This persistence, this internal brightness, engages and interconnects with everything around me, blooming up a path, moving me along that path in a steady rhythm. The thing that kept and keeps me fully alive is the awareness that if I interact with the world around me-with the happenstance people I meet and the observations of nature-magic will and does happen right before my eyes. This took time, patience, and medication to battle. I was falling into an abyss, struggling for my life, over and over. It provoked feelings of loss and I began experiencing panic attacks. Right after the original publication of this book, I had a miscarriage. How has “the persistence of yellow” manifested itself in your own life? It has been two decades since you first penned the words of this book. Yellow is the awareness that we are constantly being reborn, literally on a cellular level but also imaginatively, as we always have the ability to redefine the perception of our lives. Maybe you would call it “soul” or “spirit,” invisible yet it holds everything together. It is endless and cyclical it is that internal blooming flower. Monique: Yellow represents that which is a constant in our life. Monique, what does the phrase “the persistence of yellow” mean to you? I want my art to encourage women to embrace joy, beauty, and the freedom to express themselves in all the crazy, loud, and wonderful ways a woman can. And I want to capture self-reflection and self-knowledge, not in a rational way, but in an emotional, spiritual, and intuitive way. Roeqiya: I want to capture feminine traits and qualities like strength, not in a fast and masculine way, but in a more graceful and enduring way-like perseverance, like flowing water. What qualities of a woman’s spirit and experience do you look to capture in your work? Those things really help to put life in perspective, and to keep a good spirit when times get rough. Oh and joy, lots of joy! I hope the art is a reminder to keep a sense of humor and wonder. I hope they feel confident in their own abilities and that they can trust in a higher something that allows them to relax and look calmly and openly to the future. Roeqiya: I hope they will feel the same as I did when I read it: empowered, inspired, and lifted up. What do you hope readers will experience as they encounter the art in this book? This magical “inner world” is all over the world. I’ve discovered the same kind of atmosphere is also a part of Latin American culture. There you’ll find a space of such life, of smells, sounds, stories-just like the yellow kitchen in the book. Roeqiya: I could really relate to the concept of women who pass wisdom and love on to each other through generations.Īlso, the magical atmosphere of abuela’s kitchen sure hits close to home, as I spent part of my childhood in Egypt-a place where the house, and especially the kitchen, is traditionally the domain of women. How did the words of The Persistence of Yellow speak to you personally? Roeqiya, your illustrations bring such a fresh and unique beauty to each vignette. We asked Monique and Roeqiya to share some of the inspiration behind each of their creative processes. Each page offers beautiful reminders of the treasured truths gifted to us by loved ones and lived experiences. The book’s prose is inspired by the intergenerational conversations between Monique and her abuelita-talks often held in her grandmother’s bright yellow kitchen. The result is a whimsical yet striking work that reads like a recipe book for the soul. First published in 2000, this beloved book’s 20th anniversary edition features a stunning new look which combines the poignant vignettes from author Monique Duval with the brilliant artwork from new illustrator Roeqiya Fris. The Persistence of Yellow is a colorful collection of wisdom for a woman’s heart.
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