| Potatoes, plaster, and politics
Jack Child, Spanish professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, collects retablos by Peruvian artist, Nicario Jimenez. Child first met Jimenez, who now resides in Naples, Fla., in the early '90s at an exhibition at George Washington University. |
Professor Child’s Peruvian retablos serve as teaching tools, conversation starters BY ADRIENNE FRANK
photos by jeff watts It’s difficult to know what brings Jack Child more pleasure: the colorful retablos that line the shelves of his Asbury office, or sharing the stories behind the Peruvian folk art pieces. “I enjoy collecting them, but they’re meant to be seen and touched, so I also enjoy sharing them with students,” says Child, whose collection of retablos, or intricate dioramas, numbers around 30. “It’s a marvelous two-fer.” From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, Spanish priests used retablos as portable altars to evangelize the indigenous people. Later, the Andeans adopted the art form to include their own mythologies and deities. Each retablo tells a story; Child, a Spanish professor in the Department of Language and Foreign Studies, CAS, acts as the interpreter, pointing out the cultural significance of certain animals or objects. While some retablos depict harvests, feasts, and religious scenes, Child’s favorites are those that offer social and political critiques, and chronicle the plight of the indigenous people. For example, Nicario Jimenez’s “Pistaku”—which means “cutter of throats”—depicts a foreigner taking pounds of flesh from the peasants to pay off the international debt. It’s at once gory and fantastic. “I find the political messages most intriguing,” says Child of the retablos, which also chronicle recent presidential regimes. Child first became interested in the retablos in the early ’90s when he met Jimenez, one of about 30 to 40 retablistas from the Andean region of Ayacucho, at an exhibition at George Washington University. Child and his wife, Leslie, were so fascinated by Jimenez’s retablos that they invited the artist to stay at their Washington home for several weeks to practice his craft and lecture at AU. “It’s really an amazing process,” says Child. “He starts by boiling potatoes, then he mashes them with his hands and mixes in plaster, so it has the consistency of silly putty.” Then, using only a small piece of wood and the skills passed down from his father and grandfather, Jimenez carves the tiny figures and paints them. In all, the process takes between 20 and 30 painstaking hours. In his native country, where the potato holds mythological significance—it is said when god made humans, he made them out of potatoes—Jimenez has 100 varieties to choose from. Needless to say, the artist was disappointed when he first visited the Super Fresh in Child’s neighborhood. “He was amazed by the 15 different kinds of toilet paper we have, but surprised that we only have three kinds of potatoes,” says Child with a warm laugh. Still, Jimenez was able to work his magic, crafting a special farewell gift for Child. Entitled “Penguin and Friend,” the small statue of Child in earmuffs, cradling a penguin (another of his research interests), is proudly displayed in his office. “It’s very special to me,” says Child, “and quite an honor.” Child, who earned both his master’s and doctoral degrees from the School of International Service, where he later served as assistant dean, incorporates the retablos into each of his classes. In this semester’s Latin American popular culture course, for example, week nine focuses on Mexican and Peruvian retablos. “I find the students are very curious about them,” says Child, who invites his students to his home to view the retablos there. In addition to the dioramas, Child collects Panamanian molas, or reverse appliqués; Chilean arpilleras, or needlepoint; masks; wood carvings; and pottery. Also, his collection of Latin American stamps, which he’s been amassing since he was a child in Argentina, numbers in the thousands. As with the retablos, he’s most intrigued by those objects with a political story to tell. “When I was young, I remember my parents loved to go to exotic places and they’d always come back with souvenirs that had a link to that place,” says Child. “I think it must run in the family.” 
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