Zeki Tarik SariogluAt the end of a long day in the workshop, Mehmet Bulent Fistikci’s mentor would leave his apprentices with a lesson that had little to do with wood, wire or mother-of-pearl.
“My son, the work you do reflects your character. The cleaner your work, the cleaner your character will be.”
Decades later, the words of his late mentor, Hayri Akbay, still shape the way Fistikci approaches his craft.
For nearly 40 years, the Gaziantep-based craftsman has worked with walnut wood, thin strands of metal and shimmering pieces of mother-of-pearl, turning them into intricately decorated objects through a process that demands patience, precision and years of experience.
But his journey into the craft began almost by chance.
Born in 1976 and raised in Gaziantep, Fistikci first entered a workshop as a child.
One of his uncles was a carpenter. Fistikci recalls that his mother sent him to work with his uncle because he was constantly getting into trouble at home.
He spent several years there as an apprentice before another uncle introduced him to mother-of-pearl inlay.
“My mother told him, ‘Take him with you. He’s just sitting around doing nothing here again,’” Fistikci recalls.
His uncle took him by the hand to a mother-of-pearl workshop, where another coincidence helped determine the course of his life: the master’s son happened to be one of Fistikci’s primary school friends.
“He told his father, ‘He’s my primary school friend. Let him start working here.’ And I started there.”
On his first day, Fistikci learned how to make “kuncu”, a small brass decorative element used in the craft.
It was unusual for a new apprentice. At the time, he says, apprentices would normally have to wait at least three years before being allowed to work on it.
“I started doing it on my very first day.”
Fistikci spent 15 years in Hayri Akbay’s workshop, staying there until his mentor died.
The technical skills he acquired during those years were only one part of his apprenticeship. Just as important was the way Akbay conducted himself.
“I always looked up to his manner, the way he dressed and his attitude,” Fistikci says.
A mother-of-pearl workshop is filled with dust from cutting, carving and sanding wood, yet Fistikci remembers never seeing his mentor looking untidy.
“I never saw my mentor unshaved,” he says.
“Even though a mother-of-pearl workshop can be dusty and dirty, he always dressed very neatly.”
As a young apprentice, Fistikci wondered how his mentor stayed so immaculate while working in such an environment.
Over time, he came to understand that craftsmanship was not simply about producing an object. It was also about discipline and the character of the person making it.
“I always looked up to my mentor’s character, personality and the way he carried himself in the workshop.”
That philosophy remains visible in the painstaking way Fistikci works today.
From the Euphrates to the workshop
Mother-of-pearl inlay holds a distinctive place in Ottoman decorative arts. Among its best-known masters was [Sedefkar Mehmet Aga], who later became the architect of Istanbul’s Sultan Ahmed Mosque.
In the late 19th century, Sultan Abdulhamid II established a mother-of-pearl workshop at Yildiz Palace, helping sustain the craft within the imperial tradition. Geometric compositions and floral motifs, including tulips and carnations, became characteristic elements of the art.
Fistikci still works with many of those materials and motifs today.
One of the central materials he uses comes from freshwater mussel shells found along the Euphrates River.
During the heat of July, he explains, the shells wash up along the riverbanks, where they are collected.
“If we didn’t collect them, they would simply rot in nature,” he says.
“We make use of them without harming any living creatures.”
They break the shells, flatten them, and carefully shape them before using them as mother-of-pearl inlays.
“This is our original mother-of-pearl,” Fistikci says, holding up the material.
“The finest mother-of-pearl in Türkiye comes from the Euphrates River.”
His workshop also uses varieties originating farther afield, including abalone, commonly used in jewellery and decorative pieces, as well as pearl-bearing shells and red mother-of-pearl.
For Fistikci, their colours form nature’s own palette.
Black, green, red and iridescent surfaces eventually become tiny pieces within much larger geometric and floral compositions.
But before the mother-of-pearl can be placed, the wooden object itself has to take shape.
Fistikci begins with walnut wood, with carpenters and woodturners preparing the raw pieces before the design process begins.
The surface is divided into geometric forms, and the motif is drawn. Tulips and other flowers can form part of the composition, while names can also be incorporated alongside Ottoman numerals and Arabic, Turkish or Latin lettering.
Once the design is complete, a tool known as a “kesi” is used to open narrow channels for the metal wire.
Fistikci says his workshop commonly uses 0.80-millimetre brass wire, although aluminium, silver and alpaca wire can also be used.
The mother-of-pearl is then prepared by hand. Freshwater mussel shells are broken with pliers and flattened on both sides, with each fragment shaped by eye to match the space carved into the wood.
The pieces are then glued into place.
A day later, the surface is sanded until the wood, metal wire, and mother-of-pearl sit at exactly the same level.
The finished object may appear seamless, but the process behind it is anything but simple.
A craft passed from father to son
For Fistikci, preserving the craft has also meant bringing it into his own family.
His eldest son, Ali Fistikci, began working beside him at 10 years old. Today, Ali has spent years working as a master instructor at an Institute of Maturation, while his middle son, Hakan, works in the family workshop.
His youngest son, Cagri, who is still in high school, has also been trained by his father.
The sense of continuity extends beyond his sons.
Fistikci says he has worked with the same colleagues in his workshop for at least two decades.
“We’re like a family,” he says. “It’s the same team, and we’ve stayed together all these years.”
That continuity matters especially in a craft where knowledge has traditionally been passed directly from one pair of hands to another.
Fistikci himself learned by sitting beside a master. Now he occupies the other side of that relationship.
The boy who was once taken by the hand into a workshop now teaches his own children the craft he learned there.
Fistikci’s decades of work eventually brought wider recognition.
At the Usta Eller Bazaar, which brings together traditional crafts and masters from different cities, Fistikci was chosen to represent mother-of-pearl inlay.
There, he established a workshop and was allocated a 60-square-metre shop.
The recognition reached another level when he received an award in the presence of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
For Fistikci, the moment's significance was not financial.
“The material value is not what matters,” he says. “The emotional significance is beyond words.”
Receiving the award from the president, he adds, was “a great honour”.
“It was an indescribable feeling. I can’t put it into words.”
Yet nearly four decades after he first entered a workshop as a boy, Fistikci still returns to the lesson his mentor taught him there.
Amid walnut wood, brass wire and fragments of mother-of-pearl, Hayri Akbay’s words continue to shape both the objects Fistikci makes and the way he makes them:
“The work you do reflects your character.”
