Diya Studio

I met Mandi Whitten of http://weensyweb.com/ a few years ago and our friendship has grown since then. We did a beautiful exhibition together called http://athreadawebaworld.com/ which not only narrated the story of Henna as it traveled through the land and time but also gave us a chance to explore more deeper into our passion, as a result making the whole journey of putting the exhibition together such an amazing experience, which I look back at today and feel extremely blessed.

Every time I meet her she teaches me something new, guides me about people here and helps me understand the western world a bit better. We don’t usually agree on everything obviously, as we come from such different backgrounds, but we still accept each other as who we are and to me in a friendship or any relationship that’s the most important thing ever. She has helped and opened so many doors for me and I truly feel special in her presence. I have grown so fond of her, that refusing her has become a problem and in beginning of this year she told me about her desire of having a tattoo and would like me to design it for her. Obviously I couldnt refuse her and started working on something that would tell a story of me and her.

I was surprised and slightly shocked that someone would like my work on their body forever, and not get bored of it. I still cant believe it that she carries me with her 24/7. I am short on words how it makes me feel, so the simplest way of saying it for me would be, ‘…to be with her is a blessing, to be on her is an honor, to be in her is friendship and to be her is love!’

The picture above is the Peacock I design for her, with the Henna painted around it. I call it, ‘ Cheeky Peeky’. It’s placed on the inside of Mandi’s left arm, and it’s not always visible to everyone, it only peeks out to people she feels close to and with whom she is happy to share cheeky with.

I feel like this piece symbolizes a few things for me, one that I will always be in Mandi’s life, reminding her how wonderful our friendship is, has been and will be. I have been requested to design more so the patterns keeps growing and that to me means our friendship will grow with time giving us lots of moments we will treasure always.  On a very different level it also reminds me again and again how welcome I have felt coming in Australia, that people here not only want to be with me today but want to rememeber the time spent with me for as long as they live.

Hopefully I’ll design the next bit of the tattoo soon, and then will update you guys about it. It has been a long journey for me, being able to say yes to something so permanent, but as you all would know by now, my relationships are the the most important things in my life…and by giving such a permanent gift to Mandi, I feel even stronger about my them and my desire to remember the people I love so much, forever till life and time allows.

This entry was written by Humna Mustafa, posted on 17 March 2010 at 9:09 am, filed under DiyaStudio. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.