Sarah Bahbah | Shelf Portrait | Marie Claire - video Dailymotion

Marie Claire

Artist, photographer and creative director Sarah Bahbah is giving Marie Claire an exclusive look at her inspiring book collection! Sarah opens up about her journey as a creative, the books that changed her life, and an in-depth look at her photo book "Dear Love."

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00:00Hello, welcome to my office. My name is Sarah Baffa. I'm a visual artist, a writer, a director,

00:07a photographer. I kind of dabble in all creative fields and I love it. I am so excited to show you

00:13my books. This is Marie Claire's shelf portrait. Okay, so first up we have Happy Hour by Marlo

00:25Granados. This book is about two young girls who moved to New York with pennies and they somehow

00:32manifest their way through some really beautiful situations. I loved reading this book because it

00:38reminds me of my youth and when I first moved to New York and I was trying to make ends meet and

00:46somehow I would end up in the craziest situations as well and I think it's just such a light beautiful

00:51coming-of-age story. If you want a light read and you feel like getting out of your head, this book

00:57is for you. Next up is one of my favorite poetry books ever, Khalil Gibran's The Prophet. He is a

01:05Lebanese poet. He was absolutely brilliant and he left such a mark on the world for the way he spoke

01:13on the human experience and love and pain and friendship and self-knowledge and teaching and

01:20ugh, this guy. Are you kidding me? Ugh, my heart. This book taught me that pain is something we should

01:30embrace. All the feelings that we experience as humans is something we should embrace and celebrate

01:36and enjoy the burn. Whenever you're feeling bad about yourself, whenever you're in darkness,

01:42pick up this book and you'll feel seen, you'll feel loved. I promise you, read this book.

01:48Next one is a really special one to me. It's A River Dies of Thirst by Mahmur Darwish. He is, or was,

01:59sorry, a Palestinian resistance poet. This book really captures his experience having lived in occupied

02:07Palestine and it's haunting, it's powerful. My dad and my grandparents, they're all from Palestine and so when I

02:17read this book I really feel like it gives words to their experiences of having been displaced from

02:22their homes. I really feel like he dreamed for my family and he gave us all a voice and so I highly

02:29recommend reading this book. This next book, ugh, the way it sent me. Okay, so I read Attached by Amir

02:41Levine and Rachel Heller a few years ago. It was at the top end of 2021 and I was grieving a relationship

02:50that I never wanted to end, but I had to for my sanity and when I read Attached I actually learned

02:58for the first time that I have an anxious attachment style and I've been consistently dating avoidance

03:05and so what this book did to me was blown my mind and it taught me the tools that I needed to,

03:13you know, set healthy boundaries in my relationship and look out for the smoking guns and the red flags

03:19and notice when you are potentially entering an anxious and avoidant trap. Read this book. I love it.

03:26The next book that I recommend for everyone is The Drummer of the Gifted Child.

03:34This book is by Alice Miller and when she speaks about the gift, she's actually referring to

03:41the gift of apathy and numbing. When I read this book, I started therapy immediately. I'm not even

03:48kidding. I got sober. I started making really good, healthy changes to my life in order to start to feel

03:56the world that I live in and, you know, not numb myself because I realized I'd been stuck in survival

04:03mode for so long. This next one I actually had to sit down for because it's really special to me,

04:09but it's also really, really heavy. It's my own book called Dear Love. I actually just finished it and

04:18have launched it into the world. It's 10 years of my art and it's a lifetime of storytelling.

04:26It took me one year of intense labor last year to get this done. It's quite massive. It's 421 pages

04:34and it features like all of my art, all of the series that I've ever done. And for the first time,

04:40I kind of dive into each series and what they represent, whilst also sharing experiences about

04:46my life and my childhood and the person that I have become today. What book have I read most in my

04:54life? Definitely this one, Practicing the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I've been reading this since

05:00I was 19. So for a really lovely time now, it's just such a great reminder to stay in the present

05:08moment and everything that happens in the future happens right now and everything that happens in the

05:13past happens right now. So right now is all that matters. I buy most of my books from BookSoup in

05:21West Hollywood. Yeah. I love that place. I get a coffee, I go, I spend ages in there. I pick up

05:27three books. I only ever end up reading one of them, but yeah, definitely BookSoup. My favorite childhood

05:33book is The Missing Piece Meets The Big O. It's by Shel Silverstein and I actually didn't read it as a

05:41child. I read it as an adult, but I just love how it took me back to that place of being young and I

05:50think adults should read children books more often because the message is always so pure and there's

05:59such great reminders of our core and our essence. This book is so cute. Please read it.

06:06The book I'm excited to read next is The Artist Way by Julia Cameron. Apparently Julia really teaches

06:15you how to get inside your head as an artist and take everything out and then release it. And so I

06:22know she makes you do morning pages. She encourages you to go on artist dates and yeah, I'm excited to

06:29dive into it. What's my favorite book cover of all time. Am I allowed to say this one? Because I really

06:37wanted to make the best book cover of all time. But in all honesty, I think publishers need to do a

06:46better job of making cuter covers because there's so many great books that have ugly covers and people

06:53will never pick it up because the cover doesn't allure them in. My favorite place to read a book is

06:58definitely on the beach. That's actually where I read most of my books because the only time I ever

07:03have time to read a book is when I take some time off in summer. A famous person, I would like to do a

07:11tell all. Has Brad Pitt done one yet? Because I will be reading that book in a second. This book is available

07:20at dear-love-book.com and it will look so good on your coffee table. And I really hope that the stories

07:28that I share reach you in some way, teach you something. And if not, you can just enjoy the

07:35photographs that I have in here. Ah, there's so many. There's literally so many. That concludes my Marie

07:41Claire's Shelf Portrait. Don't forget to like and subscribe and I will see you guys soon.

Sarah Bahbah | Shelf Portrait | Marie Claire

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