By Mike Levin

For two weeks in April Ottawa painter Christopher Griffin was in southern India learning how to cast bronze. He took with him two changes of clothes; a sense that he could learn anything creative if he applied himself; and an artistic style that believed what you can’t see can be as important as what you can. This created immense confusion among the five brothers who ran the Paravathi Metals bronze foundry in the village of Kunhimangalam.

A Canadian's view of Indian elephants. Courtesy of Christopher Griffin.

After modeling stylized elephants out of clay, Griffin asked the brothers to help him cast the figures in bronze. But the animals were ear-less, and for most of the two weeks he was at Paravathi, at least one of the brothers would ask him daily, “Chris, why no ears?” It was Griffin’s vision, so the consensus was a simple “தமிழ் அகராதி”  – why the hell not?

Griffin brought a western aesthetic to the village. The path is laid out in Part 1.

His experience is a classical example of art/craft dualism, with a cultural fuse. Paravathi is run by the Thekee Veetil family, talented bronze casters whose long heritage has focussed on beautiful yet utilitarian images of Indian deities. It’s quite possible some of their work can be found in Ottawa eastern-wellness centres.

It is also an example of urban Canada meets rural India. Griffin was welcomed and accepted almost instantly, even if those at Paravathi couldn’t understand why he had come. They taught and fed him every day, never asking for money, and the two cultures interacted briefly. The outcome of those two weeks is not yet written, perhaps it could produce a Butterfly Effect.

Not all the cultural blending worked well. When Griffin took his wife and daughter to a village festival, the blonde, six-year-old Kalyna got far-more attention than she found comfortable. Who knows where that will lead? But the story of the Canadian who one day showed up on foot to learn how to cast bronze is now part of Kunhimangalam’s history.

“It was difficult to communicate this sense of what I wanted to do. I think I was the first westerner who ever went there,” Griffin says. Certainly stylized images of real  animals were strangers in the Thekee Veetil family compound. But not unknown.

Mithun was curious about the skinny foreigner. He was 12 and the son of one of the five brothers. Early in his visit, Griffin examined things the boy had made. “He had done some art, sort-of Western in style.” The family probably thought it was a child’s passing fancy.

As Griffin worked through the hot, humid days, Mithun hung around, quiet and watchful. When the Canadian’s ear-less elephants were questioned, Mithun never joined the kidding.

Mithun Thekee Veetil watches his father Ranjendran and Griffin form a mold for his sculpture. Courtesy of Christopher Griffin

On Griffin’s final day at the foundry, when his elephant casts were broken open, Mithun brought out something he had modeled in clay – a chicken that had a definite westernized aesthetic.

He was surprised when his father held it in his hands with immense pride, announcing he would cast it and use it in the restoration of a bronze artifact in the nearby Payyanur Temple.

There’s no way to corroborate a direct link between Griffin and the Thekee Veetil family’s first use of an impressionistic piece in their products. But when Griffin was leaving, the entire family gathered around and said: “Tell your artist friends they are welcome here.”

Perhaps it was because for two weeks the village was abuzz with conversations about a Canadian and his strange elephants. Or maybe because his presence made the brothers slow down and rediscover their work by explaining it step by step. Certainly Mithun will remember the prestige he earned with Griffin’s praise for his clay chicken.

Even if these events change nothing in Kunhimangalam, they are lovely examples of how cause and effect can be blissfully ignorant of, yet totally dependent on, each other. That’s the key to The Butterfly Effect: believing that bronze elephants without ears might make you see the world differently.

Christopher Griffin will have a show of his sculpture, paintings and drawing from  Kunhimangalam June 17 – 19 at his studio, in the back of 203 Catherine St.