Artist’s Hindu traditions reflected in tile creations for Bangor church

It was the garish postcards of the Hindu gods he remembered seeing as a child that inspired Krishna Akilesh as he worked on a set of ceramic tiles depicting events in the Christian Bible.

As an adult, he still sees their faces when he conjures up Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and his namesake, Krishna.

But it is the faces of Jesus and others that are portrayed in a set of 15 porcelain tiles commissioned last year by Redeemer Lutheran Church in Bangor for its Sunday school wing. Installed earlier this year, the tiles hang along two intersecting walls opposite the classrooms.

Seven events from the Old Testament hang on one wall, and around the corner are eight from the New Testament. Each of the 17-inch squares is framed and hangs about 4 feet off the ground – eye level for a 7-, 8- and even a 10-year-old.

The tiles’ creator, Akilesh, 22, of Bangor spent last summer creating the series in a studio at Washington University in St. Louis.

Kids in the church on Essex Street first saw the tiles in January.

“‘Noah’s Ark’ is my favorite,” said 8-year-old Brianna Savoy of Hermon as she gently touched the bow of the wooden ship. “Touching helps me understand the story. They’re new to me because I just started coming to Sunday school.”

Jordan Lorenz, 10, of Hermon said he could not name a favorite tile. He said that they all had the same amount of detail and work put into them and that they are all equally beautiful.

“But to be able to touch and feel them and to see the stories from the Bible visually helps us have them on our minds and have them stuck there,” he said, standing beside the first tile of the series called “The Void.” “There’s so much texture to the moons. I can see where they were molded and then the golden paint was added.”

Akilesh’s relationship with Redeemer Lutheran began in 2001. He called the Rev. Elaine Hewes, pastor of Redeemer Lutheran. When Hewes called back, “She said she’d had an idea about showing the stories taught in Sunday school and came up with a long shopping list. We narrowed it down to 15 stories for the tiles.”

Hewes, a former elementary school teacher, said that members of the church had been talking about ways to integrate art into more of the church’s activities and trying to teach the children Bible stories visually as well as orally.

Once she and Akilesh had decided on the number of tiles, 15 families gave $100 each to help pay for them. A small brass plaque is attached to each frame, noting a dedication.

Both minister and artist said that the money Akilesh was paid for the project barely covered his production costs. He made two sets of the porcelain tiles from the plaster molds he created from drawings – one for the church and one for himself. He also created his own bright, colorful glazes, using some colors sparingly yet repetitively. For example, the red glaze used in the “Passover” tile for the lamb’s blood that Jews placed over their doors so that the Angel of Death would not take their first-born is the same red used for the blood that drips from the wound in Christ’s side for “The Crucifixion” tile.

Akilesh’s exposure to Christianity was limited during his childhood. Born in Muscat, Oman, on the southeast coast of the Arabian peninsula, he lived in India, England, Singapore and Saudi Arabia before coming to the United States when he entered ninth grade. He attended high school in Hanover, N.H., and when he left to attend college, his father, Dr. Kumar Akilesh, took a job at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. His father and his mother, Dr. Usha Akilesh, live in Bangor.

Akilesh graduated in December from Washington University in St. Louis with a double major in fine art and biology. That combination is rare at American universities. Both disciplines involve heavy time commitments and cooperation between two very different schools within a university.

To achieve his goal, Akilesh took one biology requirement each semester and attended the university an extra semester after earning his bachelor of fine arts degree to complete his biology degree. His undergraduate thesis focused on the icons of Orthodox Christianity, but included symbols from Eastern religions, too.

Akilesh has been accepted for admission to Harvard Dental School this fall, and he wants to combine a career in dentistry and art, complete with an office lobby as art gallery.

Akilesh merged his scientific and artistic sides in a commission for a St. Louis health clinic. He created a series of sculpted stoneware tiles depicting healing plants and herbs. He also won an annual public art competition in a St. Louis suburb. And his work was installed on the exterior of the University City Public Library.

Closer to home, he did a sculpture of St. Joseph that is mounted on the wall behind the front desk at the entrance to St. Joseph Hospital on Center Street in Bangor. He completed it while he working on the tiles for Redeemer.

Hewes, who wrote the text for a children’s book to go along with Akilesh’s images, is quick to point out that the entire Redeemer Lutheran community supported the project in one way or another.

“He took our vision and put it into visual form,” she said at a dinner following dedication of the tiles in a ceremony that included Akilesh’s parents and other members of the Hindu community in greater Bangor.

“Krishna is not a Christian,” Hewes told the children when the tiles were unveiled. “He has a different faith and today we celebrate that we are not all of the same faith.

“Yet, Krishna is so respectful of our tradition that he rejoices with us. He told the stories of our tradition so that he can help celebrate the story for us. … These tiles are for you, the children of Redeemer, and like the story poured on you at your Baptism, you all will live with them for the rest of your lives.”

Akilesh said he hopes the children of Redeemer Lutheran conjure up the images in the tiles decades from now when they think of a biblical story or celebrate an important event in Christianity the way he still sees those postcard images from his own childhood when he envisions the Hindu gods.

“The biblical characters and stories rendered in tile will not only serve to poignantly instruct children in the practice of virtue, but also enliven their minds in a way that will remain with them for life,” he said. “I feel extremely fortunate to have worked on a project as meaningful as this one, especially since its impact extends into the future.”