Remember when I said I wanted to take up painting? Well I’ve yet to figure out the baffling-seeming world of paper and paints* yet alone sit down to do anything. But while I was in New York, I discovered Iranian artist Monir Sharoudy Farmanfarmaian whose work abstracts traditional geometric patterns from her culture in a variety of forms – her mirror mosaic work is most dazzling – my favourite of which was felt tips. Felt tips. I’ve got pencil cases full of them on the kitchen table. This was an inspiration. Here are some of her pieces that I saw at The Guggenheim and I’m not suggesting I’m going to be able to sit down and achieve similar.

*I can see how this might sound like I’m putting up barriers.

I find them really pleasing. They remind me a bit of some old lace patterns I once bought at a junk shop in Glasgow crossed with a touch of Nathalie Du Pasquier.

The artist’s story was also fascinating. She moved from Tehran to New York as a student in the 1940’s, after a stay in Paris was thwarted by the second world war. After a few years studying fashion illustration at Parsons School of Design, she got a job as a window designer at a department store before moving on to freelance illustration work for fashion mags. She hung out with Andy Warhol (they exchanged work), Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. She then moved back to Iran in 1957 – I think after marrying a fellow Iranian – and during this time she continued to make a variety of art. In 1979 during the Islamic revolution, her work was confiscated or went missing and she moved back to New York for 10 years.

She’s quoted in the Guardian as saying that after the Gulf war “None of the galleries wanted to talk to me.  And after September 11 – my God. No way. Rather than being a woman, it was difficult just being Iranian.” Nice then, that she’s having a show now somewhere so prominent.

Find out more about the artist here.