Some of you might recall Paw Lway Shee, the painted the beautiful painting below, which was sold immediately here from the blog for $50. It seems I am an art agent now in addition to my other hats.

Paw Lway isn’t attending classes any longer this term at Bishop Maginn High School,  regular clasaes are ending next week. Her family has asked her to be home all day all summer to take care of her siblings while her parents work. This is not uncommon among the refugee families, who need day care desperately for their small children,  but can’t afford it.

I won’t get to see her when I visit the school, and I’m not sure I’m invited to her house. She very much wants to keep painting – it is dear to her – and Sue Silverstein has arranged for her to come and visit her classroom during the summer to paint.

If she has paintings to sell, I’ll come in and get them and post them here. I didn’t see her today, but she dropped this new painting above off for me to bring home and try to sell.

Paw Lway Shee very much wants to be an artist, and is in artist, but in her world, that is especially difficult. But she will keep on painting, I believe, especially over the summer. I was touched by her new painting, it is signed but untitled.

(First painting, Paw Lway Shee, sold)

Her second painting, much smaller than the first, is a work of the heart. She paints from the Karen world, she is a refugee from Myanmar, all her subjects come from her culture.

I see that the refuges expressed their creativity quite often through painting and drawing, from Sakler Moo to the artists in Sue Silverstein’s class. The experience of being a refugee, suffering awful experiences, living in refugee camps, struggling to acclimate to our divided and frantic culture, often comes out through sketching, painting, singing, even soccer.

A reader wrote me saying she was concerned that Paw Lway was only painting white women, but I told her  that first of all, it was not my business to tell her what to paint, and secondly,  these are not white women she is painting, they are Karen women dressed in the festive garb that marks their culture, women from her lost world.

If she wishes to paint white women, then I hope she does.

It is not for me to tell any artist who or what to paint, or to push them towards painting people of one color or another. That is not feminism to me, it is something else, more like Stalinism.

I see that Paw Lway Shee paints from the heart. I will work hard to stay in touch with her, I know it will be very difficult for her to paint much now, although Sue Silverstein is in touch with her. If anyone can make this happen, Sue can, and I will be honored to try to sell her paintings.

I appreciate Sue’s great heart, she has to accept a lot of difficult things, but she fights very hard for every one of her students.

I don’t have a title for this new one, but I’m putting it up for sale for $30 here. Please don’t pay for the painting on Paypal or anywhere else without contacting me at [email protected]. The paintings are sold strictly on a first-time, first-serve basis.

People send me a check and we whip the painting to them.

If you would like to buy it, e-mail at [email protected] and thanks. I think this young artist has great talent and feeling.