Elizabeth Barakah Hodges of High Springs, Florida, grew up with artist parents but chose words as her medium, earned the Ph. D. in Comparative Literature and became a university professor.

Two decades later, living in Boston, Barakah Hodges enrolled in a 6-week design course. Her teacher, artist Sandy Sokoloff, said she had talent and urged her to take his painting class. “I actually had an aversion to painting, but Sandy wouldn’t take no for an answer. He kept telling me I was good until finally I believed him.”

Soon after, Barakah Hodges moved to Jacksonville to teach French and English at FCCJ and, two years after that,  began work on the B. F. A. in Painting at the University of North Florida. “I had a amazing teacher, Louise Freshman Brown, who built our confidence and insisted we find our own voice as artists.”

Elizabeth Barakah Hodges graduated, magna cum laude, in 1995 and was named University of North Florida’s 1997-1998 Outstanding Alumna in Art. Her life as an artist is charmed, she says. “Making art is very spiritual and miraculous. As an artist and as an art teacher, I feel I am swimming in the holy stream. I have no ambition for this art career, have even spoken of it as “God’s career” . I do my part-- I paint, I apply -- but I’m not invested in a particular outcome and yet  I have had opportunities that I could never have imagined, ever since Sandy, like an angel, put me on the path, then disappeared. ###