Scott Davis’s Biography
Scott C. Davis is a Seattle mountaineer who graduated with honors from Stanford (English, Social Thought, 1970) and took weekends and summer vacations during college to climb in the Alps (speed record on the Bonatti Pillar of the Grandes Jorasses, 3rd ascent of Aguille du Fou, the American route, 1968) and in Yosemite (El Capitan: 3rd
ascent of the North American Wall 1969, 1st ascent of the Heart Route, 1970).
Davis was a conscientious objector during Vietnam, performed alternative service in a small African-American neighborhood
on the banks of the James River in Va (1970-1972), and wrote a book that traced the lives of the families he had met from the Civil War to the War on Poverty. The World of Patience Gromes (Kentucky, 1987) won the Governor’s Writers’ Award, was lauded as “the best book of the decade in its subject area” by the Wall Street Journal, was endorsed by John E. Jacobs, head of the Urban League, was featured on All Things Considered—and was also a
main selection of the Conservative Book Club.
Rather than joining an expedition to the Himalayas in 1987, Davis took a 300 mile canoe trip from the Brooks Range to the Arctic ocean as winter set in and then returned to Seattle and caught a flight to Damascus. He traveled solo in Syria for three months, studying Arabic with the locals in remote mountain villages and desert encampments
. . . and fell in love with the people and culture. His travelogue The Road from Damascus was the first description and travel book by an American on Syria in more than a century.
Davis founded Cune Press in 1994 with Mamoun Sakkal, an Aleppo, Syria native (now living near Seattle) who has won international awards for his Arabic calligraphy in the Kufic style, has a PhD in ancient Islamic script as it intersects with Islamic architecture (al-Hambra, etc), is a licensed architect and interior designer, and earns his living creating computer typefaces for Adobe and Microsoft.
One example: MS Uighur was designed by Sakkal, following Persian type examples and traditional Uighur calligraphy. Dr Hamit Zakir, a visiting Uighur scholar from Xinjiang, China, described this typeface as the “most beautiful Uighur font I have ever seen.” For more: www.sakkal.com
In recent years, Davis has traveled to Vietnam where he is creating a photo essay on The New and the Old Vietnam. He occasionally spends time in a hotel with a view of Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi, not far from the tomb of Ho Chi Minh in one direction and the Hanoi Hilton that John McCain made famous in the other. From this vantage point he reflects on the legacy of the "American War" in Vietnam that he, as a Conscientious Objector, was spared.
Photography: www.scottcdavis.com
Book Publishing: www.cunepress.com
Building Construction: www.kinesisconstruction.com