Elif and her mother, Özlem, argue while hiking at Kapıkaya, the ancient sanctuary dedicated to Cybele, the Earth Mother.
…Her mother’s obsession with unearthing human artifacts is hers alone; Elif’s work is focused on the earth itself and on creating images that might hold meaning. Their only juncture is ancient sites, like Kapıkaya, that are, at least for her, sacred.…
“But why bring me?” Elif tries to hold her gaze. “Why trick me into coming?”
“Because, my dear,” Boroğlu says, her tone becoming less combative, but still resentful, “you’ve become better at reading the earth than I ever was.”
Elif scrunches her face. She and her mother look at the world far differently—the earth itself, people, life. Everything, it sometimes seems. An artist is not an archeologist. Her mother looks for what is dead and buried; Elif feels for what is living. Her mother searches. In her sculpting, except for the current project, which has required almost a dozen models so far, Elif waits and becomes, at least sometimes, connected—a conduit. “I don’t know about that,” she says finally.
Jay Amberg, Author 