Turkey Days Artisanry, centuries-old tradition captured in UM photo exhibit

A University of Maine graduate in anthropology (1993, summa cum laude) has found a way to bring back to the university and the community some of what she learned from her teachers. Angela Waldron of Rockland spent more than three years in Turkey, photographing artisans working at their now vanishing traditional trades. She also brought home as many handmade items as she could buy and send, or fit in a suitcase.

The result is a collection at the Hudson Museum of about 50 individual handcrafted works and photographs. The show, “I Learned from My Master: Traditional Turkish Occupations,” is on display through June 3.

Once inside the Maine Center for the Arts, the exhibition is hard to miss. The images line the giant ramp, which ascends, Guggenheim-like, to the third floor.

The series begins with a cluster of photographs that give the viewer a snapshot of what life might be like in Turkish villages. Several exhibit cases at the base of the ramp contain the many items Waldron carefully packed and brought back to the United States.

All along the ramp, the faces of Turkish craftsmen peer at the observer from a shop doorway, a workbench or while seated on the floor of a workspace. Steve Whittington, director of the Hudson Museum, said the photographs are hung to make one think of walking along a Turkish street, seeing shop after shop, with the artisan, or master, standing outside. As the observer winds upward, some of the photographs show close-up views of the masters holding their wares.

Waldron discovered during an earlier trip to Turkey that many of the craftsmen’s trades were dying out, replaced by machine-made goods available at cheaper prices. The discovery inspired this project, which she has pursued for the past five years.

Her husband of 16 years, Jim Lightcap, has accompanied her on her trips to Turkey. They both love the classics and visited archaeological sites, fortresses and castles, all the while snapping photographs. “We work well together,” she said. “He has been my adviser, editor and proofreader on many occasions.”

Waldron said she must have shot approximately 10,000 photographs between 1995 and 1998. For the first seven months, she and Lightcap traveled with backpacks through central Turkey, riding public transportation, mainly buses, and staying in hostel-like rooms. Their travels took them through Central Anatolia, with a focus on the towns of Afyon and Konya.

Eventually, they found an apartment in the town of Antalya, on the southern Mediterranean coast, which they could use as a home base, she said.

“The Turks were very hospitable and helpful. Sometimes almost too helpful,” she said. Waldron and her husband are fluent in “conversational” Turkish, she added. “We know enough to get around, and to do research and work in libraries.”

The exhibition took the documentarist about a year and eight months of painstaking planning at home before she finally mounted it at the university. Between days of working as an assistant registrar at the Farnsworth Museum, she shot photos of groupings of her artifacts, and planned how they would be placed in their cases at the Hudson Museum.

“Jim helped me a lot,” she said. “It only took us only three days to mount the show,” she said with a chuckle.

Waldron believes the significance of the show is in its ability to show people what guildsmen and artisans in a still-exotic country have produced.

“This generation of guildsmen, in many instances, are the last of their kind. The skills they learned from generation to generation, by a succession of masters, come from centuries-old traditions,” she said.

A metal lock on display, beautiful and intricate, is not much different looking than locks made from the 16th- and 17th-century model, according to Waldron. Many of the items appear to have no close counterpart in U.S. society. Part of their intrigue is the exotic nature of their use and appearance.

The cases hold awe-inspiring examples of artistry, including shoes of wondrous shapes, a copper standard for the top of a minaret (“alem”), a very tall fez, beautiful felt mats (“pus-pus”), prayer beads, knives, a coffee grinder made by the last artisan in the town of Elmali, textiles, clothing, mystical items made by the guild of the whirling dervishes, and more.

The words of a Turkish poet, Orhan Veli, are captured in the last exhibit case and may sum up the sense of the show: “Far, far away, the tinkling bells of water seller, I am listening to Istanbul, my eyes closed.” One may nearly hear and smell Turkey after seeing this show.

The Hudson Museum is in the Maine Center for the Arts building at the University of Maine, Orono. Hours are 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays. The building is closed on Mondays and holidays. Admission is free and open to the public. For information, call 581-1901.