An Intriguing Museum Visit, 3

At the Carthage Museum, my friend and I stumbled upon this intriguing exhibit of recovered treasures from the palaces of the ex-dictator and his family. 
Well, of course, they had to have a classic amphora in some sort of alcove:

The sign tells us where it was "Saisie" (seized) and that it dates from the 5th century A.D., however, its provenance remains unknown. This was the case with most of the pieces shown--their origins are lost. Thieves have no respect.

And of course they required a classic Roman draped figure in a beach palace.

A monstrous white marble fountain head sat in the beach palace as well.

This artwork is unusual for the sign mentions the provenance: the Algiers Museum. Hmmm...

This Roman stela pleased me with its palm tree and the man's friendly-looking, peaceful expression. 

It was from the first century A.D. and found cemented into a patio wall at the beach palace--and worse for the wear.

The dictator had a curio cabinet in his palace with all sorts of bric-a-brac rather carelessly tossed in, making it difficult to see much of anything. 

In fact, those shelves contained unusual and valuable antiquities.

However, the most interesting piece was this angel-like figure of Eros, which was placed horizontally on the middle shelf of the cabinet.

As my friend pointed out, a two thousand-year-old terra cotta statuette rarely has any paint left at all. So this piece was remarkably preserved as well as showing superb craftsmanship.

At this point, I suppose I could stand upon my soap box and rant about the abuse of power by the ignoramuses of the world. However, plunderers find art theft a lucrative business and the rape of a national heritage and common patrimony has a long tradition. One need only consider the extensive collections of major European museums established during the colonial period...Need I say more?

News Update: Over 30 million Egyptians demonstrated for four days until the army stepped in on July 3rd. Friends took pictures in the midst of the crowd.

The army had given President Morsi 48 hours to negotiate a viable plan with the opposition, however, Morsi defiantly maintained his legitimacy and did not take advantage of this slim opportunity. So the army, with the approval of opposition leaders and the organizers of the demonstrations, named the head of the Constitutional Tribunal as temporary president while elections were to be organized. The constitution was suspended and is now under review, and the Parliament was dissolved. The army made it clear they had no intention of governing, but sought only to respect the wishes of the People and return the country to order, emphasizing that security, which has disintegrated over the last year, would be restored. 

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief: the deposed government would have run Egypt's economy into the ground and the transition could have been much worse. News reportages showed the blockades of huge blocks in front of the presidential palace (seen in the previous post) being hauled away--a good sign, I think.

And yet, as with the Revolution two years ago, the deposing of the government remains only a first step. Leaders must organize elections, breathe life into a dying economy, improve infrastructures, and provide security and stability for all. A Rocky Road lies ahead.

Note to myself: I must do a piece with the Rocky Road pieced quilt pattern. It's appropriate for the times.

!!!News Flash!!!

My daughter and her family went for ten days to Egypt to visit family. [That's not the News Flash.] They came back Saturday the 29th. We were uneasy. It was close. She told a harrowing story.

Extreme gasoline shortages plague Cairo, which meant hours spent in long lines in the hopes of finding gas once at the pump. To make matters worse, some areas in Egypt experience several hours of electrical power outages every day, to say nothing of the high unemployment and a disintegrating economy.

Therefore, because of severe mismanagement of the Egyptian government by the current ruling religious party, massive demonstrations were called for June 30th, the one-year anniversary of the first elected president. Protesters hope to "persuade" the President and his cabinet to step down. Preparations  near Tahrir Square a few days ago:

Interesting graffiti covers walls in the region of Tahrir Square (where the Revolution took place two years ago) in central Cairo.

"No to the Constitution," "Bloodshed brings bloodshed," 

"Down with Morsi [the president]."

Grafitti also covers the blockades near the presidential palace.

"No to the pharoah [who is]unjust--leave." "Dictatorship leads to disaster."

"Killers", "We won't forget," "Down with military rule," "Freedom." 

You get the point. People started rallying several days early and by the 29th, hundreds of thousands of people were out in the streets. My daughter got to the airport early and said it was like a war zone. Military personnel were everywhere and panicked people were trying to get away before the chaos set in. 

Today's demonstrations remain peaceful, however, there appears to be at least one pro-government rally. The Tunisian news is following events closely to see how far they will go. A question hangs in the air: Will Tunisians answer the call to throw off an incompetent and illegitimate government?

Mount Everest.

Blogging may be considered an extreme sport. After struggling, climbing up, scrambling over rocky spots, huffing and puffing, and investing more time than I really wanted, I now feel like I have conquered Mount Everest, that is, the Mount Everest of blogging. If your worldly knowledge includes how to resize photos for your blog or you don't have a blog, then, skip to the News Update.

         This all began when seven blogging friends received messages that they could no longer upload photos to their blogs because they had used up the space. Does this seem sneeky to anybody? Lure you in, then grab you by the throat? Admittedly, a blog is free (at first), however, most of us have learned our way around blogland by trial and error and have missed the fine print that explains space limits, if it exists. 

         Therefore, I would like to explain how I dealt with this problem in case any readers need help or are just at the beginning of blogging and have no idea. You also might want to visit Carole Reid's discussion on the subject as well. Her solution was to eliminate the first 200 posts because she had put them into a book. Other bloggers pay a small fee for more space. I haven't gotten the message yet and I like the status quo, however I found that I had used up 98% of my space, so I decided to take action. My résumé of the situation follows:

The first thing they don't tell you: you need to resize photos before uploading them to your blog. Already, I had set my digital camera (Canon powershot) on a lower number of pixels ("M3" for those who have this type of camera,) to 1600x1200  pixels. However, pixel size can be further reduced without affecting the image (as far as I can tell). A photo may be reduced from around 700K (or more) to around 150K--a rather substantial reduction.

Question 1: How do you resize? Much scratching of head, here, and fiddling around. I have a Mac, so I concluded that the easiest way for me to resize is to send a photo from iPhoto (click on "Share" in the top bar) to my email. It automatically asks how I want the photo resized--I usually choose "medium". 

            Then I go over to my email, and save the photo to my Desktop. I immediately put "resized" in the title of the photo so I don't confuse myself. Then I can upload it to my blog. And if there is an easier way, please feel free to leave a comment. I would be curious, because this does create a couple of extra steps.

The second thing they don't tell you: you need to get into Picasa and delete your original photo. Surprise to me, Blogger automatically sets up a Picasa album for your blog. If you don't delete the heavy photo from there, then it's still weighing down your blog, even if you removed the photo from your blog. In addition, I discovered a quantity of photos that I had uploaded and then hadn't used.

UPDATE: Debbie at Stitchin' Therapy kindly pointed me in the right direction and has just posted about the Picasa web albums. She advised: 
"Don't delete them from the albums and loose them from your blog. It takes a bit of time, but you can resize them in the album. When you call up the web album, select a photo---you can see the pixels size on the right hand side of the page--- click on action. Select to edit on line in Creative Kit. It will load your photo and you can resize to 800 pixels and replace it in your album. I have reduced my usage by 50% this way." 
Yes! This works, I tried it. So resize directly on the Picasa Web Album. When you resize in Picasa, it's automatically done in the blog too--I double checked. Thanks, Debbie!

Question 2: How do you find the Picasa web album for your blog? More scratching of head and fiddling around. I would be embarrassed to say how long it took me to figure this out. I have a Picasa application on my computer, however, I couldn't figure out how to get to the web albums. Easiest thing: Do a google search for "Picasa Web Albums" and click the "Sign in". If you don't have a Picasa account, you'll have to figure that one out and probably just create an account. Once I finally found my Picasa "home" with the blog albums, I bookmarked it so I wouldn't lose it.

Problem: Be careful. If you delete photos from the Picasa web album, then you lose them from your blog. So you need to have them backed up someplace, such as on iPhoto or in a separate folder on your computer. I'm resizing slowly, post by post, so that I don't do something irreversible that I'll regret. I also back up to a Lacie external hard drive.

Whew! Now you understand why I feel triumphant. If you should have any enlightening information on this subject, please add a comment.

IMPORTANT UPDATE about Picasa: Picasa has just increased size allowances for photos. They went from around 1 G. to 5 G. I had managed to get my photos sized down to take up 40% of the space and then suddenly I had only 9% used up. Wow!
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News Update: No feelings of triumph here. It isn't a rocky road for Tunisia anymore, as I suggested a year ago (here). The chaotic situation of last December grows worse and now we stare up at a Tunisian Mount Everest with a long, weary trek ahead and the possibility of falling into a ravine at every twist of the path. The government goes from scandal to scandal and government administrations remain paralyzed--nobody dares to do anything. The government, that is, the ruling religious party, controls the Ministry of Justice, and abuses are flagrant and far too frequent. The foul habits of a dictatorial regime die slowly.
          On December 4th, during preparations for the annual celebration of the 1952 assassination of Farhat Hachad (an internationally known Union leader who helped negotiate the fusion of the American AFL and CIO), fighting broke out when Union (UGTT) members were attacked by extreme right militiamen. The son of Farhat Hachad received information about the militia's plans the evening before. Despite the fact that the authorities had been alerted to the possibility of conflict by Mr. Hachad the previous evening, and despite the desperate phone calls of UGTT members under attack, the police arrived two hours after the violence began. They are located less than a kilometer away--traffic must have been very heavy...The foul habits of a dictatorial regime die slowly.         
          It would appear that the militia wanted to physically oust Union directors and replace them with those faithful to the ruling party. Fortunately, they failed, however, the ruling party continues to defend the militia while all other parties are calling for its dissolution. Since the 4th, the Union has called for grève générale (general strikes, meaning everything closes) in four cities. The Union called for a grève générale for all of Tunisia including Tunis, the capital, for December 13th after the president of the ruling party made statements showing he approved of the December 4th violence. The ruling party, which lost its legitimacy as of October 23rd when its one-year mandate ended, does not appear to want to negotiate or back off. At Friday religious services in Sfax (3 hours from Tunis), an extreme right imam called for civil war--and the congregation cheered. What???? I argue that Islam is a religion of moderation and that all this has nothing to do with religion, but with economic and political factors. A disadvantaged group grabs power because they want a piece of the tasty pie. Why wasn't that imam arrested for something like treason or sedition? One can feel palpable violence in the air. The foul habits of a dictatorial regime die slowly.
          In the meantime, Egypt is also on the brink of civil war, which affects Tunisia indirectly as the problems are similar. Tunisians and Egyptians watch each other's leaders and opposition closely. Morsi, the Egyptian president elected for 5 years (unfortunately for Egyptians) and also belonging to a ruling religious party, has grabbed all power including the judiciary branch, which he incapacitated recently by his own proclamation. Courageously, Egyptians took to the streets and have been demonstrating by the tens of thousands for several weeks in many cities. Protesting crowds surround the presidential palace although Morsi ran away. From a distance, he announced that he stands by his actions. Another incompetent idiot who doesn't know how to negotiate and doesn't care about the well-being of his country. As many Egyptians and Tunisians have said, "You can't do anything you want just because we voted for you." The foul habits of a dictatorial regime die slowly.
          Unfortunately, after the Libyan mess, extreme groups can acquire all kinds of weapons in both Egypt and Tunisia, while responsible citizens search for solutions through peaceful negotiations and political processes that include free and untainted elections. When the end justifies the means, then "Might is Right" takes the upper hand. Now who wouldn't predict a gloomy outcome?

Indeed, Mount Everest looms in front of us 

because the foul habits of a dictatorial regime die slowly.

Yet a Rockier Road

Let’s begin with Good News. A friend just opened an Etsy Shop called Egyptian Quilts. He features the appliqué work of the Tentmakers of Cairo. He’s offering a sale for his Grand Opening so pay him a visit at :  
                               http://www.etsy.com/shop/Egyptianquilts

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I’d like to thank all who have sent concerned emails for the recent news.

The event : The appearance of a Youtube video about a movie slanderous to the Prophet Mohamed caused massive protests throughout the Arab world. Consequently, Tunisia drew attention in the international news after the extreme right organized protests that ended in an attack on the US Embassy. 

Protesters climbed the Embassy walls, burned cars in the parking lot and ransacked the accessible recreation area (commissary, tennis courts, swimming pool). Then they went to the American school across the street, which they looted and burned parts of (including the library). Pictures surfacing on Facebook show looters walking off with computers, TVs, and even garden hoses.

           You may wonder about police presence. Well, they appeared, but were overwhelmed and ran out of tear gas. Later in the evening, two police stations were attacked and torched in different cities.

The results : Tunisians, understandably upset, are questioning the inept management of the whole mess by the government, which is run by a religious party.  Furthermore, they wonder at the government’s lenient policies toward extreme right groups whose members have frequently broken the law in violent public confrontations only to be acquitted in court.

           The US government has withdrawn non-essential personnel from the Embassy and they discourage all visits to Tunisia. Great. We're still trying to figure out the meaning of all this. 

Feeling frustration, I turned to the piece I'm working on for Jude Hill's Spirit Diaries. Yes, I broke down and took another online class, however, this one is not project oriented, but a discussion on technique and process with an active forum. I thought that this could be my anesthesia, a way to listen to something else besides conversations and rumors of impending doom. However, it is apparently not meant to be. 

        Jude chose 'Wings' as her "filter" or theme for the next few months, which I happily adopted to my project, a worn, double-sided bed quilt that I'm using as a canvas. I chose the purple side to experiment upon and to leave the green side for later. 

              And so, I began appliquéing abstracted wings of two triangles (or a bowtie) onto one corner block. A basic structure that I modified with reverse appliqué.

I could have happily continued exploring ideas connected to wings, however, I find that I'm now being pulled toward Icarus. You probably know his story. Daedalus, his father and a brilliant craftsman, warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun or to the sea when they made their escape from the island of Crete using wings made of wax and feathers. Being young and exuberant, Icarus of course went as high as possible, only to find that the feathers fell off as the wax melted from the sun's heat, and he plunged to his death in the sea. 

The story of Icarus thus contains a warning, yet it is not about extending oneself or trying to reach greater heights. It speaks of extremes that we should avoid because they are harmful to us.  The warning reminds us to keep our balance and to remember the virtues of moderation.

            Thus, in these troubled times of extremism, I find the story of Icarus compelling. Moderation and Balance. 

                                  To go from disorder and confusion

                                       

                                  to some kind of order and understanding.

A Weekend in Cairo, Part 3: The Best for Last

As promised and back by popular demand, more work by the Tentmakers of Cairo.

                   To begin, here’s an amateur video of a Tentmaker working: 

                               note the enviable speed of the hand movement.

Shopping is not high on my list of pleasures or priorities, and admittedly, I don’t need more quilts, however, I went to the Tentmakers’ Street looking for just one beautiful piece to remember my Cairo visit. I wanted a worthy souvenir. 

The colors of this bed-sized medallion caught my eye, so I nudged my husband sharply in the ribs, gestured toward it as discreetly as possible while he tried to recover his breath, then left the shop so he could haggle for it.

            A similar piece as a wall-hanging (not in my possession, unfortunately).

                            Another bed-sized appliqué of the same design, 
            slightly different arrangement of colors (not in my possession, sigh).

                          This intricate star is breath-taking (also not mine, alas).

And THE best for last: A picture of the following wall-hanging, which I took on my first visit to the Tentmakers’ Street, made me gasp. Tucked in among so many other beautiful pieces, its full splendor was not immediately apparent to me.

                   So on my second visit to the Tentmakers’ Street two days later, 
                    I hunted it down and broke my own rule of only one purchase. 

                        It is now the center of attention in my dining/living room.

                And for all those who have completed the month of Ramadan, 
                I wish you "Aïdakoum Mabrouk" and a happy Aïd celebration.

A Weekend in Cairo, Part 2: The Tentmakers

The Tentmakers work in Old Cairo on Sharia Khayammia or the Tentmakers’ Street.

Approaching Sharia Khayammia. 





One side of the ancient gate doors. 

For generations, hundreds of workers (male) were employed here, making beautiful tents often used for ceremonies such as weddings. The appliqués were on the inside, giving a sort of stained-glass effect.

Today, only about forty shops remain. The tentmakers rarely get orders for handmade tents because of the cost. They have had to adapt to different markets and (tragically) now sell the printed fabric that has replaced their work.

However, they keep working.

On the positive side, their appliqués can now be seen in wall hangings, pillow cases, and bed covers. The small, narrow shops are crammed with beautiful creations.

                                       Now do I have your attention?

                                The lotus is a frequent design element.

                                       The bird designs were unusual.

                One can find tentative pieces that stray from traditional designs. 

It would seem that these artisans wish to test the waters to see if they can expand their repertoire while still pleasing clients. 

Amr has a Masters degree in philosophy, 

but has followed in his father's footsteps. 

He finds himself bored by the constant repetition of traditional designs and seeks new possibilities. Other young men of Tentmaker families seem more interested in the commercial aspect of the business and less interested in plying needle and thread. Given the economic problems in Egypt and changing social conditions, the Tentmakers may be next on the list of endangered species. 

I would be surprised if this brief tour hasn't given readers an overload of color and design.  Ahhh, but I'm saving the best for last!
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NB: 1) All photos were taken with permission of the Tentmakers.
       2) August 22-25 the AQS is sponsoring an exhibition of 95 Tentmakers quilts in Grand Rapids, Michigan. See their site for more information.