Three lucky souls are spending part of their February at Caravansarai! We have determined through trial and error that one month is the minimum amount of time needed for a productive residency. But, as a result of cancellations and other scheduling snafus, February and March are a series of 2-week stays.
Happily, our Feb. 1-14th artists are mostly interested in taking in the city. Jorunn Monrad has turned her visit into a quest for pigments. As a painter, Jorunn has a serious pigment fetish, and filled 40 or so little plastic bags full of colored powder to bring from her home in Italy to Istanbul. She is the perfect guinea pig, then, to test the pigments sold on the ‘paint street’ near the fish market. Here there are large brown paper bags lined up on the pavement outside the shops–their rolled-down tops revealing rainbows of the glittery and dazzling colors packed inside. They are visually striking, but so far we have noone to vouch for their quality. She has announced that she will head down there and judge whether they are suitable for artists.
Jason De Haan and Miruna Dragan are taking a little break from their lives as artists in Beirut to scour the city for all things Byzantine and frescoe-ish. Mostly this manifests itself in some admirably intensive sight-seeing. They have the energy to spend their days documenting the crap out of all of the deservedly well-trafficked tourist spots and still find time and inspiration to work a little and also be good company. We don’t doubt that whatever develops out of their time here will be extremely interesting. The proof that they have been out doing things:
There is someone looking at you at the Hagia Sofia. You can stop them by sticking your thumb in there
