Marisa Aragón Ware

I hope that everyone had an abundant Thanksgiving rich with gratitude for this sweet and fleeting life. As for me, I'm grateful for getting older, for the difficult lessons that break me and soften me, reminding me to be careful, to be kind, to be calm. I'm grateful for the extraordinary opportunity to do work that I love, and I pray for the ability to make art that helps people connect to something meaningful. I'm grateful for my loving family, my incredible parents, my inspiring friends, and for all the people in my life, whether they offer encouragement or criticism, for teaching me and providing me a mirror in which to see myself. Thank you for being on this Earth with me, during this brief moment in the incomprehensibly long lifespan of this beautiful, strange, and wondrous universe.  

Putting my art school education to good use. Homemade pecan and sweet potato pie. 

What was said to the rose that made it open

was said to me here in my chest.

What was told the Cypress that made it strong

and straight, what was

whispered the jasmine so it is what it is, whatever made

sugarcane sweet, whatever

was said to the inhabitants of the town of Chigil in

Turkestan that makes them

so handsome, whatever lets the pomegranate flower blush

like a human face, that is

being said to me now. I blush. Whatever put eloquence in

language, that's happening here.

The great warehouse doors open; I fill with gratitude,

chewing a piece of sugarcane,

in love with the one to whom every that belongs!

-Jalaluddin Rumi