When I decided to become a full-time portrait artist back in 2003, I never imagined that I’d get featured shortly afterwards.
I landed my first solo exhibition in my hometown in Melaka, Malaysia. Getting featured in The New Straits Times Malaysia was the highlight of this exhibition. That became the official start of my art career.
Not too long after that, I got an opportunity to have my Princess Diana’s portrait featured in an international book featuring Princess Diana’s portraits, alongside 150 other artists.
While working on the portraits, I was also preparing to migrate to the United States in 2006.
And prior to the book being published in the UK, I got featured in the LA’s Daily News and then in two top women’s magazines in Malaysia, Majalah Nona and Majalah Mingguan Wanita.
When I look back, that was the success of my first home based company.
After the coffee table book, ‘Diana in Art’, was published in the UK in 2008, I decided to quit my portrait business for good!
Pivoting My Creative Focus
Giving up portrait painting was the hardest decision of my life, especially since I’d been practicing those skills since I was a kid. But, I needed to please God so I persevered. As God said in the Quran, if you leave something for Him, He will replace it with something even better. I truly believed in that, yet I couldn’t help but still feel sad about leaving portraiture behind.
At the time, I was focusing on homeschooling my children and also learning deeper about Islam. I didn’t produce a lot of artwork during this time period.
My husband introduced me to paper crafting because I was into creating my own line of Islamic greeting cards. I learned in depth about paper crafting and became as good at it as I was with fine art.
I was actually deviating from my true path in art.
Then everything changed. At the beginning of 2018, after neglecting painting with pastels, due to my focus on paper crafting, I made a conscious decision to go back to it. I also decided to focus on new subjects, still life and florals.
The Search for a New Meaning to My Work
Years after the coffee table book, Diana in Art, was published, I searched for a new project or something that would define me and my work as an artist.
Prior to that, I had only painted a couple of flower paintings with pastel. But now I had decided to do a variety of subjects, like fruits and a few different types of food.
But still, I wanted something really meaningful that could define me as an artist. I still struggled to find the true meaning in my work after all leaving the portrait business behind years ago.
However, I knew that my paintings could bring inner peace, because that’s how I felt every time I do them, peaceful and very connected to myself. That’s what I want to bring into my art and I want to bring it to my audience and my collectors.
This Could Be My X Factor Project
One day while teaching my youngest son about Art, all of a sudden, I got this idea to search for the national flowers of the world. I told my son, let’s see if there’s a book about the national flowers of all the countries in the world.
So we searched, clicking page after page, but we couldn’t find anything. I was frustrated.
I looked at my son and asked, “What if I painted all these flowers and created a coffee table book, just like the Diana in Art book? But instead of gathering work from artists all over the world, I painted every single flower myself?”
The light bulb went off; I was thrilled with this idea!
A seed of happiness has taken root in me now that I’ve found my purpose. I feel like this is finally my chance to contribute something meaningful to the world through my art.
Did my excitement bloom or wither? Stay tuned for the upcoming post.
Stay kreatif,
Siti
