The Journey
The Bodhisattva with a Thousand Hands and Eyes statue prior to restoration. In this photo the existing damage is not apparent, but there were large areas of the body, heads, and arms with gold-leaf cracking off. The statue leaned against the wall and many of the joints sagged, exposing the cement undercoating used to patch in the statue’s last incarnation.
Michael, with the help of Alex Semsch and under the guidance of head monk Casey take the statue apart.
Neither instructional materials or first hand knowledge were available, so the discovery of a concealed entry to the area under the statue was fortuitous. Hydraulic wheels inside lifted the massive sculpture, allowing it to be rolled away from the wall. The entire work came apart from the back!
The Bodhisattva insured a safe trip down the icy snow-packed forest service road that snakes downhill for four miles from the remote mountain monastery. Unable to apply either the gas or the brakes, the descent was an agonizingly slow pin-balling back and forth, redirected over and over by the snowbanks which guarded and protected the truck and its precious contents.
These large hunks of camphor were trimmed from the interior of the statues lotus blossom base and used to patch and rebuild rotted out or destroyed areas of the sculpture.
The first year was spent transforming the lotus blossom base.
The base was hollowed out, leveled, a new top was made and two new rings of down-turned petals were created, carved out of the existing material.
Gold-leaf was stripped from each petal, and the under-lying layers of lacquer and cement removed. The bottom row of petals were cut in half, a piece added on, then re-shaped.
The remaining petals were also re-carved and re-fitted.
The second year focused primarily on restoring the body.
Hidden damage, a large rotted out area on one knee, led to the happy decision of bringing new life to the fabric folds by adding depth and definition.
The goal was to give the clothing a life of its own, independent of the Bodhisattva.
When the gold was removed from the faces it revealed a great deal of damage suffered over the years.
An old restoration used cement to fill and cover over the damage. The cement, up to 1/2 inch thick in areas, when removed, altered the appearance of many of the faces. They became more youthful and less gender specific, subtleties lost to the Chinese restoration.
A stainless steel framework was fabricated, sandwiched between two stainless steel plates to transfer the weight of the immense sculpture from the fragile lotus base.
A stainless steel cage was also constructed to insert up into the hollow bottom of the sculpture. This then is bolted to the framework, rigidly holding the Bodhisattva which intentionally leans forward.
Then there were those 1000 arms, hands and eyes to deal with!
