Exhibiting geni-us in a glass bottle

Midnight on December 31st, with spectacular fireworks lighting up the sky above the crowds at the Burj Khalifa, Mohammed Al Tantawi, 22, a Jordanian national was bent over his workstation, scraping an angular, glue-tipped needle against the insides of a glass bottle. The glue-tipped needle works like a pen.

For Mohammed, a self-taught sand artist, such demanding intricacy is routine. He wasn’t out partying with friends at midnight. He didn’t get off work till 3am, and when he did, he headed with friends to – where else? – Burj Khalifa, to join the crowds who were still enjoying the new year celebrations.

Mohammed, presumably like a lot of revellers, slept at 5am and unlike a lot of revellers, was back to work at 9.30am, swiveling coloured sand in narrow-mouthed glass bottles so that morning crowds at the mall might have a look at his wares that cost anything from Dh50 to Dh1,000. Except, as it turns out, the morning hours of Jan 1 are not the best for business.

Mohammed is undeterred. He continues to fill in more bottles, flicking against the insides of the glass with fine, sharp strokes – legs and hump of camel – and lining the finished products for display. Working this hard will help him earn more money and go home more often because he misses his family. Working this hard also helps draw crowds. They take photographs; sometimes buy a jar or two. Aliya, a beaming Swiss national, in Dubai with her husband for the New Year celebrations, buys one for her drawing room in Zurich. She’s never seen anything like it before.

For the last eight years Mohammed, who has been in Dubai for only two years, has been perfecting this Jordanian art of filling bottles with black, green, black-green, purple, pink, pinkish-purple, yellow, orange and red sand – you name it. He has at least 13 different colours at hand that make up the design and palette of deserts and mountains – any kind of scenery that a customer desires. He’s been doing this for so long now that it takes him no more than five minutes to do one bottle. The talent is evident. But it’s a demanding job.

He’s the only artist who runs the Al-Tantawi gift shop that is located on the second floor, in the metro link at The Dubai Mall, obliging the curiosities of customers (and, apparently also reporters) while simultaneously etching designs of palm trees and camels and sunsets on the insides of sized vials, jars, vases and bottles.

“Sunsets are more popular than sunrises,” he tells me as I examine the pink sand with which he has customised a jar and inscribed, instead of the more routine ‘Dubai 2013’, “Alex (heart) Sofia”.

By midday Jan 1, he has made so many, that he has run out of the popular tawny shade that is the microcosm of the desert of these arty sand jars. His shift will end soon and he might go hang out with his friends, and maybe spend some time playing billiards – just another talent of his.

news@khaleejtimes.com