*This morning 'Kathy' Steve's Mom left for the home in the United States and i am taking a break from my large Buddha painting for the Naz as mu back is killing me. Kathy was here for a few a few a couple of months to escape the winter. She is also an artist and a good one at that.
Kathy and I took a trip to the Dubai Creek area one morning just to spend the day away from the villas and being cooped up indoors. Nothing much has changed since I was here the last tim in 2008? Boats still pry the bay and river ferrires took people back and forth still for the price of one Dirham each.
It was a nice sun shiny day and we crossed over to the otherside of the creek where the older "souks' or shop outlets were selling all the spices and products from all over the Middle Eastern countries.
In looking for a subject to focus on I desided to take a trip with the camera covering the Gold and other jewelries which were in abundance along one section of the souk, it is something that has been an attraction to me from the past. I used to do jewelry in college but found it too expensive to keep up.
Perhaps my attraction to this medium is mostly due to my father was a 'Gold Smith' as they were known in the old days and had brought the trade with him from Sri Lanka or Ceylon as it was known in his days.
My father used to design and created his own pieces of jewelry and I can remember watching him draw on pieces of paper that he would ask from us the kids and a pencil which he seemed to never had his own around. By modern standards he would have been considered a master craftsman! This was in the 50s and sixties and I got to watch him up close only when we moved to the East Coast of Terengganu in Malaysia. He was then producing jewelries for the the late Sultan Ismail Nasruddin Shah grandfather to the present King.
Compared to my father's works in those days modern jewelry hss become a high tech industry and the designs have evolved to the extent that it is almost impossible to imagine the pieces being handcrafted without the help of machines. There are Gold Smiths like my father still eking out a living where I came from in Penang but they are a dieng breed... Men whose fingers were hardened by the handling of files and cutters, pliers and tweezers, men whose patience were tested to the maximum by the tediousness of the work.
My father used to give us pocket money for finding him squid bones about the size of the palm of the hand and about an inch or more thick. These bleached bones wouls wash up along the beaches in the East Coast. He used these bones as the mould for pouring gold to shape for a ring. It was an ingeneous process which today is being replace by more sophisticated and less wasteful techniques.
My memories of my father working at his small workplace in a corner of the kitchen in our home was the moments when he would swear under his breath in Ceylonese everytime something did not come out right, like he had to recast a ring or the gold refuesd to cooperate with the way he had in mind. I caught the look of satisfaction on his face each time he completed a piece of jewelry to his satisfaction. There was no one to congratulate his effort and his accomplishment often went unnoticed.
I doubted that the palace paid him for what he was worth in those days and my father true to the Ceylonese blood in him compounded by being a frustrated artist was a drinker. It was his escape from the reality of a life that not what I would call ideal for him, socially, religiously or even being who he was as a father.
The most i have ever received from my father my entire life was the sum of fifty Malaysian Ringgit and that was when I had returned from the United States for a short visit. He had shoved the money into my palm and told me to spend it on myself from him and the look on his face simply made it impossible to say no to him.
As a teenager I would often check his pants pocket for change and most of the time there would be just enough there to 'steal' from! That was my pocket money from my father and i never received any had I asked for it somehow but he never complained that he has been missing twenty cents from his pants pocket every other day.
Every once in a while he would turn on me and swore,"Son of a Tiger!" in Singhalese at me, In all the time I was with him he never ever laid a finger on me no matter how bad I was. As I browsed at thewindows of the jewelry shops stealing shots of f my camera the thought of my father lingered in my mind. Through him I had watched a bar of gold the size of an eraser turned into a necklace, a ring a pendant. The hours of squating on the concrete floor of the kitchhen pulling gold through the tool that created a wire of gold for the chain and later cutting and coiling the wire into links one at a time and sodering it into the length of chain gave me today the inspiration to perservere in being an artist no matter what it takes to make a living and support my chldren in school. ONly I enjoy the pleasure of creation of my ow own works and there is no more any need for recognition or glamour!
*This morning 'Kathy' Steve's Mom left for the home in the United States and i am taking a break from my large Buddha painting for the Naz as mu back is killing me. Kathy was here for a few a few a couple of months to escape the winter. She is also an artist and a good one at that. 
Kathy and I took a trip to the Dubai Creek area one morning just to spend the day away from the villas and being cooped up indoors. Nothing much has changed since I was here the last tim in 2008? Boats still pry the bay and river ferrires took people back and forth still for the price of one Dirham each. 
It was a nice sun shiny day and we crossed over to the otherside of the creek where the older "souks' or shop outlets were selling all the spices and products from all over the Middle Eastern countries. 
In looking for a subject to focus on I desided to take a trip with the camera covering the Gold and other jewelries which were in abundance along one section of the souk, it is something that has been an attraction to me from the past. I used to do jewelry in college but found it too expensive to keep up. 
Perhaps my attraction to this medium is mostly due to my father was a 'Gold Smith' as they were known in the old days and had brought the trade with him from Sri Lanka or Ceylon as it was known in his days. 
My father used to design and created his own pieces of jewelry and I can remember watching him draw on pieces of paper that he would ask from us the kids and a pencil which he seemed to never had his own around. By modern standards he would have been considered a master craftsman! This was in the 50s and sixties and I got to watch him up close only when we moved to the East Coast of Terengganu in Malaysia. He was then producing jewelries for the the late Sultan Ismail Nasruddin Shah grandfather to the present King. 
Compared to my father's works in those days modern jewelry hss become a high tech industry and the designs have evolved to the extent that it is almost impossible to imagine the pieces being handcrafted without the help of machines. There are Gold Smiths like my father still eking out a living where I came from in Penang but they are a dieng breed... Men whose fingers were hardened by the handling of files and cutters, pliers and tweezers, men whose patience were tested to the maximum by the tediousness of the work. 
My father used to give us pocket money for finding him squid bones about the size of the palm of the hand and about an inch or more thick. These bleached bones wouls wash up along the beaches in the East Coast. He used these bones as the mould for pouring gold to shape for a ring. It was an ingeneous process which today is being replace by more sophisticated and less wasteful techniques. 
My memories of my father working at his small workplace in a corner of the kitchen in our home was the moments when he would swear under his breath in Ceylonese everytime something did not come out right, like he had to recast a ring or the gold refuesd to cooperate with the way he had in mind. I caught the look of satisfaction on his face each time he completed a piece of jewelry to his satisfaction. There was no one to congratulate his effort and his accomplishment often went unnoticed. 
I doubted that the palace paid him for what he was worth in those days and my father true to the Ceylonese blood in him compounded by being a frustrated artist was a drinker. It was his escape from the reality of a life that not what I would call ideal for him, socially, religiously or even being who he was as a father. 
The most i have ever received from my father my entire life was the sum of fifty Malaysian Ringgit and that was when I had returned from the United States for a short visit. He had shoved the money into my palm and told me to spend it on myself from him and the look on his face simply made it impossible to say no to him. 
As a teenager I would often check his pants pocket for change and most of the time there would be just enough there to 'steal' from! That was my pocket money from my father and i never received any had I asked for it somehow but he never complained that he has been missing twenty cents from his pants pocket every other day. 
Every once in a while he would turn on me and swore,"Son of a Tiger!" in Singhalese at me, In all the time I was with him he never ever laid a finger on me no matter how bad I was. As I browsed at thewindows of the jewelry shops stealing shots of f my camera the thought of my father lingered in my mind. Through him I had watched a bar of gold the size of an eraser turned into a necklace, a ring a pendant. The hours of squating on the concrete floor of the kitchhen pulling gold through the tool that created a wire of gold for the chain and later cutting and coiling the wire into links one at a time and sodering it into the length of chain gave me today the inspiration to perservere in being an artist no matter what it takes to make a living and support my chldren in school. ONly I enjoy the pleasure of creation of my ow own works and there is no more any need for recognition or glamour! 
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