Classes

Some of our posts here have mentioned "classes," but I don't think any of us have been very clear about what we meant by that. In January when I was here in Istanbul planning for this summer's trip I met several artists who have made a career out of teaching Turkish arts and culture to visitors. I coordinated with them to set up a group of workshops for the time we would be here in the summer. After we'd been here for a few weeks and we'd all taken the first class, several of the members of our group had ideas about other types of things they would like to do or learn, and we have been able to coordinate some of these to create a few new classes as well. Each person in the group has had the opportunity to take three additional classes of their choice. I'd like to share some of what we've done here, to give all of you a better idea of some of our experiences.



One of our classes here is ceramic tile painting. Ceramic tiles are a key feature of Turkish architecture, and ceramic plates and bowls are popular household items. Betul and Ali arranged for us to learn how to transfer classic designs to bisque plates and tiles, and paint them. The finished projects have been sent off to Kutahya, a city that is one of the classic centers of tile making, to be fired, and will return to Istanbul later this week.







We also had a unique opportunity to take a music class with Serkan Çağrı, the most famous clarinetist in Turkey. He was phenomenal! Turkish music makes a lot of use of microtones and has a full notation system for them that music students learn early in their training. Serkan demonstrated various styles of music, and one of his students gave us a chance to try out playing the saz (similar to a guitar - see Justin's post). We were extremely impressed and grateful for the opportunity to work with him, even briefly. He gave us a copy of his newest CD, and permission to make copies for all of the group. I'm going to buy his earlier CDs as well.



More later - I'm off to cooking class now.