In August 1996, before I left Istanbul, everything was arranged for my first days in NYC. Ayse Çelem was living with her parents in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She offered me to stay with them until I found a permanent place. They were great hosts to me and it was a good kick start after all.
Bouncing between many couches for a few months, I finally located myself permanently sharing a flat with a real Newyorker in a SoHo apartment. In the mean time, I got my first job through the “Village Voice”, a sales clerk position at a women’s boutique in SoHo. With my first savings I bought a Sony Handycam Camera (see pic 2) and a Macintosh Computer (see pic 1). I kept drawing sketches on my diary books (see pick 3).
1997 was my lucky year; I won the Green Card Lottery. This is the permit that gives one the opportunity to become a permanent resident in the United States. That meant a lot to me; I could travel freely anywhere in the world.
In 1998, after receiving my residency permit, I moved to a new apartment in Queens and got a temporary job. I took a vacation to San Francisco and filmed during my trip. On the way back, I got commissioned by my boss to make paintings for her Upper West Side jewellery store, so I shopped at Pearl Paint for art materials and set my painting studio (see pic 5) once again.
A few months later, I subleted my first own apartment in Manhattan and started to go out with a Spanish friend who has become my lifetime partner. He knew about computers and design programs, I learned a lot from him. Together, we created “HandMadePlace”; a label for art and crafts. I started to sell my artwork labelled “HandMadePlace.com” (see pic 4) on the Upper West Side Open Market.
At the end of the year, I got hired by Novo Art Design Company. My job was creating decorative artworks for big firms without putting my signature on them. It was an art labour work, but it paid my bills and it was good to work with talented artists at that time. I learned much more painting techniques than my whole studies in collage.