"much travel is needed before a raw man is ripened"I have just come back from a little wandering around North Africa.
I love so many things about this part of the world, a place full of Artisans around every corner where traditional skills are handed down from generation to generation with the greatest love and care. Wonderful people who are full of warmth, kindness and hospitality. The architecture in the Medina's is so hidden by forbidding doors. Once these doors are open you are sucked in and your senses are tantalized. The exquisite hand cut mosaics, the wonderful pink of the bougainvillea, fragrant honeysuckle and citrus trees and the fountains creating a sense of cool in the middle of the court yard in the stifling heat of the midday.
The thing that has tickled me the most on my travels is the amazing sales techniques used to get you to purchase goods. As I was sitting reading a book one day, I noticed a whole stream of merchants trawling down the beach with their wares, beautiful carpets, palm trees,( they really think you will get them back through customs in the UK) jewellery, the most succulent peaches, apricots, and dates, clothing, silver boxes to name but a few. If you can't get to them they will come to you. It got me thinking about how we sell things, especially cyber shopping. As an artist I make things and everything is for me about texture and how it feels, well that is completely lost through the screen. There is not that sense of truly connecting with that item as you are very reliant on just one of you senses rather than all of them.
I love so many things about this part of the world, a place full of Artisans around every corner where traditional skills are handed down from generation to generation with the greatest love and care. Wonderful people who are full of warmth, kindness and hospitality. The architecture in the Medina's is so hidden by forbidding doors. Once these doors are open you are sucked in and your senses are tantalized. The exquisite hand cut mosaics, the wonderful pink of the bougainvillea, fragrant honeysuckle and citrus trees and the fountains creating a sense of cool in the middle of the court yard in the stifling heat of the midday.
The thing that has tickled me the most on my travels is the amazing sales techniques used to get you to purchase goods. As I was sitting reading a book one day, I noticed a whole stream of merchants trawling down the beach with their wares, beautiful carpets, palm trees,( they really think you will get them back through customs in the UK) jewellery, the most succulent peaches, apricots, and dates, clothing, silver boxes to name but a few. If you can't get to them they will come to you. It got me thinking about how we sell things, especially cyber shopping. As an artist I make things and everything is for me about texture and how it feels, well that is completely lost through the screen. There is not that sense of truly connecting with that item as you are very reliant on just one of you senses rather than all of them.
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