THE city of Jeddah is justly famous for it street art. So much so that navigation through the city is less often by street name than by landmark to landmark. There are not many places in the world where; “Turn right at the fish and then look for two camels with their middles missing” has any meaning at all.
So it was with locating one of the larger compounds in Jeddah. Guidance was frequently just the simple injunction, “Behind the fruit-boat.”
Jeddah’s maritime connection has spawned monuments and sculpture aplenty with a nautical theme. The splendid Warships Square, which sported 29 assorted redundant vessels — the largest topping 300 tons and taking two weeks to move from the sea its final resting place, was by far the most impressive and well known.
Less imperial in scale but following the theme, Mustafa Sembel mounted brightly painted launches on concrete plinths along the north Corniche and was also responsible for several stylized ship and nautical theme sculpture on the seashore. Perhaps the biggest of these, Sails, sites in magnificent isolation at the junction of Amir Fahd and Hera Streets. Perhaps the most striking is a sculpture by Sylvestre Giovanni that graces the entrance of Jeddah Islamic Port also called Sails.Sadly, maintaining these sculptures seems to have been low on the city father’s priority.
The painted sculpture weather much more rapidly than those constructed by metal or stone and left exposed. They do not need it; bronze and stainless steel that constitutes many of them requires little attention. Paint however loses its freshness — and the sculpture much of its appeal — relatively rapidly.
The fruit boat was in a sorry state until the Baladia directed the attentions of Messrs. Shalim and Abdul Khaled and their team from the Alwan Maintenance Company to the task.
Long basking under a thick camouflaging layer of dust, the fruit boat had all but faded into the surrounding scenery.
An officially unregarded sculpture, the tile sea, in which the boat is set, is broken and still in a state of partial decay.
The sculpture first had to be washed clean of its dusty covering and readied for repainting. Working in two shifts — late through the night and early morning to avoid the daytime temperatures that cause the paint to dry without properly setting and adhering to the substrate, the team completed its monumental task. “It was hard work,” confided a smiling Abdul Khaled from Bangladesh. “It took us only a week to complete the job, but looks a lot better now than when we started.”
And so it does. Gleaming clean and vibrating with primary colors, the fruit boat stands out from its somewhat drab surroundings once again returning to its distinctive place among Jeddah’s sculptures. And Ramadan mornings are just the time to photograph it at its best.
