Morocco
being a mix of Arabic, Berber, and heavy European influence, their style is
primarily geometric with highly intricate line work. There is sometimes some
animal element integrated into the work, to act as an amulet to ward off or
attract particular spirits, but this practice is more common with Berber people
than Arab Moroccans (Fabius, 1998) . There is a shift in
the henna world however, from a highly traditional and spiritual design to one
that is more contemporary, western, and multi-cultural.
What I
refer to is the now available tourist sector henna present in the markets and
streets of Morocco, presented to tourists as a take-home-cultural-experience.
The new designs are not as geometric, nor as intricate or detailed as the
traditional henna artisans present, but that does not deny them any less
popular, “many of the
tourist-sector artisans’ customers are Moroccan, either domestic tourists or
expatriates on holiday,” (Spurles, p. 12) . The henna these tourist sector
artisans produce is considered to be of poor quality compared to the local
sector henna art. Local sector artisans will apprentice as a musaa’ida under traditional
henna artists at home, considering color, duration, and complexity of design execution
before becoming henna artisans in their own right (Spurles, p.
11) .
They learn a broad range of geometric design vocabulary, something tourist
henna artists have no access to and have to resort to self-teaching or learning
from other self-taught henna artists (Spurles, p. 83) . Without training, their
designs and composition of elements deviate from the long standing traditions
of established henna practices, both in imagery and placement of henna (Spurles, p. 11) . They come up with
their own meanings and symbolisms behind their design choices, creating their
own cultural stories (Spurles, p. 86) .This means that their work has more
opportunity to grow into a new art form, a wash with many other cultural
influences, deviating away from Moroccan traditional culture into one of its
own.
High quality local henna is recognized
by bisected lines for construction, lots of negative space, and uneven lines (Spurles, p.
81) .
Repeated motifs include vines, flowers and wavy lines or 8 point stars to
outline or fill in designs, and sharply defined zigzags are completely absent (Spurles, p.
82) .
The difference between local and tourist henna is sharp, and the negative
treatment the women in the tourist sector receive discourages skilled artisans
from working in the tourist sector (Spurles, p. 82) . This is not helped by tourist sector
artisans possessing neither the connections to local families, nor the
technical competence to allow them to leave the market places and work from
home as a local sector henna artist (Spurles, p. 82) . They cannot even use their own work as
evidence of their skill because poor quality henna is recognizable by the local
Moroccan and well read-tourist (Spurles, p. 11) . This does not mean that tourist sector
henna is necessarily bad henna.
Tourist sector henna artists can become quite skilled
in time, and take in the many variable styles and cultural values of the wide
variety of tourists coming to them to receive henna and make something quite
visually appealing. The incorporation of the expressive culture tourist
economies attract creates another culture, responding to the new artistic
influences (Spurles, p. 84) . Tourist henna, for instance, does not
follow the Moroccan tradition of always applying henna to the inside of the
palm first and always making sure to design both hands symmetrically (Fabius, 1998) . This also plays for
the feet, where it is more likely to find the bottom of the feet hennaed than
the top, and to always have symmetrical designs on both feet; top and bottom. Tourist
sector henna artists are more likely to paint one ankle, wrist, shoulder, or part
of the neck, making it A symmetrical, a style trait more common in western
culture (Spurles, p. 81) . These designs are often
small, simple, and not time consuming as most tourists only ever plan to spend
an hour in the market while on holiday, and only 10-15 minutes in a henna
session (Spurles, p. 86) . By quickening their
work, making it smaller and more compact, as well as easy to place on seemingly
random parts of the body, the deviation from the traditional intricate styles
presents opportunities for artistic and economic growth within the Moroccan
henna world.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Fabius, C.
(1998). Mehndi: the art of henna body painting. New York, Toronto,
London, Sydney, Auckland: Random House Inc.
Spurles, P. K.
(n.d.). Henna for Brides and Gazelles.
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