Calligraphy Update

On this blog, I talk a lot about my travels and adventures, but I bet you are wondering about how my Fulbright project, all things Islamic calligraphy, has been going. I am happy to say that it has come a long way. I have been meeting lots of people in the field; and I have been continuing my lessons with Savas Hocam. The lessons are going really well, except of course for the times when I am mixing my ink and things go horribly, horribly wrong (left). Before I washed my face, I had to take a picture, since it looks like some piece of modern art, or a Rorschachs test. Don't worry, the ink I use isn't poisonous...I think!

I have been trying to meet as many different calligraphers as I can. Many of them tend to reside and work on the Asian side of the Bosphorous. Last month, I met a calligrapher  named Arda Cakmak (right). He was a friend of a friend. I wanted to meet him because I heard he was a very young hattat who was also skilled in illumination. He turned out to be a very intelligent, and nice man, with a very impressive library. We had a good laugh over a language misunderstanding. Arda Hoca was showing me a book of miniature paintings from Iran. He pointed to a beautiful painting, saying in Turkish, "this is from Hungary." I was pretty skeptical, as Eastern Europe is not exactly known for their fine tradition of Islamic miniature painting, but I figured I misunderstood him and I nodded enthusiastically, "OH! Is that so?" I then asked him of many miniature painters come out of Eastern Europe. He looked confused and said no, then thought for a minute. "Wait, where is Hungary? Isn't it in Asia?" Then he realized he had accidentally been saying Hungary when he meant to say India, which, to be fair, are very similar words in Turkish. When we figured out the mix-up we had a good laugh and made a few jokes, saying that we should make a trip to Hungary to see all of their exquisite examples of illustrated Shahnames.

As for the academic side of things, I was given the opportunity to participate in a speaking program organized by the State Department. This program, run in Turkey by the US embassy in Ankara, works with several universities in Turkey to bring American speakers to give lectures on a variety of topics. The Fulbrighters are already living in Turkey, so it only made sense for the embassy to extend this opportunity to us as well. I gave two lectures, the first at Ataturk University in Erzurum, out in the north east. The second lecture was at Erciyes University in Kayseri. I felt pretty special, having my own lecture series. I made sure to save a couple copies of the promotional posters! (left) The first talk was well-attended, but I was frustrated with how they provided Turkish translation. We did what is usually referred to as simultaneous translation, whereby the speaker says a few sentences of the talk, stops, and waits while the translator interprets whatever the lecturer said to the audience. I understand that with limited funding this is really the best way to handle a language gap, but I really disliked the stop-and-start feel to the lecture; the translation broke up the flow and I think made it pretty painful to watch. This method also doubles the length of one's lecture, and because I was not informed until 30 minutes before the beginning of my talk that this would be the case, I had to quickly cut entire sections from the talk so that it could still clock in at about an hour, which is the maximum amount of time I believe anyone should be forced to sit into a chair and listen to someone else talk. In between my lectures, I pondered over the best way to solve this problem. I resolved that there was really only one solution-I would have to deliver the lecture in Turkish. The thought was daunting at first; but I took courage in the fact that one of my best language skills is reading aloud from a cold text without making too many pronunciation errors. So, in theory, if I could just get a good translation of the text, I should be fine. At first, the embassy was reluctant to let me do this, pointing out that many of the university students will be attending the lecture to listen to a native-speaker of English. My contact at Erciyes University, however, rallied to my cause and sent to me the translation of my lecture, which she would have done anyway in preparation for the Turkish translation during my lecture. It was a bit of a close call; I only received the final version the morning of the talk, but it worked out. 

I apparently had not exactly communicated what I had in mind to the university contact, because when I showed up to the lecture hall with the Turkish translation marked up in pencil with my additional edits, she looked a little confused. "Oh, do you intend to do the entire talk in Turkish? Because I thought you would just do two or three pages and then switch to English." That was not what I intended at all but I just promised her that I would go until I was tired, and asked her to look over my corrections, just in case. I began my talk, eyes glued to my paper, not daring to look up to see the reactions in people's faces. I actually had hit a good stride until about four pages into the talk, when a female student way in the back raised her hand to interrupt me. I asked her if she had a question. She told me that she was from the English language department, and that I was welcome to the university, but she just wanted to ask if I could switch to English, because she and her friends came hoping to hear a lecture in English. My heart sank; I was really scared that she was going to ask me to switch to English because she could not understand me speaking in Turkish, but this was exactly what the people at the embassy had warned me about. But I took heart in the fact that, save for the small delegation from the English department in the very back of the salon, every other student and teacher did not speak English, and obviously enjoyed and appreciated what I was attempting to do. I think there is always an element of people liking to watch foreigners speak in a tongue they don't normally learn, a dog-and-pony-show effect if you will. But I also saw that the rest of the audience understood my lecturing in Turkish as an act of good will, which is how I honestly hoped it would be interpreted. I wanted to keep going in Turkish, but I deferred to my colleague at the university, who was hosting the talk and therefore was in charge. To my delight, she supported me, and explained to the female student in the back that I was a guest and that I specifically had stipulated that I wanted to do as much of the lecture as possible in Turkish, and that I would switch to English for the Question and Answer period. After that, there was really nothing the girl to do, so she just folded her arms and settled back into her chair. I kept on going. As I said, I never looked up to see the audience's reactions, but I could hear their murmurs of delighted surprise when I hit a stride of competent Turkish and their soft words of encouragement as I struggled through the hard words (some words in Turkish, because of grammatical endings, can easily be ten letters long). One may not realize it, but reading aloud approximately 15 pages of text in a language of which you are barely at the intermediate level in front of a live audience is incredibly exhausting. At around page 14, I got very tired and was ready to give up. But, I figured, hell, it is only 2 more pages, so I just pushed through the last part. I suppose it was all those years of disciplined crew training helping me out. When I was finished, I felt the satisfaction of a job well done wash over me. As I settled back to answer questions from the audience, I became aware of the adrenalin that had been pumping through my body. I was very proud of myself, and it was definitely one of my most memorable experiences here in Turkey.

My lessons with Savas Hocam have easily been the most rewarding part of my whole year. I genuinely look forward to visiting his studio every week, where we eat, drink tea, chat, sometimes play with toy helicopters, and then finally get around to looking at the lesson I have prepared for the week, which usually only takes about 20 minutes. Savas says that my lessons are progressing very well and that he is pleased with what I have learned this year. When we first began, I made it clear that I was only going through this process as a researcher, to get a more practical understanding of my topic, but that in the end it was never my intention to train and become a master calligrapher. I don't think Savas ever really believed any of that right from the beginning, but he was kind enough to not contradict me. Over the year, I can say that I have started to enjoy writing calligraphy for its own sake, and not as a means to enhance my research. I finally got up the courage to ask Savas if I could continue my lessons after I leave Turkey and move back to the US. He said yes, and we plan to keep up the apprenticeship via technology. Thankfully, unlike many other hattat, Savas is pretty good with a computer. We have arranged that I will do my lesson, scan it, e-mail the image to Savas in Turkey, where he will print it out, correct it in a different ink, scan the final result, and e-mail it back to me with his comments. In preparation to go, I will have to learn how to cut my own pens and make my own ink, since I will be on my own in the US. It is Savas's prediction that my training in the rik'a script will probably continue for another 5 or 6 months, and then I will be able to move on to a more artistic script of my choice. I will also probably need to return to Istanbul for some face-to-face work during Christmas or Spring Break. As I am now in the last few weeks before I go home to the US, I am comforted by the idea that I will hopefully see Istanbul again, sooner that I had imagined.