Armajani often utilises materials connected with his own heritage as seen in many of his Persian
period. In Sofre #2 (1962), the artist combines quotidian objects with his signature use of
calligraphy as evidenced in his works throughout his career. Five ceramic plates with texts in
English and Persian inscribed on the surfaces are placed on a wood board resembling a dining
table top or a tray, invoking the daily life scene of a domestic gathering over meals in the
households of his birth place.
And while text remained a central element in much of Armajani’s art, over time, he gravitated from Persian to English. In Sofre #2 (1962) (pp. 34–35), created two years after he
emigrated to the US, Armajani inscribed both languages onto ceramic plates that were affixed onto
a wooden board, emulating the traditional Persian meals served on a cloth spread on the floor.
Armajani’s Sofre series also showed his inclination to integrate ubiquitous, everyday objects into
his art. Threaded through the art Armajani created in the early 1960s, the years just after he
immigrated to the United States, is a sense of reckoning. Perhaps these works convey a sense of
grief over what had been lost and a need to connect with family, with language, with a home left
behind.
This artistic impulse should not be taken as merely exilic nostalgia, but rather as a mark of
Armajani’s philosophical approach to history. ‘There are always two historical patterns at work, the
past that once was present, and the past that still conditions the present. Folk art versus the
vernacular. By deconstructing, we suppress the priority of the past’, Armajani explained.12 In his
art through the 1950s and early 1960s, he deconstructed the past. In the process, he laid the
foundations for an artistic career that spanned six decades.