I was born on May 19th,1973 in Yalova; a beautiful small town just 33 miles outside Istanbul, set along the Sea of Marmara. My childhood and most of my teenage years passed in that small town, a place many refer to as the “elephant graveyard”. There weren’t many jobs other than retail and banking, so there weren’t many prospects for young people like myself to inspire goals for their life. Almost all my friends dreamt of getting out of Yalova, never to return, although that’s much easier to be said than it is to be done. Istanbul, which is very much like New York City, is not an easy place to live either. Imagine a metropolis that is filled with people not just from all over the country, but from all over the world as well. You do need a good education and strong skills to support your ambition. I was lucky.

Growing up, my aunt sent me to a private school in Bursa, the Ottoman Empire’s first capital. Although it was only an hour away from my home town, I attended and lived there as a boarding student. There I had the opportunity to meet people from all over my country and my teachers were from abroad. I believe that it was this school that helped me to break out of my shell, and made me brave enough to embrace the world.

ART

Since I was a little boy, I was gifted with artistic abilities. I used to draw pictures like no other child in school. I used to write poems, and was often recruited by my friends to write poems for their girlfriends. I was in the school band, theater groups, taking music classes, etc.. But I wasn’t aware of my own talent, and it had never occurred to me that art or anything art related could translate into an actual profession. My abilities were actually discovered by a friend of mine, who was a fine arts/graphic design student enrolled in one of the finest art colleges in Istanbul. We used to spend a lot of time together since our interests were so much alike. During one of those evenings while visiting his home, he gave me a pen and paper and asked me to doodle something while he was working, that I shouldn’t feel so alienated. I took the cover of Running Wild’s “Death or Glory” album and began recreating it. The result surprised him, and from that day on I began helping him with his school projects. Spending that time together resulted in my helping him with his graduation project for which he received the highest grades from his teachers, and him graduating in first place.

This relationship: me helping him, in the end turned out to be him helping me, because it taught me a very good trade and I went on to attend the Fine Arts Academy. In that period of time I had the opportunity to work in cinema and television. A series of fortunate events afforded me the chance to meet very well known figures in Turkey. The first was an acknowledged scenarist who gave me a small acting role in one of his television series, and that experience in turn helped me to land another role in an even more popular TV drama. One job parlayed into another and over the course of four years I acted in 6 TV series, 2 music videos, and in a commercial. I then transferred my poetic talents to prose; to story writing, and the very same scenarist gave me a job within his group of assistant writers. While perhaps not as flattering, I did receive an honorable mention for a movie script that I wrote in 1997.

So came 1998. That year I start working in a small ad. agency in Istanbul, called USP. It was really small; A boss, a graphic designer (me), a secretary, a bookkeeper, an office boy and a cleaning lady. For two years I designed newspaper ads, catalogs, brochures and all sorts of print media for a big group of companies, whose main focus was on energy industry. In 2000 I received an offer from a bigger design firm; Turek, to be their general manager. I accepted the offer, hoping that it’d be a jump in my career. I tried my best to put things in order, but I wasn’t successful. A life lesson for me: I can not manage people. Lucky for me, a rival agencies owner recruited me to work as a graphic designer. It wasn’t “a” step down from my previous position; it was 5-6 steps back. Now I was working in a real advertising company with bunch of really talented designers. I start working with a great enthusiasm but it last only 1 month. The country went bankrupt in one day thanks to politicians. The agency had to layoff many of their workers. The following 6 months were very hard on me. Not just me but all the Turkish citizens.

In my search for a potential employment, I met with a young entrepreneur who owned a promotion and gifts import company. He was very anxious to bid in Pearson Education’s; (a world wide known publishing company) catalog and other print purchases. We made a business deal: I was going to establish my own design company and he was going to act as my business lead. So I established my first company: Ata Advertising in 2002. The partnership was fruitful. He brought me many big companies such as Shell Oil, Bp and CitiBank and I provide him good quality works. At the end we both earned good money.

In 2003 I came to the USA…

The rest of the story is still under construction(!), so I will write about it later.

Thank you,

Edizkan Adil Ata