Eye on the Fingertip

Sultanahmet… A region of ‹stanbul that collects Byzantion, Ottoman, and the Republican Turkey in its bosom… The region where the neighs of the horses running in the Byzantian Hippodrome, the parades celebrating the circumcision of a prince, the dinner tables for fast-breaking in the month of Ramadan, and illuminated words formed as webs of lightbulbs stretched between mosque minarets have left their traces… The magnificient church of Hagia Sophia which creates her own stories, the mysterious cistern of Yerebatan, the ‹brahim Pasa Palace that serves today as the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Productions, the Hagia Irini, the Museum of Archaeology where the sarcophagus of Alexander is also displayed, the Sultanahmet Mosque renowned for its blue tileworks and surrounded with its annexes are all located in this region… Its proximity to the Grand Bazaar, the heart of Ottoman commerce, ensures its passage into the world of trade, too. Many famous carpet stores are also located in Sultanahmet… I walk on looking at the happy faces of carpet sellers loading into a car the antique carpets that they have sold to their customers, preparing to transport them to the airport. I pass by restaurants with delicious smells of meatballs, enough to urge you to enter right away. I climb a set of stairs in one of the back streets. I hear the sound of printing machinery at work. The teaman serves out his newly made tea to the

workers, whistling merrily while traveling between levels. I knock at the door on the 3rd level of Aras Han. 

The first thing I see when the door opens is a vertically stretched silken Bandirma carpet. The fatigue of its more than a hundred years of age reveals itself in its fabric. It is even torn in places. “You have just started mending this?” I ask the young man who greets me. “It’s been here for thre months…” he says, to my utter astonishment. I bend down to inspect the silken carpet, but I can not see any newly mended spots. “I can’t see where it’s been mended,” I say. Ahmet Bayrakdar smiles. “Well, that’s our mastery,” he answers. This is how we start chatting in the small workshop of silken carpet repairs of Ahmet Usta (=Ahmet the Master Craftsman).

Ahmet Usta started carpet mending in 1986 in Aksaray, Middle Anatolia. At first it was only a hobby for him, but it turned into no less than a job when his fingers were caught by the enchantment of silk. Being in close embrace with silk, caressing the carpets he is to mend before starting to work on them, and when the repair is over after days or months, spreading them on the floor and taking his time to inspect them happily is like some kind of spiritual ceremony for him.

A carpet with 7 rows per centimeter is easy to mend, but when you have one of 22 rows placed before you, it is impossible to carry out the process without eye power and mastery of the craft. One must possess the eye of an eagle to find the gaps between those thin pieces of thread. Ahmet Usta is able to work 8 hours a day over a 7-rowed carpet, but he’s forced to go home after 3 hours of work over a 22-rowed specimen, for his eyes announce that “That is enough for today!”. The rest is just fatigue and pain in the eyes…

A good repairer of silk carpets passes the first four years as an apprentice. If experience blends with talent, and talent with the love for the job, then the result is a good master of the craft. Good masters feel like the carpet is alive and are aware that they’ll be hurting the carpet if they do anything wrong while inserting the needle. The carpet that needs repair is like a wounded gazelle. The “mood” of craftsmen who do not like the job is reflected upon the carpet they work on, yielding an imperfect repair. One who does not love the job cannot become a true master.

Ahmet Usta takes a silken Hereke carpet in his hand. “When I insert the needle,” he explains, “I feel the tip of it on the tip of my finger. That moment calls for the point of exact harmony between my thumb, index finger, and my brain. If you fail to focus your whole attention at that point, the “row” of the carpet swells and the original tissue is ruined. That means a mistake on the part of the repairer.”

Repairing silken carpets gains importance out of the fact that the base material is expensive. A bad repair on a very valuable silken carpet pulls the value of the item down a great deal. It even causes the artifact to be left unsold. A good repair nearly re-creates the carpet, blessing the silk and the effort put into it. Silken carpet repairers provide an affirmative contribution to the economy as they enable re-appreciation of an artifact on the brink of losing all of its value…

Effort’s due…

The repair of silken carpets is a demanding job that requires patience, skill, and effort. Unfortunately, the new generation does not seem to put forward enough masters in the recent years. One of the masters points out the resemblance between themselves and the ibis birds under the threat of extinction: “The youth wants to earn a lot of money at once. Repairing silken carpets, on the other hand, yields a high income only when you manage the mastery, not carrying you very high before you give a number of your years to it. But once you get the hang of the skill, no one is better than you…”

The decrease in the production of silken carpets is of course another important reason of the fact that there are not enough new master craftsmen. The shrinking market leaves little room for its laborers. And they complain as much about the state of the market as they do about their eyes. What they do starts at the eyes, passes through the brain, and ends at the fingertips. It is as if they have eyes at the tips of their fingers.

Ahmet Usta receives invitations every year from exhibitions abroad and presents shows upon the delicacies of weaving and repairing silken carpets. He displays the Turkish silk which is among the best in the world, and the quality carpets that are made of it. While he’s doing all of these, I wonder how many of the spectators, if ever at all, notice the presence of the eyes on his fingertips.