When I started my atelier, people kept asking me the same question: “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
Every time, I felt myself tremble. It is an ordinary question, the kind asked in job interviews and business plans. But it was never ordinary for me.
Since 1975, Lebanon has been, and still is, a minefield. How could anyone ask me to picture five years from now when I could not be sure of tomorrow? I could not promise myself that I would be alive, or safe, or even living in this country. A plan that long felt like a luxury for other people.
What I had instead was instinct. Long before I had an atelier, I was a child who drew on anything within reach: paper scraps, discarded fabric, even wood and glass. Nobody planned it. It was a need, as natural as breathing. That need, along with a deep love of classical music and painting, led me to study Plastic Arts, and it never left me.
Life, however, tested me. I was widowed young, with two daughters to raise. It took effort, commitment, and discipline to keep creating through those years, and some days my only plan was to get through the day and return to my work. My faith and my resilient spirit carried me. I did not have a five-year plan. I had a reason to get up and begin again.
Now I have completed 24 years in this work. Not 5. Not 10, 15 or even 20. Twenty-four. And next year, if God allows, I will celebrate 25 years: five times five years. Did I see it coming? No, not even close. I followed my instinct and my passion for what I do, one day at a time.
Those years are in everything I make. In pewter, rooted in Phoenician heritage, I shaped reliefs that pair traditional ornament with a contemporary eye, each designed and made entirely in Lebanon. In acrylic, I paint figures, landscapes and abstract compositions where colour and movement carry emotion. People sometimes ask why I do not stay within a single style.
My answer is that life is not one thing, and I draw it in all its aspects. I also teach, leading art workshops for women and children, because creative confidence can be learned and shared.
Life is not fair. It can be cruel. But I have learned that it also gives us opportunities and opens doors from nowhere, in ways we never expect, so that we can keep going. It asks only that we stay faithful: that we believe in God, believe in our own capability, and never give up what we are doing or dreaming of.
So, where do I see myself in five years? Honestly, I still cannot say. But I know what I will be doing, if God allows: creating, with my hands in pewter and paint, where my art comes from.
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