Turk ve Islam Museum, manuscripts and other treasures

One of the great museums in Turkiye is the Turk ve Islam, featuring Turkish and Islamic arts. Below you can view a slideshow of some of my favorite exhibits, primarily manuscripts, plus some carpets. Enjoy.

Istanbul thru a lens, Feb. 2024

Here’s a slideshow of some pictures I took while visiting Istanbul in February, 2024.

Still more outtakes

Below you can view a few alternate versions of the images I have produced to illustrate my weekly Eternal Jew blog post at The Times of Israel (TOI). As of this week, I have posted 105 episodes. If you want to see these images in their literary context, here’s a link to my blog at TOI:

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/author/stephen-berer/

Illuminated manuscript of Atternen Ju

Some months ago I began a project to produce an illuminated manuscript of the poetry version of the Atternen Juez Talen. A prose, standard English version is being published in a weekly episodic format at the Times of Israel [https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/author/stephen-berer/], but the original poetry version remains largely inaccessible to the public. It seems the world is not yet ready for my visionary talen.

Therefore, I decided to produce an enduring and perhaps even elegant version as a stand-alone work of art. When completed, this illuminated manuscript will still only be about 1/3 to 1/4 of the whole poem, but I hope to illuminate the rest of the poem in further volumes. God Willing.

Below you can see page 103, which I penned today.

Calligraphic version, yet to be illuminated and illustrated

Poe, kaleidoscoping

As I experimented with a famous 1848 photo of Edgar Allen Poe, now in the public domain, to come up with an image for the 61st episode of the Eternal Jew’s Tale (found at the Times of Israel, at https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-eternal-jews-tale-61-a-raven/) my “darkroom work” produced the following collection of images. For your edification…

Carroll Gardens Shrines

My wife and I are visiting NYC, staying in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood in Brooklyn (F train to Carroll St).. I’d call this one of New York’s best “Little Italys” with some completely fabulous shops (Caputo’s Fine Foods is a Mich 3 market in my book, and Monteleone’s Bakery is right up there too, including perfect espresso).

When we arrived at Carroll St station for the first time and walked the 5 or so blocks to our 4 day apartment rental, we were bemused by the many religious shrines in the yards. I’d never seen anything like it. Sure, we’ve seen religious shrines in lots of yards, but here, every 2nd or 3rd house had a shrine. I loved it!! Today is our last day here. I decided I just had to make a photo record of some of the shrines, and here it is. Mind you, these photos were all taken along just 2 1/2 blocks, and on 1 1/2 of those blocks I only took photos on ONE side of the street, not both sides!!

As I was taking one of these photos (#4), the owner of the house came out, clearly pleased that I was photographing his Madonna. He apologized for the algae growing on it, but I told him it looked like it had been painted to bring out the shadows. Nature as artist. Our conversation lasted hardly more than a minute or two, but I think we both walked away elevated, feeling like we’d made a meaningful connection. Well, it was meaningful to me, at least.

Oh, I should mention that the last 5 slides aren’t really shrines, but like the shrines they ARE public-private statements that are an active part of the neighborhood’s personality. And there are a couple of slides in which the “shrine” is just a beautifully gardened yard.

What a great place to stay while visiting NYC. What a great place to live.

Here’s my Carroll Gardens Shrines slideshow:

Video: Producing the Jonah Amulet

For the last 7 months I’ve been working on producing an amulet for my grandson, Jonah. It involved creating the design, laying the gold, painting the image, and calligraphing an inscription. The primary materials were calfskin parchment, gold leaf, acrylic paint, and ink. The whole project took 95 hours. Here’s a 3 minute video compiled from the photos I took as my work progressed. As you will see, progress was not always straightforward and satisfactory, but I’m very pleased with the results.

13 Ways of Looking at a Redtail

I never much liked Wally Stevens’ poetry, but, hell, I’m not above stealing a good title!

Walking in Riverside Park yesterday I sited a redtail, and snapped a photo of her (him? them?). Interestingly, New York has one of the highest densities of raptors in the US. Lots of squirrels and rats to eat, I guess. Anyway, here are 13 ways of looking at that redtail…

A portrait study

I was skyping the other day and I guess the person onscreen was in a bright light: his face was totally washed out. I took a screen shot, which turned out to have a strong blue shading, and from that I worked up this series of transformations. FYI, they are not presented here in the order in which they were produced. This is not a chronological development of the image, but I did try to present a sort of visual narrative in this ordering.
Always glad to get your feedback, critical or otherwise…

Megillat Esther: a golden drinking vessel

This 16 second video shows the development of an illumination for the Megillat Esther Josh and I are producing. Here’s the text of the video’s voice-over:

This illumination is based on a golden drinking vessel from the Achaemenid period. Conceivably, Xerxes, Achashverosh, could have used this vessel during the festivities described in the Book of Esther. I produced the image using gold leaf and water color.

Megillat Esther: 20 illuminations

Josh and I began work on the Megillah in early January, 2017. Since then I’ve kept a fairly careful log of my illumination work. Last week I crossed the 500 hour mark at about the same time as completing my 20th illumination. Here’s a group portrait:

Megillat Esther, Bigthan and Teresh

Here’s a slideshow of some recent illumination work on the Megillat Esther manuscript. It shows the development of one image, the capture of the plotters Bigthan and Teresh. It is based on an image found in the Assyrian bas reliefs at Nineveh, showing Sennacherib’s conquest of Lachish.

Meanwhile, Josh is forging ahead with the calligraphy, and is closing in on completing the manuscript. Sadly, I can’t same the same for the illuminations.

Latest work on our Megillat Esther

As I have explained in earlier posts, about half of the images I am producing for our Megillat Esther are derived from art and objects that were either produced during the Achaemenid empire, or that could have been found within the borders of that empire. Why this focus on the Achaemenid empire? Xerxes I was one of the Achaemenid emperors, and he is commonly associated with Achashverosh, the king in the Book of Esther! Thus, it is conceivable that Xerxes may have used some of the gold and silver objects I have illustrated for our manuscript, objects that we might imagine Achashverosh used during the party he threw at the beginning of the Esther story.

So, our megillah might stand as an art history lesson, as well!

The image below comes from a bas relief that was a rather long chariot ride from Susa (Shushan), where Achashverosh held court. It is part of the gate of Nimrud (near Erbil in modern Iraq), produced by the Assyrian emperor Ashurnasirpal, about 350 years before Xerxes. It shows women mourning after one of Ashurnasipal’s conquests. I chose it to represent the Jews of Achashverosh’s kingdom, after they learn of Haman’s plot to exterminate them.

The slideshow below shows the progression of the image as I painted it.

Abstract expressionist experiments

I’ve been experimenting with some abstract images and colorwork, possibly prepping for a couple of new ebooks I want to produce, once Josh and I complete the Megillat Esther we’re working on. (See posts prior and future to keep up to date with the megillah work.)

I’m working on about 6 sequences, but here are 2 that are close to completion. I hope you enjoy them…