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Kabul and the quest for beauty: a tale of the wood carvers

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Oh, you can take your big box store, and your hollow core door.  
Yes, you can take your Home Depot, and your pre-fab low. 

But today please consider the wood carvers of Kabul....
And you might just leave with your eyes & your heart full.

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80 years old and still teaching.....

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Still teaching this....

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Which make this possible...............

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and ensures he knows how...

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As does he.

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And so does he......

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 I'll take this please....

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And one of these.....

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Images taken at Turquoise Mountain in Kabul, Afghanistan.

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Kabul and the quest for beauty: a tale of the miniaturists and the search for perfection

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I was at Turquoise Mountain in Afghanistan when I met them.    Suddenly it all came rushing back to me.  

I remembered as a young girl looking at the gilded frames in my mother's bedroom.  In each was a painting -- small and very detailed.

 How do they do those? I asked her. 
Very carefully, she replied.  

But how can they paint with such tiny little lines?  I insisted.  
You learn how in school.  But you have to be very talented and very patient, she answered.

 Do they have a name, these kinds of paintings?  I asked.  
Yes, my mother said.  They're called "Persian miniatures."  

Years later, it seems I was meeting Afghan miniaturists in training.  

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I wondered then, what it would be like to not paint in broad strokes.  To not let it all spill on to the page in a creative rush. Yes, I wondered what it would be like to take the time to paint only the finest lines.

Then --  no matter the sad and troubled events on the nightly Afghan news  -- you might be secure in the knowledge that you can always rely on your steady hand.  And find comfort in having inched closer to....

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perfection.
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Kabul and the quest for beauty: a tale of Zarif Design

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Her name is Zolaykha Sherzad, and I had met her in New York in one of those instances of divine intervention.  Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Where are you from?
Her: From Afghanistan.
Me: What?
Her: From Afghanistan.  I'm a fashion designer.
Me: I'm going to Kabul in a week.
Her: What?

And so it was that I found myself in Kabul heading towards Zarif Design.  On the way over, I had a message on my Blackberry from my security detail with the rumors of the day.  It said, this:

INS are using vehicles that have the Red Cross agency logo on the doors. The INS are planning to enter KABUL City in order to conduct terrorist attacks. 

I typed Received and pressed send.  And then I was at the Zarif Design studio.  It was unmarked, as many places are these days in Kabul. Because you have to know, to know.

In a series of rooms,  the cutters, the embroiderers, the tailors were making Zolay's designs.  

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I had worn a burqa before - that pleated tent-like garment donned by so many Afghan women.  From the burqa's netted window, the world was filmy, and I had no peripheral vision.  

There was none of that at Zarif Design.  

Not shapeless but shaped.
Not minimized but maximized.
Not anonymity but rather identity. 

 An oasis of color, of pattern, of beauty.

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I walked out of Zarif Design with a shopping bag full of beautiful clothes.  But really, I walked out of Zarif Design with so much more.

www.zarifdesign.com

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Marrakech: and a tale of the glimmering Moroccan kilims

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Patterns unfurled.
Sequins glimmering.
Colors intoxicating.

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Yes, new and very special stock of vintage Moroccan kilims or flatweaves in Red Thread Souk.  For under your coffee table, your dining table, or on your den or library floors. {These are meant to be walked on and used. } Or pinned to the wall as headboards or art for a whole room.....

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Ethnic glamour at its very best...... These truly have the power to transform your rooms...like, well, magic.

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1-a - carpet 2539 1_600

1-a - carpet 254 3_600
1-a - carpet 2552 3_600

See them all with pricing, at Red Thread Souk (Scroll down to the bottom of the page.)

Note: Subscribe to My Marrakesh here. Follow My Marrakesh on Twitter here.  Or check out my Pinterest boards here.