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Thanka Conservation Training Course Completed
(and not without moments of suspense)

by Pamela Logan

Aug 6, 1999

Dear Friends of the Kham Aid Foundation,

As most of you know, we've been teaching art conservation to Tibetans this summer by offering a special course in cleaning and repair of thankas (religious scroll paintings). The course was just completed. I don't have full reports from the participants yet, but I want to give you a close-up look at the whole epic by outlining what happened and sharing some of the e-mails that passed between various KAF personnel about the project.

May 13, 1999. I'm in Kangding making advance arrangements for the course. The Tibetan School in Kangding promises to provide classroom, accommodations, food, and students, but they can't provide old thankas to be repaired. I suspect that they just don't trust their precious paintings with this new-fangled conservation nonsense; but if they say they haven't got any, then there's no use in arguing with them. Karen Yager, director of KAF's art conservation program and chief instructor responds from New York "The course is not theoretical, but practical and hand-on. Otherwise there's no point. Yes, that large room will be perfect. But we need thankas; can't teach without them The course will consist of laboratory work on thankas supplemented with mock-thankas and swatches which we fabricate. But we must have a selection of thankas."

In Chengdu I locate a Tibetan woman, Nyima Lhamo, who curates thankas for the museum at Sichuan University. She has got, miraculously enough, a degree in chemistry, which makes her the best qualified by far of any of our prospective students. She is thrilled at the opportunity to study conservation, for the holdings at her museum are ill-looked after. Through her connections, I locate one old blackened thanka that I buy for one hundred yuan ($12) from an antique dealer. She assures me that we can find more

June 26, 1999. Messages about supplies needed for the program are flying back and forth between Karen Yager in New York, Mr. Wu Bangfu, who runs KAF's Kangding office, Nyima Lhamo in Chengdu, and me. Karen writes " We will have to buy all chemicals in either Chengdu or Kangding. I will not bring chemicals. Whatever is available is what we will have to work with. Most chemicals in gallon quantities, acids and alkalis in 1 or 2 quarts. Most important chemicals are perchlorethylene, naphtha, toluene, triethanol amine, ammonia, acetic acid, dimethyl formamide and a number of others..."

In early July the two conservators, Karen Yager and co-instructor Teresa Heady, fly to Chengdu, and reach Kangding by road with student Yangjin and all the supplies. Everything is ready to go. But there's a snag. On July 10, the day the course is supposed to start, Mr. Wu writes "The headmaster said that we must get some paper issued by the government or some other unit. Only after we get the paper, can we start the course, I tried to ask Mr. Li Guiguo [outgoing head of Ganzi Foreign Affairs Bureau] to help us, but he is still in Chengdu, so I asked Genqiu Dengzi to help us to get it from the government because he knows the new director of the Foreign Affairs Office. Please don't worry about this little problem, I am sure I can solve this problem."

I am not too worried. It's just one little piece of paper, and we have good contacts. But the next day, Mr. Wu writes, "Just now, Mr. Zhu Changcheng (vice director of prefectural foreign affair office ) called me and told me that we can't have the course if we don't have the paper issued by the Foreign Affairs Office of Sichuan Province. He asked me to go over to his office to discuss how to solve this problem. He also asked what type of visas they got."

From this point, things get even more snarled. Helpless in California, I grow increasingly concerned. On July 12 Mr. Wu writes, "This morning, I met Mr. Zhu Changcheng and the headmaster of the Tibetan school, after we discussed, we have to deal with this matter from zero. The school already wrote a proposal for this course. I will attach the copies of their passports and visas and also their resumes to the proposal. This afternoon, I will go to Foreign Affair Office to give the official the proposal. The people in the Foreign Affairs Office will report to the prefectural government. I will urge them to deal with this matter as soon as possible. We will also ask our friends in Chengdu to find some guanxi [connections] to help us get the paper."

Meanwhile, both students and instructors are keeping busy while they wait for the go-ahead. Karen gives English lessons to some students, and they tour the neighborhood. Nyima Lhamo has brought her teenage son with her from Chengdu. The boy has just finished taking his college entrance exams. Like a lot of young people nowadays, he wants to major in computers. Having attended a top Chengdu school, he has fine prospects and speaks excellent English; however he knows only a little Tibetan. Now that he has some free time he has come to Kangding to learn something about his own people. On July 14 he writes "Ms. Logan I'm Nyima Lhamo's son, and we once met at my home. My mum and I arrived in Kangding yesterday evening. I've finished the matriculation tests, so I can relax myself now. We will stay in Kangding for about a month. In August Mum and I may visit some other places where I haven't been to for many years. I hope you can come to China again and welcome to our home. Best wishes! sincerely, Healverse."

Then, on July 15, I receive a message with the subject line "The worst news." It's from Mr. Wu. The first few paragraphs of his letter are about meetings and paperwork. He has enlisted the help of everyone we know, especially the famous artist Nyima Tsering, who has high level contacts in the Sichuan government. But it isn't working. He writes "Because of Nyima Tsering's relationship with the director, the Foreign Affairs Office of Ganzi Prefecture received the answer from the provincial Foreign Affairs Office on Wednesday, they asked the type of the visas of the experts because they knew that the experts are already in Kangding. So we had to tell them the truth. Today we got the final reply that we can not have the Thanka Training Course for what we didn't have the paper and for what the foreign experts only got tourist visas. We will do some more work for the permission, but I don't think we can change the situation. "

A week of the team's time has already been wasted, and Teresa has to go back to London at the end of July. We need a fix for this problem, and we need it fast. At this time I am in Carmel, visiting the home of Michael Saso, whose New Life Center has been supporting KAF's text preservation. Michael Saso has more than two decades of China research and travel experience. I beg him for advice. He says that because the course is about techniques, not about ideas, Karen and Teresa do not need to meet special qualifications as "foreign experts" and therefore they don't need "foreign expert" visas. I type this into an email to Mr. Wu, and add a last-ditch suggestion that if this argument doesn't work, then they should call the U.S. consulate in Chengdu. It seems to me that diplomacy and connections are what's needed here, and the Consulate is good at both.

Triage: the class compares different thankas and the types of problems afflicting them.

On July 16, Karen Yager writes "After a grueling week-long saga, success at last! Yes, all the bases were covered, all of the explanations made (no salary, teaching practical subjects...) all the contingencies considered (work at Babang, trip to Derge and other potential mural restoration sites, etc). We considered moving the project to Chengdu. The American Consulate came through, and pressure was put on all appropriate offices. We are in contact with Mr. Doug Kelly, who seems to be the interim head of the Consulate. Mr. Wu has been working extremely hard and diligently on our behalf; the bureaucratic problems were extreme; they are solved, and we begin work on Saturday."

After this break-through, there is a lull in correspondence as everyone in Kangding is very busy trying to cram as much in as possible before Teresa has to leave. On July 31, Mr. Wu writes "General speaking, the course goes on smoothly. 9 students and 2 teachers are attending our course besides Yangjin, Nyima Lhamo and her son and the two students who just graduated from the school. [Yangjin and the two just-graduated students worked with us in 1998 at Baiya Monastery]. The TV reporters from Chengdu and Kangding made some program for our course."

Karen Yager (center), assisted by translator Wu Bangfu (white shirt), explains treatment of a stained thanka to students.

Teresa Heady will later recall, "I think once the course finally got started everything went extremely well. The students could not have been better, more attentive or more sensitive to conservation issues. I have been teaching a lot in the last few years and I have not come across any better. I truly wish I could have spent more time. They were sponges, ready to soak up as much as we could give them. It was wonderful."

On Aug 5 I receive another report from Mr. Wu "Yesterday we ended our Thanka Training Course. Last night all the students and teachers who attended the course gathered in a restaurant to have a big dinner--Hot Pot, and today we enjoyed a wonderful picnic. Our Thanka Traing Course is very successful, both the teachers and the students are satisfied with the course. The teachers told me, in the future, if we have some projects on conservation, they would like to take part in them. One teacher told me that he will teach the conservation knowledge in his class, and he wants to improve and enrich his own conservation knowledge firstly.

To this, Teresa Heady, who is already home in London, adds "I must thank you and Karen for allowing me to be part of this teaching course. Its hard to know where to begin I have fallen in love with the people there! I especially think that Tseren Penlo and Shiro Jatson [who worked with KAF conservators at Baiya in 1998] are extremely good students and I have already approached my museum to see if they could do an internship here."

Karen Yager wraps it up with this Aug 6 note "It has indeed been a great success! You simply cannot imagine how much the students have learned, and how much information I crammed into the course, on a most sophisticated level, all the while with great enjoyment all around. The students were given a continuous and very understandable high level course in chemistry, in equipment building, in philosophy, in technical analysis, and in the history of thankas, their meaning and evolution through their 1000+ year history. Many of the long morning lectures I gave and much of the technical info. Teresa taught "stitching" and "vacuuming" on the on the fabric surrounds, and we did a real crash course on the paintings, analysis, chemistry, equipment building, photography, documentation, chemical & materials' substitutions -even the principles of chemical distillation, after that first week. The kids know more than almost any textile conservator at this point.

Class outing

"I have again become inseparable with the boys [Tseren and Shiro], who have a magical effect. They work so hard at English (and with so much pleasure all around) that I sometimes forget that their comprehension is less than it is. They learn so fast that I push them very hard. ...And I fell in love with many other students as well, as you might expect. ...And with Nyima Lhamo and her son, who has an astounding capacity with English. Nyima Lhamo is great; we have many interests in common. And she gave generously of herself throughout. She spent two long evenings reviewing the chemistry with the students, and a couple of times during the course, when I invited her to the blackboard with me.

"So, tomorrow, after countless songs, dances, picnics, and formal ceremonies by the students (I cried at everything), we are a little freer with our time. I have bough a rabbit from a restaurant, which Tseren, Shiro and I adopted as a pet, and we will "liberate" it into a protected area tomorrow, an area with a small lake, protected by a rinpoche. We had a class picnic there, and were very satisfied that the caretaker will make our little rabbit very happy."

On behalf of Karen Yager, Teresa Heady, Nyima Lhamo, Yangjin, and the other students, I extend my best wishes to all our friends and supporters.

Pamela Logan

President, Kham Aid Foundation

how to donate | other thanka course reports | other cultural conservation programs