Portsmouth Herald. 7-31-2005. Creative pursuits fill woman's life By Nancy Cicco.ncicco@seacoastonline.com. As a child, she fled Egypt with her parents during the country's socialist revolution and spent her formative years in Lebanon, amid that country's civil war. Marilene Sawaf knows strife, which makes her appreciate stability even more. Perhaps it's not surprising, then, to have found her sitting in a lawn chair on New Castle's Great Island Common on Wednesday, having painted the scene as she looked out over Portsmouth Harbor, with Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse to her left and Whaleback Ledge Light to her right. A full-time artist, Sawaf came to the common with other members of "The Breakfast Club," a group of Nashua-area artists that gets together at Borders bookstore in Nashua every Wednesday from 10 a.m. to noon. "We talk, we discuss paintings ... We decided to come here to paint en plein air," she said. Sawaf is of Syrian-Lebanese decent. She and her family fled their home in Egypt in 1957 to escape a socialist revolution that had been brewing for some time and threatened to take away the family's wealth. The family landed in Milan, Italy, where they lived for eight years. When Sawaf was 10, the family moved to Lebanon, where she lived during her formative years and earned a degree in interior design and architecture. But as she pursued her personal goals, she was again subjected to social unrest." I lived through five years of civil war," which started in 1975, she said. The war in Lebanon raged among Christians, Muslims and Palestinians, she said. "Then the Christians split into many factions and the Syrians got involved" occupying the country until this year, she said. "It's not religion so much as power - religion is just a front," she said of the reasons behind the war. "Syria is very interested in Lebanon because Lebanon is a beautiful country." By 1977, Sawaf had met her future husband in Lebanon, then married in 1980 and moved to the United States. The couple landed in Nashua "It was a nice peaceful place to raise my kids," she said. Her daughter, Elizabeth, is now earning a master's degree at the University of New Hampshire and her son, Eric, will start at UNH this fall. She and her children returned to Lebanon to visit in 1993. "It was a big shock to see how Beirut had changed ... it was like a war zone although there were no more bombings," she said. Widowed since 1990, Sawaf fills her life with creative pursuits such as painting, photography and jewelry-making and spending time with friends. Perhaps you have seen her work at the Three Graces Gallery on Market Street in Portsmouth. Currently, she is showing a painting as part of the "Art of Peace" exhibit at the Robert Lincoln Levy Gallery on State Street in Portsmouth. The exhibit is one of several celebrations that commemorate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty, which ended the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. "Painting is a big source of joy for me ... I like to explore areas, take pictures," she said. "I trained as an interior designer and I wish I had done that, but hey, how many lives can you have?"