War tragedies defeated by the fingertips of a Syrian craftsman

Damascus-Sana

He overcame his sorrows and the pains of war and the loss of his son in its furnace, and found in art a salon, devoting the hours of his day to transforming wood into an artistic substance that vibrates with life and creativity and making beautiful works from damaged materials.

Uncle Adnan Al-Ali Abu Ammar's message reflects it with his hard work and patience in his modest workshop in the Mazzeh 86 district, and its content is an intellectual and professional stock that life is full of goodness and love despite the Syrians suffering from the conditions of war and its repercussions.

In an interview with Sana during our visit to his workshop, he referred to his endeavor to take advantage of solid wood pieces by remaking them to reflect the spirit and warmth of this material.

Al-Ali's hobby was from a young age repairing everything that falls between his hands to develop into the manufacture of wooden antiques that depend on precision in work and technique in achievement, as he found that this craft reflects his outlook on life that everything inanimate must give a beautiful shape and embody an object that touches the conscience.

Abu Ammar suffered a painful lump in his life, as he put it, as he kidnapped his son by the armed terrorist organizations in Aleppo while he and his comrades in the Syrian Arab Army were defending the land in 2012, which made him stop working in his workshop for a while and then decided to continue starting from his goal of trying to please everyone A person who owns his business.

Al-Ali looks at art from a purely humanitarian standpoint, so he offers it to those who wish for a small fee, because he considers that life is not material but love and humanity, and we must devote the idea of ​​solidarity and confront the difficulties and sorrows that we all experience.

Contrary to what many art practitioners say that there is a stagnation in the acquisition of artistic works, Al-Ali confirms that his products have increased in demand in the recent period, especially during the Eid, and the results of the preparatory and secondary certificates were issued, returning this to the fact that social customs prefer the exchange of gifts in addition to the simple financial return that He defines it for his actions.

When entering into the details of his work, he pointed out that his workshop is small and his tools are primitive, which is an iron saw, a scalpel and a knife, but he uses his vision of inanimate objects to reuse the neglected pieces and become a piece of art, realizing his happiness.

Al-Ali begins his work on the piece of art from his sense of it, in addition to employing his imagination by drawing the design on paper, then he directly executes it for a period of not more than two days, pointing out that some people are working to give him ideas for pieces they would like to acquire.

Al-Ali aspires to attract young people to work on the production of creative handicraft pieces and to train them so that their talents are polished, sending a message to the craftsmen to look at the conditions of people and to make their art available to everyone at the lowest costs to spread the message of art on the largest scale, affirming that good is coming with the vigor of every honorable in Syria and on top of them are heroes The Syrian Arab Army, who thanks to them will be back strong and well-preserved.

Rasha Mahfoud