Ward, who trained as a designer in Syria, is one of the reasons I started The -able. That's us in the first picture.
He was forced to choose between giving up his life in Syria and fleeing to one of the neighboring countries or having to join the military in Syria. The choice fell on Lebanon. And that's where I met him.
I met him because he worked at the café where I usually drank my coffee and wine while I was writing my thesis in sociology in Beirut. We got talking and I found out that he was actually a designer and dreamed of making a living from it instead of working in a cafe 💭 💫 .
It is not easy to be Syrian in Lebanon - and it is only getting worse and worse. But that's a sadder story, for another day.
Ward had brought a lot of 100-year-old, hand-carved wooden stamps with him from Damascus when he left. It is the oldest technique for making prints on fabric. Through a small foundation-supported project, he had begun to be able to buy deadstock linen and print on it and get a skilled Syrian tailor to sew it into, among other things, tablecloths and place mats. With his eye for minimalist design and use of the old stamps, he hoped to hit on designs that locals and tourists would be interested in - but that's not easy in Lebanon either.
He was therefore also one of the first people I contacted when I moved home to Denmark and started toying with the idea of supporting talented craftsmen in selling their products and living from their craft again, even if they had had to give up the dream in their own home countries 💌 .
Fast forward to Rikke Westesen Photography standing in my apartment and meeting me and The -able's products for the first time and falling in love with them immediately.
A few weeks later, Rikke called and wanted to borrow Wards' hand-printed products in particular, because she had to shoot photos for Louisa Lorang 's cookbook Bazar. And here, less than a year later, I got the pictures from cookbook no. 2 about legumes (by the way, a cookbook with many delicious recipes in it).
It makes me so proud on both Wards' behalf and, frankly, on my own behalf, to see that the products that were first brought home with me in heavy suitcases are now in such good company in two Danish cookbooks. So THANK YOU for the faith and trust in both Rikke and Louisa. It makes me believe that the mission with The -able will probably succeed.
