When Bodrum Art Collective visited the Modest Masterpieces workshop, Aybegüm was working on a series of decorative vases entitled “Love from Italy”, inspired by her favourite city Rome, while Ayça, in her third year at university, was preparing her final project for the Spring semester. She weaves rattan baskets and impresses the design on her pots and fires them using the Saggar technique of firing one pot within a protective cover of another vessel. None of the women feels the need to explain their art to others, but for Ayça, as a fine art student, the process of creating (which can be painful), is more important than the end result.

 

Asked how living in Bodrum affected their art, they, like us find inspiration in the daily scenes, local beauty and nature of the region plus they find comfort in having their family close by for mutual support – which was just a dream when they all lived in different districts in Istanbul.

​

Like all of us, they too live with the challenge of being an artist and producing art while faced with the reality of having to earn money in order to survive but unlike us, each has a thriving career outside their art and we wonder if they have been allotted more than the standard 24 hours in a day.

Aybegüm summed up the best thing about being an artist as finding the best way to express oneself and Ayça enforced our own belief that cooperation between local artists is crucial, as sharing inspiration, discussing each other’s work and talking over common problems motivates us all.

 

Modest Masterpiece’s work can be viewed and purchased on their Instagram page @Sisterhood_Bodrum