Giovanna Montalbetti meets sculptor Mustafa Hosni Ahmed, whose work has taken him from metal work to sculptures expressing what he calls the whispering of the stones The drive to 6 October City was most pleasant. It was noon, and, despite being winter, the air was pretty warm. We were meeting Mustafa Hosni Ahmed, who had summoned us to his best friend's house in order to see a display of his works. We had first met Ahmed a few months ago, in Kitkat in Cairo. We were paying our condolences to the Abdel-Aal family, and it turned out that Ahmed's workshop -- what used to be an old cinema -- was located just across the street. On our way back, we couldn't help but notice a gigantic metal hawk in the workshop. Ahmed is a sculptor whose first love was iron. But his latest work is quite different. In one of the corners of the workshop, there is a pile of large pebbles that Ahmed turns into sculptures that have a powerful yet elegant quality. As we arrived in 6 October City, we were welcomed by Ahmed Badawi, a colleague, good friend to Ahmed, and owner of the villa in which we were gathering. He led us to the garden, where Ahmed was waiting with more of his friends, who had also come to have a look at the display and to take pictures. Ahmed is a self-taught artist, but although he never attended art school, he was raised in an iron sculptor's home and his father was a member of the Artists Syndicate in Cairo. However, Ahmed's father always worked for more important artists and was never himself allowed to move into the spotlight. In order not to over-shadow his son, he also never allowed Ahmed to work professionally with him. "If your art work is more than just a hobby -- and is a passion -- it will live no matter what. If you imitate me, it will die," he told the boy. Ahmed always looked up to his father, and though it took him some time to understand his advice, he now understands it completely. Ahmed's friend Badawi has also played an important role in the sculptor's career. Having lived in Austria for several years, and now distributing his time between Austria and Egypt because of his import-export business, Badawi has long had an interest in iron-work. He contacted Ahmed (who also owns an iron forge company) to do some work at his villa, and they soon became good friends. It was Ahmed who first noticed the beauty of pebbles at the villa when they were enjoying a peaceful walk. Ahmed felt inspired and thus started a new and unexplored artistic path. For Ahmed, working with pebbles ( zalat ) is challenging. "You can't do anything to a pebble to change how it looks or its shape," he explains. "It is the pebbles themselves that inspire me the most. I may stay in bed thinking about them for two hours before I can sleep, figuring out how to make the shape and character come out of each. It is not like other artists, who try to impose their vision on the material. For me, on the other hand, it is as if the pebbles were whispering about what they want to become." With three exhibitions already to his credit, and another one taking place later this year in Austria that is already raising expectations, Ahmed acknowledges the support his friends and neighbours have given him. "Ahmed encouraged me very much to find a new art form, and he also encouraged me personally," he says. "My neighbours also love and encourage me. My art is quite noisy, but they don't complain." However, not everyone has always been so receptive to certain forms of art. The conversation turns to a historic fatwa, or religious judgement, that decreed it sinful to make statues, some people still believing this to be so. When asked whether the existence of this fatwa represents a problem, both Ahmed and Badawi answer by saying that "it all depends on what you do with the statues. If you are going to worship them, then it is haram [sinful]. Statues are just like anything else -- knives are haram, for example, if you murder someone with them." "Sheikh Mohamed Abdu -- around 80 years ago -- said it was not haram to make statues , " Ahmed continues. "He said that men had worshipped a lot of things in the past, like the sun and fire, etc., but does this mean that we should stop using fire to cook, or that we should put up a curtain to block out the sun? If you use fire to cook, it is ok, and if you use a statue to decorate a garden, it is ok. Some people tell me that I have to stop this work for religious reasons, but most people encourage me to keep on working." Ahmed is made genuinely happy by his artistic life. The only thing he doesn't enjoy is the occasional bruises he gets from his job. "Remember the big hawk in my workshop?" he asks. "When I was manufacturing that, I had to climb on top of it to be able to join some metal parts. The bird was completely made of metal, and I was working with an electric welder. I suffered from shocks, and I was screaming and working and jumping at the same time. It was like a scene from a comic show, and I ended up by shutting the door so no one could see me working," he remembers with a smile. It took Ahmed some 14 months to complete the gigantic piece. In his work, Ahmed tries to express himself and to celebrate the natural beauty of the world around him. Thanks to his passion and to the support of the people around him, he has managed to find a new style in art through his pebble sculptures. Patiently, he looks at the stones, waiting for them to whisper their secrets to him.
