Posted: May 16

We really need more art

(Ahmedabad, India) Whoever said that ignorance was bliss might well have been thinking of me yesterday. On the way back from touring the Jesuit missions that serve communities of indigenous peoples south of this city, our jeep started overheating. The fan belt had broken and the fan itself was off balance. Fortunately we found a garage that could fix it and the ride in the little richshaw taxi did not take too long from the garage to the Jesuit community where I was going to visit a major printing operation. It seemed hot when I had to stand in the sun for a bit, but the breeze on the verandah of the community felt cool enough. And, after all, it was only 43 degrees centigrade.

Even though I have lived in Rome for six years, interpreting the centigrade temperature scale has not become automatic in the way that the fahreneit scale is. Well, this morning I got on the computer back at the Gurjarvani AV production center and Googled a web page that converted 43 degrees centigrade: 109.4 degrees fahrenheit! Oh my goodness. I am glad that I did not realize any sooner just how hot this is. If not blissful, ignorance is at least mildly comforting.

Actually, though, what I have been seeing is so interesting that the heat does not matter. The "tribal" people, as the indigenous folks in this area are known, create wonderful folk art. Bardipada is a remote village beyond the end of the bumpy paved road that cuts through low hills. Just beyond the last homes sits a very large mission complex of school, boarding house, hospital and parish where Fr. Ignacio Galdos serves as superior. After breakfast he took me down to the lower-level of the Jesuit residence overlooking a river that has practically dried up in this dry season. (What do you expect water to do at 43 degrees?) In a large store-room hundreds of artifacts sit patiently, their beauty not overcome by dust and cobwebs. There are carved masks, musical instruments, paintings on cloth, pottery, animal figures. Fr. Galdos has collected all this during 40-some years in India serving three communities. He also has built two churches and is ready to do a third one at Bardipada once he finishes constructing the school. The church he did in Unai is a marvel. He calls it the "Hymn to Creation Temple." I took a lot of pictures and will publish a story in the Jescom Gallery, but for now it is enough to say that the whole church reflects the tribal way of art. The building itself is like a typical home structure, only much bigger. There is a "dev-chapri" just outside the church just as on the outskirt of each village one finds a house containing several wooden pillars and covered by a red-tiled roof; the dev-chapri serves as the place of worship, of prayer and offerings. Trival mythology is expressed in scenes carved into the wood pillars of the structure, just as the three doors of the church itself are richly covered with Biblical scenes. Inside, the sanctuary is a giant cave, made out of solid stones that the people brought together. Caves are sacred for the tribals, who worshipped the spirits of their ancestors in caves.

Down in Kerala several of the Jesuit scholastics were doing paintings in the tradition of tribal art, and we talked about the idea of creating a project to promote tribal art as a way of strengthening their culture and increasing a sense of pride in the face of a culture that disrespects the tribal peoples. Yet this art can stand on its own and would not look out of place in a sophisticated U.S. gallery. For me to find churches that embody tribal art so fully was a great discovery. I felt a renewed sense of pride in the good work my Jesuit brothers have done and are doing. This is the adventure part of being secretary for communication. 43 degrees? Worth it.