Artist Profile:  Tarek Fahd – Finding Where You Belong Through Art

by Larry Janezich

Posted May 29, 2025

Tarek Fahd at Peregrine Espresso, May 24, 2025

Most Saturday mornings you find Tarek Fhad sitting in the window of Peregrine Espresso drinking coffee and drawing.  CHC asked him about his drawings. 

Fhad said, “It’s kind of like yoga – a place which makes me happy and a place that makes me use my creative mind that’s an escape from everything – I just live in that drawing for an hour or hour and a half.”

Swing…

Originally from Lebanon, Fahd says he’s been drawing for 30 years.  It started with what sounds like a voyage of self-discovery while he was studying interior design in college.  In those days, he would draw sketches of people during breaks between classes.  He says, “I started drawing people doing different things and saw how they’re connected to different parts of their lives and I was able to find my own character in the people that I drew.”

Now, he doesn’t draw people like he did then.  He draws designs – “But,” he says, “I still have people in my patterns.  There’s always a hidden person in my patterns – so it always starts with a person hidden in the pattern and with a moon, and the whole pattern builds around them.”  He has hundreds of these sketches. 

Le Balcon…

Asked if he had thought about commercializing his art, he said:  “I never thought about doing the full commercial thing.  I don’t want to put it on T shirts and pillows and like all that.  What I want to do is I want to be able to draw and enjoy it….  For me art has to be accessible to everybody … I enjoy drawing and it’s something that is part of me and if I can share it with the people around me and they’re happy that makes a huge difference to me.”

In keeping with making his art accessible, he thought of a way to do that through Etsy.  “So I have an Etsy store and you can buy a digital download for $1.99 and print it and color it.  I wanted a store that was not a chore – involved in packing and shipping….”

Big windows, small cities…

He says, “I’m originally from Lebanon I grew up in Lebanon and I’ve been in the United States for almost 20 years.  I came here and loved it and I decided to become a citizen.   I’m influenced by both Lebanon and the United States and I try and put all of that in my drawings.

I made a choice to become an American and there are a lot of beautiful things in this country and a lot of beautiful things in Lebanon and drawing is a way of trying to find where you belong and I belong in-between those two countries.  The United States offered me a lot of opportunities – I drew in coffee shops in Lebanon I still draw in coffee shops here and finding a way to mix those influences in my art is very interesting for me.”

On a random week night…

Professionally, Fahd is now a data analyst.  He and his wife – an engineer – live on Capitol Hill.  He helps her in her community volunteer work as a bee keeper at Congressional Cemetery. 

Here’s a link to Fahd’s MoonlightPages on Etsy https://etsy.me/4kbQPtf

Here’s a link to Tarek Fahd’s Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/_tarekfahd_/