So many ways I have seen you,
So many ways I have hoped to understand you,
So many ways I have longed to end your worries.
You’re holding on to many things…
So much pain, So much hurt, so little joy.
‘ your bleeding heart can mend’
But you have to let go of all that weighs you down
and be lifted up.
Being fragile in a world of no real love pre-empts decisions
That gives rise to mistakes.
So let it go and be lifted up!
Ilu-Ilu.
Hi people, its been too long, but hey I’m back ( don’t know how long for) with a bang, I hope 
growing, changing maturing in life’s challenges moving from black and white to understanding shades of gray or at least acknowledging there are shades.
I will be doing a series of issues that I have a passion for but have talking about on this blog, but feel its time to now. As always the purpose is to bring to the light what is in the dark, for that is the only way deliverance can first start. When you know that what ever issue you have is not new and many others have or are going through the same thing reduces the intensity of the challenge.
In this series we’ll all reason together for I don’t claim to have the answers but when we talk, share together in truth and a clear honest and open mind keeping it real all the way, we learn.
After nearly 20yrs of marriage Linda walked out, this is a lady we all looked at her marriage and family and marveled. Her beautiful children her husband who always had nothing but praise for his wife, so understandably we were shocked and sad about it.
Some said she should not have given up and that divorce was the easy option, some sad there is nothing that God could not do so why break the home, some said she was selfish and that it would miss up the kids, some said what ever it was;could she not bear it and wait till the children where older?… and many more was said to her and around her. For sometime Linda was not seen by all for a while, but come this faithful summer afternoon in walked Linda on her “ladies that lunch” meeting visibly upset with a teary eyes yet clam. As she walked in and stood before the ladies and said “when is enough, enough! I was faithful and devoted for all the years I was married, supported my husband in his dreams, counted pennies with him, did not put pressure on him was not demanding. I was not perfect but was willing to grow together in love. I stayed at home and raised our children and manage the home, all by choice, to give the very best of me, that was my contribution to the stability of our home. I cooked and cleaned for him, out of love not duty but as an expression of my love for him. What you all did not know was how I had to survive for years with a man that phonghapy was his other love, do you know how that could affect ones self esteem as a wife and have no one to talk to about it, cos of the shame and embarrassment attached to it and even a sense of protecting him and the family, not wanting to talk about our problems and keep the façade of a perfect family and always hoping that things will change and get better someday.
Do you know how many fights we had cos I asked him to stop, all he would say is” it was just pictures that is means nothing” but I knew once he started looking that thisl the next thing would be to act on it…Do know how a woman feels when she knows and have even walked in on him looking at naked women having sex, does that not count as adultery of the mind I ask you?
That not enough, his drinking when his stressed and then the physical abuse… do you know what it feels like for the man that says he loves you one minute to be hitting on you the next do you know how demoralizing that could be? …and for this to be happening for years…When I think of it I should have left the first day he slapped me for no good reason. Remember my daughters first birthday when I had the black eye and I told you all I fell…. Well now you know it was no fall.
When is enough, enough? When his sleeping around with not one, two or more different women…is it till I am infected with HIV then I could be released for this contract? Is the contract not broken the minute he had slept with another that was not his wife? To top this I got no support for my dreams like how I had stood by his. My dreams were nothing but “little hobbies” to keep me occupied not a career that required time and energy to concentrate and develop, he did not but expected a housewife for ever (which was for a season)
When is enough, enough? After he had fathered a child outside of our marriage(and that’s the one I got to find out, what about the ones I don’t know or would never know)… I had had enough my ladies; to you I should pray and ask God for help… I did and still do, but first I need to accept and identify what was wrong and break out of a mind of denial, shame and hopelessness, I am fighting now for my mind and sanity … I am sure we had many a good time, but now I can not remember I can not let depression step in to my life anymore for years I have battled with that, to the point when death started looking attractive, No more! My life is worth more than his wife or their mother, there is more to me and you may choose to call me selfish, maybe its time to think about myself… just maybe.
As she carefully wiped her eyes, picked up her bag and calmly walked out of the restaurant with a stride I had never seen her in before, some would call it a swagger.
…so when is enough, enough?
Keeping it real, let the conversation begin.
Rustic Freshness [Artist Statement]
Toyin Omolowo]
Is a contemporary life style art exhibition that does not represent a subject external to itself. It isn’t a picture of something. It is rather, an expression of elements of design; colour, balance, rhythm, harmony, texture, composition etc. suitable for modern day interior.
The technical materials displayed would have served the viewers in another purpose, but the aesthetics value should be considered as a form of visual expression that has the potential of holding the beacon for artistic vibrancy. The works should be seen as a subconscious experience demonstrated in exemplary experiments which are to be interpreted, not only as art, but as an invariable within human existence.
I wish you a happy, exciting and fulfilling viewing.
toyinOMOLOWO
Alimi Adewale
Rustic Freshness [Artist Statement]
Minimalist art is characterized by its simplicity in both form and content, where personal expression is removed in order to achieve this. The intention of minimalist artists is to allow the audience to view a composition more intensely because the distractions of theme etc. have been removed. Aesthetically, Minimal art offers a highly purified form of beauty. It can also be seen as representing such qualities as truth (because it does not pretend to be anything other than what it is), order, simplicity, harmony.
Rustic Freshness a group exhibition was the first in a series of body of work conceptually based on the metaphysical aspects of “Less is More”. I attempted to explore different associations with the elements pertaining to impact of sublime colours on the mind and space. After years of painting and experimenting with various style I have recently stepped into that nether world, where visual reality starts to recede and some “other” inner reality begins to make itself known. For me, at this threshold level, I have realized the strength and ambience of minimal colours in its purest form.
It is a great pleasure to be featured in Artistic License an innovative art gallery that is ahead of the curve and championing the works of contemporary artists in Nigeria. Artistic License explores and records the fluid transformations of artistic practices as they are shaped by social forces. This Contemporary Art Gallery fosters conversation, connection and new understandings of collective meanings and values.
Please do enjoy these works and I know they will leave a lasting impression on your mind.
Kind regards
Alimi Adewale
