"This is not merely a statement; it is a declaration. A roar from the depths of the creative spirit, echoing through the canyons of convention and shattering the chains of expectation. For too long, the boundless force of art has been confined, categorized, and diminished. For too long, the inherent creativity within each of us, especially within women, has been stifled by the whispers of doubt and the shouts of societal decree. No more. This manifesto is a rebellion, an uprising of the soul, a defiant embrace of the truth: I Am What I Art." Fadwa Al Qasem
I wrote this manifesto many years ago, and like me it has continued to evolve. I wrote it to keep myself on track. To remind myself why I make art when the world gives me a hundred reasons not to. It quickly found its own momentum, resonating with women who recognized something of themselves in it.
I Am What I Art is everything I am: Palestinian, Canadian, artist, author, daughter, sister, wife, mother. A woman born in Libya who has lived in many countries and found home in the page. A woman with a gypsy's spirit who paints women's bodies without apology, writes about displacement without self-pity, and makes tenderness as a form of resistance. Someone who believes that making beautiful things in difficult times is not an escape. It is a position.
I Am What I Art is everything I am: Palestinian, Canadian, artist, author, daughter, sister, wife, mother. A woman born in Libya who has lived in many countries and found home in the page. A woman with a gypsy's spirit who paints women's bodies without apology, writes about displacement without self-pity, and makes tenderness as a form of resistance. Someone who believes that making beautiful things in difficult times is not an escape. It is a position.
I Am What I Art Manifesto
Read the full manifesto below or click here to download
I don't know how not to make art.
Not as a boast. As a fact. As the most honest thing I can tell you about myself. When I am not painting large canvases I am filling A5 journals with marks. When I am not writing I am testing yarns together to see what they say to each other. I love color. I love line. I love the sound watercolor paper makes when it crinkles after drying. I love the moment someone stands in front of my work and asks — what is this? I have loved making things since I was a child — macramé, knitting, crochet, glass engraving, embroidery, the piano, the flute. I have never been able to stop. Even when I sat in corporate offices doing work that was never mine, I was writing in the margins, sketching on the back of meeting notes, counting the hours until I could go home and make something real.
That was my first act of resistance. It was also my longest.
I am Palestinian.
I was born in Tripoli, Libya, to Palestinian parents, which means displacement was written into my story before I could read. I have lived in many countries. I have left things behind in all of them. I visited Palestine for the first time in 2012 — eight days that I have never fully left. I stood at the Allenby Bridge with my Canadian passport and my Palestinian name and entered my own country as a tourist. I cried when I reached Jerusalem. I still cry.
I am also a woman. Which means I have spent a significant portion of my life being told what my body means, what my creativity is worth, what I am permitted to say and show and feel. Men told me I had no shame when I painted the female nude. Others assumed that a woman who paints naked bodies must herself be available. I did not respond to any of them. I simply kept painting and kept posting.
Until two journalists in the Arab world came to interview me about the work.
Gypsy's soul.
I have a tattoo on my wrist that says gypsy's soul. I have another on my ankle that says love and compassion. These are not decorations. They are a record of what I have decided to be.
I am 63 years old. I have converted my garage in Calpe, Spain into a studio. Outside the window there is a rock — la Peñon de Ifach — that rises out of the sea like something that refused to be ordinary. I look at it every day.
I have earned the right to be here. Not from anyone else; from myself. From the version of me that spent years conforming, that swallowed her fire in order to pay the bills, that created in stolen hours and lunch breaks and the quiet after everyone else had gone to sleep. That woman paid for this studio. That woman earned this morning, these colors, this freedom.
This is what I believe. Not as a rule for others; as truths I have lived into.
Creativity is not a talent. It is a need. Like water. Like air. Like the crinkle of paper drying after watercolor. It cannot be postponed indefinitely without cost. I know because I tried.
The body is not shameful. Not the female body, not the naked body, not the body that has aged or given birth or survived illness or carried grief. The body is the most honest subject I know. I will keep painting it.
Making beautiful things in difficult times is not an escape. It is a position. Gaza is burning as I write this. I am safe in Spain and I carry that fact with me every day; the guilt of safety, the gratitude for it, the responsibility it creates. I make art because silence is not neutral. Because beauty is not frivolous. Because a woman who picks up a brush instead of looking away is making a choice about what she believes the world deserves.
Recognition matters; but only the right kind. I am cynical about prizes and institutions and the gatekeepers of taste. What I want is simpler and harder to manufacture: a woman standing in front of my work and taking it home immediately because something in it said yes to something in her. That circuit completing. That is the only validation that has ever felt entirely real.
Tenderness is radical. In a world that rewards hardness, choosing tenderness; in the work, in the life, in the way you move through difficulty, is an act of rebellion. I make fiberarts that demand to be touched. I write about my mother. I plant love and compassion on my skin. I plants olive and avocado trees. I mean all of it.
I want to be 95 years old and look back at a body of work that spoke to women. That gave them joy, power, beauty, something to find themselves in. I want younger women to see that you can make art well into your old age, that the fire does not have to diminish, that the gypsy's soul does not have to settle.
I am not interested in being remembered by institutions. I am interested in the woman who took my painting home and hung it where she sees it every morning.
I am Palestinian. I am Canadian. I am an artist, an author, a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother. I was born in Libya and I live in Spain and I have found home in every page I have ever filled.
I do not know how not to make art.
That is everything.
4 April 2026, Calpe, Spain
Not as a boast. As a fact. As the most honest thing I can tell you about myself. When I am not painting large canvases I am filling A5 journals with marks. When I am not writing I am testing yarns together to see what they say to each other. I love color. I love line. I love the sound watercolor paper makes when it crinkles after drying. I love the moment someone stands in front of my work and asks — what is this? I have loved making things since I was a child — macramé, knitting, crochet, glass engraving, embroidery, the piano, the flute. I have never been able to stop. Even when I sat in corporate offices doing work that was never mine, I was writing in the margins, sketching on the back of meeting notes, counting the hours until I could go home and make something real.
That was my first act of resistance. It was also my longest.
I am Palestinian.
I was born in Tripoli, Libya, to Palestinian parents, which means displacement was written into my story before I could read. I have lived in many countries. I have left things behind in all of them. I visited Palestine for the first time in 2012 — eight days that I have never fully left. I stood at the Allenby Bridge with my Canadian passport and my Palestinian name and entered my own country as a tourist. I cried when I reached Jerusalem. I still cry.
I am also a woman. Which means I have spent a significant portion of my life being told what my body means, what my creativity is worth, what I am permitted to say and show and feel. Men told me I had no shame when I painted the female nude. Others assumed that a woman who paints naked bodies must herself be available. I did not respond to any of them. I simply kept painting and kept posting.
Until two journalists in the Arab world came to interview me about the work.
Gypsy's soul.
I have a tattoo on my wrist that says gypsy's soul. I have another on my ankle that says love and compassion. These are not decorations. They are a record of what I have decided to be.
I am 63 years old. I have converted my garage in Calpe, Spain into a studio. Outside the window there is a rock — la Peñon de Ifach — that rises out of the sea like something that refused to be ordinary. I look at it every day.
I have earned the right to be here. Not from anyone else; from myself. From the version of me that spent years conforming, that swallowed her fire in order to pay the bills, that created in stolen hours and lunch breaks and the quiet after everyone else had gone to sleep. That woman paid for this studio. That woman earned this morning, these colors, this freedom.
This is what I believe. Not as a rule for others; as truths I have lived into.
Creativity is not a talent. It is a need. Like water. Like air. Like the crinkle of paper drying after watercolor. It cannot be postponed indefinitely without cost. I know because I tried.
The body is not shameful. Not the female body, not the naked body, not the body that has aged or given birth or survived illness or carried grief. The body is the most honest subject I know. I will keep painting it.
Making beautiful things in difficult times is not an escape. It is a position. Gaza is burning as I write this. I am safe in Spain and I carry that fact with me every day; the guilt of safety, the gratitude for it, the responsibility it creates. I make art because silence is not neutral. Because beauty is not frivolous. Because a woman who picks up a brush instead of looking away is making a choice about what she believes the world deserves.
Recognition matters; but only the right kind. I am cynical about prizes and institutions and the gatekeepers of taste. What I want is simpler and harder to manufacture: a woman standing in front of my work and taking it home immediately because something in it said yes to something in her. That circuit completing. That is the only validation that has ever felt entirely real.
Tenderness is radical. In a world that rewards hardness, choosing tenderness; in the work, in the life, in the way you move through difficulty, is an act of rebellion. I make fiberarts that demand to be touched. I write about my mother. I plant love and compassion on my skin. I plants olive and avocado trees. I mean all of it.
I want to be 95 years old and look back at a body of work that spoke to women. That gave them joy, power, beauty, something to find themselves in. I want younger women to see that you can make art well into your old age, that the fire does not have to diminish, that the gypsy's soul does not have to settle.
I am not interested in being remembered by institutions. I am interested in the woman who took my painting home and hung it where she sees it every morning.
I am Palestinian. I am Canadian. I am an artist, an author, a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother. I was born in Libya and I live in Spain and I have found home in every page I have ever filled.
I do not know how not to make art.
That is everything.
4 April 2026, Calpe, Spain
