Today we’d like to introduce you to Nadiyah Najah.
Nadiyah, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I have always been an artist since birth most likely. My mother and father were both amazing with their hands. They could build and make anything. Often upon sight, they could reproduce a build or reconstruction of something they desired. They passed that skill down to me.
I was gifted all the art supplies and tools that a child could ever want and need. I felt very supported in the arts. This support in the arts became integral when I advanced in age and school levels and then, I began to have struggles in the school setting. My struggles continued until it became evident that there was need for formal intervention. My mother taught me at home and provided me with tutoring to sure up my deficits. It was apparent that I excelled in some subjects but was severely deficit in others. I learned that school did not equal success for me and I barely made it through eighth grade.
There historically has been unreasonable stigma surrounding students being served in the special education programs. My mother had the best intentions and wanted to keep me away from what she felt was stigma that would affect the outcome of my life. She pushed me to try harder, be smarter, work longer and not be, “Lazy.” She told my teachers that I, “Learned differently” and that they had to get more creative in their approach to teach me in alternative ways so that I would learn and be an academic success.
While the academic successes never happened for me in any traditional public school and college settings, other great things did happen for me. My mother had the wherewithal to speak to my art teacher when there was six months left of 8th grade. She wanted to find a high school setting that would be best for me. I wanted to go to Science High School in Newark, NJ because that is where my honor roll brother went. My mother knew that was not best for me and that I would never pass the entry exam. There was a lot of hard truths amidst the silver linings. Unbeknownst to me, my mother asked my art teacher to take me under her wing after school to help me with my art. By the time I graduated the eighth grade I had a competitive arts portfolio that garnered me smooth passage through the strict portfolio review to get accepted into Arts High School in Newark, NJ. There, I graduated with a 1.61 GPA and the best arts training that rivaled many local colleges in the area.
I was accepted into a four-year community college due to lack of funding to attend several art schools of interest. I was accepted to a local college through a program that assisted lower performing students with financial needs. Four-year college took me only eight years. I earned my first degree in a major far from having any arts relation. It was in college that I received my formal evaluations after a professor pulled me into his office to talk with him about his, “Observations of my learning and processing struggles in his class.” We talked, he sent me for testing and led me to get some support, training, and education on my metacognition skills and for the first time in my life I felt confident academically. I graduated college with a 2,4 GPA.
Learning disabilities don’t go away. I learned to live with them and I taught art part-time at a few different schools. Arts programming usually being the first to get cut for funding, I found myself underemployed so I started doing interior design, murals, and faux finishes in people’s homes and businesses to supplement my income. I still found more hard days than not to live independently and medical insurance was only a pipe-dream. In the course of using my artistic skills to make ends meet I ran across a client who after observing me said, I should work with students with Autism. I thought to myself that was such a specific thing to say, as I was covered in paint doing work in there home. A year or so later, another childhood friend told me to go back to college and get a Masters degree in Special Education. They said I would be good at that job. I should be a special education teacher. I had much hesitation but, applied to an online university. I graduated with a 3.5 GPA in special education. I never understood my disabilities better than I had after getting that degree. I never thought I would pass the tests to become a fully certified educator and so I ran out of the testing site right before the test started. Months later, I came back to try again with the wheel of steel. I passed not only the required test but also, the full range of test to become a highly qualified special educator.
What happened to my art? I did some. I still made everything. I still took gigs for interior design in homes and businesses. I still wanted to prove that I was, “Smart” and that I could, “Beat my disability.” With all the education I attained on various disabilities, that little girl who failed school, who was embarrassed, who drew, painted, and made things to escape feelings of inadequacy existed deep within me. I wanted to prove I was not all the damaging names that one never forgets when folks have made fun of my inability to process and understand. I wanted to become a Dr. of Special Education because then, I would have proven everyone wrong. Especially then, I would have proven to myself that I was not all those names that I know, hear my students get called, call each other and equally as worse, call themselves. My art had to take the back seat because I had something to prove.
In 2017, I began to seek a second more advanced degree in special education. It was the hardest thing I had ever done, or so I thought. It was during this program, that an artist who always recognized potential in me said, “This is the last time I am going to offer mentorship to you.” I’d known this well-known master painter, Charlie Palmer since I was in my twenties and he held open art and figure drawing nights at Morehouse College. So many recognized heavy-hitters in the current art-world showed up to those art nights. It was a hub of creativity. I said I was in grad school and that my art had to wait. He asked me how long until I graduated. I said, “7 months.” He said, “Hmmm, that’s such a long time.” I didn’t agree but did not want to lose out on the offer of artistic guidance and mentorship.
It was during that time of heightened stress of juggling FT work and FT grad school that I made a commitment to myself and my art again. If seven months seemed like a long time to go, I thought that I’d had better start giving back what was given to me at birth. I began to be mentored which is no joke and not for the faint of heart. Getting used to not impressing your mentor who could not be dazzled by my mediocre or even good ideas, getting used to being vulnerable, and learning to receive critique is a must. I struggled with some mediums and excelled at others. Collage was an area that I excelled at and painting, well, let’s not talk about that. It was then, through the network of artist that I was exposed to Jamaal Barber and I went to his workshop that he presented as part of his solo-show, Bright Black. I saw Jamal Barber talk about the process of printmaking and I was hooked. I knew I had to do this work. I went into my savings and bought my first set of supplies that would change my life and how I look at myself as a person and as an artist.
I am an artist and a special educator. I am a woman who dropped the internalized shame and stigma of living with disabilities and I decided to jump into the challenge of becoming an emerging fine artist. If I could apply that same energy, gumption, will power and commitment to a lifetime of education (that serves my students well, even if the impetus of attaining the education was not the best) then, I can commit myself to developing, growing, and falling in love with my gifts that I came on this earth with.
My commitment to my art makes me a better teacher. My students watch me do something I love. I share it with them, I bring art into the classroom and I am an accessible example of what it means to identify your strengths and refine them. I want to be living proof that we all came here with a gift that is viable, and necessary. I want to prove to myself that there is a place for us and that we can make a difference. I want to share with my students that grades do not define them, it’s ok to be different, and that even the thing we are good may not always come easy. We have to work hard even on our strengths. I am learning alongside my students. I am normalizing living with disabilities and hopefully not only am I teaching English Language Arts and Social Studies but, that more importantly, I am teaching my students what it looks like to walk in their gifts. If I did not show my students what this looks like I would be doing them a disservice.
Yes, I one day look forward to doing art full-time. I am working towards this dream but right now, I also know I am committed to teaching and learning from students like me. I burn the candle on both ends because I want my kids to see that what I am saying is true. There is a place for us. We all came here with shiny parts and tarnish, gifts and deficits, and that we must observe those things that we are good at and that make us feel whole because that is where we will find our gifts.
I recommitted myself to my art and decided to become fine artist. I had to release the idea of proving myself to be something that I already was. A bright and capable adult with disabilities. I had to accept myself completely and stop using the rest of my life proving something that I no longer needed to prove. I needed to give back to myself by going back and fetching it. That idea of recommitment also spawned my first series of relief carvings called, Sankofa-fa.
Has it been a smooth road?
I have never known a smooth road. Everyday I mitigate, navigate, and compensate for all areas of my life from the professional to the personal that are adversely affected by my present disabilities.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Diyah Najah – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
I specialize in printmaking and mixed media arts (mainly collage.) I am most proud of my explosion of talent, and growth in the medium of relief carving in just 12 short months (Jan. 2018 to present) My bodies of work do not belie an artist new to the medium of printmaking and I am aware of this.
What sets me apart from others is the vulnerability in the stories that I relay in my prints. I have a detectable style that comes through and feels authentic and aligned to who I am as a person. I mainly tell stories about women’s experiences as far as I understand them. I mix animals and insects into my carvings sometimes because of representation. I also do series of head and shoulders of people who want to tell you something. The viewer determines that story. My storytelling is presented most often without using words.
I am proud of deciding to honor myself finally after a life lived previously of seeing only my deficits.
I let the upsides of my neurodiversity come out to play. Art is the ONLY place that I feel whole. I feel free to be myself in my carvings and so far, I’m being widely received.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
I love Atlanta and after 20 years in this city can still say, I am happy here. I love that every day there is a cultural event to attend. I can have any education and exposure I want in this city from the Auburn Research Library, to an open to the public lecture and workshop at Emory University. There is art everywhere.
I like least that most of the events are centralized downtown. Metro Atlanta is a sprawling metropolis and I wish people would not be afraid to have consistent events OTP as well. Everyone knows Atlanta does not end at 285.
Pricing:
- I am an emerging artist currently, with accessible prices. My prices start at $65 and currently range up to $1,200.
Contact Info:
- Address: 303 Stonecliff Court
Stone Mountain, GA 30083 - Website: www.ArtistDiyahNajah.com
- Phone: 6783824510
- Email: ArtistDiyahNajah@gmail.com
- Instagram: @ArtistDiyahNajah
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