The Sound That Found Me
Many people asked me why i draw bells?
It began in Florence.
I had been living there for a while, walking the stone streets, wandering aimlessly, letting the city guide me. It was the bells that stopped me in my tracks—unexpectedly, gently. They rang from every corner of the city, each one with its own voice, its own rhythm. They didn’t just mark the hour; they created a moment. A pause. A presence.
Without realizing it, I began to wait for them. To walk with them. To listen.
Then, one day, I went home and started drawing bells. Dozens and Dozenz of them. I didn’t think. I didn’t plan. My hand just moved. The shapes appeared again and again tall, bowed, fragmented, glowing. I took one to a small frame shop in Florence. The man behind the counter looked puzzled. “I’ve never seen anyone draw bells like this,” he said. Then he smiled. “You are la ragazza delle campane.” Then started calling me La donna della campana—The Bell Woman.
It was then that I realized this was more than a sketch. It had become a calling.
I dove deeper. I began reading about the history of bells—their sacred, political, and even violent past. I learned that during the wars in Germany, thousands of bells were melted down to make weapons. They called them the bells of war. The irony tore at me—objects meant to call people to prayer, to gather, to mourn, turned into tools of destruction.
But bells also heal.
The more I listened, the more I studied, the more I painted, the more I became drawn to their sound waves—not just the literal vibration through air, but the emotional resonance they carry. Bells are not background noise. They move through you, just like the sound of waves by the sea. That moment when you sit near the water and feel something inside you settle? Bells do that too. They carry frequency. Energy. Memory.
Then came another shift.
I began to think of Jerusalem—another city of bells. A city I hold close to my heart and never visited. I thought of its pain, its beauty, its layers of faith and sorrow. I thought of the injustice the Palestinian people endure. The heaviness. Longing. The silenced prayers.
I found myself returning again and again to Fairouz’s voice:
"لأجلكِ يا مدينة الصلاة أصلّي"
For your sake, O city of prayer, I pray.
"عيوننا إليكِ ترحل كلّ يوم"
Our eyes travel to you every day.
Her song Zahrat Al-Mada'en (زهرة المدائن) became part of the drawings. Not in words, but in rhythm. In feeling. The bells I drew began to lean. To bleed. Some stood proud, others collapsed under invisible weight. Some echoed hope. Others wept.
In my 2023 solo show, the entire bells collection sold out on the very first day. I still remember the emotion in the room, the way people connected to the pieces so personally, as if the bells were ringing something inside them too. That moment affirmed something I already felt in my bones: these drawings speak.
Today, I still draw them. I don’t think I’ll ever stop. Because bells are not just objects. They are memory. They are resistance. They are grief, joy, ritual, and release.
I draw bells because they ring where words fail.
Because they remind me to listen.
Because they carry stories that must not be forgotten.
Because they are my prayer for heal and hope.
La donna della campana
