Cooler weather brings new openings – a new Gallery in OMAN

It was a pleasure to be at the opening of what, I feel, will be a superb showcase for Omani and International Artists .

The Gallery is opened

Al Tarhal is a partnership, focusing on mentoring, developing and promoting promising Omani and International emerging artists. Works by Omani artists like Naima Al Maimani, whose works I am familiar with; join artist whose works I have yet to discover, like the calligrapher Saleh Al Shukairi.

Pictures at a Galley in Oman

 

Oman has had a long tradition of traditional decorative works with silver (the exquisite Mans Khanjar and Ladies Hirz necklaces ) and wood (bold entrance doors into major mansions) . Art as pure decoration had yet to fire the imagination of many Omani’s , but with increased awareness and demand, the gallery should have no difficulty in finding Omani’s to mentor.

Oman Environment Society Talk

The Environment Society of Oman was given a very good talk by Dr Rory Wilson about animal tracking. With the support of the ‘Rolex Awards for Enterprise’ he has developed a device to track the movement of animals. Rory calls the results a ‘daily diary because, by extrapolating the information which includes 3 dimensional movement sensors and time a scientist can surmise the events of a selected animal’s day – its daily diary.

Animal Tracking Device developed by Dr Rory Wilson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr Rory Wilson talks about Animal Tracking in Oman

 

 

 

Why was he in Oman? Last January in Oman he did a small test on an individual Arabian Leopard . It is hoped that, by using this tracking device on Leopard in the wild, more information about the Leopard in Oman will be obtained and – its future made more secure using extensive information rather than limited information and speculation. I wrote about the Arabian Leopard for ‘Oman Today’

 

Eagles and White Stork in Oman

 

A Steppe Eagle in the sky above Salalah Oman 2

Each summer the Indian Ocean Monsoon sweeps along the slopes of the Dhofar Mountains creating a mid-summer change of climate ‘The Khareef’ . Trees come into leaf , grass and other flowering plants carpet open areas. The temperature plunges from a truly sizzling 50+c over the crest of the hills, to a very pleasant mid20’s c on the sea facing slopes and coastal plain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

White Stork fly in Dhofar

 

Driving down from Muscat I arrived in Salalah just as the first of the White Storks and migratory Eagles arrived for the winter . The storks spread through the hills feeding on insects; they also congregate in an area next to hundreds of eagles. This is a somewhat hazardous proximity; though I have not seen an Eagle bring down a live flying stork – I have seen Eagles waiting patiently for an injured stork to die. Perhaps there was more to that event than serendipity .

Dates from Oman

I managed to get back and see the Hadrian exhibition at the British Museum. The reading room in which it is held is of course an appropriate venue as Hadrian’s Pantheon inspired its dome. I was intrigued as to how the curators had utilized the Reading Room for a major exhibition (as I hadn’t seen China’s Terracotta Army) . The entrance to the exhibition is at 90degrees  to the original room and a narrow corridor skirts the circumference until a staircase takes visitors up to a newly installed floor – complete with ventilation fans in the floor.

Hadrian and compatriots

  

Timed tickets should have been a warning – the space was probably full to its designed capacity and it was a struggle to move at my pace and see the exhibits. For me the outstanding impact was the representation of Hadrian throughout his rule – each artist created a sculpture of a man whom the “vir in via” must have been able to recognize has they walked past him.

 

It was wonderful that among the marble the curators included a written plea for support, from a foreign civilian living in northern England, to the regions governor. Perhaps the same man had touched a large amphora, found near Hadrian’s Wall, which was displayed along with an image of a shard mountain of 26million amphora.

Later, walking along Bond Street, I was surprised to see a familiar shop name. ‘Bateel’ a shop selling Dates and Date products has a branch in Muscat; amazingly they had set up close to where a company I was general manager with 25 years ago had a shop. My surprise was not really in seeing Bateel but with a rental of probably GBP300,000+ per year the extraordinary volume of dates they must sell to cover costs – probably Arab Embassies are ideal clients.

Bateel Date Shop – Bond Street

 

 

 

Arabian Leopard Oman

Grabbing a couple of bottles of water, we set off at a good walking pace under the cloud cover of the early Khareef (Monsoon) season in Salalah Oman . I enjoy walking with Hadi al Hikmani, enthusiasm is always a good companion and Hadi packages his in friendliness and knowledge. On this walk, his knowledge identified fresh ‘scat’ (excrement) on our pathway – in fact Leopard scat . Fresh, in fact, very fresh – probably less than half an hour old. In the day that followed, we walked along Leopard tracks and with all our stops and starts, examining the tracks and collecting scat we didn’t catch up with our invisible walking companion. We returned along the same path and astoundingly found more scat; the Leopard had returned to the path after we passed .

Arabian Leopard in Oman

Over a year before, on another walk with Hadi, I said to him that I would write about Oman’s Leopards; as he believes that awareness is a key to its survival. So, shamed that no article had been produced in over a year, I returned to Muscat and somehow produced a piece. Wonderfully ‘ Oman Today ’ has used it in their August edition – I’m delighted of course.

Oman Today cover August 2008

Oman is a key territory of Panthera pardus nimr, the Arabian Leopard, and, with possibly less than 200 individuals in the world, awareness may well help its survival