Little Moorish Priestess in Blue

painted by Misty Sol, muse Ayah Joice (note: Ayah recieved an honorarium for sharing her story and her role as a muse emphasizing the importance of her role as a muse and sharing her story.

This mixed media and acrylic painting was commissioned by the Colored Girls Museum in Philadelphia in 2019 and completed in 2020 for the traveling group show “The First Time Ever I saw your Face”

The painting is a response of the adultification and subsequent oppression of and divestment in Black girls. Our collective goal with the show is in alignment with the CGM’s mission to provide “protection, praise, and grace” for Black Girls. The large portraits are meant to life our girls into an exalted space where they have to be looked up to, paid attention to, acknowledged and admired.

My muse is my daughter Ayah El. Her father was a member of the Moorish Science Temple in Philly when I met him and as a reference to that heritage, the background of the painting is based on images from Chefchaouen, the Blue Village in Morocco. The Moorish Chief by Eduard Charlemont is one of my favorite paintings and I wanted that kind of energy in our project. The Moorish title "El" in Ayah's name symbolizes God, Executive power, Law, or Creative force. It was important that this painting emphasized those qualities in her. The composition, Ayah's stance, and her choice of personal items to include (swords and friendly cats) reflect her fierceness as a martial artist as well as her nurturing spirit, her love of beauty and all of things 'kawaii'. The dress Ayah is wearing in the portrait is composed of scraps of wax print fabric that I purchase from an African American fashion designer and farmer who just relocated to Ghana. This element also, speaks to the nuances of Ayah’s African American Black identity.

In addition to the orange cat, she now has, she wanted to include her first cat, Batwing, that we were forced to give away when she was little. During the process of painting, I learned that Ayah was still grieving for Batwing and perhaps the painting will be a sort of memorial and a way to bring closure. The katana in the composition is actually Ayah’s. She found it on the streets of Philadelphia and it is a treasure to her. As far as my approach to the project, I like to work from pictures but I don't usually take the photographs myself. However, to block out the figure in the painting, I got out a camera, set up lights, and a West African mud mud cloth as a background in my home studio to capture an image to work from. The final composition is layered and textured much like Ayah. Using small, careful, light, brush strokes, interrupted by hurried knife slashes of color, loose brush strokes, and authentic and scraps of West African fabric, I learned to look past my assumptions and see my daughter in all of her power and identity, as if for the first time.