Gordon celebrates a decade of art and helping in Nepal
Arran artist and devoted humanitarian relief project worker in Nepal Gordon Davidson has recently returned from yet another art project in Nepal.
Gordon, who lives in Corrie, has been working with disadvantaged children across the region for more than a decade and over that time he has watched many of his students and friends blossom into young adults.
It all started in 2012 when Gordon was invited to join a new charity taking art to poor and disadvantaged communities across Nepal.
Gordon visited regularly and helped provide direction, motivation, life skills and guidance to the children but in 2018 the project was handed over to the Nepalese.
Within days he was asked to set up a new project to help poor people from the Tibetan communities in Upper Mustang. The Outlook World Art Project was born but as Gordon says: “It all sounds very grand, a world art project, when basically it is me and a bag of paints.”
To a point that is true but Gordon has a group of Nepalese who support what he is doing; Neeraj in Kathmandu and Mohan in Pokhara, as well as Lama Pasang from Mustang, Suraj Shrestha from the Himalaya Boarding School and Bibek and Pratima in the Fab College in Pokhara.
Now in 2023, Gordon has just returned from his 15th trip where he spent his first two weeks with the Early Morning Art Club in the grounds of the Himalaya Boarding School, in Budhanilkantha.
Working with Suraj the youngsters produced work that will be exhibited in a summer exhibition at the Lochranza Distillery.
The youngest kids were presented with a knitted hat that was made by Rita Salmon from Corrie.
For the second two weeks Gordon moved to Pokhara, about 140 miles west of Kathmandu. There he met up with the group from Upper Mustang, up on the Tibetan plateau.
He calls this group his Mustang Monkeys, because they are all so feisty.
In Pokhara he worked with the Fab College for hotel management. There he gets the students to think in a more creative manner.
One group in the college con
sists of eight girls who cannot speak or hear.
“Being a visual thing, art was no problem for the girls. We had a lot of fun and the girls were so proud of all the artwork they produced,” Gordon said.
Lama Pasang, who runs the Mustang home, introduced Gordon to another project that rescues children from difficult situations.
Gordon was taken into the Annapurna mountains to a secret location, built by a lady from England, who wanted to help the rescue children.
This was the first time all the children had tried any art and it was all a big deal for them. Their work will also feature in the summer exhibition later this year.
In Nepal there are art schools for the traditional thangka paintings. Five years ago Lama Kumar from one of these art schools asked Gordon if he could promote the work of one of their youngsters whose work is outstanding.
Since then Sahil has had his work exhibited alongside Gordon’s at exhibitions.
He has made enough money to pay for his school fees, pay for the huge bill his grandfather ran up in the hospital when he had a heart attack, and is also the proud owner of a watch, which he had always wanted.
On this latest trip Gordon also managed to meet up with lots of the orphans from his first visit 11 years ago.
They have all grown up and have jobs or are studying in college. Tenzing is now married with his own family, Yam is a policeman, Sangeeta and Nirjala are both in art school.
Binu is a teacher and Sunil has a rap channel on YouTube.
A group of youngsters helped Gordon paint a huge mural on a wall in the Bishwonath Hotel, in the centre of Kathmandu. The hotel now has eight murals by the Outlook youngsters.
Arran Distillers Ltd has supported Gordon’s work for over a decade.
From Monday June 12 the Lochranza Distillery will host their 10th anniversary exhibition of his, and some of the children’s work.
Gordon added: “Our first exhibition was opened by the Nepal Ambassador so I thought I’d ask the new ambassador to open our 10th one. To my surprise, and delight, he has said he will. That is going to be a big event. All the kids in Nepal are all very excited about this.”