Gilah Yelin Hirsch

Early Career 1970-1986

Hirsch moved to Los Angeles in 1967 to pursue an MFA in Pictorial Arts at UCLA. Upon graduation (1970) she simultaneously embarked on both her art and teaching careers. After teaching at Santa Monica College and the University of Judaism, (now American Jewish University), she was recruited to the Art Department at California State University Dominguez Hills (Los Angeles) in 1973, and was awarded tenure in 1978. Hirsch has continued to serve as Professor of Art at CSUDH while sustaining her career as a professional artist and exhibiting her work nationwide.

Hirsch was a founding member of the Los Angeles Council of Women Artists (1971), the "mother" organization of many subsequent feminist art organizations. She also named and facilitated the Joan of Art Seminars, (originated by June Wayne), teaching artists the business aspects of their professional careers. Since then, (1972), this has become common practice and a regular component of art school curricula.

In 1974 Hirsch brought the life and work of Canadian artist Emily Carr to the attention of the American academic community at the College Art Association, Washington, DC.

Hirsch curated the exhibition, Metamagic, in 1978 at the California State University Dominguez Hills University Art Gallery in Los Angeles. This exhibit was the first held nationally in a major exhibition space to be focused on the spiritual in art and attracted worldwide attention.

Hirsch spent the fall semester of 1979 as visiting artist at Saint Martin's School of Art, London, England. As requests for exhibitions of her work and talks about her philosophy multiplied, she originated a slide presentation of her paintings that reflected both aspects of her work. This unusual presentation was introduced at the Menninger Foundation’s annual conference in Council Grove, Kansas (1982). Hirsch has continued to serve as presenter for numerous Council Grove conferences (sponsored by the Menninger Foundation, Life Science Institute, Center for Ecology and Energy Medicine) and has convened two conferences (1995, 2006). In 1983 Hirsch first presented her theory on the origin of alphabet, Cosmography: The Writing of the Universe, at the Council Grove Conference.

Mid Career 1986-2000

Hirsch continued to pursue her career as a professional artist and in 1985 received a Senior Artist Grant from The National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA grant, as well as a sabbatical from California State University provided her with a yearlong (1986/87) opportunity to visit fifteen Asian countries. In December 1986 Hirsch met Ngawangdanhup Narkyid (Kuno), the official biographer of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India, initiating a friendship that would prove to be life changing for the artist.

Hirsch has spent long solitary periods in wilderness. From 1989-90 she lived alone in Tonto National Forest in Northeastern Arizona where she learned to survive extreme and often brutal elements while living among wildlife such as bear, elk deer, etc. It was through these many excursions into the wild, beginning in 1974, that she began to observe patterns within the landscape and realized that she perceived five patterns commonly found in the landscape that she was “reading” in various languages. She soon recognized that these five forms serve as the basis of every known alphabet, ancient to modern. With further investigation she discovered that these five forms mirror the neural shapes and processes of perception and cognition. The first presentation of Hirsch’s theory on origin of alphabetic form was at the Menninger Foundation’s Council Grove Conference in 1983; the first exhibition of the hundreds of photographs comprising the two volumes of Cosmography,(the name she gave to her theory on the origin of alphabet), were exhibited at the Woman’s Building, Los Angeles, (1989, Letter Forms) and her acclaimed documentary film, Cosmography: The Writing of the Universe, was released in 1995.

In 1990 Hirsch left Tonto National Forest for 6 weeks when she was invited to Dharamsala, India to hear the Dalai Lama instruct sacred Tantric teachings. This was the first time that any Dalai Lama had given this rare teaching.

Throughout the 1990s Hirsch continued her career as a University Professor of Art at California State University Dominguez Hills as well as pursuing her professional art career and exhibiting her work both locally (Southern California) and nationally.

In 1999 Hirsch narrowly escaped death in an automobile accident while traveling in a remote area of Queen Charlotte Island, British Columbia, Canada. With practically every bone in her body crushed or broken, she managed to make it back to Los Angeles where doctors did not give her very good odds for recovery. However, within two months she was able to begin work on her paintings - life-sized, diamond shaped-canvases, through which she envisioned the healing of every cell and system in her body. Along with anatomically correct visualization, cell by cell, system by system, from pathology to optimal states, she also utilized the Boddhicits visualization teachings she had received from the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, and within a few months’ time, her entire body healed. This ordeal, as well as other near death episodes she experienced, resulted in Hirsch understanding the effect of visualization and the power of the mind toward healing and restoring balance for body, mind and spirit, (a medical practice known as psychoneuroimmunology).

Recent Career 2000-Present

Hirsch originated and facilitated numerous Creativity as well as Art and Healing workshops, seminars and conferences over the years; Creative Behavior from the Inside Out: Overcoming Preciousness and Fear (2000 & 2001) at Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California, and Creativity from the Inside Out: Generating Original Imagery (2000) and Authentic Creativity (2001) at Hollyhock Institute, Cortez Island, BC, Canada. Hirsch has also led workshops such as Art, Visualization and Healing (2008), for children with cancer in conjunction with the Sunshine Kids Foundation in Los Angeles, California, and has convened five-day international conferences at The Rim Institute in Payson, AZ (1990, Conference On Knowing); The Council Grove Conference of the Menninger Foundation,(1995, Healing History, Culture, and Consciousness) and The Council Grove Conference of Life Science Foundation (2006 Seeding a Coherent Future: A Constellation of Perspectives). In 2008, Hirsch coordinated a voluntary mural project between Watts Medical Center (Watts, Los Angeles, CA), for the Obstetrics/Gynecology and Pediatrics departments, (Patricia Brown, liaison) with continuing and alumni Studio Art students of California State University Dominguez Hills, Carson (Los Angeles). In 2009, Hirsch and her Mural Class at CSUDH initiated a mural project for Radiology Department, Watts Health Center, Watts, CA. These projects were named by President Obama to the top 16 University/Community projects in 2009. That year Hirsch also coordinated the Stepping into the Light program, a collaborative portrait painting and exhibition partnership between California State University Dominguez Hills, Carson (Los Angeles), CA, Art Department students, the Compton YWCA and sexually assaulted women

In addition to her teaching and art careers, Hirsch has also pursued an avid interest in architecture. Over a period of 35 years Hirsch transformed a duplex (built in 1900) into a home/studio noted and documented in the disciplines of art and architecture.

Her research intensified in anthropology and science, as well, focusing particularly on psychoneuroimmunology, the role of mind/body/intentionality/visualization in the healing process.

Hirsch continues to pursue her teaching career at California State University, Dominguez Hills as well as her professional art career and exhibits her work worldwide. Her most recent solo exhibitions have been both in the USA, Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles, CA (2012, 2011, 2010, 2009), and 2011 Vincent Gallery, Moscow, Russia, 2009 Symbol Galeria, Budapest (Hungary), 2007 Piano Nobile Gallery, Kraków (Poland), 2006 Soviart Gallery, Kiev (Ukraine), 2006 Artoteka Gallery, Bratislava and 2005 Limes Galeria, Komarno (Slovakia). Her work can be found at www.Gilah.com.

As a result of the success of her film Cosmography: The Writing of the Universe, (1995), Hirsch was asked to originate a film for children regarding the relation between pattern in nature, alphabetic morphology and the neurology of perception and cognition. After ten years in production, Reading the Landscape, an animated film for children of all ages that follows 23 cultures and languages in the evolutionary migratory pattern of humankind around the world, is slated for release in late 2013.