By Jessy Chahine
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, October 19, 2005

BEIRUT: For 20 year-old Pamela Arzoumanian, painting is her "raison de vivre" - reason for living.

The young talented artist recalls how, since she was a little girl, she would automatically lay a hand on any kind of available drawing material and start sketching. "A pen and a paper were my daily bread," she remembers, "but with time I transformed them into canvases and paint."

Today Arzoumanian is among the top five students of the Saint Coeur Art School and hopes, one day, to become a "well-known painter."

For now, she enjoys having "a reputation" among her friends and relatives.

"But I occasionally get a chance to prove myself outside this circle," she said. "Two of my paintings are hung in the Diman (the Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir's summer residence)," Arzoumanian said, looking proudly at her father, a person she tenderly refers to as her "discoverer."

"He encouraged me and stood by me," she said, "knowing that art and artists in this country are sometimes regarded as third-class citizens. But he was there for me all the time."

Steve, the father, describes himself as an "art lover and amateur," who is "over-delighted" with "his young girl's talent."

"If only this country, or the Culture Ministry, would encourage young painters and young artists in general," he said.

"Don't they know that art and culture are this country's 'petrol'?" Steve asked.