When Albert Lavergne arrived in Ile-Ife, Osun State about two years ago, he radiated a deep sense of homecoming. Although he had never visited Nigeria before,the Professor of Art and Sculpture at the Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, US saw the visit as an opportunity to reconnect with his ‘roots’, as he considers himself African.
Ironically, the natives were too eager to refer to him as a white man, as the colour of his skin seems to dictate. The man who was a Fulbright Scholar at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife about two years ago did not find this funny at all.
“When people call me a white man in Nigeria, I feel offended,” he says. “I am a black man and this is my home.”
But he had more queries to answer. In no time, the residents started asking him if he was married and how many children he had. Of course, here is a cultural setting where people expect a man or woman of a certain age to have gotten married and started raising children.
Lavergne was born in 1943 – with a wealth of age that, folks believe, should have conferred on him the title of a grandfather. Predictably, the people were more alarmed when he told them he was neither married nor had any children.
Because the puzzle and pestering would not go away, Lavergne devised an answer that has now become a masterpiece. For his Fulbright project, he decided to sculpt a mother and a child. With that, he felt, the people would know that he is very productive in his own way.
The novel idea has become an iconic sculpture now imposingly standing in front of the OAU Museum in Ife. Said to be the first of such art work by an American outside the US shores, it has not only enlivened the varsity’s collection, it has also become a metaphor for the beauty of international socio-cultural exchange. And, beyond that, it has lifted Lavergne’s artistic experience, one that gives him special fulfilment.
The artist had the opportunity to tell his story on Wednesday, when he was hosted by the Omoba Yemisi Adedoyn Shyllon Art Foundation in Lagos. Lavergne received a resounding ovation from art patrons, scholars and enthusiasts at the event anchored by OYASAF’s founder himself, Prince Yemisi Shyllon.
At the programme were a former Minister of Planning and art collector, Chief Rashhed Gbadamosi, and wife, Mrs. Tinu Gbadamosi; leading artists’ such as Olu Amoda, Roqib Basorun and Adeola Balogun. So also was the Managing Director of Terra Kulture, Mrs. Bolanle Austen-Peters.
Noting that it was the renowned carver, the late Lamidi Fakeye, that inspired him to come to Ife, Lavergne gave an engaging account of the process of the sculpting of Mother and Child. He recalled how the people showed him love, warmth and affection, which served as a tonic for him in the course of the job. According to him, suggestions by the head of department were also useful.
He says, “Within a month, everybody started bringing babies for me to hold. That blew away my mind. But because people challenged me concerning wife and children, I decided to fabricate wife and child. So, I have a family here now. It was a wonderful exchange. I learnt a lot from the university. And I learnt a lot from the people.”
On the challenges he faced, he noted that at a point he had to dismiss a local assistant because the guy was lazy. Also, the height of the sculpture – 40 ft – was daunting, especially as it swallowed the height of its creator. He adds that so demanding was the job that he conceded some weight to the rigour. Today, however, Lavergne has achieved a feat he loves dearly.
“I wanted to capture a woman with a passionate and expressive face; not a perfect being as humanity itself is not perfect. But I celebrate the imperfections too in my works. I am proud to be the first American to have a sculpture outside the US,” he says.
Lavergne would not stop the account until he had warned fellow artists on health matters, however. Whenever they are working with metals – and more – they must always protect themselves from visible and invisible chemicals, he says.
On his part Adedoyin says he was glad to have everyone around. According to him, it is the kind of success that Lavergne has recorded that inspired him to establish the OYASAF grant and fellowship.
In 2012, Lavergne arrived at the OAU on the Fulbright Lecture/research Grant with a mission to building a steel fabricated sculpture and present it to the university as a gift from Western Michigan University in commemorating their 50th Anniversary.
According to a profile of his, as a scholar and researcher of over my 39 years, he has developed a unique process of fabricating directly with metal and without the need for a foundry. He says he grew up watching his mother fabricate colourful quilts with reconstituted fabrics pieces without the need of a model.
“ I was intrigued at the process of how individual sections of clothes, evolved into a large mosaic colorful design. She maintained the capacity to improvise circumstances as her imagination dictated. The quilt’s design was developed in the moment.”
“I accompanied my father to the local blacksmith to have farming tools and equipment sharpened. At the time, I remember being mesmerized by the process that the heat of the fire could transform the metal. As a sharecropper, my father instilled in us at an early age how essential skills in eye and hand coordination were to the survival of our farm.”
And gradually discovering what he describes as his ‘personal conceptual identity’ his sculptures, he explains grew larger just as building for strength and balance became a primary issue.
“The law of gravity would always challenge my designs, to transform industrial steel into rhythmic organic looking forms. The process required dynamic engineering of joints. I needed the spontaneity of my mother’s quilts and the practicality of my fathers’ tool making skills.”
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