I have long admired a beautiful woven tapestry hanging in the faculty lounge at AUC, so when the opportunity arose to visit the art center where it was made, I was thrilled!  The Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Center is a remarkable establishment.  It was founded in 1952 by Ramses Wissa Wassef and is renown for wool and cotton weavings, batik, and stoneware pottery.  There are two generations of weavers at the center, most of whom are women.  The first generation of weavers began working at the art center as children in the 1950s, and the second group began in the 1970s.  These remarkably talented weavers continue to weave elaborate, original scenes and designs.  The center seems very committed to fostering creativity and therefore the works produced by the many artists are unique and never repeated.   Check out the Wissa Wassef website for more information.

We were able to see many of the weavers at work.

You can see how fast her hands are moving.  She said it takes several months to complete a weaving.  I kind of think it would take me the better part of a decade to accomplish something like that.

The smaller weavings were made with cotton threads.  The detail is really incredible.

In this room, an artist was applying wax to fabric for batik.

After visiting the studios we went to the Wissa Wassef Art Center’s gallery, which features works by each of the artists that have worked there, beginning with weavings produced when they were as young as twelve years old.  It was amazing to see the innate talent and creativity transformed through decades of practice into large-scale masterpieces.

The above weaving was explained to us as having been created by one of the artists as a child after a visit to the Cairo zoo. I’m loving that elephant.

Above is another artist’s early work depicting camels, followed by a weaving depicting chickens which was produced later in life…

And then this lively scene, which was produced even later…

This is wall-sized, by the way.  It is amazing to think of the skill and imagination required to produce something like this.  Working from memory, the weavers create these elaborate scenes without even a sketch!

Here is detail of another wall-sized piece depicting the grain harvest:

Yep, that’s woven.  Amazing, right?!

And this one is beyond wall-sized.

The center also produces beautiful stoneware pottery, but I didn’t get any pictures aside from the above photo.

I wish I took a weaving class in college, I can tell you that much.  Somehow, though, I don’t think I could have a loom and two cats.  It would probably be a disaster.  Anyhow, I am positive we will be making another trip out to the Wissa Wassef Art Center sometime soon.