In 2013, I visited an old felt-making workshop in Balıkesir. The room was crowded with wool, wooden equipment, machines and tools worn by years of use. I watched the craftsman at work and photographed the different stages of production. The workshop itself was part of the story: piles of wool on the floor, tools against the walls and machinery that had become inseparable from everyday labour.
At the beginning of the process, wool was carded by machine, opening and separating the fibres before they were laid out. I photographed the craftsman working at this stage. That image became especially meaningful to me: it later appeared in my book and was included in several photography competitions. It captured a moment in which the physical presence of the worker and the mechanical process met.
Once prepared, the wool was spread evenly over a firm, flexible covering. The distribution of the fibres mattered, helping to produce a consistent felt surface. The wool and its covering were then rolled together and placed in a mechanical apparatus. As the roll rotated, repeated heavy blows from above compressed and worked the fibres. With moisture, pressure and movement, the fibres gradually interlocked to form felt, a dense non-woven material. Photograph 13 is particularly valuable for showing this mechanical stage of the process.
Felt has long served many purposes in Anatolia and beyond. It has been used for shepherds' cloaks known as kepenek, headwear, floor coverings, prayer rugs, cushions and protective pads beneath saddles. Its insulating and resilient qualities also make it useful for shelter coverings and, in modern applications, for insulation, cushioning, polishing and industrial components. These are general uses of felt; the photographs do not establish which products this particular workshop supplied.
My intention was to record more than a finished material. I wanted to preserve the gestures of the craftsman as he handled the wool, the machinery that shaped it, and the working environment around him. Looking back at these photographs, I remember a workshop in Balıkesir in 2013 where an old craft continued through a combination of manual skill and mechanical force.