Sometimes you meet an Original, a person whose chosen form of art and expression is not in any way derivative, who uses materials (musical [Daniel Heïkalo] or literary [Georges Perec] or graphic [Luigi Seraphini] or sculptural or culinary or…) in a unique or idiosyncratic way. I’ve known a few, and enjoyed the surprise of encounter when new instances appeared.

Ahmet Gezer, sometimes known as ‘Crazy Ahmet’

and as ‘Lord of the Roots’, uncovers forms hidden in wood, in roots and branches, and carves and prunes to liberate indwelling creatures. There are also less fanciful creations in his repertoire, table and lamp bases, candelabras, walking sticks, picture frames. Some of his source materials also include rocks imprisoned as roots have grown around them. Ahmet’s tools are pretty simple: saw, knife, chisel, file, minimal power tools. His imagination is of virtuoso calibre. His shop is underneath the family farmhouse in Sapanca, and his creations and raw materials overflow the shop.

He surely sells some of his creations, but I have the sense that selling has little to do with WHY he makes them. He’s not obsessive or batty, but he does project an air of deep personal contentment, and one can admire and even envy his calmness. He seems to spend a lot of time in nearby forests, hunting for likely material. Here’s a gallery of his creations:

(Jabba the Hutt? or somebody even stranger)

(I’d love to have this one)

(table bases)

(hard to say what it IS, just on its way to becoming something)

(light fixture)

(rock inclusions)

(pieces in process)

(raw materials)

(portrait?)

(vine-wrapped saplings)

(Jabberwocky)

There’s also an example of neolithic agricultural technology in the yard, two wide boards about 5 feet long, inset with flint blades and I think meant to be used on a threshing floor, pulled around in a circle by animals and weighted down by a squatting farmer (or so I imagine from Ahmet’s demonstration).