Location: 68 David Street, Souk, Old City East Jerusalem
Portrait of a Bedouin Jeweler
Palestinians and Israelis mine 2000 year old Roman Glass from Caesarea on the coast of Israel. Every time an earthquake damages Israel, the eruption reveals such treasures as old Byzantine coins and Roman glass. Ahmad Kawas, a 26 year old Bedouin jewelry designer, works side by side with his father Badawi. Meeting Badawi was one of those coincidences and connections that happen to me constantly in Israel and Palestine. Andi Arnovitz, textile artist and the subject of one of my webpages, made Badawi the central character of the story she told, and the art she created for the art-o-mat http://www.artomat.org/ project . If you would like to see and hear her charming piece watch the video on her webpage:https://sites.google.com/site/artsandidentity/material-arts/andi-arnovitz-barak
The Kawas’s shop on the crowded and overwhelming David Street has two rooms and an upstairs. One of the downstairs rooms is given over to spices and textiles:
quilts, rugs and shawls from places like Kashmir and Tajikistan. The other room displays the jewelry that Ahmad creates. But Ahmad has bigger plans for these two small spaces. He plans to knock down the wall and create one larger room in order to display his work and some of the fantastic Bedouin, Tajik, Afghan, and Palestinian jewelry presently housed upstairs. Also, upstairs are bowls of Roman glass, piles of beads, a host of daggers, a crown for a Bedouin wedding, masks for celebrations, and fantastic silver jewelry.
Because each piece of glass has a different shape, patina, color (varying from green to azure), and imperfections; each time Ahmad fashions a piece of jewelry with
Roman glass, he creates something new. He starts with zero, chooses a piece of glass looks at it for 15 minutes or more, and discovers ideas of how to frame it. Sometimes his designs are simple ; sometimes he bases them on famous ones. He creates pendants, earrings, cuffs, bracelets, cufflinks, and brooches.
Ahmad has been working with glass and silver for two years, having taken an eight month class at art school in Israel and another course in Jordan where he learned
how to design , make filigree work, and attach stone . He has been selling jewelry since his art school days.