The making of an artwork

Laurice Djibelian Donabedian is a former English teacher who spent most of her teaching years at the Armenian Evangelical College, Pigier and the American University of Beirut (AUB) Extension Program. She is one of the original residents of Beirut’s Watwat neighborhood and still lives there. Every day, she walks to Haigazian University, stopping at Sanayeh Garden along the way.

At Haigazian University, led by Rev. Dr. Paul Haidostian, Laurice enthusiastically reads the print editions of Aztag, Zartonk and Ararad newspapers. “I feel lucky to have my home near Haigazian University because the library is deeply connected to my younger years,” she told the Weekly.

She explained that on the library’s founding day in 1955, Rev. Dikran Kherlopian (1891-1968) encouraged the local community to help build the library “by asking each of us — faculty and staff members of the Armenian Evangelical College and Haigazian University — to donate a book or contribute a small sum sufficient to purchase one book.”

Laurice, 94 years old, is the mother of two sons and one daughter and the grandmother of two. Her childhood home was close to the Armenian Evangelical Central High School in Ashrafieh, where she attended classes just one minute from her doorstep. 

In 1951, she joined the Teacher Training Program, held in her school’s library. The following year, the program moved to Beirut. She graduated in 1952 and continued her studies abroad, at Fresno State University in the United States, earning a master’s degree in business administration with a concentration in economics. She later learned that the Teacher Training Program she completed had merged with Sister Elizabeth Webb’s Girls’ School, which had previously merged with the Armenian Evangelical School for Boys. 

In 1955, the merged institution, which remained in the same location, was renamed in honor of Dr. Armenag Haigazian (1870-1921), a Yale University graduate and victim of Ottoman persecutions. In 1963, Laurice returned to Lebanon after receiving a marriage proposal from Houssig Donabedian (1916-2003), who, in 1962, earned a Ph.D. in pharmacy from Université Saint Joseph, Beirut. His thesis was titled “Recherche sur la valeur énergétique du basterma dans l’alimentation Arménienne” (“Research on the energy value of basturma in the Armenian diet”).

Diran Ajemian (1904-1991), a renowned theater artist and caricaturist, was a close family friend. Diran and Houssig would often recite long German poems and discuss politics while Laurice prepared coffee in the kitchen. She recalls that during the Lebanese Civil War in 1975, Diran’s atelier-apartment in Bab Idriss, Beirut, was robbed and burned. 

Then, in 1978, masked thieves broke into his home and tied him to his bed, but still gave him his heart medicine with water; Diran took this as a sign that they did not intend to kill him. The thieves emptied his home over several hours, from 6:00 p.m. until 2:30 a.m.

In 1981, when the war had calmed for a period, Diran told Laurice:

 Laurice, yesterday I began to draw you. I need to continue working on the upper part of your figure. Please give me the shirt you love most; I want to include it in the portrait.”

Diran — whose work featured political figures such as French General Charles De Gaulle (1890-1970) and Lebanese Prime Minister Riad El Solh (1894-1951) — was now portraying Laurice. With enthusiasm, she opened her wardrobe to give him a shirt she loved, but then she had an idea and said to Diran, “Draw for me a shirt [that] your inspiration guides you to draw.” And thus, an artistic caricature was created.

True to Diran’s work, in which a book rests in her hand, Laurice and the book have remained inseparable throughout the years.