Bukhoor Art

I received a container of bokhoor, the rare scented wood whose fragrance is used in Arab tradition to perfume rooms, clothes, and hair. One evening, while listening to Gipsy Kings, I thought of using the bokhoor charcoal  left in the mubkhar to draw. Actual charcoal is more challenging yet has a smokey, tactile, fragrant quality that I [...]

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Women, Flowers, Photography and Politics

February 1st, Monday. I like it when a new month, sparkling with possibilities, starts on a Monday, a beginning of a new week. This February finds me physically incapacitated ( I have been down with a bad cold since last week)-  but my spirits are up, because of the things I have been reading, the [...]

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A [visual] parting note…censored

This was my small parting gift to my art-sister Ghadah. I went to Kuwait without a proper gift for her, so I thought I would leave her with a low-tech collage, on tracing paper, of my trip. In keeping with the theme of censorship, which fascinated me- and was the basis for a project of a [...]

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Kuwaiti Diaries IV: The Last City

As they used to say in old time radio ‘ This concludes our series’. From Lonely Planet: A traditional mud-built house, with heavy carved doors, Beit al-Badr was built between 1838 and 1848 and is one of the last examples of pre-oil residential architecture in the city. It is located alongside Sadu House. A new [...]

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Kuwaiti Diaries III – The Desert {I’m back}

Well, I cannot believe almost three weeks went by since the last post! I returned from my incredible trip on the 7th of the month and school kickedoff at  lightning speed.  I have two more classes I am teaching this quarter, so there’s been quite a bit of readjustment. But I am back- and it [...]

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Kuwaiti Diaries II- Al-M’barakiya

The local ‘Souq’ is called Mubarakiya, named after Mubarak, a leader who was the sheik (‘shehk’, family ruler) from the Al-Sabah family, which is still the ruling family of modern Kuwait. Kuwait combines ancient tradition with a democratic political system (Parliament), and is a melting pot of past and present, as I was able to [...]

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Kuwaiti Diaries I- Al-Boom

Happy New Year. I welcomed 2010 on a beach, overlooking the Arabian Gulf. In Italy we say that what you do the first day of the year you will do all year, and I would love to continue doing art -and posting it- all of 2010. I am in Kuwait for the holidays and, feeling [...]

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