Return to Turkey

This journal is a fictional story in words and ephemera 

of a young woman from London who returns to the 

birthplace of her ancestors for the first time.

 She is a tourist and yet, not a tourist. She sees the 

mannerisms and characteristics of her 

great grandfather, her aunt Sashsu 

and others, in the faces she meets on the streets.

 She visits the bazaar and finds a flair for haggling 

that she knows is in-born.

 The mosques, the tile work, the architecture

 speak to a place in her heart that

 has waited all these years to be fulfilled.

 This piece has been waiting for about two years,

 and finally came together last week when I

 had the time off to work on it.

I wrote out the journal entries and then translated them 

in Google Translator to Turkish.  I used a nib pen and sumi ink to

 then transcribe them on several of the journal pages.

The bought journal with its picture frame dividers 

and palm tree theme provided an excellent substrata.

I had amassed a goodly amount of ephemera and

 collage materials, including stamps, 

old coins and tickets that

 my friend Franny had collected for me 

on her trip to Istanbul in the fall of 2011.

As with so many of my pieces, there were months of

 sitting and marinating and then it all came 

together and was created in just a few days.