Meet Maryam Aziz | Visual Designer at Neiman Marcus

We had the good fortune of connecting with Maryam Aziz and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Maryam, how do you think about risk?

I have had many risks, but the most challenging or the riskiest event that I faced in my life was when I got into the USA and started my life after leaving my home country.

The story dated back to 2007. It was over 100 degrees, and the sweat was rolling down my face. There was no electricity. My one-year-old child was crying desperately for cool air. Suddenly, a group of masked men broke into my home, looked for my spouse, and threatened us to embrace their religion or be killed. The extremist Muslims gave us one day to give them our answer. That night, I decided to leave everything and flee with my family. Overnight, I became a refugee instead of a citizen. The fear of an indefinite future that sneaked through my doors stealthily without knocking did not destroy me; instead, it reminded me of an old saying by the Arabic poet Al-Shabi, “whoever shrinks from scaling the mountain lives out his life in potholes.” It motivates me to climb the mountain of challenges, while courage and determination in meeting difficulties are the virtue that leads me toward success.

Fear of being kidnapped or beheaded was why I fled my war-torn homeland. Knowing that living as a refugee, I would face humiliation and weakness; I felt constrained and unable to progress because I couldn’t control my lifestyle. Being a refugee put my life on pause for years because I didn’t have the permission to work or study, depending only on humanitarian organizations. This experience diminished my power; however, the bravery and determination to overcome this life represent power itself. Indeed, it takes courage to be a refugee. It took courage to leave my country of birth, never abandon myself to despair, and feel no fear. I carried myself with poise and not only looked after my family but trying to reach out and help other refugees. I was powerful because I was determined to wait for three years to reach a safe place to start a new life. Patience was my gear to climb the mountain of challenges and get to the USA.

Despite having no home, no job, and money, I acknowledged my fears but did not give them power. When I arrived in California, I turned my obstacles into fuel to climb another mountain. I supported my husband as an engineer providing national technical support for medical equipment. His job is difficult because he must travel and is only home on weekends.

Meanwhile, being a mother, I had to commute to school and take care of my daughter, my studies, and my home. This obstacle made me self-reliant, and it is this self-reliance and patience that helped me take the necessary steps toward rebuilding my family and myself again. I am sacrificing hours and days from my rest time and weekends, but I am always optimistic and self-confident that climbing challenges will take me toward success.

Now, I am working at Neiman Marcus. I design their window displays and inside-the-store displays. Also, I am working on creating my own collection of patterns and will print them for wearable goods. There are challenges in the way, but all the time, I keep myself motivated to stay determined to climb the mountain of challenges.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?

I work now with Neiman Marcus to design their window displays and inside-the-store displays for the Beverly Hills Location. Art has been a passion of mine since a very young age.  My mother used to tell me stories when I was three while I sat on a Kushan rug in our living room in Baghdad. I would follow the patterns along with my fingers in a loop for hours, losing myself in the world of images. To this day, that dive into repeating patterns and lost worlds influence my work in many different ways.

As a child, I lived in the ancient city of Sana in Yemen for almost five years. When you are in the presence of the city, you wonder how it was built with such visible rich history through its old architecture. One of my recent works “City of Dreams” shows buildings were built organically as if no concrete human plan dictated their structure. These Yemeni buildings captured my mind and became my illustrated buildings–odd and mysterious living city, a curving city of entropy.

My first encounter with color is through living in Egypt. Colors cascaded over Cairo’s ancient architecture, dusk’s golden light flowing over the Nile, buildings weaving from blue to green to red, and lastly to yellow. These gradients and mixtures of color haunt me with their harmony. Because of these images, I have an insatiable appetite for color in my patterns. My colors are bold, flat, bright, and strong. I willingly use more than five colors in a pattern to catch these cityscapes of my youth.

My city of origin, Baghdad, a place I no longer can visit, was once a city of limestone and marble palaces that flowed along the Tigris River like pearls in a necklace, a crown beside a crown. The City’s jewel Markets lined along the river. Metallic and golden jewels drape the land under green palm trees throughout Baghdad. Baghdad’s gold, silver, and jewels with its lush foliage illuminated my craft through beadwork and luminous materials and pigments. In my current installation “Refugee verses Citizen” the dotted framework of beads and stitching with a neon green color pierces warm tones of the cushion. I want the reflection of the beads and glass to glow like the city lit by sunlight across the land. I want the colors to remain in the spectator’s mind long after they have seen it, just as Baghdad remains in mine.

As a mother to a young child, our world is full of play and games. When she was an infant, I would play with her by pouring the water over her smooth skin, I would smell her afterward, heaven! On St. Patrick’s day, I color milk and eggs green and then turn the furniture upside down. Our home becomes total chaos. When she wakes up, it looks like the leprechauns came for a visit. Having her makes me playful and makes me conscious of the importance of using art and design to build a strong bonding between parents. In my recent work “Dream Toys”, I designed open-ended toys to enhance the bonding between parents and their offspring. These organic forms made of soft cotton represent the relational love between parents and kids. Saturated colored patterns represent the richness of the endless love between us.

Living in LA, I have seen endless mixing of various cultural traditions with modernity in harmonious ways. This ease with layering diverse histories allows and encourages me to represent old ideas in a new way. Now, I am working at Neiman Marcus to create visual contact, such as patterns and illustrations, in their Windows and inside the store. Being able to represent such a luxurious store in a new take comes from being in Los Angles, its museums, streets, and artists’ work. The art throughout the city influences me, it could be buildings, drawings, or paintings that make me lose myself for hours.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
It happened a couple of weeks ago. I found my friends from Baghdad when I was studying at Al-Mustanseria University. We did not see each other since 2005. there were no social media back then, and not all people had access to it. So we found each other a couple of years ago, and we decided to meet. Then,  Corona hits and the situation left us waiting to meet at a good time! So a couple of weeks ago, we finally met after not seeing them for almost 17 years. I took them to many places like Santa Monica, Pasadena, Universal Studios, and other areas in Valencia. we ate at these restaurants: – Old Pasadena: Edwin Mills ( they have Jazz music every Friday)
– Universal Studios and Hollywood
– Santa Monica
– Restaurants in Valencia: The refinery, El Pariente Mexican Food (very authentic)
– Malibu: Las Flores Mesa (great food and beautiful view, Malibu wine and beer garden where you can try the best wine and you can bring your own food)

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I want to thank my husband, Samer, who has always supported me along the way. I want to thank my daughter because she is the one who brings the love and the smile to me when I need it. I can not forget thanking ArtCenter College of Design and many great professors who supported me and taught me all the magic in art, especially Jon Nguyen.

Website: https://www.globalhouseofmaryam.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maryam.m.aziz/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryam-aziz-96764a51/

Image Credits
Emily Müller photographs the photo that I appear in it. The other ones are all taken by me.