Meet Natasha Noorvash | Artist & Designer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Natasha Noorvash and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Natasha, what role has risk played in your life or career?
The risks I have taken opened up my world and strengthened my intuition. There’s a freedom when you follow your intuition and go through the unknown, which allows you to be more authentic. The risks I took as a dancer connected me with my intuition and led me to create everything I am making today. I started dancing with 5 Rythms about four years ago, when everything in my life shifted. In class, I began to open up, be witnessed and experience the beauty of others, all while moving my body in a flow of mystery, not knowing how, when or where I would move next. The class became the highlight of my week where I learned to lean into my instincts. Connecting with my intuition became less of a risk and more a way of life.

During this time, I was looking for loose cotton pants to dance in. Everything out there was made of synthetic fabrics, so I made my own dance pants from funky printed cotton fabrics I found at the local fabric shop. I got asked to make an outfit for a friend out of the same print and it grew from there. Since then, my work has evolved into an art practice working with textiles and photography, and custom clothing designs.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I make quilts with openings in them that serve as windows. The quilts are embroidered with poetry and some are pictorial. Then, I take self-portraits holding them in front of me naked. Working directly with my body completes the piece.

My creative process began very organically- each piece led to the next. First, I started making myself clothes to dance in. I learned that putting my work out there, be it online or on a body, is the best way to communicate and connect with the world. The immediate response I get from what I wear is energy that propels me to keep creating. Then, I made myself quilts with fabric scraps donated from my friends clothing line. The first one served as a mediation quilt, and the next one became my first art quilt. I kept making things without having a bigger picture of where this could go and always committing to sharing it online. This evolved into a textile practice of making quilts as art, and quilts as healing tools. I make custom quilts with crystals sewn inside, placed over the ten energy centers of the body, with wisdom applied from my work in Jewish mysticism. These are my Tree of Life quilts.

I began getting asked to make quilts for people out clothes they’ve outgrown, and for custom clothes by friends and their friends. I now range from making jackets out of old textiles and quilts from generations past, custom clothes, and healing objects and textiles. Its been really fun working closely with my clients’ family heirlooms. The idea of reusing old fabric in a new way, giving life to something that was hidden or unused is part of this process of death and rebirth I’ve been working through since I began dancing. Letting go, transformation and adaptation are all themes I’ve been working with in life and my art. I see the work as a metaphor for what I have been going through. My old habit of wanting to hide myself slowly peeled away and died each time I shared my creations with the world. All the positive responses and support I got along the way trained me to keep going, keep creating, and keep sharing.

Somewhere along this path my art quilts came into being. Working with the poetry of Rumi and other artists inspires each piece. Playing with light, showing and hiding various parts of my body allows me to experience and share who I am in that moment in time. My art practice is a journey into carving my philosophy and exploring my cracks. What moves me is revealing where I most want to hide, working with my paradoxes to soften them.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If its warm enough, we would go to Malibu and spend a day and the beach and go for oysters at Broad Street Oyster Company. I would take them on my favorite hike in the Palisades. We would check out art at The Hammer or MOCA. For food, we would get lunch at some spots in my hood, Honey Hi and Botanica are a must. For dinner, we would go to Speranza or Pine and Crane in Silverlake. We would swing by one of the farmers markets- Santa Monica on Wednesdays is my favorite one, and cook a feast one night. For shopping, we would check out Scout on Melrose for vintage designer clothes, and Dover Street Market downtown.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I have grown with a community of creative people from all walks of life who helped me in different ways, from spiritual mentors, to designer friends, and family. My designer friends Brooke McDaniel,  Dawn Dunning, and Rie Yamagata have helped encourage me along the way, and offered me business and design advice. For many years, I studied Jewish mysticism with shamanic rabbi, Stephen Robbins. Our work together taught me to participate in my own healing and has inspired and informed much of my textile and art work. I’m so grateful to my dance teacher, Kate Shela, who is really a magician. Her classes and workshops catalyzed immense growth- its her class that inspired me to work with my hands and make my own clothes. My friend and travel partner, Dana Sorman, encouraged me throughout our friendship with great advice and visions on where I could go. Her invitation to Mount Shasta in the winter led to the souvenir sweatshirt I designed. My family has been super supportive of my creativity from the beginning. I am lucky to have grown up with my grandmother Rachel, a painter, as a close friend and fellow artist.

Website: www.msnoor.com

Instagram: @themsnoor

Image Credits
the images of me in my black and white quilted jacket are all by Brooke McDaniel