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."

Transcript

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

01:20this guy. Are you kidding me? My heart. This book taught me that pain is something we should embrace.

01:31All the feelings that we experience as humans is something we should embrace and celebrate and

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

01:43book 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, sorry,

01:59a 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, the way it sent me. Okay, so I read Attached by Amir Levine and

02:42Rachel Heller a few years ago. It was at the top end of 2021 and I was grieving a relationship that I

02:50never wanted to end, but I had to for my sanity. And when I read Attached, I actually learned for the

02:58first time that I have an anxious attachment style and I've been consistently dating avoidance. And so

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

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

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

03:27that I recommend for everyone is The Drama of the Gifted Child. This book is by Alice Miller and when

03:37she speaks about the gift, she's actually referring to the gift of apathy and numbing. When I read this

03:44book, I started therapy immediately. I'm not even kidding. I got sober. I started making really good,

03:51healthy changes to my life in order to start to fill the world that I live in and, you know, not numb myself.

04:00Um, because I realized I'd been stuck in survival mode for so long. This next one, I actually had to sit down

04:06for because it's really special to me, but it's also really, really heavy. It's my own book called Dear Love. Um, I

04:16actually just finished it and have launched it into the world. It's 10 years of my art and it's a lifetime

04:24of storytelling. It took me one year of intense labor last year to get this done. It's quite massive.

04:31It's 421 pages and it features like all of my art, all of the series that I've ever done. And for the

04:39first time I kind of dive into each series and what they represent, um, whilst also sharing experiences

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

04:53my life? 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 long 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

05:13the past 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 three

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

05:34is 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. Um, but I just love how it took me back to that place of being young. And

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

05:59great reminders, um, of our core and our essence. This book is so cute. Please read it. The book I'm

06:08excited to read next is The Artist Way by Julia Cameron. Apparently Julia really teaches you how to

06:17get inside your head as an artist and take everything out and then release it. And so I know she makes you

06:23do morning pages. She encourages you to go on artist dates and, uh, yeah, I'm excited to dive into it.

06:30What's my favorite book cover of all time? Am I allowed to say this one? Cause, uh, I really wanted to

06:38make the best, uh, book cover of all time. But in all honesty, I think publishers need to do a better job

06:46of making cuter covers because there's so many great books that have ugly covers and people will never

06:53pick it up because the cover doesn't allure them in. My favorite place to read a book is definitely

06:59on the beach. That's actually where I read most of my books. Cause the only time I ever have time to

07:04read a book is when I take some time off in summer. A famous person, I would like to do a tell all.

07:13Has Brad Pitt done one yet? Cause I will be reading that book in a second.

07:17This book is available at dear-love-book.com and it will look so good on your coffee table. And I

07:27really hope that the stories that I share, um, reach you in some way, teach you something. And, uh,

07:33if not, you can just enjoy the photographs that I have in here. Ah, there's so many. There's literally

07:39so many. That concludes my Marie Claire's shelf portrait. Don't forget to like and subscribe,

07:45and I will see you guys soon.

Sarah Bahbah | Shelf Portrait | Marie Claire

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