September 09, 2021

An Interview with Begüm Cana Özgür

Begüm Cana Özgür, who goes by Cana, is a product and textile designer based in Istanbul and New York. She received her master’s degree in 3D Design from Cranbook Academy of Art, and returned to Istanbul to found her studio, inspired by Turkey’s cultural richness and ancient craft practices.

In her collaborations with local artisans, she strives to create a contemporary expression through traditional weaving culture. We spoke with her about her background, her inspirations, the collection she designed for us, and turtles.

Revival: 
Tell us about how you got here.

Cana:
My background is in interior architecture. I got my Master's in 3D design, which is almost like product design at Cranbrook Academy of Art. It's an old school, a lot of mid-century modernist (designers) came from there. The campus is so beautiful, it's cultural. It has a heritage.

Because the education there is very open, they let you explore whatever you want to work on, and they want you to make things, not just drawings and sketches, but they want to see physical things. And that's how I got into textiles. I just realized I really liked playing with yarns and felt and wool because I can control it with my fingers. And then I started spending most of my time at fiber studio, I learned weaving, dying and all that stuff there.

And then I graduated with this new interest of mine and then I came back to Istanbul. I was still very excited about exploring some weaving, and we have the tradition here, all the weavers are in my reach, all the suppliers are in my reach. So I wanted to explore more on weaving and I started making samples, more experimental things. And then some of them came out so nice that we thought, "Oh, this would be a very nice rug. Why don't we try to produce it?" So I visited different villages in Turkey known for their weaving, and I began working with women weavers there to produce my designs. But the main idea that took me to weaving is that I'm always seeking an emotional quality in the products. And I think textiles is a great medium to explore that subject.

Revival:
That's such a good point. Do you think that's because, like you said, your hands are always touching it versus being a little bit removed?

Cana:
Exactly. You start to experience the piece and the softness or hardness, the surface quality, the color, it makes connections with your subconscious mind and brings some memories, which you don't really know what they are-

Revival:
But they come out.

Cana:
Yeah. And then you love it or you hate it.

And I liked that idea of either loving a piece or hating a piece. Because when you're emotionally engaged, then that's a big thing. It just becomes a part of your inner world. Color, pattern, texture—such sensory qualities are important tools to create the experience of being. These qualities form our engagement with the outside world, as well as evoking emotions to create a channel with the inner world. 

Revival:
Because it's speaking and it's not speaking in words. So you have this freedom, sort of.

Cana:
Yeah, exactly. It's very subjective.

Revival:
Can I ask where you got your loom?

Cana:
This one? I had it built for me.

Revival:
You did?

Cana:
Yeah.

Revival:
That's so cool.

Cana:
Because I learned weaving in the U.S, the looms that we were using there are very different than the traditional rug looms that are used in Turkish villages. Maybe the ones that I learned on are not specifically for rug weaving, but for fabrics or softer textiles. But that's how I learned weaving. And when I came (to Istanbul), I didn't really know how the others are, how they prepare to warp and all that.

(Sample weaving) is a very important part of my process because this is how I understand how the texture goes and how it feels and how it can be technically done or not possible to do.

Revival:
It's how you learn.

Cana:
Exactly. I don't design with computers. This is how it starts. And then when I think I got something, "Oh, I got a new texture here." Then I go to the computer and start working on, "Oh, what can I do with this texture? What patterns, what colors."

When I first started working here, it was a blank mind and I made a lot of samples just playing around, "let's use this thick yarn and let's put it this way instead of that and see what happens," and some are useless, some aren't really... some came out really nice. And then we pick from them and just said, "Okay, let's put this in production." As I played with it, the ideas emerged.

Revival:
Is there anyone that you love, artists or from the past or today and do you have any favorites?

Cana:
My favorite designer is Hella Jongerius, she's a Dutch designer. She's also working on weaving and textiles. Her recent medium is textiles. But I love her approach with plastics and ceramics as well. She's also a thinker with her hands. And you can see the traces of process in her work. I find it very inspiring, I can say that.

Revival:
I like that.

Cana:
And I think she's not following trends and all that. She's just going in her own direction. So whatever she produces or creates has its values.

Revival:
Looking around your studio, you have a definite sense of color. Can you talk about that a little bit, colors maybe that you're drawn to? Do you dye some of the yarn yourself?

Cana:
Yeah. At the beginning I was doing more dyeing, but now since I work with producers, I give them color samples or I take the colors from there. But colors, it's such a big world that I'm just getting into it. It's crazy. Endless. And the more I deal with colors, the more I learn how hard it is.

Revival:
Because also when you said before that it's subjective, colors especially.

Cana:
It is. And the interaction of colors, you see a red, it's more red and then when you put it next to the print color it looks something else. Especially with this new collection, I can show you two rugs that use the same yarn but one would look more pinkish and one would look more reddish, though it's the same yarn. So that's a very difficult process. Because your eye wants to find balance so it manipulates the colors.

Revival:
Wow. It's mind blowing.

Cana:
I'll show you what we're talking about...you're going to see my process. (She shows us small hand-painted swatch cards made up of many different strips of colors.)

Revival:
Look how beautiful. What kind of paint is it?

Cana:
This is acrylic...trying to find the right shade of gray.

Revival:
Oh wow. You work very hard.

Cana:
And then it looks different when it's wet, it looks different when it's dry. I have a lot of these.

Revival:
So you try to dye the yarn to match... this becomes sort of your swatch?

Cana:
This becomes my swatch, yeah. We try to catch the same color on fiber prints, it's never the same- because fiber reflects differently than the paper does. So if I had these big and very expensive color swatches, it would've been easier. But I like this process, it's very meditative. And as I paint, I also come to see colors that, "Oh, this is maybe better than what was in my mind."

Revival:
I want to be mindful of time. But I want to ask about the turtle.

Cana:
Okay.

Revival:
Is he going to come to New York with you?

Cana:
No. Well, it's a she.

Revival:
Oh, I'm sorry.

Cana:
Her name is Cana as well. She's been with us for maybe more than 10 years now.

Revival:
She's really beautiful, even her neck.

Cana:
She's healthy. We're not doing anything extra, she's really healthy. So my friends bought this as a birthday gift to me when (my husband and I) first started dating. So they bought two, one was called Sinan, after my husband, and the other was called Cana.

Revival:
Were they tiny at the time?

Cana:
Yeah, they were small. Cana was this big and she buried two Sinans. We decided maybe she wants to be alone. And she's super healthy. I don't know.