Ebru

(This is taken from my personal travel blog: http://yolcu-yasam.tumblr.com/)

For those of you who adamantly argue that art is the worst form of a stress reliever and actually serves to further exacerbate your frustrations, I am more than willing to go to war with you on the grounds of what I experienced only but few hours ago. I have seen marbling patterns in small notebook stores, art stores, and boutiques flowing across the face of a silk scarf or paper notebook with patterns that seem as fluid, yet complex as the intonations and reflected hues that are seen in the churning of the sea.

Beytul, our dear marbling instructor, attempted to demystify the secrets behind the creation of a marbling piece. She led us into a small room on the second story of their apartment turned studio where an open window blew the white curtains lightly into a gentle frenzy, almost as if motioning us to enter further into the safety of picturesque room. Two glass tables were arranged so that they were perpendicular to the wall adjacent with the window. Each table was covered by newspapers that bore not only headlines inscribed in a language so foreign to us that the the letters appeared to dance across the pages like figures and pictures more than words meant to convey the tragedies, finances, and horoscopes of the day, but also smatterings and smears of brilliant gold, aubergine, cornflower blue, and blood orange. The origins of the stains of color were seen on the far side of the table in small jars full of the same pigments, each containing a different color and rose-stem-handled horsehair paint brush. Although each step of the process of marbling was translated into English for us to understand, as soon as Beytul lifted her brush from the jar of rosebud pink, a sort of reverence fell over all of us present and focused solely on the magic occurring before our very eyes.

Drops of the rosebud pigment were smattered across the pan of water in a tiny rainstorm of pink tears. Next, the cornflower blue--another brief raining down of paint dripped gently into the canvas of water. A final layer of aubergine is scattered amidst the droplets of pinks and blues, never mixing like water and oil. Time for a new instrument to continue the magic. Beytul selects a small handled metal instrument that she proceeds to drag through the water, each stroke with such gentle but strong purpose. First down the length of the pan, then back and forth laterally in a fluid motion that creates small waves that swell in a curvilinear pattern that perpetuates in this motion even after she has ceased her tender strokes. After cleaning off the same small metal tip, she dips it into a new pigment of green. With it she touches the surface of the water ever so slightly as if it were made of the most fragile of glass. A circle of green quickly widens followed by a slow contraction as if live has just been breathed into it. A swift sweeping up, across twice, and then cutting down through the drop of green settles and we all inch forward, craning our necks to see what was created. A stem with three leaves floats delicately on the surface of the water. As we still stare in awe at how she is able to works so deftly with such a strange medium, she continues on to created a flower of three pigments and six petals that swirls clockwise like a pinwheel being blown in the wind. More finishing touches--a touch of color here, a swirl to the left, more lines being pulled from every which direction. Once she proclaimed her piece finished, we were still so stunned as to what had happened before our very eyes that we did not snap out of the trance until she laid a crisp sheet of off-white paper into the pan of water and dragged it out against the edge of the pan. Once the paper was removed, all traces of the menagerie of color were gone. Its presence had been so beautiful, yet fleeting, that we almost felt robbed of the moment. But we heard Baytul calling to us saying to "bakmak." Turning towards her we finally came to the realization of what had just occurred. Hanging by the corners in Beytul's hands was the ethereal pattern that had only moments before been floating on the surface of the water. It was, for lack of a better word, breathtaking.

The beauty of ebru is that no matter what colors you put on the water palette, no matter which direction or how many ways you stroke the pigments, there is no such thing as a mistake. You can throw the paint across the water or gently drip it back and forth like rain drops on a placid lake. No matter how many colors, how many layers, how many patterns you choose to put down on the water, the result is always an amalgamation of everything that you are feeling and thinking. There is no such thing as a mistake in ebru. And this is the beauty of it all.