rita72912″ x 9″ Alcohol Ink on Mineral Paper –
Spoken for –
WOW. What a week!
Physically and mentally I was feeling so weak. My cousin and her son were visiting from out of town and the family planned on seeing them. As the day went on, I became more and more exhausted and run down by pain all over. I wanted to stay home and be left alone in my misery. Instead, I knew it would be best to at least distract myself with my crazy loud and fun family.
On our way to Goodrich (about 30 mins north of home) I cried to myself and just rode the pity train all the way to their driveway. I finally gathered myself together and put on a smile for the family. We spent several hours there, laughing, crying, sharing joys and struggles. It was the absolute cleanse I needed from the overwhelming month July has been.
On the way home, there was a significant contrast between the person sitting in that same back seat now vs. on the way over there. Yes, I was still in constant agonizing pain but my heart was full and the love took over.
I hadn’t painted anything for about a week….for me, that felt like an eternity. We finally arrived home around midnight and I couldn’t wait to get to my desk to create something, anything. I felt so much emotions, mostly good and I just had to get it out.
This is the funny part – I felt the urge to force myself to create it because I just had to get something out of me that night. I didn’t even get to finish the piece but I had posted it to dedicate to my family. The next morning I decided to complete it and show another part of it to the world via instragram 😉
Hours after posting, I received an invitation to participate in an art show in Detroit for local upcoming artists. Hours later, I received another invitation to an even bigger event in Detroit happening in August. I created this ink painting as a thank you to my family for getting me through a bad day…and it has turned into a submission piece for art shows that I couldn’t even imagine participating in!
So this piece is called ‘A’iilah’ which is the informal Arabic translation of ‘Family’. Without my family, I could not have made it through so many dark days and without this piece I would not have found these wonderful opportunities to share my work and hopefully inspire others!!
1So thank you to my crazy and wonderful people <3 I love you with all of me.