Dianne Aigaki lives a life rooted in high adventure and social activism. In 1996, she moved to Dharamsala, India at the foot of the Himalayas to work as a volunteer consultant for the Tibetan Exile Government. She trained over 300 of their staff to write project management plans and funding proposals for projects ranging from education for orphans, water sanitation and tuberculosis treatment, to construction of homes for the elderly. She built a home in Dharamsala with extensive gardens and now divides her time between India, Tibet, and Mexico.
Besides being a consultant for nonprofit organizations and training over 4,000 people worldwide, she has been an artist for 35 years, working in acrylics, watercolor, stained glass, print making, and cyanotypes, a technique used in the 1700’s to document rare plants. Her specialty in botanical illustration is wildflowers growing in Tibet at 11,000-18,000 feet altitude. The paintings are exhibited at museums, universities and botanic gardens. A current project is a series of 50 paintings that combine maps, botanical illustrations and journal entries from the 1st voyage of the Endeavour around the world in 1768-1771.
As a woman explorer, she is a member of both Wings World Quest and the Society of Women Geographers, the two premier important women’s exploration organizations in the world, and carried the WINGS flag into Tibet in 2007. She spends three months each summer in eastern Tibet, documenting flora of the mountains and high grasslands and leading botanical illustration/photography/sacred sites tours. The tours are an eco-tourism partnership with Tibetan villagers and nomads.
She is a high-energy speaker, captivating and inspiring audiences with her stories of living her life according to her Life List—135 goals to be accomplished in her lifetime and with presentations on Art and Social Change; The World As You Dream It-Creating Your Life Through the Life List; The Courage to Excel; Citizen Diplomacy-How One Person Makes a Difference in the World; Botanical Art as a Vehicle for Cultural Diplomacy; The Dream of the Turquoise Bee in Tibet; and Significant Philanthropy–The Quest for a Donor Who Shares the Vision of Your Organization.
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