Still Going Forward: a conversation with Sammy

A conversation with Sammy on hope, hiding, and drawing before you can speak

Sammy confessed that she has never sold her art before. Arabiyon is honored to be the first platform where this multidisciplinary artist shares her art to finally reach the public. Interviewing her was… well… full of hope.

Portrait of Sammy | Courtesy of Mario Tarshishi

On Beginnings

Nour Almoujabber. What's your earliest memory of making art, or of realizing that Sammy is an artist?
Sammy. Before I even knew how to draw, I loved to color. And I only ever used three colors: pink, blue, and purple. My mom used to go insane over it, she'd say, you have this whole box of colors, why only these three? I've had a thing for aesthetics since I was very young, and I just loved how those three looked together. Every page in every coloring book looked the same. That's my earliest memory of coloring. Drawing came a little later, when I was five. It was my birthday, and I asked my mom if I could draw things and sell them at my own party. She said sure, but she wasn't sure anyone would actually buy them. I said that's okay. We had a book about butterflies and moths at home, I've always been fascinated by them, I even have moth tattoos now, and I just started tearing off small pieces of paper, copying them out of the book, and coloring them in. I sold each one for 250 to 500 Lebanese liras.

NA. The 500 LBP back then was worth what, around $0.30 USD?
S. Something like that, yeah. I'd write the price underneath, take out my piggy bank, and let people pick which one they wanted and drop the coins in. Everything sold. I think people felt for me a little, a small kid selling art at her own birthday party. But that's my earliest memory of how I actually started.

Click to purchase this artwork
When The White Rabbit Got Me by Sammy

NA. Was your family encouraging of it, then and now?
S. My mom, yes. She's actually where it started for me. Whenever she was on the phone, she'd grab a notebook and start drawing flowers, completely absentmindedly. […] I used to think they were so beautiful, and I wanted to be like that when I grew up. But when I got older, she didn't really see it as something that could make me money, our parents are all a bit similar that way, she wanted me to do something more tangible. I kept going anyway. And when my projects started getting bigger, when I started getting some traction, I think it caught her off guard emotionally. I don't think she'd fully grasped that this could actually become a living.

NA. So is art full-time now?
S. I work freelance in film, music videos, movies, short films, that kind of thing. But my personal art has always been too personal to sell. I'm so attached to every piece that I didn't want to put it out into the world. Everything in it is so emotional for me. I kept the film work separate, and kept my own art mostly private, until now.

NA. If you hadn't ended up an artist, what do you think you'd have been?
S. Very empty. Whatever else I was doing, it would have felt very empty. I never had a plan B. Maybe a different kind of art, sure, but no art at all would have been genuinely difficult for me, because it's how I express myself. I'm not great with words. But I can say it on paper, or with a pen, or however. It's one of my languages, and it matters to me that much.

Action shot of Sammy painting a door for a film set | Courtesy of Mario Tarshishi

On Process and Feeling

NA. Walk me through your process. You have a blank digital canvas, what happens before you start drawing
S. It always comes at the toughest times. When I'm feeling really sad or lonely, and I need to talk but don't know how. I'm a very introverted person, socially anxious, it's hard for me to make friends or be in group settings. So, when I paint, it's like a diary. I can put down everything I'm feeling and thinking without being judged for it. That's actually why I've always kept my work to myself. I'll draw something, and later, looking at it, I can tell from the strokes alone whether I was having a rough time or not.

NA. And you feel like putting the painting out into the world is like putting yourself out there.
S. Exactly that.

NA. Do you ever paint from a different emotional place?
S. Yes, I also paint when I'm in love. But those pieces never get shared with the world, I make them for the person and gift them directly. I love very hard, so it becomes this overflow, I even write poetry books for the people I love. I'm a very romantic person. I paint when I'm distressed, and I paint when I'm in love, and those two bodies of work never meet in public.

NA. I kind of want to ask to see the paintings you made when you were in love, I want to see the contrast.
S. Those ones stay just between me and them.

NA. What tools do you work in, and what is one medium you’re curious about?
S. Mostly digital, iPad and Procreate. But I also paint on canvas, I love acrylics, mixed media, layering watercolor and acrylic over each other. I've recreated some of my favorite paintings before, Starry Night, The Scream, and merged them into one composite piece. Some of those are in my house, some my mom stole for hers. Oil is the one medium I'd love to master and haven't. I'm too impatient for it. When I start something I want to finish it, even if that means staying up three sleepless nights straight. With oil you lay one layer and then have to wait to do the next, and I just can't. It drives me crazy. So digital ended up being where I fell in love, especially once I started doing 2D animation. That's actually how my collections started, all five pieces exist as short animations too, not just as static prints. The movement matters to me.

Starry Night x The Scream by Sammy

On Being Arab

NA. Does being Arab, or that identity, feel connected to your work, or does it ever feel like it clashes?
S. There's a lot there. I'll be honest, I do limit myself a little, on purpose, to protect myself. Because you know how it is, if you're not cis, straight, sufficiently religious, whatever the requirement is, you tend to get punished for it. I hold back because I'm Arab, even though I love being Arab and I'm genuinely proud of it. I always say I love my country, but my country doesn't love me back. And through all of it, I still love it, no matter what happens, government, people, everything. I'm very proud of being Lebanese, and especially proud of the city I'm from, Byblos. I think it's the most beautiful city in the world, it makes me so happy. But yes, there are things I hope I'll eventually have the courage to do in my art, to burst a bubble I still feel stuck inside.

NA. Is there anything specifically Arab, whether it's architecture, music, calligraphy, that you feel pulled toward?
S. Definitely, it's a huge part of my identity. I love anything Arabesque, it's gorgeous to me, especially mosques. I get emotional looking at that kind of architecture. And at the same time, I'm drawn to Gothic churches, stained glass, all of it. We have so many beautiful churches and mosques in Lebanon. There's a church in Byblos, Saint John the Baptist, thousands of years old, right next to a mosque. Sometimes you can hear both at once, and it's a gorgeous feeling. I listen to a lot of Arabic music too, mostly Egyptian, my favorite band is Cairokee, it resonates with me in a way I can't fully explain. And I love Arabic calligraphy, the script itself. It's beautiful, and I always find it interesting that people who don't read Arabic see it as a drawing rather than language. I think that's beautiful too.

On Influences

NA. Who are the artists that inspire you, famous or not?
S. My mom first, when it comes to illustration. I wish she'd pursued it. Her lettering is beautiful, her French cursive, her Arabic script, both gorgeous. When it comes to painters, Vincent van Gogh, without question. It's a deeply emotional connection for me. Everything he went through, being mentally ill, being institutionalized, being so misunderstood, struggling to communicate how his own brain worked and finding a way to do it on canvas anyway. I feel very close to that. I deal with a lot of my own mental health challenges, therapy, a long road. I also love Gaudí, his churches, how he made everything organic and enormous and gorgeous at the same time. Visiting his work is one of my dreams. And Dalí, I love surrealism completely, you'll notice I borrowed one of his motifs, the melting clock, directly. And Frida Kahlo. She's a feminist, a strong woman, I love her so much, she's just dope.

NA. When someone looks at your art, what do you want them to feel?
S. Genuinely, anything they want. I really believe art is subjective, and the only thing I care about is that someone feels something, whatever their interpretation is, mad, sad, happy, whatever. I'm open to any of it, as long as it makes them feel. I think that's the whole point of art.

Prints of Sammy's work are available now on arabiyon.art.