SUAVE SULEYMAN
— Handsome Suleyman looking like a Turkish Belafonte —
CAVE CHURCH CARVING
— PANCARLIK VALLEY BYZANTINE CHURCH — 5thCentury carvings, 6thCentury painting on 4000-year-old caves——
JUST ENGAGED
Taner & Nefide make another appearance in a drawing of Ürgüp coming up. They probably have seven kids by now.
ÜRGÜP
—These big ‘50s hairdos are all the rage here—> [Here are our Just Engaged kids] — Fatma! Age 12 — Canan Age 10 — Meliha — Selim from Yugoslavia — I met the Mayor, too.—— Apparently an artist drawing downtown Ürgüp was news. They even put me on TV, and Mike’s wife Susie saw it back in Istanbul. What a warm town!
ZELIHA BLUE EYES
— I sat drawing the last 2 pages for two hours. A woman asked me something & presently appeared with a tea-tray. She asked me home and gave me lunch- olives, tea, cheese, yoghurt & a delicious omelette, while I was there she prayed, & then joined me for tea. We were in one of the houses I had been drawing. — You Yasmin Seliha Saglam — You come Urgup Visit you Zeliha <— Written by my little pal Fatma — Everything in her home is elegant. The place is water-stained stone & all crooked but there are lace curtains & nice cutlery & everything is immaculate & bright. She has great teeth. These people are sensual on a level way beyond most Americans with our Formica & Dairy Queens——— She had eyes like sapphires, and I have never forgotten her.
ANCIENT APARTMENTS
— ÜRGÜP — Pigeonholes / Pigeon guano is used to fertilize the fields — The face of the mountain sheared away exposing the ancient cave houses—— I carried an empty kilim cushion up there to sit on and drew for hours, an experience at once uncomfortable and sublime.
WALKING WITH SABINE
— If you take the grapes pay the FARMER — We found a grapevine near a plowed orchard & ate grapes from the vine. We left 500,000 lira for the farmer- about $1.00 USD — People here work all month for about $120 — Even the dog loved these grapes <—Front Door from a long time ago — I can see how apricot leaves became a decorative motif in cave churches.
— Through a spectacular valley filled with breast-shaped hills & dotted with small orchards in tiny hand-plowed “fields,” under a lowering sky. Rain drove us back. —Peach, saffron, olive, jade & rose rocks & lichens. The dirt is red. The color here is at once INTENSE & SUBTLE. — A table-sized plowed “field” & one apricot tree——