This first creative spotlight is warm, bright, and larger than life. I’ve studied him since I was little, often without knowing it. I once wrote —
“He wore tunics and idolized Oprah Winfrey, Joan Rivers, and Catherine Deneuve. He tried a new fad diet annually. Your mom was his muse. He spontaneously bought her trendy blouses and, while in Paris, convinced her to cut her hair short ‘à la Audrey Hepburn.’ At your Bat Mitzvah, his shirt was so drenched from dancing that he had to excuse himself mid-party for a wardrobe change. He drew romantic pieces of women’s bodies with his collection of pastels…”
Meet my dad, known to me as “papa” and to others as “Moshe”, “Mo”, or “Mushi Mushi.” When thinking of creative people — the kinds who really live creatively — he was the first who came to mind. I haven’t always understood him, but I’ve always loved him, and this conversation is one of many that paints a fuller picture of who he is and what it means to live à la Mo.
PA — As your daughter, it feels like I know a lot about your life, but I’m sure there’s so much I don’t know. What I can say is that you've had a colorful range of careers. You started out in fashion...
MA — No...I was a pole dancer. [laughs]
PA — Oh! I must have missed that...:)
So, you started out in fashion, then opened an event planning business. You've dabbled in cooking and in interior design. You were the creative director for a floral business, and launched a new line of home products. Now, you're a freelance creative director, working mainly within the hospitality industry. It sounds like a lot, and it is, but it’s clear to me that all of these paths converge at who you are as a person. Where did you get this zest for finding and creating beautiful experiences?
MA — As far as my background, I had the advantage of being born and raised in Turkey. If Turkish culture has one big forte that I should mention, it's hospitality. It's not necessarily about being chic or incredibly tasteful, but it's about really welcoming people into your home. There is a tremendous amount of social interaction here. And, if you don't know anyone, you meet them on the street and the next sentence is, “Why don't you come over for tea?” But it’s very different from the Los Angeles version of “let’s do lunch” where you don’t see the person for a decade afterwards. It feels a lot more authentic.
I also grew up in a Jewish family with Ladino-speaking grandmothers who were always entertaining. And in that culture, I had a total “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” experience, including people constantly squeezing lemon cologne (“cologna”) on my boo boos instead of Windex. As Turkish Jews, we spent our summers on the island of Buyukada. It was only an hour away from Istanbul, but it’s where I fell in love with a kind of liberating, Mediterranean barefoot lifestyle.
I then ended up in a French school system in Istanbul, which had a very different socioeconomic blend as far as students. The school took in children from all over the country. The only criteria was that you had to be smart, which meant that they made a huge mistake by accepting me. [laughs]. But I liked it. Most of our teachers were from Paris or Marseilles. We were subjected to their mannerisms, who they were, and a lot of French classics at a very young age. This was on top of all of the Middle Eastern authors and poets we read. So, between the Turkish and the Jewish and the French and the island life, you can start to see the various boxes of inspiration I had to pull from.
But, mostly, I think it’s in my nature. I was a quiet child, which nobody believes. But I really was quiet, curious, and always observing. I was studying people and constantly taking notes. I mean, at any point I knew what gift to get for whom, what they ate, what they liked, what they didn’t like. I think some of us are people pleasers by nature and I was a huge people pleaser early on. That serves you in this career.
And if you’re a people pleaser and you're creative, entertaining and food is one of the most gratifying activities because, ultimately, you get an immediate applause. It's not like creating an idea for a brand that’s going to launch in a year and then three years later, somebody maybe says, “Who was behind this?”
It's more like, “Oh, you like my mashed potatoes?” Great! I'm done.
So, maybe that's why I like it.
Imagine…I’m often responsible for someone’s once-in-a-lifetime experience, like a wedding. And that means a lot to me. I treasure the fact that I give that little girl her dream wedding. For that six hours, she fully trusts me, maybe even over the groom. Because if you truly put your heart into it, people know. People know because you have not missed a beat.
Because if you truly put your heart into it, people know. People know because you have not missed a beat.
PA — That’s so true. I think I took that for granted as a child — how much heart you put into experiences you created in and outside of our home.
When I was younger, I remember telling friends that my dad was an event planner, which was a pretty different job from the other dads and moms. When did that job become a thing?
MA — So, we moved to the East Coast in the 90s, which is when I launched my business. There were some big name florists and producers that were entering the scene in New York at the time, and the movie Father of the Bride had just come out. Remember, Steve Martin and Martin Short? Martin Short was this foreign accented, hyper gay event planner. He basically walked into the bride’s house, tore it apart, and created a whole new world with swans, flowers, and everything in pink. So, the concept of event planning as a job was making its way into the psyche of American culture around that time. And there was Martha [Stewart], who was becoming bigger with her magazines about styling and tabletops and color codes...
PA — So, you started your event planning business when you were 32. You were married to mama and had two kids. You had just moved to Connecticut from California, which is where you migrated to from Turkey. With so much change, plus with that desire to constantly please people, how did you balance giving all of yourself to your work while staying tethered and true to who you were?
MA — Well. That's a very good question. You're very smart. Like your parents. [laughs].
I mean, it's impossible not to get burned out. It's hard work because with this kind of personality comes a lot of self-criticism. Self-criticism is the fire that burns under your tush to push you to be better every day, but it also burns from inside and leaves nothing.
Self-criticism is the fire that burns under your tush to push you to be better every day, but it also burns from inside and leaves nothing.
So, it's really a matter of adjusting that fire. For me, my salvation has always been having a range of projects, personal and professional. For the longest time, I couldn't call myself anything. I'm kind of like this hybrid. Well, I call it “hybrid” and the medical society calls it “multiple personality disorder”. But I have all these moods and thoughts and I like creating different stages and themes.
I’ve recently taken on the title of creative director, but that took years. I mean, there were times I couldn't explain myself in a meeting. I'm an event planner, but I also cook. I do flowers, but I also do interior design. Your wardrobe is screwed up? You don’t know colors? Let me fix it. I mean, today I did a YouTube interview with an author that I adore and he mentioned the very same problem. When you have so much hunger to create and to produce, it's impossible to really call yourself something, which can be a kiss of death for a career. But at the same time, we’re typically not after careers. Our drive is not about the paycheck. It's about creating. So for me, what has worked is playing in these different spaces. As much as it may have complicated my career and my life, it has also given me a chance to be reborn regularly.
When you have so much hunger to create and to produce, it's impossible to really call yourself something, which can be a kiss of death for a career. But at the same time, we’re typically not after careers. Our drive is not about the paycheck. It's about creating. So for me, what has worked is playing in these different spaces. As much as it may have complicated my career and my life, it has also given me a chance to be reborn regularly.
I’ve also quickly learned that I am my product. I know that sounds like a big British theater actor — like “I am my own instrument” — but it's true. I am my own instrument and I have learned to take care of it.
At the beginning of my career, when you were younger, there were times when I was probably absent because I was working myself to death. I was trying to prove that I was going to be the best event designer in Westport without really knowing the industry. So I did everything — set up, production, and break down. I was basically up on my feet for seventy two hours per event while pouring my heart into whatever the client wanted.
I was exhausted and eventually learned that I'm not supposed to do the set up and I'm not supposed to break down. I'm supposed to be with the client in the planning stages. I'm supposed to be there to really work with my staff and make sure the creative vision is clear on paper so it can be implemented.
So, you truly have to gauge your personality, your motor, and your gas. I mean, you can't simply think that you're going to be driving from here to India with a full tank of gas because you're going to get to the corner and it's going to be over.
I'm learning this at an old age, but you truly have to take that whole instrument thing one step further. You have to live well. You can't really be partying every night. Sleep deprivation is not good. Dehydration is not good. Not exercising is not good. I think creative people are like athletes. I think we have to be in good form, which includes your emotional life and your relationships too. So, I try to take myself out of negative spaces and relationships that are draining.
I mean, there's this old idea that the artist has to suffer, but I call bullshit on that...
PA — Yessssss. That reminds me of a Liz Gilbert quote. Hold on. Let me find it.
“I blame the German romantics. There came to be a vogue and we've never really lost that vogue of very, very pretentious young men in black clothing talking about how hard it was to make things and then taking laudanum and writing dark poetry about it. And it established a kind of a chic that has never really gone away. Like two hundred years later, everyone's still holding that up as the model of what an artist is. And it's not my personal belief that that's what art has looked like for most of human history.”
MA — I agree. Earlier in my career, that black outfitted, cold creative was still super vogue. And I realized that so many of these successful men and women in the industry were nasty. They were high brow and distant and all “you just have to surrender to me and I'll produce whatever I want”. That kind of attitude was very much around me, including in myself.
And then I remember watching Rosie O'Donnell or Ellen DeGeneres, and they were really banking on being positive and being nice. The nice creative. The nice entertainer. That's another thing that I've learned in the past few years. Sometimes you feel obliged to stay in those nasty spaces because others are there, but you don’t have to. You know, it could be a long, ugly marriage or a day job for a company with a horrible culture. It’s hard, but part of taking care of the instrument is also avoiding these negative spaces because ultimately they lock you down.
PA — That’s a great point. I know you’ve been working hard on creating healthy spaces around you, like the Rituals 365 concept. Can you tell us about that?
MA — Yes. So, I was going through a lot of personal hardship 15 years ago, but I suppressed the pain and then it all exploded 11 years ago. And in that crisis, I kind of realized that in order to find balance in my life without really freaking out and destroying everybody else's life around me, I needed rituals. I mean, I didn't know they were called rituals, but I was slowly creating these practices or habits and obeying them. And that was my way of getting out of bed and not being depressed. In those times, rituals became super important.
So, I came up with the concept of “Rituals 365” and had many ideas for how to “bring it to market,” all of which fell through. The “365” obviously means daily. I feel that your daily rituals will anchor you and will help you live your best life. And a lot of them are incredibly simple — like lighting a candle — and they have to be about you and your time alone. They’re about slowing and quieting.
Fast forward 10 years, I started talking to a local aromatherapy brand here in Istanbul. They said they wanted to collaborate, but didn’t know how. And I said, “Look, I really don't want to be that influencer who holds up a different product every day in their hands because they’re just not believable.”
And it came to me at that meeting. I said, “I would like to launch an idea with you.” That was Rituals 365. And instead of making it all about their product, I’ve made it about my rituals with their product sprinkled in. But, I think what’s important here is that the concept was not created to sell the product. The product is incorporated into a concept that already meant a lot to me. And that's important, because otherwise it would have been fake.
PA — I love the idea and that you’re able to share it with others in a way that finally feels right to you. We could keep talking forever, but it’s almost time to wrap up, so I’d love to know if you have any parting thoughts for people who are hungry to create or start something later in life.
MA — I do....Stay home and relax. No, I'm just kidding.
Look, I mean, I had read somewhere a hundred years ago in the US that an average American has five careers. First of all, don't be scared. I mean, what is the worst that's going to happen?
Second, I think it's really important to make space for all kinds of ideas, to record them, and to let them live in your psyche without allowing them to bother you too much. Seven years ago, I wanted to make Rituals 365 into a coffee table book. It didn't happen. I sent the idea out and no one got back to me. But if I somehow ripped that idea out of my mind because of rejection, I wouldn’t have had this project now.
So, be ready for opportunity. If I hadn’t held onto the idea of Rituals 365 from years ago, I would have just told the aromatherapy company, “Oh, let me hold that bottle for you” instead of having an interesting concept in my back pocket.
I mean, we hear the same thing from authors all the time. They’ve just published their third book and it’s a mega hit. You ask them, “When did you write this?” and they're like, “This was the first book I wrote, started, but never finished.” So, have these drawers and pockets to store your ideas, and don’t judge yourself for not finishing or completing them. You may not be ready, and that’s okay too.
So, have these drawers and pockets to store your ideas, and don’t judge yourself for not finishing or completing them. You may not be ready, and that’s okay too.
One last little story. I’ve always dreamt of writing a book and recently wrote eleven chapters, but realized that I'm not going to be able to finish it anytime soon. So, I sent the chapters to my author friend, whom I think has the most similar voice to me. I said, “Just read this shit. See if you like it. And if you like it, would you write it with me?” It's more important to me that that book comes out than me being the only author. We've talked about this many times. I could spend years wondering when I’m going to have the time to work on it. Analysis paralysis is a real thing. You just have to keep moving.
PA — Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.
Thank you so much papa. To close out, can you share what you’re currently dancing to, drinking, and dreaming about?
MA —
Song — Life by Jehro
Film — Uncle Frank
Smell — Grapefruit
Destination — My Bed, just kidding Tulum
Fashion designer — Ozgur Masur
Home accessory — Orange Blossom, Cinnamon, Clove by Homemade Aromaterapi
Flower — Dry craspedia
Cocktail — Whisky sour
Book — Hayal by Ayşe Kulin
Color — Navy
Food — Pazı dolma (ground beef stuffed chard leaves) topped with yogurt
Find Mushi Mushi at @mosheaelyon. Send him a message if you have thoughts, questions, or just want to say hi.