33 - Our Family Friends: Village Art

Despite sitting quietly by the sidelines for the most part, our association with the Akrivides’ family and the peripheral friendship with Billy proved an educational experience. This concerned the arts (literature perhaps excepted), as well as nature, with which my family never developed a good rapport, and lacked an appreciation of its diversity and often concealed beauty. Escapades to the countryside from our concrete urban habitat were few and far between, and limited within the hot summer months. On Father’s initiative we embarked on day trips to Chalkidiki peninsula or weeks of vacation by the beaches of Pieria -more as a kind of compulsion to log a respectable number of sea baths, which, each summer, the common city folk counted as stamps, before generous al fresco meals and the inevitable afternoon siesta. (Father's dozing in summer and, in fact, each and day of the year, had always been a sacred sine qua non element of family life that ought to be respected.)

On the other hand, Mother’s village, in a devalued area past the industrial western outskirts of the city, had no special natural attractions to offer. It was surrounded by fields and factories, and most of my time there I spent playing with other children in the streets by my grandparent’s house or in his vegetable garden at the back. Sometimes auntie Domna took me out for a walk to our small field in Sabli, a family land, in fact a government hand-out after great-grandfather’s resettlement in the area from his lost home and fields in Anatolia, which, in turn, my grandfather, a teacher by trade, rented to a local farmer for a petty amount. Domna wanted to take me there less for the invigorating walk in the countryside it entailed, than to remind and make me aware as an heir to the family fortunes, that the field was a very own landed property and family asset, and check that it was still there and being cultivated. But on the way back, we collected tomatoes from the vegetable fields, figs in mid-August, or, as they say, ‘to catch May’ on May Days, by picking up daisies and lilacs and poppies along the way, or celebrate the legendary Greek Easter in the church of Agios Athanasios by the graveyard, in the outskirts of the village. From those spring walks in the fields, I retained the scent of lilacs and the sweet flavor of the plum tomatoes we sampled on the way -not much else.

My first close and memorable encounter with nature occurred the one week I spent on vacation at Nikos’ parental home in the village of Katachas, on the foothills of the Pieria mountains. There I appreciated for the first time, even if fleetingly, its beauty and serenity. A young boy, surrounded daily by the hustle and bustle of an urban environment panting from a relentless construction and development, could only have underestimated its hidden treasures by the few imprints in memory from that distant past. Decades have passed since until I made my reacquaintance; and nature attracted me again, ever more so profoundly -a revelation of grandeur and diversity. Ever since, in magnitude inversely proportional to the time I have left on this earth, I long for the hours of solitude I could cherish in the last remnants of some desolate wilderness after the onslaught of the industrial civilization, thankfully before its subsumption under capitalist development and human activity becomes irreversible. Its colors and scents and echoes have obtained the true value they merit in contemporary lives, for its most part confined in urban dwellings and workplaces. Only few acquaintances from our fleeting presence on earth offered that unique pleasure, generously and in abundance, and have such a profound effect into our senses and being.

In the old forest on a hill at the boundaries of the village, unshackled from school duties, free spirits under the pine trees, sitting on scattered rocks, we chatted with Billy and other children, played hide and seek among the trees, the rocks and the earthworks; we created artifacts with the pine needles and the cones, we collected flowers and plants for our herbariums. The only sounds that could be heard were the discordant noise of the city bustle, but the rustle from the trees above us, as soothing to the soul, as their shades in the heat of August invigorating to our bodies.

On the way to Nikos’ paternal home, at the edge of a forest clearing isolated from the core of the village, stood the sculpture workshop of a local artist, Efthymios Kalevras, whose name I discovered in the internet decades later. In the small courtyard, in front of the entrance of a simple square building of four white walls and a flat roof, a broad entrance door, but tiny windows on either side, a statue was erected on a cubic uncarved plinth stone. What was taking place in the dark interior of that workshop aroused our curiosity from our first day, until one afternoon, escorted by Nikos, we entered the workshop of his fellow villager and artist friend. Kalevras had the presence, that we normally envision: that of a bohemian visual artist of the Parisian ilk. He had sloppy gray hair and a thick gray beard and wore a smudged apron. The disorder in his workshop, benches with hammers, needles, tongues, spatulas, soiled with remnants of plaster, moulds and unsculpted and unformed chunks of marble, in short, a dark pit engulfed by the bright light outside covered in dust, both intrigued and disappointed the immaculate person I was growing into. I could discern no beauty or elegance in that disorderly place. How could it be possible through this mess, the white dust and dirt, the amorphous pieces of stone scattered around, harmony and order and beauty could be formed and something beautiful be carved like the statue of the local or national hero that stood outside? The mystery of artistic creation primarily rests with the mind and hands of the artist. As always, behind the magic of creation in sculpture, painting, music, poetry exists man, one’s soul and inspiration, talent and genius. I was never able to tame these arts, the fine arts. Perhaps, I lacked the innate talent or a sufficient depth and sensitivity of soul. A spark from something seemingly small and insignificant becomes a fire in certain spirits, it transforms emotion and sensual impressions into inspiration, and the inspiration, with the help of talent and skill, into creation. The creativity of my own youth had been exhausted in more practical and mundane occupations that later became a livelihood profession. The works of art I never managed to be immersed into as a creator would nevertheless present themselves and fascinate me, distinguishing the artists behind as exceptional beings, admirable for their skills, talent and inspiration, the wealth of emotions and richness of their souls -none of which attributes I have been able to emulate in life.