DCA Fine Art

I have been blessed with the opportunity to see many places in our world. I want to see with no preconceived notions or stories, to bear witness to what it is to live here and there.

My journey to Syria was very special. I traveled with my boyfriend, the artist and writer Mark Blatchford. We were very lucky to be able to go in the summer 2010, and now, in 2012, it saddens me to think that Syria is being torn apart. Political agendas aside, I would like to share some of what we saw, learned and experienced.

Syria is a very old land that has places    that have not been touched for millennia; places that slowly and quietly melt back into the landscape. Mark and I got a chance to visit Damascus, the oldest continuously occupied city in the world going back for over three thousand years. There we found a vibrant bustling city untouched by our mass produced goods. We could see traces of their past still lingering, roman walls, crumbling, built holes in the old buildings and mosques with Coptic and Jewish  pasts.

I was walking down a street taking pictures and this little boy jumped out as I snapped.

The old market with its bullet pocked roof, a reminder of past battles.

I saw this women in the old market. She found a way to express her self while complying with the letter of shaira, but perhaps not the spirit.

We found this craftsman making knifes. Everywhere we saw things being done they way they had been done for hundreds of years one by one.

In Damascus, the streets seemed timeless.

Driving through the roads of Syria sights I could have never imagined flashed past my eyes.

Even now, in my day today life, my mind wonders back to Syria, back to Damascus, I wonder if these places are still there. I hope that they survive todays turmoils. I have pictures and stories that I long to share. I have born witness to what was there.