By Lidia (Scagnolari) Al Qattan-
Creator of the Mirror House
People call it the house of mirror; I call it the fulfillment of a dream.
It all began in the late sixties when my husband, the Kuwaiti Pioneer Artist -painter, Khalifa Al-Qattan, was in the U.S.A. with the artist Tarik Rajab having a collective art exhibition in Washington D.C. and in New York in 1966.
It has always been my pleasure when my husband was abroad to surprise him with something new at his return. In that particular occasion a cabinet he made himself needed a new coat of paint and when I looked for some paint in the house nither could I find it, nor could I drive to buy it.
I then remembered I had some pieces of a large mirror somewhere in the house where my three year old daughter, Jalila, had broken sometime ago which I decided to keep. In those days, I enjoyed experimenting with "Pop-Art"
and the mirror could have become handy in one of my creations. In remembering it, an idea came to my mind. I am the sort of person who cannot rest if an idea bothers me. The moment I thought what to do with the mirror I set to work immediately.
I began smelting some of the wood-glue that was available in the house and with it I started sticking the pieces of mirror on to the cabinet. After covering the entire surface, minding to leave as little space as possible between the pieces, I made a putty of white cement and water and with it I filled the gaps.
I then finished the job by smoothing away all the sharp edges with a carpenter's file, and to reassure myself it was quite safe for my little girl to touch , I applied more putty on to the whole surface, cleaned again, then sat back to judge the work .
The result was pleasant, the look fresh, the thing added a new dimension to the place and it never needed new paint. Still I had to wait for my husband's return and hear his opinion.
At his return, Khalifa's first reaction was indeed a surprise, but he was not displeased. He pondered long and hard on it and finally he congratulated me. His approval was all I had been waiting for, nothing else mattered.
To this day, the cabinet still stands as when I transformed it that day; it is the silent witness of the beginning of a dream.