By Heidi Trautmann
Many new clay people have come out of Sevcan’s workshop, some of them went to Istanbul to show their faces there and two are in front of the Association of the Orthopedic Disabled people in Nicosia.
I went to see her in her house in Ağirdağ the other day to learn about the progress for her new projects. They are both planned for February, time is getting short, and I find her working hard bent over some clay plates. “This is for my first project, some details for my peace tree. Perhaps you remember the peace action held in September 2012 “Engage, do your part for peace – Leave your mark in history” in front of the Lokamaci crossing?” I do remember, I reported on it on my website. I look over Sevcan’s shoulder to see what she is doing, she is writing poems, local poets of many nationalities have given her, onto clay plates. “These will be the tree leaves – about 25 cm long – all with poems – to be hung on chains to my peace tree. The trunk will be made of wrought iron along which the 400 hand impressions she had asked people to leave with her signed with their names, will be affixed. A tree held up by 400 hands, what a wonderful touching idea.
The tree will be - within the next few weeks – set up in the centre of the square near the Lokmaci crossing for all to see, especially for those who have participated in the handprints.
The second project she is preparing is an exhibition with her latest clay people who will have to tell the viewers that they are scared – the title of the exhibition ‘Ödüm Koptu’ I am scared, we are all scared sometimes, the times today are scary. What is going to happen to us? Sevcan will take her exhibition to Old Nicosia where she will select one of these deserted places to place her crowd of scared – scary – scarecrow sculptures in, a stage she wants to leave like she finds it, representing the years of Cyprus desolation.
Life size sculptures, I have often watched her doing them, here I have some pictures where is shown how she works on them, how they are fired in an open door kiln and how she finishes them with paint and somehow affection, even love.