new, sort whether dinosaurs or whatever. We know there have been five different extinction events on on Mother Earth. and um And when I know, i’m I’ve done exhibitions ah about ah human trafficking, which for me is um one of the most horrific things 

00:56:54.64 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

But ah so I have something on genocide, but up now with the embroideries of ah that you will love of Esther Crinitz, who made these 36 embroideries. um She survived the Holocaust, so but she had such a love of nature. She wanted her her children to see, um she had no photos of her her her home. She didn’t have running water or electricity, but they were so happy as kids. before the Nazis actually came in on horseback because it was very rural ah rural Poland. And um in that show, I look at what we did to Native Americans. um I look at the genocide of what happened between the Hutus and the Tutsis in Rwanda. And I tried to find what what is behind genocide throughout time and place. 

00:57:45.95 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And I came up with a this a quote, I came across the quote by a guy named ah Terry Pratchett who said, evil begins when you begin to treat people as things, meaning as, think about it as sex objects, as property, as disposable workforce, work them till they die and get rid of them. And it’s so true. And ah Martin Buber wrote, I loved his I thou versus I it. and And when you see everybody else through the lens of being a sacred being, and you are too, 

00:58:26.91 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

you you never trespass against them because you realize, oh my gosh, they are so much more than, oh, just another person or, oh, that’s ah a person I can, you know, of a different lower caste. You know, that’s why i ah in India, there’s so much beauty. And then you get into these narrow confinements of either, ah but not by everybody, there’s these all these great souls of, um you know, what gender gender restrictions or caste restrictions. That’s why I try to champion what it is to be given the gift of life that transcends anything narrow and gives such an opening to all of life. 

00:59:15.30 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Ooh, I don’t hear you. Your sound is off. Your sound is off. 

00:59:27.11 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Sharuka, I don’t have any sound on you. 

00:59:31.93 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

did you Did you silence yourself by mistake? 

00:59:50.52 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

yeah 

00:59:50.04 

Charuka Arora 

Can you hear me now? 

00:59:51.37 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

why hear 

00:59:51.02 

Charuka Arora 

yeah why didn this I am so glad. I think one are already in and there’s so many new stories, so many new things I’ve learned from you. And I’m i’m only i’m only excited to learn more, but thank you so much. I will wind this episode and we’ll bring you back once every time. Let’s come commit to this. Every time you’re doing an exhibition, you come and share the story with us and tell us about your research and every new thing that you’re doing so that we all learn it together. 

01:00:19.01 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Well, I’m going to be retiring, and I’ve passed that reins over to a young, a curator, I have the the most devoted employees, but i did I left them with the next three to four years of themes, but I won’t curate. And it’s hard because I’m a micromanager, like I picked every color of every show, every placement of every work, every quote, and ah but I feel I have another calling to do. So I hope by that the new year, I will be permitted to do that. But please give my my love to Rajiv Satay. He should know what you’re doing. i think ah you know um And he is a person who really transcends any gender as well. 

01:01:01.03 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

ah and you know, just a great soul who champions the artist, including the untouchables. When he did the Silk Road Festival, ah you know, over in in Washington, what he did was he brought in a group of people who her are not contagious, but who had leprosy, who were art makers. Did you know that? And he brought them to the Indian Embassy. You’ve you’ve cut out it yet again, like no sound. 

01:01:38.13 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

There, oh, no, no. 

01:01:38.75 

Charuka Arora 

yeah You can hear me now. 

01:01:40.49 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

um Yeah, now I can. 

01:01:41.99 

Charuka Arora 

I’m going to hold this. 

01:01:43.81 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Okay. 

01:01:43.85 

Charuka Arora 

Wow. I am so amused. I think there’s so many great works that that go unnoticed that are specifically when we say about the arts. 

01:01:50.17 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Yes. 

01:01:52.57 

Charuka Arora 

And I love what you’re doing, Vikas. um 

01:01:58.28 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

It’s out again. 

01:02:07.94 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Now. 

01:02:08.07 

Charuka Arora 

Can you hear me now? 

01:02:09.52 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Yes, now. 

01:02:10.97 

Charuka Arora 

nothing I feel like there’s so many ideas, there’s so many great works, just creativity, just creation out in the world that is way beyond a cubicle or a white wall and you provided a platform that goes way beyond that where not everybody has to feel like an artist or feel like a painter or a painter and has to hang it on a wall. it can be more than life it can be just than a warlord it is more life than just an outcome and i love that and i think um a lot of artists would agree to that because i think a lot of times when people feel creative and they take that as a profession i think there’s there’s some kind of contradiction that starts to come in like you know you said the karmic 

01:02:41.80 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Yes. 

01:02:57.01 

Charuka Arora 

tells you puts you through a system and starts to help starts to um we start to question our own self what felt natural starts to feel unusual and you start to question yourself and i think more and more places and more and more conversation about what feels not i think what feels natural to you to our bodies to our souls to our minds who we are that needs to be restored a lot more 

01:03:20.81 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Right. 

01:03:23.87 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Yes, because the more you don’t want to have the marketplace dictate to you, oh, people like it when I draw a check, you know, ah like, you know, and that’s nice, but you don’t want to define yourself in any narrow way, you know. 

01:03:28.59 

Charuka Arora 

yeah 

01:03:31.61 

Charuka Arora 

yeah 

01:03:39.17 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

And for me, going back to Van Gogh, the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. I consider your mother to have been a great artist because she made… 

01:03:51.17 

Charuka Arora 

Yes. Absolutely. I still i still believe that. 

01:03:58.31 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

agreement 

01:03:57.97 

Charuka Arora 

I think for me, she’s the biggest if somebody asked me what is my biggest influence or someone who I truly feel was very creative. I don’t think I’ve seen anything anybody more than my own mom. I don’t think so I would and I would never want to I think for me, how in the most basic life how in the most simple ways a person can get creative and the way we live our lives um I mean what and live that creative life not only make something creative and I think that’s wonderful I Yeah 

01:04:31.84 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Yeah, know and at every turn in the museum, as I said, the the walls are not just gorgeous mosaics. They’re the largest apprenticeship program for incarcerated teenagers. Everything ah has a purpose. of All the entries are wheelchair accessible so that people who use wheelchairs all come in the same way as everyone else. There’s conscious thinking about how you love people at every every place that I i possibly can. 

01:05:03.10 

Charuka Arora 

I love that. And I can’t wait to visit for sure i as soon as I can. 

01:05:09.63 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

All right, you keep in touch too, Shuruka. Thank you for today. 

01:05:12.00 

Charuka Arora 

Yes. 

01:05:13.16 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

We’re getting this to your mother, Sandita. 

01:05:13.99 

Charuka Arora 

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for sharing your work, your stories, so many beautiful analogies and so many beautiful quotes and I mean, so many stories. And I think I love i love um i love this conversation and I hope um I’ll get to learn more from you and everybody who’s joined us for this episode. 

01:05:40.55 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

at everyone out there and love to you and thank you. Thank you so much, Arka. Today I’ve learned from you. 

01:05:47.88 

Charuka Arora 

Thank you. 

01:05:49.99 

Rebecca Hoffberger 

Should we close this? 

01:05:49.85 

Charuka Arora 

Thank you. One sec. I’ll just stop the recording. we have 

01:06:13.86 

Charuka Arora 

We have 

• Artists express their innermost thoughts and emotions through their work, crafting pieces that resonate with personal experiences and visions.
• Intuition plays a pivotal role in creative endeavors, guiding artists to make decisions that align with their authentic voice and vision.
• Ancestral traditions and heritage shape our identity and provide a rich tapestry of cultural storytelling that influences artistic expression.
• The balance of masculine and feminine energies in art creates a dynamic interplay that enriches the creative process and yields profound insights.
• Exploring the depths of spirituality and creativity unveils a journey of self-discovery, transformation, and connection with the divine.

Charuka Arora is the founder of the Arts to Hearts Project and Host of the Arts to Hearts Podcast. She is also an acclaimed Indian artist known for her contemporary embellished paintings. Her unique blend of gouache, collage, embroidery, painting, and drawing explores the intersection of art, culture, heritage, and womanhood. Through her work, she tells stories of female strength and encapsulates them in pieces that can be treasured for generations.

Charuka’s work draws inspiration from Hindu mythology, recognizing women as vessels of Shakti, the cosmic energy. She beautifully portrays powerful goddesses like Durga Maa riding a tiger or lion, symbolizing their unlimited power to protect virtue and combat evil.

Through her art, Charuka invites us into the world of women, showcasing their beauty, strength, and resilience. Her creations not only exhibit exceptional talent but also serve as an inspiration and a symbol of hope for those challenging societal norms.

Arts to Hearts Podcast is a show delving into the lives and passions of renowned artists. From running creative businesses and studio art practices to cultivating a successful mindset, Charuka Arora engages in heartfelt conversations with her guests. Experience your personal happy hour with your favorite artists, right in your studio.

Through candid discussions, Charuka and her guests reveal the joys and challenges of a vibrant creative life, both within and beyond our studios. Get ready to be inspired and uplifted as you tune in.