Goosebumps

Ali Kargin / 2024

I was thinking about moments of "connection" that I feel to my work. I don't specifically remember those moments. It's probably because they don't exist – except some poems I wrote and never shared.

But I think I can describe the nature of the "connection" we talked about. So you can have some ideas. I'll give you a very recent and vivid example and I think you have at least some context to recognize it. During the kickoff session I was nervous if you remember, as usual when I do public speaking, I was trying to say something about myself quickly because I just wanted to come to the comic I made for the presentation. The moment I see it on the screen, my worries are gone. Yes, that piece of crappy "art" gave me a hand. She almost hugged me like someone you know for your entire life. I don't know what that was but I felt like it was almost my extension, a piece of me, was on the screen, and of course I can talk about it day and night, like I can talk about my hands, or body parts.

I'm not trying to romanticize a piece of comics. But when I think about the work or the nature of the work I'm interested in, I'm actually pursuing this kind of connection. It's an expression of you, like a smile of yourself, it's an extension of you in a sense.

But i think, this was just a moment that I used to explain the nature of the "connection". I believe there is beyond. I call them "magic moments" or, as Simona put it, "goosebumps". These are the moments I seek in my life, in people, and in my work. And I believe those are rare to run into but they're worth pursuing.

Those moments transform us, that transformation just opens another door to more beauties. So if me, or someone else can see at least some spark of those in my work, then I think that's a "connection".

I will attach a piece of poem that I wrote for those moments in 2016( a bit embarrassing but yeah) – it's in Turkish but I will translate it even though I don't enjoy the translation.

Here it is
The reason I'm here
To give everything I have
For a single moment
Of pure miracle…