Egyptian dispatch: March 31, 2013

I first visited Egypt in 1975. At that time when you entered the country you had to exchange your money at a 'tourist' rate — which was more favorable than the official one. The only trick was that you couldn't take the money out of the country. As I came to leave I still had some Egyptian pounds and I thought the smart thing to do was to buy gold, so I bought 4 gold rings. I smuggled them out of the country in my toothpaste tube, and was so nervous when I entered customs back in the UK that I almost gave myself up! Unfortunately, since the rings did not have European stamps on them they were not worth very much, so I kept them. Over the years I gave two of them away. So, when it came to our marriage 16 years later I still had the two remaining rings, plus the story of where and how I acquired them coupled with the delightfully romantic irony that I was marrying an Egyptian.

Egyptian dispatch: March 21, 2013

In July 1991, Arda and I got married on a boat in the San Francisco Bay — today Nina and I brought her back to the Bay again. We found a beautiful spot just over the Golden Gate Bridge. Our journey of 7.5 thousand miles was over and Arda was home at last. Today was the sixth week anniversary of her death.

Egyptian dispatch: March 18, 2013

We've got Arda all ready for her final trip to the west coast. We get to the airport and the first flight is cancelled because of the snow, and then the replacement is cancelled. We stay the night at home with an early rise in the morning.

Egyptian dispatches: March 17, 2013

The morning after the House Party for Arda.

[Photoboard: Barb Tennity. Painting: Kaila Bronker]

Egyptian dispatch: Fluxbox for A.I., 2013

I slowly started making this fluxbox with all sorts of small item's of Arda's that I didn't want to throw away. It quickly filled up and each little box is like a compartment into her life and personality.

Egyptian dispatch: Arda Ishkhanian mini-retrospective at the WC Gallery, March 14, 2013

33. Abu Ghraib, mixed media, c. 2005

29. Untitled, practice embroidery cloth, nd

19. Untitled (portrait of Arda), unknown photographer, nd.  

21. Grassroots Uprising, embroidery, c. 2005.

17. Back from San Francisco, embroidery, c. 2010

24. Arda performing as Janet Janet, 501 Cultural Center, San Francisco, 1988

26. Untitled (Leua Latai), acrylic on bark, 2006.

31. Shadow Play, mixed media, 2006

Untitled, colored balls in Plexiglas box, nd

16. Untitled, colored pen on foamcore, c. 2006

18. Untitled, felt, 2012

30. Untitled (Hmong Courtship), felt, 2012

29. Untitled, practice embroidery cloth, nd

27. Untitled, embroidery and palm bark, nd.
 This work was unfinished at the time of her death. She had just started experimenting with the local palm tree bark as a sculptural medium. 

Egyptian dispatch: A House Party for Arda, De Pere, Wisconsin

Egyptian dispatch: March 1, 2013

I went to pick Arda up from the funeral home today. I had found this beautiful vase made by Kia Vang, a local Hmong artist, as a xmas present for her, and was going to give it to her when she came back — and now I'm putting her inside of it. There's a round metal tag attached to the bag with the number 3582. 

This will be her container for her final ride out west.

Egyptian dispatch: Feb. 25, 2013

Arda Iris Ishkhanian

(1957-2013)

Arda Iris Ishkhanian, 55, De Pere died on February 7th in a one-vehicle accident while en route to Wadi Hitan (The Valley of the Whales) one of the world’s best-preserved paleontological sites near Fayoum City, Egypt. She was born in Cairo, on March 19, 1957. Her parents, Levon Ishkanian and Alice Tchakedjian, residents of Heliopolis, Egypt, both predeceased her in 2012. She is survived by her husband Stephen Perkins, daughter Nina Perkins and brother, Arlen Ishkanian of Sydney, Australia.

In 1985 she received a BFA in Film/Video from the California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, with further Computer Graphics/Programming experience at San Francisco State University. She was awarded her Teacher Certification in 1994 from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, with further interactive multimedia studies at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, 1994-98.

Arda's videos were shown around the country, her artwork was most recently exhibited at the Neville Public museum and she was an occasional performance artist. Arda was also co-curator of the WC Gallery (De Pere). 

Over the last decade Arda was an art teacher in Brown County, and more recently at the Wisconsin International School in De Pere where her classroom was filled with art from all over the world and a message about the absolute necessity of having art in our lives.

Mother, wife, artist, art teacher, free spirit and a world citizen fluent in four languages, she will be returned to her home in San Francisco. May she go in peace.

Egyptian dispatch: Feb. 19, 2013

Monday, Feb. 19, 2013: Romany, our Copt driver, takes us to the airport just past midnight, and we ask him to stay around as I want to make sure that the 3 carpets of Arda's we want to bring back will be accepted by the airline. They do and we phone him to say it's "OK and goodbye."

A horrible nasty flight to Frankfurt, and then a gloriously empty one to Chicago and we're able stretch out and get some sleep. Watched the documentary, Searching for Sugar Man (2012) for the second time and it moved me as much as the first time. An incredible story about the vagaries of fame in the music industry.

We arrive at O'Hare and the passport control guy asks us what was the purpose of our visit to Egypt, it takes all my strength, as we briefly look at each other, not to start blubbing my eyes out, I say "we were out there 'cause we've just lost our mother and wife." Later, waiting to pick up our luggage to go through customs Nina remarks that its possible Arda's body could be in the airport at this moment. This resonates too with my realization that the rolled up carpets we are bringing back look hauntingly similar to a wrapped up body. These three rugs that Arda had got extensively repaired will be one of the longer lasting legacies of this dear woman.

Taxiing on the runway for the final flight to Green Bay it strikes me that all three of us are coming home, no one is getting left behind.

Egyptian dispatch: Feb. 18, 2013

Monday, Feb. 18, 2013: Our final day and the first order of business is to go to the US Embassy and get copies of Arda's Report of Death of an American Citizen Abroad (RDACA). Thank goodness she entered the country on her American passport, if she had come in on her Egyptian one this procedure would have been an absolute nightmare, taken weeks and would have cost a fortune as you would have had to pay everyone off all the way up to the top of the ladder. We gained access to the embassy and took our queue number, but decided just to barge right in and we were able to jump the line at Mohammed's counter. Within seconds we had 20 official copies of her death certificate. The packet included a condolence letter signed by Matthew E. Keene, the Consul Chief of American Citizen Services. On the certificate of death and in the section titled "cause of death" it noted: "Severe shock and circulatory insufficiency due to skull fracture and cerebral hemorrhage caused by car accident." As I said to Nina on the way downtown at least she died an exciting and romantic death — in Egypt, in a fascinating desert region south of Fayoum. At the very least it wasn't some banal death from falling down the stairs or some terrible long-term debilitating disease. As sudden and shocking as her death was, she at least went out in style and knowing who she was, she would have got a kick out of that.

After securing these documents we headed straight to the tourist trap of Khan el-Khalili. On one of our previous trips we had purchased one of those cheap evil eye tin things you hang on your front door to ward off evil. I just wanted to buy a bunch and to be able to offer them to people at the upcoming House Party for Arda (March 16, 10am till late). Of course things never work out quite like you plan in Egypt and I ended up getting my boots shined and Nina bought a bunch of scarves and then had to fend off what seemed like hoards of young buys trying to sell wrist bands at incredibly inflated prices — it was only by the time we had reached the tunnel to the other side of the road that we had shaken them off.

Then to Nevi and family, with Chris outlining plans for coordinating the safebreakers to attack the safe. The guy who picked the locks on the bedroom doors came to try his hand and only succeeded in mashing up the lock and was unable to open it up. 

Then the other guy who came across town had his turn, he was slightly older and seemed more experienced, but then he announced that he needed the help of someone who could cut around the door to the safe. Time was not on our side, so we decided to call it quits and Arda's brother Arlen will have to finish the job when he comes out from Australia. So after all this time the safe won, and I have to give it some grudging respect for holding its ground. It's a tough old bird that was made in Israel.

Packing all our stuff, and finalizing the wrapping of the 3 rugs leaves me a couple of hours to work on the blog. I have no great conclusions to this trip although it would appear to both me and Nina, that my hair is whiter than when we started, and who knows what that is about! I make ready to leave with a sense of being more at ease with the reality of Arda's death. The process we have gone through in the last nine days has offered important staging posts in coming to terms both personally, psychologically and spiritually with the loss of our loved one. And while I intellectually recognize she is not on this earth anymore, I no longer instinctively think of emailing her when I have questions I want to ask her. I've carried her old passport in my back pocket for this whole journey. I have no idea at which point I remove my wedding ring.