Author profile: Demi
Author profile: Demi illustrator and author of children’s books)
Rumi
The Artist and the Architect
Liang and the Magic Paintbrush
Kites: Magic Wishes Fly Up to the Sky
The Girl Who Drew a Phoenix
The Boy Who Painted Dragons
Demi (born Charlotte Dumaresq Hunt in Cambridge, MA, 1942) is an artist who illustrates and writes books for children, although she is loved by her adult readers as well. Demi’s signature is in the exquisite detail and colors of her illustrations, each page a unique painting influenced by Asian art traditions. Here in the Center Library we have 20 of her books catalogued in the picturebook section of the Children’s area, and most of them are new arrivals. Take a look for yourself.
Her early work was illustrating and writing Chinese folktales that her husband Tze-Hsi Huang remembered for her. Her recent books are biographies of important religious leaders and teachers, e.g., Rumi, Lao Tzu, The Dalai Lama, Gandhi, Buddha, and Mother Theresa, to name just a few. She has written over 100 books.
When asked how she prepares herself for writing about such great teachers, Demi said, “I think that the state of being of extraordinary people like Buddha and Muhammad is beyond our comprehension. It would be impossible to present the reality of their lives through intellectual speculation, or through the mind. The mind can only think, speculate, calculate, but the heart can feel. So I think that the only way for me to do these books is to let myself be the channel.”
She explains that she has been studying Buddhism and practicing meditation for 30 years, and it is in meditation that her art finds a channel. Her approach to writing and painting is: writing first, then painting spontaneously, no rough sketches, first is best. An interesting fact -- her painting process is guided by The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting of 1678 by Kai Wang, ideas such as: “Take ten days to paint a stream and five to paint a rock. See the different shape of wind blowing through willow branches, powdered jade added for good fortune, for fine line—one whisker of a mouse, 10 parts of pine soot for black." I, for one, have taken great delight in learning these details. When I look at her work my attention and awareness changes toward painting and how I practice.
-- reviewed by Barbara Goldberg
To visit the blog and see more reviews and quotes from books in the collection of Center for Sacred Sciences' Library, click here https://centerforsacredscienceslibrary.blogspot.com