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Southern New England Apprenticeship Program Year 16 Session - Yeshi Dorjee, Jampa Tsondue, & Kunga Choekyi

SubjectPortrait of Yeshi Dorjee (Tibetan, born 1959)

SubjectPortrait of Jampa Tsondue (Tibetan, born 1959)

SubjectPortrait of Kunga Choekyi (Tibetan)

Date2014 May 4

Mediumborn digital video - MTS file

DimensionsDuration: 38 Seconds

ClassificationsGraphics

Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections

CopyrightIn Copyright

Object number2015.196.276.4

DescriptionVideo showing the creation of a butter sculpture during a Southern New England Apprenticeship Program Year 16 session. Yeshi Dorjee, mentor, is teaching apprentices Jampa Tsondue and Kunga Choekyi.

NotesSubject Note: The Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program is a CCHAP initiative since 1997 that fosters the sharing of community-based traditional (folk) artistic skills through the apprenticeship learning model of regular, intensive, one-on-one teaching by a skilled mentor artist to a student/apprentice. The program pairs master artists from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or Connecticut with apprentices from one of the other states, as a way to knit together members of the same community or group across state lines. Teaching and learning traditional arts help to sustain cultural expressions that are central to a community, while also strengthening festivals, arts activities, and events when master/apprentice artists perform or demonstrate results of their cooperative learning to public audiences. The Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program at the Connecticut Historical Society manages the program in collaboration with the Folk Arts Program at the Massachusetts Cultural Council and independent folklorist Winifred Lambrecht who has a deep knowledge of the folk arts landscape of Rhode Island. Primary funding for the program comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, with support also from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Institute for Community Research, and the Connecticut Historical Society.

Subject Note: This event was one of the teaching sessions of the apprenticeship team in Tibetan butter sculpture. With support from the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program in 2013-2014, Yeshi Dorjee taught Jampa Tsondue and Kunga Choekyi the ancient process of hand-crafting butter sculptures over several months, and they assisted him with creating this three-part butter sculpture for the community to use in its ceremonies. Jampa, a painter, and Kunga, an embroiderer, were familiar with the designs of the figures and the flowers that are used in the sculptures, because they use these same designs in their painting and embroidery. Yeshi devised a creative way to store and transport the delicate butter sculptures in plastic bins that have been fitted with plywood supports. As with thangka painting, the production of a detailed artistic work is like a meditation, creating a calm mind and positive collective karma, bringing peace and harmony.

The steps of the apprenticeship in butter sculpture were:
1. Preparation of base board, the plywood that the butter sculptures are applied on
2. Preparation of the butter (Crisco), melting together, cooling it with ice, then can scoop it
3. Amount of color mixing and shaping into colored cones
4. Flower paddle and leaves, picking up with fingers from the cones, and making shapes
5. Mouse ear flower
6. Precious Jewel Flower
7. Making combination of colors for flowers.
8. Images of animal’s figures
9. Images of deities’s figures
10. How to order them in the sculpture and meaning of all these figures – they tell a story

The butter sculpture was displayed in the exhibit "Connecticut Traditional Artists and Their Communities," an exhibit celebrating 25 years of the Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program at the Connecticut Office of the Arts gallery in Hartford from August to November 2016. The butter sculpture is brought to many Tibetan community events to be placed on the altar for meditation by participants.

Biographical Note: Yeshi Dorjee, a Buddhist monk, lives in Westbrook; he provides spiritual support and teachings for the Tibetan community throughout southern Connecticut and beyond. A multi-talented artist, Yeshi creates sand mandalas, butter sculptures, religious paintings, book illustrations, and is a storyteller. He learned drawing at home from his uncle, from the age of 6, doing basic drawings of yak and scenes. He went to Gyumed Tantric Monastery in South India at age 9 to be a monk. There Yeshi learned butter sculptures from a monk artist who came from Tibet, for five years under this teacher named Ngarampa Lobsang Geleg. Started with drawing of Buddhist figures for six months. Then color mixing with butter and getting fingers trained for picking up the right amount of mixed colored butter for the flowers and figures, for three months. Then made many butter sculptures assisting the older monks. Started at 14 years old; graduated from the University when he was 21 years. Yeshi took responsibility of butter sculpture art department at the monastery from 1983 to 1997. He taught many new students and they are still teaching other monastery and demonstrating in different museum. He made one big butter sculpture in the museum in France. They kept that from 1996 to 2011. He made a new one there in July 2011. The countless visitors keep coming from all over Europe. The Foundation called Alexandre David Neel Foundation. See newspaper article. Yeshe and 9 monks also made a huge butter sculpture in 2012 of the Buddha’s life story, for the annual butter sculpture festival in Bodh Gaya which is Jan. 8-15. Now several of these monks have passed away. Yeshi moved to the US in March 1997.

“Butter sculptures are used in temples, in ceremonies, and in home shrines. This art form dates to the 14th century. People come to meditate by the sculptures – the animals and the images in the sculptures show how to be a good person, how to respect each other, and give spiritual messages important to our daily lives. Traditionally the pictures were made from yak butter which is yellow; now we use butter and crisco with some modern dyes. Sometimes we mix with a little rice, especially in places where it is hot like India. There are two types of butter sculptures, ones that are flowers, and ones that have figures from Buddhist stories and scriptures. I know how to make both types.

We prepare the butter mixture and color it, then we make the little flowers and other shapes. These are pressed onto plywood cut out into the background shape. Sometimes we use plywood shapes as a palette to hold and make individual flower pieces, then these are put into the larger design. For a large sculpture, the monk who knows how to make the flowers does that part, and then the monk who knows the figures and the whole design puts the individual parts onto the big design. All the pieces are made by hand, not molds. Monks who make butter sculptures have certain body characteristics – they have cold hands and dexterous fingers! Sometimes to make the hands colder, monks will use a tourniquet on their arm to control the blood flow.”

Additional materials exist in the CCHAP archive for this activity and this community.

Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.

Status

Not on view