It is difficult to be unskilled and sad. How will you express yourself? How will you at least release the pain from your heart instead of turning it into comfort? Perhaps this is what I felt during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a difficult and suffocating time. I was growing and changing. I had so much to say, to express, or to object to as life became more serious at the age of fourteen.
During that age, that period, and amidst all these changes, I began to draw. I drew my feelings and emotions on anything I could find: notebook covers, scraps of paper, even the small empty spaces left in my old notebooks. I wasn’t the only one happy to discover myself in the world of drawing; my family was even more delighted. The budding artist I was brought smiles to my family’s faces with every emotion I poured out.
In addition to my family, others celebrated my drawing. Photographer Mohammed Al-Hazzaa visited our camp and asked about talented children. He photographed my drawings and shared them on social media. After a while, I forgot about the incident and didn’t pin my hopes on it, thinking he would forget as others did.
I was wrong. Hazzaa, as we later came to call him, did not forget about me. He contacted us to tell me that the “Creativity Center” was waiting for my talent and that I would learn and find everything I needed there. Indeed, I joined, and I started learning to draw like real artists. After losing my home, I found a sense of “home” at the Creativity Center, filled with love and care.
I started drawing on sketchbooks, boards, and canvases, using many colors. My drawings were dark and mysterious, expressing sadness more than any other feeling. But now, they have become more colorful and fluid. Not just because I learned to draw at the center, but because I learned optimism.
I dream of becoming a chemist. I prefer this subject in school and study it diligently. So, I will become a chemist who is also an artist, proficient at expressing what’s inside. And who knows? Maybe I’ll invent new colors with chemical compounds and paint world-class paintings.