From 08 to 22 September 2014 in Ayia Irini –
Getting in touch with the ghosts of the past
By Heidi Trautmann
The 7th Day – it has a sort of bibilical
touch – the 7th day of creation – I had to go to Akdeniz again and
see what the artists have been creating in these seven days. It was the second Sunday
again and the working atmosphere under the pine trees was good, creative,
concentrated – you could feel it. Most of the ceramic artists hardly looked up
from their work. But since I know many of them I had the chance to ask the one
or the other how they got along and if they had felt any connection to the
ghosts of the past. I mean, when you study their history, the hieroglyphs you
find engraved in the clay, the facial traits you develop after the photos that
you have chosen to create replicas from, you must have thoughts of this kind.
Most of the artists I spoke to confirmed it. Valentin from Latvia added…. “Eyes
closed, what does it mean, the smile so present on most of the faces…., the
mark on the front ….but also the gestures of arms and hands; it is a language
by itself.” Valentin Petjko has a ceramic centre Daugavpils near the house the
artist Mark Rothko comes from…I have watched him build up his high sculpture,
he does it with high accurateness…..or Maruta Raude also from Latvia with the
huge portrait of an Akdeniz ancient soldier or watchman in the royal tombs, a
skin you want to touch, so soft. I had met Maruta before in 2007 when she was
working in porcelain during another of Ayhatun Ateşın’s art workshops in
Nicosia.
From here I go over to Hikmet Uluçam’s working
station where he uncovers for me the head of the big sculpture he has done over
the week. What a beauty. After a long stretch of years he has touched clay
again. Hikmet is a graphic designer and photographer but he used to have a
ceramic studio once and did the most delicate work. I find him polishing the
‘skin’ of his figurine with a green stone – many ceramic artists use their
own polishing stone to work on the leather hard clay surface to get it as soft
as a baby’s skin.
Next to him is Semral Öztan, she is the President
of the ceramists association in the TRNC and she introduces me to Işil Tasçı,
the owner of Işil Reklam who only recently showed her beautiful hand painted
wooden chests on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of her
company. She joined the symposium later. She asked me if I like the person she
was working on with so much love.
I made the tour around the ‘camp’ and admired the
works by Bedia Kale, she has done three figurines now and she obviously enjoys
it all tremendously; at her feet was
Nergül Gezer sitting on the ground doing her scarabs, she had done now about
thirty pieces and she said she was wondering what all the signs meant, the
hieroglyphs. There is Şenol Özdevrim and
his huge statue which so much looks like him, he is an artist and art teacher
at the GAU College. I spoke to so many others, but only shortly to not disturb
them in their concentration.
They all said that it was a great event, also
because they were working for one goal and for one only project which created a
fine comradeship and they could discuss any problems on the same level.
Half of the time is over; they have started to fire
some of the work already, those pieces that were dry; the big sculptures will
take a month to completely dry and it is still a question how they are going to
fire them. Build another bigger kiln? There is one at the end of the village in
front of the church. Rauf Ersenal was showing it to me and explaining the
theory of reduced flame firing, sort of; there are small dimensioned ‘chimneys’
installed on top of the kiln that means that the flame cannot develop fully and
it rather hot smoke that envelops the earthen ware; the piece that Rauf took
out of the kiln was pitch black and when it is cool the carbon dust will be
washed off and the brown texture will appear. That is the old way of firing,
Rauf explains.
I have to leave the around 40 artists to their jobs
– there are also children working with clay and creating small figurines
themselves, and many people from the village come over to learn about their
village’s past. Also, since it is a Sunday, there were many visitors from
Universities, other artists, writers and medical doctors who during the week
have their jobs to do. I personally congratulate the team to their work done
and to the initiators who have had this great idea which will have a
continuation next year.
There will be a presentation on September 20 by
Nezih Basgelen (Historical Researcher) at 20:00 hrs after the inauguration of the exhibition, both on site and or near the
village church. The visitors will be led by signs.
The links below are my reports so far with more
pictures.
http://www.heiditrautmann.com/category.aspx?CID=2414584278#.VBfslJSSzg8
http://www.heiditrautmann.com/category.aspx?CID=7162447553#.VBfuCJSSzg8