During my adolescent years, I began painting and sculpting in my home country of Lebanon. At this time, both the public school I attended, and the Lebanese government noticed the God given talent that had, and often asked me to do some work for them. The government asked if they could send me to Europe to study art at their expense with the idea of bringing back to the country what I had learned.
However, at the age of 20, in 1963, my family encouraged me to come to the United States instead. Here, a relative advised me to go to Cosmetology School for a future career since I didn’t have the money to study art. I continued to paint and do some sculpting while I pursued “hairdressing”, and in 1971 I bought my own hair salon: GEORGE’S HAIR DESIGN in the North Star Center in downtown Minneapolis. By that time I was involved in the business and taking care of my family, and didn’t have the extra time to paint.
About 5 years ago, I started painting again. I have shown my work to some known artists, and they have been impressed and encouraging; one even called me a “sleeping artist”. My art work has been pretty much self taught, and I enjoy it very much!