Today we’d like to introduce you to Alina Dolitsky.
Hi Alina, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I guess you can say my story began with my immigration to the United States with my family when I was a child from the former republic of Moldova in the Soviet Union. That in itself changed the trajectory of my life. Through adaptation and assimilation, America; more precisely Philadelphia, PA, became home. I studied at Temple University and worked for my parents, who opened one of the first Russian speaking medical offices in Northeast Philadelphia. The job at my parents’ office turned into a three decade career of becoming a professional medical biller, medical compliance, and auditor. During those three decades I got married, had two children, got divorced, fell deeply in love and remarried. Yet, despite these major societal milestones something inside fell unsettled, undeveloped. Unbeknownst to me, my inner artist was screaming to get out. I always had a camera in my hand, taking pictures of family and friends, not for art sake, but for capturing the moment. Each present moment instantly becomes the past and I was trying to hang on to the moment forever. Then came along cell phones, and then Instagram, and my inner artist started bursting through without my permission. I started going on Instagram walks and doing more photography of nature and cityscapes of Philadelphia and her surroundings. It was also a way to escape toxicity at home. Around the same time I started writing poetry. Prosody became the release of pent up anger and pain as I processed my failures and gathered strengths to continue to the next chapter(s) of my life. After I got divorced, I became a small business owner of a medical billing service and medical supply company, which my new husband and I grew together, and he is running full time now, while I try to reinvent myself as a full time artist. I had my first month-long exhibition with three other talented photographers in Philadelphia last year, which was more than I could have imagined. My poem We, Immigrants, was published in Beyond Words magazine in 2024. At this time my piece “Wandering in Wonder” is part of “Freedom” exhibition in Montclair Gallery in New Jersey and next month my work will be part of a local artists group Artists Equity exhibition, “Springing into Art” in Chester County, PA. I am very excited about both of these showings.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Living each day is a new experience and I was not always prepared for the unknowns. Navigating through dysfunction is a struggle in itself. Navigating through dysfunction to tap into one’s creativity and learn the language of self acceptance and transition to creating art from the place of healing is a whole other journey that I am still on and still learning from. We are entitled to “life, liberty and the ‘pursuit’ of happiness”. Wisely stated for we are entitled to the pursuit but not necessarily the destination, for that destination is up to each one of us. I accept that pursuit, with the understanding that today’s moment of happiness is part of my journey and may entail struggles, and I am okay with that.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
This is a really tough question to answer now because after thirty years in the healthcare industry I am trying to reinvent myself as a writer and photographer using mixed media arts such as photopoetry and combining my images in composite pieces to express emotions, connections and reflections to ourselves, to Mother Earth and to each other. I cannot draw, but I can combine my photographs for a deeper expression of what I see and feel. I volunteer with a faith based group visiting SCI Phoenix, a maximum security prison right outside of Philadelphia. Meeting with those men who are in prison for a long time, some for life, whose journeys from darkness to light I’ve had the opportunity to observe, has been a life changing experience. I wrote a poem of what those meetings have meant to me. Their response to my poem has been of gratitude and wonder that someone from the outside, living a very different, if not privileged, life can express their feelings and make them feel seen. I am very proud of that. I want to be able to connect to our collective humanity through individual experience and express it in my art.
How do you define success?
That answer probably depends on the day of the week. When my piece of art gets accepted for an exhibition, that’s success. When my children are healthy and doing well, and call me to chat, that’s success. When I see my husband running our business in spite of the uncertain times we’re living through that’s success. To me, success is a fluid feeling that sometimes feels like a life raft and at times like an albatross. When my piece of art, written or visual, is rejected and I feel like I will never create again, I reach deep inside myself to remember the feeling of creation and what it feels like to create a poem or express my feeling with my photography and photopoetry, and remembering that feeling is success. Success is putting my art “out there” despite the rejections, which come inevitably, but which ultimately make me grow bolder and stronger as an artist and writer. Yes, rejections hurt, but not putting myself out there is not an option either. So, I give myself some grace, lick my wounds and go right back out there putting my art out there.
Pricing:
- 250.00
- 300.00
Contact Info:
- Website: https://alinadoliart.com
- Instagram: @alinadoliart
