MOSAIC ART
In a quiet street on Jebel Webdeh in Amman you can find a small shop that doubles as a pottery workshop and a salesroom for the pieces that Nasreen Daragh produces there.
Nasreen is 28 years old and looks much younger; I mistook her for a teenager when I first met her, and nearly asked for her mother! She studied computer science at the University of Salt before settling for making the "ceramic mosaics" for which she is starting to become known.
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She has been working with pottery since she left university and has had this workshop since 1997. She has a business partner and two people are working with her.
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Prices range from 2 or 3JD for small vases and coasters, you can find 6 coffee cups and saucers for 20JD. There are mugs (very nice, I promptly bought some!) for 4JD. Large pieces are also available, some quite large vases cost 35JD which is not excessive for the work and the quality.
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Her shop is crowded with merchandise and working materials. Finished pieces tend to be piled up on shelves in a complete jumble. Inevitably the dust from the kiln and the wheel accumulates on everything. This is just the sort of shop that I thoroughly enjoy visiting!
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I like her work very much. Many of the designs are copied from Jordan's well known mosaics, but some are original. She can also do special designs on demand if the quantity desired is sufficient.
She sells mainly through retail outlets, mostly specialised souvenir shops such as "Made in Jordan" in Petra, the Mövenpick at the Dead Sea and others, and also shows her products in craft shows. She welcomes visitors to her workshop and sells a good deal directly both to tourists and to Jordanians - but the price is much the same at the workshop as in the retail shops.
You can find "Mosaic Art" in Mohammed Akbal Street on Jebel Webdeh in Amman, just behind the Italian embassy. Her mobile phone number is 077.7330.585 and her email address ahlasamrah@yahoo.ca
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