The Outlier Potters of Avanos, Turkey
In 2011-2012, with the help of The Fulbright Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, Alix Knipe investigated three traditional Turkish ceramics communities in Turkey: Avanos, Iznik, Kütahya. The following article describes a pottery studio in the warehouse district of Avanos, far away from the tourist visited workshops, where traditional utilitarian forms are made.
"There is no art without craft, as there is no art without work." -Henry Glassie
Avanos
Avanos is located in the middle of Turkey in a unique geographical region surrounded by soft stone from volcanic eruptions. One thousand year old caves dot the hills under capped spires and fairy chimneys. The landscape is other worldly.
Avanos' pottery tradition dates back to the Hittites, 2000 years B.C.E. Today, there are two distinctive traditions in Avanos that are defined by their surface treatment. One is elaborately decorated with glazes and terra sigillatas.
Painted Pottery from Avanos
The other is utilitarian ware, unadorned, quickly made, the forms closely tied to the food that they are used for. It is here, in the Warehouse District, on the far outskirts of Avanos, where most of the unglazed utilitarian ware is made.
The Warehouse District, Avanos
Wandering around the warehouses on a cold winter day, I was invited into a family pottery to warm up by their soba (coal fed heater, in this case fed with cow dung) and drink some çay (black Turkish tea).
Mustafa Yusuf has been a potter his whole life. In Avanos' Warehouse District he is one of 7-8 grandfather master potters that still turn pots.
Mustafa Yazıcı Yusuf
Over the days and weeks that followed, I got to know Mustafa, his son
Mustafa Yazıcı
and Feliz, Mustafa's wife
Filiz Yazıcı
and Yenal, a hired apprentice.
Yenal Yorgum- Apprentice
Inside a Pottery Studio
In damp, dimly lit studios, potters work hard, creating pots that are sold to restaurants or traveling merchants that peddle their wares in cities across Turkey.
This family pottery consists of the father, who is partially retired, a son that is the main potter, an uncle that helps process the clay, and a hired apprentice. Feliz does not make pots, but helps with the kiln and general things around the studio.
Potters in Avanos are men, but occasionally you see a women painting the highly decorated pottery. Being a potter is largely dependent on whether or not your father was a potter; 90% of the potters today have fathers that are potters.
The Meaning of ART in Turkey
I hired a translator in town, a pottery painter that I had gotten to know from another studio that produces highly decorated work for tourists. He was baffled as to why I was interested in the potters in the warehouse district. After trying to understand his bewilderment, I ascertained that it is similar to the bias between perceived “high art” and “craft” or “unschooled art”.
What did Mustafa think about this? One afternoon, I asked him. “What is the difference between craft and art?” With the help of my translator we discussed the difference between craft and art. "Craft is a product. Art is…” Mustafa points to his heart. "This studio makes art," he proudly told me, his uncle chiming in with recognition, "because we put in our heart, it is more than just work".
And with this passion of devotion, Mustafa turns pot after pot in the dimly lit studio space.
“Art might be the telling of stories, it might be the plowing of a beautiful field, it might be the building of a fine house, it might be the making of a great dinner. Whatever materials... whatever medium... whatever vehicle...whatever genre, that doesn’t matter. What matters is the passion of devotion. Call it Art, call it folklore, but that’s what it is, a momentary fulfillment of what it is to be human.”
Arriving in Turkey several months before, my suitcase was heavy with two things, ceramic tools and books. One of these books must weigh a whopping seven lbs. and after lugging it across the country several times, I never regretted having it; Turkish Traditional Art Today (today meaning 1978) by Henry Glassie. Henry Glassie has a wonderful way of getting to the heart of a tradition and in Turkish Traditional Art Today he follows objects from the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul to small rural towns in search of the artisans that made them.
Henry Glassie explains that the Turkish word for art is sanat. The Turks separate art from craft not based on medium or function, but rather art contains zevk and craft does not. Zevk loosely means “taste”. Glassie describes how a Turkish rug seller, a retired traveling merchant, explains the difference between the carpets that are art and the ones that are not. "In every carpet [that is art] there is a person’s heart”... “alive with signs of their weaver’s presence”.
Avanos' Changing Pottery Tradition
Over 30 years ago, the air in Avanos hung heavy with thick smoke, settling unpleasantly in the river valley. This smoke was from over 100 kilns that were fired year round by the booming pottery industry. On the outskirts of the city a warehouse district was built and potters were encouraged to move there. Then 13 years ago, it became illegal to fire within the city unless you fired in an electric kiln, but electricity is very expensive in Turkey, so many potters moved to the warehouse district, including Mustafa's studio.
Mustafa and Feliz have two children. They explain that it is up the son whether he wants to be a potter or not, telling me that many young people do not want to become potters these days. Mustafa smiles and tells me gently that he is probably the last generation of potters in his family.
Twenty years ago, there were 50 workshops with 160 master potters. Now there are only 20 masters and the next generation is less interested in learning the craft. The work is hard and the pay is low. Although the utilitarian pottery tradition is shrinking in Avanos, there are still many potters that work in the single story concrete block warehouses, but there are other businesses as well: several brick factories, recycling companies, sawmills and metal smiths.
Clay Processing
In front of the studio, two different colors of clay powder are piled high. The studio uses a tremendous amount of clay, up to 1 1/2 tons of clay per day, producing 100 pieces a day in the winter and 200 per day in the summer. Clay is delivered in raw large chunks and has to be laboriously processed. Usually the process takes at least five people. After the clay is delivered in large dry chunks it is shoveled into a grinder.
Two types of clay are used: Çamur, the red being from the riverbed of the Kızılırmak (Red River), and Mil, the buff colored clay from the hills just outside of town. It is very fine, and if used alone will crack. Sand is added to the clay body. Usually the clay is mixed and then put in a trough for 1-2 weeks to soak, but here they saturate the clay mixing it by hand, and do not let it slake down. It is allowed to sit briefly after mixing and then put through a pug mill.
Kiln Firing
It is spring time and the kiln sits in a muddy field next to the studio. From one angle is quite unrecognizable as a kiln, looking more like a pieced together shed. But as I walk around, I see that it is an updraft kiln, open at the top, with a small door built into the front. Pots are tumble stacked inside and fired to a final temperature of 950 degrees Celsius.
In the summer, Mustafa's studio fires every 3 days, but in the winter they fire every 15 days because the pots do not dry fast enough. With increased use of dung in the soba (Turkish stove) the pots can be dried faster than in the summer, but this amount of fuel is too costly.
Firing this kiln, especially in the winter, is not a pleasant process. Tires, plastic, and rubbish are shoved into a side door under the kiln and black caustic smoke belches out. Their main fuel is sawdust from local furniture makers and carpenters. It is blown into the kiln with a large blower, but in the winter the sawdust is damp so they use tires, cardboard, and other debris, including plastic refuse. Grape vines typically start the fire in the summer months, but rubbish needs to be used in the winter. Pottery shards are placed over the top to keep the heat in. The kiln fires very dirty in the winter and it was sad to see Mustafa later that evening at the pharmacy in town, covered in black soot, buying a respiratory drug.
Unloading the Kiln
A firing typically takes about 4 hours and is unloaded the next day. There are a few layers of large bricks and a tube shaped piece of sheet metal that are removed from the top of the kiln to unload. The pots are quite durable, despite their low final firing temperature, enabling the potters to stand on the pots as they unload the kiln. The pots are organized and then loaded up into a truck to get delivered to local merchants and restaurants.
Earthenware Pottery Forms
There are a number of very popular utilitarian forms that Turkish potters produce. Most are tied to traditional staples of the Turkish cuisine, such as yogurt, village cheese, and traditional stews.
“Lıklıkı” refers to one or two handled earthenware jars. Lıklıkı is the sound that water makes when being poured out of a jug.
Tall forms with an incised line are called “Tava”, referring specifically to a bottle form with an incised line that is broken after the Testi Kebabı is eaten. Testi means jug in Turkish and Kebab refers to meat that is cooked over or next to flames. This is a dish from Central Anatolia and the Mid-Western Black Sea region, consisting of a mixture of meat and vegetables cooked over an open fire. The pot is sealed with bread dough or foil and is broken when serving the dish. This is increasing in popularity with the increased tourist industry in Turkey. The word Tava also refers to any kind of frying pan.
Medium size shouldered pots without lids are typically used for “Köy Peyniri” or village cheese, homemade cheese that is still made in many rural homes in Turkey.
Pots similar to the village cheese pots, but with lids, are used for yogurt. The unglazed clay allows the yogurt to become thick instead of juicy.
Straight walled pots with lids are made for güveç, meaning stew.
Turkish Generosity
Each day friends would drop in for çay (Turkish tea) and stay several hours, talking about the weather and politics, while pots were being quickly turned on the potters wheel. During my last visit to Mustafa's studio, I brought lamb from the local butcher and we made Güveç in a well seasoned earthenware pot over the wood stove. Feliz and I cut the vegetables and meat while the potters continued turning pots. We gathered around the wedging table to have the feast, smiling, laughing, and bonding in friendship through our only common language- CLAY.
Other Pottery Traditions in Avanos
The potters that are making unglazed utilitarian ware only represent a minority of the potters in Avanos. Most pottery studios produce highly decorated ware, their surfaces laboriously painted, their forms reminiscent of pots found in Turkish museums. These highly decorated pots appeal to an international market and fetch a good price, allowing these potters to be in the more expensive and touristed district in Avanos.
I come to this subject not as an art historian, but as a ceramic artist who is interested in the complex relationships of historical tradition and contemporary culture.
During my Research Fulbright Fellowship, I set out to study how contemporary Turkish Islamic society’s notion of beauty relates to historical sensibilities of surface embellishment in ceramics, but I discovered the rich complexity of Turkish ceramic traditions went beyond the brush stroke. In Avanos’ warehouse district, are artisans that put their heart and soul into their work, and with this devotion they persevere through the hardships of a changing tradition.