The Art of Glass and Ceramic Tile Painting

Learn about Turkish glass and ceramic tile painting at the Anatolian Cultural Festival in LA, with YaKenda McGahee.

Yekenda: Hamdin Turgay is fascinated with shameron the half woman, half snake symbol of health and well being that still popular in the mardin region of Turkey. After he retired Hamdin opened his own work shop and started painting this beautiful symbol on glass and other mediums. Hamdin: After I retired I opened my own workshop and started doing glass painting. This is the Ottoman glass painting and has been done for nearly 200 to 250 years. Usually the symbol of shameron is popularly done is glass painting, other stuffs like sitti’s and some other shapes can be done too. I really like to paint shameron, shameron belongs to our region most specifically the Mesopotamian region. The legend behind shameron is that one day a man accidentally fell into a well very soon he gave up all hope, but lo and behold, he saw a big hole that opened up to the whole new world. He went inside and beheld a half lady, half snake creature the shameron. Shameron gave food to eat and healed his wounds and then she let him out but made him promise that he would keep her existence a secret. Later on this man learned that an emperor of a near by land was seriously ill and who ever made him better would be awarded a lot of money and also be offered one of the emperors daughter in marriage. The royal doctors informed the emperor that the meat of the shameron would cure him completely. Upon hearing this, this guy betrays the shameron by telling them where she lived and then of course shameron is killed and then the emperor gets well. This is why even today shameron is the symbol of health and well being of several regions in Turkey. Yekenda: Hamdin treats us too a little demonstration. Although the art of ceramic tile painting on shinei was practiced much before the Ottoman Regime, It was during the reign of these great sultans that it was given new life. Shinei tiles adorn the walls of several world mass and palaces and today because of artist like Nurgul Erdogan Uslu this art form still flourishes in Turkey. Nurgul: My specialization is in the art of ceramics or shinei. I make my products from soil and after that I decorate them. Finally I glazed them and put them and put them in the oven and then display them like this. I’ve been doing this art for 12 years. The art of ceramics first started in the Celtic Empire in Konia later on during the Ottoman Empire it continued in Isnic, Bursa and Kataya. Ceramics are popular in different parts of Turkey today. I am constantly inspired by nature, Nevlanah Rumic and the whirling dervishes. Yekenda: Nurgul gives us a preview of her admirable talents. Nurgul: These ceramics right here are made from soil and we take this and decorate them. First we draw our design with the pencil after that we go over them with special paints that are made out of soil especially for ceramics. So this is how we go over the pencil marks with paint. We fill the black spaces in by coloring them like so.