From a medical assistant to a fervent sketcher, Abear Awad yearns through her artwork for the Palestinian heritage. Born and raised in California in 1975, Awad moved years later to Deir Dabwan, a village near Ramallah city in Palestine where her family believed that it was the best place to learn about the Palestinian culture, language, and heritage.
In 1987, and after two years of the eruption of the First Intifada, Awad’s family went back to the United States so Abear could finish her high school and then enroll in Rutgers University.
“Residing in Palestine was among the best experiences I’ve ever had as it taught me to shape further resilience and responsibility,” Awad stated. “But, moving back to the States at an early age was the hardest as I acknowledged that Palestine was still suffering sternly” she added.
This touching experience, and with the support of her folks at her current official position as a medical assistant in New Jersey, Abear has enthused herself to kickoff her artwork via sketching detailed doodles to embrace the Palestinian heritage.
“At first, it was all about connecting lines and merging assorted types of circles and squares, until I started professionally doodling complicated yet fascinating flowers to become geometric lines,” Abear told Kayani Project.
Despite perceiving her artwork as a hobby, Abear was keen to invest her ultimate passion in correlating her art pieces to issues of her interest, the biggest of which is Palestine. Starting with an unsophisticated Palestine map drawn on canvas, reaching to sketching a meaningful key that resembled the right to return using mosques, churches, and figures that had the Palestinian heritage embedded within them.
“When you look at the piece, you see everything that represents Palestine within the key, something that I am proud of because it conveys what Palestine means to me,” Abear mentioned.
In order to showcase and sell her work, Abear is running a website called ‘Doodles by Abear Awad’.
Awad is also a single mom who is presently raising three kids on her own, and unlike what some societies claim, she never considered this as a taboo. In fact, Awad believes that her talent has allowed her to become goal-oriented and strong enough advocates for other women’s right to reach their independence and break any stereotypes correlated to single mothers.
“Today is the time to break the cycle of toxic marriages for the sake of raising happy and emotionally healthy kids.”
Even though Abear has lived in Palestine for 13 consecutive years, she still doesn’t feel any less Palestinian than everyone else, and that is beautifully shown in an episode of her artistic doodles of elegant olive tree branches and the Palestinian Thoub.