Why Hani Blue?

I have another website for my work as a writer: sarahskiles.com

To limit confusion, I decided to use my another name for my work as an artist.

Hani Blue is my nickname from childhood.

Hani short for Johanna, my middle name. It also sounds a lot like honey, as in honey girl, which one of my grandmas called every woman or girl in the family. (Just as she called all of the men and boys, honey boy.)

Blue as in…the sad or the blue. My resting face, even as a kid, is kind of worried. That’s not necessarily because I am worried, I’m just a very expressive thinker. I feel things deeply. I also have zero poker face.

As an adult, I learned that Hani means joy in several languages. The idea of a name simultaneously evoking joy and sadness makes me love it even more. It seems fitting for how people can react to art and also the artistic process with its peaks and lows.

So there you go. The story behind the name.