Clove Works

In Palestine, cloves are used medicinally to treat pain. A few summers ago, I was at the beach in Haifa, Palestine, and had an excruciating toothache. I happened to be wearing a traditional wedding necklace made of cloves that I bought earlier that day in a souk in Nazareth. My friend told me to chew on one of the cloves to numb the pain in my mouth. Since then, I realized that beyond cloves’ homeopathic medicinal value, they can be found in many Palestinian recipes and are also documented to have been used in traditional Palestinian wedding jewelry, and as aromatic pillow stuffing.

Selected photos from 2025 exhibit at the CADVC by Kiirstn Pagan ‘11 for UMBC as well as photos by Tedd Henn, Courtesy of the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture at UMBC (CADVC).