Deborah Semel Demirtaş

When in Ankara, the most important thing to do – the only really important thing to do – is to stop at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.

This is definitely one of the best museums in the world.

And it has provided me with tons of inspiration.

This piece – I called it ‘The Turkey Piece” – is something I did nearly about 20 years ago; it was in my first exhibition in Ankara at the Dost Gallery (which, unfortunately, no longer exists).

It was nice to see on display one of the inspirations for this piece

In fact, there were 5 of these cute couples on display – somewhere around 5 cm (2″ ) each.

Another of my favorite objects at the museum is this strange metal tool:

I drew a sketch of it the first time I was at the museum – 1993. A few years ago, during a bit of housecleaning, I found that sketchbook on a shelf among a bunch of other things that were collecting dust, but which I couldn’t throw out. So I decided to cut up that sketchbook and use the parts in my collages…

These are the collages I will be using in a few days for my Art Fortunes.
If you’re in Bodrum and would like more information on this, just click here.