Every now and then I think about that post I made in high school, back when I was coping with a mom who was lowkey an alcoholic. It went something like âif you need alcohol to have fun you should see a therapistâ and everyone and their mother were all âum sweaty actually i use alcohol to cope so shut the fuck up and die.â Like.Â
I was never wrong. Yaâll shouldnât need to get completely blasted to have a good time. Idc if it helps you âunwindâ or whatever. Itâs not a coping mechanism. Like yeah have a few beers with the boys or whatever, but if youâre getting drunk just so you can take it easy, you need a therapist.Â
Turns out this has nothing to do with the plague, itâs even weirder than that - during the Renaissance, Florence didnât collect any taxes on wine produced âfor the familyâ. So obviously some of the cityâs richest men decided theyâd start selling their wines directly from their own homes instead of selling it through restaurants, thus making a lot more money (no taxes and no middle man). Wine could be bought by the bottle or by the glass, and the fact the customers didnât set foot inside the house probably a) prevented theft and b) preserved the illusion that the place was not a place of trade.
Occasionally, alms for also left in there.
These âbuchette del vinoâ (literally âlittle wine holesâ) are a typical Florentine phenomenon and had been in use until fairly recently; over the last decade people have started restorating and reopening them. There are about 170 of them around Florence. Here are a few ones:
hey guys! hereâs some fun things i learned from this article about Dion Diamond:
he did these sit-ins by himself. like idk about you, but i always thought of sit-ins as organized by groups, what kind of bravery does it take, man
he didnât tell anyone about it, like he was no glory-seeker about this. his parents didnât even know until reporters started calling them up like âhey, did you know your son is in jail?
when someone called the cops heâd skedaddle out the back door although he was sent to prison multiple times
the last time he got arrested was in Baton Rouge, and the cops were so sick of him that they told inmates theyâd put in a good word for anyone who gave Diamond a hard time. (the inmates didnât take the bait.)
Story Time: Get a load of what happened to me at Starbucks today.
Thereâs a running joke among people who know me personally that I unwittingly go out in public with a sign on my forehead stating âI Am Non-Threatening. Come Talk To Me.â Because if thereâs a chance a bizarre conversation with a total stranger is going to happen, Iâm typically the person it happens to.
Some context: I have been pretty darn sick this week. (Itâs not Coronavirus, donât worry.) Since the work in my queue for my day job is comprised entirely of audio narration right now, and I currently sound like a waterlogged Demi Moore, I havenât been able to work these last couple of days. As a result, Iâve been using my down time to knock out as much of Manuâs redesign as possible. Today, to ensure I didnât spend the day languishing in sinus misery, I medicated the crap out of myself and took Manu to the Starbucks down the block from my sonâs day care.
I hit the bathroom, then picked an empty table, but as soon as I sat down with my venti Comfort Tea and started tweaking the inks on my iPad, I felt the eyes of the man next to me looking over my shoulder.
When I looked up, he had his phone out. âIâm sorry,â he said (in a thick accent I couldnât place geographically), âI donât want to disturb. I notice you art. You are artist!â
I tried to smile. âYes, Iâm... Well, Iâm trying to be,â I croaked.
He leaned in, like he was sharing a secret.
âI am artist, too.â
He stuck out his hand.
I gently took it, grateful for the bathroom trip I just took in which I washed the scourge off of my fingers.
âCan I?â he asked, holding his phone up.
âTake a picture? Uh... sure,â I said. Itâs not like he would be able to steal Manu out from under me or anything, I figured. The panel I was tweaking was magnified out to Guam.
âI am artist. Architect and Designer,â he clarified while he steadied his phone over my iPad. âI am Ilker. What is your name?â
âIâm Venessaâ I said, trying to be polite. This, I thought warily, is precisely how I get myself into trouble. Iâm too damn nice.
âYou know, I come to America twenty years ago from Turkey...â
I put down my stylus. This was going to be a while.
âI like Turkey,â he explained. âI like the country and I like the people. But I am artist. I am not... religious man.â
I nodded.
âI told my wife I was going to go to America and she said, âwhat are you going to do? You donât have job! You donât have money! No Visa!â And I said, âI am artist and architect. I will paint and sell my paintings.
âSo I come to America alone. To New York City. I sit outside, and I paint. And people, they liked my paintings. They bought them. This one for $30, that one for $50.
âOne day, a man comes over to me and he say, âI like your painting. I see you are also architect.â And he gives me his number and asks me to go to meeting at his office. Because he wants to offer me a job. He starts to talk about a building contract.
âI tell him I donât know anything about contracts. I have no Visa. I am not American citizen. But he says, âThatâs okay. I will take care of everything. You will have nothing to worry about.â And this man, he gave me a job. $173,000 a year. And my wife, he gave her a job too. She was project assistant. I bring her and my two daughters over from Turkey.â
âWow,â I said, not fully believing the veracity of what sounded like a full-on immigration fairy tale.
âHere,â said Ilker, unlocking his phone and opening up his Facebook app. âI show you my work.â He paused and looked up at me. âI am interrupting. You donât mind?â
At this point, I was invested. I had to see. Because whatever he was about to show me would either prove or disprove this yarn he was spinning. âPlease,â I said, gesturing for him to go ahead.
He opened his photos and my jaw dropped. His work... was UNREAL.
âThis is building I designed on Madison Ave.... And this one in Chelsea...â
Holy crap. I had just been to Chelsea with my sister last month on a trip to see a broadway show. I had crossed the intersection of the building he was, at this moment, telling me he designed.
He flipped through more buildings. These, heâd designed in Washington, DC. In Bethesda. In Arlington. All beautiful, streamlined, modern structures I had visited and parked my car in front of. He told me he did much of his concept work freehand. That he worked exclusively in natural media. His preferred media was pen, ink, watercolors, and chalks.
Between photos of his wife and daughters, he went on to show me photos from the RUSSIAN EXHIBITION OF HIS ARCHITECTURE ARTWORK.
Yâall, I was stunned. I couldnât believe the talent I was sitting next to. Scattered among these gloriously rendered images of some of the most beautiful building concepts Iâd ever seen were paintings of scenes in Central Park, the National Mall, and nudes from a life-drawing session he attends from time to time.
When he was done flipping through his phone, he looked at me and smiled. âI hope you donât mind that I interrupt you. I show you all this because what you are doing is very good. And you should be encouraged. To draw is to make beauty.â
I nodded, a lump in my throat. âThank you,â I managed. âYour work is astonishing. I donât even know what to say. What is your name again?â
He held out his hand once more. âIlker Kocahan,â he said. âI am getting more coffee. Can I get you one?â
I looked at my still-full venti cup. âNo thank you. But here, please take my card.â
He held my dinky business card like Iâd handed him a treasure and thanked me.
Then Ilker got his coffee, and left the coffee shop.
At some point in his ramblings he talked about America as a place of dreams. How he credits this country with helping him rise to the top of his field where he is now able to sell his paintings for $800-$1000 a piece now that heâs retired. My heart ached to hear him talk about that, knowing how our leadershipâs positions on immigrants have taken such a dark and horrifying turn.
Imagine the buildings and museums and public places that would never have been if a business man in the park hadnât lifted up a Turkish painter who spoke little English.
And now that painter was paying it forward on me.
I still feel pretty darn sick. Iâve still got body aches and a nose that has taken the rest of my face hostage.
But today was a really good day. And I just wanted to share it with you in case you are looking for reasons to keep drawing/painting/dancing/writing. It all counts and it is all good.
If you would like to see Ilker Kocohanâs work, please click here.
Ilker Kocahan holds a bachelorâs degree in Industrial Design with a minor in architecture from the University of Marmara, Faculty of Fine A
UPDATE TO THIS STORY! I would have posted this sooner, but quarantine has had the unexpected effect of zapping all my alone-time...
As luck would have it, I saw Ilker one last time before my area received the mandate to start social distancing. I came into the Starbucks to work on the âSimon Is On the Groundâ comic while waiting to pick up my kid from day care, and there he was, happily chatting with the Starbucks manager, who gifted him with a Starbucks hat while I ordered my tea.
A week had passed since our first meeting, so I wasnât sure heâd recognize me. Lo and behold, as I turned the corner, I caught his eye, and he waved at me. This time, I asked if I might sit with him, and he warmly offered the seat beside him.
While I settled in, he told me that his project was being delayed and that he was going to leave the area and fly home before COVID-19 could make it impossible to travel. The hat was for his wife, whose only understanding of Starbucks was that Ilker really liked the coffee.
As one might expect, we immediately fell into another conversation about art, except this time, I eagerly abandoned my work to hear him talk.
And friends, did I ever get a master class.
He pulled up a painting on his phone which heâd sold for $800. It was a life drawing in ink and watercolor of a woman in a demure gesture, barely detailed and colored in but for her rose-tinted lips and the shadow cast across her neck. He said he felt sad that heâd sold it because he really loved how it came out.
âThis is no detailed like yours,â he said, comparing his painting to my panel of Simon and Baz. âMine is simple. But in a few strokes, I can capture the life of the lady.â
He took his napkin, turned it over, and pulled a pen out of his chest pocket. âLook there,â he said, pointing to a man sitting a few tables away. He began to scribble away on the napkin, lines and lines and more lines. âYou see,â he murmured as he ran his pen over the napkin, âI can, with speed, capture the man. I donât have hours to ask him to sit. I must let go of the planning.â
In seconds, the man across the room took shape on the napkin in a series of confident if also messy lines. It was incredible to watch.
I could instantly see what he meant. He had not produced a photorealistic version of this person on the napkin. But he had captured the manâs essence. The aura of a real person sitting contemplatively with his coffee while reading the Washington Post. I could feel the life of the drawing radiate from the paper.
(When he was done, to my horror, he crumpled up the napkin.)
I shyly mentioned that Iâve been working hard on my own gesture drawing, but had a long way to go, so he asked to see my sketchbook.
I mean... is there even a word in the English language to describe the combination of dread and embarrassment that precedes showing an art master your crap-ass sketchbook that no one sees but you? I didnât know what to do with myself as he sat there and flipped through the pages.
Eventually, he nodded approvingly and said, âOkay! Is good. But this is sketchbook like every other.â He gestured at the page. âWhere are you?â
I was lost for how to respond, but lucky for me, heâs a talkative guy seemingly incapable of awkward silences.
âThe world needs to see you in the lines,â he explained. âSomeone can look at my work and know, âthat painting is from Ilker Kocahan.â You need to draw more and more so that when people look at your drawings, they will know: this work is Venessaâs work.â Then he shrugged and said, âAnd who knows. I will maybe see you in two years at this Starbucks, and by then, your drawings will be truly yours.â
Iâve shared this story with some close friends who took mild offense on my behalf at his observations, but I really think it took sitting there watching him draw to understand exactly what he was talking about.
Ilker Kocahan has no imposter syndrome. He is supremely confident in every possible way where his art is concerned. The lines that flowed from his pen were fueled by his soul, not his brain. I didnât think artists like him existed anymore until I was sitting there looking over his shoulder while he scribbled a man into existence, like it was nothing. When I asked if he plots out the perspective on his building sketches in advance, he shook his head no and doodled this on my cake pop wrapper while he rambled on about the components he likes to include in his architecture concepts:
(Donât worry. I kept it.)
So when he talked about âfinding meâ in my sketches, I really think he could senseâby the light scratch of the pencil, the trace evidence on the paper of my erasing and failed attemptsâmy own lack of confidence, my second guessing and self-doubt. My desire to be as good as other artists instead of my desire to express myself.
And in that sense, everything he was saying about my sketchbook was correct. He urged me to get off the iPad as often as possible. To sketch with ink, which is riskier because you canât erase it, and in that way, give myself no choice but to commit to the lines.
The conversation turned to lighter things after that. Heâs apparently an extremely talented basketball player who loves hanging out with his wife and kids. His daughters are both designers. He thinks quirky viral videos are the best thing about the internet. (I agreed.) Heâs weak for New York pizza.
Eventually, he bought me a refill for my tea and asked if I would meet him again in a couple of days so he could talk to me about my artwork and help me with my sketching. He even added me as a Facebook friend. When I left the Starbucks to pick up Colin, I was so excited and overwhelmed and grateful to the universe for bringing me into his acquaintance, I texted everyone in my family about it.
But as fate would have it, that night, the local government released its mandate regarding social distancing. Heâs likely in Belarus right now with his wife.
I wonât lie and say Iâm not devastated that I lost the chance to be his student for an afternoon. But the impression these coffee shop chats left on me was profound. I think about it all the time. For one who struggles with feeling like the artist version of Pinocchio waiting around for permission to be a real boy, it makes all the difference in the world to linger in the huge, unstoppable energy of someone who lives without an inner critic.
I hope I get to see him again after the quarantine is over. Iâd love to see if I can fulfill Ilkerâs prophecy and meet back at that Starbucks in two years with a different sketchbook in tow. One that I can hand over knowing without doubt or trepidation that anyone looking for me in the work need look no further than the bold stroke of my hand.
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