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Sultan Ahmet 'Blue' Mosque, Istanbul for sale

Oil on Canvas - (173cm x 135cm) - order you signed reproduction of this painting now see price guide

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here is an excerpt from the book to be an artist -

"From Kusadasi I boarded a coach that would travel northward directly to Istanbul in 15 overnight hours. They were long hours along that 500km arterial route - a two track road. This turbo- charged bus weaved in and out of slower agricultural traffic chugging along. Avoiding at the last moment many potential head- on collisions as equivalent traffic similarly embroidered its way south. The road is thus known locally as death-alley as apparently sometimes they do not avoid each other.

Sat on a park bench between the two great mosques in Istanbul, Ay Sofia and the Sultan Ahmet Blue Mosque I felt irritated. My mood partly attributable to the crocheted coach ride - to what now felt like constant harassment to buy carpets, ‘T’-shirts, batteries, cigarette lighters and postcards from pavement peddlers. These street vendors refusing to take two or three polite no-thank-you’s for an answer. Then confoundingly in the heat of the day I relented on a fourth entreaty and bought postcards. Likely this did nothing but confirm to these handy hawkers that harrying tourists gets results. These irrepressible marketeers had a purpose to sell a product. My arts project is occasionally about this too. And so I learnt, the most successful vendors are those that know the difference of when to give up and when not to. Clearly, at that time, I was assessed and designated as a fourth- time- of- asking- person. They were right.

On approaching the Sultan Ahmet Blue Mosque I enquired with a guide whether I could meet the Imam to ask him a question about interfaith issues. I realised that I was going beyond my remit as a visual artist but the answer one I was genuinely interested in, certainly to know what a spiritual leader might say. The guide told me to tell him the question and he would gladly be of service. I asked – ‘If Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammed and Guru Nanak were sat at a table, what shape would the table be?’

The guide asked me to write it down on a piece of paper to aid him in the task he had accepted from me. I waited to meet the Imam. After twenty minutes the guide returned and explained that the Imam was busy but that he had looked at the question and had replied. The guide handed me back the piece of paper and said that the Imam had replied with a verbal question of his own, he said ‘Tell our friend that he is a Muslim and how come he doesn’t know it yet! I tried to describe to the go-between my universal ideas, but all he did was smile and say ‘Inshallah’

After sketching the Blue Mosque and Ay Sofia and taking many photographs I took an amble along the Bosporus riverbank. Then after a mile or so a shoe - shine boy approached me and in his broken English lilt demanded to shine my boots. I felt an instant reaction to simply tell him to go away. I was fed - up now of incessant encounters from hawkers of this most basic-type.

Something about his plucky stance made me abate on his second petition. So he put wax on my boots and began polishing. Then BOOM. Many in the vicinity fell to the ground. HUSH then a WHOOSH. An explosion occurred. Midday the 21st April. The epicentre had been a hundred metres away. We had fallen due to split second instinct survival and then in moments the speedy shock wave of hot air equally kept people pinned down onto this stretch of the esplanade so situated. Then people scattered and chance was lost to thank that shoe- shiner, that guardian angel for stopping me, this tourist from walking nearer toward a hot - spot in the nick of time.

Later the details emerged. The city’s traffic controllers had removed an ill- parked car with the help of a pick- up truck to take it to a compound, which was by the riverbank. But this car was no ordinary parking violator. It was primed with explosive. In the event there didn’t appear to be many causalities except the pick- up truck driver, whose family sometime later that day would receive a message from the authorities of not the best content."