The Istanbul Bead and Beadwork Conference brought dozens of bead and beadwork scholars, teachers, students and enthusiasts from around the globe to one of the most historically significant cities in the world for several days of lectures, classes and get-togethers. 

 

After having worked for the better part of two years to help organize the beadwork lecture sessions, I was honored and delighted to meet in person my colleagues in beadwork research from Turkey, Jordan, England, Russia, India, South Africa, Canada, and the United States, and to hear the uniformly excellent presentations they gave. 

 

I was especially grateful to learn
more about Turkish beadwork in the presentations given by a number
of Turkish and American scholars. 

 

While I wish I could report that the conference was an unequivocal success, I'm afraid there were certain issues relating to the conference management company, Tourag Turizm, and its owner
Asli Mutlu, that prevent me from doing so. I continue to receive and tally written complaints from speakers, teachers, and conference participants, whose financial claims against Asli Mutlu / Tourag Turizm total over $40,000.00 as of March 29, 2008. 
We are currently taking steps to report these claims to the appropriate government authorities in Turkey and elsewhere 
in order to achieve redress

 

For a brief summary
of some of these issues, please visit http://www.bsgc.org/news.htm

and click on "Istanbul."

 

The serious shortcomings of the bead conference management cannot be taken as typical of the Turkish people, who are universally known for their warmth, wisdom and generosity of spirit. 
We remain hopeful that the conference management will take the appropriate corrective actions and set right a number of wrongs including paying more than a dozen speakers, teachers and participants the monies that are owed them.

 

I would encourage anyone who is contemplating a trip to Turkey to stay as long as possible in this ancient, fascinating land, long a crossroads of cultures and home to gifted writers such as Orhan Pamuk, a recent recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Or visit the beautiful gallery of images of Istanbul, Cappadocia, and places in between that Jane Kimball has posted at http://www.trenchart.org/TurkeyTrot07/.  (Please note: the best way to view the images is with Mozilla, Firefox or Safari.  Internet Explorer does not work well.)

 

I remain grateful to the officials
of Kadir Has University, who welcomed us to their beautiful campus on the Golden Horn, treated us at all times with respect, intelligence, and graciousness, and published a fine Conference Proceedings in an extremely short time frame.

 

Valerie Hector

Co-Chair, Academic Sessions

Istanbul Bead and Beadwork Conference

Nov. 22-25, 2007

Crocheted beads for sale
in the Bead Bazaar in Istanbul.
Photo ©  Valerie Hector, Jan., 2007.
All rights reserved..