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Egyptian wool from Giza to the largest museums in the world.. The story of Harrani artists with the loom

Miscellaneous News 14/07/2023

0 8 4 minutes read

Amman Today

publish date 1970-01-01 03:00:00

We go back in time to the fifties of the last century. There was an artist named Ramses Wissa Wassef, an Egyptian architect who was called the father of Coptic architecture and weaving in Egypt. He had a big dream within him that he sought with all his energy to achieve it. Egypt’s Agricultural Villages It was the village of Harraniya in Giza Governorate, and he chose 15 boys and girls from the age of 8 to 10 years, and began teaching them the art of weaving on the loom.

In the beginning, he let the children draw what was inside it and what it imagined with strings on the small loom, so it was inexpressive drawings, and after a while the loom grew and the imagination of the children grew with it, so he produced clear pieces with expressive drawings. Days and years passed, and the little child became an artist who creates from nature’s inspiration without a prior drawing “patron”. Or an agreement to draw it specifically, the artist is a simple farmer who lives between the blue sky and the green land and on its banks the great Nile River, so he inspired his soul with artistic paintings of nature that reach from the eye of the heart.

Ikram Nosy, Director of Wassef Center

“The Seventh Day” visited the Ramses Wissa Wassef Center for the art of painting on carpets in the village of Harraniya in Giza, and met with the engineer, Ikram Noshy, the director of the center, where he said: The artists inside the center express what is inside them and bring out their creativity with colored wool, no matter how big the carpet is, it is made directly on the loom. Its manufacture takes from 6 months to 3 years depending on the length and idea of the carpet. As for the colors, they are natural. The late Ramses was keen to grow plants in his garden. The fuch plant is for the red color, the blue is the indigo plant or the indigo, and the yellow in its degrees is from a plant called Al-Razda. The yellow is mixed With blue it gives us green, red with yellow gives us orange and so on.

Handmade carpet

Regarding the prices of carpets, he said: The price starts from 10,000 pounds per carpet and can be increased according to the idea of the carpet and the age of its manufacture. The weaver takes 40% of its price, and materials, wool and colors take 35%, 25% for the center. The artist inside the center is a partner, not a worker. We are all family here. So one will continue to succeed.

Handmade Carpets (2) - Copy

Handmade carpet

“Noshi” added, “The largest museums and exhibitions in the world often invite us to participate in their activities. The exhibition board hosts four to five weavers with their looms. The duration of the exhibition usually takes from two to four years. They weave in front of visitors, showing how much work and creativity they do. The center is divided into The exhibition, which displays the finished works for visitors, and the other part contains the artists’ studios.

Handmade carpets, the art of drawing on the loom

We met with Mahrous Abdo, one of the center’s artists, who joined the center at the age of 10 to learn the art of drawing on a loom. Abdo says: “I have spent all my life here, now I am 95 years old, but I did not go to schools, but when I grew up I went to eradicate illiteracy, and after that I went to the institute British in order to learn the English language so that I would travel to attend exhibitions. I went to London to have two large paintings exhibited for me. One of the situations that I can never forget is an English woman who came to sit beside me and told me what she is doing is the best thing I have ever seen in my life. As for painting, I do not know how to draw with hands, but I do know. I know how to draw with wool on a loom.