World Traveler at Home in Cultural Crossroads Asha Menghrajani represents the type of person the Bay Area is famous for attracting: freedom-seeking, worldly-wise and completely at home in a cultural crossroads. Asha grew up in the Philippines, but traveled extensively in Europe, Asia, Egypt, Dubai and Mexico before choosing California as her home in 1992. She chose California specifically as a place to nurture her art. She has been able to take advantage of the range of Art Schools, taking courses in everything from charcoal drawing to oil and watercolor painting to fabric design. She synthesized all her learnings together into a rich mixed media process. Asha enrolled in “Taking the Leap” in Emeryville to kick-start her career and hasn’t slowed down. Asha’s first solo show was at Capobianco Gallery in San Francisco. She also joined forces with the new up and coming Fourth Street Studio in Berkeley where she has successfully exhibited and painted for the last four years. A typical painting day for Asha involves working on several canvases at a time: perhaps stretching one canvas, gessoing another, applying layers of paint and hand made paper to yet another, and finally completely re-arranging the composition of a last. Asha’s superior powers of concentration serve her well in the free-wheeling atmosphere of the Bay Area - she is able to create her own seclusion in a world of chaos: a metaphor for her life as an international citizen.