"COUCHING" PRODUCTS AT KAHRAMANMARAS MUSEUM

Abstract

One of the most significant branches of our culture and traditional handicraft arts is embroidery. It is of an aesthetic characteristic and artistic value produced with the help of a needle or a crochet applied on such surfaces as a woven fabric,leather, felt etc. using silk, wool, raffia, silver purl threads. Even though handicraft arts which are the products of creative intelligence, fine taste and skill seem to be disappearing in some ages, they have managed to reach to the current time as one of the important documents of our culture. One of the techniques having a prominent place in our tradition embroidery is couching technique. Couching is an easy to apply technique made by attaching a yarn produced by stranding into a cord or a thick yarn with a fine yarn on the design line over a cloth surface. It has been in the program of vocational and technical teaching schools and non-formal education institutions. There are some samples of cepken, shalwar (baggy trousers),wristband, vest and jacked embroider with couching technique in KahramanmaraÅŸ Museum. In the current study, these samples were investigated in terms of technique, design, materials, composition and so on , and introduced with visual examples.

Keywords: Ethnography Museums, aesthetic characteristic and artistic value