Shopping, redux

I got to go shopping with two of my coworkers yesterday, which was a rare chance at true freedom -- no work, just looking for pretty things to bring home. S wanted to buy a painting for his mother's house in Baghdad, A wanted art to decorate his family's new home in Amman, and I went along for the ride.

With the exception of the bodyguard lurking outside, it felt fairly normal. We walked around a series of adjacent galleries, compared our favorite paintings, chatted with the owner and generally had a good time. I bought an absolutely amazing painting -- it's hard to describe, but it's an abstract painting of a couple of "Baghdadi doors," a minaret of a mosque, etc. It's royal blue with other bright colors (lots of gold) and some raised texturing. It's going in my bedroom when I get back.

The gallery owner was clearly pretty desperate to make a sale -- when my coworker asked about the price of the painting I was looking at, he said "Oh, whatever you think." We eventually settled on $20 American for something that was similar to pieces that people were charging $150 for in American military compounds. These guys can't make a single sale most days, so having three people walk in with money to spend was pretty exciting. All told, we gave him the equivalent about $100 American (for five paintings, one of them framed), and he couldn't stop thanking us.

Good reads today

Iraq coverage in the major dailies is good reading on Sundays. Most of the time I read only as much Iraq-related journalism as I have to (which, admittedly, is a lot), but some of the Sunday stuff is too good to miss. The Washington Post has two Iraq-related enterprise stories today. The first is about the GI Bill's inability to keep pace with college tuition, which is a major problem for people coming back from Iraq. Most of the soldiers I meet here are between 18 and 22, and although many of them don't have college plans the GI Bill allows them to keep their options open. The story is here.

The second Post story is more directly about Iraq itself -- a look at the dwindling artists' community in Baghdad. People used to consider Baghdad the Paris of the Arab world, but an estimated 90 percent of artists have left the country (or been killed). There are some interesting characters in the story, both people who have chosen to leave and those who have stayed. The story is here.

The New York Times has a big political story in the Sunday magazine, but I didn't make it past the first few paragraphs. The Post has an opinion piece written by an anonymous dentist in Iraq, but I already know that Baghdad can be a depressing place to live, so I skipped that one too. They're both linked if you're interested.

Art for art's sake

Today I visited an art gallery in northern Baghdad, where I got to spend an hour chatting (in English, no less) with several painters and sculptors. We talked about how art has changed since the war began, the difficulty in trying to sell art in Baghdad and the reasons they choose to remain in Iraq. One man estimated that 80 percent of Baghdad's artists either have been killed or have fled the country. He told me he hated Saddam, but that he has to admit life was easier for artists before the Americans overthrew the dictatorship. Art for art's sake is no longer respected, he said--now, Moqtada al-Sadr might hire an artist to paint his portrait, but nobody wants to buy a beautiful abstract painting.

Several artists also lamented the role religion has begun to play in artistic expression. Paintings that show women without their heads covered, for example, are frowned on in many circles. People tell artists that they're wasting their time, that they should be "doing something useful." Almost all of the galleries in Baghdad--once considered the cultural capital of the Middle East--have closed. Just three students graduated from Baghdad's Academy of Fine Arts this year.

But despite the solemn tone of a lot of our discussion, I found the visit somewhat inspirational. In the outdoor cafe behind the gallery, two dozen artists and students sat around drinking coffee and talking about art. The women wore jeans or knee-length skirts and removed their hijabs.
They spoke passionately about the role of art in a troubled country, about their love for Iraq and their dedication to expressing that love through sculpture or painting. As I walked back to my armored car and retied my hijab around my head, I felt a little less confined.