Halfway through the
Edge of Arabia workshop (Feb. 16), Ahmed Angawi put down what he had been working on (I'll call it a toothpick porcupine). Minutes later, like an idea suddenly struck him, using a jumbo black marker, he wrote two words
in block letters: MARRY ME.
Before forming an opinion on such a simple yet loaded
expression, Angawi glue-gunned an upright match to the first M, and I
realized he had written MATCH ME.
Angawi was making a pyrotechnic sign with these two words as
the catalyst: MATCH ME.
But in my mind, a different story was taking shape, tainted by MARRY ME and suddenly hijacked by MATCH ME...the juxtaposition of these 2 expressions infused this piece with a layer
cake of meaning.
MATCH ME immediately brought to mind online dating websites.
Singles always seem to be searching for their perfect match. And here in Saudi
Arabia and in many areas of the Middle East, finding a match doesn’t require a
username and password as much as it requires a mother, sister, or even
matchmaker. I didn't believe this still happened until I was approached by a stranger in a salon and a woman in our neighborhood
to help them find wives for their son or nephew.
I thought of the difference between getting to know a woman, falling in love with her, and finally asking her to marry you..versus asking a human or database to help find your match.
I'm not judging any type of marriage, just comparing the processes.. and with the matches that would eventually light up this piece of art... I thought of how some marriages end up in flames and how some are a work of art. And by work, I do mean effort, concentration, creating illusions, subjectivity, inspiration and putting up with the critics. I do mean a labor of love.
As I was thinking about this, a thick forest of matches had covered most of the word MATCH.
Without misreading the words as MARRY ME, would I have thought of "match" as anything other than a tiny wooden stick that brings us fire? And what part of my subconscious made me misread it anyway?
And I wonder what's become of the sign. Has he lit it up? I guess it's time to venture back to Edge of Arabia (I heard they extended the exhibit) and see what's going on.
