Fatima Al Matar

Oyster River Pages: What role does the artist/writer play in society?

Fatima Al Matar: I agree with what Mr. James Baldwin said during a speech he gave at the University of Chicago in 1963, where he explained that the artist’s/writer’s role is to help society see reality again. The artist, Baldwin continues, is stoned (and there are many ways by which an artist can be stoned) by the very society that produced him, and they produced him because they needed him. 

In every artistic endeavor, the artist is trying to prove to people that they can be better than they are, not because he is unrealistic or delusional but because he has seen them better than they are. The collision occurs because people would like to be better; however, they don’t wish to see themselves revealed, they don’t wish anyone to confirm their own suspicion about what they could do, about what they could be, because the effort is mighty.

ORP: How has your writing or art changed over time?

FAM: It has matured, and, I hope, is less self-indulgent. I have more courage today than I had when I was younger to call bad writing what it is—garbage—and not to try to defend it. Comparing old attempts with later work, I can see how cramped and long my sentences were, they were too showy, I was trying too hard. But now my sentences are short, clean and airy, allowing the piece to breathe. I took James Baldwin’s advice: ‘You want to write a sentence as clean as a bone’.

With my painting, it’s easier for me to see the distance I crossed. By comparing an earlier painting with a recent one, I can see the progress made, a better command of the brush, more skillful lines, superior human forms and facial features, and stronger subject matters.

With both my writing and my painting, I’ve taught myself to look at what I want to express from high above, reflect on the larger picture, then zoom in on details, so the reader or the viewer is gradually led to the point.

ORP: How does writing or making art change you?

FAM: I am a happier person when I’m painting; losing myself in a painting soothes me, and has literally saved me during the darkest parts of my depression. Although I can’t say I am a happy person when I’m writing, I am definitely happier having written; as Kafka said, ‘A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.’ When I’m not writing I’m agitated, short-tempered, and miserable. Although writing takes so much of me, I need to write in order to survive. 

ORP: What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

FAM: ‘What other people think of you is none of your business’; I think it was Paulo Coelho who said this. As any creative, I am full of doubts. Creating takes a lot of courage because you will fail, people will laugh at your effort and your work, they will misunderstand and misinterpret your words, they’ll label you, they will be insensitive, you will be overlooked and unacknowledged, but you have to keep going, you have to keep moving. 

ORP: Name three artists or writers you’d like to be compared to. Why these people in particular?

FAM: I love Toni Morrison’s writing, I’ve been re-reading her books since the tragic news of her passing two weeks ago. Although I can’t imagine being compared to her, I deeply appreciate the beauty and depth she injects into her language. I am striving to learn from her.

James Baldwin of course, and D.H. Lawrence, mostly because they are very brave. Baldwin wrote about racism, class distinction, and sexuality during the civil rights movement, when being a gay black artist is not only dangerous, but also undervalued and overlooked. Lawrence did the same thing in a very conservative Britain; many of his books were banned until the sixties. They were both driven away from their native lands, they both came from poverty, but they kept writing, they believed in their art. I love the characters they bring to life in their books, interesting characters with complex pasts. I can only hope to come near these giants in my own writing.

ORP: Who do you hope reads your work and why?

FAM: An agent who is interested in a new, unusual voice. I’m working on a novel, and my doubts ask disdainfully every night, after a long day’s work: ‘Who they hell do you think you are?’ I would like to answer them someday soon: ‘A published writer.’

Fatima Al Matar migrated from Kuwait to the United States seeking asylum with her daughter, Jori, and their cat, Ty; they now live in North Olmsted, Ohio. Fatima is an artist and a writer. She writes to understand, and paints when language fails her. Her art focuses on women's bodies and all the societal and cultural norms that govern them. Her writing has appeared in Acumen, The Journal, Angelic Dynamo, Further Monthly, Fleeting Magazine, Bad Language, Staples Magazine, Word, The Wry Ronin, and Jaffat El Aqlam. Read her essay, “Texas Sky,” in Issue 3.2.