Early in the morning, I enjoyed a rare latte, a spinach-and-feta croissant, and some art. After I’d spent two hours laser-focused on my project and the interesting people coming through the door, I had plenty of stimulation, which was all I wanted for the weekend. It never hurt to have more. I walked under the Metro tracks to the Art Walk, a combination of bakeries, roasters, and farmers. What made it the Arts Walk were the eight studios, open to the public, in the facing buildings. Many of them sell a lot of merch, and I’ve gathered quite the a stack of stickers from the watercolor artist.

The guy selling me Brussels’ sprouts told me, “The crazy weather this spring made it hard to tell when they’re ready. We had to put blankets on the crop, when it got down to the thirties, you remember that? It was just a few weeks ago. Did you hear it’s going to be ninety this week? Crazy. Good growing weather. This Brussels’ sprout here? This is how big the strawberries are. We want them to look like this Brussels’ sprout over here.”

I bought and apple butter because I want to try something.

The problem with the Art Walk is that artists were very rarely there. It was always their assistants manning the door and selling. I still had a lovely conversation about the weather with one of them. The weather was perfect, and I did another circuit of the studios and found one I’d always walked past. This time, I took a good look and was captivated by this woman.

With one or two exceptions, the prints featured the face of this woman, in stark black and white. One caught my eye: it was figure in a jar, defiantly smoking a rolled cigarette that stuck out of the glass, black smoke drifting up. I wanted to take it home with me, but it was out of my price range. I wasn’t ruling it out for the future.

I picked out a card and slid over to the table in the back, where the assistant waited. She was beautiful, but I found all Middle Eastern women beautiful. At the same time, she was invisible, dressed in black to blend in with the equally dark studio. I pegged her as early twenties, most likely a relative. She smiled warmly as I approached. I placed the card on the table and asked her how often they changed the art around.

“Whenever I feel like it,” she said, “Whenever I finish another piece.”

I stammered, “You’re the artist?” I told her everything I loved about her style, like the sass, and how I wanted to come back for the smoking jar. It was beyond cringe.

She’s my age, an Iranian refugee who was cartooning in a place that could get you killed. These images were protest art, done in that style. She explained how “difficult women” were depicted in state propaganda with unibrows and cigarettes to be as ugly as possible, and she appropriates the images. Propaganda describes difficult women as drunks, or “pickles,” so she put the unibrow woman in a jar with them.

She indicated a poster above her. The left side was a Vogue cover, and the right was a piece of art, clearly by her, but more detailed and much darker. This one had some red in it, to symbolize blood. During one of the protests, they dyed the river red, and there it was in the woodcut. She pointed out the letters of the city where a protest took place and the name of a victim of state-sponsored violence.

I don’t know who any of these people are. I don’t know anything about protests in Iran and why they ran this image in ten magazines. I could have asked, but I would forget everything she told me. I just wanted to hear what she had to say.

We didn’t talk about the war.

I ran out of questions to ask, and mostly, I wanted to gush all over her. She looks like she can cuddle like a champ too. I’m trying to be better about graceful exits, so I turned around and stumbled under the weight of this person’s spirit.

I sat at a table and drew some more, feeling braver for having met her.