MY WORK, MY PASSIONS, MYSELF IN MANY FORMS.

a design collaboration with my husband.

aN Example I created for a Typography unit.

aN Example I created for  Black History month.

A photoshop creation for the amazing " Memory Project"

A Play shed I made for my kids FroM 90% recycled Materials

A self Portrait example for "Designed" photography.

A Poster to bring awareness to indingenious land rights

Charcoal drawing from a figure drawing class

 pencil drawing example for JH ART "Smush Face"

A collaboration with my AP Art Students for the VANs custom competition. Our shoes were Seattle themed

Colored pencil drawing from HS. Pandas are still my Favorite

A briefcase I made in a woodworking class. It is made from Purple heart wood and window latches

During a summer abroad study in italy, I became FASCINATED WITH THE PLETHORA OF DEPICTIONS OF MADONNA AND CHILD. THESE ARE TWO OF MY OWN VERSIONS, WATERCOLOR AND MIXED MEDIA MATERIALS. 

A BENT PLYWOOD TABLE I MADE IN MY FAVORITE COLLEGE CLASS, FURNITURE DESIGN. WITH MY FAVORITE TEACHER STAN

A PHOTO I TOOK IN IRELAND DURING MY STUDY ABROAD

ONE OF MY FAVORITE PHOTOS OF MY GRANDPA, BACK WHEN I DEVELOPED THE FILM AND PICTURE MYSELF IN A DARK ROOM

A CHRISTMAS GIFT I MADE FOR MY OLDEST SON, WHO IS A BIG FAN OF BRACELONA

THIS writing is a part of a 75 day challenge in which I committed to writing for 30 mins a day.

My children were not afforded the luxury of innocence. And of course, before I became an adoptive parent, I didn’t even realize that innocence was not guaranteed. Adoption is, in and of itself, robbing a child of their innocence. The natural order of life is disrupted and therefore trauma occurs. The nature of adoption is that it starts with disruption. Even the most “peaceful” adoption starts with disruption of a family. Each of my children came into my family in very different ways, they have very different stories. These stories are their own to share, not mine.  I can tell you that being adopted was hard on all of them. Hard in different ways and at different seasons of their life, but hard nonetheless. They lost their parents, that’s excruciating, There is an innocence lost right from the beginning. For my children, being a different color than my husband and I is another area of lost innocence. They are asked tough questions that most kids don’t get asked. They also lost their nation. As much as we try to stay connected to the Ethiopian community in our city, they still lost the privilege of living in the land of their birth, of speaking the language of their native tongue. Trauma is the respector of no person. all these losses add trauma to my children’s lives. Trauma is also consequently the remover of innocence. All three of my children know more about the world, the difficulties of life and the realities of hard circumstance than most adults I know. Add to this the fact that they are Black in America. Actually, they are Ethiopian in America, but they aren’t afforded that level of distinction most of the time. At 6 and 9 my kids had to hear about and understand that they could not attend a certain school anymore because the administration was not willing to address the racial disparities. At 11, 9 and 6 months my kids started over completely and came to a new country, with a new language, new expectations, and new white parents. At 16 MY son must face the realities of driving while Black. At 8 my youngest watched a man die under the knee of a police officer. At 12 my daughter faced the fact that she is far behind her peers because she only started speaking English and going to school at 9. They simply were not afforded the privilege of innocence and As their parent I know the world will not be kind if they remained ignorant of certain things. I have to teach my kids what to say when people ask, “Where’s your real mom?” I have to ask the Black men and women in our circle to talk to them about what to do when they are pulled over and explain why they have to have their ID on them at all times. I must explain to my daughter why she must be careful how she dresses because people are going to assume she is older than she really is and possibly project adultification on her young body.  My Kids DON't GET The Privilege of Innocence.  Thankfully, Everything is not completely lost, we still have sweet moments of not knowing or assuming the best. I got to see the joy in my son’s face when he drove for the first time. I gET to watch as my daughter enjoys her Ethiopian food, which we are lucky to be able to buy from our Ethiopian community. I still get to see the love of learning about new athlete’s and activist in my youngest.  But there are undertones in each of these experiences that “come with the territory” of being adopted, of being Black, of being refugees, of being a part of a bi-racial family. Undertones that in small and big ways strip my children of the privilege of innocence.