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Creekside: A restaurant and ‘cultural space’ in one

Creekside is a restaurant and ‘cultural space’ that organises talks and workshops on varied crafts and subjects like pottery, marbling, graffiti, calligraphy and social entrepreneurship

Creekside, a restaurant and ‘cultural space’, has two main things going for it. One, its location. And two, what it’s doing with the location.

The location — and there’s no point being euphemistic — is lovely. There’s a charm even in finding the place. You’re in old Dubai. You can smell the water. It’s just a matter of finding the lane to your destination. Best way is to walk towards the Dubai Museum, pass the Grand Mosque, the textiles souq (that has the odd spice shop and souvenirs shop), take a left and you’re at Creekside. There are brown-slatted tables and chairs outside by the water that should give you a clue before you even read the sign hanging over the distressed wood frame of the
doorway.

Experienced artist and teacher Sorour Amini (left) demonstrates the nuances and techniques of marbling with paper. Seen here, a student is about to immerse a thick sheet into a tray of water in room temperature as ladies from an Emirati family wait for their turn. — KT photos by Lourdes Handumon

Safely away from malls and nine-level parking lots, Creekside has a quiet style reminiscent of old-world Dubai. Sitting outside the restaurant, you hear the water and the not-quite fog horn of the abras as they ferry tourists from the water station and back. October evenings permit you to sit out, watch the sun change colours, and you can sip your coffee.

Cultural space

The other thing going for it is the attempt to draw in people, make them interested in history and culture, art and design, and whatever is meant by this description on the Creekside Facebook page: “… aims to re-engineer the concept of a culture center by unpacking the deeper layers found within the historic walls of the Emirati city”.

As explained by programme manager Noor Al Ghafari, Creekside is part of the group that runs other centres in the city and outside — The Archive (at Safa Park), Bookshop (in DIFC), The Magazine Shop (Media City), and The Space – Abu Dhabi.

Creekside, like the other centres, organises talks and workshops on, among others, pottery, marbling, graffiti, Arabic typography, and talks on social entrepreneurship.

Last Wednesday evening, we checked out one of their more artistic-sounding offerings — a marbling workshop, conducted for the first time at Creekside.

That psychedelic effect

In a silk, sea-green top with paisley motifs, Sorour Amini was the teacher who conducted the workshop. “Marbling goes back to the 10th century,” she explains to a group of all women who attended the workshop.

“Some believe marbling comes from Turkey and is called Ebru. Others think it came from Japan and they know it as Suminagashi.”

Amini studied handicrafts and painting from Art and Architects University in Tehran. The ease with which the technique comes to her is telling. You can see Amini has been doing this for years. Her students take turns one by one. They mix colours in a shallow tray of water, as demonstrated by Amini. The water must be room temperature. If too hot or too cold, the colours coagulate.

Quickly with the end of a paintbrush, the tray is stirred, allowing the colours to dance together. After adding colours and stirring, the students immerse thick sheets of paper that don’t tear under water. With the instructed amount of time, and right amount of stirring, the sheets of paper take on unique prints. Each person’s print is different from the next. The colours vary.

“Orange and blue are complimentary colours,” Amini says. Some prefer the copper and black combinations. Some choose pastels. “This looks like cotton candy,” one of the students says, assessing her artwork.

As with other forms of art, the method has to be diligently followed, the instructions remembered. Amini talks about speed, but also deliberation. “You should be very fast in mixing the colours. Otherwise, the paint will dry. But move your hand slowly…”

The students

A lot of facial tissue gets used up in clearing the colours out of the shallow water tray. The students gradually learnt the ropes, and the prints that emerged took on a — if not quite professional quality — a less amateur tone.

Naima MM (“that’s what I’m going by these days”), a visual artist from Sharjah, arrived late for the workshop. She came with her friend Tayma Bittard, a graphic designer and photographer. They took time to locate Creekside, but Naima brought herself up to speed quickly enough. By the end of the class, she was dipping her phone cover into the water tray for it to take on the marbling affect.

Out-of-towner, Parisa (who didn’t want her surname published), attended the workshop because she “wanted to try out anything to do with art”.

There were also three ladies from an Emirati family attending the workshop. An aunt, Maitha Al Mazroei, her sister Shamsa, and Maitha’s Shamma Al Ameemi were all very much in awe of the designs being formed. Maitha said she brought the two along “to try out something new and different instead of getting bored at home”.

Anything goes

The workshop started with Amini using paper to get the marbling effect. “Marbled paper is often used as a background for Arabic calligraphy.” She also showed the class how to dip in papier-mâché balls that are then used to decorate Christmas trees. Also the covers of books.

By the end of the class, the group was trying out unusual surfaces to see what the paint catches on to and what it doesn’t. Clothes sleeves were accidently being dipped in. The fun began spontaneously when everyone wanted to try out marbling on unusual surfaces.

In the spirit of ‘YOLO’ (‘you only live once’), objects tested for that marbled look: a Styrofoam cup (success), a rubber phone cover (success), a leather phone cover (success), a white orchid flower (took on a beautiful red-gold tint), the hardcover of a Stephen King book (success of the blue and bronze kind), and finally, a white slipper that belonged to the niece in attendance, Shamma Al Ameemi.

Al Ameemi was cautioned by the rest of the group to think twice, that her slipper might get wet, and she might have to home barefoot. It didn’t matter to her — going barefoot, and announced in all the mock solemnity she could muster: “I’m a Bedouin after all!”

nivriti@khaleejtimes.com