A DA M CHAMY : : A r t Ar t is t ic Arabs in Amer ica

P a l e s t i n i a n - T e x a n a r t i s t A d a m C h a m y e x p l o r e s i d e n t i t y , m y t h , a n d h o m e t h r o u g h a s e r i e s o f f a m i l y p o r t r a i t s a n d

i n s t a l l a t i o n w o r k s t h a t w e a v i n g t h e m e s o f m i g r a t i o n , r o o t s , a n d b e l o n g i n g . F a c e s o f T e x a n f a r m e r s h a n g s i d e b y s i d e

w i t h J e r u s a l e m m e r c h a n t s . O n e h a s c e n t u r i e s - o l d t i e s t o l a n d t h r o u g h f r o n t i e r s e t t l e m e n t o f t h e A m e r i c a n S o u t h . T h e o t h e r ,

a n e n t e r p r i s i n g g l o b a l L e v a n t i n e m e r c h a n t f a m i l y , f a c e s a b r o k e n h o m e l a n d s e v e r e d b y c o l o n i z a t i o n a n d w a r . T o g e t h e r

t h e s e f r a g m e n t e d m y t h s a n d s t o r i e s f o r m u l a t e a n i d e n t i t y q u e s t i o n i n g t h e i d e a o f h o m e a n d f o r m a s t o r y o f a b i c u l t u r a l

A r a b - A m e r i c a n a .

B o r n i n F o r t W o r t h , A d a m g r a d u a t e d f r o m G e o r g e W a s h i n g t o n U n i v e r s i t y i n 2 0 0 9 a n d h a s l i v e d i n t h e W a s h i n g t o n , D C a r e a

e v e r s i n c e . H i s w o r k s h a v e e x h i b i t e d i n g r o u p s h o w s i n t h e W a s h i n g t o n a r e a , T e x a s , a n d S p a i n .

M o r e a t a d a m c h a m y . c o mo r e - m a i l , a d a m c h a m y ( a t ) g m a i l

©Adam Chamy

Salim was a classic Levantine merchant. In family lore, he is half myth, half reality. He is rumored to have trav-eled the world in the early 20th century, sponge fishing in Australia, buying spices in Southeast Asia, and drop-ping into New York City and Palestine to visit his children and relatives.

His final resting place – like his life, really – is un-known. I captured him here in the typical tarboush (fez), equipped with a classic 19th century Ottoman-era suit and matching stoic demeanor.

P a i n t i n g

S a l i m A c r y l i c o n F o u n d W o o d

5 0 x 4 0 / / 2 0 1 1

F o u n d A r t P a i n t i n g

G r a nA c r y l i c o n F o u n d C h a i r

4 6 x 1 0 / / 2 0 1 1

Gran, my mom’s mother, died when I was young, but I remember her Depression-era will as thrif ty, kind, and strong. In fact it was that power I remember most about her. She had an unmatched ability to bring silence to a room. At Thanksgiving, the air would stil l in reverence to her eloquent yet simple prayers.

When she grew sick, Gran proved every prognosis wrong when she walked again af ter a debilitating stroke. In the end, she cheated the sorrow of death by imprinting mem-ories of her courageous will upon all her family to this very day.

I n s t a l l a t i o n

S i t t i M i x e d M e d i a o n F o u n d T r u n k & W o o d

4 0 x 2 2 x 1 0 / / 2 0 1 1

“Sitti” refers to grandmother in Arabic but more literally means “my lady.” And without a doubt my grandmother was some lady.

Always graceful, no matter how old and stooped she became, Sitti em-bodied the image of a noble yet determined Arabic woman. I carry in my mind’s eye a thousand legends of her. She sang like an opera sing-er, spoke like the most educated polyglot, had the will of a soldier and the temper of a firecracker. Her life was tragic, beautiful, and compli-cated. In al-Nakba, the 1948 civil war between Jews and Arabs in Pal-estine, she faced the death of her husband, son, and many, many oth-ers. She transformed herself from bourgeois housewife into refugee and breadwinner. She then brought my dad to the United States and worked until he became a well-educated adult.

We crossed paths at the end of her life and the beginning of mine. Sit-ti was my link to a mythical homeland. She grew a fig tree in her yard, picked roses and mint, and sang. “Habibi! Elbi!” she would cry as she laughed and narrated stories of war, donkeys, people I never knew, and places forgotten.This work attempts to channel Sitti’s nobility, mystery, and warmth while evoking the competing, sometimes contradictory legends she al-ways told me.

I know this grandfather only through stories and old photo-graphs. He started a thriving textile business in New York City but later returned back to his homeland to search for a wife and start a family.

Indeed, he managed to start a family, but he never got to watch it grow and mature. Extremists took his life during the early days of al-Nakba, or the 1948 war in Palestine. He is immortalized now in photographs, fables echoed by my grandmother, and the whispers of memories.

F o u n d A r t P a i n t i n g

J o h n C h a m yA c r y l i c , I n d i a I n k , a n d C h a r c o a l

o n F o u n d C r a t e4 5 . 5 x 3 3 . 5 i n . / / 2 0 1 1

F o u n d A r t P a i n t i n g

N i c o l a s D e S i m i n iA c r y l i c o n F o u n d W o o d

4 5 . 5 x 3 3 . 5 / / 2 0 1 1

Nicolas DeSimini was my great-grandfather. Born in Bari, Italy, he migrated at a young age to Jerusalem. He was a merchant, builder, architect, shop owner, musician and tile designer. His tile was shipped throughout the region, adorn-ing hotels and homes across the Middle East.

Today many of his buildings still stand despite war and time. Ironically, one such building is used as an office by the Is-raeli government near the Knesset building in Jerusalem. The same state drove from his home and destroyed his busi-ness and livelihood.

Jack Daniel was the name of my grandfather on my mom’s side, not some Kentucky bourbon, but I knew him better as Granddaddy. My strongest memories of him were his glow-ing blue eyes and his thick accent. I was a young child when he was around, so he never spoke much to me about his in-fantry service in World War II. His feet froze during his ser-vice and caused him problems for the rest of his life. Yet he survived it all. Defending his land and his country, he came out alive, his kind smile unbroken.

It is this image of him I will always remember, an image I tried to capture: a young 70-year-old with a twinkle in his eye that would last him all his years and beyond.

F o u n d A r t P a i n t i n g

G r a n d d a d y ( o r J a c k D a n i e l )

A c r y l i c o n F o u n d C h a i r2 0 1 1

This diptych of my parents is based off photos taken in approximate-ly 1952. Most of my work in the series concerns near-mythical, or long-deceased, members of my family. Here, instead, I followed an-other sort of mythical past, that of my parents as kids.

The unifying part of this piece is the suitcase. Indeed, it was travel that brought the subjects together. My dad from Palestine to the United States, my mom from her small hometown of Cleburne to the nearby city of Fort Worth. In a sense, it was a suitcase that made my parents my parents at all.

F o u n d A r t P a i n t i n g

D i p t y c h 1 9 5 2A c r y l i c & I n k o n C a n v a s a n d S u i t c a s e

2 5 . 5 x 1 8 . 5 x 5 e a c h p a n e l 2 0 1 1

“Grandmother is a large woman. She and her daughters are attired in beautiful clothes. The

daughters have elegant hair-dos and attended Female College for Young Women. The sons look like young gentlemen.” – recollections by Estelle ‘Daniel’ Irwin.

This is a work of people I never met and know very little about yet whose lives still reverberate into the

present. Mittie Lacewell Daniel, my great-grandmother, sits to the upper right. She and her family laid the

groundwork for my roots in Texas and set the stage for my American identity.

P a i n t i n g / / F o u n d A r t

T h e L a c e w e l l F a m i l yA c r y l i c o n B e d H e a d b o a r d & C a n v a s

3 8 x 6 1 a t g r e a t e s t d i m e n s i o n 2 0 1 1

D i g i t a l W o r kP o t o m a k

©Adam Chamy