The artist prefers to implement her works by a pure glass material, and
unconcerned for colors to reach the most pure side which accompanied to
humanity and uses a glass type called "Pyrex" which is a glass thermal
purified differs from the normal pure glass, especially if you want to add some touches, bubbles and many things, because the normal pure glass needs a low thermal temperature to form it, and it suits the designed works or by pouring in stoves.
Glass Tube:
The glass tube is one of the tools that the artist uses to form the artistic works on a covered table with thermal fabric and fastened by blowtorch connected with three hoses; the first is oxygen and the second is gas, and for the third is air compressor. The artist stands behind it and holding the glass tube and expose for temperature from its edges and wearing thermal glove hands, and starts with her hands to form through blowing in the tube which on a the thermal degree to form the artistic work which she want to sculpturing through controlling her breathes from slow to fast, and sometimes uses a tiny tool - looks like Forceps - and called "el geft" to pick some parts of the artistic work.
Artistic workshops:
Houreya has learned dealing with the wooden tools, through checking many artistic workshops and sees how the workers use to form the glass, which is one of the difficult material to form and needs a very high temperature and loves as understands too the nature of the material. The artist should be more sensitivity which needs knowing the timing that takes to form to high his/her breathes or low it, and the blowing experience of glass is one of the popular handmade industries which die out from a long time ago, and it was happening on spontaneous way. Houreya takes two years to learn how to blow, and she can deal with it, as well as, the artist uses a scientific method to expresses her works.
Thermal blocks:
There's a kind of the artistic work implemented by pouring and it needs to thermal blocks of iron or cast iron, and that block formed by some parts to collect many copies. Houreya says; "I prefer to use block of copper with Pyrex glass as well as blocks of iron or cast iron for the normal glass, and of course there's a difference between both of them, because when you put the iron block which included the normal glass in the stove, you cannot open the stove till it be cold, which takes many hours, but for the Pyrex glass block it stands to open the stove gradually in which its still hot.
The glass pyramid:
For Houreya's method of work and philosophy, she says; "my works specialized by purity and the idea of a philosophical idea about sense and feeling the idea of soul, I really cares about it so much, in which we cannot feel or see it, and my technique is blowing through Pyrex glass, and this method as well as that philosophy showed by when I designed the departed glass Pyramid that I got Saloon El Shabab prize for it, and it's an artistic work express the appearance of the soul and its returns back to God through a pure flying bodies inside the glass pyramid. And I am supposed to be the only one in Egypt who deals with glass sculpturing through blowing and I cannot feel that it's a hard process for me but it is very accurate and depends on feeling and express factors in the first place, and the artistic and human message that I show through my works it express on the beauty, transparency and purity of the form.
Critic: Sanaa' Rostom
Magazine: Akher Saa'a
Date: May 20, 2009
Forming the soul with glass:
The first time I saw her at Cairo Atelier for artists and writer in 2004, and she was standing quietly and looks and sees the conversations surrounded her with passion, and for hours listens carefully till someone leads her to a conversation to solve such a mysterious girl that she is, and when she speaks everyone surprises with her knowledge about Humanities, and with a quite voice she talks about art, soul, body and purity. Yes, it was my first meeting point to meet her, when I explored myself what she has got inside.
Horeya EL Sayed Mostafa graduated from the Educational Art Faculty in 1999, and she was very well when she was talking about her Masters which titled on "the beauty ethics for composing the synthesis n the modern arts and after modernity" and since she finished her study she works on painting, and then changed her interest to the mass, and it doesn't mean sculpturing but she aims to be far from the darken colors and trying to find what is pure, the she choose the glass to be her way of express, because of its transparency and purity which assures the existence of the soul which moves the body, and the body is a thing but for the soul it's really close to metaphysics but it exists, and if the soul disappeared leaves the body empty as we sees inside the glass material, and to the importance of soul and body subject she choose "The Egyptian people immortality philosophy through his different civilizations till our present moment" and it was the subject of her MFA.
In the past few weeks we met another time by chance and I remembered the conversation that time, and on my way I tried again to discover inside her to know what has reached through the past two years, so I asked her about her recent works, and she presented a bunch of some artistic sculptures, and she was carrying to show it in a gallery and implemented by glass, and that makes me more curious for her passion to achieve her dream which she talked about before, and assured that behind the silence wall that she shows seeking for what she really needs, and then she talked about the techniques of glass as a material and actually I was thinking they implemented through pouring, and I really surprised when she told me about her visits to the workshops among the craftsmen and workers to get more experience about blowing and as all knew that it is one of the handmade popular industries which disappeared along time ago, which crocodiles and gazelles and some animals when we were seeing their sellers buying it on the pavements when we were kids. I congratulated her for her patience to get all this kind of experience for two years to know such a technique. And she gets me more curious when I knew that all these artistic works implemented in a small room at her home.
Between two tubes of oxygen and gas, besides air compressors that how Houreya lives seeking for and trying to make her own exhibition (the glass formation). Frankly; names are not very important because the form beauty and its purity is what really describe Houreya's works.
And what I saw from works; make me insists to visit her and sees this workshop that I was imagining, but it was full of equipments and tools and finally I find the secret of this art when I met her there, that there was just a covered table with thermal fabric and by blowtorch connected with three hoses; the first one is Oxygen and the second is gas, and for the third is air compressor and she stands behind it and front of it blowtorch which implement the artistic piece from A to Z wearing thermal glove hands to form it with her hands directly without using the tiny tools like "El Geftat", while I am seeing all of that, her was my conversation with her and she replied; "I went through the artistic workshops and seeing how the workers do it, and that to learn how to form the glass, and it supposed to be one of the most difficult materials to form, and needs a very high temperature as well as understanding to the nature of the material and feeling and loving it", "The Artist should be more sensitivity when it demands to know more about the timing that he needs to form and the increasing of and decreasing of breathes, and my art not came on that way because I studied the it, but I add many details and anatomy sometimes through blowing" Houreya added.
"I prefer to implement my works on transparent glass, do not care about colors trying to reach to the purity which accompanied with humanity, but I colored once as an example by giving the piece a color after finishing it by spraying then I put it in a stove to be in a suitable temperature not to get burnt, and for using the colored glass as one dough and the idea was not an issue for now, but it not that difference about what am I really doing, just using colored tube glasses with changing from color to another as I want the finish is." Houreya said...... more
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