To draw is to commit a moment and a feeling to paper. Frequently, those moments don’t return; the sketch is the only reminder. One of my earliest memories is from the age of five, when my father took me to the roof of our apartment block in Tehran and together we looked at the sunset for one last time before we left the country. Later that night I committed the scene to paper. My parents still have the drawing and it is one of my most potent memories of my childhood home.
Fast forward a few decades, to the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. What started out as a desire to chronicle an unusual period quickly became more at the suggestion of a friend. I had started posting drawings to Twitter as a visual journal and I started to take requests. My personal diary grew into a 134-day collective record of all the places that my friends and followers were holding in their thoughts.
The 100 drawings in this book represent the places we yearned for during the first lockdown; holidays that never happened, favourite places that were beyond reach, or places where we missed the hustle and bustle of human connection. I hope that in a small way I have been able to bring these places a little bit closer to those who missed them.
It has been a privilege to travel the world through my pen, getting to know people and places that I would never have known had it not been for the power of social media, and to be able to raise money for SSAFA, a very special charity.
I’m still drawing. At times it has been a challenge balancing full-time work and online schooling with drawing day in, day out, but there’s a heady attraction in reuniting people with the places that they have missed. I will continue to put pen to paper for as long as people feel moved to send their requests.
Proceeds from the sales of The Road Untravelled will be paid in support of SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity. SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity, has been providing lifelong support to the UK’s Armed Forces and their families since 1885. In 2020, their teams of volunteers and employees helped more than 79,000 people in need, from Second World War veterans to those who have served in more recent conflicts or are still currently serving, and their families. It is published by SCALA and generously supported by U+I.
You can buy a copy of the book here.
