Monday November 20, 2017
Kabul (BNA) The art of carpet weaving has made remarkable progress in recent years in Afghanistan and numerous carpet weavers have been trained in this field as a number of these Afghan carpet weavers made initiatives and one of its samples is portraitist carpet.
One of the skilled and qualified portraitist carpet weavers Naim Nadem said, in 1367 H.S while I was a student of 11th grade of Kabul Mechanical School, I migrated to Pakistan and there started artistic and cultural activities in the fields of drawing and carpet weaving. He added, for four years I worked as a disciple and learned carpet weaving skillfully. I tried to initiate a new model of carpet which is called portraitist carpet and I was supported by my teachers Ustad Farokh, Faryad, Ustad Popalzay, Ustad Sultani and large number of friends. Although in the beginning I didn’t achieve good result but later I did. My first portraitist carpet was decorated with the picture of Prophet Ibrahim Khalilullah. I worked 30 years and out of my 300 works 6 works reflect social problems.
Nadem went on to say that 15 years ago I returned home from Pakistan and continued my business here. Our products are 40x50cm to 10x40cm. we produce carpets according to customers’ order mainly from US,UK, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, China and Japan and our carpets are supplied US $500-6000. So far I have produced over 265 pieces of carpet.
Talking on the raw materials, Nadem said we use wood from Belgium and Mirnoos because silk didn’t produce expected results. We get raw materials from Mazar-i-Sharif.
Touching on his students, Nadem went on to say, beside portraitist carpets, I produce big pieces of carpets and so far I have trained over 4000 students including 20 ones in portraitists carpets. I am enthusiast of photography and art of drawing. In this field, for 8 month I received training by Ustad Sultani in Pakistan and have produced 25 works which were gifted to enthusiasts of drawing art. I have organized 4 international and 30 national carpet exhibitions and achieved first position. I have received over 40 letters of appreciation from Afghan, UNESCO and international organizations. On 3 May 2017 I received spiritual encouragement from President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani.
Karima Malikzada
