And how is it that the Turkish lamp has survived hundreds of years from the migrations of the Seljuks in the 13th century to the streets of Istanbul today?
And how is it that such a fragile, complex little thing has gone from lurching about on a horse-rider’s pack, fighting for space with pans, tent-poles, scimitars and foodstuffs, to captivating the world from proud brazen sconces in our world-jewel cities?
Why, by good old Turkish know-how, that’s how.
First, the frame, strong metal intricately designed with notches, stars, swirls, little flames, to anticipate what’s to come. (Mostly, that’ll be annoying neighbours and giant furry moths.) The frame has a top and a bottom part. Shaped like a moon, sword, or a garlic bulb.
Then you make a small glass globe. The core of the Earth. A larger globe covers this one. Temperature changes the colour; the secret of glass is that it holds all colours, all worlds, silently.
It is important you remember, as you inherit this business, that no two lamps will be the same!
You will be approached by customers who want what they see others have. “My neighbour Mehmet commissioned a lamp from you and now he is the talk of Bekliyor Street. Make me one just like his.”
NEVER try this! Your art changes without you realising it, or trying to; it happens despite you. The glass is easily bored; the glass always wants to take a different colour, a novel form.
Even your City’s history tells you – you can never have the same thing twice. For first there was Lygos, then there was Byzantium; this was forced to fit into Augusta Antonina and then Nova Roma, New Rome; Constantine was attached to it, Constantinople, and we recognised it after his time as Konstantiyye, but everyone really called it the City. They always said something was in the City, eis tin Poli in the Rum tongue, and then it finally relaxed into Istanbul. You must be like your city when you make lamps, and never look back.
Next, large sheets of glass are cut into tiny pieces, and then, like the remnants in the Ayasofya, or the Venetians’ work in St Mark’s Basilica, we kaleidoscope the globe with them. Inshallah, you will know the pattern of your mosaic. A design will come to you, searching out your mind quick and agile from some ineffable place beyond reason, just as, you imagine, winged things will one day flock to your lamp from the darkness once it is finished.
Apply glue. securing the mottled patchwork in place, and tiny rainbow beads fill all the empty space. A layer of plaster allows everything to set. A day will pass, and the task is then done.
And now you have created a monument to life, a diaphanous, iridescent, variegated world of your own! Not only will moths and neighbours come to you, but the glory of God will follow, flitting subtly through the shadows formed from your beautiful Turkish lamp.
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