James L. Govan

Creche collector James Govan is the author of this exhibition book. He is the founder of the Friends of the Creche society in the U.S. And is a retired international aid and development worker. Together with his late wife Emilia, he collected creches from all over the world and created by people of all faiths, with the exception of Judaism.

I bought this book after seeing the museum exhibition of the same name at the Loyola University Museum of Art in Chicago. It has 207 pages with a different creche, and corresponding description, on every 2 page spread. The creches are divided into 11 categories, including those with costumes, expressions of homage, flora and fauna, signs and symbols, inclusion of prior faiths, musical expressions and those used as instruments of social change.

In the signs and symbols chapter there were a couple of creches that I thought were innovative. Mary Fuller used the Hebrew meaning for Bethlehem, bet meaning house and lechem meaning bread, to make a nativity scene placed inside a loaf of bread. Similarly, MLuisaR created a triptych that when closed, reveals that it has been carved out of a tree trunk.

Govan has collected over 450 creches and, of course, my favorite one is not in the book. A Kansas woman, whose name I didn't write down, created a minimalist creche out of about 10 nails. It is reflective of the outcome of the birth of Christ and I found it quite moving. Creches that emphasize indigenous presentations and that demonstrate how the creches create bonds within and among different cultures were selected for the book. In the past I would have viewed these bonds as blasphemous. Now I see that they were created as evangelistic tools because in order to convert someone from a different faith, you need to present Christianity alongside the culture of the person you are hoping to convert. I had been viewing nativity scenes only from my own cultural viewpoint. In this regard, The Art of the Creche has been a major learning tool for me.… (mais)