Laurie Balbo - Karin Kloosterman, Author at Green Prophet

Jordan Women’s Guild in Safi has Sustainable Art in the Bag

Laurie Balbo - Karin Kloosterman — Wed, 08 May 2013 17:57:18 +0000

A tiny collective of rural women at the southern tip of the Dead Sea in Safi is creating art that’s omni-sustainable. Since 1999, with catalytic infusions from a remarkable Canadian painter, this Jordanian sisterhood has been crafting unusual “eco” fabric items bespoke to their salty seaside village.

Back in 1991, a young artist found herself working as an archeological illustrator on a dig near Lot’s Cave in an area known as Ghour al Safi, in southern Jordan.

The locals had already established a sort of women’s group, but they lacked formal arts training. When they sought out assistance in marketing some of their handicrafts, she jumped in to help with design and promotion. It was a natural match: the start of a relationship that continues today.

Painter Jean Bradbury initially conducted classes in drawing and painting. She stressed the environmental aspects of every project, with particular emphasis on natural dye-making. Subject matter draws primarily from the extraordinary local setting and the women’s own lives.

Simple cotton fabrics colored with traditional dyes are crafted into wall hangings, handbags and placemats. Others may be painted and embroidered, then pieced into quilts.

Product designs are developed by individual crafters and often show scenes from village life. Resultant income covers production costs and supplements their farming-based subsistence.

A class instructing how to paint self-portraits eventually morphs into a production line, with some assuming designer roles, cutting up the paintings and reassembling the pieces into the oversized and strangely wonderful market bags.

“The results are bold! And we love them,” their website declares, “Each one is unique and from our hearts.”
The vibrantly colored bags are fully lined with hand-dyed cotton, stained with dyes made from pomegranate rinds, tea, rust-hued mud from Petra or yellow mud collected near Wadi Mujib where it flows into the Dead Sea.

The women add iron from the local hospital to darken or “sadden” the natural dyes: it reacts with the tannin in tea and pomegranate to create a variety of warm grays and greens.

Their gorgeously unique bags are sold through their Women’s Society store, at occasional arts and crafts exhibits, and in a new gift shop at The Lowest Museum of Earth.

Looking for a day trip off the beaten path? Take a run south to Safi to tour both the museum and the village, it’s about 90 minutes from central Amman, and less than 30 from the Dead Sea resorts.

An exhibit of the self-portraits is planned for late September at the Mövenpick Resort & Spa Dead Sea. Contact them directly for details at +962 535 61111 or via email resort.deadsea@moevenpick.com.

Alternatively, contact Green Prophet and we can put you in touch with the Safi women.

All images by Jean Bradbury

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She’s Making Graffiti at the Most Dangerous Place on Earth (PHOTOS)

Laurie Balbo - Karin Kloosterman — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 06:49:13 +0000

Malina Suliman’s Fighting the Taliban with Paint and Graffiti

Sometimes graffiti can be seen from space. In Tunisia it graces the country’s tallest minaret. In Lebanon, they are making green graffiti for the city streets. And Egyptians have converted military barriers into trompe l’oeil streetscapes. Afghan artist Malina Suliman finds her inspiration in southern Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban and one of the most dangerous places in the world. She aims to change the cultural environment through sculpture and painting that depicts the challenges of her war-weary generation.

Born and raised in Kabul, Suliman moved to Pakistan in 2007 to study with Art Council Karachi. She returned to Kabul and its nascent art scene, joining local art association Berang. The group works to promote the arts in her deeply conservative hometown.

“Many people had never seen an art installation. Some were offended and others were hurt because they’d experienced [he pain of the subject matter] before,” Suliman said to Al Arabiya, speaking of her painting “War and Chaos” which depicts the aftermath of a suicide bombing.

Suliman’s artwork is drawing attention in the Afghan capital, and internationally. Last year, she was invited to President Hamid Karzai’s palace: he’s also from Kandahar.

She describes her untitled painting of birds flying above the mountains as, “symbolic of how we rise to see a world beyond the mountains that surrounds us when we are educated.”

The image above is a sculpture she created of a child missing a leg. She says on her website, “Children in Afghanistan are often forgotten by their families or just left as victims to fend for themselves so I wanted to capture their pain in the sculpture. But really the message I wanted to get across was that nothing is forever, and as Afghans we are reminded of that daily. We’re constantly in fear that today might be the day I fall, today may be the day I die.”

Her exhibit in Kandahar, where the Taliban and tribal elders dominate public opinion, was the first in three decades. She drew a mostly male crowd, including Kandahar governor Tooryalai Wesa. “I was taken aback by her work. I had only seen great art abroad, but never here,” Wesa told Reuters. “I hope it persuades more women to do the same.”

Thirty years of war following the 1979 Soviet invasion sent Afghanistan’s art scene into hibernation. But in the past decade, with a weakened Taliban, the arts are reemerging in Afghan’s largest cities. Al Arabiya reports that the western city of Herat has art studios on offer, and northern Mazar-e-Sharif is growing a lively graffiti scene.

Modern, provocative, inexpensive to produce and widely accessible to viewers, graffiti is increasingly visible throughout the Middle East. Her art collective runs group workshops in the art form, but Suliman’s been known to venture out alone, at night, using a flashlight to illuminate her work site. Typical behavior for graffiti artists (think UK’s Banksy and Tunisian-born El Seed) but add in the Taliban and it’s a very different picture.

Last year, Suliman joined the all-male Kandahar Fine Art Association (KFAA), which opened Kandahar’s first art gallery with funding from The Ministry of Information and Culture. Her involvement has spurred more female artists to participate, but risks remain real.

“One of our biggest fears is that people will mistake us for creating art for foreigners or working with NGOs. People who work with NGOs get shot without question in Kandahar,” she said. Suliman has received phone threats and the Taliban have criticized her.

But one of Suliman’s greatest challenges lies at home. “The night of my first exhibit my family told me ‘if you go, don’t come back’,” she said. While her sisters and mother now support her ambition and passion, her father and brothers are strongly opposed.

Last year, working with KFAA, Suliman taught Kandahar’s first contemporary arts workshop and participated in Helmand’s first ever first art exhibitions. Future Projects include workshops in sculpture and graphite drawing. “My target with graphite is that Afghans wear it around their eyes, and by using graphite in art, this might change their views and minds.”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTRJ3dy-eeY]

Suliman’s work knows no limits. She uses traditional paints on canvas, spray cans on walls and rock, and broken glass, tree shavings, and whatever interesting trash she picks up in multimedia collage. She believes that any piece of scrap can be turned into art.

She has a profound passion for her work. Her long-term goal is to travel throughout Afghanistan, conducting workshops, introducing future artists to drawing, painting, sculpting and graffiti. Her immediate goal is to create a platform of expression for a generation whose voices often go unheard. For more about this creative and courageous young woman, check out her website.

Images from Malina Suliman’s website

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Knitting a Tree for Middle East Peace

Laurie Balbo - Karin Kloosterman — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 17:03:48 +0000

Armed with knitting needles, Israelis and Palestinians are knitting for peace!

The TikkunTree Project is a community knittivist art project dedicated to advocacy of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. This ambitious community art project is growing a tree, an enormous knitted tree whose fiber leaves and fruits and branches will shelter doves made of yarn: it’s enormous canopy will eventually protect a silent candle vigil from “the winds of conflict.” The Hebrew phrase “tikkun olam” can loosely translate to “repairing the world”. Check out some amazing people who are stitching together a peace movement through simple, ancient craft, using sensitively produced fiber.

The “peace tree” grows through contributions by knitters, embroiderers, sewers and crocheters with an interest in Middle East peace in general, and peace in Israel in particular. Its abundant foliage is made up of crafted leaves, olives and doves, all suspended from a knitted tree trunk structure. Everyone, everywhere is invited to add to the inspirational art work.

TikkunTree Project, which began in 2007 (and not updated since 2009), was inspired by the destruction of olive groves during the continued Israeli occupation and settlement of Palestinian territories. The organizers say that, until its eventual exhibition, the TikkunTree is intended to serve as a vehicle for conversation about peace as it travels to knitting circles and community groups, making intermittent public appearances as it grows.

The project does not promote a specific point of view. Its only purpose is to spread public awareness, encourage thought, and inspire discussions about hostilities between Jews and Palestinians, the effects of occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and conflicts further afield in the Middle East.

TikkunTree also aims to support the livelihood of Israeli Jewish and Palestinian West Bank shepherds by encouraging the use of Peace Fleece yarns. All proceeds from the purchase of Peace Fleece Baghdad Blue yarn benefits the remarkable bi-cultural community of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam (Oasis of Peace), thrice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, offering additional support for the courageous peacebuilders in Israel and Palestine.

The project founder is a mysterious blogger and craftswoman who goes by the name Leslie Tikkuntree, or tikkunknitter. She writes that, “to pursue justice globally, we must support the peacebuilders in our midst.”

Her fantastic knitted patterns for Judaica (such as a knitted Seder plate, above, and the “Ten Plagues” seen at left), as well as inter-faith and inter-cultural projects, can be found on her Ravelry page here.

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