Littles Pieces Make The Big Picture

From the age of 12 I began to spend time in my father’s office/makeshift studio in the basement of our home. It was a three-story greek-style house with white walls and blue windows. Most of the homes in my neighbourhood in Tunis, Tunisia were built that way. A stark contrast to the earth-coloured brick-built London home I live in today. My father was a diplomat by day and an artist by night. His heroes were the likes of Rex Lawson and B.B King. His studio was in the same space as the children’s living/play area; tucked in the back corner, adjacent to the small but loud laundry room and opposite the door that leads into the garage. Whenever I was home from boarding school, my days stated early and finished late. I would watch copious amounts of television and spend hours in his studio playing his guitars and writing songs. Every evening, after the sun had died, I would be jolted back to reality by the sound of his Mercedes CLK320 shouting at the gate. I’d quickly rearrange everything as I had found it and plant myself in front of the TV again. My younger brother reminded me of this recently. Somehow I had forgotten those years. Memories leave when you don’t give them attention. Especially the foundational ones – that era is the backbone to my entire life. When I left home for good, I took that basement studio with me. Till today the walls of my mind always have words written in white chalk and black ink – crossed out, underlined; stanzas, paragraphs, poems – finished and unfinished. All those hours and years I had given to that basement had given me something in return, love and power. I had fallen in love with words. But it took 16 years to learn how to manage her power.

We consume more words than we speak. We have two ears, two eyes, two nostrils but just one mouth. So by design, it was meant to be that way. However, the danger is that though we consume intentionally and consciously, we also consume words unintentionally and unconsciously. For most of our lives, words are given to us – and we have to accept them. The unfortunate result is that we are therefore ruled by them. The things our friends say. The good ones and the bad ones. The things our teachers said. The good ones and the bad ones. The things are parents said. The good ones and the bad ones. If you care to excavate deep enough into your soul, you will realise that your joy and your scars trace back to words. Even the moving pictures that life gives to the world through us, in the form of memories, can only be passed on through words. The good and the bad ones. Who we are today is an amalgamation of everything we have seen and heard up until now. What we think, what we speak, what we do, how we behave – a result of words. So if the words that make us, are not all words we have chosen to consume then – are we really who we want to be? Or are meant to be? Or are we doomed to be powerless to the good and bad words of other powerless people?

________

There’s a small fire at the end of the boundary.

Challenge is the bridge forward.

Are you fed up of traveling and fighting?

Or do you still dream?

Please don’t get tired.

Little pieces make the big picture.

You’ll get there eventually

For now, in between time and chance,

Fall in love with the suspense.

It’s safer there.

________

I didn’t want to be powerless anymore. The global lockdown showed me how desperate I was for power; for safety. If I cannot control circumstances, and I cannot control what other people say and do – then what can I control? How do I protect myself from other people’s perspectives? The answer that I came up with, is what inspires the art that I create today and the joy it gives to me. I realised that all the narratives that come from other people, the media, my mind – are not pictures set in stone but rather, they are puzzles. Notions and ideas that can be deconstructed and reconstructed to suit the narrative that supports my mental wellbeing. It is why I cut out words and letter from newspapers and rearrange them as poems on paintings. It reminds me that the power of words is not in the words themselves but rather in their ability to take any shape you put them into. Whenever I create a piece, it reminds me that negative sentiments that are carried by words, are puzzle pieces that once pulled apart, completely lose their power and meaning. Context is malleable. Stories and opinions are as fleeting as I will them to be. Ugly stories can become beautiful poems. The only requirement is that I take time to build the beliefs that I want to govern my life – and actively shield them from what the world has to say.

The basement of my childhood home taught me how to construct words. Life has taught me, through pain and joy, how to deconstruct words. Combining the two, I create my happiness. At 28 years of age, I have my own office/makeshift studio. As well as a 14-month old daughter. I hope to build a home for her that will give her the foundation she needs to find her own solutions in this world. Like my father did for me.