I didn’t expect to cry when I sold this

At my monthly stall at Edinburgh’s Grassmarket market I was speaking to @amwhogirl, an author and lover of Scotland who was visiting from Canada. She has become a friend as she always stops by my stall when she visits Scotland, and we talk regularly on Instagram. We were whiling away the autumn day talking about travelling and absent friends and writing and mountains when I noticed a group of people looking at my Mahsa Amini picture. I said hello and they replied ‘”thank you for raising awareness”.

I asked them if they were Iranian – they were. The daughter lives in Glasgow and told me how moved she was that people in Scotland supported change in Iran, joining protests and demonstrations in both Glasgow and Edinburgh. She then said she would buy the picture, at which point her father stepped in and opened his wallet. It was extremely moving to see the reaction of the whole family to seeing their flag and the ‘Woman Life Freedom’ card with a short description of what had happened to Mahsa Amini on a market stall over 3,000 miles away from home. I was quite overcome and absolutely delighted that the picture is going to go to Iran, where it belongs.

Here’s the background:-

My youngest son is a similar age to Mahsa (Jina) Amini who died in September 2022, aged only 22. She had been arrested by the “Guidance Patrol” for wearing her hijab incorrectly and died in custody a few days later. Officials say she died of a heart attack. Many question this. Her death sparked protests across Iran with women removing their hijabs, cutting their hair and dancing in public – all of these things are prohibited for women in Iran. The slogan Woman Life Freedom has been adopted by protestors.

Why do I care about Iran?

As a teenager I spent hours listening to a vinyl 12″ of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade, and although the composer denied it, it is evocative of Arabian Nights and Sinbad. This was before the days of wireless headphones so I had to stay close to the record player, completely absorbed in the music by large orange noise-cancelling headphones. I’m glad my dad had been a hi-fi enthusiast and had some superb equipment. I created images of the colours, sounds and smells of Persia while listening and although I have never visited Iran, I hope I’m not too far off.

One of my favourite books is Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel, Persepolis. This is an autobiographical account, in pictures, of the impact of the fall of the Shah of Iran and the growth of the Islamic Revolution as seen from a young girl’s perspective. It’s a wonderful book. I’m not usually a fan of graphic novels and have never really liked comics (apart from Calvin and Hobbes) but this book told so much through simple, moving, personal pictures. Marjane manages to say in a single picture what would take pages of words to convey. If you want to find out about what happened in the 1970s/1980s, I thoroughly recommend this book. 

I want my art to make people think, question, want to find out more. This stained glass portrait of Mahsa Amini is framed in zinc and based on my own drawing of Mahsa with the colours of the Iranian flag behind her silhouette. She’s wearing a hijab as she was when she was arrested. Or is she? Perhaps this is her hair.

Take a look at my Shop to see if it’s still for sale but more importantly leave a comment and tell me what you think.

Woman Life Freedom

Persepolis

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