My Next International Exhibition

I met with Professor Soheir Osman today at the Faculty of Applied Arts, Helwan University in Dokki. She is such a wonderful woman and so generous with her time in the midst of all the work she has to do as Dean, teaching, curating an International Exhibition and her upcoming daughter's wedding. She had compiled a CD with 40-50 Egyptian women artists and their work; had an exhibition catalogue for me of women artists from Helwan University, and several other articles of information and images. I am so touched by her generosity. Dr. Taha Hussein had called her without notice when at our meeting a couple of weeks ago, I had mentioned that I was interested in interviewing and documenting women artists in Egypt. Dr. Hussein felt that my overly ambitious plan of visiting those 35+ workshops all over Egypt was a bit much for me to accomplish in 4 1/2 months. He's right - what with a whole month of Ramadan when I first arrived - and the brutally hot and humid weather - plus this new holiday tha coincides with our Thanksgiving - difficult to say the least.

However, I have an appointment with her tomorrow to drop off a CD with my c.v., photo portrait of myself and a photo of one of my paintings, I chose the Bedouin Girl who wasn't exhibited at the Al Bab Gallery at the Cairo Opera House complex. However, I am now working on a larger canvas which I sketched out in charcoal for a painting. I can exhibit two paintings so #1 is a group of three Bedouin children, two girls and a boy and the other one will be of Coptic Egyptian children but I haven't yet decided on which composition to do. I have until December 15th to bring the paintings in.

Tomorrow at 10 am I drop off the CD for the publisher - I am just under the wire for the catalogue. Did I mention that Dr. Osman asked if I were interested in exhibiting for their December 27th International Exhibition. She showed me who was exhibiting and the countries represented: Palestine, Oman, Canada, England, Australia, Holland, etc. and I (MOI) am the American participant. Wow! Dominique says that my stars are apparently lined up in the correct position for me. I will go to Soheir's studio on Sunday right after our Desert trip and take Dominique with me if she can go. We are supposed to get to Agouza at 6 pm and I thought we were getting back earlier as my appointment is 6 pm at her house/studio right on the Corniche de Nil. So I will have to tell her about the later time.

Tomorrow at noon, I will meet with Shayma to conduct interviews with the women who work on crafts at the All Saints Episcopal Church. Susie - an Egyptian woman who is a survivor of bad burns on her face as far as I could see, speaks some English and I will go to see her and the women. Finally, I have gotten more energetic (I am forcing myself and it is paying off) as the time for me in Egypt is winding down. I could do well here, I love how helpful my Egyptian friends are and I know now that I will have to apply for the WCU PASSHE grant for this coming summer. I want to study Arabic in Egypt and then I will be ready to apply for the Fulbright Hays Faculty Research Grant. So this is all for now, just wanted to catch up on today. I still have to fill in the blanks from Saturday's trip.