Sabreena Haque on Marking Transitional Milestones with Henna

View the full episode transcript.

“People really want something that brings meaning into their life,” says Sabreena Haque, a well-known henna artist and burgeoning tattoo artist. 

Henna is an important part of wedding rituals and birthday celebrations. Similar to tattoos, henna plays an important role in times of transition.

Sabreena says the practice of receiving henna, which involves patiently sitting still and letting the paste sink into your skin, is an opportunity for people to set intentions. “As the henna fades, that’s when the intentions deepen,” she says. 

After the paste has faded away, the memories of the experience and thoughts about how to move forward linger.

Sabreena’s work is a mixture of calligraphy, defined patterns and artistic touches of nature. Her love of body art goes back to time spent visiting family in Pakistan  — specifically wedding hopping with her grandmother, who liked to party.

“We would go from wedding home to wedding home,” she says. “And there I started to learn about henna, also known as the mehndi.”  Sabreena practices her craft at weddings and baby showers, and has even expanded to break-up henna and henna for men — “menna”, as she calls it.  A few years ago, she jumped into tattoo work.

Sabreena says there’s a major difference between the act of giving someone henna and giving someone a tattoo, but both involve sitting still, setting intentions and having art added to your body as an act of personal agency.

This week, Sabreena tells us about her family and her craft, and shares what philosophy has seeped into her by way of doing body art for the community.

This story was originally published September 16, 2022  as part of  “Permanent Behavior: Getting Tatted in the Bay” a four-part series, about local tattoo artists.

Episode Transcript

[Music]

Pendarvis Harshaw, host: Peace and love, I’m your host Pendarvis Harshaw. Today we’re talking to someone who’s got their feet in 2 worlds, when it comes to body art, a vet in one lane and a rookie in another.  

Sabreena Haque, guest: I feel like mastering a craft to being a full amateur. [laughs] 

Pendarvis Harshaw: Sabreena Haque is a renowned mehndi or henna artist. You can usually find her at bridal showers, birthday parties and maternity shoots adorning her client’s with intricate designs, drawn out in a dark brown paste. She even does break-up henna and menna, aka henna for men. 

Sabreena Haque: I wanted to invite anybody from any walk of life, any gender, to come into my studio and experience this art. 

Pendarvis Harshaw: Her craft, originally introduced to her by her Pakistani family members, is full of symmetric shapes and crisp lines. 

Sabreena Haque: With henna we are molding the henna paste on top of the skin almost like frosting a cake. And then with tattooing, you got this vibrating machine and you’re trying to get it in at the perfect angle, the perfect depth, the perfect speed to pull these lines on people’s skin.. It’s different! 

Pendarvis Harshaw: Over the past few years, Sabreena has been making the transition from working with the impermanent dyes of henna to the long lasting ink of tattoos. 

As we continue to explore ideas of impermanence and permanence, through this art that many of us get during life’s transitions, we’re talking to Sabreena about it all.

So, roll up your sleeves, we’ve got her story for you. Right after this message.      

Pendarvis Harshaw: Let’s start at the start. How did you get into this form of art?

Sabreena Haque: So… I was raised in a very traditional South-Asian Pakistani Muslim household and my mother, she would send me to Pakistan with my grandmother. 

Grandma was kind of…she liked to party. So we would go from wedding home to wedding home. And there I started to learn about henna, also known as the Mehndi. Mehndi is a term that is used in the South Asian community… And that’s where it kind of started, was wedding hopping with my grandmother. [laughs]

Pendarvis Harshaw: Nice, grandma was a partier. I like that! 

Sabreena Haque: She was VIP. Everybody knew her and loved her and she loved to be around people and I’m similar. I like to be around people.

[Music]

Pendarvis Harshaw: Henna is an important part of wedding rituals and birthday celebrations but the original purpose wasn’t just for aesthetics and ceremonies.. It was quite practical actually. Sabreena breaks it all down. 

Sabreena Haque: So back in the day it was for cooling. The plant itself is cooling. So when you mix the plant with lemon juice, sugar and essential oils –That’s how you make a natural henna paste. You apply it on your canvas, which is skin. And that brings the body temperature down. 

For bridal henna, it’s almost this time for the bride to just chill and it makes sense, you know, it being a desert art, for it to be used in that sort of medicinal way.

Pendarvis Harshaw: Henna is done by people from so many different backgrounds, right? 

Sabreena Haque: Yeah, let’s talk about that. I think it’s really important, actually, because henna is a natural plant dye. It is a leaf that grows on a bush and it grows best in arid, dry climates so desert areas. You’ll see it in the Middle East, in Africa, in Southeast Asia. 

India really popularized it with the wedding traditions and introduced it to the world. You know, Indian culture in general is so extra. We just do more, more intricate, more gold, more everything. But if you go to parts of Africa, you’ll see it being done in a very different way. The patterns are different even. 

And now, you know, with the internet and everything, now it’s practiced all over the world. And that to me is one of the most beautiful things, is to see how the art has evolved and how different people from different walks of life have used this natural plant dye to sort of bring meaning to their lives and celebrate themselves.

Pendarvis Harshaw: So that naturally brings us to the next question is with that expansion, how do you deal with folks from all around the world doing henna without crossing the line of cultural appropriation?

Sabreena Haque: You know, I think it’s important with any sort of tradition or cultural practice to educate yourself about where it comes from, you know, just even understanding that the plant grows in desert climates and so it is a desert art, traditionally. That’s important and that’s going to help you to do it in a respectful way. 

And that’s really what it boils down to is, you know, what is this person’s intention? Are they celebrating the culture or are they trying to take from the culture or look a certain way or be a certain way? 

[Music]

Sabreena Haque: I think that’s part of my journey is to educate people on where it comes from, what it means, those questions that always come up.

Pendarvis Harshaw: I’m all for cultural competency. Yep. Let’s do it. Let’s do it. Yeah! So then the henna once applied, after so many days, it disappears, no?

Sabreena Haque: Yeah. There’s a beauty behind that. Right? So, you know, it sets into a part of your skin, and, you know, you have to let it rest on there. The longer you keep that paste on your skin, the darker it’ll be, the longer it’ll last. And then as your skin renews, which is about , depending on the person like, a week to two weeks, 7 to 11 days. That’s when it starts to sort of raise and fade away.

Pendarvis Harshaw: Physically it disappears from the eye. But you told me that there’s something like almost metaphysical or spiritual about it, like seeping in.

Sabreena Haque: Yeah. You know once I started to be more focused on doing henna and just, you know, listening to the conversations I was having, people really want something that brings meaning into their life …This is an opportunity for people to set intentions while they receive their henna. And then as the henna fades, that’s when the intentions deepen.

 [Music]

Pendarvis Harshaw: Looking through your website, I saw different types of henna that you do and talking to you before you mentioned something that caught me off guard, breakup henna. [laughs] What, what, what is break up henna?

Sabreena Haque: You know, being in these times of transition, like break up henna it makes people feel empowered, like this is for me, you know. And on top of that, also, sometimes it attracts positive attention, too, like you’re in a vulnerable place, you get some henna and then, you know, people are seeing it, they’re complimenting it, they’re giving you this good energy. And we all need a little bit of that [laughs] 

Pendarvis Harshaw: [laughs] Right, right! 

Sabreena Haque: Especially the  people breaking up! You know, they need it too…extra.

Pendarvis Harshaw: Have you ever done your own break up henna? 

Sabreena Haque: Oh, my gosh, yes. Henna is like my self-care ritual. You know, it’s my time to slow down and appreciate myself, my body, who I am and where I’ve come. So, I do my best. But, you know, you gotta let it dry. [laughs] That’s the hardest part.

Pendarvis Harshaw: It sounds like a lot of patience and like self-care time, though.

Sabreena Haque: Yes. Yes. When I was younger, when I was in Pakistan, my aunties would say, you know, whoever has the darkest stain and the cleanest henna is the most patient and graceful because you really have to just slow down and allow the paste to dry and set in.

Pendarvis Harshaw: Be one with your intentions.

 Sabreena Haque: Mhmm-hmm. You better [laughs] 

Pendarvis Harshaw: Another thing I saw listed on your site is menna. For those who don’t know what is menna?

Sabreena Haque: Traditionally you see henna as a female identifying practice. So you see the women get it done before the wedding, the women get it done before the holidays. 

And, you know, I’m a San Francisco artist. I love San Francisco because people can just be themselves. They can express themselves. And I wanted to invite anybody from any walk of life, any gender, to come into my studio and experience this art. 

A lot of my art is intuitive. So to just sitting with someone and kind of feeling from them what kind of design to do because maybe, you know, maybe they want flowers or maybe they want something bold, you know, they can go anyway.

Pendarvis Harshaw: I mean it’s beautiful work. You know, it looks tribal – is the word that comes to mind. But I’m sure it’s intricate. It’s like in bold the pieces that I’ve seen of it. I also just had a hard time wrapping my mind around me and the homies going to get menna all together at once. It just, you know, as a Black men, it’s not something we would do 

Sabreena Haque: I don’t really have like a gang of guys coming together, although that sounds really fun. [laughs] I would support that fully. You know, maybe before a bachelor party or something fun like that. That seems cool. But, you know, I’ll have men come in before, like, they’re going on a boat trip or going to a festival or, you know, before a birthday trip. They’ll come in, like, get something big and just enjoy it, you know? And then it fades. 

Pendarvis Harshaw: That’s dope. 

[Music]

Pendarvis Harshaw: Sticking with her flow, Sabreena’s expanded her toolkit . She hasn’t strayed when it comes to design style, but the application of the art is different now.     

Pendarvis Harshaw: The actual tool that you use to apply henna versus the tool that you use for tattooing, I’m assuming a tattoo gun. How did they differ?

Sabreena Haque: Okay, so it’s super different!  With henna, we are molding the henna paste on top of the skin, almost like frosting a cake. So I’m manipulating the paste to get thick and thin lines on top of the skin. And then with tattooing, we got this vibrating machine, and you’re trying to get it in at the perfect angle, the perfect depth, the perfect speed to put these lines on people’s skin. 

[Music]

Sabreena Haque: I feel really grateful to be able to have the opportunity to be in this industry. It’s not an easy industry to get into. 

There’s artists that are really interested but maybe may not have that mentorship and working over at Gold Leaf Ink. Being around my teacher,  I feel a sense of belonging. I feel like I’m growing and that feels so good, to be able to know that I can continue to grow as an artist and I’m meeting a whole new community of people.

Pendarvis Harshaw: In doing this series, I’m seeing that it doesn’t always have to be a major point of transition. It can be that, there’s meditative qualities to getting body art done as well. And I think that’s really what I’m interested in, like personally beyond.

Sabreena Haque:  You know sometimes you want to feel something that is a choice and that is art and something that reflects your power and your presence in this world and just that reminder on your body. I get it. You know, there’s this feeling that you have when you’re sitting there and getting a tattoo and you just like feeling this on your body. It’s a choice. 

Pendarvis Harshaw: It’s empowering. That’s got to be empowering.

Sabreena Haque: And then you’ve become an art collector on your body. You’re just collecting art from different artists that that, you know, you like or, you know, just getting dumb shit whatever. At that point, you just have a story for each one, or maybe some doesn’t have a story, but you’re an art collector on your body.

Pendarvis Harshaw: I love it, a walking museum.

Sabreena Haque: Umm hmm [laughs] 

Pendarvis Harshaw: Holding on to that idea of henna, the ink, the intentions behind the ink seeping into you, I’m wondering you as an artist, what is, is the past tense of seeping sept? What has been seeping into you as you’ve been doing the work?

Sabreena Haque:  What’s really been seeping for me is the need for community, the need for us as humans to connect, us as humans to care for each other on a community level. 

That need is almost like survival. You know, I can be here by myself, but if I’m with others and collaborating and creating, like that’s when these major waves of of change can happen, where needs within the communities can be met, because we’re talking about it together

Pendarvis Harshaw: Body art bringing people together.

Sabreena Haque: That’s what we do. 

Pendarvis Harshaw: Yeah. 

Sabreena Haque: It’s the best.

[Music]

Pendarvis Harshaw:  Thank you Sabreena Haque! You hit us with the cultural lesson, the art philosophy, and the community love. Yup, that’s what we’re here for.  

As someone who deals with both long lasting art and art that’s here today and gone tomorrow, as well as someone going through their own personal transitions – thank you!  We appreciate you taking some time and chopping it up with us. 

You all can find Sabreena’s tattoo work on Instagram at ritualbydesigntattoo and her henna work is at ritualbydesign. 

Marisol Medina-Cadena and Kyana Moghadam produced this episode.   

Suzie Racho and Kyana Moghadam edited this episode.

Our engineer is Christopher Beale

The Rightnowish team is supported by Sheree Bishop, Jen Chien, Holly Kernan, Cesar Saldaña and Katie Sprenger.

I’m your host Pendarvis Harshaw! 

If you haven’t already, check out the other episodes of this series, Permanent Behavior: Getting Tatted in the Bay. Y’all take care! Peace.   Rightnowish is a KQED production

Rightnowish is an arts and culture podcast produced at KQED. Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts or click the play button at the top of this page and subscribe to the show on NPR One, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.