At 8:00 am sharp, Dagoberto shows up at our Estili hotel with his king cab Toyota Hi-lux pickup, ready to go. We drive towards the south end of town and turn onto one of the thousands of dirt roads that link the tiny mountain villages of Nicaragua. Dagoberto is a short, sturdy man of about 50 in a baseball cap and polo shirt. He does not possess a volume control. When he talks it is in full voice, like he is hailing an approaching ship on a foggy night at sea. We learn soon enough that it is a useful voice on the windy hillsides of fincas, where voices must be heard by campesinos who are often away from the gate to their compounds.
The road is rutted and rocky, dusty this time of year. Dagoberto tells us dry is better than wet and slippery, like it becomes during the rainy season. We pass groups of walkers, young and old. It is Sunday and some look like they are walking off a late Saturday party, while others are headed into town to shop or attend mass. We invite an ancient-looking couple to ride in the bed of the pickup. The dessicated woman is carrying a cardboard square on a pole, with bread loaf-sized bags of cotton candy pinned to it. Her companion is a short fellow who reminds me of a puppy waiting for someone to kick him. When we drop them off and ask to take a picture, they are confused by the request.They head off to a baseball field in a rocky meadow along the roadside. Two uniformed teams and groups of fans are bunched along the chalked first and third base lines. I notice an umpire is calling balls and strikes. There isn't a single truly level place anywhere on the field. The cotton candy treats will be gone before the day is over.
After some misdirection from a passerby we finally arrive at the gate that leads to the sculptor's property. We are overlooking a stunning valley of farms and hillsides of oaks and shade tree coffee. Many people live in the nature preserves, growing coffee and subsistence crops, herding a few cattle or goats, raising chickens and the occasional pig. We stop at the first (and it turns out only) occupied farm along the road, and Dagoberto booms out a hello to ask if we are on the right path to see Alberto. A man comes out from behind the main house to say we are.
We first walk downhill through browned grass and oak trees that remind me of California foothills. Then we begin a steady climb towards a cloud forest. A sign akin to something posted in a national park in the U. S. announces we have arrived at the Tisey reserve. Two barking mutts form the welcoming committee. The loudest and most threatening comes straight for me, stops at my feet, and then jumps up to put his paws on my stomach, nudging my hand for a pat on the head.
A thin older man in jeans and short-sleeved shirt wearing an over-sized ball cap comes down the path to greet us. He identifies himself as the sculptor's brother. He leads us up the hill into a complex of plain wooden huts and fenced-in gardens where an older woman greets us and introduces herself as Alberto's sister. She shakes hands with each of us. She is tall and thin, large-handed and loose-limbed, much like the man who emerges from a small shed-like building up the trail. It is the sculptor--Alberto Gutierrez.
His leathery face is encased in a white beard and a bushy swab of white hair that waves about like a pulsating halo. Deep-set eyes sparkle from behind massive white eyebrows. He is wearing a threadbare shirt, the top 3 or 4 buttons undone. His trousers are equally worn and soiled, a size too large, held up by a limp leather belt cinched tight. His fly is half zipped. His laceless hightop leather shoes appear softened by years of use. Poet. Artist. Philosopher. Ascetic. Saint. He could pose for a sculpture under any of those labels.
Alberto introduces himself and motions us to follow him. He shows us a stone along the pathway bearing a chiseled image he describes as a self-portrait, including his name inscribed below it, which he reads, running his fingers across the letters. A large boulder bears the etched outline of a snake. He shows us the chisels he uses to carve his work, made from pieces of rebar, and an elongated stone he employs as a hammer. By way of demonstration, he chips a perfunctory bit of rock away to add detail to the boa on the boulder. As we walk along, he points out other stones along the way, including a stele with the twin towers, in memoriam of September 11.
We follow him up a narrowing path and along the side of a steep hill overlooking the vast valley below. Here his art is carved out of rock outcroppings embedded in the hillside. Everywhere there are images of animals--snakes, tigers, elephants, armadillos, eagles, even a camel. Also prominent are biblical icons, and scenes depicting Nicaragua's history, including a carving of a large helicopter which likely flew above his land during the civil war. We stop to take pictures and he walks on, reciting what he has shared many times for his thousands of visitors, pointing to symbols and reading the occasional words and dates that are interspersed with the tableau. My guess is that he is barely literate, as the spellings and letter shapes vary from upper to lower case within words, and he "reads" these chiseled messages by running his fingers over the letters, like a blind man, reciting the content in a singsong voice. I begin to notice repeated images. Crosses are either religious in intent or representative of the ordinal points of a compass. He stops to assign a value to the four directions--sometimes geographic (accounting for Africa and North and South America in relation to Nicaragua), sometimes historical or chronological. There are many self-portraits, all stylized versions of himself but with consistent features. Hearts are placed in biblical and human sculptures. A triangle outlines all references to Nicaragua.
He stops part way and shows us rough hewn split logs that have been fashioned into benches. Motioning for us to rest, he offers to recite a poem. The whole impression is of a man who has developed, despite being cut off from the larger world for most of his life, a personal iconography--a set of symbols and images and recited poems that explain his understanding of what is important in this life. He tells us that he has not been to Estili, the nearest town, since 2008. But over 20 thousand visitors have brought the world to him over the 34 years that he claims to have worked on his sculptures. On our return walk he points out the hundreds of orchids and native plants in his "garden." He is especially proud of his coffee and pineapple crops, and of other trees and shrubs given to him by visitors from abroad. A small evergreen, a gift from a Japanese visitor, grows alongside native trees.
We stop and sign his guest book and take a few more photos, and then he walks towards the gate to signal that our tour is over. I leave feeling that I have met an exceptional man--a man whose disengagement from the broader world has given him the chance to patiently create art and poetry explaining everything, both real and imagined, that has touched his awareness.
No comments:
Post a Comment