A special post needs to be written about the collection of lime stones at the banks of the Euphrates. During all the days in Gaziantep and in Nusret’s atelier we were discussing the material for the background of the mosaic. It should be of a beige or cream color. I wanted to use the marble that we are also using for our kitchen floor in the  Ayvalik house in order to have continuity in color and material. But Nusret really dislikes the structure of the marble and keeps telling me that there is a beautiful lime stone at the bank of the Euphrates river that would be excellent material for the background. I can not decide for a long time. Partly I feel Nusret is right, the marble crumbles quite a lot. But I have it in the Atelier, waiting to be cut – so easy. On the other hand it is also very attractive to go out and find stone – and even more to find it at the place where maybe the stone …

This week is all glueing stones onto the canvas and let the fishes and other sea creatures come alive! We also drink arab style coffee and eat freshly made lachmanchun for which the filling is made by Nadide, Nusret’s wife and which is then being baked in the neighborhood bakery. Lachmanchun is a very thin dough topped with a thin layer of minced lamb that is mixed with spices and herbs. This with fresh ayran, the salty drinking yoghurt is the best lunch you can have in extremely hot Gaziantep summers. This week I have moved from the hotel to Ayse Gultekin’s home. Ayse lives in Gaziantep and offers me the room of her son who is on holiday with his father. Her spacious flat really reminds me of eastern Germany with the tram rattling by on the street outside and its parquet floor and double french doors. In the past years the Ministry of Culture of Turkey has opened 12 regional conservation laboratories to take care of conservation of state owned cultural goods in …

In the last week I have learned a lot about suitable material for a floor mosaic. For example: not every marble is suitable for a floor mosaic, which people will walk on. Some marble is so porous that it crumbles when cut into small pieces. That definitely can not be used for floor mosaic tesserae. Lime stone is much more dense and when broken down into small pieces cuts well without crumbling. But it needs a strong arm to be cut initially. So the hydraulic machine comes in handy to cut the material into  of 4-5cm long and 1cm high stripes from which it is easy to cut with hammer and hardy into tesserae. Nusret is mostly very unhappy with the marble I brought. But I cling on to using it after all this effort of finding and bringing it to Gaziantep! In the end we decide to take more of the lime stones that Nusret Usta has in his workshop. He collects them all the time and they are lying around in every corner. …