The monochrome painting series 57 Varieties has been damaged by my unprofessional packing. I wrapped it in bubble plastic and crated it in June, before going to vacation, but finally it was shipped in August to Stockholm for the Carnegie Art Award jury meeting.

I was disappointed because the jury saw it inside the the wrapping, because the work was too big to install, but maybe it was better - I was told that the enamel surfaces have been harmed by the plastic now when they finally checked the condition of the work.

I was sure that the paint was dry when I wrapped the works but I was wrong. Now I have no idea what to do. It makes no sense to send them back here to be repaired because they wouldn't be dry for the shipping before the opening of the exhibition in November. Should I fly to Stockholm? I can't afford that. Maybe I send them paint and their conservator can fix them?In the future, I paint only with acrylic colors.

Dear Riiko,

I receive everyday several messages from foreign friends who advice me to leave Syria immediately. To my surprise, I was just granted a Schengen visa for two years. I'm going to visit Berlin in October for my work but I'm not escaping anywhere.

Many people are camping as human shields around the Mount Qasioun, near the presidential palace but I prefer to go to Bakdash ice cream parlour with my husdand. I feel like saying goodbye to all this kind of things in my country. Somehow, the life is still goes on in Damascus and people want to fight against the Islamists and the United States.

To tell you the truth, I'm not  afraid of the American bombs because I believe that death will come any way in any place but I'm scared that the chaos the bombing provokes and permits the Islamists enter to the city and massacre people. In that case I really don't know what I have to do - commit a suicide before they catch me? Anyways, I hope that Mr. Obama is not that crazy. The whole Middle East will burn down, if his troops attack us.

I hope that I'm alive in October and we can meet in Beirut when you are there in residence.

Kisses from Damascus, Iman

I was one of the 17 shortlisted Nordic painters for the Carnegie Art Award but, unfortunately, I didn't win the huge one million Swedish crown prize. The losers must accept their defeat.

Yesterday, the Carnegie organization contacted me asking for a high resolution picture of my work 57 Varieties, shipped to Stockholm, for the catalog. I was surprised because I had understood that all the works of the final stage had been installed for the meeting of the jury in deciding the winner of the contest - and then photographed.

I was told that my work (400x250cm, composed of 57 parts) was too big to install due to their limited resources and it was placed on a table. They must have the biggest table of world and the judges were lifted to the ceiling - or the work was in piles.

Obviously, it's a difficult to compete with a stacked painting against other paintings hang on a wall. I think that now I wasn't given an equal chance to win. I haven't seen myself the work installed either - my studio has also limited walls but I'm sure that it would be a very powerful experience to see it on a wall. Lamentably, the jury wasn't offered that experience.

Ironically, I'm best known for my tiny A4 size drawings and now when I finally did a museum size work, it's considered too big.

This is an e-mail I sent five minutes ago to Michelle Anderson Binczak, director of La Porte Peinte Centre por les Artes in Noyers sur Serein, France, to ask her to remove my work from their current group show due to the attack the French Republic is preparing with the United States to the Syrian Arab Republic.

Dear Michelle,

Last week, you told me that the group exhibition Be:e was prolonged until December and I agreed that my work Blood & Honey can continue being a part of it.

Unfortunately, the panorama has changed rapidly. President François Hollande offered today the French Republic’s full support to the United States of America for an illegal military action against the Syrian Arab Republic. France and the United States are planning to attack the legal government of a sovereign country without a United Nations resolution.

The French and American governments are fighting on the same side with Al Qaeda to overthrow a multicultural, multiethnic, multireligious and secular Syrian society. Do they want to establish a Sharia based dictatorship in Syria like the Islamist rebels they are supporting?

 I’m sure that you are against this illegal attack like most of the French and American people but I have decided to stop exhibiting my works on the soil of the French Republic, the United States of America and other countries joining the axis of evil against the Syrian Arab Republic.

I ask you kindly to remove my work from the show. If you want, you can replace the object with this letter. I’m really sorry for any inconvenience caused to you but I hope you understand my decision.

Thanks and sorry, Riiko

Yesterday, Islamist terrorists shelled with mortars the Bab Sharqui area in the old  town of Damascus. The Finnish Institute in the Middle East where I have stayed as artist-in-residence in the beginning of the war was damaged and the baby of the cleaning lady was wounded.

It is hard to understand why the government of Finland, like all the western powers, support these savage jihadists. They fight against Islamist terrorism in most of the theaters of war but in Syria they back them for some obscure geopolitical reasons. Now, Obama's troops are getting ready to bomb Syria to establish there a sharia based dictatorship they call freedom and democracy.

I don't only follow the news but I chat with friends in Damascus every day. I'm reading now Chinese Tang dynasty poems and I dared to adventure with poetry after one of these chats.

It was the Arab Spring
and I was falling in love
After Ramadan we got married
to watch together the bombs fall
We eat waffles with chocolate
observing the traces of mortar shells
bringing us freedom we don't want