A Break in the Routine: Or How I Took a Trip to Calcutta, in the Monsoon,
to teach Faux Gilding
by Frances Federer
In the heart of Calcutta stands a unique two story building with a neat garden back and front, and very secure gates. Large white lettering says: Classical Decoration, No Admission. The sole resident is one of a team of 10 Bengali woodcarvers who are employed there, and it is he who opens up when we ring the bell. Inside on the ground floor is a small kitchen, an office, and the furniture shop. Upstairs is the woodcarving shop where workers in identical red t-shirts stand or sit at uncluttered benches, and carve lengths of egg and dart molding, or whatever is the order of the day. No radio plays, but the hum of fans and air conditioners is constant, with only a power outage to bring silence. In the same room stands a high table for a group of novice gilders to gather around ready, and very eager, to learn this new trade. In addition there is an adjoining separate room, freshly fitted out with shelves and benches, to be the brand new gilding shop. All that stood on these shelves when I arrived was an opened Sepp Leaf Gilding Kit, used just long enough to realize that help was needed when it came to gilding.
Events that led to this point began when an English woodcarver, let's call him "Chip," came to California to set up shop. His specialty was classical woodcarving, and things were going along quite well when one day a gentleman from Calcutta visited. He suggested that his carvers back in India could carry out identical carving quicker, better and cheaper. Chip paid his first visit to India, and found this was indeed the case. Eventually the Calcutta gentleman and Chip separated but our Englishman was fortunate to find an honest and capable local Bengali manager in the person of Michael. Over the course of the next few years the two collaborated to find land and build a brand new workshop and, with Third World skill 12,000 miles away, to fulfill U.S. orders for hand carved classical ornament. Now a San Francisco client appeared with an order for not only unfinished carved finials, but for giltwood too, and this is where I came in.
What is different about this shop is that the workers here have spotless working conditions, work benches with individual lights, air conditioning and, by local standards extremely good pay. On my visit I saw some "workshops" where the craftsmen sit on the floor a few feet from the passing traffic, separated from the mud and the rain by a thin sheet of ubiquitous blue, industrial plastic, and may or may not have some electricity for light, as long as there is no power cut. My forty minute commute (each way) gave me plenty of opportunity to see one aspect of Life in Calcutta, but in seven days I could only see so much.
My brief was to teach a small team to fulfill the first of what they hope will be many orders. Another company in Calcutta had the order but for some reason had lost it, and Chip was anxious to show that his workers could complete the work; all they needed was the know-how. We had a model to work from, a carving that had been water gilt with Dutch Metal over red Kolner clay, and distressed. We had to reproduce this, and in addition cut production time as much as possible, since it, and all the work made in the other factory had been produced by an extremely laborious and lengthy process.
I had them spray the carvings with oil-based white paint, simulating gesso, over which we applied 2 coats of yellow clay, followed by 4-5 coats of red. This we burnished using horsehair, soft rags and a lot of elbow grease, to a deep shine. I taught them to lay Dutch Metal using rabbitskin glue as adhesive, which needs to be surprisingly strong to do the job, and during the 3 and one half working days we had together, plus 1 day of practice without me, they managed to complete a good part of the order. Once the leaf was dry and brushed down I showed them how to touch up with acrylic size and metal powder, and then to distress. We rubbed fairly hard across the tops with wire wool, allowing the white paint to peek through. The carvings were then lacquered with Rolco varnish, followed by a thin wax and burnished like crazy once again.
While we were at it I made some sample finishes for the client, one of which had French chalk dusted into the crevasses, as I had no pigments available. This further matted the unburnished areas and highlighted the contrast between matt and burnish. I also made samples with black and white clay under aluminum leaf, as well as using the clay alone, with no leaf.
Credit here must be given to Meena, Michael's wife. Until that first Monday morning she had been a stay-at-home mother with a live-in servant girl, mother-in-law and various other means of household help at her disposal to run her house and care for her 6 year old daughter, Munu.
She had never, ever worked outside the home, or earned any money. She was now appointed manager of the gilding shop. This meant she had not only to learn, extra fast, what I was teaching, but she had also to watch the others making sure they were paying attention and working well; all the things a manager has to do. She would report to Michael, who would report to Chip. I have to say she was a natural, and if anyone could do this after 5 days she could. We had a language situation, of course. Michael's English is excellent, and very amusing at times. Meena could understand everything, but I could barely understand her extraordinary, but fluent English, and the others spoke no English at all, or were too shy to try. This meant at times I had to go through Michael in order to be sure Meena had understood and had passed on the correct instructions to the new gilders.
All too soon my week was up, and I had to leave them to it. We shall see where we go from here; there is a lot more to teach them, such as oil gilding, and gilding with gold leaf and we shall see if future orders are sufficient to merit more trips to Calcutta. Meanwhile, should I be lucky enough to be sent again, I am hatching plans to teach them my own specialty, painting and gilding on glass. This has a rich history in India, and together with in-house carved and painted/gilded frames their talent and hard work should produce some very exciting work. All that remains is for the marketing people in the business to find the customers!
Calcutta in the monsoon. I came back black and blue from the hard beds, the 36-hour journey, my age catching up with me, and the concentrated work. But I would go back, if not tomorrow, then pretty soon. There is lot there I saw that had nothing to do with gilding for rich Americans, and everything to do with beginning to learn how some people on the other side of the world have to live their lives.
