I'm here with Dervish, who is actually from Turkey originally.

And you're a professor at Notre Dame, right?

As well as being an artist.

Tell me a little bit about how you ended up here in this area and what you're what you're doing in this area.

Well, I came here, because of Notre Dame.

I'm a theoretical physicist, by training and, the academic world is tough to find job, so.

Yeah.

I'm very grateful and happy, to be working here at Notre Dame in the physics department.

I feel like as someone who was born in another country, like, that's the number one question I always got, like, how did you end up here?

Notre Dame is a big answer, obviously, for most people.

So I felt like I needed to start off with that one at least.

So that's what you do professionally, you know, full time.

Tell me a little bit about your, what's the style?

What is it that we're looking at here?

I know nothing about it.

So I'm a complete novice when it comes to all this.

Can you tell me a little bit about what it is and the process behind it?

Yeah.

So my my artistic interests kind of align with my academic interests also.

I'm very interested in, aging and death, how things fall apart, how how biological organisms fall apart, how ecosystems fall apart, how things go extinct, and so on.

It's a little bit dark, maybe, but I, I like this.

But, you know, there's also something to be said about the beauty of things that are not traditionally, viewed as beautiful, such as a crack in the wall or, I don't know, you crumple a piece of paper, but like, if you draw a frame around the crumpled piece of paper, it's like it could be like a cathedral, right?

It's actually very beautiful.

Yeah.

Or maybe you pour your beer in a glass and a foam.

Right?

And you look at the structure of the foam and it's like, it's like a masterpiece, right?

So, like, I appreciate the little, the beauty and little things.

Let's say I love that.

I think about that sometimes.

Like, if I make, like, tea in a glass and put some milk in, you see the milk?

Oh, yeah.

That's me.

I'm like, that's one of the, like, the way it mixes together.

So I totally get it.

And I actually think if we stop and appreciate those things more, there's beauty everywhere.

Yeah.

So, when did you start doing arts?

Like what?

Like, is this something that you've done all your life or.

I mean, you have this big exhibit that's happening here in downtown South Bend.

How did you get to a point of being this good?

So actually, I my hobby is to collect hobbies.

I very much enjoy being in the growth mindset.

And I have so many, so many things that I like to do.

I'm a composer also, and I write little things, like I play with mud, I play with my little equations and things.

But so I started doing pottery really just two years ago.

And, but when I get into something, I get consumed with us.

Yes.

And so I, I do spend a lot of time these days on pottery, and all my other hobbies are now kind of a burner there.

They're waiting for the pottery to, to die off.

But and again, explain some of the pieces here, like what were some of your favorites?

Like, you talk about things being you find beauty and things that are not perfect.

Yeah.

So for example here, like, I, I really love cracks like, oh, desiccated earth.

Yeah.

I don't know, like an old person's skin.

Yeah.

Wrinkles.

Right.

So you can see that in a lot of my pieces, like cracked crackling patterns.

Yeah.

I really love the patterns that form in the biological world.

Like, for example, here, this orange one, looks very much like how a slime mold, would be looking for food.

You know, they form this beautiful, beautiful networks, here in the back.

Maybe, you might find some similarities.

Perhaps with a fingerprint.

Oh, yeah.

Which we never think about.

Right.

Because it's always in our thumb.

But it's actually, like, a gorgeous pattern.

And, like, like branches, roots.

Yeah.

And corals.

Brain corals.

Yeah.

These, these patterns have a name in general, like the sand dunes and your fingerprints and the brain coral or the zebra stripes.

They're called turning patterns.

Okay.

And, it's also an academic interest of mine.

Like in the living world.

How do these patterns emerge?

So you only started doing this two years ago.

Yeah.

And you're already just have, like, your own exhibit.

It's my it's my first solo exhibit, right?

Yeah.

But it's still, I mean, even to have this, there's there's many things on display and just to have this, how does that feel?

Like that must be kind of cool.

It's.

I feel very proud.

I mean, maybe this might sound a little egocentric or something, but when I, when I look at something I build, I really find it very beautiful.

And in a way, that's the advantage of making your own kind of art, like composing or pottery, but, like, you can make things exactly the way you want.

Yes.

And you can, like, it's customized exactly for you and.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's a big draw for me.

I, I always believe I love creating too.

And one of the things I always believe is that, you know, so, so much emphasis is put on people consuming your creation as that's the level of success.

But to me, the real success is enjoying the creation.

I very much agree.

I'm the consumer.

Like, yeah, but as the person making it, I'm the consumer.

I'm making it exactly like I want.

And that way it's like, okay, if someone buys them, that's cool.

That's a great thing.

But the the joy of the experience is not dictated by whether these are sell.

You know, in the special case of pottery, there's also an element of like, a dopamine rush when you open the kiln because like before that point, it's just mud.

It's just it doesn't look beautiful.

It doesn't look like vibrant.

It's basically mud.

And then you just make it undergo this magical process.

You open the box and it's like, wow, Christmas, Christmas Day for me.

I love that your enthusiasm for this is really infectious.

I really like it.

I also think about that the more I get into like, science was not something that I was very much into until a few years ago.

And when you talk about different patterns and things like that, there's actually there's so many things that have similar patterns across the world that we never think of, like even in the galaxy or in, in small things or in, in just a leaf of a tree, like, there's, there's so many things that have similar patterns, right?

Like that.

You see them in so many places.

So there's only so many.

I mean, you can customize it, but it feels like there's only so many things you can do as well.

And there's so many similarities between a lot of, yeah, in physics we call this universality class.

Okay.

There you go.

Okay.

Class number one, neurosurgery.

Class number two.

Well, like, totally unrelated things exhibit the same behaviors.

And yeah, in physics, which is yeah, these systems, as I'm saying it, I'm like, I could be talking gibberish, but that's what it feels like to me.

And then you gave it a really nice, you know, academic name.

So you made me feel like better about that.

So I appreciate it.

So tell me about this exhibit that's here.

Like, do you know when it's open and and people can come and see it.

Yeah.

It's it's here.

Flight arts, this gallery opens after like after 12:00.

Yeah.

It's open every day except Sunday and Monday.

Yeah.

And this exhibit is going to be on until the end of March.

And are you hoping to do any like are you planning on being here for any events?

I know sometimes, you know, the artist likes to be here as well.

So that's something that you're going to do or.

Yeah, we had a very crowded opening events.

I was very happy.

At the end of the exhibit, I'm going to give a talk here.

There's going to be like a public talk at the very end of this, exhibit.

I'm going to give a talk, and I'm going to show a lot of pictures about, you know, how these patterns form in nature.

It's going to be a little bit sciency, actually.

Nice.

That's awesome.

As I said.

Yeah, that's just, it's something that the older I get, the more I want to know these things.

And so that's really cool.

Well, good for you, I like this.

I'm glad you found this hobby.

I wonder what your next hobby is going to be.

And I don't know, maybe it'll just be pottery.

And when it comes to putting a price on things, just finally, how do you put a price on something?

Do you think about the consumer like what's okay for someone to buy or do you think about?

Truly, I'd be happy for that to go.

So this is extremely difficult for me.

I don't typically sell my pieces, especially my good pieces.

So when they told me that, okay, that we're going to have an exhibit for you, what I did is I open my cupboards, my cabinets, my.

So most of these things are the stuff that I use at my own house.

Okay.

These are my own plates and my cups and my flower pots and so on.

And then, like the ones that I thought, okay, I want to continue using this because I just really love this so much.

I just inflated their prices so that nobody would so that nobody would buy them.

That's awesome.

But, sadly, they kind of do.

Sadly, people are buying my lovely people and buy my favorite stuff.

And now you're eating off paper plates at home till the end of March?

Yeah, there's a little bit of that.

Definitely.

Well, thank you so much.

You know, your enthusiasm for it really comes across.

So I do hope all of them sell or not.

Whatever you prefer.

So.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thanks for coming.