A ‘rags to riches stories’? Nope, this is a ‘dentist to artist’ story! Yep, Pakistani artist Sara Shakeel was one exam away from becoming a dentist, and now she’s covering everything from stretch marks to dining tables in crystals. Now, before you hit PLAY, I have a technology disclaimer. We had a bunch of wifi issues but we did our best with all of the glitches, and stops n starts, redials and trying to remember where we left off when the call dropped. Huge thanks to my producer, and handsome husband, Greg for making this sound like one call. Ok, let’s get this sparkly party started. You can listen right up there under the most fabulous hand-washing ever, or subscribe here.

First up, a few of my favorite pieces from Sara during this global pandemic. And yes, her very popular ‘toilet paper’ is starting things off:

Love. It. All.

Ok, popping back in time a little bit for these next images. These are some of her first pieces… the images she created while locked in her room after returning home from dentistry school:

Ahhh, so fun! And, yes, those are the diamond lipsticks that added 15,000 new followers to her Instagram feed… over night.

Next up… a few of her beautiful, powerful and, of course, sparkly @glitterstretchmarks :

Hell YES.

Okay, so how about taking a whole bunch of Swarovski crystals into London’s NOW Gallery in order to create “The Great Supper” {and I had to include the toast and egg that started that train}:

Oh my word. Can you even imagine attaching alllllll of those crystals onto alllllll of those objects… in 28 days?! I’m dizzy just thinking about it.

From playing around with an app on her phone, to showing in galleries and collaborating with brands… here is the cover Sara recently did for Grazia Magazine, oh, and a little album cover she just did too:

Um, yeah… Chance the Rapper, hanging out on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, showing off the album that Sara created the artwork for. Damn!

I also had to include these pieces too, for obvious reasons:

I wonder how much your dentist bill would be if you did this? Hm.

And finally, let’s finish things off with this lil beauty:

 

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A post shared by Sara Shakeel (@sarashakeel) on Apr 21, 2020 at 12:18pm PDT

Looooove! And now I want a bling-covered fruit salad. Thank you so much to Sara for taking the time to do this with me, thanks to Sugar Alykmi for supporting this episode {check out her workshop right here}, and thanks to YOU for listening! There will be more ART FOR YOUR EAR next weekend.

ps. If you wouldn’t mind leaving a rating/review of the podcast on iTunes, I’d be very appreciative. I got a 1 outta 5 the other day {because I had the audacity to bring up politics} and I’d love a little help getting bumped back up. Thank you!