The art of giving to others

By Theresa Curry for The News Virginian
Published: November 18, 2008

A chain of family connections and generous hearts links school children in a mountaintop school in Nelson County to school children in an isolated village in the Andes. The same connections link two rural Virginia artisans with a couple of West-Coast health advocates determined to work with the Peruvian school children and their families for better health.
Nelson County potters Nan Rothwell and Kevin Crowe host an annual event, “Nelson Clay,” a studio tour and sale, with a portion of sales going to the project this year. The tour, scheduled for Nov. 29-30 and Dec. 6-7, is also designed to publicize the grassroots effort to improve the respiratory health of the people of Sipascancha. Information and pictures of the village and its children will be on display in both studios.
Vidas Mejoradas, which means better lives, is the name of the project that’s connected these adults and children with each other. At more than 14,000 feet in elevation, the isolated village of Sipascancha drew the attention of Steve Bouton, formerly of Afton, and Laurie Iaccino, a nurse who had visited the Peruvian Andes several years ago for basic health education. She had observed the townspeople cooking their meals in open fire pits, the smoke from the day’s cooking filling their adobe shacks, creating a permanent layer of soot and giving children year-round colds, bronchitis, persistent coughing and pneumonia, said Ellen Bouton, Steve’s mother, who still makes her home in Nelson County.
She is currently in Peru with her son and Iaccino.
The Vidas project conceived by Steve Bouton, Iaccino and a Peruvian colleague, Pavela Jimenez Figueroa, began to change this basic fact of life for Sipascancha’s people.
“Vidas Mejoradas has chosen to focus on one of the simplest and easiest ways to help,” Ellen Bouton said, “introducing a basic cooking stove with a chimney that burns wood more efficiently and removes the smoke from the living space.”
Any family that wanted a stove was able to participate. They did so by having an initial assessment of their family’s living situation and respiratory health. Forty bricks were required for the stove body and about six dollars for the construction and installation.
Families made the adobe bricks, with the Vidas Mejoradas team contracting with businesses in the city of Cusco – about 2½ hours away — to make the combustion chambers, chimneys and grates. They hired local trucks to haul the materials to the villages and trained local people to visit homes to make sure the stoves are built properly, Bouton said.
This month, they return to Sipascancha, where they hope to find smoke rising from chimneys instead of drifting through the small homes. They also hope to find improved respiratory health in the village’s school children. While there, they’ll start the whole process again in the village of Usi, another isolated mountain town.
Meanwhile, the children of Sipascancha have already benefitted in at least one other tangible way.
The North Branch School in Afton has designated the school as its sister school. Both schools study Spanish as a second language (children in Sipascancha speak Quechua); they’ve exchanged drawings; and each child in the Peruvian school now has his or her own pencil, courtesy of a Nelson County pencil drive.
Previously, Bouton said, families shared a pencil between multiple children.
Ellen Bouton is on the board of North Branch School and Rothwell’s children graduated from it.
Vidas Mejoradas is funded by the savings of its founders and small donations coming from grassroots fundraising drives in Oregon, where Steve Bouton and Laurie Iaccino make their home and events such as the studio tour.
The annual studio tour is also a good chance to see works by two of Virginia’s potters. Both have taught and have works distinguished by creative use of a variety of glazes and glazing techniques. Rothwell has a studio near Nellysford and exhibits at Spruce Creek Gallery near Wintergreen as well as in the Artisan’s Center of Virginia in Waynesboro. She makes salt-glazed and stoneware pots in classic and elegant shapes.
Crowe makes wood-fired pottery in his studio in Tye River and teaches classes nationally and internationally. His own work ranges from huge art pieces to smaller, functional pots.
The works of both artists will be available at each studio.
Nelson Clay 2008 is scheduled for Nov. 29-30 and Dec. 6-7 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is free to the public. For more information, call Rothwell at 434-263-4023 or Crowe at 434-263-4065.