{"id":1875,"date":"2013-02-01T12:53:07","date_gmt":"2013-02-01T17:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=1875"},"modified":"2013-02-01T12:55:22","modified_gmt":"2013-02-01T17:55:22","slug":"a-documentary-about-the-tentmakers-of-cairo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=1875","title":{"rendered":"A Documentary About The Tentmakers of Cairo."},"content":{"rendered":"

Just after our 2007 trip to Egypt I wrote in this blog about\u00a0The Tentmakers <\/a>, all men, who make appliqued fabric wall hangings tradionally used to line tents, and today still provide gorgeous wall hangings as backdrops to festive events.<\/p>\n

\"collage1-001\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At the top, Ashraf is shown sewing in the traditional sewing position, which for various reasons I would find impossibly uncomfortable, and so would most needleworkers I know.\u00a0 Small fabric shapes are\u00a0cut out with\u00a0gigantic scissors (usually 12″ blades)\u00a0and rapidly sewn to the backing fabric by hand, as shown.\u00a0 \u00a0In the lower pics, at left is a tent selling printed fabrics, and\u00a0the lower right shows how\u00a0genuine hand made hangings\u00a0were used\u00a0at the campsite in The White Desert where\u00a0we\u00a0 spent a\u00a0night.<\/p>\n

It’s an ancient craft, going back over 800 years.\u00a0 But the craft and ancient heritage is largely unappreciated in Egypt itself, where people get the same visual effect from cheaper printed fabric featuring traditional designs.\u00a0\u00a0 The tentmakers are thus\u00a0heavily dependent on tourism, where visitors to the city inevitably marvel at the work and take away as much of it as they can afford\u00a0– we certainly did !\u00a0 – that is\u00a0IF they have heard of it and\u00a0know where to find this one street in the old Islamic quarter of Cairo.\u00a0 It’s not usually\u00a0publicsed by hotels or tour operators.\u00a0 We were taken there by friend Jenny Bowker who, during the time her husband served as Australia’s ambassador to Egypt, must have personally taken hundreds, perhaps thousands, of visitors there, and that she had become very good friends with these people was highly eveident.\u00a0 Without her we would not have\u00a0been shown this large\u00a0important commission in progress:<\/p>\n

\"Tentmaker<\/a><\/p>\n

Jenny is pictured holding and looking at one of\u00a0the set of ninety nine, that’s\u00a099, \u00a0 1.5m long wall hangings, of widths varying\u00a0from 3-5m, and\u00a0that’s a huge amount of fabric and work!\u00a0 I don’t remember which number they said this one was ….\u00a0When finished the set of hangings\u00a0was destined to be installed in a large building in another middle eastern\u00a0country.\u00a0 At top left is a portion of one hanging turned to show the back – the fabric is appliqued directly to canvas, perhaps a sail weight,\u00a0 and the needle picks up just a few of the threads with each stitch.\u00a0 At right the owner of the workshop and showroom is holding one of the many cartoons from which the shapes were meticulously drawn onto the fabric, and for which every small piece of fabric\u00a0was cut.\u00a0 It would have been very important to get the symbols and heiroglyphics exactly right on these hangings.<\/p>\n

There’s currently a fundraising campaign to support the maker of a full length documentary on the tentmakers and their craft.\u00a0 The purpose is to broaden the knowledge of this work\u00a0within and outside of Egypt.\u00a0 Since leaving Egypt, Jenny herself has taken collections of the tentmakers work usually accompanied by one or two of the craftsmen themselves, to quilt,\u00a0textile and fibre art exhibitions and galleries in Australia, UK, europe and north\u00a0america.\u00a0 Textile lovers have become enthusiastic fans and collectors – but a documentary dvd will be another valuable tool in publicising this wonderful\u00a0traditional textile art.\u00a0 With the political instability of the past couple of years these people are hurting more than ever as tourists stay away from Egypt.\u00a0 But nothing stays the same for ever, and it is hoped that as conditions improve, more people will know in advance of one place they really should visit when in Cairo.\u00a0 If you want to know how you can help, visit the Facebook page for The Tentmakers of Chareh El-Kiahmiah where you\u00a0 can always see lovely pics and comments, sign up for a newsletter each month, and make a financial donation to help the film project on its way.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just after our 2007 trip to Egypt I wrote in this blog about\u00a0The Tentmakers , all men, who make appliqued fabric wall hangings tradionally used to line tents, and today still provide gorgeous wall hangings as backdrops to festive events. At the top, Ashraf is shown sewing in the traditional sewing position, which for various […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6uxpF-uf","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1875"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1887,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875\/revisions\/1887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}