MY STORY

I, Linda Dalal Sawaya, am a Lebanese-American artist, writer, cook, gardener, ceramic artist, mural artist, and illustrator living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest’s Portland, Oregon.

Welcome to viewing my work painted with a variety of media including watercolor, acrylic, oils, egg tempera, as well as my ceramics, collage, and photography. Please contact me if you have a project in mind. I welcome commissions. If you’d like to buy original art or prints, please browse my website and find something you love. My website gives you the ability to purchase original paintings, ceramics, and prints with ease.

i’d love to hear from you! I hope you find something you love to bring you joy!

My Lebanese cookbook, Alice’s Kitchen: Traditional Lebanese Cooking, a word of mouth success, is loved by Lebanese and others around the globe and is available for purchase here.  Please let me know if you’d like your books signed and personalized for yourself or for friends.

ahlan wa sahlan! • welcome!

MY ART ROOTS

I am an artist, illustrator, writer, teacher, cook, gardener—and the fifth and youngest daughter of Lebanese immigrants from Douma, an archetypal mountain village overlooking the Mediterranean. My art effuses color, texture, and pattern like the Persian rugs embellishing my childhood home in Los Angeles. My passions emanate from my parents and grandparents: my father an avid photographer and fig tree planter, yogurt-maker, teller of Joha stories; my mother and grandmother outstanding cooks and domestic artists; and my multi-lingual doctor grandfather, whose love of books, art, history, madonnas, Ripley’s Believe-It-or-Not, are preserved in layered, collaged journals.

Following my grandfather’s love of books instilled in me by teaching me to read at the age of 5, I made my little first book—an illustrated autobiography—in elementary school. After graduating UCLA in art, my first three month “roots” journey to Lebanon transformed my life as much as my years growing up in a Lebanese-American household full of the people, food, Arabic language, music, aromas, and furnishings of Lebanon intermingled with English, Spanish, and rock ‘n roll. All of this led to my second book, Alice’s Kitchen.

ALICE’S KITCHEN

The natural progression working as a graphic designer at RAIN: JOURNAL OF APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY in 1977 and designing my first books, led me to realize my vision of writing my family cookbook Alice’s Kitchen: Traditional Lebanese Cooking, a tribute to my mother, Alice and grandmother Dalal.  Alice’s Kitchen, a cherished book for children of immigrants whose mothers prepared the fabulous Lebanese dishes preserved through generations without writing or measuring, is memoir and labor of love.

PHOTOGRAPHY • CERAMICS • DESIGN painting • ILLUSTRATION

Following my father into photography began with my first camera: a Brownie Starflash gift for my 10th birthday. At UCLA in the late 1960s, I immersed myself into black and white fine art photography, studying with the amazing photographers Edmund Teske and Robert Heineken, where I learned to process film and print them and so much more. Living and photographing in the Santa Cruz mountains during the 1970s birthed my work of making commissioned black and white Environmental Portraits of children in nature. This was truly a great joy. My love of photography continues through much of my artwork.

My love of clay began in the 1960s and continues to this day.

Graphic design, illustrating children’s books, designing and illustrating book covers all provided creative and colorful projects to use my creativity over the years, each form of art building on the previous and adding to my repertoire. I was blessed to study painting in Portland with beloved teacher, René Rickabaugh in the 1980s; studied iconography with beloved teachers Nancy Jackson and Virginia Barber in the 2000s; and study Tibetan Thangka painting with beloved Frank Sanje Elliott.

MURALS

I am currently training to become a facilitator for Singing Tree mural projects: community murals. Portland’s art and mural Alberta Street in 2016 is the location of a mandala mural that I designed and painted on the Black United Fund Building. In the summer of 2018 I painted a sidewalk storm drain mural in Hillsboro, Oregon for Tualatin Riverkeepers. My first mural was done in 1992 for the We Speak Mural project on Arab Americans and the 500 years since Columbus.

TEACHING & ART RESIDENCIES

Teaching has been an integral and joyful part of my art: working in schools doing art residencies with children, creating murals, teaching Lebanese cooking classes, and teaching adults collage and Islamic tile painting in my studio.

exhibitions & Projects

2024 • How to Illustrate a Story Workshop with 5th graders in a Portland Public School • Spring 2024 • 2023 • Exhibited ceramic art at SWANA group show, June • Sold Alice’s Kitchen at Neighborhood Multicultural Fair, October and Maharajan, September • Repainted and restored Chac Sidewalk Stormdrain Mural for Tualatin Riverkeepers in Hillsboro, Oregon • September, 2023 • Ceramic Showcase Group Booth • April, 2023 • 2022 • SWANA (Southwest Asian North African) Holiday Pop up Show, Portland, • Portland Open Studios • 2021/2022 • Juried Ceramic work in Oregon Governor’s Mansion: Focus on Diversity, Salem, Oregon • 2021 • Ceramic work in Beyond the Construct Juried Group Show, Columbia Center for the Arts, Hood River, Oregon • 2019 • Oregon Potter’s Association Holiday Show and Sale, Portland, Oregon • Invited artist at Ceramic Artist Sara Swink’s Holiday Show and Sale, Portland, Oregon • 2019 • Art Residency & Open House exhibition, New Pacific Studio, Vallejo, California • Ode to the Tides Exhibition, Mandala painting, Traveling Exhibition to many Oregon venues • 2018 • Portland Love Show, World Circle of Love Mandala painting • Tualatin Riverkeepers Storm drain Mural Project • 2016 • Black United Fund Mandala Mural Project • Day of the Dead, Columbia Art Center • Hood River • Siren Nation Celebration, Portland Center for the Performing Arts • Connecting Diversity Through Art • Concordia University Library Gallery, Portland • Celebrate the Middle East, Capitol Hill Library, Portland • Recycled Rain Project, Ford Gallery, Portland • 2015 • Recycled Rain Project, Portland • 2014 • Recycled Rain Project, Portland • 2010 • Canvassing Peace, AFSC Friends Gallery • Los Angeles 2009/2010 • Incarnation Icons, Cloisters Gallery, Westminster Church • Portland 2007 • One person exhibition paintings on clay, Washington State University campus • Vancouver 2006 • Curated Collage-A-matics Class Exhibition WSU campus • Vancouver, Washington • March 4 – April 23, 2006 • Children’s Illustration, Collins Gallery • Portland 2004 • Beaverton Arts Commission, paintings and prints juried group exhibition 2002 • Fetterly Art Gallery Invitational group exhibition • Vallejo, California 2001 • Open Studios • Benicia, California 2000 • Open Studios • Vallejo, California 1997 • “One People” Group Show • Gresham City Hall Gallery 1995 • One person show children’s book illustration • Vita Gallery • Portland 1995 • New York Society of Illustrators “The Original Art” Show children’s book illustration • NY • Beaverton Arts Commission • paintings and photographs juried group exhibition • Oregon 1994 • Third World Art Exchange Acrylic paintings on clay group show • Los Angeles • Pacific Arts Photography Gallery color photographs • Portland 1993 • Buckley Center Gallery, U. of Portland, group show • Portland • Hoffman Gallery, Oregon School of Arts & Crafts juried student exhibition • Portland • “Diversity for the 90’s” multicultural group exhibit Willamette University • Salem, Oregon 1992 • Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center Gallery, We Speak Mural • Portland • Oregon Women in the Arts multi-media evening celebration of 50 Oregon artists • Portland • Culture Shock Gallery, Portland, March • “Visionary Women–21 Multicultural Artists”, group exhibition, paintings 1991 • de nada gallery One-person photographic exhibition Mexican fishing boats • Portland

selected publications

• Aramco World Magazine, 2021 Cover & interior Illustrations for Spice Migrations series • Aramco World Magazine, 2018 Rababa Calendar Illustration • Oregon Reads Aloud, 2016, MeshMesh story illustrations, published by Graphic Arts Press •The Sweets of Araby, 2011, cookbook illustrations, published by Countryman Press • Saudi Aramco World Magazine, 2009/2010, “Memories of a Lebanese Garden” cover art featured on 2010 Six Decades Calendar • The Heirloom Gardener Magazine, Spring 2009, Linda was interviewed for an article on Lebanese kitchen gardens with recipes from Alice’s Kitchen • Encyclopedia of Arab American Artists, 2008, one of 100 artists represented • Saudi Aramco World Magazine, 2006, “Cooking with the Caliphs” illustrations • Alice’s Kitchen: Traditional Lebanese Cooking wrote, edited, illustrated and published Lebanese family recipes, 1997, 2005 • The Herb Companion, 1999, “Food for the Soul” illustrated article on Lebanese herbs • The Space Between Our Footsteps, Simon & Schuster, 1998, anthology of art and poems from the Middle East • Aramco World Magazine, 1997, “Memories of a Lebanese Garden”, illustrated article excerpt from Alice’s Kitchen • The Little Ant/La Hormiga Chiquita, 1995, children’s book illustration, Rizzoli International, NY • How to Get Famous in Brooklyn, 1995, children’s book illustration, published by Simon & Schuster, NY