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Abstract
Oya—colorful handmade borders on headscarves—are still part of the traditional textile jewelry of Turkish women today. In this article, we use a not so common oya pattern to show how ideas of shape and color are implemented. The exact imitation of nature plays a special role, as does a certain degree of abstraction. An important criterion for the color selection is a special abundance of colors, on the one hand, and on the other a strong limitation to a few colors. It is shown how creativity, routine, and careful consideration are the prerequisites of high-quality and attractive craftsmanship.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Hülya Bilgi, Director of the Sadberk Hanım Museum Istanbul, for her permission in 2008 to photograph oya examples from the museum and publish the pictures. Our thanks also go to Nurhan Atasoy and Princess İkbal Moneim Saviç, who enabled us in 2012 to take a photograph of the oya cap, which later went to the Sadberk Hanım Museum Istanbul.
Notes
1 There are different regional names, such as Greek bibila (often called bebilla in European treatises), Bulgarian kene, and others.
2 In the beginning, the oya were initially made with a sewing needle and silk yarn. Today, we encounter works made with other tools (crochet hook, weaving shuttle) and a variety of other basic and additional materials (artificial silk yarn, pearls, sequins, plant grains, etc.). These, however, do not belong to the subject of our article here.
3 The same needle technique has been used since time immemorial to decorate the edges of shirts, tablecloths, and decorative bags for pocket watches, seals, and cigarette boxes.
4 Names for handicraft products are well known not only from other forms of textile art, like embroideries—see Ther (Citation1993, 25)—but also from the Turkish kitchen, where imaginative names are found for numerous dishes, like İmam bayıldı (the Imam fainted), hanım göbeği (woman’s navel), or bülbül yuvası (nightingale’s nest). The latter is also an oya term; see Öğüt (Citation1973, list) and Hickman (Citation1977, 133).
5 “Le village d’Arnaout-keuï, sur la rive européenne du Bosphore, est renommé pour l’ingéniosité de conception et le fini de l’exécution de ses oya” (Hamdy Bey and Launay 1873, 23 / Üyepazarci 1999, 33).
6 See the relevant section in the forthcoming publication on “Oya in Collections” by the authors.
7 Cf. the unicolored yellow oya specimen in Mete (Citation2001) no. 24, named döner oyası (revolving oya). Five filigree petals revolve around a ring-shaped blossom center—probably a Passion Flower.
8 Şile Cloth/Şile Bezi (Şile: Şile Bezini Yaşatma Koruma Ve Geliştirme Derneği, ca. 2011), [p. 12].
9 A Bursa dealer confirmed the oya name “Passion Flower” for oya no. 1.
10 While we photograph oya “hanging,” as is usually done, we depict the vegetable patterns in the graphics “standing.”
11 Also see the images in Maizou and Müller (Citation2011, 44) and Maizou and Müller (Citation2018, 343).
12 In Karayel and Aygün (Citation2013) about half of the 28 oya flowers from Gediz near Kütahya are equipped in this way.
13 But different from Figure 18.
14 See http://kutahyakultur.gov.tr/TR-69390/geleneksel-sanatlar—zanaatlar.html (accessed March 27, 2019).
15 See above page 6.
16 Cf. oya no. 9 with blossoms in four colors as well.
17 Literally “heart cupboard,” probably a comparison of the heart to a cupboard (dolap) in which many things are hidden; see the oya name already in Ögüt (Citation1973, 58 b): in the inventory list of the museum Kütahya no. 136, 167.
18 Cf. Figure 11 with color-identical minor figures.
19 Certainly muska, the triangle as symbol for the eye and figure acting as a talisman, plays an important role here; it is supposed to keep away misfortune. See Türk El Sanatları/Turkish Handicrafts/Türkisches Kunsthandwerk/Arts Manuels Turcs (Istanbul: Yapı ve Kredi Bankası, 1969), p. 36: “triangular talisman” (muska).
20 Cf. oya nos. 4–6.
21 The colors are subsequently abbreviated to “light violet” and “dark violet.”
22 Internal color exchange means that the two blossoms of a pair will be affected by the color exchange. For a description of these and other design ideas, see the publication by the authors on oya, which is currently being prepared.
23 Nazarlık—often just nazar—is a luck-bringing and protective figure that differs in form and/or color from the other main elements.
24 See www.aylakutlu.com/oya-koleks304yonu.html (accessed March 5, 2019). Here one can also find two examples named çarkıfelek. One shows a kind of half wagon wheel with seven spokes as blossom head on a green stem, the other a disc-shaped flower of blue, red, pink, and green rings, bordered in white.
25 See http://www.quaibranly.fr/fr/explorer-les-collections/base/Work/action/show/notice/79547-foulard/page/11/ (accessed March 23, 2019).
26 See footnote 23.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Gérard J. Maizou
Gérard J. Maizou, born 1947, journalist and photographer. After doing an apprenticeship as artwork producer he studied print technology in Munich. Then he worked as an executive editor for various publishing companies. Since 1987 he has worked as a freelance journalist and photographer. He has published magazine articles and books about various kinds of handicraft. During the last 15 years he has also worked on a kind of Turkish handicraft, oya, with his wife Kathrin Müller. Together they curated the exhibition “Oya. From Ottoman Fashion to Turkish Folk Art” for the Munich museum of ethnology, Museum Fünf Kontinente, in 2011 and prepared the catalog.[email protected]
Kathrin Müller
Dr. Kathrin Müller, born 1950, orientalist scholar. She completed her studies in Semitic languages and Turkology at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich with a PhD. Until 2015, she worked for the Commission of Semitics in the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Munich. She has published several books and articles about classical Arabic language and literature, and two catalog volumes about the Arabic manuscripts in the Bavarian State Library Munich. During the last 15 years she has also worked on a kind of Turkish handicraft, oya, with her husband Gérard J. Maizou.[email protected]