Artistic Curios

Standing up from a long sedentary position on a comfy chair is redolent of the cane chairs which earlier constituted a good part of our daily working life where we remember the dexterous hands of those skilled workers who manufactured chairs out of cane.

Today, we are used to sit and relax on lush and opulent furniture but have forgotten that such materials will bring us pains as much as gains just before leaving office. We yearn at the present time for the old cane chairs and only hope that we can use them again but our hopes have become now a far-fetched issue.

It is worth noting that cane is the only plant that is termite proof owing to the fact that it releases a scent of its own. Cane is usually planted in arid zones similar to the areas adjacent to the Euphrates and Orontes rivers.

Cane can be colorful and that depends on the expanse of land it is planted on, and its shoots intertwine together at every four- meter space and one cane could reach up to four meters in length.

After harvest, cane is stripped off its leaves and chopped into pieces to be put in sanitization reservoirs prior to dispatch. It could be customized to measure by bending and steaming to make it manageable for industry.

Some sorts of cane wood need to be presoaked in water for the handling  process of assembly and manufacturing new products before weaving and crossing thin pieces.

Fitting the parts together is done by fixing screws before the final assembly and cleaning is done to be ready for lacquering the product with a glossy coat.

Sales of cane furniture increase in spring and summer but the volume of sales plummeted considerably after the emergence of new types and models in the market which locked out the original and genuine cane chairs once viewed with pride. The locally made cane chairs are way ahead in comparison with the foreign industry owing to the fact that all EU countries rush to purchase local made furniture paying handsomely to obtain quality products.

Doctors argue that cane chairs are well beneficial to the spine. Therefore, they advice their patients to use cane chairs since these chairs provide a convenient sitting position to cushion the spinal column.

The profession of cane manufacturing had become prone to extinction and it is so hard nowadays to find a dexterous chair maker who can fix or mend an old cane chair professionally. Such a heritage is of paramount importance to be preserved because it constituted our history and national identity.          

Firas Taleb

E.T Mamoun Abdin