From the magical city of Petra Jordan and its multi-colored sand mountains, the original inspiration was born: Bottles with multi-colored sand from the Petra mountains for the city visitor to take home, sometimes with geometrical decorations and mostly layers of different colors. No one recalls precisely who started the whole thing or when, the only thing we know for sure is that it was born in Petra, inspired by its multicolored sand rocks in the 1920's or earlier.



In the late 1940's, the camel was born, and bottles from that era show its first basic shapes, the oldest bottle I came across was from the year 1922. A tourist came across it in Aqaba, Jordan. From there it found its way to Essex, England.

In the year 1994, we where introduced to this craft while visiting Petra, and though it came a long way from where it started, it still wasn't mature enough to stand as an art.

Our first contribution that year was giving the idea a grander prospect and presentation, introducing handmade bottles as containers to replace the old recycled jars, making it at once more original, indigenous to the region and artistically appealing. It was a good first step, which went very well, and up to this day, we still make and sell our handmade glass to sand artists in Jordan and around the world.

Since that date, we also developed the sand art skill to determine what can be draw using colored sand, from basic layers to almost anything, new colours, new tools were introduced to the sand artist.

Funnels simply replace brushes and bottles replace canvas. The sky's the limit on what you can draw once you learn how to do it.

In our travels around the world introducing this art, we were continuously challenged. Moving sand art out of its homeland means intuitively that it has to adapt to new environs. A camel would look silly in Switzerland, but a reindeer would blend nicely so the rain dear was born in Switzerland. The dolphin and the palm tree were born in Devon, England.

In Italy, customers were more challenging ? they wanted to see a Picasso in sand art. This opened the door more widely on what we could strive to achieve: almost anything!

That's our answer today when people ask what else you can do and the credit for that goes to Sand gallery senior artists! , Sand Galley senior artist!

Sand gallery senior artists! is one of few around the world so far who can do almost anything and he is one of few willing to share his knowledge as well. Sand art has been for many years a well-guarded secret, though Sand gallery senior artists! had no problem teaching sand art in Jordan, our homeland, and around the world, breaking that wall of silence that limited sand art for many years.

He even taught it in Egypt back in 1997, and if you visit Egypt now, you will find it riddled with sand fillers, though it's still in its basic origins, the camels and the layers. Revaluations take time as we know, but at least he got the bug started there, and it won't be long before we'll start seeing real master works from that part of the world.

Parallel to sand art revaluation in the Mid-East, there are still various themes of this art practiced around the world.

In Tibet, monks make pictures on the floor using colored sand, and it's a thousand year old tradition, but we can't establish a link to the sand art we practice today, so, speaking fairly, it may be a completely separate form of art, but we won't exclude any possibilities.

Also, in northern Brazil, they draw using crushed chalk in medicine bottles. From a historical point of view, I think the Jordanian version came long before they started, and it's much more representative and achievable, but I found no links or ties between these arts.

Sand art stands now as the newborn babe in the art world. It's becoming more common and more accessible. Sand Gallery is attempting to introduce it to schools, as younger generations will infuse this art with popularity and prosperity. Bear in mind that we teach you how to draw in sand and not just layers. Achieving that is the mission we are on in sandgallery.com.