The testament of my life

A Living Testimony

I did not arrive in this world with a map. Like many, I entered life quietly, carried by love, shaped by expectations, and launched forward with hopes that were already defined before I could name myself. My parents gave me what they had; belief, effort, and a vision of success drawn from survival. I honor that gift. Yet somewhere along the way, another calling awakened within me: not the ambition of recognition, but the demand of the inner life.

This hunger could not be satisfied by titles, approval, or material arrival. It asked for something deeper for listening, for patience and the courage to walk without applause. It asked me to build from within.

Today, I live between two worlds. One is immediate, loud, and restless. This world asks for reaction, outrage, and emotional participation in cycles of violence that rarely offer meaning. The other world is quieter and far more demanding. It is the world of my work. My collection. My full investment as an artist.

Yet, just because I chose this second world, I have often been misunderstood. Detachment is mistaken for indifference. Silence is interpreted as absence. But my distance is not escape — it is devotion. Creation requires solitude. Vision demands discipline. What looks like withdrawal is, in truth, concentration.

I built this body of work with almost nothing. No guarantees. No financial stability. At times, no phone, no employment, no external support. What sustained me was not comfort, but conviction. I carried a responsibility to give form to what is often left invisible: displaced memories, exile, spiritual fracture, inherited wounds, and the quiet endurance of uprooted lives. This work is not decoration. It is testimony.

The deepest pain emerged when faith itself became a point of accusation. When those who should have offered shelter measured devotion only through material outcomes. When belief was used as a tool of judgment rather than grace. My faith was seen as fragile, as something easily struck, yet it was the very structure that kept me standing. It was never an ornament. It was armor.

I walk a narrow path between institutional expectations and the raw urgency of artistic survival. Between belief and visibility. Between promise and patience. This tension is not theoretical; it is lived daily. And still, I continue.

This is not passive waiting. It is resistance. It is labor. It is the daily refusal to abandon the call even when doors remain closed and recognition delayed. My life does not end at rejection. My work does not collapse under misunderstanding. I move forward anchored by a promise that completion is not accidental.

What may appear as struggle is, in truth, a testament in motion. A record written through discipline, endurance, and faithfulness. One day, this path will be read clearly — not as a story of lack, but as evidence of perseverance. And within it, others may recognize something familiar: the quiet strength of someone who did not turn away from their calling, even when the cost was high.

This is my testament. Still being written.