Carver brings My Son dancers to life
By Hoa Vang in Quang Nam
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| Artisan Pham Ngoc Xuan makes a statue of Apsaras |
Pham Ngoc Xuan often goes to My Son sanctuary near his home to see the ancient sculptures for inspiration. The 45-year-old who has been deaf since birth carves pieces of stone that he and his father collect and sells the sculptures from his roadside studio.
The studio cottage in My Son Hamlet, Duy Phu Commune, Duy Xuyen District, Quang Nam Province, where he lives and works, is full of stone depictions of Apsaras dancers, yoni and linga. It attracts many tourists on their way to visit the My Son sanctuary.
Xuan never studied art. He spent his childhood herding buffalos and cutting grass in the countryside covered in mountains and rice fields. The green moss covered ruins of the ancient Cham towers and stone statues of enchanting Apsaras dancers that he has lived near his whole life are engraved in his mind.
His mother Van Thi Mui said, “One day he put some stone statuettes of Apsaras dancers on a table and gestured how he had used pieces of steel to carve them.”
His family loved him so much that his father built a cottage on the roadside for him to make the statues and sell them. Sometimes, his father goes to the forest to look for stones for Xuan.
On the day Xuan opened his studio, he sold statuette of an Apsaras dancer to a foreigner. This made his poor family happy and his father gave him a tool sharpening machine.
Xuan has kept it up and tourists often stop by his cottage.
Knowing that his son can’t communicate well, Xuan’s father made a sign in English and Vietnamese and put it in front of the cottage.
A neighbor said some sculptors had asked Xuan to work for them but he refused. He spends his time carving, collecting stones along the streams near his home and looking around My Son for new ideas to carve. From the road you can see Xuan at work capturing in stone the energy of Cham dancers long gone.