We are living in a century and in a city that people are in a rush to get to their yoga and meditation classes to learn how to breathe slowly and mindfully. Our lives are so busy with things; we need to create purposely a space for ourselves to breath in.
I want to create this space on the walls that you can look through it, just look at it, it is fine if it is also matching your sofa, I will not be upset, but see it as a window, that you are looking through to another dimension, another reality in which you can see yourself in it or find something related to yourself.
When I was in college, I used to write short stories in Turkish, which is my native language. Some of my stories were published, even some of them got critiques which was amazing for me as a young writer and then I collected a bunch of my stories in a folder named as “drawing doors on your walls” and I tried to publish it. Of course it got rejected from a couple of editors that I know but I didn’t really try hard enough and work on them to make them publishable. Why drawing doors? Well the main theme of my stories was based on people who wanted to do things but couldn’t. A prostitute was in love with her neighbor, but she wasn’t courageous enough to meet him in person. A young girl who was abused and raped several times by her brother couldn’t say no to him, couldn’t stop him because she was in love with him. I wanted to create some doors for my characters so that they can get out of their imaginary walls and finally they can take an action! If there is a door in your wall, you are not encapsulated with walls any more; you will step out of the door. I haven’t written short stories for a long time, maybe 10 years, but when I read my “drawing doors on your walls” collection after 10 years, I can see the things that I wasn’t able to see at that time. Some of them are really good, some of them are really bad, I mean really really bad, and some of them need more hard work. Maybe I will pick it up again, worked on them, but don’t know whether I will write in Turkish or English as English is my main language for 6 years. Maybe that’s why now I am painting instead of writing as paintings and colors are international, no language required to read them. I like painting a lot, and I really like the idea of “painting windows for your walls”.
Photograph by Peter Walter.