MOTHER GODDESS
-Zerri, 83, surrounded by family who revere her, as well they might: she’s borne 20 children; she is a living, breathing mother goddess like the ancient one from Çatal Höyük. – Mother Goddess – Ana Tanraça – Beyoğlu Göz Hastanesi, 26 September 2019——In the overcrowded waiting room. Twenty kids and I swear they were all there with her, and the grandkids too. Everybody was bored so I was popular with the sketchbook. The family was delighted, and I sent Madam Zerri’s brash and beautiful granddaughters this final version on Instagram, after the wonderful Beyoglu Eye Clinic fixed my double vision.
For me, she smiled.
MURY’S RULES
-Cihangir street art of giant cat with real one – Trying to jump-start my fallow drawing, sometime in 2017.
FORGOTTEN DRAWING
-No recollection of drawing this except that
“Hatiri” liked it.
AT THE FRENCH ORPHANAGE
–Keeping my hand in at the French Orphanage – in the frigid sunshine on an icy day in February 2020——This bullet-pocked old structure with its huge rooms and high ceilings exudes 19th Century elegance. Now there’s a cafe, and we hope it will open again soon.
THE THOUSAND YEAR DOOR
Sultanahmet: A torn-down building revealed an entire 5thCentury Byzantine façade, next to a derelict Ottoman hamam, vintage 1473. Between them is a little old wooden door.
DOOR / ON THE SIDE
Believe me, I drew every brick and stone. It was freezing and we, the whole world, were about to go into lockdown, and anyway you can’t put this sort of drawing off because the subject may vanish at any minute, so I was drawing as fast as I could. I love the way the Byzantine segues up into the apartments above.
DOOR / FULL FRONTAL
February 2020, Sultanahmet, I saw they’d torn down an old building and revealed this splendid Byzantine façade. Next to it are some weedy old domes over a derelict hamam, and between them a door linking the 5thCentury with the 15th. This façade is part of the Theotokos in Chalkoprateia Complex, begun in 425 by the Augusta Pulcheria under Theodosius II. The Ottoman hamam, built in 1473, was used by soldiers- Janissaries! Turkish troops! – until 2000. Plans exist to restore it.
DOOR / ITSELF
A small door that connected the Byzantine structure with the Ottoman hamam. Below the tiny wooden door are the real doors: despite the cement and plaster filler, we can see that there were great big portals to the bottom of the bath house from the bottom of the church structure. What steamy stories they could tell!
Immediately after finishing this third drawing, Istanbul went into full lockdown for the Pandemic. I’ve spent most of the time building this site, drawing from photos and uploading everything.
FULL FRONTAL DOOR PROGRESSION
Many people have asked me how this stuff is drawn. Slowly.
For the three drawings above, I was on site for about two weeks.
THE TIMES WE HAD
Kubla Khan – Roger Rabbit – Rainy Day Jazz – Cygnus – Vulture – Gobeklitepe – Steadman – Egon Schiele – Van Gogh and His Art – I, Leonardo – O the times we had!!——Huang and his adorable daughter Tina, and some of the fabulous things we talked about, with Ygor and Pinkie. Tina came to take art lessons on Saturdays for a couple of years, and Huang accompanied her. They discovered jazz and cats, and I discovered friends. Now we are family.
END