BOSTON —Nayma Tasnim Islam discovered that one of her suitcases was lost whilst emigrating from Dhaka, Bangladesh, to Boston in 2011. Her mother saved every painting, from her first watercolor of a sparrow when she was five years old, to national exhibition paintings she did as a college student, but all were gone in that one suitcase.
“When I found out, it was painful,” she said in an interview on Sunday. “I wish I still had them now to have something to look back on.”
Islam, 32, who lives in Boston and is a software engineer, organizes and teaches a community painting night at her mosque in Boston to help people find relief in art from stress.
“Keeping that creative part of our mind running is important because if you look at day-to-day life, it’s very mechanical,” she said.
Students at the community painting, open to everyone over the age of 9, benefit by painting, relaxing, and reflecting on topics Islam discusses, such as faith, nature and creativity.
“[Art is] like a source of therapy when you’re a grown-up,” she said, “In my class, [I give] only one grade, and that’s excellent. You don’t go lower than that.”
Art-based projects led to significantly reduced levels of anxiety, according to a 2011 study by the American Art Therapy Association.
Art was a comfort to Islam when she went through an identity crisis as an immigrant, including facing discrimination in the workplace and culture shock.
Yet, in the U.S., public participation in the arts is low.
Around 23.8 percent of the U.S. adult population saw visual arts, attended a crafts fair or visual arts festivals in 2017, according to a survey of Public Participation in the Arts by the NEA, a federal agency supporting American arts, and the U.S. Census Bureau.
Islam held two painting nights on Oct. 28 and Feb. 24 at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC), the largest mosque in New England.
The ISBCC provided Islam a platform to share her artwork at an Eid Bazaar, the annual religious gathering at the mosque, and to host her painting workshop.
Islam expresses her faith through the hijab, a traditional head cover, and art.
She believes it is her God-given responsibility to help others through her artistic ability.
“The way hijab is my identity, art is my identity,” she said.
Transitioning from Bangladesh to Boston was difficult because unlike in Bangladesh, where Islam won national art competitions as an undergraduate student, she cannot host exhibitions in the U.S. since drawing people is forbidden in Islamic art.
When Islam arrived to attend Northeastern University on a student visa, she couldn’t decide whether to work or pursue an MBA.
Naturalized U.S. citizens are 13.7 percent of Boston’s population, according to the Boston Planning and Development Agency in 2017.
Ansa Nisar, 23, a project manager from Connecticut, helps Islam organize the event and even participates herself.
“I personally love painting because it helps me to relax and relieve stress,” she said while grabbing paintbrushes at paint night. “I think this is a great for anyone with a stressful work life … to come together as a community.”
Rikuto Uezoni, 20, sophomore anthropology major at Boston University, from Japan, said he went to community painting to try something different from his college studies.
“This is my first time painting,” he said. “I get useful advice on colors and shapes.”
Islam also volunteers in sustainable gardening projects at ISBCC and teaches Islam at a Sunday school in the Islamic Center of Boston, Wayland.
Islam’s previous artwork was inspired by the social, familial and identity pressures she said she faced as an undergraduate student at Bangladesh’s Military Institute of Science and Technology.
Now, Islam prefers painting landscapes, inspired by her travels around the U.S.
Islam chose a landscape portrait of snow-capped mountains reflected on a lake with fall foliage in the foreground, at Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, for the students to recreate at her second art night.
“I hope everybody came with high spirits,” she said.