Cappadocia's Pottery and Improvisation
- Laura
- Jun 25, 2021
- 2 min read
As long as I can remember, Cappadocia has been one of my favorite places to visit in Turkey, or perhaps anywhere. It has never stopped fascinating me.
From hiking through the awesome landscape...
...to walking through ancient cave churches...
...and from watching the balloons go up at sunrise...
...to gazing at the beautiful pottery...
...there's always something fascinating to do in Cappadocia.
The famous pottery of Cappadocia is created using red clay from the Kızılırmak, or Red River, and has been created as far back as 2000 BC in the time of the Hittites. The potters shape the clay into a variety of forms ranging from plates to bowls to vases to coasters and much more. After being shaped, the pottery is then painted with elaborate designs, often floral or geometric patterns, and beautifully bold colors. Some of the more traditional Turkish designs often feature red tulips or carnations among blues and greens.
This last time I visited Cappadocia, in March, I was inspired to create a work of my own Cappadocia-style pottery at ceramics class. I sketched out an idea. It would be a candleholder like this one I had done before.
It would have a shape roughly like this, and a design based on this traditional pattern.
However, rather than filling in the shapes with color, I planned on outlining them with color and carving out the inside to let the candlelight shine through. I began work on the vase, rolling out rings of clay and slowly building the shape up. Already I could tell it wasn't going to turn out exactly as I had planned. The shape was a little out of proportion, but I went with it.
The form was all I had time for that day, so I finished rounding out the top and left it to come back to the next week. One problem. I forgot to cover it with a cloth. When I picked it up the next week, I immediately noticed how dry it was. There was no way I was going to be able to carve out delicate petals and stems from the hardened clay. And without holes... it wasn't going to serve its purpose as a candleholder. So I did a little improvisation. First of all, I smoothed it out. And then I slowly and carefully chopped the whole top part off. I was left with what would work quite nicely as a vase! I smoothed out the rim of the vase a good bit more, and then I worked on painting it. Since I didn't have the holes, I did end up filling in the shapes with color instead of doing an outline.
After being glazed and baked, this is how it looked.
Although it turned out quite different from what I was expecting, I really like how it ended up. It was a good opportunity to both learn from a mistake and think through ways of how it could be fixed. I'm also proud to have my own Cappadocia-style piece of pottery in the house among the collection of plates, trivets, and bowls we've acquired over the years. I'm excited to find a plant for it and put it to use!
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