One day I'll Forget

so one day I'll wake up and forget your face 

and maybe even forget your name 

one day I'll wake up with grace 

loving my place 

where no time goes to waste 

one day 

I'll wake up again

and there will live no haze

just doodling on paper 

A6 

Ink

Four Mothers and a Half

 

            “So, Basically you have four mothers,” she said while laughing. I looked at her confused over how true what she said was. I’ve never noticed how much my sisters mommy me un-intently! I grew up the youngest of four girls. With no brothers around, an absent dad, and a sick mother, my sisters found it necessary to maintain a very strong connection between us in other words we stuck together. Still we all grew up distant from our Druze culture. Instead we choose our own religions and decided to accept each other for who we are.

Jun. 2015, “There will always be obstacles in your way, no matter how smart or witty you are. People will always try to set you down, you just have to keep trying,” she said one last time, as it was time for her to leave. Standing at the airport again trying to hold my tears while I wave goodbye to Layal, as she sets foot on here new journey as a newly wed immigrating to Australia. A six-year difference between me and my sister but I would be lying if I said we haven’t fought like children. Pulling each other’s hair, wrestling every Saturday morning, arguing about fashion among plenty more all of which were part of our daily interaction. Yeah, she is a one sided, black and white lawyer and I’m a ball of paint! It was hard for us to understand each other. Still it didn’t matter. We are friends anyway. Plus she needs my fashion advice. That is why we Skype almost everyday.

Dec. 2014, “God will always be there for you, even when you don’t know it. God will protect you. He loves you.” she raises up the bible from her hand while telling me all about prayers and forgiveness. “I have found my God,” she continues as I see her smile widen in softness upon her very tired face. She’s a workaholic. Always staying up late in the office. Never taking a day off. It seemed that after her divorced things didn’t matter to her anymore, still she holds her values strongly. She made it a point to find reason. Finding that reason lead to discover forgiveness, which showed her the way to the bible as she describes. Still she says “I know things get hard and confusing in our house but, always remember that love can never have one form and forgiveness is the shortest way to heaven.” With a ten-year difference between Haifa, and I. she is always trying to teach me forgiveness. A kind-hearted person can only give you warmth. Even as she lives in Dubai I still feel her everyday. Her ideas of what love could be gives me hope, and shines my way to a nice future maybe on with glittering faces of people with golden hearts.

Feb. 2012, “I waited for the news all night long, it was 5 am when uncle final showed up at grandma’s house. It’s a girl he said she has big green eyes and very small mouth. And when I hear that I promised myself I will always protect you from harms way… the next day we all went to the hospital to meet you. You were so tinny; made all of our hearts grow” that’s how my eldest sister Zeina describes our first meeting. Even with our twelve-year difference, we were always friends. Spending a lot of time with her made me exhibit a lot of her trades, Stubbornness mainly also arts and huge passion for music. We are both graphic designers with colorful personalities and crazy minds. She is a very deep-rooted Islam, always reminding me of gratitude and fairness. Indeed we are both complementary and contracting individuals. Still we find the deepest ways to create love.

I know you are probably wondering about my actual mom, do not worry she still mommies me too. When I was born she was very sick and was not able to take care of me. I spent the first year and half of my life being watched over by my aunt Nana, She is the sweetest person alive, a single thirty-year-old lady, at the time, with a lot of love. Till this day she shares embarrassing pictures of me and talks about my tinny butt. While my mom constantly tries to catch up for the time lost through out my childhood and teenage years, a lot of conflicts are meant to take place, like her misunderstanding toward my artistic passion as well as my unwariness towards explaining my points of views to her. Still, we try to be involved in each other’s lives. Sometimes, She fixes me matte while I paint. Other times we go for sushi. Either way our mother daughter relationship is a work in progress. At this point we are friends. The more I get to know her the more I find myself to be a lot like her. Through her I have learned to express myself gradually and heal my wounds blissfully. I think we will have a very strong friendship in the future. Especial when she takes the time to teach me her crafting skills.

About two years ago my dad came back to live with us in Lebanon. For me the concept of a dad was an abstract one, it was not easy to understand him and adapt my life to his. Admitting that I never made it easy for him as well, we kept on limiting each other’s perception towards our relationship, until one day we finally figured it out. Our most significant trait turned out to be our only common point, art!

So yeah, that is my family, one Islamic sister one Christian and one Druze, a creative mom and a painter for a dad. Oh and a crazy over weight cat! Like all other families we have funny days and boring days but still we manage to keep things going. And as for myself, I am a one from all. I take a lot from my sisters and parents but still I am my own person. As the great words of dr. Seuss “Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!”

Integrity

My clients from Integrity have taken on a new project 

with ETClb in their program #NERD16

related to educational projects with robots 

they asked me to create a new concept for their new direction

and here is what I came up with 

Its a tree!! 

to symbolise their new start 

and here is the rest of the integrations of the new concept

Facebook cover image

newsfeed image

website banner

links: 

http://www.etclb.com

http://www.integrity.me

Thank you for taking the time to see my work 

Please comment below and share your opinions

I love to hear from you :)

Lost In You

Digital art 

50X70 cm

The Grid

          Dotes… dotes everywhere. Growing up in a house with walls full of framed paintings of extreme doting, emotional outrageous expressions with artistic display of strongly contrasted colours.  They have been hung there since I can ever remember. Been told I’m the daughter of an artist. Yes, my father was indeed a painter but, something about being raised up away from him made all of them paintings just a part of the walls of my home.

            What is art? Trying to understand this historical dilemma is truly a journey. As legendary painters and sculptures debate this matter, I stand confused from the realistic impression of the renascence period to the very humble abstract paintings of my father. Majoring in Studio Arts was the only way to help myself realize what art really is. I was already a painter. I know how to paint. I though that knowledge was enough for me to be “the painter”. That couldn’t have been more wrong! After graduating from Techniquical School, I had my first BT degree in graphic design. I rushed into majoring in graphic design as well, thinking its my best option. My ability to paint was not important to me, my art was nothing worth exploring, graphics could offer me more ways to reach my goals, like having a high post job in a hard hitting international company or being a leader in the world of advertising. Despite that, I still was not satisfied. Within the world of graphics I found too much limitations.

         As a resilient graphic designer one should train his or her eye on the concept of grid design and its importance in anything being designed. Soon enough my obsession in the grid concept controlled my life and turned it into a systematic contemplation of my self. Time was running out of my hands, I didn’t even have the time to be me. There was no space in my mind to move away from the grid of thoughts that I, myself constructed in dedication to graphics. The grid was my approach to achieve self-control, which instantly turned into agonizing my own soul.

           Acceptance! I get an email stating my acceptance. I was overwhelmed! And even more surprised to be accepted into Studio Arts. Its not graphics! I thought. How could they think I would be better of as an artist? They don’t know how dedicated I am. I told my self I’m staying there till I can transfer back into graphics. First semester, I started with my art classes, still very overwhelmed, I remember telling my self: “I have to paint… they are making me paint”. Holding my brush after such a long time was very hard. Still it was more challenging to sketch. I watched as other students had no fears of errors and mistakes, they would dance and prance through their paintings as if they have no care in the world. Looking at them made me realize graphics limitations and its effect on me. My break through was when I final apprehended that I should break this grid and just let me be…

            The amount of fear between my brushes and me increased and I silently judged my work. Putting my self down all because I can’t hold my hand steady against an empty canvas. Nevertheless I finally understood that my fear is only because art is asking to be off the grid and into the freedom of naked expressions. So yeah I’m here to stay.

I am that art piece you can never understand

I am not yours anymore 

I never was 

I am the display on the wall 

the object that cannot be touched

the subject that cannot be discussed

the love you cannot love

I am you

Greenberg: on what is art?

From Clements Greenberg: the collected essays and criticism vol.4, ed. John O’Brain (Univ, of Chicago press,1993):

What is art? Clement Greenberg, spent almost all his life critiquing art, yet a lot of enquiries still occur of what is art all about. In his text he explains that Modernist art is a continuation; an extension of the past art eras. However, it preserved a more essential identity for art, that was greatly concealed in the past and masked under the influence that art is a limitation of which should be over pasted. While that is the result of use of critic from within.

According to Greenberg Modernist art is the basic awareness of what the art experience can produce in the use of the old techniques or traditional methods of art in a more mindful way. He relates the rise of modernism to “Kantianism” _[1]. As the philosopher “Kent” used logic to establish the limits of logic, Modernist used the limits of art to establish art itself with itself. In a sense that distinct from the realistic and naturalistic times, the limitation of what a painting can propose was no longer a problem to be concealed but, more of an opportunity to be exposed. The debate, primarily constitute upon the importance of the medium. In the point of which the flatness of the surface or the shape of the support or even the properties of the pigments, were all perceived as negative characteristics of a painting in the Renaissance period. All of which have deviated to be the fundamentals and strong points of the modern art movement.  With that acknowledged, the main concentration was on the expression that the given forms, the textures, the brush strokes, the values and the contrast can be revealed. Greenberg uses Manet’s shunning of the glazes and under painting techniques as an example to prove that paint suppression had indeed no longer served the identity of art _[1]. Manet’s shift toward painting have very well proposed new questions of what art is, that is around were the Impressionist period began. It is later when “Cezanne”, the post-impressionist painter scarified accuracy in his paintings to be able to fit the image in the canvas frame _[1]. Definitely  “Jackson Pollock” adopted this identity and gave it even more meaning with in abstract expressionism. “I want to express my feelings I don’t want to illustrate them,” said Jackson Pollock in his short film. _[2] He explained that sometimes he uses brushes to apply paint but he preferred to simply use a stick as he lays the paint on the paper taped to the ground so he can ramble freely around it. While he likes to use untraditional tools to paint in _[2], Greenburg states that modernism does not damage old value but yet helps create new ones.

This new perspective or view created new set of norms. A fresh approach toward painting and the identity of art is clear. The flatness of the painting, which was first an obstacle, became a vital factor and the brush strokes, which were first to be covered, became the language of art itself. This challenged artist to ask more questions. Further more interrogating art’s existence amongst us and its purpose. This experimentation created the “Avant-garde” movement, the breaking of the norms. Nevertheless, the question of the relationship between art and science was yet to be opened. On one hand the Renaissance implied scientific theories to overcome what they thought was the weakness “the flat surface”. They used the vanishing points, the golden ratio and the grid, all to achieve sculptural illusions, as to overcome the horizontalness and create a third dimensional volume. On the other hand modernist relies on the practice rather than the theory of art, as Greenburg wrote, “the first mark made on a canvas destroys its flatness” _[1]. He argues that science and art meet only in its meth-ology; actually it is all of asking questions and looking for the answers, that might be so complicated that they can’t be answered. Art in the Renaissance period was more of pictorial art were the art it self didn’t matter _[3]. At the time art was a mean to an end or even a tool to deliver certain messages. Modernism is art stands individually as art; it is simply art for art’s sake. 

Greenberg’s definition of modern art is the surpassing of the norms of the pervious art to the very limit of abstraction. It is simply creating images rather than pictures. _[1] Modern art should be approached by everyone but not understood by everyone. Greenberg’s understanding of what art should be have certainly shifted the ideality of art to be more of what art itself can be. His worries about art losing its identity in between all the new perspectives have pushed the bar of criticism. But did art lose its identity or did it simply gain a new one identity ?

references:

[1] – From Clements Greenberg: the collected essays and criticism vol.4, ed. John O’Brain (Univ, of Chicago press,1993

[2] - The film of Jackson Pollock painting - shot by Hans Namuth (1950) and released as "Jackson Pollock 51" (1951)

[3] – Www.youtube.com <‪The Animated Theories of Clement Greenberg >

 ‪http://www.judithshimer.com‪ Clement Greenberg sits at a bar and explains how art almost survived, but then it didn't.

Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zozMksqnYk