I heard from Yasmine Ibrahim, a fellow on the museum’s next online exhibition which launches in 2013 and will explore Muslim Women’s Art & Voices.

The International Museum of Women asks to highlight my image of a door from the Topkapi Palace Harem that I've been using as my profile background all around the web for several years. For me it signifies the liminal state of being an expat woman in Turkey, a multiculturalist, a hybrid soul.

I took the original photograph in 2004 when my coeditor and I toured the harem before embarking on our creation of the Expat Harem book. Then I manipulated the image in Photoshop.

I entered it into a gallery exhibition of Istanbul photographs by members of the International Women of Istanbul and American Women of Istanbul photo club in 2005 and it was the first image of the show to sell. Even though I'm not a Muslim woman so technically may not fit the specs for this exhibit, Ibrahim writes, "Your image was selected because it is related to Islamic art. Personally it is my favorite image because it is abstracted and joyful. As a Muslim, I felt that it symbolizes many aspects of Islamic culture."

The image seems a cousin to a photo of a 19th century mansion I took in Penang, Malaysia in 1997 and also manipulated in Photoshop.