Sawaya painting in BEYOND BORDERS Arab American Art Exhibition in Long Beach, California

another beautiful invitation for this year's 2011 BEYOND BORDERS art exhibition in long beach, california at 2nd city council gallery, this weekend, october 22 and 23 sponsored by the House of Lebanon Artists' Group in Los Angeles. the show is up from noon to 5 p.m. on saturday, with a reception from 5 to 9 p.m.

sunday it is open from noon to 5 p.m. with a children's ceramic workshop from 1 to 3 p.m. i will be helping reem hammad out with the workshop, and this will be great fun!

the address is 435 alamitos avenue, long beach, california 90802. this year i will be there and hope to see you there if you're nearby!

it will be a great show featuring the work of 28 artists—lebanese-american, middle eastern, and american!

i will be signing copies of my cookbook, alice's kitchen: traditional lebanese cooking  and the sweets of araby, which i illustrated and was published in june!

the exhibition is sponsored by the Lebanese American Foundation House of Lebanon and the House of Lebanon Artists' Group.

traditional Mother of God icons now showing in group exhibition

Two of my traditional Eastern Catholic icons are on exhibition in Incarnation Icons at the Cloisters Gallery, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Portland, Oregon from November 1, 2009 - January 2, 2010.

if you're in portland, it's worth a visit to this beautiful exhibition. many of the icons are written by my vancouver, washington teacher, virginia barber! sally wooley did a great job organizing and hanging the show.

the icon pictured here, Kykotissa Mother of God, is based on a prototype from St. Catherine's monastery in the Sinai. the feel of it is so Arabic, very different than the typical russian prototypes, and the appeal was very strong. when i visited the Getty Museum in december 2006 and saw the amazing iconography exhibition from St. Catherine's monastery, i was inspired to write this icon. on a recent trip to LA and a return to the Getty, i saw these two icons from their collection, but i failed to note the artist's names, dates, and other crucial information...just was snapping away (without flash, of course!) while chatting with my LA illustrator friend, Gail.