Interview with Sami Mohammad

- Good evening,aa I am Reem Al Hajri, today we are aa at the National Library of Kuwait aa to interview aa you so will you tell me your name and and place of birth?

- Aaa I am Sami Muhammed Ahmed Al Saleh, a visual artist and a sculptor. Aam I will begin with my biography, which is important for the the aa event itself, I mean the interview. I was born in Sharq in 1943 amm on October 1st, that's next month which is next October. F, of course for most of the Kuwaitis my age the date of birth is not one hundred percent accurate, so I remember aa my date of birth aam associated with my school, which was Al Sabah school. Aaa Al Sabah school had a sign with the date in which it was built, that was aa 1949. The school was built and they first opened it in 1949. It was not, aa it was built in 1949 but I don't exactly recall when it was opened, perhaps after a few months or a year. Aaaa as for my age assessment aa a doctor established my age, when aa I applied for a birth certificate, for the nationality documents. I was about 16 or 17, my wisdom teeth, as the doctor said, had just emerged and based on that he decided my age and established my birth date, later on, when I grew up, I knew that my aa date of birth aa was very very close to the date my school was built, 1949, I aa remember our neighborhood, aa the Sawaber neighborhood, in Sharq, of course I was born in the Sawaber neighborhood, aa ff aa our houses back then were built of hardened adobe, which aa we called "Salbi," aa and sea rocks, the sea rocks rep.. aa replaced the bricks. So aa that kind of adobe was somewhat hard, being mixed with a kind of hay, they mixed it with hay, they mixed it to be like concrete and become aa hard. So aaa what did I do? I was about six or seven at the time, I used to get aa a piece of iron, dig in the walls, dig and dig in the walls, most of them you know, and and collect an amount of that clay and take it home. At home we had a water well, I want to the well and and brought out some water, with a bucket, that was a vessel or the... we... I don't know what it was called, we called it a bucket, which was a container and and and with with-- to bring water out with. I used to take that water and mix it with the mud to make a paste, that paste was moldable so aaa me and my little friends, children my age, who didn't go to school yet, aa we used to sit, in the late mornings, in the shade and I brought that clay and made shapes out of it, aaa a fish for instance or aa something, aa a goat, a camel aa of the aa other animals familiar to us or a duck or a chicken. So we aa three or four children usually were with me so I gave everyone aaa his share, which was one of the things I made and we put those in the sun aa to dry, when those objects dried each one took his piece and left aa and others came and others came, so that was I mean my job in the neighborhood and the children knew that I made and formed objects aa and and they were happy, and for me that was like a reward, aa I mean it was a huge thing to see the kids around me happy and I was happy for their happiness too because they encouraged me and pushed me to do something which I didn't fully understand, all I knew was that I made those things and made the children happy, from here, of course aa I went to school later on and aa at school there were aaa the art education teachers and of course aa we had drawing classes and those drawing classes were my favorite and science was my favorite subject and the reason was that science had drawings aa and we drew what they gave us, aaa that's how that story developed, I loved aa sculpting things, to sculpture objects so...

- If I may ask, when did you start going to to school?

- Aaa I first went to school in aa the 1950s, in the fifties, in 1952 or 1953 so, [he coughs] I beg your pardon, at aaa school, I spent a long time at Al Sabah school, I remember aa our teacher [he clears his throat] may God rest his soul, aa an Egyptian called Mansour, that teacher aaa was a painter and he liked to encourage the the children and the... the aa talented so he nurtured me, m more aa than the others, because he saw I was doing something I loved, days aa went by and in 1956... in 1956 the tripartite aggression on Egypt took place. [long pause] so in 1965 the tripartite aggression on Egypt took place so... and the Ministry of Education was aa headed at the time by Sheikh Abdullah Al Jaber, may God rest his soul, so he charged the aam aa teachers and school headmasters with holding a aa panorama in Al Sabah school, which was my school, aa on the school stage, aaa representing the aa tripartite aggression, so aa most of the the Egyptian teachers, everyone aa chose students and assigned to them tasks to do, I was given aa the task of making figures, he taught me, Mr. Mansour, had taught me how to make figures out of aam wires and colored paper, so I made... he made for me the first figure aa to follow, I liked it and was so pleased with it, so I began to make figures of children, women, men, soldiers and and passersby, people passing by, we kept working for more than a month aa and I made about 200 f aa figures, at the time, aa of children, aa men and women, with wires, fabric or colored paper, we made shirts, red shirts, sh trousers, aa dishdashas and so on. Then it was time to set the b-- stage to create a panorama on the stage, it was a huge stage so they set up aaa a canal and aaa a sea, they set up aa models of Port Said and Port Fuad cities so as I mean to complement the story aa with houses and all, the houses were made by aa aa some boys a aa who liked carpentry and others were charged with building models of boats, the forms of boats so the the aa aa aa panorama was complete and ready after a month of working on it, so the day came and on that day they invited aa the Minister of Education, aa the late Sheikh Abdullah Al Jaber Al Sabah to aa open aa that event, there were families there, the families of all the students came so it was a aa huge crowd and stuff. A teacher or the headmaster called out the names of the students who made the models and stuff so that the Sheikh would honor them, mine was the 3rd or 4th name called and I was so happy with my name called out, I didn't know that they might ca... call out my name, the Sheikh called me and and and I stood beside him and shook his hand and and he gave me a fountain pen, no it wasn't a fountain pen it was a ballpoint pen aa and that was the first prize in my life, it gave me a great motive to adhere to that art, that sophisticated and intimate art which aa I loved since childhood, it is a gift from God because by nature one has that aa sense of art and and and they develop it, of course after Al Sabah school I moved to other schools like Al Ma'moon school, Al Ghazali school aa Shuwaikh High School school, not Shuwaikh, Kaifan aa High School considering that I grew up in Kaifan, aaa of course we left ha... Sharq, our neighborhood in Sawaber, aam in the 1950s and they gave us aaa a house in aam Kaifan, aaa I think in 1957 or 1956, most likely in 1957 because I remember there were buses that took us to and fro as we didn't have aa cars, there weren't aa many cars moving between aaa Kaifan and the City, you know, so aa of course I moved from the school to the Ma'moon school, in Shamiya, which was closer for... closer for me.

- Aaa before we move to to the next stage, aam a question about the the school work which which you did and the models which which you made for aaa Egypt and the and the incident that took place--

- Yes

- How old aaa were you at the time?

- Let's see, I was born in aa 1943, add aa seven, eight or nine years, I don't know I mean the one who assessed my age said it was 1943. Add seven, add six so I was 11, 12, 12 or 13, that was my age.

- And and...

- Of course that was in the elementary stage, I spent a long time at elementary schools because it was a period full of moving from one pl... from one place to another.

- Aaa I'd like to ask you aa about your first childhood memory, I mean what was your first childhood memory?

- This, that that is the most prominent memory in my life, it's still clinging to my mind, that is how I sat with the children aa I loved them that's of course in addition to going to the sea, from Sharq to aa the sea, walking under the sun, that scorching sun, but we tolerated it, it was fine with us although when we reached the sea, on the way, while walking, there was shade under the walls where we walked, but when we reached the sea, the the sea, the sea sand was like embers, we walked on... we were barefooted, at the time we didn't have slippers, we were kids, we went to the sea and aa jumped, I remember we jumped and jumped to reach the water and threw ourselves in, like pig... pigeons or like the the the albashoosh, we threw ourselves in the sea to swim, when we were done with swimming and stuff we went back, so aaa I also remember a story, I was once hit by a car while we were going, while I was going to the sea, aaa in which street? Now aa the aaa Abdul Razaaq Square, it-- it is called aaa now aa the Abdul Razaaq Square, where the three banks were, they were in the center of aaa aa the square, so there, in that street but inward, we were going, as if you were going to Dasman, there I was hit and they took me to aa the Syrian doctor, I remember the Syrian, where was the Syrian? The Syrian was by the sea aa close to aa what is now aa the Grand Mosque, be... be... behind it or aa about that location, around that area on the sea, there was aam I remember aa a Syrian woman m aa she was a nurse and she and she was the one who super... supervised aa the bandaging and the treatment and huh, of course all I had were scratches, I mean I had nothing aa that serious, you know, aaa so anyway that was an accident that happened to me, in my childhood, at the time I was about nine or ten years old or something like that [he clears his throat] I also remember aa the Di'ai market aa that Di'ai market was originally a street, with houses on this side and houses on that side, so everyone opened a room aaa of their house and turned it into a shop and and and a room after a room and a shop after a shop it became a market, they called it the Di'ai market and they even built the Di'ai Sebil (free water fountain), I mean Al Di'ai family were the ones aa who owned the Sebil and the ones who built it so it became a Sebil, aaa the house of Di'ai, the Sebil of Di'ai, that Sebil, I mean, at a time, was at a time when people were in need for a drop of water, I remember the water, I remember water was an issue for us, water, you know, wasn't like water now, I mean, mentioning water, with all due respect, one toilet flush nowadays was enough for a person to drink water over aa a full week back then, I mean that amount of water of fresh water, of course I'm talking about fresh water, we had a well with salty water or (khreej) water as we called it, which was used for bathing aa we bathed with it, washed the po... they washed the pots with it aa washed the sheep aa sprayed the streets with, all those were with the the the well water but the water which which we drank, was water acquired the hard way, when the rain fell , I remember when the rain fell every one said, we said, put your pots und... under the gutters to collect the water and where did water come from? From the roof tops of course, the roofs were of mud, our houses were of mud. Water came at the time of rain, all of it, came from the roof, we put the gutt.... aaa our pots below the gutters and stuff then we drained the water, we drained it with ghetras, drained it with cloth and and it was consumed and and that was the the life going on. I even remember that there was aa, aa in Hawalli, in Hawalli, aaa Hawalli was large and didn't have many houses and stuff, there were puddles and when rain fell the donkey riders, who went to bring water from the ponds, they went and bought water from those puddles, those puddles aaa had water aa about 20 centimeters or 15 centimeters high, in in the puddle, they filled their bags, they put three or four bags on a donkey and went to sell the water to people that was a tragedy, I mean a real tragedy I lived, I mean that was the the situation, the situation with water, such a situation aaa that, of course, in addition to the water brought from Basra, whe... I don't know where they brought it from, from Iraq, from Basra they brought it sometimes aa so the aa, I remember at my uncle's house, my uncle's house was close to ours, my uncle's house [he clears his throat] they had a cart, a cart, those carts, the Mehris, the Mehris had carts with which they roamed the neighborhoods, with a tank on a cart the cart was about a meter and a half or two meters long, a meter and a quarter wide and 50 or 60 centimeters high, with a tank made aa of tin and they we... went and filled it from the pond, huh, two or three Mehris pushed that cart around the neighborhoods shouting, "Shatt, Shatt, Shatt, Shatt." Which meant water from the Shatt or fresh water and they sold it by the tin can and and even the Kandar, the Kandar is the aa Kandari (water carrier) who used to carry aa a stick with a tin can, a can on the right and a can on the left, tied with ropes. He went to the pond and brought water to sell or for his family so aa water was rather scarce for us, all in all, aa aa we lived that tragedy aa that was in the 1940s and the 1950s then Allah blessed Kuwait, a grace, a grace not truly appreciated except by those who lived like me and those older than me of course, I am aa alm-- almost 77 years old now, huh, so those who know, who lived that period know the tragedy and know particularly that that Kuwait had simple people and and and a few people, everyone knew everyone, sometimes I went to bring water from the house of peo... from the houses of people and they didn't say no, those who had a bounty you went to those and brought water from, you brought food and they gave you and and and all the Kuwaitis are generous even if they didn't have anything, by God they didn't have a thing to give, they had nothing to give so that was generosity and that aaa I mean the people of Kuwait, in the past, lived on aa simple sustenance and resources but those were greatly blessed, you know, and when we discovered the oil , thank God Almighty, we lived in great comfort and and and in luxury and and may God have mercy on our Sheikhs, who were in the lead for the Kuwaiti people, like Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem, may God rest his soul, and aa and and I mean all our Sheikhs were connected to the people and kind to them and tried to do, I mean to give them all what they could give, I mean when oil appeared in Kuwait, it wasn't mono... no one monopolized it, it was for the people and the land acquisition and stuff took place, what was the land acquisition? With the land acquisition they thought, "we have a lot of money, a huge wealth, how can we give the people this money?" They took the houses, those wh-- whose houses were small were given great amounts of money for them and they were sent outside the city, they went to Kaifan for instance, they went to aa other places, you know, anyway, this is not my talk about art, I mean one story leads to another and that's what made me talk about about how I lived my life, I mean my life, I am not one of the aa merchants nor am I one of the the the aaa people who had money, we were a poor family, I mean like the simple Kuwaitis.

- I'd like to go back to the to the family and the neighborhood, you mentioned aa that your house was next to your uncle's, I I-- will you tell me more about the family house? Did you live there as a family by yourselves or with aa living with the extended family?

- Yes.

- Aaa your neighbors, the neighborhood and the and the children--

- Yes.

- I wish you'd tell me more about those things.

- Our house, as I told you, was in Sharq aa and my uncle's family were with us so we were a big family, all of us, you know, aa we lived together in one house aaam my cousins were, my goodness, 12 boys and and girls and we were so many and and my aunt, may God rest her soul, I remember aunt, may Allah rest her soul, aa a teacher who taught the girls and boys in the 1940s, she taught and among those she taught was aa Al Baseer, Al Baseer, aaa he was a litterateur, a writ... aa I mean he had aa he was blind, aa I forgot his name, Al Baseer, we know him as Al Baseer, damn the devil, anyway, he was one who studied under her and aaa many, many people studied under her and we, she taught us the Qur'an and the, there was no arithmetic, there was no mathematics, nothing but the just the Qur'an, how did she teach? She died and I knew it, she had diabetes and no one knew what diabetes was or what that disease was, nobody knew it and I know now that she aa had diabetes with my knowledge of it because she had like gangrene and she died so aa many old women, to whom I went with my mother, when I was a child, I saw them lying in beds and my mother went aa to comfort them, her aa acquaintances, my mother's acquaintances and she comforted them and stuff aaa so aa I mean the those who died, most of them had not been seen by a doctor or any one, there were there were no doctors and the ones who grew old didn't want to to be seen, a man sees a woman? "No, no, I won't, I'd rather die before you see me," that was their conviction. Anyway, aaa what else do I remember about... you, aa that was our neighborhood, in our neighborhood, yes, there was one of the Qabazards, Husain Qabazard, our neighbor, I think, I rem... he was my friend but I haven't seen him until today, I haven't seen him since we were kids and we separated aa there were also aah aa the Najaf kids, the Najaf's was opposite to our house aaa there aah, I remem-- I don't remember them now, chi... of course I didn't know the families, I knew the children who... because I was a child, at the the time, aa so mm we went into and out of the houses, on those days, those days, I mean aa all the doors were open, so sometimes we played lebbaida (hide and seek), lebbaida in the neighborhood and and those aaa in lebbaida you jumped from one rooftop to another rooftop and the houses were close to one another, so from a rooftop to a rooftop to a rooftop till one reached another house and went out from another door, other people's door so it was a good life aa even its poverty was sweet, we didn't didn't... didn't feel it, life went on and years flew by and thank God for everything, now we are in affluence and prosperity.

- Will you tell me more about aa aa the most popular games you played? Were there certain songs you sang? As a sort of the the... playing when you were kids?

- Honestly aaa I don't remember any songs but aa what I remember are the aa the games aa muqsi we played muqsi, we played aa haul, we played aa lebbaida as we said aa we pl... in Ramadan the Qerqi'an at the time aa I mean, aa and I mm was I was withdrawn, very withdrawn, I mean I wasn't I wasn't aa very social aa I remember aa because I was always by myself and and trying aa to make, form that that mud and I didn't play a lot, you know, I was rather an int... int... introvert, introverted, not like now, I am an ext.. an extrovert, I go and come and so on, no, I was an introvert for sure, you know, because I didn't, I didn't socialize with people a lot and I didn't even have friends, the children the children of the neighborhood, the most I did was to sit with them, making them sculptures because they encouraged me, the encouragement came from them, as if they were something big for me so I went to them and they didn't come to me, so here, that was the limit of friendship for me, that was the limit, I worked for them and gave them things, I didn't I didn't go to other neighborhoods, back then the boys from from a neighborhood went to other neighborhoods and moved around and toured everywhere but for us our limit was going to the sea and coming back because the sea was near us, it wasn't far away I mean it was close by.

- As for your relation with your brothers and sisters, will you tell me first how many you were and what your relation with your brothers and sisters was like?

- I aa have a brother, younger than me and a brother older than me, who died, may God rest his soul, and and my sister Aisha, may God rest her soul, I mean may God grant her a good health because she is still alive aa and and and I have a brother, from my mother aaa he died, may God rest his soul, he was old, aa my cousins, I had a close relationship with my cousins, with one or two of them aaa that one was Abbas, his name is Abbas and Hijji Shihab, who was so dear to me, he died, may God rest his soul, and he had kids who died aa at an old age and one of them is still alive, he is old now, old, his son aa is in Ahmadi, I think, yes, I remember, Ahmadi, Ahmadi where my uncle and his sons were, his sons were old of course, when I was 12 my cousins were 20, 18 and and 25, his sons, at the at the time there was no work so when the oil company opened aa they wanted workers aa the company needed workers, there were no Bengalis nor Indians, there were only Kuwaitis so many Kuwaitis joined the company, as workers, laborers, working in what? Cleaning, digging and so on, so my cousins were in the company, the Ahmadi company and mm they gave them aa I remember sheds, sheds aa the size of this room, say aa aa aa ten to twelve meters by aa six to seven meters and about four meters or five meters high, each shed in Ahmadi was placed in the open, the desert, Ahmadi was a desert, not like now full of plants and stuff, a desert, a desert aa a trailer came aa we called it the trailer, which was a huge truck, a lorry, not a lorry, mmm "mak mak" (a wooden bus popular in Basra at the time) aa it was like a bus, it wasn't a bus but it looked like a bus which carried workers and where was it parked? It was parked in Al Safat, in Al Safat which was aa a barren square, not like now with streets and stuff, with monuments, no, there was nothing there so aa the driver parked it there and sounded the horn, the people... its horn sounded like the whistle of a ship, when he blew the horn in Al Safat you saw... you heard it on the outskirts of Sharq, because it was quiet, there was nothing so so the... we came running, I was about, I mean, about eight or ten, something like that, you know, I remember that my uncle used to take me with him, with him we went, we went to Ahmadi, I didn't go there a lot, I went there six or seven times, during my life, with him, so ev... every time we went aaa of course there were scorpions, snakes, spiny-tailed lizards and a big mess and there were no amm beds nor... on the sand, we used to sleep on the sand inside that shed but we built a stove for cooking with to-- three ro... ro... a rock or two or three, under which we stacked wood and on which we placed a pot and cooked our food and he cooked, who cooked? My uncle, he cooked us lunch and what was the lunch? Rice merabian or memawwash, that was it all the time merabian memawwash and mi'addas, and it was messy, the aa the food, he didn't know how to cook [he laughs] I remember him back then, with daqqus, anyway, we I mean I remember that the company was fenced, was fenced with aaa an iron paling and the the workers and those the laborers were on the outside, I mean our sheds were outside the fence, we stayed outside, I didn't go to work or anything aa I kept wandering around the desert for hours, in that empty space aa about... anyway, that was the story of Ahmadi.

- Aaa you mentioned the the the types of food you ate merabian and mi'addas.

- Yes.

- As kids, what kind of, you know, sweets, candy and things you--

- Yes.

- That you ate as kids?

- The aaa zalabia and ghoraiba, we, sadly, bought them at the market, we bought them at the market, I even, aa I don't know, there was someone, famous and well known, he made ghoraiba, and made aa zalabia, I remember he was tall and slim, I don't know if he was Omani or Kuwaiti, God knows, I don't know. I don't... I remember his cart, where he kept the zalabia, kept the ghoraiba and everything, he went around and and aaa he didn't... he didn't tour the neighborhoods but aa the market and the market was close by, it was near Sharq, you know, aa our neighborhood was aa near al hayyach (the weavers) neighborhood and from al hayyach we went from al hayyach to those were the weavers who made the fabrics for the abbayas and beshts, the besht, and al haddada neighborhood was near us, aaa those haddada who worked in the bla... blacksmiths market aaa so aa I used to leave the house, oh, yes, I remember a story, a story mentioning al haddada neighborhood and stuff, mm my mother, may God rest her soul, gave me four annas, with those four annas I was going to buy, she said to me, "go to the fish market and buy me some fish with them." I said to her, "okay, yumma." I was young, you know and aaa I went, now I was supposed to go from our neighborhood, from our neighborhood, which was aa in Al Sawaber, pass by, I had to pass by al hay... al hayyak neighborhood and from al hayyak neighborhood I we... I go through the haddada neighborhood then to the Derwaza, by the Derwaza there were two houses aa rented, rented to Ira... Iraqis, I remember them, aaa boys, I was eight, nine, or ten years old while these-- they were aa 15 or 16, two boys, aaa mm before leaving I saw, before I went... reached the street that... which would take me to to the market, aaa there was a dra... a drainage hole in their house, near that hole there was a kitten, I went chasing after it to take it but it slipped away and went, where to? Into that drainage hole, it went into that drainage hole, I sat, sq... squatting and calling it and stuff, I picked up some stones and threw them at it and you sure guessed it, the four annas went, with the rock, wh... where? Into the hole, the drainage hole, where the kitten was, I kept shouting and trying, trying and trying but in vain, the four annas were gone, during all that, those two boys came out, aa and one of them said, "what are you doing here, boy?" He shouted at me and frankly I got scared, he was bigger than me and I said, "aaa my four annas went into the hole," and he said, "go away" and slapped me, I kept crying and shouting and I ran away, I went to the market, now what am I going to do? I wanted to go to the market to bring the fish, at that age I knew, in the mar... in the fish market, I knew the time when they brought the fish to the market, because I was always, I... I always went to the vegetables market, the fish market and the butchers' market, those were three markets or four markets, in what is now Al Mubarakiyya, those three markets were next to one another, so I always went there aa not at noon but before noon, I went there sometimes so I thought I'd go to see the fish, so I went to the market, aaa of course they brought the fish fresh, there were no fridges, of course there were no fridges nor electricity in the market, there was nothing aa and they sold the fish on the spot, just buy and t... go, when it reached 12, at noon... of course they came at four, in the morning or five, they came and the fish, without ice or anything, went bad and they fe... feared the fish would go bad on them, so they kept lowering, lowering the price till the point they said, "come and take the fish for free," I went, they threw them, threw the fish away, I took the fish, I took some fish and a bag and went back home, I brought my mother the fish while she was waiting for me, thinking that something bad happened to me, anyway, I got another beating, I got a beating by the boy when I lost the four annas and another by my mother, but I brought the fish anyway and that was a story that happened to me at the time.

- You mentioned the four annas, which were the the aa--

- Yes.

- The currency used at the time aa but will you tell me what were they exactly?

- It was the Indian rupee, aa there were four annas, there was half a rupee, there were an anna, two annas, one baiza, two baiza and there was a matleek, which was the fils, aa of course there were notes, a one- rupee note, a note was aa the paper money, aa a one rupee note, a two rupee note, a five rupee note I think and a ten rupee note and that was the aa highest one, I think the ten- rupee note, no, ah, the one hundred rupees, the one hundred rupee note, I once found a note, of course so many times I found money, God Almighty threw those in my way, that was people's money but I used to go to the market, wandering around the market when I was young, while walking, I don't know, money fe-- fell from the peo-- people, people didn't have wallets, at the time a wallet was too rare for people, a woman kept her money in her scarf or in aa mm her pocket and it fell, not coins like annas and rupees, no aa note, when notes fall-- should you drop a ruppee you'd know it, you'd hear a drrrren, when it falls on the floor but that was a one rupee note, a rupee no-- a one rupee note or a five rupee note or a ten rupee note, should it fall and I found many of those, I once found a hundred rupee note, I was so pleased and happy and went aa running to my mother, bringing bringing I found-- "yumma, I found a rupee, I found a note, I found a note," anyway, a boy my age, from the neighborhood, came chasing after me and running after me, I brought the banknote out, like this, before my mother and he came, snatched it from my hand and ran away, I remem remem... I remember it very well... that that mo-- that move very well, I don't know if he was from our neighborhood or a neighborhood next to ours, next to our neighborhood, I don't even remember how he looked or anything, I just remember how he snatched the money from me, huh, when I brought it out, my mother shouted, "take care," she was shouting in vain, my mother recognized him to be the boy of one of the families, anyway, she went to his mother but there were no hundred rupees, what could bring them back? What could bring them back? Those were a hundred rupees, about the... they are the equivalent of two hundred dinars or three hundred dinars of today's money back then, anyway, that that was something, I mean a story that happened, I mean I'm recalling things that happened to me back then or remember things, you know aa.

- As for... you mentioned aa I mean more than a situation with your mother, will you tell me more about your relation with your father and mother? To whom were you closer and what was your house like I mean?

- Indeed, aa mm my mother, may God rest her soul, loved me so much, more than all my brothers and I was very very close to her and loved her, that's why the hundred rupees, which I told you about, I went, I was a child, running to her with them, of course when I grew up and became an artist and stuff aa she always advised me, "son, don't make statues, son, that's not good, son, that's a sin," of course she was old and and and of that generation and and and those ideas were stuck in her mind, you know, but of course I passed those things and so on and after I I, she died may God rest her soul, aa in... she was born in 1920, according to what's written in the nationality documents aa but she died aa in 19... aah in Al Sabah, Al Sabah hospital in 2000, 2000 I think, 2000 something, yes, I don't remember the date... 2000, yes, 2000, in May 2000, right, in May 2000 we buried her, may God rest her soul, she died at a long... at an old age, you know, but she died feeble aa she had aa a stroke and stayed alive for ten years, after that, wishing for death aa but didn't die, we, I mean I was by her side, of all my brothers, and stayed by her side and and I brought her, I equipped a room for her aaa like a small hospital with a medical bed and and care, I did my best to look after her as she looked after me, may God rest her soul, aa she fulfilled a huge duty, for me, aa and she protected us and nurtured us and and she tolerated a lot of suffering and hardships, she tolerated a huge tragedy, may God rest her soul, may God rest my mother's soul.

- Amen.

- Yes.

- Amm, I don't know, I'd like to ask you about the the the stage aft... after childhood, the teenage period what were...

- Yes

- the characteristics of that period?

- Let me first tell you, there is a story now--

- Please go ahead.

- Now that I'm talking about my mother, aah my father, may God rest his soul, my father, first his profession, let aa I haven't mentioned it, I'm supposed to mention my father's profession, aa my father's profession, we, of course our origins are Hasawis, from Al Ahsa, my father was born in Kuwait, my mother was born in Kuwait but my grandparents are Hasawis aa mm aa my father was fancy or izqerty as they said back then, izqerty means that he was well dressed, he liked aam elegant clothes and liked to look nice and aa he was the best to tailor beshts because aa beshts are mostly related to or associated with the Hasawis, the Hasawis are the masters of that profession, besides being blacksmiths aaa mm some of the blacksmiths are Hasawis and some are 'Ayam but aa and the Safafeer (coppersmiths) too, the Safafeer neighborhood was near ours, so the whole area was an industrial area with people of professions and my father, may God rest his soul, was one of the most famous in the Gulf, in Bahrain, in Saudi Arabia, in Qatar, in Oman, aa even in Iraq he was famous aa famous for being a tailor, he sewed aa first class beshts I even remember aa he tailored for the Shaiks, I mean the Shaikh didn't wear but tailored beshts, beshts made by my fa... father, now, my father what aaa tailored... he didn't make the the the besht itself, the besht itself, I mean the fabric, was made by the the aa the the, those whose neighborhood we mentioned, Al hayyaka, the weavers neighborhood, where they made aa they weaved the besht fabric and he went to the dowaween, the tailors' dowaween in-- those were not like the diwaniyyas now, the diwaniyyas now are for sitting, drinking coffee and so on, no, those were work dowaween, there were those work diwaniyyas, there were the dowaween aa Al Shawwaf diwaniyya, the aa aa Al Baghli diwaniyya, the... there were so many dowaween, I can't remember all of them but all of them had craftsmen working, including my father, who was famous and well known in those dowaween and aa they sometimes brought him work at home, he made the the aa aa aa the the the besht, after someone prepared it, that's the one who aa tailored it, aa someone aa I don't know what they call him but I know the aa that craft with the zarri which are the gold threads, which adorn the besht and those have patterns aa like al haila, al burooj, al maksar and the aa I mean aa there are many crafts in that small field, which is the gold threaded beshts, certain people made.

- You mean those are certain types of embroidery?

- Embroidery, yes, embroidery all around the the the besht, with gold threads and every line or style had a spe... a certain mm person to do, aa al burooj, al burooj which is in the middle, aa al maksar, which is on the edges on the edges of the besht they called it maksar a specialized person made only al maksar, that aa there were ten, twenty or thirty people who just made al maksar, and there were those who made al burooj, aa my father made al burooj, and that al burooj style, he... he didn't invent it, he added to it, or inv... he was inventive with it and made it in a way mm I mean some people could do it but not as perfectly as he did, you know, so based on that he was distinguished and he aa was renowned in that field, so, as we said, he was elegant, that person, my father, his name is Muhammed Ahmed aa Al Saleh, he was well dressed and liked aa aa social gatherings, gatherings aa with people and among those people, who were aa famous and known in the country, I think at the time, someone called Sa'ud Al Makhayta, Sa'ud Al Makhayta you can say, had a diwan and aa people worked in that diwan, including my father, who worked there but he was my father's best friend, he aa loved my father, that was Sa'ud Al Makhayta and Sa'ud Al Makhayta was well known by the Shaikhs, mos... mostly because he was in touch with them, he brought aaa the beshts, he brought them beshts and and aaa he was the best one they knew and so they gave him aa money and he ma... made them the beshts and my father made them, you know, so he was always with my father, I mean he was aa his friend and my father worked with him, that person was a singer and sang songs for the Kuwaiti radio and he played the oud, he loved my father because my father had a very very beautiful voice and sang with him but my father didn't sing on the radio so aa so I was once at the Writers Association and I... I go to the Writers Association a lot, I jumped now from that date to the present da... I was-- let me aa first finish the sequence of how my father aa was famous and how he... then move to the Writers Association, my father, as I told you, was elegant and b... he was aa widely known for being well dressed so they called him Muhammed Al Shabab (the youthful), Muhammed Al Shabab, where is Muhammed Al Shabab, Muhammed Al Shabab is coming, where are you going? I'm going to Muhammed Al Shabab, go get me Muhammed Al Shabab, give this besht to Muhammed Al Shabab to sew, it became his nickname, just like when you say aa the Al Najjar family, the Al Najjar are so many, a whole family who were originally carpenters, you know, so they were called Al Najjar, Al Haddad too, they were blacksmiths, Al Saffar were coppersmiths so, anyway, my father was given, at the time, a nickname and his nickname... a nickname which is like, I don't know what to call it aa nickname, as you can say, a nickname so his byname was Muhammed Al Shabab, it was just Muhammed but they called him Muhammed Al Shabab, even on the passport, his passport it was written Muhammed Al Shabab, I mean they aa asked him, fath... he didn't want to be... to say that because he got upset but it aaa got stuck to him, I even have, I remember I found a passport, of my mother's, which she kept a long time ago, may God rest her soul, aa in it it was written aa Mariam Al Shabab, my mother's name is Mariam Ali Shihab, Mariam Ali Shihab it was written aa Mariam, aa wife of Muhammad Al Shabbab Al Shabab so she was called Mariam Al Shabab, wife of Muhammed Al Shabab and in the neighborhood they didn't call us but Sami Al Shabab, my brother Al Shabab and that Al Shabab, they kept calling us that till the 1950s, just till the 1950s, then the... that name went obsolete, it was gone, gone, aaa now back to the story of the asso.. association of aaa--

- Before we aa move to the Writers Association please.

- Please go ahead.

- I'd like to ask you aa you talked about the the work dowaween--

- Yes.

- And how they were different from the dowa... the dowaween of the present time.

- Yes.

- Aa were there, besides the work dowaween, the dowaween which we see, in their current form, these days or they were just...

- The Dawaween the work Dawaween, I mean as a Hasawi, those work Dawaween, where the tailors were, we called them work Dawaween, there were Dawaween such as aaa the Al Ghanem Dewan, the aa Al Mulla Dewan, the the the aa Al Aso'si, the Dewan of.. those were work Dawaween, the sailors went to them, aa to make deals with the skippers, that was work, it was called work but the Dawaween had aa had.. had roots aaa human roots and social roots, there, people could know about their friends, even the work Dawaween for us, in in the Hasawis' Dawaween, if they were there, for the tailors, those were by the sea while these were in inside the city, in.. in Sharq, so aa those had their nature and these had their nature, in these the persons, who went to them, were committed, they stayed from the morning, they came in the morning, at 6 or 7 and didn't leave before aa 12, 12 at noon, when they went to pray while those, no, people stayed there for an hour, 15 minutes aa to make a deal with someone or for a sailor, who needed money, a skipper to make a deal with, so one went there for an hour or two and mostly in the mornings, in the morning, I used to pass by them, when I left our neighborhood, going to the sea, I passed by them and saw them, I mean on the the, you know the Gulf street? It wasn't even there, the Gulf street didn't exist and and it was aa a dirt road with houses aa opposite the sea, you know. Anyway, aa , yes, let me tell you the story aa the story of the Writers Association. The Writers Association, of course I'm not a member but my friends, the writers, are so many and I love and cherish them, among those are Al Weqayaan, aa Doctor Khalifa and many others, so aa among those were aa Shadi Al Khaleej, aa Abu Abdullah an many other people whom I loved and cherished aa and I used to go to the Dewaniya there, the Dewan.. Dewaniya of the Writers Association, inside the Writers Association. Before he died, aa Al Baseer, I forgot his name, Abdul Azeez Mansoor, I forgot his name, Al Baseer, anyway, Al Baseer, damn the devil, my memory isn't helping me until now. Anyway, Al Baseer is a Hasawi, he's a Hasawi, so he came and sat and he was a writer and a member of the Writers Association, I think he was one of its founders or I mean he was in it and I saw him there aam. One night I was aa I was.. I always said to him," Hello Abu Adnan, how are you, Abu Adnan?" That was it, he didn't know me, not aa even by the voice he didn't know me and he knew all those present by the voices because he was blind and couldn't see but he recognized people by their voices. That night I said to him, " Abu Adnan, if I tell you my name, will you know me? " He said, " Who are you? " I said to him, " I am Sami Muhammed Ahmed Al Saleh" He didn't know me, he didn't kn..he said, " I really don't know, I don't know you" I said to him, " Do you remember someone, a famous tailor called Muhammed Al Shabab?" He said, " Oooh, I know him, I know him, who is he? Your father" I said, I said to him, " Yes, my father, that's my father" He said, " I know you, I know your family, I know your gra.. grandfather, your mother's father and and.. and I know.... " He knew us, he knew us because he was a Hasawi and all the Hasawis know each other ( He coughs ) so he said to me," That... " He talked that way, in a loud voice, to the people who were sitting there, there were many people and he didn't see so aaa he didn't know who were sit..., he knew names and he went, " Hey, folks, do you see this person?" Referring to me " Had his father been alive now, he would've been the biggest singer, the biggest singer and the best singer. His voice was better than Um Kulthoom's" He said it like that " By God Almighty, it was better than Um Kulthoom's voice, because he was Sa'ud Al Makhayta's friend, Sa'ud Al Makhayta was a singer and he was a singer, that's Muhammed Al Shabab, if you heard about him" So those days aa I mentioned that story to present an eye witness that my father was elegant and that people didn't know him but with the aa name Al Shabab.Now we come to our house, if you go to my house, I can show you my work. When you enter through the door, the first door you go through, you will see a statue of my mother, may God rest her soul, I remember I told you about it, the statue of my mother. I called the house (The Villa of Mariam Al Shabab) I named the villa, which I built in Al Salam, I named it the Villa of Mariam Al Shabab and wrote the name, in big letters, on the door and behind the statue I made for her in 1967, 1967. I liked portraits a lot I liked a lot to draw portraits and drew many portraits of people, so I drew a portrait of my mother and named the house after her and so on. I hope, God willing, I didn't lose the passport, or rather the paper I found, yes, no, a paper, she was having a passport issued, I think, or my father was having a passport issued. It was a paper aa with the stamps aaa of Ahmed Al Jaber, may God rest his soul, the picture of Sheikh Ahmed Al Jaber was oriented on them, it had 2 stamps, dated the fifties, I think 1950 or 1949, the stamps. A receipt, it was a passport receipt, like a passport, like a receipt for a pass...but it had her name Mariam Al Shabab, so I kept it for that reason, I even have a a photocopy of it. So aa that is my family story, you know, but as for my art career and how it developed and how.. let's do it in another time

- God willing next time

- Yes

- Thank you very much

- Now we rea...

- I am Reem Al Hajri and today is our second session aa at CAP, the Contemporary Art Platform, will you introduce yourself first, please?

- Yes, aaa, Sami Muhammed Ahmed Al Saleh, a visual artist and a sculptor, of course I have a long history in visual arts, for more than half a century I've been working in that field, so aaa.

- I'd like to go back, for a moment, to our last point.

- Yes

- Aamm, we were talking about Abdul Razaaq Al Baseer and your father's friend, so will you aa tell us briefly about them?

- Yes, aaa m, as for Abdul Razaaq Al Baseer, may God rest his soul, aa he was aa blind, of course, but he was an acknowledged Kuwaiti writer and a man who had aaa books and was aa one of aa aa the pioneers of the aa Kuwaiti literature. Aaa I remember that aa person aa, my mother told me about him that he used to come to aa my aunt, my mother's sister, aa aa Fatma, may God rest her soul, aa she was a teacher, my aunt aa a teacher-- Fatma aa she taught the Qur'an and she taught aaa boys of the age accepted by them, back-- at the time, so he used to come... I am 77, I didn't aa didn't meet him, at the time, he died a long time ago and he was, I think, 80 when he died, so so.. aa mm I didn't see him while he was learning but I saw him when I grew up, I met him and he recognized me, he knew whose son I am and from which family. So aa talking leads us to Abdul Razaaq Al Baseer, one day I was at the association, I always go to the Writers Association, which is in Idayliya, aa and he always frequented it and had friends and and I have my friends so aa mm I mean I sat there, listening to his talks listening to others' talks, I mean it's a type of aaa culture aa , we also discussed and listened to talks, so he aa I thought I'd, you know, aa I introduced myself to him, at first he didn't recognize me aa I told him the name, which was a nickname or aa as we say in Kuwait a byname, a by name that they gave my father. My father aa, may God rest his soul, my father was one of the aa people who aa, he was a real artist in his field, which was the field of aa tailoring Beshts aa, sewing Beshts which is not weaving Beshts, weaving the Beshts, weaving Beshts is something and making Beshts, which is the embroidery with the-- with gold, and gold threads is something else and my father was specialized in the gol... the gold threads and aa sewing the gold threads has aa about 4 specialties, which are something called Al Karmak, and something called Al Burooj and something called the aa, aa as I said aa making the Beshts, which they call the Beshts, which are of course now --. people stopped aa wearing Beshts whereas the Besht is a feature of the Gulf people, and isn't worn except by aa I mean a grown up man and for decency and and a Besht has an advantage aa I mean it has been the the real feature of the Gulf people for many years, I mean for years even in the desert aa they wear the aa the-- something similar to the Besht, I don't know its name but the Besht became for the the-- for the receptions and for elegance. So he aa sewed Beshts, my father was specialized in aa Al Burooj, which is a word aa I mean a type, one of the types I mentioned, the four aa types, in the Beshts, of sewing gold threads, he was specialized in Al Bu..Al Burooj and aa he was innovative in that craft and he was the the the the only one, while working in the field, everyone wished for a a Besht made by whose hand, he was famous in the industry, in in sewing, so he aa the aa he was famous in Bahrain, famous in Kuwait, famous in the the.. Qatar, famous in Saudi Arabia, I mean all the Gulf people knew him, those in that profession first then those who wanted to wear those Beshts, they knew where to and whom to go to for aa the good thing and consequently-- aa there is aa a rule for aa how to... for someone who wants to buy a Besht, and where to go. Aaa first there is someone called the boss and there were those working for the boss. the boss didn't sew but he was like an agent between the one who wanted to wear a Besht and the trader and aaa the one who brought the craftsmen, who weaved the Beshts and made them, and my father was one of the the the people working in Beshts but he wasn't the boss, the boss was the owner of the Dewaniya, and we mentioned that Dewaniya, that wasn't a Dewaniya for sitting and talking, like now, no, it was a work Dewaniya. No one went to that Dewaniya except for those working in the field, those aa who made the Beshts aa so there were the Al Shawwaf Dewaniya, the Al Baghli Dewaniya and the aa aa , those are the ones I know here but there were many Dewaniyas aa in Bahrain, in Qatar, in so and so, famous Dewaniyas and known by the tailors all over the Gulf and the bosses were also known; this one is a boss and that one is a boss so the boss was exactly like a contractor; an engineer makes the design and everything and gives that design to the contractor, the contractor brings the workers and the workers build the buildings so that was the role of the boss, the boss has a Dewaniya and he brought the workers, the tailors who aa made the Beshts. So my father's relation with aa Abdul Azeez aaa who-- not Abdul Azeez aaa Sa'ud Al Makhayta, Sa'ud Al Makhayta, his name was Sa'ud, I know it was Sa'ud but that word Al Makhayta was given to him as a title because he was the boss of tailors, he had a Dewaniya and brought craftsmen for the Beshts, including my father, the best in the Gulf. The relation between him and my father went on and he was his friend, my father's friend, that was Sa'ud Al Makhayta and Sa'ud Al Makhayta was renowned mm aa in Kuwait, Bahrain and all over the Gulf for aa having aa the good craftsmen and that's why the Sheikhs always wore Beshts he made; they didn't go to so and so of people or the Dewaniya of so and so , no they went to Sa'ud Al Makhayta, Sa'ud Al Makhayta was well known and had a huge fame, and so did my father aaa I mean my father was very very famous aa and his fame aa came through his craft which was.. which was making Beshts

- Aaa may I ask you? Aaa what... do you remember the name of the Dewaniya where your father worked? And and which ye... from what year to what year did he work in that... in making the aa...?

- Of course, aam before I God created me, I am, see, I was born in 1943 and before he married my mother that had been his profession, I mean ever since he was young. My father was born, not in the 1920s, he was older than my mother, my mother was born in the 1920s, and he was older than her and my father married so many times; he married in Bahrain, married in Qatar and married in Kuwait and aaa , you know that the Kuwaitis aa the Kuwaitis and Gulf men were like that, I mean most of them, particularly the older ones, I mean they aa wherever one of them went he married so aam I remember that he aaa I aa I knew him in his fifties, I mean my father was, my age was aa.. when I was 10 or younger aa my father was about 50, at the time, so mm aa I don't know exactly when he was born but I know when my mother was born because in her nationality documents it was written that she was born in 1920, aa so aa the Dew... which Dewaniya, I don't remember the Dewaniyas but I remember the... his companion and friend aa Sa'ud Al Makhayta I think had a Dewaniya in aaa ... Al Sawaber aa he had a Dewaniya or in ... in Sharq, in general, Sa'ud Al Makhayta had his Dewaniya so aa.. that person aa loved singing, he loved singing a lot, that was Sa'ud Al Makhayta, he played the oud and had an ear for music so... I heard aaa a song by him on the radio aa 10 or 15 years ago, I heard him once and they mentioned his name and wrote in the newspapers, they wrote that Sa'ud Al Makhayta was a singer and he and he sang, I heard him on the radio, they played aaa a record by him, I think aaa so he was one of the.. and he knew about aa singing and they lo.. they loved him and my father loved singing a lot and his voice was very beautiful, according to what was said- aa we went through many subjects- according to what was said, aa his voice was very beautiful, of course I didn't hear his voice but that's according to what aa Abdul Razaaq Al Baseer said, he said that my father's voice was beautiful, where? He said that.. said that in the Writers Association, that day when I said to him, "Abu Adnan, do you know me?" That was... I always tried to kn..to introduce myself to him, I said to him," Do you know me?" Aa he said to me, " Aa, no, who are you? " I said to him," My name is Sami Muhammed Ahmed Al Saleh " He said, " I'm honored but I don't know you" I said to him," If you remember someone called Muhammed Al Shabab " He said " Yes, I know him, he's my fr.. my friend and the friend of Sa'ud Al Makhayta and the friend of this and the friend of that, that was Abdul Razaaq Al Baseer and he said to me, "Are you his son?" I said, " Yes, I am his son " That was a while before he died, may God rest his soul, aa in the dewa...we were sitting, aa a group of writers in the Writers Association and the Dewaniya was full of people and he said that and from that I knew that my father had a beautiful voice, that he was a singer and that he loved singing but I know that my mother also used to say that my father's voice was so and so and that he sang sometimes when he sat to work or sat in the Dewaniya or in a private session. Anyway, he was Sa'ud Al Makhayta's friend aa and I heard lately that Sa'ud Al Makhayta.. of course that was aa 20 years ago, that he was a member of the nationality committee which was in Mirqab, he was a member aa of the the comm... aa the nationality committee, which gave the nationality, and he was important for aa issuing the ntiona...the Kuwaiti nationality and even Abdul Razaaq Al Baseer was one aaam of the members of the nationality committees, I think I think aa in Qebla, I don't aa I don't remember where but I know that he was one of aaa aa the people who gave the nationality because those who give the nationality are more than one person aa in the in the committees aa from every o.. aa I mean aa the Hasawis have a representative, the Ayam have a representative, the Kandaris have a representative and so do the people of aa Qebla and the people of... I mean all... all the areas have representatives who know the people of Kuwait, of course one of those who knew the people of Kuwait was Al Baseer and those were Abdul Razaaq Al Baseer and and Sa'ud Al Makhayta, who were my father's soulmates so anyway, that, you know, is aa the history related to my father and I didn't mention a wo.....I mentioned a word , a byname given to my father, for he, my father, was a well-dressed man, at the time, and aa was always elegant, he liked to wear nice and clean clothes and my father was handsome, at the time, so they gave him the nickname Al Shabab so my father's name was Muhammed Al Shabab and that's why Abdul Razaaq Al Baseer didn't know me until I told him that I was the son of Muhammed Al Shabab, of course that was my father's byname, not our family na, our family name is Al Saleh and my father's name is Muhammed aa Ahmed Al Saleh, so his name which was kno... and in Kuwait people are always always known for such family names; someone's family name is Al Haddad or Al Qattan or aa Al Najjar or aa I mean like that or Al Saiyegh, the Al Saiyegh family is a big one and the... they were goldsmiths aa and Al Haddads were blacksmiths but aa they have names and stuff, anyway that was about my father and his friends

- Aa-- I'd like to move, after talking about your father, to talking about you once again, will you tell me about the teenage period, the period from adolescence to going to college and your education?

- Yes, I aa I mean the teenage period begins at a certain age, from about 14 to 18, for about three, four years or five years, unless it goes on from of 13 to 18 or 20 aa and it differs from one person to another and I remember, I mean aa I had pals and friends and we always hung out together and and aaa the teenage period was... I was in Kaifan, of course I was born in Sharq and stayed there till I turned 10, I even remember, I mean amm they gave us the house which... we left Sharq in 6-- and and in 1955 or 1956, when we got our house in Kaifan so I spent my teenage period in Kaifan aa I knew many friends aa but aa the closest friend, at the time, was someone called Yousef Hawwas , I met him, I mean their house was in Faiha and my friend Khalid Rasheed aa was in Kaifan with us and we spent together aam about four or five years or three years at that ag... at that age till aa at school, never mind the schools, from the elementary, the intermediate and the secondary, but aam I remember at the.. the aa I mean aa I heard about the Free Art Atelier and I had that hobby aa the hobby of drawing and sculpting and I used to bring aa bricks, I looked for them, I looked for those bricks everywhere, those yellow burned bricks aa they were soft and easy to carve so aa I went and looked aa everywhere, in our area, I mean in Kaifan at the time, in 1955, 1956 in Kaifan, Faiha hadn't been built yet, not Faiha, not Khaldiya, not Idayliya, all those were desert areas, ours was the only area, with Shamiya below us and we were in Kaifan so aa I went and looked for the b.. aa I even remember Kaifan secondary school, the present Kaifan secondary school was aa a group of holes and holes, each one like a valley and there were tractors I think that came and they dug out sand, they dug, they dug aa I don't know what they call them, what they called that, haa, they dug out dirt or sand, from those holes and that went to aa aa burial sites, they called them. Anyway aa even Kaifan aa plot, I think 4, Kaifan plot aa 2 I think or something, ours was plot 1, I was in plot 1, the only one, in that desert aft.. behind Shamiya, so aa plot 4, in Kaifan, wasn't built and we called it ( The Cows Hill ), (The Cows Hill ), at the time, it's the area close to Khaldiya now, opposite Khaldiya, with a street between them that takes you to the Canada Dry street

- Will you please explain to me that name? Why did you give it that name?

- I don't know, I mean I heard, when I was young that place call... that place, where are you going? To (The Cows Hill), I even went hunting, I used to go hunting aa I had a trap and stuff and I went hunting aaa if we didn't... couldn't catch birds in that very huge hole, a hole almost the size of the secondary school of aaa Kaifan, now, the present Kaifan secondary school was a small hole and we used to go hunting with traps there and digging for worms there so aa.

- You said, "We went hunting and dig.. digging for worms," will you please explain those things?

- Yes

- Just for--

- Aa hunting was hunting birds aaa and a trap a trap was aa an iron frame aa with which we caught birds and the the the aa the worms were the worms eaten by birds, we went digging for those in the aa dirt under the aa structures, we called them the structures, the walls, so I.. I went digging and digging, those were wet places, so you found those worms congregating in them, they naturally emerge in the dirt, how? Only God knows, the birds loved them so we went looking for those worms, put them in the traps and caught the birds, sometimes we we.. if we couldn't.. If we didn't find any in the aa location of the secondary school, our school, the Kaifan secondary school, we went to the (The Cows Hill), the (The Cows Hill) was - as I said - plot four, I think, or plot three, I don't know which present time plot, anyway, that aa was the aa what I remember in that plot and even, as I said, Khaldiya and Di'eiya, I mean Khaldiya, the the aam Idayliya and Ardiya, all those hadn't.. hadn't been built yet, they were desert areas and we.. beyond those were the sheds, as we called them aa, even beyond the gate in Shami.. beyond the Shamiya gate there were also sheds, houses and stuff aa even aa the the airport, the Kuwait airport was beyond Shamiya, I saw that airport, which.. which was in Nuzha, I think the present Nuzha or aaa Faiha aa in Nuzha or Faiha, I guess, was the airport, aa when I was young I wen.. I went, aam with my friends, to see the planes, ho.. aa how they flew and so on. Anyway that was the place aah so I mean my relation, as you said, with the teenage period, aa that was during the teenage period, I mean all those events aa so aa my friends and I, we were three persons who never separated, sometimes we went to the Hawalli or Sharqiya summer cinema, we went there, aa all the seats were in the open air, aa we went for the films aa either Indian or Arabic, in aa black and white, of course, not in colors and the boys fought among themselves and pushed one another to get a seat and sometimes we went in for free, we pushed, we pushed one another, pushed one another and we.. went in for free, without tickets, I remember and and aa, anyway in that teenage period, in the 1950s, of course, from 1950 to aa 1960 aa 1961 aa 1961aa 1962, we aa began aa in art aa aa till I heard that there was a free atelier aa in Mirqab, opened in the Qutaiba school, that was in 1959, 1960, yes, so I went and saw the place, it was beautiful, aa it had colors and teachers and so on, it had been just opened so I joined it and from the day I joined it I severed all my relations with my friends and people and didn't go to anyone at all, I spent my days and nights there, I mean I always went there after school aa till aa of course when I finished school I tried to get a scholarship, a scholarship through a sabbatical leave because I got a sabbatical leave, in the Free Atelier, they gave me a sabbatical leave, because of the long time I spent in the career and did... I worked a lot and aa my hands grew experienced in the aam in art and we stayed aaa I mean I became fully dedicated to that atelier till I.. I mean because I was one of the earliest artists in that atelier, with Isa Saqer, may God rest his soul and we began to bring in our friends aa I brought Khaz'al and this brought that and that brought another and our number grew to more than three aa about nine to ten people till we became thirteen persons, in that atelier but I also remember that in 1959 it was open for everyone and people came to it aa Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese, calligraphers and painters aa it was open and everyone came to practice their profession and left, some of them continued and others no, they quit the the hobby and left; they abandoned aa abandoned the aa those hobbies aamm till it became restricted to Kuwaitis, of course those were not Kuwaitis, those who made our number big, so the matter became restricted to Kuwaitis and it happened; sabbatical leaves became possible because Isa Saqer, may God rest his soul, was the first to get a sabbatical leave in the Free Atelier and and the second was Khalifa Al Qattan, I was the third and Khaz'al Awadh was the fourth then came.. the the the .. a number followed after us; Abdul Hameed Isma'il, aa Musa'ed Fahed, Abdullah Salem, aa aa who else? Saleh aa Al Ajeel, aa Hamdan Husain, Hamdan Al Hamdan aa who else? I mean, anyway our number reached seven or eight persons, dedicated to practicing the profession and of course-- what was the story of that atelier? That atelier was aa promoted by the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Education was aa, aa, aa interested in creating a generation or something interested in art, at the behest of aa the people.. the organizers, and those were aa Sheikh Abdullah Al Jaber, may God rest his soul, and Abdul Azeez Husain, those were the main pillars of the aa Department of Education, before it was named the Ministry of Education, the Department of Education, so aa Sheikh Abdullah Al Jaber was completely interested aa in culture and in the the the the aa education and he was one of the people, who were very keen on raising new youth and a new generation for aa Kuwait and he was in charge of the Ministry of Education, of course and aa among the aa active officials, those who who who who were in the front of the the cultural activities were Al Idwani, Ahmed Al Idwani and Abdul Azeez Husain, those aa I mean the government gave them the green light, to nurture that culture and of course aa Al Idwani is well known; he's one of the poets of Kuwait and its good and renowned litterateur who aah, he aa wrote the Kuwaiti national anthem aa and Abdul Azeez Husain was one of the cornerstones of the Kuwaiti culture and he was the one aaa who supported culture, in.. in its true meaning and fought f.. for it and so they brought aam - the Ministry of Education- with instructions from the Sheikh and Abdul Azeez aaa they brought aaa aa a person called Himaida, aa Himaida was a general inspector in the Ministry of Education, of the visual arts..of the the Art Education and he aa brought aa he made a suggestion to Abdul Azeez Husain to establish aa a small atelier and for that atelier they aa would bring specialized teachers, a painter, a ceramist, a sculptor a carver and so on, to start aa something like a school of fine arts because we didn't have a school of fine arts and all those were available in Egypt, of course there was amm a sabbatical leave in Egypt and there was aa a school of fine arts in Egypt, that was in the 1950s and the 1940s and so on. One of those who lived that in Egypt was Hamed Himaida aam so he brought in some teachers, among the teachers, who aa came to the Free Atelier, I remember Taha Al Jamal, an inspector after aa Himaida and he also brought aa aam someone called aaa Sulaiman, and and aa a teacher called Al Harraz, Harraz and and a teacher called Hasan, a ceramist for ceramics and and Hafez for aa printing but I don't know their full names aa and and Anwar Al Siruji, may God rest his soul, who was my teacher, he taught me sculpting, while being in the Free Atelier aa and also Al Tubji, Kamal Al Tubji, for painting. So many people came and each of them had aaa I mean a group or students to learn, I was with aa and a ceramist, that was aa Shawqi Al Disuqi, Shawqi Al Disuqi was a first class ceramist, at the Shamiya school, I remember him from when I was at the Shamiya school in 7..in 1957, he was there and.. and I studied with him ceramics and and loved ceramics and when I went to the atelier, in 1959, I saw him there and he was the one who I mean took care of aa of me, as a ceramist, working with ceramics, that was before I took up sculpting and before Anwar Al Siruji came. When Anwar Al Siruji came to the atelier aa, Anwar Al Siruji was a sculptor and a good one, and he was attractive for for the students, in how aa he gave them lessons in aa sculpting, so I left ceramics and went.. took up sculpting, me and my friends Khaz'al and Isa Saqer, we studied with him, as sculptors, so we had a wonderful knowledge of the the the aa sculpting because he knew how to teach in an amazing way and that's why aa I remember that I w.. I beg... began to become like his driver, I took him here and there and and and was always stuck to him bec.. because I loved sculpting and he had the information which I wanted to get, for the great love I had for sculpting because aaa all arts are interconnected. Anyway I aam that atelier was aa a full hive of artists, who started in.. from 1959 to 1963, 1964 then it became restricted to the Kuwaitis and to a group of Kuwaitis.

- Aa may I ask you about that restriction? Was it aa a result of a decision or aa it was just because people left and only the Kuwaitis were left?

- It was aa both, because the number grew less; aa not many amateurs came aa and those who stayed at the atelier were us, I mean our group, about six persons and consequently aaa I mean six, five or six persons who got completely stuck to the atelier, pr... practicing our professions daily, we came after work, after school and so on. But others came aa a few came and left; they came in a week and in the following week they didn't and so on and consequently-- till things became more confined to aa mostly Kuwaitis and consequently sabbatical leaves became possible, they gave us sabbatical leaves; those who had jobs were transferred from their jobs to the atelier and their jobs became artists.

- Amm

- Yes so.. till 1964, in 1964 aa as a group we thought aa about starting a society, of course from 1959 to 1964, huh five years we spent at the atelier and during those five years we thought about starting an society. At the time aa aa there was aa in 1962, a cu... cultural movement towards establishing an arts aa association, an arts association that combined aa singers, poets, the artists and so on. We went and when we went there we saw that we were mmm lost among those, they were too many, the singers and the... while we were five or six pai.. painters and sculptors, you know, so we said, "Let's start an association of our own" Khalifa Al Qattan, Isa, Khaz'al, Khalid Al Qu'ood and I met and gathered about 13 per.. persons, in 1964 and until 1967 we had tried, through meetings and sessions together, and we brought laws of other societies, to study and examine them to establish a society and aa we started the society; we went to the Ministry of Social Affairs and presented the idea and of course before we went to the Ministry of Social Affairs.. aa Khalifa Al Qattan, may God rest his soul, he was the eldest of us and more known, at the time, than us because we were aa younger than him, in age, and he was also more famous among.. in the field so aa we said, "Let's go to the Sheikh," may God rest his soul, Sheikh Sabah, Sabah Al Salem. Aa we got an appointment, in the.. the palace, we went to him and told him the matter. He said,"You will get good news, God willing" And the society was formed, we went to the Ministry of Social Affairs and they supported us, they gave us the proclamation and gave us aaa a budget and and and we made the laws, we were 13 persons, perhaps I remember the names, let me mention them.

- Please.

- Aaa myself, Sami Muhammed and Khalifa Al Qattan and Isa Saqer, and Khaz'al Awadh and and Khalid Al Qu'ood, Saleh Al Ajeel and and and Abdul Hameed Isma'il and and Musa'ed Fahed and Abdullah Salem Abdul Jaleel and and and Hamdan-- Hamdan Husain, I mentioned Saleh Al Ajeel perhaps or not, amm someone called Ahmed and and another called Ahmed Al Saiyegh. Those are 12 I think, the 13th I don't remember, anyway, we were 13 persons and aaa a decree was issued by the minis... by the state and was published in the official journal, the official journal that publishes aam the names of the founders of any institution, like a bank, for instance, being established, the names of the founders are published in the official journal, being the official newspaper of the state, or aa a society, even the Women's Society, when est.. established it wasn't declared but by... in the official journal, which represents the state, so nothing is official unless published in that aa in that journal.

- And when was the the announcement --

- Yes, we--

- published in the journal?

- We, yes, in 1967, in April, I think that aa according to the official decree, of the Ministry of Social Affairs, aa to establish the Kuwaiti association for arts, with the following names, which are so and so. Anyway, the association was established, we opened the doors and and people came to us, besides the Free Atelier, we were still in the Free Atelier, and and I even remember that we went to the municipality, Kuwait Municipality, so that they'd give us a premises. The premises, the Kuwait Municipality gave us a premises, which was aa a house aa owned by the municipality and and that house was where the National Assembly is now, exactly in the location of the National Assembly. It was the house of aaa, damn the devil... the house of a famous Kuwaiti family, I forgot the name, anyway, it was a house, the house where we stayed, when we got the announcement they gave us that house and we stayed there for about three to four years then aaa they gave us a warning, the municipality, that they were going to knock it down, to remove it, because it was a state property and and a state property... they wanted to make... expand aa so they built, in its location, the National Assembly building aa, anyway, the second building we got, or rather rented, in 1970, I mean in 1970, 1972 aa,1971,1972, we rented it aa it was next to the Sheraton, which was in front of the aa American Embassy, which was in front of aaa the old one of course, not the present one, the old one, which was by the Towers, next to.. near the Dasman Palace aa now, and next to it, I think. Those houses were aa houses aa for rent, all of them, a whole area, I think it belonged to the Sheikh of Bahrain, as I heard, they said it belonged to Sheikh Isa, may God rest his soul, the Sheikh of Bahrain aa I don't know if that was true, if it was a true piece of information or not but that was what we heard. So we mm rented a house, from them, and we stayed in it aa almost aa till the end of the 1970s, then they gave us a piece of land, the the aa the state gave us a 2000 meter-lot of land, more or less, aa in the present Hawalli, near the aa aa the schools, aa the private schools, which are between the Al Qadsiya Club and the private schools, in Hawalli, that is the pres... the current Kuwait Arts Association. Of course it was a bitter struggle to get that land, in shuttle movements for years till they finally ga.. gave it to us and we tried aa to ask for money, so that they'd give us money for the buildings and they gave us, the state gave us money for building and we tried, by all possible means, to aa build a simple building, so as not to run out of money, so we built a a small hall and we made with .. a show hall, a place for the administration, a library and and some facilities. Anyway, so far the association witnessed many consecutive administrations, one administration after another, one person after another and from one president to another. I am not in the association now, I am fully dedicated to visual arts and I represent Kuwait abroad, in many arts affairs, aa we carry an art message, aa on our shoulders, aa for Kuwait and and and for protecting visual arts and the youth. I still nurture the youth, I nurture them, I mean after the association, so I started a group called the Sami Muhammed Group aa so as to nurture the youth aa because I remember when I was a young man I wished someone had nurtured us, so later on I felt that... that shortage I had, in the past we didn't have any one to nurture us till they aaa till they opened the atelier and stuff. The situation is different, in Kuwait, now, there is a national council, there is aaa the internet there is aa google, you can look up what you want, back then we didn't have anything, any way to see artwork, any means to see artwork, everything aa depended on our love for that art and that field, it was a bitter, bitter, very bitter struggle to see artwork and get in touch with artists. It's all different now and as I said everything is different in aa the world grew smaller and and one can travel, see, and learn, an artist now has the... everything is available, not like before when everything was "by the drop" as the [he laughs] the Egyptian saying goes, so we suffered so so much to get to what we achieved

- Aa you mentioned starting the Sami Muhammed group, through which you supported the youth, when was that?

- That was, I think, in the 1980s and it was a fine aa group, the 1990s, the 1980s, the 1990s, I think in.. yes in the 1990s, aa anyway, that group aa went on for ten ye.., the 1990s, after the invasion, not in the 1980s, after the invasion and aa it was a nice youthful group and I cared for and supported them aaa and they held ten exhibitions, we held them, which means an exhibition every year and that means it has continued for ten years and and and and and a good generation emerged, from them, who worked in art, aa female and male artists aa I mean they started to practice the profession but of course aam I got too busy so I arranged for an administration for them and the administration was aa dissolved and when it was fully dissolved there was no one left.

- That aa when was it dissolved?

- The last, last, the last exhibition, I think, was before... not 2015, I mean before 2012 or 2013, something like that, was the last exhibition.

- Alright, I would like you to tell me about your works, your art productions, I mean aa the most prominent of your works and what the responses and reactions to them were.

- My works aa those need a session on its own, about how we developed and how we started aa let me give you some headings for that story, for later on, when we start it, next time.

- Please.

- Aa of course aam from the very beginning, until now, I have devised for myself a plan and plans to be faithful to that field, to that art and and and art requires faithfulness, requires persistence and requires continuity, I mean without those, one is not an artist but rather someone with a hobby, I mean something occasional and that's evident in many people and I'll give you an example of that. The colleges, the colleges of fine arts , aa are so many around the world, in Spain, in America, there's a numb... a huge number of colleges and universities that have schools for art, in France, in England, in Germany, in the whole world; wherever you go you find schools for fine arts, and hundreds join the schools of fine arts, all the year round, hundreds going and hundreds coming, all those are amateurs and learn painting and go out; those learn, get a degree and use it to work in decor or start an office, aa work with an engineer or someone, work in the television or as a painter or something, all those.. not all those who graduate are artists, not all those who graduate from art schools are artists, only a few are; those who... who really love art, dedicate themselves to be artists and and and go on and continue, all their life long; jobs don't stop them, families don't stop them, kids, homes, wives, children and the whole world don't stop them, this is something and that is something else, I mean now I am a father, a grandfather and a grand grandfather but aa all that didn't stop me, I've put all that, all of it in a circle, in a side and in another is my art, which I work for, not to earn my living, you know, aa to live off it as an artist and and because art doesn't help you make a living, particularly in the Gulf countries and the Arab countries, it doesn't help you make a living, I mean not aa you can't fully depend on it, except for a few artists, those aa aa, now I can say that I live off my art but aa not everyone can. So, as I said to you, I have a part for my family and my people while my life is based on art, so aa as I said, schools don't make an artist, a school qualifies, it qualifies you and make you aaa see-- take your way, I mean just like any college, the college of commerce, industry or engineering, but to be a good and a highly- regarded architect... a college doesn't do that; one must get into the market to practice aaaas an architect, to build, see, get into problems and out of them to fail and succeed, that's life. So, I mean if a college has, over the years, aa a hundred graduates, only one of them becomes an artist and the others become painters, painters, I remember the Académie des Beaux-Arts, the Académie des Beaux-Arts, in France, is proud of 2 or three artists, that the so and so artists graduated from it, while huge numbers have graduated from it. The Faculty of Fine Arts in Egypt, so many have graduated from it; from the Gulf, from aa Arab countries and from Egypt, thousands and thousands but it takes pride only in a small number, you know. Anyway, I mean arts aaa needs seriousness and I have dedicated myself to it since my childhood which... I don't know if I told you how I started, I don't know, I don't remember that I explained how my beginning, as a child, was, I don't know, do you remember that?

- Yes, you told me that that since you were a child you liked to make forms...

- Yes.

- with mud.

- That was the beginning of my life, I mean some people, for instance, finish the secondary school, they know nothing about art, they finish the secondary school with low marks, now they want a university degree, "Where to go? Where to go?" The worst college of all is the faculty of Fine Arts, "Ok, I'll study art, they'd take you with the lowest of marks." Aa they go, go to college but there is a difference between those and someone who, since childhood, has been fond of that thing, loves it and and and began... his hands began to be good, his eyes began to be good and his sense began to be good, he prepared himself, after the secondary school for college or university. Here, this one in aa the college, I mean the teacher depends on him, a teacher might be able to say, "Yes, indeed, this one will become an artist" Art... the the teacher gets attached to that person, just like what happened to me, at the Faculty of Fine Arts, my teacher got attached to me, that was aa Jamal Al Sijeeni, who was one of the distinguished Egyptian artists, a famous sculptor in Egypt, so when I went there I was almost prepared ; I loved art, I knew how to build a statue, I knew how to do so and so and knew how to sculpture and and in addition to my love for work, he saw that ability in me and he supported me, he had the other students but he passed by me more and said: No, do this like that, no, do that this way. Aa so sometimes a teacher is honored with his student, that the student will, one day, carry his name, just like me now, I now carry Al Sijeeni's name, may God rest his soul, he passed away, and I carry the name of aa Anwar Al Siruji. They took pride in me when I knew nothing, why? Because they saw in me something that would come out and now, when the idea has taken shape and art has taken shape and I was faithful to it, I carried their names, I carried his name, the names of this and that of my teachers and whenever I talk, I praise them and talk about them saying that they were so and so. Anyway, when aa I adopt a student, that student is honored to have me as a teacher because I have a great deal of information and I can guide him and tell him to do so and so and later on, when he is a teacher he will say: my teacher was so and so. Many artists, around the world, I mean aa their students surpassed... surpassed them, I mean if we give examples, like Picasso, Picasso is known by everyone, young and old, far and near, his father was a teacher, a great teacher, a teacher of painting I mean, aa a painter and he taught him and Picasso's teachers were so many but he was ahead of his time and became at the top, in his time, so he surpassed his father, surpassed his teachers, surpassed I don't know who, he surpassed the artists of his contemporaries. He made creations and innovated things, so that's-- I mean I'm giving you a perfect example. I even remember Rodin, I mean Rodin was a French sculptor and one of those by whom I was influenced and liked their works, we'll talk about all that later on about Rodin, about Henry Moore and all those artists and how my feelings and ideas developed, we'll talk about all that later on.

- Thank you very much.

- It's more than one hour now.

- According to the recorder it's an hour [she laughs].

- Yes, an hour is good.

- Yes, ok then.

- Yes.

- Thank you.

- You are welcome, remind me next time where to start.

- Sure, God willing.

- I am Reem Al Hajri and today we are at CAP, Contemporary Art Platform, aa today is November 5, aa and we continue our interview with you, Mr. Sami Muhammed. Aa last time you mentioned aam... we talked about the period you were reassigned to Kuwait University and you said you wanted to talk more about that, will you please tell me more about that period?

- God willing, aa in 1971, 1972 I was reassigned by the Kuwait University, aa to the Youth Welfare Department, aa to aa establish an atelier aa a free one, I mean it wasn't obligatory, a free atelier aa in the university, for the amateur artists, the students aa and those who liked to join it did so, aam willingly, I mean it wasn't compulsory or binding. Of course we started the aa atelier aa I asked for aa all the aa requirements, which were the artistic aa tools; colors, brushes, stands for the paintings, paintings too, aa canvases and aa tables aa the aa for the aa clay, I designed them, made the design and had them made aa by aa carpenters aa to carry aa the statues or models aa made by the students, we asked for clay, gypsum and all the primary tools, which aa a student would work with and they met my requests aa and and and brought aa everything aa in abundance, not in limited amounts aa and we opened the door for admittance and and a number came, I think in three months the number reached more than 150 aa male and female students, at the time, aa and all of them aa loved art and loved aa to work, each in.. aa among them were sculptors, painters and ceramicists, who loved ceramics, but we didn't have aa a project for ceramics, just sculpting, I started aa a section for sculpting and a section for painting aam I opened two classes, and two studios, a studio for sculpting and a studio for painting. We worked on that project for almost aa about a whole semester which was... or a whole year I mean, aa am and and I even remember that aa I moved to the College of Women, in Kaifan, and I also aa started there the aa aa the atelier, in the College of Women aam and I called it the Free Atelier, because aa as in our atelier, the Free Atelier from which I came.

- Moving to the Women's College, when was that?

- In the same year, that is in sev-- 1971 to 1972 aa but of course with a few months aa between this and that because aa the girls became too many in that place and no one ca... the place was too far for them in the... Idayliya aa so aa I went there and established it then we went for an exhibition; we wanted to activate our work with an exhibition so aa I asked the authority aa to hold an exhibition for those works, of course I selected, I decided and I prepared for that exhibition. We held the exhibition with the participation of aa about... less than 75, aa not not all the aa students because some of them dropped out and some of them attended aa a few classes and and and, some of them continued and some didn't, moreover some works aa deserved to be shown and some works didn't deserve to be shown, so I chose what I chose, about a hundred works aa of aa art, I chose them and showed them in a hall in Idayliya, by the theater... the theater which aa I think, I don't know if it's still there till now or... aa it was huge, a huge place, a huge hall, I remember aa.

- Do you remember its name?

- In fact I don't, a... I remember it was amidst the stairs leading to the second floor, in the grand hall, amm I mean it was near the main road, on the ring road, which.. which is next to the university. So aa any way, aa we held the exhibition there and it was opened, the ex... exhibition, by aa the late minister Al Marzooq aa he inaugurated the exhibition for us and he was, I mean aa he thanked me a lot for how I, all by myself, man... managed to organize such an event in the university and they fully accredited it to be an atelier aa aa to continue in the university, to stay there and to be free, I mean it'd have nothing to do with obliging aa the students or give [he swallows his saliva] I beg your pardon, give them marks or anything, because [he swallows his saliva] it was art and art is more about freedom above all, so aa we produced all that production, of course there were sales but rather limited, for those aa aa who wanted to buy and stuff, they were wonderful aa works, at the time and from there, after that, I mean aa after that year, I held it for one year, aa I established the atelier and held the exhibition and called that exhibition, the Spring Exhibition, after our exhibition, which was called the Spring Exhibition in Kuwait and and that exhibition in Kuwait was aa organized by the Ministry of Education aaa in the Free Atelier, which I was a member of aa and it aa stopped at the ninth exhibition, I think aa in 69, [he swallows his saliva] in 1969 it stopped, the last exhibition was the ninth, I think aa in 69 [he swallows his saliva] in 1969 was the last exhibition, which was the ninth, aa of course it started in aa 1960, 1961, in1960 was the first Spring Exhibition in Kuwait, there were no exhibitions held at all so that exhibition aa aaa the Ministry of Education called it the Spring Exhibition and all the amateurs, including me and our group of artists, the the pioneers, who participated in that exhibition and were members of that atelier and aa that exhibition presented artists, aa with a huge influence now. Aa so that exhibition, which I called the Spring Exhibition in the university, is still held until now, till 2019, it's still in Kuwait University and the atelier is still there and aa the university assigns aa artists to be supervisors and aa to supervise the amateur students of the university. It's still there as I hear, of course I haven't gone there nor seen it ever since; what made me get away from the aa the exhibition or the studio, in the university, was that I aa got a scholarship in America and I aa travelled. Before I travelled there was aah a person, dear to me, aa who took charge aa after me and developed the ate.. that atelier and he added.. that was aah the son of the former Speaker of the National Assembly, who passed away, may God rest his soul, aa Khalid Al Ghunaim, his name is Abdul Rahman Khalid Al Ghunaim the brother of Sabah Al Ghunaim and I was aa coeval of them both and I remember Sabah, he was there and Sabah Al Ghunaim, son of Kha.. son of Khalid Al Ghunaim, the first speaker of the National Assembly, the first assem... speaker of a national assembly in Kuwait, that was Khalid Al Ghunaim and that was his son, I remember him; I was with him, in the same class, in Al Ghazali school, which is in Shuwaikh, in 19..aa 1957, 1956.. 57, the 1950s 5.. 58 or something, I remember him, I mean that story came up because we mentioned the name aa of the person who was in charge after me, that's Abdul Rahman, he was an active person and a wonderful artist, aa he came back, zealous, from America, newly graduated and and I don't know what brought him to the university, how he got to the university, I think they wanted to appoint him in the university, as a professor aaam, he was specialized in arts, you know, aa an artist and he graduated from Miami, I think aa so aa aaa he came to the university and and when they reassigned him there he called me and we came and he planned, he created a program of utmost magnificence, he even involved me and sh..showed it to me, to be the aa core of a college of fine arts in the aa Kuwait University, that's what we still miss in Kuwait, until now, we don't have a college for fine arts, not even in the Gulf, not at all, other than the colleges of fine arts in Egypt, in Syria, in Iraq.. where too? Those are what? I remember in the Arab world, we don't have colleges for fine arts.. may be in Sudan, I think but aa the colleges of fine arts are few and not... not numerous like aa I mean other colleges and academies, that's why art is unjustly treated in the Arab world and in the Gulf, in particular, it is unjustly treated. Aa Abdul Rahman has taken charge for less than a year, I think, but he didn't find anyone, I mean, to aa adopt his idea aa he defended it of course and presented a complete file to the Ministry of Education and the university and the university authority but in vain so he dr... dropped the whole matter, aa that was about the Kuwait University atelier, which I started and which is still there.

- So in the period you left the Kuwait University atelier, you left it to go to America to--

- Yes, the reason was that I was aa going aa to America and when I came back I couldn't continue with them because aa I was committed to our atelier, the Free Atelier and committed to artwork and mm exhibitions and and so on

- Will you tell me about the period you spent in America, from the beginning to the end?

- Aam as for America, of course after I had finished in the... in Egypt, in1970, I stayed in Kuwait for two to three aa three years, about two years aa in the third I was aa in America aa when I went to America, there I had an approval from a college of fine arts in San Francisco so as soon as I arrived to Washington there, my nephew was there, studying aa engineering, computer engineering, in 1972.. 1973, so he met me and we went to the embassy, in Washington, D.C. and aa they gave me a the.. of course.. of course I didn't... I got the scholarship and we don't want to go through the administrative affairs, anyway, let's keep to the artistic side, you know. Aa when I went to the embassy there, my language wasn't good yet, it was the language of schools, you know schools, so my nephew was the the biggest helper for me, so aa I talked... I said to him I talked in the embassy, there was a woman, who oversaw me, the new students, where to distribute them, where to send them. The first thing I said to her was, "I want a place without any Arabs, not a single Arab, I don't want to depend on anyone, I want to depend on myself." Any way, they said aa she said to me,"there is aa a school, that's a language aa school, a language school aa it's so far aa in the north and it's cold there, can you tolerate that?" I said to her, "I will tolerate it." I would tolerate for my own benefit, I would tolerate because I came serious, in that matter, I wanted to aaa benefit, as much as possible, from art because it was the chance of a lifetime and unrepeatable too, so aa they gave me the aa the approval to that school and sent me there. I went with my nephew, from Washington, we went north, about half a day drive, by car, or almost a day, anyway, I went to that school, its name was-- first of all it was a small town, in the state of Vermont, the state of Vermont, and the town's name was Brattleboro, aa it was very very beautiful and Vermont is unrivaled, with its beautiful trees, which God Almighty granted me that aa, San Francisco is also beautiful, it's unrivaled, but Vermont, with its nature and beautiful trees am is the best place and of course I came from Kuwait and so on and when you see that aa beauty and that nature.. anyway, I was aam pleased, as an artist and stuff. I went to that school, that school aa had all the nationalities aaa of the world, Japanese.. all of them were students, preparing themselves for the TOEFL and to aa go to the aa the uni.. university, so it had all the nationalities; Japanese, Chinese aa German aa Russian the.. but not the Arabs except for a few because it was far, there were Saudis there before me, they went, finished and left so I was lucky because there was not even on..one Arab, so I was the only one. After every... they gave me, I remember, they gave me the the aa aaa catalogue of the aa the school, and and and it had all the conditions and stuff, I could hardly read and translate aaa, using aa a dictionary, it was very tough and it exhausted me, it exhausted me, I remember, that small catalogue exhausted me and aa I developed, my language developed, after three months or four months I became somewhat better, of course I began to talk with people, I had to, I mean there were no Arabs so I spoke, I mean I... I made a great progress, anyway, I had to take three courses, over a period of nine months aa and after those nine months my language became good; good reading, good speaking aa [he swallows his saliva]. I had the approval, where? San Francisco, and between me and there aa you can say, was like from the east to the west, it was that far mm I mean from end to end aam, should I go by car, it'd take a week, to cross the United States, to get to San Francisco, because I had a car, should I go by train, it'd take four days and by plane it'd take four hours so if course I was like-- the-- my final decision, in the very beginning, was that I must go by car, my car, which I had bought, I had bought a brand new Volkswagen so I began to study the maps, study them thoroughly; where to get in where to get out and and in which areas I would stop so, I mean I knew all the roads, nevertheless I was going to get into labyrinths, into piracy, into the aa Nevada Desert, I would get into.. get into so many things and I might lose my way, you couldn't know, so I was very very worried, at the time and I had to go, I had no choice, I had the approval from Kuwait to Washington to San Francisco, yes, it was already determined and not negotiable. Anyway, see the beautiful coincidences, coincidences in my life, a coincidence of utmost magnificence [he swallows his saliva]. In the aa in the aa that school, since the beginning of the courses I started aa most of them-- aa the teachers and those.. the the aa staff found out that I was an artist and a painter and that I ha...came from Egypt and that I was a graduate, I mean all my background was cle... known to them, they talked and I had my albums, which I took with me, those of the works I was proud and fond of. Ultimately aa there was an old secretary aa she loved art and she approached me so as to see my works and stuff so I showed her some, anyway, over those three months or six months she kept nagging, she wanted a work by me, I wasn't ready, I had nothing aa so I kept saying, "God willing," I kept promising her saying, "God willing, God willing." I was stalling till I finish the course and leave because I didn't have it, I couldn't do anything. Anyway, there was also a part, of studying in that school, studying the language, something called a home stay, aa student stayed for a week or two with a family, in that city, the city had such wonderful families aa each family aa adopted a student, inviting them at home where they slept, ate and drank for a week, for free of course, I didn't know the nature of the agreement between the school and those families, if they paid the families or the families paid them. Anyway I had to go to this or that home, with this or that family, the mother or the father would come to take me to stay with them at home and families came and chose aa of course it was up to the aa family man with his wife to choose one of those students and I described it as the ..the (Shawi), if you know the word (Shawi) aa the shepherd, a sheep herder, who comes, picks one; a goat or a sheep and takes it with him and aa my luck put me with that family, they said, "We want this person, he's coming from the Middle East" wow, that was something big for them there and that family didn't know anything about the Middle East and wanted that one coming from the Middle East, "It's done, we'll take him" and they took me, where, where to? I had a car and he said, " Follow me " and I followed him, the the city... the distance between my city and his wasn't very long, anyway, I knew the the way and went to stay with them. They loved me, perhaps more than their own kids and they took a lot a lot of pride in me and they brought their neighboring families, "Tonight we have a big artist, from the Middle East, from Kuwait." No one knew where Kuwait was and I kept explaining, I had a tough time explaining, on the map and put their hands, it's a point on the map, Kuwait is a small point on the map and all they knew was Saudi Arabia and I said, "Close to this" and so on. Anyway, I spent with them three months and in... during the first month, the first week they found out that I was an artist and the mother said, of course at the time I was in my twenties aa and they were in their thirties and forties, the man and the woman so aa the woman asked... she insisted that I made her a statue, I said to her, "No problem, I'm family now." "What do you need?" she said, I told her I needed clay and so and so. They brought me colors and brought clay and brought canvases and brought me the mm everything I wanted, brushes, anyway, I had just arrived there and at the time, that was in the 70... the 1960s, in 1967, 1968, 1969 aa 1970, I loved the portraits, I loved portraits and made portraits and I was fast in making a portrait, I created beautiful portraits. So I said to her, "Ok, I'll make you a portrait." I brought the clay and started working on her, in two weeks I finished the the model and they invited... they left no one in the area but invited them to se.. se.. see the clay portrait I made of her aa and I made it in a gypsum mold and so on and they were very pleased. So that's a nice story about those, with whom I lived, pampered amm I mea...I mean they held a party, at some family's house and they went, that wasn't necessary in aa I mean to do, but the families, ar.. around them, I became popular with them and they began to invite me, one family after another, and on.. through the family I was staying with, during that my language developed, I benefited a lot because I was among people and I had to speak and talk about my work, my art and my country and I described, I described to them how Kuwait was and described to them who the the the aa the Arabs were and what aa I mean everything I knew and I got my information out. I even remember a children's teacher who invited me, they inv...a family aa she and her husband aa invited me to their house aa and she asked me, she said, "Aa I am a children's teacher, in a big and well known school here, and and I I wish aa.. because I told the the aa headmistress, or the dean, that we had, in the.. in the village or in town, aa an artist aa from Kuwait and an Arab aaa and we'd like to invite him for a vis.. a visit to the students to get to know him." And those were ki.. kids, children, you know, not you... I mean seven, eight or nine years old, so for them, see how that matt.. that matter was a treasure, I mean Arabs wouldn't do that, art? Huh, art, huh, so what if an artist came to us? No, those wanted to show their children, wanted to show their children that this is an artist, in his country and that his country is very far away. They brought me the map, they brought the map in.. to the class, for the children and showed them where my location was in aa in.. in which place on that map, I discussed the children, talked to them and they asked me and and it was a very beautiful memory indeed. Anyway let's move to that.. that was a story, another story was - this is something.. something long, it'd never end, something... now I remember something after another - the story of the secretary of the college, of course now I finished the aa I'm done, almost done with the the second.. my third course, so aa she nagged me a lot, that secretary aa so I thought aa I'd bar.. bargain, bargain with her, should she fulfill a wish for me, I'd pain... I'd paint for her, if not, she wouldn't deserve it and I'd do nothing for her. I said to her, "See.." I went the following day and said to her, "See." That was three months before I finished, it was the last course, I said to her, "You know that I have an approval from San Francisco, from the so and so college aa and after I'm done here I must go there and it's a long way and the aa I am an artist and I don't want to start with beginners, I've already started and I'm done so I need something to benefit from, I came to the United Na--I mean the the the aa America, not to a small country, I want to benefit from that place and the place I have chosen and which my country approved, is too far for me. I am here now, see how long the distance is." She said to me, "Ok, I know." I said to her, "I need you to look, for me, for aaa a college, a university close to you, I mean in New York, near to you below you but not in (Wadreen Castle) as we say, in the in the the farthest of states and I will make you a painting, if you aa if you find it, I will do it for you" but I didn't tell her that I wouldn't do it, no, of course not, I gave her hope, you know and she said, "Ok." I said to her, "Just do it for me and I will aa I'll be thinking about what I'm going to do for you." I gave her hope, something to hope for, "I'll make you sketches" and things like that, I just wanted her to do something for me. Anyway, she did it, the woman, she gave the matter the due attention and there were communications, via emails and telephone calls and stuff. She found me three things aaa the most important thing was that she found a college in New Jersey, New Jersey, the state of New Jersey was near aa to them aa to Vermont, just below it, I mean six or seven hours by car, not a week drive, I'd drive for six or seven hours. Aa I said to her "Great." I said to her, "Great, fine" but I made a condition, I said to her, "If it's near, if that place is nearby, let me go and see it. I'll ask you for a permission to go and see it." She said, "Alright, I will arrange that for you," and she indeed arranged for the matter, between the institute, it was an institute, between the institute and our administration, of the school, "You will go in a visit to see it and when you come back give us your feedback, if you... if it's ok for you." She made an appointment for the following week and gave me the maps and stuff and told me how to go and come back, which road to take and which number because the streets back then... there was no google, at the time, nor the the aa aa the navigator, I think, yes--

- A compass or aa--

- Yes, aa that which aaa shows you the way, the navigator, anyway, amm l just followed the maps, going from one road to another, with the map and with numbers, anyway, I went there aa of course I didn't know the place, I just kept driving for six hours till I reached New Jersey. I began looking for the area, that area... I forgot its name, Princeton New Jersey, Princeton, which is the biggest university in the States, you know, one of the top ten in America, where Einstein taught and his house was close to aa close to it. I arrived, aa I got there and of course they were waiting for me in aaa a certain hour, I arrived at night so I spent the night in a mo.. a small motel and called the manager of the aa aa the institute or the the aa the ins.. aa the college. I called them and he said to me, " We are waiting for you " and who was that? I'm telling you, it was the wonder of all wonders for me, lu... those were strokes of luck and my luck was good, you know. That aa place or the institute or the aa belonged to aam a huge, a gigantic company in the States, that is Johnson & Johnson, which is aa Jonson Al Jonson aa it makes medications for the world, including baby powder, including aa pastes including so many many many medications and other products and its founder was Jonson Al Jonson, the founder of that company and and and it was a huge company, a big institution, their yearly income was in bil... bil... billions and the owner, Jonson Al Jonson was a multi multi-billionaire, his yearly income was huge so the tax, the government took from him, was huge, not a small one. He was a man of a commercial mind and mentality, so he said to them, he said to the Congress, he said, "Instead of taking the money from me, let me help the aa the States, I will open aaa a university or a college or something, aa I'll build schools for you, at my expense, with everything; the land, the greenery and everything, I will open it and I will bring the students to it too, just give me the green light." Anyway, they agreed to his request, being something aa a kind of aaa contribution, instead of the taxes, he'd spend the tax money on those things, on the university or the college. He had just started, it was the first month, after he had finished the place, built it and everything and now waiting, waiting for what? They were waiting for the teachers and students, they brought big teachers, he hired the best professors because of the money, he had the money, the best professors, the best machines, state aa of the art technology, he used the top of everything so as to be distinguished and Princeton is already distinguished and full of billionaires and scientists, that city. I'm telling you, I ra.. I ran into aa into something beau.. aa wonderful, you know, I mean I was lucky. Anyway, now he was happy, who? Jonson Al Jonson, the father, he was pleased to have an artist who will realize aa something, which he talked about but he still didn't know what he wanted to d.. to do; he ta... he told them he would do so and so and that was just the beginning and I was the fi.. first one from the Middle East, of course there were Americans, so many people, many aa people from Japan and from I don't know where but I came from the far end of the world, from far away aa so they said to me, " We are waiting for you " Aaa I went, by my car, I pulled in only to find them waiting at the entrance for me, the aa that man didn't wait for anyone, a multi billionaire, who would he wait for? Would he wait for a humble person? [He laughs]. A small artist who is still a young student and so on but it was aaa for his own benefit, I mean not for me not for my sake, it was.. it was for him. They welcomed me and stuff and with him was his son, who is still there, he didn't die, the father died, Jonson Al Jonson, while the son is still aa in.. in the company, the head of the company, Stuart Jonson [he swallows his saliva] the one who owns all that that property and he's the only one, you know, the.. he didn't have a son but this one and that son, too Jonson aa Stuart aa I didn't see he had any sons, of course he has cousins and so on, the company will go to the heirs. Anyway, they were so pleased with me, very very happy aa they showed me the institute, they showed me the aa technology, they showed me... honestly, I wasn't just happy, I was over the moon because everything I wished for was there, I had never imagined that I would.. I thought, coming from Kuwait or from that after the aa Faculty of Fine Arts, that I would suffer in further studies, starting all over again but in a college or in , I mean in another college in America and that was it, I just wanted a degree, I went there for the degree and the language. I shook off all those ideas, no, what I saw, in that place, was a treasure for me; first of all the professors, all aa were big artists, Americans, they had the technology, a huge amount of aa technology, the bronze, plastic the aa all the tools and stuff, all what I dreamed of, as an artist, was there. He aaa asked me and I said I agreed to going there and of course he had to ask me if I liked the place or not and I said to him, "Great, perfect, this is what I'm looking for." Aa they agreed on the spot, so as.. they would send to aa moreover he would take care of everything, he said, "Just agree to coming here and Washington DC, we'll handle the Cultural Attaché and your embassy, don't worry and the school too," so they'd take care of everything. I went back to the school, that of the language, I finished my three months with them and during those three months aa I made a painting, a very beautiful painting of Islamic decorations and our Sadu because I love Sadu, so I painted beautiful things for her, because it was art, aa I painted on a wall; in aaa her house she had a study and a huge hall with a partition between them and she wanted aa a painting, on canvas and I said to her, "No, no, I won't paint it for you on a canvas, I will paint directly on the wall," she said, "That's a big wish." And I indeed made the painting, I think aa it was the size of this bookshelf, about two meters by two meters in size, the painting was two meters by two meters, a square one on the wall, I spent... it took me aa about three weeks. She got me all the materials, the colors, the brushes aa and all what I wanted and and I made aa the painting, I finished it and and she invited many people, teachers, families and others, in each time, and we held a party, she held a party and unveiled the painting, I mean aa the Americans are aa amazing in aa in aa I mean appreciating art, she appreciated what I did and what I made and for free, it wasn't-- but for me it wasn't for free because I asked her to do something for me first and she ga... she made me aa very happy for not having to cover that distance, over a full week, putting myself at the risk of death, theft or murder on a road that I didn't know, just to go to San Francisco by car and I might've also lost the the the aaa way, I might've got lost for not knowing the way. Anyway I-- that was aaa I mean a beautiful story and I started at the art college there, in the aa aa the Johnson Atelier, they called the place the Johnson Atelier, atelier in French aa means a studio, or aa we call it a studio but it was a workshop, the Johnson Workshop, Johnson and Johnson, after the company, aa it's difficult now to join it, not anyone is admitted, see how, back then, they wished for students and and I was the only one who came from the Middle East but now, of course, there are many people from the Middle East and from everywhere.

- But you were the first, right?

- I was the first person from the Middle East, yes aa so they were proud of me, I even remember aa they invited aa, not the editor, they invited aa reporter from aam the New York Times, especially for me, they invited him to cover aa that meeting, for that was a person coming to the United States or particularly to that place - I didn't go for it in particular [he laughs] - a person coming particularly to San Francisco and to that place, from the far end of the world, an artist and stuff and my wo.. they showed my work and stuff and of course that turned out to be a wonderful thing for me and a benefit for them; it was an indirect propaganda aa for them. Anyway, I spent that period with them and in the same time, as soon as I got there, they began looking for a residence for me, close to them, they found me a place, where I spent a week, it was next to the railways and it was such a noise and fuss, I complained about it and said to them, "I don't want it, I need you to look for another place for me." They said, "We know, it's temporary and we're looking for a place that suits you." Alright, they looked and found me a nearer place, you know, about half an hour away, 15 to 20 minutes away, aa it was a nice flat, just enough for me as a single student living by myself. I remember that the flat was... it belonged to an American family, aa a man and his wife, an old couple, aa they had three daughters and two sons but all of them were not with them, they got married and left so the old man and woman were living by themselves and that small flat was an annex, not in the ho... house and it was rented to an American and those were his last days so they evacuated him quickly so that I wouldn't change my mind aa and and say I didn't want it and go looking for another place, that was because I was from the Middle East and dear to them aa so they housed me in that woman's house. That woman was aa an artist, a violinist, she played the violin and and and a famous singer, in America, but she was old, I mean she was about seventy.

- Do you remember what her name was?

- It's difficult, indeed, it's difficult, I don't remember her name, even her husband was a musician, a violinist aa so the two aa were famous artists but they grew old; the man was 80 and she was 70, so aa I came, I landed upon them as if an angel for them, first I was a young man, in my twenties, I looked after them, aaa took care of them, sat with them and talked to them aa I kept them amused aa, aa and I also aa tended to the plants and the lawn, in the garden, I mowed it aa and she had horses, I took the horses out, I didn't ride the horses, I just took them out, l lo.. looked after them so they were so pleased with me and she had so many acquaintances in the area and all of them were writers, all of them were scientists and all of them were artists, in that area, so she introduced me to so many people; musicians, writers, aa am artists I remember aa an artist, a sculptor, a friend of hers, an international one and one of the founders of modern art in America, his name was George Segal, I met him, and spent time with him and he was so pleased with me and pleased with my work and we began.. I began visiting him, there was also another sculptor, his name was Daniel Dello, an American sculptor too, and Joe Brown, who was one aa of the best American sculptors aa so she introduced me to many people.

- So you met all of those personally?

- I met them pers... I spent time with them, went out with them, I began to stay with them in the studios, I went there, sat, had tea together and they visited me and phoned me. Anyway aa I mean... benefiting from America, I benefited so so much from aaa meeting big artists and being with people with a huge experience in art and from my visits to the aaa galleries in New York aa New York was near me, with less than an hour drive aa, an hour or 45 minutes by aa by car aa with.. it took me two hours to go to Philadelphia, I went to the museums there. I love Rodin, the French sculptor, whose work I like, and there was a multi billionaire aa in America, aa he took aa all the copies of Rodin's works and built a villa, in the most luxurious style possible, and turned it into a museum, for him, that was a hundred years ago aa , he built it and left it for the United States and I always, in every weekend, left Princeton and went to the aaa that museum, in the weekends, I used to spend time there, aa have lunch and spend a good time, in that museum, over a period of two years, so aa I mean I benefited a lot from aa the aa aa information, being in contact with artists, aa the deep knowledge, which I got about a sophisticated art culture aa of course with the language I also benefited so I mean I was, thank God, because I was serious; had it been another one, I don't think he would've achieved what I achieved in the three years I lived in America aa I mean my life was excellent and learned a great deal about art but of course I wasn't influenced by aa anything else, other than trying to make art by myself.

- Peace be upon you, today is our 4th session with Mr. Sami Al Saleh, we are in aa Kuwait, at the Contemporary Art Platform, CAP, aa and today is aam Sunday, January 19, 2020 and and, I'd like you to tell us today about aa your experience while studying in Egypt.

- Yes, aa, in Egypt, aa I said aa that the first trip, in my life outside Kuwait, was for the scholarship I went on, in Cairo, Egypt aa so it was, for me, that trip or going out of Kuwait something aa horrible; I hadn't seen aa aa I mean aa people or seen aa museums or seen anything before that, I was just in Kuwait till I arrived in Cairo. Aa first aa of course I went aa to the the after the embassy and stuff, we went aa to the aa college, aa of course I had aa practiced aa sculpting in Kuwait aa in a very high aa manner, I had the background aa the aa an excellent one and the ability to build aa a big art work and or a small one, I made molds and did everything, I mean the experience was there but what was missing was... we missed the guidance and missed the the aa admitting that we studied art and stuff. The first person I saw was someone called Al Sijeeni aa Jamal Al Sijeeni, he was a famous sculptor in Egypt and he was aa my teacher, he taught me in college aa and he predicted for me to aa to be an artist and an artist with a status so he gave me great attention aa of course aa aaa mixing with aa people there had aa an effect and and mixing with artists affected my artistic side and and my acquaintances among artists, socializing with artists affected me a lot, from the artistic side and aa I saw the Pharaohs' work in reality, in the museum am the Pharaohs' museum in Cairo and I saw the Pharaohs' tombs, which are a miracle for for history and for the artistic movement; how they carved aa that aa deep or that big in mountains and the ground, which they dug to great depths, you know and.. imagine the the aa getting out the the aa the rocks or the aa the deb-- debris, coming out of the mountain, they got it out from the mountain, through a door opening not more than 70 centimeters by 1.5 meters wide and inside aam the aa depth of the hole, which I saw, of course I went inside and there was electricity and there was lighting and everything and there was a guide, who led the tourists and told them.. explained to them. That aa the depth of the hole, it was six meters by six meters aa aa wide and the depth was about 12 meters, I think, so imagine that amazing depth and how much dirt they brought out of it and how much aa rock fragments they brought out through that small opening aa and of course there was a huge hall before aa the hole, which was in the middle, in the middle of a hall, at least the hall, which I entered was aa 12 meters by 12 meters wide and in the middle the four by four hole, in the middle, and the depth of the hole, its depth was 12 meters, like I said, so that was aam made by the Pharaohs for security or for the aa those who stole would fall inside and die, they couldn't get out so what were they worried about? They were worried about the the works, placed all around that hole and the drawings there and the carvings on the walls aa the aa surrounding walls they had carved, of course after they had finished carving, they had engraved the subjects they wanted, for example about the tomb of Tutankhamun or the tomb of Khufu or something, you know. Those tombs, I mean aa for our time are miracles, at the time there were no equipment for digging, no electricity no aa technology, there was nothing so how did they dig them? Aa from the moment I got in, I started thinking about how they dug that hole and how they got all that debris out through that small door. Anyway, I mean the moment I saw the Pharaonic works, you know, I've loved them and loved aa the the the details in them and the sturdiness of those art works aa which survived for all those ages, since 5000 BC. Of course if you compare those to the Roman and Greek works, you will see the huge difference between the Pharaonic work and the Greek work; the Greeks immortalized something aa temporary and those works broke into pieces, most of them while the Pharaonic ones no, they persisted first of all because of the strong material, the strong theme aa and the work itself aa it didn't have aa I mean any protrusions, like a hand aa reaching out in the air or a leg or anything, no, no, it's just one block, that's what made the Pharaonic work aa aa become eternal and stay forever and to stay till now. So that was Egypt and of course aa in college my studies were aa aa about the process, that was sculpting, and they gave us the history of aaa arts, history classes and aa anatomy classes, aa formation classes and practical lessons on construction and building statues and molding them, I mean that was the stu... the style of studies and the the the strangest of all of those was the study of models, of course we didn't have models in Kuwait, to study on a model and stuff; to have a model, someone sitting while I replicated only from their faces but not their naked body or something, no, we didn't have that and it was familiar in Egypt but it was banned, aa that thing has been banned in Egypt and banned in all the Arab colleges, it was there before; in the 1960s, 1950s, 1940s and 1920s, it was there because a model-- an artist couldn't do without a model, when aa making a study thro.. on.. on a model, an artist studies and became better in anatomy and form and ... anyway I mean that was the way we studied, aa now education has changed, it's not like before aa before there were models and stuff aa so aa that's what I remember about Egypt and aa there is aa I mean aa aa I remember 67, 1967 which witnessed the greatest abundance of my production, throughout my whole life, it was in that year because I worked daily, at night, in the afternoon in the morning at college, I worked in the flat, I worked continuously so from a work to another and when I came to Kuwait, on vacations, I also worked, I didn't stop, all that made my production abundant, particularly in that year 1967, and the aaa I mean my life in Egypt aa was all serious work, never had I done anything other than moving between the college and the flat and and I worked in the flat and worked in the college so I was absolutely serious and and in the flat aa I had friends aa who called on me, aa my friends aa aa among those was Amir Abdul Rida, may God rest his soul, the brother of Husain Abdul Rida, while he was studying with us, aaa and of course aa my colleagues, who were with me in Egypt, Abdullah Salem Abdul Jaleel Al Ansari, Khaz'al Awadh Al Qaffas, Abdul Azeez Al Hashash , those were with us aa together in college and we visited each other, Mahmoud Al Radwan used to come to us, aa moreover aa there were friends from Bahrain, I remember them, aa they used to come aa to visit me and we spent time together talking sometimes because my flat was always open and aam I liked to play the oud and aam we held sessions, I mean Kuwaiti ones and made Kuwaiti meals, aa I didn't know how to cook but aa aa there were those who cooked, my Kuwaiti friends, when they came we made Kuwaiti dishes, (Memawwash), (Mi'addas) aa aa (Beriyani), whatever they aa could cook, you know, so it was a beautiful life, the most wonderful life possible, aa that I lived in Egypt, four to five years aa full of aa artistic production and acquaintances, the the the aa acquaintances among artists, students and the association the art... our association, the Students Association, whenever there was an occasion, an Eid or aaam, once a month or every other month I went to visit the association, there were male and female students, who gathered, all those who were in Egypt and and we got to know each other and the association held parties, we gathered aa aaa in those parties aam I mean for a whole day, in the association, for lunch and the aa gathering and we took pictures, many pictures, there was a photographer, his name was Philip, near the association aaa he came and took photos and all the aa the students had their photos taken so they were beautiful days , you know.

- That photographer, was he hired by the association or something?

- No, no, no, he was a commercial photographer, he had aa his studio was near the association and the students had their pictures taken by him so on any occasion, an Eid, the National Day or the Adha Eid or any Eid we went and met, all the students in Egypt, about 70, 80 to 100 or 150 students came and we met, we were so many.

- Do you remember where the headquarters of the association was?

- Yes, the association was in aa Cairo, in... I forgot the name of the street, ours was Abdul Azeem Rashid Street, in Al Za... aa our college was in Al Zamalek and the I was in Al Agouza, I think it was in Al Agouza, near to us, the asso.. association, yes.

- Aa you mentioned aa some of your colleagues, who used to come to you, in your flat, and so on aa were they all males? Were there female artists from Kuwait on scholarships aa or...?

- Yes, yes, there was Mudi Al Hajji, aa she was with us, there was S aa Sabeeha Bishara, I think, aa I think Nisreen Abdullah aa Samiya Al Saiyed Omar, but later on Samiya Al Saiyed Omar went to Spain, I think aaa and the rest stayed as they were, they went on and graduated, yes.

- Aa I'd like to go back, a little bit, to the beginning, the beginning of the scholarship, you said that aa your talent had been acknowledged and after that you were sent in a scholarship to Egypt...

- Yes.

- Aa what were scholarships like, at the time, I mean what was the process? How did you I mean aa apply? Was it like the process now or was there something different?

- No, indeed mmm, it wasn't different but of course it was aaa the personal inclination, you desire for engineering someone else desires for science, someone's desire is arts aa that was it, each one went for their desired direction and there was, I think the aptitude test, an aptitude test particularly with aaa art, not like in other colleges, you know, the faculty of arts must see what your abilities and inclinations are and if you are really serious or just kidding, you know, and they must also see your inclinations, are they for painting or sculpting? You don't get to decide, the aa teacher decides, yes and your inclin-- you study sculpting, you study ornament, you study so and so but t..the final decision is related to the inclinations, aa what your inclinations are and where your strong points are. I studied sculpting and loved sculpting, we loved aa we went, all of us, a group of four persons, to study sculpting, you know, and we perfected the basics here, aa in the Free Atelier, where Anwar Al Siruji, may God rest his soul, was, he was our teacher, that teacher was a great one aa he taught us the principles of sculpting, how to build a statue and how to work on it, so we were among those who gained some experience before we went there.

- Aa you mentioned you were four, on the scholarship, who were they? Do you remember them?

- Khaz'al Awadh aa and and Abdul Azeez Al Hashash and and aa Abdullah Salem Abdul Jaleel and me, Sami Muhammed. The four of us went in one patch and there was another patch, before us, that included Muhammed Al Damkhi, may God rest his soul, Isa Saqer may God rest his soul, Bader Al Qatami may God rest his soul, and Abdullah Al Qassar, may God rest their souls, those went before us, to the same college, they studied at the same college, graduated and came back and worked and so on but aa they have died aa recently, they died a few years ago.

- The scholarship period, when did it begin and when did it end?

- We were there in the late... 1965 to the late 1970.

- And what were the most prominent works of you at the time, your works, I mean particularly in the field of sculpting or...?

- In fact aaa there were a lot of works that I loved, aa I was aa fond of recording aa the environment, I once made aa a statue of a woman playing the drum in the.. in the aa weddings, for women, aaa I did the (Laiwa) dance, I did aa aa I was very fond of recording items from the environment in statues, not paintings, no and statues are very very different from paintings; in a painting of a wedding you include many items, I mean the bride, people and stuff, men, women and and children but in a statue, no, you tr... you do your best to really depict a wedding in one figure or the (Arda) dance, I did the (Arda), an (Arda) comprises 20 persons in one side and 20 more on the other side, and forms and a whole lot of things and swords and I did just one person, one person in the costume of the (Arda) and aa a sword, in his hand, with which he dances or someone beating the drum of the (Arda) aa I also did the Kuwaiti donkey driver, the donkey driver who brought water, aa on a donkey's back, to the aa the houses aaa I did a l... a lot, I can't remember, I did a lot when I was still aaa young, in the beginning of my car... career, you know.

- And those works, where are they now?

- Ooh, some have been sold, some have been damaged, some have been lost and some have been stolen and aa there is... there is nothing left except for mm my stuff, from the 1970s onwards, I've got nothing from the 1960s, a ten years' worth of products were gone, including the things I made in Egypt, some were bought, I mean I remember a statue I made, following a model aa a girl, who was with us in aa college, I made a statue of her, a small one of course, 60 centimeters tall, but I studied it in a great way, and I wanted it for aa myself in Kuwait but I didn't have the money to mold it in bronze, to mold it in bronze so I made it with gypsum and there was an exhibition, I remember that exhibition, it was in aa the Kuwait National Museum, aa near the Dasman Palace, you don't remember it, perhaps you haven't seen it, it was aaa next to aaa the Dasman Palace, that was the Kuwait National Museum, which had antiquities and stuff, it had a spacious garden in the back aa aa it was the house of Khaz'al, Sheikh Khaz'al I think, yes, in the back there was a huge garden and there was a hall, a large hall too, a hall aa for exhibitions, where we showed, it was supervised by the Ministry of Information or the Ministry of Education, back then, so we, as an association or an atelier or artists showed our works there sometimes and I remember there was the exhibition aa of the American women, that exhibition aa was organized by the American women in Kuwait, the American women who were involved in culture in Kuwait, they went to the ambassador or the embassy and and suggested, to them, to hold an exhibition under the name of the American Women and that exhibition continued for seven years or eight, nine years, I don't remember it was the only exhibition in Kuwait that gathered the Kuwaiti artists before we established aa the association.

- Was that through the American embassy?

- I think, yes, through the American embassy, it--

- And do...

- The American embassy sponsored it.

- And do you remember the names of the women in charge of it?

- No, I don't but I know it was under the name of the American women in Kuwait, of course those American women were not necessarily artists; one could have been a housewife, or a teacher or a clerk in the embassy, they cooperated and stuff to start an event, under the embassy's name, called the American Women Exhibition and many people participated in it, I mean the early artists.

- W-- when did it start?

- Aaa we participated in it in the 1960s, 1960, 1961, 959, something like that, but I don't know when it started, I participated somewhat late, I mean aa because aa after six or seven7 years it stopped, it didn't continue, they didn't organize it anymore, and even Egyptians, Syrians and other foreigners participated in it and it had a prize and had.. it was something nice, beautiful, that was before we established the association, we established the association later on then that exhibition disappeared and our association began to shoulder the cultural and artistic activities and we ran everything so you see, one story leads to another that was the aa the exhibition aa I remember it well aa and and our participations, most aaa of the early artists, who were just starting, participated in it, you know, yes.

- Do you remember the names of the artistic who participated, with you, in that exhibition?

- Sure, indeed, aa of course most of the atelier group, those were Isa Saqer, Khaz'al Awadh, Khalifa Al Qattan, aa Al Qassar, Bader Al Qatami, me, aaa Ibrahim Isma'il aa Hameed Isma'il aa and many others, aa those-- those who were there back then, all those who were there back then but not those who came later because those didn't catch it, those who came in 1975 and 1970 and so on didn't catch it.

- Were those exhibitions aa under aa I mean did they have a cer... certain type of conditions for the works presented...

- No--

- Or did they accept--?

- No, no, they accepted, aa what you presented they accepted and they had a committee, of course a committee of those women, I don't know, aa they didn't turn down anything by me, aa we presented beautiful things and that was it, I mean they were not about religion or politics or... they didn't have anything to do with... aa those were things about Kuwait aa we depicted the sea the desert environment and so on and that was something desired by aa the foreigners, yes, so we shouldered the exhibition.

- Aa and after finishing your education in Egypt.

- Yes, yes.

- Will you tell me about the period after your aa return to Kuwait?

- Yes, after we had finished in Egypt, aa the four of us, we came back and returned to the Free Atelier and in the Free Atelier we had sabbatical leaves, of course, aa the Free Atelier, aa I remember that we didn't have the association, in 1961, 62, 63 till 1967 we didn't have an association so our association was the Free Atelier, which gathered us and gathered the artists so we thought about establishing an association aa we went to the officials, we went to the Ministry of Social Affairs, aaa we got aa the laws aaa the law of the Society of Lawyers, the law of the Society of Engineers the law of the Graduates Society because all those were before us and and they were under the umbrella of the Ministry of Social Affairs and we were under the umbrella of the Ministry of Social Affairs too, as a society, so before we aa did anything aa we collected those laws, took what suited us, added the conditions and and made the law. We went to the Ministry of Social Affairs and at the time so many aaa founding members were not required, I mean 14 or 12 or 15 persons were enough for them, of course more than 50 are required now and they still don't agree, they never agree, the door is closed, I think so, I'm not sure. Aaa so we aa met, more than once and discussed the matter, more than once, Khalifa Al Qattan, may God rest his soul, and and Isa Saqer and and and Khaz'al and and me and Abdullah Salem and Abdul Azeez Al Hashash and and Ahmed aa Al Saiyegh and and and Ahmed Salem or Salem Ahmed, I'm not sure, I don't remember, there were a few more-- and Saleh Al Ajeel [he coughs] and Khalid Al Qu'ood [he swallows his saliva] till we gathered about 13 persons or 14 persons, aam we recorded our names but of course before that, as I told you, aa our meetings as were held aa continuously, a meeting after another, even while in Egypt, I mean because in that period we were in Egypt, since we thought about the association, in 64, 1964 to 1967, for over three years we'd been discussing the matter, in Egypt or in Kuwait [he swallows his saliva] We talked and discussed what we wanted to do, what not to do and made the laws till we aa presented the file to the Ministry of Social Affairs, the ministry aa agreed because there was no arts association in Kuwait and of course we explained, in the request, that the society would care for the visual arts and that was a type of culture and aa that our neighboring aa countries had such associations while we didn't and and that Kuwait had just started its modernity so they agreed quickly. We established the society and they gave us the proclamation and that proclamation wasn't granted until it was published in the official newspaper and approved by the Emir aa and what would or wouldn't happen, a budget had to be assigned for that project so they assigned for us, they gave us a budget, I don't remember how many thousands till it developed and became ten thousands or 15 or 20 thousands, over a period of time. So we aam opened the doors for the aa the artists, in Kuwait, huh besides the Free Atelier because the Free Atelier was restricted to us, the employees of the atelier aa and after that aa many amateur artists joined the association and we had two categories; a full member and a supporting member, the supporting members were those who aam didn't paint but loved aa painting and loved to support, I mean they were supportive so those were supporters while the full numbers were the artists, like me, those were aa full members so ultimately aa many people joined us and I remember at first they gave us aa the state gave us aa the house of Al Naqqi, no, not Al Naqqi.. Al Naqeeb, the house of Al Naqeeb aa which was in the site of the present National Assembly, overlooking the sea, aa it was a des.. a deserted house, among the state property and we asked for it from the Ministry of Social Affairs aa or from the municipality, from the municipality and they agreed and gave it to us. We stayed there for about... I mean through 1967, 68 and I think 1969, for three years then aaa we went and rented aa the municipality took it back from us because they wanted to knock it down to build and to enlarge the streets and stuff.

- Ahm.

- So and and they built the National Assembly in its place, so we went to-- we moved to aaa a house that was I think aa next to the old American Embassy, which was near the Sheraton, not the Sheraton... Hilton, it was the Hilton, yes aa Hilton, the Hilton hotel, which is in Benaid Al Qar. We stayed in that house for about four years or five years, that house was a huge villa aa a rented one, we rented it, it was property of , aa that's what was said, I'm not sure, of aa Sheikh aa aa Sheikh Isa of Bahrain, may God rest his soul, he had six, seven villas or ten villas in that place, I don't know whether it's true or not, I don't know aa , I mean aa I mean I haven't seen any documents to say that that was true, that was what I heard, I mean that those.. all those houses belonged to a person aa to the Sheikh of Bahrain but I don't think so, I mean I don't think that was true, perhaps they belonged to a company, or some people because in Kuwait, I don't think possession is possible for aa other parties, I mean the Kuwai... land cannot be possessed except by a Kuwaiti, that's what I know now, what I know is that now no one can possess the land, aa not a Bahraini not a Saudi or any one, just the Kuwaitis, that's according to the documents, so that perhaps was aa I mean just a name; they called that... they gave to that house. Anyway, we spent four or five years there and left, aaa at the time we appealed for land, from the Ministry of Social Affairs aa or from the state, you know, aa and aa they granted us a lot of land, we'd been appealing for it for a long time, and and they granted us a site aa that site... we wished for it to be m aa I mean close to the embassies, I mean no, aa aa by the Society of Engineers and the Society of Lawyers and so on, we wanted it there but they didn't allow us, they gave us a land where? In Hawalli, where the Kuwait Arts Association is now, a large lot of land, about 2 to 4 thousand square meters, I guess, I didn't... I didn't measure it, I don't know but it was about that size. Aa we built on it aa a hall and a simple building, that suited our money, aa we stayed I mean we built an administration building and a hall for exhibitions and so on and we invited many people and people came and stayed, people came to and went out of the association mm students travelled and teachers and aa I mean we built something for the state, you know, and that was a huge part of the cultural movement in Kuwait so we were in the same condition that aa the condition, in which we as artists were, was the same with engineers, with lawyers aam and the other societies, the Artists Association, I mean aa for that cultured class, it was a struggle and not an easy one, that was our struggle, in the beginning, now it's easy for any artist to come and look, aa they don't care, no, we cared, we cared enough to establish a society, to persevere for the movement aa we traveled abroad for exhibitions, carrying the name of Kuwait and and we participated in many occasions and participated in aa Arab and foreign countries and and raised the name of Kuwait, over a period of 50 years, not a day or two, I mean we didn't.. I mean aaa most of those who died, all of those struggled, a bitter struggle, for the visual arts movement, you know, and thank God, God granted us success.

- And do you remember some of those exhibitions, in which you participated outside Kuwait, after establishing the association?

- Yes, many exhibitions, we were, we held exhibitions in Cairo, Egypt, in Syria, I recall in 1972, in Japan, in America, ooh too many to even remember aa more than aa 300 or 350 exhibitions in which I participated, aam in Kuwait and outside Kuwait and we even invited artists, from abroad, to participate, with us, in our exhibitions and we were the aa we were the first group, that small group of 13 persons, the first to think, in the Arab region, to hold aa an exhibition, called the Arab Countries Exhibition, we did it in the association and and we went to aaa Sheikh Sa'ad, may God rest his soul, we explained to him the situation and so on and and he adopted the idea and supported us aa with money and and structures and the Ministry of Social Affairs helped us. That exhibition continued for a period of 20 years, because it was held every other year and all the artists, in the Arab world, those who were older than me aa -- who were 70 and 80 - and those who died, those were the ones holding the big flag of the Arab art, they were young people, like us, and participated with us and they were very proud to participate in the Arab Countries Exhibition, it was called the Biennale the Kuwait Biennale, it was the first Arab Biennale in the whole region, of course after that came the Egypt Biennale, the Iraq Biennale the Syria Biennale aa the Sharjah Biennale and I'm many other places, I don't know now.

- When did it start in Kuwait? In which year?

- That was in 1967, when we first started, in 1967 or 1968 we held our first Arab biennale and and invited to it big professors, aa of course all those are dead now, big professors with big names in the Arab world, whose paintings are worth of of fortunes now, I mean among those were Fateh Al Mudarris, aa a Syrian, whose works are now sold for 18 thousand and 20 thousand dinars a painting, and Nab... Natheer Nab'aa aa from Lebanon, I don't remember who else aa I don't remember them, all of them died, may God rest their souls, many people from aa Iraq, many people from Egypt - our teachers, from Yemen aa Sudan aa and all all all the Arab countries, we invited them, by the..not by the name; we invi.. aa invited their associations, because there were associations or cultural centers or embassies, we went to an embassy and said that we wanted an artist and they brought him, we met in friendly and amiable gatherings, every year, all the Arab artists, we met here in one of the best gatherings in the Arab art, in Kuwait.

- Is it still there or did it stop?

- No, no, because what happened? What happened was that aah the administrations, every administration came to the association was different from the previous one, I mean some administrations believed in something and another administration didn't then came the interest, some administrations were interested in something and some administrations were not, I mean like aaam the biennale, some people couldn't keep it up, the administrations that ca... came and couldn't continue aa neglected it and with that negligence it faded away and finally the invasion came and finished it once and for all.

- Do you remember when it stopped? When was it last held?

- No, unfortunately, because I didn't participate in it, I participated in mos..most of the biennales the aa five or six, and in all of them I won awards too, I mean the awards were very valuable, we made a sail aa something on a solid gold sail, aa one hundred per cent gold, pure gold, I mean it was valuable, our award in Kuwait was very precious that's why it was sought after, in the Arab world, by the artists who.. who aa wanted to participate and not any one could, ooh, it was a fight to get to Kuwait, to get our approval or their concerned parties' approval so-- and all of them were - I told you - the biggest of artists, aa not small ones, yes.

- And and now, in the present time, how do you see the the community?

- In fact the current situation, with the visual arts movement, what can I say? It's declining and it's not unpromising, nothing is not promising, everything is promising, God willing, and the youth are a valuable asset, there are really serious young artists and aa but there is no support for those young people, I mean there are good young people, I mean the chance we had is not available for those young people. We we started in the beginning of the movement and in the beginning of the movement and the begging of modernity the state was generous; here, take, go and do, yes, just knock on the door and someone would open for you, now that's not available anymore, it's like... a chaos now for those who want to do something but they don't know how to organize themselves, like we did, like we organized things, and the recipient, the official, doesn't know if that person is serious or not and it's over, that's the reason behind the aa decline or the aa curve is going down not up like it was in the beginnings and that applies not only to the aa painting, but also to sports, to the culture in general, it applies to music, to the the theater aa to the.. football and to many other things aa m not like before, what did they call Kuwait in the past? The Pearl of the Gulf, that was in the 1970s, the 1960s and the 1980s, why? Because there was a leap, the Gulf was standing still while we were working like a volcano, that's how we emerged. Now everything is available for us, everything and we are like some people racing, on a track, and when they reached the end line they collapsed, everything was over and everything fell apart. Now, the generation that followed us is not serious like us, we were serious, very serious, I mean when I compare myself to the the aa those, whom I see now they are like a zero; they are not serious like me, I am serious, in my wo... I mean what proves my seriousness is that thank God, may God grant us, and those listening, a long life, I am 77 now but I haven't stopped, I'm serious, I take my work seriously while there are young people, no, they work for six or seven years then go, "They don't encourage me, they don't give me, no, let aa art go to hell, I don't want it, let's shut this door," and they are done while a serious person never stops at an obstacle saying, "That's it, this is an obstacle, I can't overcome, no, I.. I will overcome it and overcome even a bigger one and I will go on, I want this thing to be good, I must do it." That's how our generation was and among those was Abdul Husain, may God rest his soul, he had overcome so many obstacles, he, aa Sa'ad Al Faraj and others Hayat, Su'ad and-- but they didn't stop, they carried the banner, succeeded and became among the luminaries of the Gulf so all the culture of Kuwait was strong in the beginning and it still is, from time to time and in some sides but aam aa the youth are indolent, some young people are good and some are idle, I mean idle and not serious.

- Aa will you tell me about the aa statue of Abdullah Al Salem, which you made, how long did it take and where did the idea come from?

- Yes, the statue of Abdullah Al Salem, that's a story, aa I mean in the 1970s, after I graduated, when... I graduated in 1970, in 1971 or 1972 Abdul Azeez Al Misai'eed, may God rest his soul, came to us, in the Free Atelier, we aa were a group in, the Free Atelier, of sculptors, four aa five persons, or four [he coughs] he came to us asking for aa a statue for aaa Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem, of course people told him about us or he heard about us or something; someone must've said to him, "There are Kuwaiti aa artists, working in that atelier," we were fresh, I mean freshly graduated and and he came asking for aaa the statue and we said, "Ok, we-- aa give us two months or a month to discuss the matter, among ourselves, and everyone will do something then we'll call you to come and see and choose the one you want." We worked, Khalifa, Isa and I, the three of us, yes, just three persons, I remember, we worked, each one made a statue. I-- aa Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem, may God rest his soul, I mean was a man with good deeds, in aa Kuwait, aa he did a lot of great things, we lived his era, we saw him and witnessed the achievements and everything so his love filled our hearts, we I mean I, for one, loved Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem so much and here came the chance for me to express how much I loved that person so I started thinking about what to do and what to make. Each of us had his theme and my theme was to seat him on a podium aaa a podium is not ascended except by someone aa with abilities, someone who has the ability to be a leader, to address the people and aa guide them and aa talk, hence was my choice for the chair on which I seated him in the beginning; that was the podium he's aa sitting on after a... but not in a random way; someone might sit crossing their legs, someone might sit smoking a cigarette or someone might... I kept thinking about that way of sitting and how to make it a royal one, a way aaa that suited the status of that eminent Sheikh. And aa of course I seated him on it, I seated him on the chair aa and I paid a great attention to that setting, I gave it a great deal of attention, how to express that feeling aa in clay, of course I was working with clay, how to express that feeling in that clay? That is something that depends on the artist and their ability; for any artist, practicing an artistic job, a genius or someone with art, all the art, is deeply rooted in them, or a writer or a musician or... such moments are very important, the blood of an artist speaks, not only their hands and I was overwhelmed with the feeling; how would I stand before that clay and see it as a real Sheikh, it was still... I hadn't made the Sheikh yet, I was just thinking about the setting, and I made it a setting of a Shei-- that fitted a Sheikh. That was one, now I was done with the setting, I was done with the podium, now I wanted to depict his history, he was a man of a huge history; he accomplished, achieved and gave, he gave the country huge capabilities and his goodness extended, not only to Kuwait but also beyond Kuwait, to the Emirates, he had good deeds in the Emirates, good deeds in Oman, good deeds in Bahrain, good deeds in many others, and all the Gulf and everyone praised him, not only me, every one praised him so how would I express that ability? And how his giving was and what he did for us, for the Kuwaitis, anyway, I began to study thoroughly, I studied and brought photographs and stuff, and and I read anything written about that person, that was in addition to my love for him. Ultimately aa I thought about the constitution, the constitution... he introduced the constitution; he was the one who thought about it and the one who had it drafted so I put a book, to stand for the constitution, under his hand while he was seated on the chair, another thing in the primary design, not the big one, the miniature, which Al Misai'eed would see, I put in his other hand aa a paper, that paper referred to aa the Proclamation of Independence because the independence was achieved by that man, the independence of Kuwait, we got our independence in his era and drafted the constitution in his era and those were the greatest of his achievements. Now the project was complete, it became a full project but I kept thinking about what the man achieved, what he achieved, now I had the right, left and back of the chair, in the back I depicted his reliance, the dependence of the aaa Sheikh on the past, our glorious past in the sea so I placed a sailor behind him, representing the past and to his right I placed the knowledge, education for he was the one who opened the schools, schools were established in his era, of course there were schools in the era of Ahmed Al Jaber, may God rest his soul, but in his era they developed and education developed a lot, in abundance and with great attention, in his era were the engineering, architecture and the laws, everything was in his era so I depicted all those in the model and I still keep that model at home and I'm proud of it and and there was something else, I tried to perfect the resemblance in the small model, which was this size and whose head was about 10 centimeters long the head of the statue was 10 centimeters high, the miniature model, which Abdul Azeez Al Misai'eed would see so I tried to perfect the resemblance and I perfected it. Now my friends saw what I was doing, they almost took something from one another but of course I was independent, in my ideas, I didn't care whether they took or not, saw or not, I didn't mind, I was just doing my project. Anyway, we finished, everyone made his statue and stuff and we called the man, aa he took a tour and stopped right by me and said, "this is what we want, that's it" aa I molded the statue, it was of clay, he saw it while it was in clay so I molded it and fine-tuned it, I made it with gypsum and took it to Al Rai Al Aam. I said to him... he said to me, "now what do you need to make it big?" I said to him, "aaa I need a place, a large place - because I will make a big statue -- and and I need an assistant and I need materials." The Man said, "alright, don't worry, you will get the materials and the place is available, in Shuwaikh, the old newspaper," because he had an old newspaper building, from the... aa before the 1960s, already bui... I think it was built in the 1950s, and he had machines there, he moved them to a new building, which is currently the Al Rai Al Aam newspaper, in Shuwaikh, not Al Rai of Boodai, no, that was Al Rai Al Aam which issued Al Nahdha and Sa'ad magazines.

- Do...

- And where the statues themselves are.

- Do you remember what the name of the first newspaper was? The one from the 1950s.

- Al Nahdha. Aa Al Nahdha, no the newspaper was Al Rai Al Aam but the magazines were Al Nahdha and Sa'ad, Sa'ad was for children. So aaa he gave me the place, because it was deserted and full of wood and stuff, they cleaned it for me and fixed it and there was a hall, I remember, a big one, I mean ten times the size of this hall, aa because it had machines, desks and stuff, it was a newspaper, you know, and it was deserted. He said, "how long will it take?" I said, "in fact I don't know, I will start and when I'm done, I'm done." I spent a whole year, I mean such a place brought in money but the man gave it to me for free, I was supposed to go and rent a place but he gave it to me for free. I spent a whole year working on that statue and the clay, he brought me clay, they brought the clay, and brought gypsum, he gave me a worker, gave me wood and gave me.., at the time I was a young man, in my twenties, I mean aa 27 or 26 and praise the Lord He bestowed me with a strong body; I carried bags, wood and iron, I built and knocked things down and broke things, sometimes I built and sometimes I broke things and knocked them down, oooh I suffered, I suffered a lot, moreover aa the matter required experience and required assistants and I had no assistants but one, an Afghan worker, yes, he was an Afghan, who didn't know how to even make tea, I just told him to get that piece of wood or take that wood away and that was it, aa or to clean the place and he cleaned it, he sprayed wa... water on the statue, that was all he could do while I did everything and I remember while I was working on the face once, of course I used scaffolds, about four meters high aaa and I was... I went up the steps and spent hours, working pleasantly on the face, I put pictures beside me and looked at them and so on to copy the exact features of his face and I don't know how... I was... my weight was over 90, I mean 90 to almost 100 kilos, I made a wrong move and the scaffold broke, it collapsed and I fell from the height of about 4 meters or something aa I got bruised, my body was bruised and so on and I stood up, I was young and there was nothing wrong with me but later on that fall affected my aa my back and until now I complain about my back because of that fall. That was one thing, another thing was that I had to be sure that I got the face right, but how would I know? I am facing it 24 hours a day; looking at it, adding and removing, I needed someone to come and see it to tell me if it resembled - the Sheikh - or not, so what did I do? I started going out, in the streets, saw those who lived in the era of the Sheikh to ask them, I said to them, "do you know Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem?" If they said, "yes, I know him" and so on... those were aa Egyptians, Syrians, Lebanese and workers, I said to them, "come, I need to show you something and I want you to see it." Some people didn't... they feared me, they thought I'd take them to the police or something and those d... didn't listen to me, I kept begging people just to estimate the accuracy of what I did before calling the man, the project sponsor, I got people who looked, at the statue, some said, "yes, I know him," and some said, "no, I don't know him," should one say, "I don't know him," that killed me so what did I do? I broke the statue, the face, just the face, and rebuilt it, I toiled for a week or two and when I finished, I did the same thing again, I brought someone and should they go, "huh, yes aa aa." I did it all over again. I called in six or seven people and one aa most of the people ultimately, no, those who saw it went, "no, man, this is him, Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem, you've done a big thing," and so on, they said things like that which comforted me, here I knew that I reached the point I wanted, and the point I wanted was for people to know who that person was, not because he was wearing a Besht, an Iqal and a Dishdasha, no, but for the resemblance, was it him or not, aah and I succeeded in that, I mean to a great extent. At that moment I thought, "ok, it's time to call the sponsor of the project, the one who will finance it aa to come." I went to him and said, "Abu Yousef, I finished and I want you to see the statue and give me your approval to cast it," because should I cast it, there would be no chance to break, fix, remove or add. He said, "fine, I'll come to you in two days or may be tomorrow." In the morning he came to me, he looked and looked in amazement and said, "I didn't expect you'd do this," first there was the size, it was huge and the striking resemblance; it was as if the man was sitting there, as if Abdullah Al Salem was sitting, in clay, I mean you could see the the aa skin [he swallows his saliva] the clay was so close to skin. He said, "well done, well done, son, this is what we want, this is it, shall I cast it?" I said and he said, "cast it." I got the green light so I started working on the cast, in three or four months I finished casting it, aa in gypsum then aaa we unveiled the gypsum statue, not the bronze one; for the bronze would come later [he swallows his saliva] later on we took it to cast the bronze, it stayed for about aa three years in the open; in the air, under the the rain and the sun, while still in gypsum, it almost disintegrated, fragmented.

- Where was it?

- It was in the same location, in the Al Rai Al Aam newspaper, the same place.

- But in the outside not indoors?

- In the outside, ou... in the yard and there was aa an inauguration, it was like the aa inauguration of a palace, the inauguration; first of all aa he was a member of the National Assembly, Abdul Azeez, may God rest his soul, Abdul Azeez Al Misai'eed, he was a member of the National Assembly so all the a members of the National Assembly came and the Speaker of the National Assembly, Al Ghunaim, Khalid Al Ghunaim came, and so did all the dignitaries of the country and its intellectuals [he swallows his saliva] and mo-- most of the minis... aa aa the ambassadors, ambassadors and ministers came, he invited them of course.

- When was that?

- In 1972, almost around its end and and I had made a curtain and stuff for it, we removed the curtain, I even had some pictures, I saw them, with me standing aa in the middle or explaining, explaining to the Speaker of the National Assembly what that was and what... the aa the sea behind him and the aa the renascence and the constitution and aa the things we said earlier, you know. Those were beautiful days and I was-- my joy was great that... I mean the newspapers wrote and the the radio and television, and... it was an event aa not comparable to what happens these days, today when we hold an exhibition, hardly a minister opens it, the undersecretary or whoever opening it, opening the exhibition, comes with five, six, seven or ten people and that's it, while back then the dignitaries of the country attended the opening and the unvei... unveiling, so I wish, I have a wish, God willing, to do a huge project, like that, in Kuwait and to make that wish true again, for Kuwait, yes, indeed.

- Thank you very much

- You are welcome.

- Thank you.

- It was a nice journey.

- [Al Hajri laughs]

- A beautiful journey, thank you for it.

The end