Timi

The celling of new Dolce Caffè

By JOE NICKELL of the Missoulian | Posted: Saturday, December 29, 2007 12:00 am

As the lilting strains of a Beethoven symphony waft through the air, Kujtim Turkeshi stands silently on a platform 15 feet in the air, his face turned upward. In one hand, a paintbrush; on the opposite wrist, a splotch of creamy yellow paint. Above him, just inches overhead, an ornately designed fresco swirls in every direction on the expansive plaster ceiling.
Turkeshi stands statue-still for a moment, staring intently at one small section of the painting; then, with a sudden shift, he is lying on his back, rolling his head back and forth repeatedly.
"It is very hard to get a view of it all from this close," he says in a thick accent that reflects his Albanian heritage. "I'm sure I will see things that must be changed once I can get down on the floor and look at it."
Perhaps he is right. But already, the partially completed fresco reveals much about the talent and energy that drives Turkeshi.
It is a talent that literally saved his life once, a talent that is recognized across Europe, and a talent that ultimately brought him to Missoula three weeks ago for this one job: painting the ceiling of the new Caffe Dolce, under construction on South Brooks Street.
"He is the most remarkable artist I've known in my lifetime," says Peter Lambros, owner of Caffe Dolce. "To have him working here in Missoula is just a dream come true."
For Lambros, it is a dream years in the making. For Turkeshi, it is yet another turn in a life full of unexpected twists.
Born into a once-wealthy family in communist Albania, Turkeshi grew up in a world of uncertainty. Under the long-running dictatorships of Enver Hoxha and Ramiz Alia, Turkeshi's family was repeatedly persecuted and jailed. Growing up under those brutal and economically disastrous regimes, Turkeshi recalls how he and his friends passed Rolling Stones tapes around and learned foreign languages "under the table." Foreign indulgences could mean imprisonment, even death.
Turkeshi saw such consequences firsthand. He decided not to pursue his interest in music after his violin teacher was arrested, jailed and ultimately put to death. Things opened up somewhat in the 1990s, after the downfall of the communists. But in 1997, when turmoil in Kosovo spilled over into Albania, Turkeshi's studio was burned down, destroying much of his life's work to that point, by a mob of pro-communist insurgents.
"A friend called me and told me my studio was on fire," says Turkeshi. "He said, 'Don't go there, they will kill you.' But I said I would rather they burn me than burn what I have made. So I went to my studio, and one of the gangsters who had started the fire recognized me because I had taught painting to his brother. So instead of killing me, he helped me put out the fire."
It was the final close call for Turkeshi. Already, his reputation had grown beyond the borders of Albania, thanks to touring exhibitions that had visited Russia, France, Turkey, Greece, Italy and other countries. (He is the first Albanian artist in history to have his work shown in the Louvre in Paris, arguably the most important art museum in the world.)
After the studio fire, Turkeshi decided it was time to leave his native country. He accepted a position with a ceramics studio in the southern Italian city of Deruta, taking what little art he had left and leaving his family behind until he could get his feet under him.
That's when Turkeshi - known by his friends as "Timi" - met Peter Lambros.
"I was in Deruta visiting the studios where they produce the pottery that we sell at Caffe Dolce in the (Southgate) Mall," says Lambros. "I met Timi when he had just moved to Deruta; he was sleeping on the floor of one of the studios and had pretty much nothing. But even then, his capacity and his art was more than I'd ever witnessed in my life."
Lambros recalls seeing a ceramic plate that Turkeshi had created, adorned with a reproduction of a work by the Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli.
"It was so perfect, it was astounding," says Lambros. "What really was amazing was that, when you're dealing with pottery glazes, you can't see the final colors until it is fired and finished, so you have to extrapolate what you're going to get in the end without actually seeing it. And yet Timi got the colors all just perfectly right. You simply don't see that skill with other artists."
Lambros, who speaks fluent Italian, hit it off immediately with Turkeshi. Since then, the two have grown close.
"The first discussion we had, in half an hour I already think: This is a person I will have in my life," says Turkeshi. "We had a good connection. So we have passed a long and beautiful story, our families together, growing up over the years with our children."
So when Lambros began to formulate his ideas for the new Caffe Dolce building several years ago, his thoughts turned to Turkeshi.
"The building doesn't have a lot of space for art on the walls because of all the windows, and so I thought it would be great to have artwork on the ceiling, like you see all over Italy," says Lambros. "Timi was an obvious choice to do it because of his connection to the styles of the pottery we sell, and his technical capacity and creativity."
It took years to bring the concept to fruition. The primary hurdle was procuring a visa for Turkeshi to come to the United States to work. Last spring, he was granted the visa - though on the condition that he not bring his family.
"The concern was apparently that he would try to stay here," says Lambros. "So by making him leave his family at home, the assumption is that he will go back to Italy when he is finished."
With the visa finally guaranteed, Lambros and Turkeshi began to hash out a plan for the design. They ultimately settled on a Renaissance-inspired design augmented with subtle modern elements, linking the new building to the Old World traditions that inspired Lambros to create Caffe Dolce in the first place.
"The Italians apply artistry in so many areas, from the way they do coffee to their pottery to their gates and fences," says Lambros. "To see the combination of craft, architecture and artistry that you see in so much of what they produce, there's this lesson that something done well will stand the test of time. That's the inspiration for this whole place, and Timi gets that."
Turkeshi's fresco tells something of a non-linear story in which Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt, is surrounded by references to music, poetry and other sources of inspiration and nourishment.
"Artemis was not a very good person when she was young because she was destructive," says Turkeshi. "Then she came to understand that it is important to protect the beauty and the balance in the world. Around Missoula you have such beautiful nature - so, so beautiful! - and so she reminds you to protect the tranquility, the poetry, the beauty.
"People will see this building and it can change the thinking for you," adds Turkeshi. "Peter made this building for me, for you - not just for him."
Lambros brushes off such compliments; yet he does allow that his goal for the new building was to provide an inspiring, timeless, yet unpretentious gathering place for the community.
"As a community, the thought that anyone any day can have access to this kind of space and not have to spend a lot of money - just come in and have a cup of coffee - that was my goal," says Lambros. "A big part of how I hoped to achieve that is wrapped up in this work that Timi is doing."
So Turkeshi paints late into the night, inclining his head to his work, dabbing paint from his wrist, spending hours just to mix a single color to his liking. He figures he'll probably be finished with the fresco in two or three weeks.
"After that," he says, grinning at Lambros, "we will share a good bottle of wine."
"Yes, we will, my friend," Lambros replies.

Fonti: Missoulian Magazine