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Stories from the global community
Come along on the journey!
Day 50: In Search of Beautiful Ceramics in Turkey
Destination:
Niksar, Turkey
Niksar is a city in the Tokat Province of Turkey near the lowlands of the Black Sea Region. It has been conquered and settled by many empires and was once the capital city of the province. On May 2nd, 2018, Niksar was included as a possible new World Heritage site.
In Niksar, the summers are warm, dry, and clear and the winters are cold and partly cloudy. Over the course of the year, the temperature varies from 31°F to 83°F and is rarely below 20°F or above 92°F.
Fun Facts:
The most remarkable feature of traditional Tokat-Niksar houses is the kitchen. Called
Asev
i or Asgana in the local dialect, the kitchen is usually the largest room of the house and serves as a sort of lounge for the family. The typical kitchen has a fireplace on one side used for cooking or washing, and a storeroom on the other in which dried foods, preserves, sauces, cheese and grape leaves are kept. Beside the storeroom is a wooden granary with partitions for storing cereals and legumes. In Turkey, it is common to eat meals around a low table.
Also:
Niksar is known as "Çukurova of the North-Anatolia" due to its production of many kinds of fruits and vegetables.
Art Form: Turkish Ceramic Bowls
Turkish ceramics, called Cini but spelled and pronounced Chini in the west, is a pottery tradition hundreds of years old. The artwork was first made in Iznik, an Anatolian town in western Turkey that has a pottery tradition stretching back to prehistoric times.
Iznik famed ceramics blossomed under the Ottomans who
had a fascination with Chinese Ming dynasty blue and white porcelain ceramics. In the late 15th century, unable to duplicate Chinese ceramic techniques, craftsmen added quartz to their traditional clay used in ceramics. This innovative technique lowered the firing temperature of their wares and produced a bright white base for the four traditional colors found in Iznik pieces - turquoise, cobalt, malachite, and coral. In Istanbul, the Topkapi Palace is lined with famous Iznik tiles.
Today, as in the past, beautiful bowls, jugs, and flower vases are painted with stylized and symmetrical designs of flowers, leaves, and fruits, along with abstract linear motifs.
(Bowls that have been fired once, waiting for painting)
Traditionally designs were drawn on paper, perforated with a needle, and transferred onto bisque ware using charcoal dust. The tiny traces of charcoal were then carefully contoured with a black dye.
The resultant pattern was filled-in with colored oxides, painted with a clear glaze called sır, (which translates to "secret" in Turkish because the recipe was passed down orally) and then fired to finish the artwork.
Today several techniques are used to decorate the ceramics including incising or hand painting directly onto the ceramics. For centuries beautiful Cini plates and bowls have been acquired and admired worldwide.
Watch how these amazing bowls come to life. . .
The Company: Tribal Home
Tribal Home is a family-run business
dedicated to bringing eco-friendly, sustainable, hand-painted Turkish pottery to the American market. Tribal Home products are hand-crafted by skilled artisans from small communities and art-shops around Turkey. They encourage their artisans to retain their traditional practices.
The US office for Tribal Home is in Ridgefield, New Jersey, but the heart and workshop where much of the beautiful handmade ceramics is made, is in Niksar, Turkey.
The studio is owned and operated by Tulay, artist and matriarch of the Tribal Home family. Tulay creates handmade ceramic tableware and home accessories and her work has been exhibited in numerous galleries and museum shops.
She calls her artwork Niksarcini after the town and the artwork made there.
(We love the mosaic wall. Wow!)
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Shopping . . .
Are you ready to explore
what we have in our store?
Click the picture above or the link below to explore
lovely Turkish bowls - from tiny ones just 3" in diameter to a gorgeous 12" bowl
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"Collect" at least 12 different "country" stamps during the third 20 days of our around-the-world trip to
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At the end of our 80-day
Around the World
excursion, all eligible travelers (minimum of 48 country stamps)
will be
entered into a drawing for . . .
a Grand Prize
$100 shopping spree gift card!
Thanks for traveling with us today.
Where to next? Stay tuned!
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One of the wonderful parts of owning World's Window over the years has been the opportunity to meet people from countries all over the world and learn about the artisans, their art and also their personal stories. Tribal Home is another wonderful example. In today's story, we get to "meet" Tulay, the matriarch of the family, and see through a "window" into her world as we watch her guiding the artisans in the video.
Through sharing these stories we hope we are continuing to open "windows" into the world for you. We created World's Window to be a place of learning and understanding. This is what I believe our world is also asking us to do right now in even bigger and more intentional ways - to listen and learn. To show up, yes, but to really listen. The stories are important.
Our Brookside store is closed today and Tuesday. We will be back open Wednesday through Sunday. Our current hours are posted below my signature and we look forward to seeing you!
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And I can't say it enough times -
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P.S.
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As always we are "sharing the world" through clothing, jewelry, folk art, textiles and hand-selected gifts -
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