JOURNEY OF AWARNESS WITH MARA AND HER PASSION FOR CLAY

I first encountered with clay when I was still a young baby. My late mother had often mentioned how I loved kneading clay and creating forms from it in our garden in Yesilkoy.

My childhood was spent with playing with soil, swimming in the sea…. with animals… playing games in the nature, in the garden or outside.

There were not many cars then; we used to travel on horse-drawn carriages in the neighborhood. We walked to school… my friend and I used to wear one glove on each of our hands and hold our other hands tightly hoping we would warm one-another.

My second encounter with clay was when I went abroad… It appeared before me with all of its mystery. I kneaded it with all of my emotions… with everything I had gathered up within me.
Then the actual ceramic work came upon me. In a country to where I went all alone, whose language I did not speak and more to a family totally foreign to me…

I am sure that it (kneading the clay) had been the ointment to my individuality.

Days went by and I came back to Turkey when I was eighteen and graduated from Marmara University. At the age of twenty-one, I married the person I had met when I was sixteen and thought: “should I get married one day in the future, it will be HIM” In the same year (1986), with a friend of mine we started manufacturing belts and became designers for many companies.

My children joined my life when I was 25, 27 and 33 respectively. During those times, I was also attending ceramic molding classes.

Gradually, I encountered with the terms “glaze” and “glazing” …
Just like the feeling I had felt when I first started kneading, glazing technique entered in my life with its divine mystery and its endless sensation…

Between 1994-2000 with a friend of mine, we started a brand called Scorpia Aks. We started designing accessories for many re-owned companies. Initially, our manufacturing material was mainly ceramics, however, in due course we continued using other materials in our products.

At the end of six years, I noticed how far I had drifted apart from clay. It was as if I were drifted apart from my own self

My thirties are the years I had started my spiritual journey and my questioning. I realized I was not happy at my job and that I had missed molding ceramics very much. Once again, I started taking classes.

In December 2000. I attended Mevlana’s Seb-I Aruz ceremonies.
I decided I was going back to molding clay and was going to start training young learners in my workshop.

This journey started with one or two students, however, continued for many year years came thereafter. We had quite a number of exhibitions at the most prominent museums of Istanbul.

After that, I made a wish and opened myself a new workshop.

The intention of the workshop was for me to work in; however, I had the joy of encountering hundreds of people of various ages and characteristics with clay… With mysterious, healing enchantment of the clay…

The saying goes: “one learns while teaching”. As much as I could, I explained them what a passionate engagement it is to knead, mold and form clay and how with this passion you in fact knead yourself/your soul as you work with it. We observed the healing and transforming power of clay altogether.

Not just days but many months were spent at the hospital corridors due to my late mother’s illness… Sadly, I lost her…. This time, the clay had taken over me and it healed me… The work that started to be a tiny tree, in the end, turned into a huge one and took its place on one of the walls of Ortakoy Synagogue in homage of my late mother.

Then, I started mural-ceramic work. Many of my mural ceramic works are being displayed on the walls of hospitals, factories and homes… and who knows? maybe they have been the hope and the prospect for them…

2016 was the year in which I could not go to my work shop due to my illness. It was the period of “pause and come to terms with myself” … I felt myself as if I were in a tunnel with a light at the end… a period in which, each time I became aware of some matters I took a step forward and with every step I took forward, I got closer to the light… During this time, my family, my friends and my clay surrounded me. I moved my workshop to a place near my home and continued producing.

Ion February 2020, I started a new collection in a new workshop. We had yet no idea how the pandemic would impact all of us.

In March, we received the news of my daughter’s pregnancy and the very next day we locked ourselves down. The uncertain times of fear, hardship and even joy at times had started.

Each of the 35 lamps are as if they were symbolizing every single threshold on the journey towards the light.
A lamp symbolizes every single moment we clamped as a family the reminiscences we gathered…
Each lamp is unique in its own natural self, designed and created with very special techniques…
Just as they are….

THEY ARE GLOBES/SPHERES
THEY ARE OUR INNER WORLDS
THEY ARE SOUNDLESS WORDS
THEY ARE SEEDS
THEY ARE HOPE
THEY ARE THOSE BLOSSOMING/EVOLVING FROM EARTH TO LIGHT, THEY ARE MIGRANTS… THEY ARE PASSENGERS

They were raw, they became cooked, they were burnt… they met with the light
They are the moments MA and RA have met.
At HAZ
With HAZ

with all my love,
MaRa

Up