Erkan’s path, which started in Istanbul and set sail with her journey as a stewardess on ships, goes all the way back to the rare laces in her mother’s shop in Antalya. While working as a professional guide, Erkan collected laces from all over Anatolia and protected our cultural heritage, carrying our culture to visitors for 25 years.
ISTANBUL (AA) – SEMRA ORKAN – Lace researcher and collector Emine Semra Erkan said that each of the laces she made on yemenis to express the feelings and thoughts of Anatolian women had a different message and that in the past, women expressed human emotions such as love, passion and jealousy through the laces they embroidered.
Born in Istanbul, Erkan worked as a stewardess on ships for 2 years after graduating from German High School. Erkan, who took ownership of the laces that housewives from all over Anatolia made with great care and effort, which her mother could not bear to sell in the souvenir shop in Antalya, started collecting laces from everywhere she went during her 25 years as a professional tourist guide.
Erkan, who has a considerable collection when her mother’s laces and the laces she collected herself are added, told AA correspondent about her love for lace and the language of lace.
Erkan, who said that he focused on lace collecting after retiring from guidance, said, “I am a very active person, I knew that I could not stay idle at home after retiring. With the guidance of a neighbor, I started reading and researching about lace. I read all the books, information and documents on this subject. I started traveling around Anatolia. I went to the women whose heads I saw with different lace, got information and took notes.”
– “I like ‘tongue lace’ rather than colorful votes”
Erkan emphasized that he sees himself as a needlework researcher rather than a collector, and continued his words as follows:
“I like ‘dilli lace’ more than the big, colorful laces that everyone likes. What does dilli lace mean? It means lace that conveys a message. Laces have been a way for an illiterate group to express themselves for years. I respect their feelings a lot, I bow respectfully to them. In the past, women, especially new brides, did not have the right to speak much. Women expressed all their human feelings such as love, passion, jealousy, etc. with laces they made on the edges of their yemeni. For example, pepper lace. When a new bride wears pepper lace on her head, it means ‘My relationship with my mother-in-law or husband is bitter like pepper’. If the mother-in-law wears this lace, the message is ‘Don’t stare at me like that, bride, I will burn you like pepper.’ The message of the young girl who wears the seal lace, which is also made in a small square shape, is ‘I want an official marriage, not an imam marriage.’ If the engaged girl gives Konya’s meadow grass lace as a gift to her mother-in-law, she wants to give the message, ‘Let our relationship be as pleasant and comfortable as meadow grass.'”
– “Oya research has become my way of life”
Underlining that the meaning of the “gravestone” lace, which belongs to the Konya region, is very meaningful, Erkan said that the person who gives this lace to his/her mother-in-law or someone else gives the message that “The resentment between us will last until the grave”, and that brides who are on bad terms with their mothers-in-law give wolf lace as a gift.
Erkan stated that he has been collecting lace for 50 years and that he transferred 2,000 laces to a collector 15 years ago because he could not keep them at home. He said, “I was sad like a child whose toy was taken away from him. Then I immediately started collecting laces again. Lace research became my way of life.”
– “The biggest enemies of lace are dust, humidity and sun”
Stating that protecting the laces is a very difficult job, Erkan continued as follows:
“Most of the lace I collect are old, tattered yemenis. They are not all new. I look at the lace, not the yemenis. What makes a collection valuable is the rarity, the unusualness and the extraordinaryness of its pieces, not the number, this is true for all collections. Beaded lace can be washed, but needle lace cannot. I first air these laces on the balcony in windy weather. Windy weather eliminates the smell and the bacteria on them. The biggest enemies of these laces are dust, humidity and sun. That is why it is necessary to be careful and to air them regularly. After the airing process, I take them inside and wait for the humidity to pass for a week. I put them in cardboard boxes and classify them according to the areas where they were made.”
– “There are laces made from melon and cherry seeds, dried cloves, and silk cocoons.”
Emine Semra Erkan stated that Turkish women have shown considerable creativity in this regard, stating that lacework is also made from fruit, vegetable and even animal motifs.
Erkan, who stated that women used to make lace using every material they had, said, “For example, in the past, they would take shiny papers from cigarette packages. Laces made from these papers are called ‘telli kiyat’ laces due to the local dialect. There are laces made by cutting serum tubes into small pieces and wrapping them with silk. Colorful laces are made by cutting old sponges. I have seen laces made from melon and cherry seeds, dried cloves, and silk cocoons.”
Erkan, who stated that he mostly looks at the messages he conveys when collecting laces, said, “Until 15-20 years ago, the word lace was forgotten, then suddenly there was a craze for lace jewelry. At that time, thousands of laces were cut unconsciously for the sake of jewelry. Lace is a Turkish handicraft belonging to Anatolia. The cities richest in lace in Turkey are Bursa, Ankara, Bolu, Kütahya, İzmir, Aydın, Elazığ and Kastamonu.”