I was born to a Moroccan Jewish family and moved to Queens, New York at the age of five. I have always felt an innate need to create that is deeply embedded in my identity, and I use it to fuel my artistic journey. When I was a child, one of my favorite memories was watching my aunt weave yarn into tapestries and create colorful pictures filled with life. It was this fascination that led me to begin weaving tapestries myself, which sparked my love of color and weaving. Like any teenager in the 90's, I was obsessed with friendship bracelets. I loved the process of watching knots come together to form a design. Several years later, I started a macramé company using this same knotting technique. For college, I attended my dream school, Fashion Institute of Technology, and majored in Fashion Design. Even in school, I always found myself experimenting with colors and fabric manipulations. It was always about the small details for me. In the years following my graduation from college and starting my macrame business, I decided I wanted to get back into the world of fine arts. It was imperative to me that my pieces convey a message. I always loved painting portraits in my art classes as a little girl and so I decided that that would be the focus of my pieces. I thought about popular icons throughout history that made an impact. I knew I wanted to use a process that was different from what I used in the past. Ultimately, I decided I wanted to make portraits out of beads. I tested different types of beads to see which would give me the image I desired. It took me a lot of trial and error before I finally found the process that worked best for me and from there my pieces were born.