Jerry Large / Times staff columnist
Children's book is artist's gift to Ethiopia and his adopted home

BETTY UDESEN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Seattle artist and teacher Sultan Mohamed's "The Story of Coffee" retells a folktale about the origins of coffee in his native Ethiopia. The text is in English and Amharic.

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most read articles Most e-mailed articles

Other links More Jerry Large

People around the world drink 400 billion cups of coffee a year, and it's a good bet most of them don't think about Ethiopia while they're opening their eyes.

If they thought about the origins of their coffee at all, they'd think about Brazil or maybe Colombia.

But Sultan Mohamed, 42, an artist and a teacher at Asa Mercer Middle School, grew up in Ethiopia hearing about the boy who centuries ago discovered coffee when one of his goats nibbled on the beans of an unfamiliar plant.

Mohamed woke up every morning to the sound of coffee being ground and to the aroma of brewing coffee.

He was always hearing about Starbucks and thinking more people should know about the Ethiopia connection. After a visit to Ethiopia in 1991 he decided to do something about it.

Art is central to Mohamed's life. When he has something to say, art is his surest way of saying it. So in 1992 he made a painting, actually a panel of paintings in the Ethiopian style, with a few descriptive words in Aramaic above and below each scene.

Esther Mumford, a local history writer and publisher, saw his work in a Seattle Art Museum exhibit of Ethiopian art in 1994 and nudged him to produce a book.

Published this year by Mumford's Ananse Press, "The Story of Coffee," recounts one version of the folktale in paintings and words.

The book, which is made to be read by young children as well as older people, fits in with the intent of most of Mohamed's work, which is to teach, specifically to give people a glimpse of Ethiopian culture and of the world through Ethiopian eyes.

Seattle is home to about 3,000 people born in Ethiopia. Mohamed wants to preserve the culture for them and their children and to educate the broader community.

His home in South Seattle is full of his work and the work of other artists. (When he makes money selling his art, he buys the work of other artists.) The original panel from which the book is taken hangs on the wall behind his dining-room table.

Mohamed dedicated the book to his older brother, Abdul, who was killed in a helicopter crash in 1989 while working as head conservationist for the Ethiopian Wildlife Organization.

Mohamed's father was an army captain and one of the men responsible for guarding Emperor Haile Selassie. His family lived well, with servants to do the household chores.

Sultan Mohamed was a sixth grader in Addis Ababa when the revolution began. Selassie was overthrown in 1974, and a socialist dictatorship took power. Everything changed. Mohamed's voice quavers as he tells me about taking down pictures that might get the family in trouble, including one of his father and the emperor.

"When I finished high school, my family said, 'You need to go out of this country.' "

At 19, he arrived in Vancouver, B.C., where one of his sisters lives, and started college, but a year later, he moved to Seattle, where there was a larger Ethiopian community.

He says most of the immigrant students wanted to study business or engineering, but he chose art at the UW. He appreciates that his father supported his decision. "When I told him I wanted to be an artist, he said, 'Yes, an artist can do a lot for the community.' "

However, Mohamed said, "As an artist you can't support yourself so I chose working with young people. I love working with young people."

A lot of East African immigrants were moving to the area so it was easy for him to get a job as a bilingual tutor. He speaks Amharic and Tigrinya.

Eventually, he entered the urban teaching certificate program and earned his teaching certificate from Western Washington University. Mohamed started teaching U.S. history and art in 1994, and now he's department head for art.

Art is still the way he reacts to the world. He came back from a trip to Las Vegas four years ago and brought in the stack of newspapers that was waiting for him. On the front page of the first paper an Ethiopian mother held a dying baby while a listless boy lay in the background.

The headline read: "A Harvest of Death." He started to cry and reached into his pocket for a tissue. Instead he pulled out a flier advertising free ice cream someone had handed him in Las Vegas. The drawing on it of a man with a huge belly enjoying his treat sent Mohamed to his studio.

He showed me the painting he made that incorporates the flier and the photograph and faces he painted of people whose eyes turn from the fat man to the woman and children. It was his way of coping.

"How are you going to take it out if you don't have the art? When you get frustrated, or happy you do your art."

He wants to do more now. He and his wife don't have children, so he wants to help other children. He recently sponsored seven students in an Ethiopian school, and he has collected books to send to Ethiopia.

Mohamed says the refugees who came here in the 1980s are settled now. They have jobs and houses, their children have educations. It's time, he says, for them to help Ethiopia.

"We all have something to offer. We don't have to wait for organizations to come to save us. If you have the time and will, just do it."

That's something to ponder over your next mocha.

Jerry Large: 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com.

His column runs Thursdays and Sundays and is found at www.seattletimes.com/columnists.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

E-mail this article

Print this article

Search archive

More living headlines...