Vase

Abdelkarim Boudlal

Abdelkarim was born in 1988 in the village of Tamegroute. He has a “licence” degree in French Studies at Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakech. Although his family does not work in the domain of pottery, Abdelkarim was influenced by the way utensils and traditional machines are made out of clay. He was very audacious to make pottery his profession because his family wanted him to help his father in his commerce. He’s always been working on finding new designs and forms of pottery products. During the years of his studies, he was also influenced by the Cuneiform, that dates back to the Babylonian civilization. This latter was the first to invent writing on slabs of clay. Only after that, he had the idea of ​​writing and engraving on porcelain especially writing the letters of Tifinagh. Since then, his talent attracted and impressed tourists, especially foreigners. According to Abdelkarim, among the problems that the handicraft sector faces is the problem of marketing. HE also added that the manufacturers are limited to selling their products locally which is not enough to support his family and the development of his village if he only sells his products in weekly markets. As a way to reach out to the world, he participates in a series of exhibitions to exchange and learn about manufacturers’ experience. Many great ideas came out of these exhibitions such as using different shapes of pottery to form waterfalls’ designs and green tiles. These ideas were received very positively especially among foreign tourists. However, Abdelkarim thinks that manufactures still use outdated and traditional machines, which takes a lot in terms of physical effort, and time. This problem takes away from the handmakers’ ability to be highly productive. Still, manufacturers, including Abdelkarim, have spent great effort and remain open to portray their ambitions in a way that facilitates the pottery industry.