Youth Arts Collective

To put into words what YAC has meant for me, my development as an artist, a student, a scholar, and a person, is a difficult task. My high school years, as for many people, were some of the most difficult and formative in my life. I moved to California and entered high school after a nine year absence from America, living (and being home-schooled) in the Middle East. With a Christian American mother, a Muslim Egyptian father, a life spent between very different, and often conflicting worlds, I harbored a constant sense of misplacement, of alienation. At YAC I found a space where my artistic expression was regulated (sometimes literally) only by the size of the building. Having gone on to complete a Bachelors in fine art at UCLA, I still remember YAC as the place where I made the most formative and experimental artistic leaps. But more than that, YAC was a place where I encountered guidance without compulsion, collaboration without competition, education without examination. With high school art programs sadly diminishing throughout the country, YAC supplements what the education system often lacks. But YAC also provides something qualitatively different. Being able to interact with professionals in a relaxed and pressure-free environment allows a kind of communication and mentoring that rarely exists across generations. Also, without the usual emphasis on performance and output, creation is driven by personal desire and a sense of participation in a group.

Today I am following the winding road of my academic interests, working toward a PhD in Islamic studies, and continue to pursue art in parallel to my academic work. Meg and Marcia remain lifelong friends and sources of inspiration to me. I cannot begin to thank them, as well as everyone who has contributed to YAC over the years.