Pebbles were dragged to the shore by the waves that swept the bottom of the sea and dragged everything they came across with to the shore, as a result of the heavy southwest wind that was blown all night long, in the south coast. The wall of pebbles, formed on the farthest point where the waves could reach, became higher with the pebbles that waves had just dragged. When she went to the shore, the storm had ceased, the waves were calm and could not reach to the wall anymore. Nothing could be seen but the pebbles covering the shore, including the bottom of the sea and the water. A piece of rock, looking like a huge pebble and some part of whose surface was covered with pebbles could also be seen. She sat on a rock resembling a mound, which is buried both in the water and pebbles, as she always does. She looked at the horizon, the sea, the sky, and the waves. Everything looked alright. After the last night’s chaos, everything was looking like what she remembered. Except for the pebbles. The shore with pebbles always changes and it changed once more.

 

The pebbles under her feet must have just been dragged. She needed to look closer in order to understand if they were already there, or had just been brought. Looking from distance, it was impossible to distinguish the change, because it was impossible to perceive the pebbles individually as they constituted something altogether, gave up their individualities and formed the endless shore.

 

She realized three big pebbles, which were close to each other and didn’t/couldn’t give up their individualities. She knelt and looked at the pebbles closely. One of them was as black as tar but it was blueish inside. It was like a bright dark night and looking like a black hole among the others. She reached and grabbed it. 

 

Its wide and circular part filled her palm but its thin and long part, hidden among the other pebbles looked as if it would crack. Its colour turned grey and faded away as it dried. When it was left in the sea it turned shiny deep blue again.

 

This time, a slender, long and dull grey pebble caught her eye. She grabbed and stared at it; the pebble was reminding of bullet melt randomly spread the floor and its shape was somewhere between a random and a designed one. Even though it became light grey when dried, it turned dull grey when left in the sea.

 

The dark green pebble, sitting further and sprinkled by the waves, was looking like an oil stain. When she handled, it reminded of a pellet of petrol residue. As it dried in her hand, it turned grey and faded away. When she left the pebble to the sea in order to take the white pebble that caught her eye, the pebble again turned into oil steam.

 

The white pebble was looking like a body from antiquity. It was just like a torso, which had been rolling on the shore for a long time, eroded as a result of rubbing against the other pebbles, lost its hard-edged shape and become smoother; the more it was eroded, the smoother it became. Its surface was reminding of skin. As it dried, it became whiter. She sprinkled it but didn’t leave it to the sea. It was beautiful itself, and as the memory of the others. She remembered the black, dark green and the dull grey ones. She looked at the sea, they were at the point where she left them. The waves eroding the pebbles by dragging the small ones, let them alone for a while. The big pebbles were sitting calmly.

 

She walked along the shore with the white pebble in her hand. She was looking at the ground and the pebbles while walking as the sun was shining brightly. She was thinking while walking; these little creatures, which look alike when seen from distance but look authentic when looked closely, also looked as if they were representing something different. Each of them resembled small sculptures or the small pieces of a huge sculpture. Each pebble, looking both like the whole and the parts of the whole, both looked alike and looked authentic.

 

She sat on the pebbles and took out her drawing notebook, which she carries in her bag anywhere she goes and tried to draw something; what she drew without lifting her pen was different from what she stared at, but it represented them on the paper. She tried once more. The same thing happened: They were similar, very similar, yet they were not the same. The drawing was not the same as pebbles but it represented them. She realized that, while drawing, she carefully examines what she draws and how she draws. It was the first time she realized that. Sometimes drawing is a mental act, and sometimes it is a bodily act. What she drew were just like pebbles; they looked as if they were somewhere between the voluntary and the incidental. Somewhere between what we want to make out of them and what they want to be… In Limbo… She continued drawing. The pages were full of different drawings. She drew bigger and lonely figures on the following pages. Traces of the black, dark green and dull grey pencils on the white page reminded of the memories of the pebbles she left to the sea. Satisfied with what she saw, she closed the drawing book. She looked at the shore. The sunlight was shining dazzlingly on the wet pebbles of the shore. “Alice in the Wonderland” she murmured.

 

Years later, while she was working at the studio for a work consisting of several pieces, she found herself murmuring the same sentence, in the midst of approximately a hundred pieces randomly placed in the studio some of which are completed, about to be completed, brightly painted, or ready-primed. If she was asked, she would tell that she didn’t imitate the nature. She was right. When she remembered what she drew on her drawing notebook, she realized that she was imitating what she drew, instead of the pebbles. 

 

On the other hand, the drawings in her notebook have the traces of the pebbles. Imitation was repeated twice at first, then repeated endlessly, and in the end these representative objects, which are somewhere between the fiction and the incident. Thanks to a moment of enlightenment, in the middle of the night, she realized that she was among the ones that were going to be expelled from the Republic of Plato. She felt satisfied, proud and chilly as she was doing something prohibited in front of the art pieces which are among the entities that are far away from reality along with the shadows and reflections. When she said that she never thought these while drawing, she realized that this is where the problem comes from. She was doing without thinking and that was the problem. Doing without knowing is something negative according to Plato, and this belief continued until Aristotle attributed a positive meaning to the concept of imitation. Even though he had a kind of moralistic approach, implicit or explicit meanings have acquited art. We learn by seeing, and then we see by means of what we learn. This must be the reason why they look like the pebbles on the shore.