I sighed as I sat on a chair and took out my canvas and painted whatever came to mind at that moment. I thought about painting a dark room with softly dimmed lighting with a lonely wooden chair in the center. I painted the picture in my mind and started to imprint the vision onto my paper. My favorite thing about drawing is that I love to see my visions come to life through the works that I create. My paintbrush danced across the canvas as my vision was starting to become my reality. My mind started to drift off to my ex lover, Max Ernst sitting in that chair.

When my parents let me go off to London to pursue my dream for art at the Amedee Ozenfant’s Academy at the ripe age of twenty, I knew I was ready for anything that crossed my path. Once I had made it to the academy, I encountered and experienced surrealism for the first time. My love for art has grown stronger each lesson, each sketch and painting has filled me with the joy of my imagination. I remember that I had met Ernst at a friend’s dinner party in the year of 1937. I have taken the time to get to know him over the next couple of months and found out that he’s German. It didn’t take a long time until I became his lover.

Once I informed my parents about him, they were thrilled, until they found out that he was a senior and was twenty seven years older than me. We have gone back and forth as to why they told me I couldn’t be with him and I decided that I will move to France with Max and meet other surrealists. After my decision to be with love, my father has decided to disown me as he doesn’t see me as his daughter anymore. On our journey to France it had been very troublesome due to the World War that was happening, not knowing if we could be attacked or kidnapped at any given moment.

I was never mentally prepared for that day, nor was I ready for the evening when Max was forced into an internment camp from the Nazis due to the outbreak of World War II and was seen as an “undesirable foreigner”. We were both focusing on our next project to create what our imagination wanted to come to life. It was just as fast as a lightning bolt on a stormy night. Invasion, gun point, screaming and yelling, but the worst part was that they dragged Max without hearing any explanation. I sat home alone, shaking, afraid if they were going to come back. Afraid if Max would never return. After a couple of months I waited, and waited, and soon became uncertain as to if he was really coming back, so I sold the house and fled to Spain, heartbroken. I have traveled to Spain in a friend’s fiat where anxiety, delusions and a likely eating disorder resulted in a massive breakdown in the British Embassy.

With all of the pressure and trauma due to the war and kidnapping of Max, I was held into a psychiatric hospital after shortly arriving in Spain due to the emotional stress of the previous events. I have had electroshock therapy and experimental drugs. I did all that I could to leave and soon, I have gotten better. Once I saw my chance to leave I hailed a taxi and directed it to the Mexican Embassy where my friend through Picasso, Renado LeDuc, worked as an ambassador. I was married to him a year later and we both have moved to Mexico together, and there my career has been a success. However, my marriage with Renado was not as we divorced that year.

Even after meeting more surrealists and artists and having better opportunities throughout the years, I have not reunited with Ernst, as he had remarried. I shut my eyes and open them back up to focus on my painting once more. A small smile crept up to my face as I remembered that I have moved on and was stronger than I was a couple years back, I have a new husband. Emeric Weisz, a Hungarian photographer who has supported me for the last five years, now we have two beautiful sons.