Becoming an Artist: Etel Adnan | Tate Kids

Artist and writer Ettel Adnan grew up in a world full of languages. She was born in Lebanon in 1925. Ettel's mother spoke Greek while her Syrian father spoke Arabic. It's hard to be married to someone if you don't understand what they say. Her parents were talking about her. Turks with each other at home. Young Ettel also learned to speak French at school, so from day one her brain must have been very busy with so many sounds and words swirling around her when she was a child. Attile directed her curiosity toward the world around her and she liked it.

She plays with her dog, explores the flowers in her garden, and finds beauty in everyday things, from the shape of an egg to the pattern of a Persian rug or the gentle slope of an Arabic text. She spent many afternoons copying lines from her father's Arabic books in the kitchen. table it is not surprising that ettel loved words she wrote her first poem when she was 20 years old a love story between the sun and the sea shortly after she moved to paris and then to the united s

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s to study and write in america ettel se She became a professor at a university and taught different ways of thinking and looking at art.

One day her friend Anne asked her why she wasn't a painter considering she loved art enough to talk about it all day with her students. Ettel's first thought was but my mother said that. I was too clumsy, her friend Ann replied, and you believed her after this. Ettel began painting every free moment she could find. Instead of using a paintbrush, she created her paintings with a palette knife. She covered canvases with cheerful block shapes that might make you think of mountains. skyes water and ettel's childhood friend from beirut the beating sun, she also created works with ceramic and paper tapestries and eventually began to combine her love of words with her love of images.

Etzel began making folding paper books that she covered with watercolor paint and the calligraphy of her homeland, she called these works her work. Etzel has been painting for over 50 years and writing for over 70. She once said : Do what your inner soul tells you to do, regardless of the money or success it will bring you, imagine how different your life is. It would have been if Ettel was afraid to listen to the call of her inner soul. Can you think of an art form you always wanted to try but were nervous about? You may not be good at trying.

You'll probably enjoy it and you might end up surprising someone in your family.