Becoming a Puppet: Homasa and the Courage of Creative Living
When you first meet Homasa, you don’t encounter just a multidisciplinary artist. You enter a world of rebellion, solitude, and luminous play. Illustrator, puppet designer, puppeteer, storyteller, teacher of creativity—these are titles she has carried, but none of them alone capture who she is becoming. In her own words: “Pinocchio wanted to become human; I want to become a puppet.”
That paradox defines her life’s work. For Homasa, puppets embody both rebellion and necessity. Rebellion, because their forms can break every rule, bending into creatures of wild imagination. Necessity, because their joints follow precise, mathematical constraints. Life, she reminds us, is lived at the intersection of freedom and limitation. And her art is an ongoing negotiation with those tensions—cutting the strings society attaches, only to reattach them back to herself.
This is the story of Homasa, as told in her appearance on Cozy Corner with Hossein Nasiri. It is not a tale about art as a profession, but about art as a way of being. A way of daring to live fully, even theatrically, in a world that insists on minimalism. It is the story of someone who refuses to dim her colors for fear of judgment, and who instead believes that true creativity begins in solitude, when the inner judges speak loudest.
The Name That Shapes a Journey
“People think Homasa is a combination of ‘Homa’ and my last name, Sadatian,” she says. “But it comes from Homasan, meaning ‘in the likeness of Homa.’” In Persian mythology, the bird Homa never lands on the ground—it is always in flight, a symbol of luck and freedom. Homasa sees herself on a journey toward that ideal—forever becoming, never fixed.
But unlike Pinocchio, whose dream was to shed his wooden body and become real, Homasa dreams of becoming more like a puppet. Not because she wishes to be controlled, but because she wants to embody the paradox of constraint and rebellion. She seeks to cut her own strings, to live as a puppet whose movements are her own choreography.
This inversion is emblematic of her philosophy. Where others long to escape being puppets of society, Homasa longs to embody the puppet honestly, but on her own terms.
The Courage of Solitude
Creativity, she insists, is not about racing toward the spotlight. Too many people are desperate for attention—for the likes, the applause, the validation. Her teachers, especially the late Hafez Mir-Aftabi, taught her to do the opposite: to step out of the glare and into the darkness of solitude.
“At first, it’s terrifying,” she recalls. “That darkness is full of monsters—the inner judges who whisper, ‘You’re not enough. You’ll never reach your dreams.’” Yet, it is precisely in this solitude, where fear threatens to paralyze, that creation becomes salvation.
For Homasa, solitude is not absence but presence. It is the fertile ground where authentic voices emerge. The role of a teacher, then, is not to hand down skills, but to stand beside the student in that darkness, whispering encouragement: don’t be afraid. She compares it to holding the back of a child’s bicycle. At first the child thinks they are being supported. Then, without realizing it, they are riding alone.
Solitude, courage, and creation—these three form the axis of her philosophy.
Teaching by Awakening, Not Instructing
“I’m not a teacher,” Homasa insists. “I’m a good duster.” Creativity, in her view, is not installed into people. It already exists, buried under dust. Her role is to brush it off, to awaken what is already there.
She designs exercises that deliberately embrace mistakes: drawing without looking at the paper, creating asymmetry on purpose, or breaking rules that students fear violating. In those broken rules, something miraculous happens: people begin to hear their own voice.
Her classrooms, which she calls “cozy corners,” are less like schools and more like sanctuaries. Like a bathroom or a shower, where people feel unobserved and safe enough to sing off-key or perform mock Oscar speeches with shampoo bottles, her studios invite people to drop their masks and be nakedly themselves.
In that safety, flaws transform into traits, quirks into signatures. “What the outside world calls flaws,” she says, “are qualities. They’re the very things that make you beautiful.”
Maximal in a Minimal World
If solitude is her soil, then maximalism is her blossom.
“In today’s world, where everything is minimal and people’s taste is minimal—I dare to be maximal,” she declares.
Her workshop is filled with puppets, drawings, and colors that overwhelm minimalists. She has often been judged for this, accused of showing off. But she no longer fears such labels. For her, maximalism is not vanity; it is authenticity. And authenticity, she believes, is always a little excessive, a little too much for the world.
This daring stance is an act of resistance. In a culture where conformity wears the cloak of fashion or trend, Homasa insists on designing a world that reflects her inner landscape—not what society prescribes. Just as geography shapes clothing—thick pants in Kurdish mountains, light fabrics in the Persian Gulf—she argues that each individual must discover what uniquely suits them, inside and out.
To live maximally, then, is to live truthfully.
Creative Diets and Metal Detectors
One of her recurring metaphors is the “creative diet.” Just as one becomes mindful of food, one must become mindful of inputs—music, films, books, conversations. Not everything is nourishing. Some things, she warns, are lies: imitations, plagiarisms, fashion-driven emptiness.
Yet she does not advocate purism. Even “trashy” pop songs can be treasures, if consumed with awareness. The key is not the object but the context. With the right mindset—what she calls active intelligence—one can extract value from anything. “When you have a metal detector,” she says, “you can even find treasure in the trash.”
Creativity, then, is not about shielding oneself from the world but about approaching every input with awareness and playfulness, ready to turn it into fuel.
From Fraud to Authenticity
Homasa confesses that in her early years she was a “fraud”—skilled at dazzling audiences by blending the styles of Klimt, Schiele, and others, but detached from her own voice. It was her mentor Karim Nasr who shattered that illusion. Looking at her exhibition-ready works, he dismissed them with a curt: “So? Where’s Homa?”
The words devastated her. For three days she collapsed inward, as if her god had been toppled. But in that void, she began to ask the most important question: What do I love? The answer led her back to childhood memories of theater, storytelling, and dolls. From there, she changed her thesis to “The Entry of 3D Theater Puppets into the 2D World of Paper,” and discovered her true passion for puppetry.
It was a turning point: from impressing others to discovering herself.
Childhood Roots
Her story of becoming begins in childhood. When she couldn’t afford a Barbie, she drew one instead. That drawing shifted the adults’ attention from the absence of a toy to the presence of a talent. “That was the first time I felt I had found my real toy,” she recalls.
Creation, for her, was always both a refuge and a toy. In moments of grief or fear, she would turn to clay, drawings, or storytelling. Art created safety where reality could not. She laughs that she is still doing the same things she did at seven—just with more maturity.
This continuity reveals her core belief: that creativity is not taught but awakened. It begins in childhood play, and the task of adulthood is not to replace it but to preserve and expand it.
Restlessness: The Fire That Keeps Burning
If solitude is the soil and maximalism the blossom, restlessness is the fire.
Homasa describes creativity as an itch, a spark that never lets her rest. Watching a play, she sometimes feels an urgent desire to run home and make something. Scrolling through images, she suddenly drops the iPad and begins sculpting. This restlessness is both a burden and a gift, ensuring that she never stagnates.
She sees her role as a teacher not only to pass on skills but to awaken this restlessness in others. The puppet a student creates is less important than the spark it ignites—the hunger to keep creating.
The Dance of Creation
Her favorite metaphor for creativity is dance.
“If you’re dancing with your eyes closed, and you open them to see no one watching—nothing changes. If you open them to see the whole world watching—still nothing changes. You close your eyes again and keep dancing.”
This is the essence of authentic creation. Not dancing to please an audience, nor dancing to hide from one, but dancing because the music demands it.
When she enters that state, she loses track of time and emerges surprised at what she has made, as if she were only a witness to the work. Ideas, she believes, float in the air, waiting to be caught. The artist’s task is simply to prepare the soil of solitude and awareness so that when the idea lands, it can take root.
Art as a Way of Living
For Homasa, creativity extends beyond professional output. “Even if you don’t create in the traditional sense, if you live yourself fully, you are the artwork of your own life.”
Her mother, she says, was not a professional artist, but lived with such presence and authenticity that actors on stage would greet her as if she were part of the play. Her partner Navid, whom she met while he was living on a beach, is another example. “He is a work of art,” she says.
Art, then, is not limited to puppets, paintings, or performances. It is in the way one pours tea, speaks, laughs, or gets angry. To live authentically is itself to be a masterpiece.
The Cozy Corner
What holds all of this together is what she calls the “cozy corner.” A personal world—physical or metaphorical—where one feels safe enough to be naked, playful, and authentic. Whether it is a studio filled with dolls, a room decorated with personal treasures, or even the intimacy of a shower, the cozy corner is where the inner judge grows silent and the true self emerges.
She encourages everyone to find or build such corners in their lives. Because without them, she says, we live like tenants on occupied land—never at home in ourselves.
The Dream
Today, Homasa is not only creating puppets and illustrations but also producing new works: illustrated books, masks, collections of dolls, and an educational series on puppet-making designed for everyone, regardless of background.
But beyond projects and products, she carries a luminous dream: that one day, everyone will discover their ability to create. That puppets and stories will take over our cities, liberating us from the monotony of daily life. That through creation, people will find freedom from suffering.
In her words: “Freedom from suffering is possible only through creation. And I dream of a future where puppets and stories take over our cities and liberate us from the grip of everyday monotony and lack of inspiration.”
Conclusion: Dancing Into Authenticity
Homasa dares to be maximal in a minimal world. She dares to confront the inner judges of solitude. She dares to cut her strings and tie them back to herself.
Her life and philosophy remind us that creativity is not about fame, output, or perfection. It is about daring to be. To be restless, to be joyful, to be authentic—even if judged, even if misunderstood.
Perhaps that is why her metaphor of dancing with eyes closed resonates so deeply. Whether alone or in front of the world, the dance does not change. Because the dance is not for them. It is for the music within.
And in that dance, Homasa is becoming what she always was: not quite a puppet, not quite a bird, but something in between—forever in flight, forever becoming.
