The Art of Ebrû

Feridun Özgören
Years ago I discovered paper marbling. I spent six weekends at an arts center learning Florentine paper marbling. I loved spraying on the alum, putting the paint on the water mixed with agar. I was always surprised to see what appeared when I lifted the paper.
Recently I was at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and saw this work of art. It is Ebrû, which is Turkish marbling. There were a few of these but I was completely captivated by this one. Honestly, I wanted to take it home. And yeah, nothing I could do about the annoying spotlight. This work of art was not at eye level. The work is titled Ebru with Calligraphy, 2005.
I have a notebook in which I keep notes about works of art that intrigue me. If possible I take a photograph of the work. In this case I went home and searched for information about this artist. Sometimes I find connections between a work of art at one museum and another work of art I have seen in another museum. So far my obsessive connection is linking drinking vessels from paintings of the Dutch Golden Age and the similarities to contemporary glasses. Somewhere in all of that is a doctoral dissertation waiting to be written.