For art's sake

Gomantak Times Weekender:-You been in Goa a couple of times for restoration work at the Museum of Christian Art in Old Goa. But this time you have come down for a completely different purpose. Could you tells us more about it?

Rita Gordo:-St Michael’s Church in Taleigao in collaboration with Fundacao Oriente invited me to Goa to conduct a workshop on Poly chrome restoration which means restoration of sculptures and painting that have many colors in them. Like Blue, Red, Green etc. We have many people coming for the workshop who are not from the same background, I guide them as to how to go about with restoration of the 300 year old structures from the Taleigao church. Yes ! The sculptures are all from the Taleigao church altars which will be soon restored to their original style.

Rita Gordo, Restorer/Conservator

GTW:- What is restoration all about? Is it about making it look appealing and beautiful or is it about retaining it's old look?

RG:- Restoration is not repainting but keeping it original without changing its identity. What we are doing is trying to fill the gap with the original color. We are taking off all the paint layers from the sculptures and trying to get back its original appearance. When you repaint a structure you are damaging it. As a conservator and restorer you have to put your artistic skills aside and respect the work of the artist and the object. Its not your work its some one else creative piece. That’s another reason why repainting is not called restoring. It just takes away all efforts put by the artist to make the master piece.

GTW:-What happens if the artifacts are painted over an over again to make them look exotic?

RG:-Chemically speaking the newer paints that you find in the market are very strong, you have to use very strong solvents to mix them. Secondly, they have a plastic coating that makes them look artificial and shiny, completely different from the original. When a wooden log is sculptured into an object we still consider it as having life in them. All these chemicals that are used to make it look different are in deed damaging the structure.

GT:- You'll are restoring statues which are more than 300 year old. Does it tell anything about the artist or the sculpture who designed the statues?

RG:- Well, that includes a lot of study. I can't tell exactly who sculptured or painted the statue because I have not witnessed it with my own eyes. But there are small details like hair, appearance etc which tend to tell you more about the artist. There are a lot of work that is found on the statues which tell about our history. Like there was a statue that had curly hair and in Goa you don't find many people with curly but things like this help you to trace the artist.

GT:- If you see around Goa you will find a lot of restoration work that's been done in order to save the monuments from getting destroyed. What would you like to say about it ? Is changing the appearance by using a lot of color and paint the right way to restore our heritage monuments?

RG:- In order to make it look atheistic and beautiful with color and paint your end up killing its true beauty and architectural design. It’s just that when you see old monuments they tend to look dull and sad but that's how old artifacts look like and we need to keep them just the same so that the future generation can witness it. When you paint a church with a lot of color you are loosing on all the detail worked done by the architect.

GT:- Any fun or interesting project you worked on?

RG:- I once had this private collectors object it was a sculpture, it wasn't that old but it was that exquisite and challenging because the whole object was full of termites, who had almost destroy the structure. When I caught it for the first time the entire structure collapsed, I understood it wasn't easy how it looks to be. This was one of my fun and exciting projects I worked on.