Thoughts… and Exhibitions!

1. ICONOGRAPHY WORKSHOPS!… Workshops???

Icon the Mother of God Smolenskaja by Olga Shalamova

Getting ready to teach a series of iconography workshops I decided to check programs, offered by fellow iconographers. In a few minutes discovered an extensive number of icon retreats all over the world, and suddenly I had a rising desire to choose a course for me to sign for!

I was so amazed, how many opportunities open up when you google “icon painting workshop” or “course”. The ads said you can learn “technique of Byzantine art”, gilding technique, the “language of icons” and their “meaning”, and even to work as a team member with renowned master-iconographers for several days…

I searched really hard, but in the end, I did not find a single one to sign for. It was so disappointing, that it even became the saddest news of the day.

Flipping through photos of different workshops taught in Russia, Italy, the USA, Australia, Greece, and Canada I saw a great deal, and it was not even close to what I was dreaming about. Most of the photographs were showing iconography students copying photocopies of their teachers’ icons, where the most beautiful, deepest, most powerful, and breathtaking old icons were rudely reduced to plainest simplified patterns. I saw dozens of students bending over their tiny little tables, overloaded with dozens of prints, plastic palettes, and other staff, dying to perform most unexplainable actions with most unexplainable pre-mixed hues of colors, composed by their teachers.

What I was seeking for was a kind of structure, which could help to see iconography as a living theology in color, and I only found commercial schools of sacred craftsmanship with very little understanding of the very techniques they teach. It’s not to be mentioned here, that the students’ works which I saw often had better colors and composition, than the works of their instructors. They looked more alive and less betraying their medieval models.

The whole research and the pictures, in particular, brought me to depression, but it did not last long. My brain rejected to stay in obsession and generated a consolation: tough but a good one.

The conclusion was this: if I want to be a serious iconographer, yet there is no extensive program of studies to follow, and the only thing on can do is this, – we all have to continually teach ourselves, getting knowledge from all available serious sources, and shape our vision struggling with conformism.

2. ART or DESIGN?

Another question, – practical AND theoretical at the same time: – Have you ever thought, what should be the relationship between art VS design in a church? I keep thinking it over and over for several months, and my initial point remains as it was: if we make icons for our contemporaries, we should consider their actual needs. But does it mean that we have to always agree with what our clients want us to do, or, belonging to a certain professional guild, we are entitled to suggest an alternative? For us, it’s a challenging question.

Icon the Mother of God Sosnovskaja by Olga Shalamova

Since 18 years ago we had our first commissions, we met lots of priests, who tried to make us follow their very extraordinary ideas of what is an icon and how the church space should be organized. As now we know, these situations are always unpredictable, and maybe in Russia, the ideas are even weirder. Once we worked with a priest, who out of the blue requested us to paint saint Nicholas holding a steam locomotive in his hands. The reason was obvious for him: it was the railway station, which sponsored the church construction. Another priest, (hieromonk, which means he was a priest and a monk at the same time) insisted the Archangels on icons should not have any wings since no one we know had ever seen them or any photo of them with the wings.

Facing situations like this we discovered that the role of an iconographer has to be much more extensive and serious than just being a “church artist” or a “church designer”. In the current situation of almost total iconographic ignorance of the clergy and devastating loss of connection with the traditions of the past, it is the iconographer, who is forced to become the last professional, responsible for the church interior final appearance. It is him or her, who has to think about the beauty, as well as functionality, coherence with the rules, canons and the tradition. It’s the iconographer, who should have the ability and rights to coordinate all the elements of the interior together, preserving the harmony, unity, and integrity of the church as a holy whole.

Well, now the question is how to obtain an authority to speak on behalf of tradition if you are invited to discuss “little changes” to an existing structure, and you are not entitled to have any right to seriously change anything?

The easiest answer is: “do not agree”, but what is the right kind of argument for these people, if you don’t want to lose the commission, or at least to keep some friendly relations, and want to avoid looking like “I-know-it-all” kind of person? How do you defend your point if the client insists?

Icon of Christ by Olga Shalamova

I have a feeling, that it may also depend on a role, iconographer wants to play in his or her own eyes. Maybe, despite all the workshops, trying to educate us as craftsmen, called to please our priests’ eyes with our lovely icons with overwhelming amounts of gold we can take it much more seriously? We probably might start considering ourselves not only artists (or designers) but also professional educators, sharing the essential knowledge, shaping (and re-shaping) our priest’s views?

Well, at this point I expect your objections, like where one can get spare time to obtain the necessary knowledge to become an expert and how to get the authority to cross someone, who was ordained by a bishop, or a bishop himself or herself?

Again, – I only have my own answer to this, and even I do not like it myself, but now I think it’s the only one:

We must ask for help from professional theologians and art-critics to make our opinion valuable and to seriously root it in the tradition.

We should honestly and fearlessly ask those, who is able to evaluate our bottlenecks, find common ground in our glorious past and help us to get better.

I am sure it will be a long and difficult process, but without the help of renowned professionals, we will always remain a narrow guild of basket makers, complaining about a lack of respect.

Now, as this thought was torturing me for a number of months, and as I have tried hard on my own and I can’t help it, I am turning to you, our dear subscriber and friend!

– If you know a professional theologian or/and an art critic, who would like to think together about contemporary iconography, constructively criticize and to see a better way for all of us to evolve, – would you ask him or her for help?

Any outcome is appreciated!

P.S. Step by step together we generate a General Bibliography for Iconographers, – everybody is welcome to propose valuable titles!.

3. VARNISHING

The time flies and in a few days, the challenge continues – another series of workshops, – sharing/discovering new ideas and widening horizons. It’s such a great time!

Have you ever faced the “varnish fear”? I mean the fear to ruin the finished icon by sealing it badly?

Life was so easy with copal varnish by Lefranc (see our old video), but as many of you know, they stopped producing it! The last bottles we bought a year ago are almost over! Time to experiment with the new version advised by LeFranc (Lefranc Picture Varnish Extra Fine Gloss). I started and even made a new video, but yet the result is too glossy, even with the addition of linseed oil. It’s like a Galoshe! I can not recommend it the way it is.

Some people advised to use highly diluted shellac, but in my humble opinion egg tempera needs some sort of transparent semi-liquid substance to fill the gaps between pigment particles…
If you have any trustable recipe of what can substitute copal varnish from LeFranc, – we’d be happy to hear from you! In the meantime, our own experiments go on and I hope to come up with something good in February! It’s urgent for us as well!

4. 2 EXHIBITIONS in 2 days and NEW ICONS

Icon the Mother of God Feodorovskaja by Olga Shalamova

Just yesterday we had the first day of our annual Exhibition in Melbourne, (ACU ArtSpace), featuring images by Peter Blackwood, Margaret Broadbent, Olga Shalamova and Alexandra Irini, here comes another news: – Bernardine College in Paris (France) hosts an exhibition of Russian and Ukrainian icons, – it opened for public today and will remain open till the 20th of January. Here are some links to see at least something:
1. Colleges des Bernardines #1

2. Colleges des Bernardines #2

3. Artos Fellowship



5. Our Workshops – very short:

The June workshop in New Zealand is full, the icon painting workshop in Queenscliff has 2 available spots. Yet nothing concrete for the USA: – yet we are looking for affordable venues with good lighting.

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Thank you for reading our Newsletter! We appreciate your feedback and shares.

Wishing you a prosperous year!,

With warmest regards,

Philip & Olga

Nearly Finished!

Dear Friends, did you ever wonder, why exactly 24? Why we only have 24 hours in one day/night session?

Icons for iconostasis of church of saint Panthaleone in Saint Petersburg
Icons for iconostasis of church of saint Panthaleone in Saint Petersburg

There are so many things to do and so little time! We often discuss, that the more we live, the more we see ways for applying the creativity, but where to get enough time for everything!

Well, the experience says: serious things take time. And now we both are stack in big projects, eagerly awaiting to finish and share the results with you… And yet there are some more efforts to make, – some more days and hours in the studio

In addition to being stack in the art, we also have some “digital stress”: – Google keeps saying we need to remodel our website and make it more accessible.

Printing on Fabric. Epitaphios for Orthodox church of Mary Magdalene in NYC
Printing on Fabric. Epitaphios for Orthodox church of Mary Magdalene in NYC

Yes, we agree that it’s very high time, to make it mobile-friendly, and we also want to change the gallery so it allows seeing images in larger sizes. It’s a long process as well, but within some months we do hope to launch the new design,  – we will keep you posted!

 

Well, complaining about the time we absolutely must mention, how deeply we both are grateful for all the help we receive from you! We just constantly feel kindness and friendship, radiating from you and other people around us. With your help we continue making our efforts and researches in our own work and teaching others.

As some of you may have noticed from our Instagram photos, it’s almost a year now that Olga is in the process of creating a liturgical Epitaphios. It’s a traditional liturgical object, usually made of embroidered and often richly adorned cloth.

Epitaphios. Work in progress.
Epitaphios. Work in progress.

For a number of years now Olga from time to time helps to design and craft liturgical vestments in our parish embroidery studio. At a certain point, she got inspired to do something on her own, introducing contemporary technologies into this very special world.  Instead of golden threads and embroidery, used for centuries, Olga uses pochoir and other techniques to achieve the necessary level of complexity and richness of the image with artistic means. This photograph shows one of the moments of the working process, there is also a slow-motion video, but if you like to see the action, have a look at a time-lapse video, – it squeezes some working hours into one minute.

Manuscript Barb.gr.372 from Library of Vatican
Manuscript Barb.gr.372 from Library of Vatican

We hope that in August the whole thing will finally come together and will finally reveal everything.

 

In the meantime, I wanted to share some other news and resources from our friends. First, – Todor Mitrovic gave us a couple of wonderful manuscripts. One was  published by the Vatican Library and the other one by  the British Library.

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And at the bottom of the page here is some space to get little more grounded. As always we are gladly sharing our friend’s and our own practical information.

First: Our dear friend Margaret Broadbent and her Russian connection Natalia Pecherskaja invite everybody to join their “Pilgrimage of Peace” for August 3-15 August, 2020.

Visions of Beauty
Visions of Beauty

The 13-day program in MOSCOW – TVER – GREAT NOVGOROD – St. PETERSBURG and all the events are organized by the Centre for Science, Religion & Philosophy Programs (SRPh) St. Petersburg, Russia http://www.srph.ru together with the Gippsland Travel, Warragul, Victoria, Australia, www.gippslandtravel.com.au. The Program will be in English.

in this Russian Summer Program – please contact Russian program co-ordinator: Dr. Natalia Pecherskaya: natalia.pecherskaya@gmail.com or Australian co-ordinator Sr. Margaret Broadbent margaret.broadbent@ mercy.org.au , if you are interested.

And at the very end, I wanted to mention, that our workshops in Italy, the USA and Australia for 2019-2020 are filling up. From our side we continue discussing and preparing several new lectures on theology and practical moments, and if you ever thought of signing up for something it might be the time (maybe not?).

We used to make flyers with some brief information and ask our friends to share the printed versions, but we do not know, whether they work or they do not. Maybe yet they do, even though the whole world is digitized, we still trust more to a paper page, instead of a screen? Maybe we should think of both since there are more and more people now relying on internet?

Here it is: to show what our workshops process looks like we put together a little video footage on youtube, hope it gives an idea:

Thank you again for supporting us and for letters with questions, – they always inspire us to study and discover something new.

As one of our Russian iconographers-friends (Andrei Bodko) said, –

Nowadays, with all the light-fast means of spreading the information, we all teach each other, do we want it or not. All together we are a “soup” for each other… We all are a broth or a “bouillon” of knowledge, ideas, thoughts, and other things, enriching each other.

And if we already stay connected, I suggest we pray for a “Worldwide Community of Iconographers”, asking God’s help to be good enough to inspire our neighbors!

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To be continued…

Philip (and Olga)

 

 

 

Australia Rules!

Dear Friend,
We have some workshop announcements but … I can’t help it!

First I shall praise our colleagues and friends Australian iconographers! It’s an unbelievable coincidence, to have so many events in a row, but they are all the fruit of much long and hard work. CONGRATULATIONS!  And here are the reasons for such praise (in the chronological order the news reached us):

A Celebration of Living Light. Exhebition and a Reception
A Celebration of Living Light. Exhebition and a Reception

First: an Exhibition and Reception “A Celebration of Living Light” at the Mercy Mission, Spirituality and Action Hub in North Carlton, Victoria. The exhibition was attended by a large number of Sisters and guests. The work of four Australian iconographers: Margaret Broadbent RSM Margaret McHugh RSM, Pauline Pervan RSM and Mrs Alice Vaughan.

We know that it took a very long time to get everything ready, but we are happy to hear that all went well. The photographs and a video are available here.

Icon exhibition Images of the Divine in Canberra. Sue Orchison (in red) who organised things, Richard Charlwood and Apostolic Nuncio, Most Reverend Adolfo Tito Yllana.
Icon exhibition in Canberra. Sue Orchison Richard Charlwood and Apostolic Nuncio, Most Reverend Adolfo Tito Yllana.

Second: About 80 people attended the opening, and several hundred guests in total saw The Images of the Divine, an exhibition organized by Sue Orchison displaying the work of 17 iconographers. 70 icons were produced and shown at the administration centre of the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn, Australia. Some photographs from the opening are available on Sue’s  Facebook Page, and her speech can be seen and read  on her website:  https://www.thelittlegate.com/

We are very happy and proud of our friends and students’ progress. Olga and I both appreciate and know how hard it is to progress and move forward so successfully!

Eastern Iconography in the contemporary Protestant West
Eastern Iconography in the contemporary Protestant West

Third: this news is less visual and rather verbal. However, we consider it may have great importance for all of us, especially in the long run.

This morning I received a letter arrived from Peter Blackwood, Australia. He was invited to a conference where he gave a lecture: Eastern Iconography in the Contemporary West.  Peter kindly agreed for us to share the text of his speech on our website. It has been added to our text collection and we hope you will gain some important insights and knowledge from it.

Corsi fi iconografia a Milano Italia
Corsi fi iconografia a Milano Italia

Fourth: future workshops

The first ones will be in Italy. Continuing on from last year’s “Corso di Perfezionamento” there will be two courses at the beginning of September. The first one is for those who have professionally worked in iconography for a number of years, and the second one is for other students who have just started on their journey in iconography.

It’s been almost 20 years since I last went to Italy as my father’s workshop interpreter and assistant, and it came around again! Last year I was contacted by some of his students who want to continue their education. I attempted it last year as a special challenge – to figure out the most crucial problems, and share the solutions with the “veterans”, who know almost everything. But what inspires me is that, even though they are so experienced, they are still open and still want to learn!

The US workshops are steadily filling up, and it looks like we are going to have both groups in September. At the New Skete (with the icon of “Angel with Golden Hair” as the chosen image) and at the Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, where we will continue a series of lectures on icon drawing.

At last, but not least, finally … so late, what a shame!! we can announce our January workshops in Melbourne!

Icon of Our Lady Igorevskaya for Icon Painting Workshop
Icon of Our Lady Igorevskaya for Icon Painting Workshop

We are really sorry for the delay. However, it took us a while to figure out what should be taught to people, who organize their exhibitions and lead their own icon schools all over Australia!

After discussing possible topics, and trying to find the answer for months, here it is:

The first one (as always) will be open to everyone. The chosen image is the icon of the Mother of God “Igorevskaya”. This means that students will have to study and paint two large faces, but we feel this is doable.

Model for Icon Painting Workshop Image of Crucifix
Model for Icon Painting Workshop Image of Crucifix

The second will actually be a double one.  It is has been chosen for those students who have previously painted icons.

We have to confess, it’s for the first time ever that we have decided to make a workshop as a two-session series with one model, and we are very excited about this.

We will use an image of the Crucifix for painting an icon of the Crucified Christ without other figures. However, both sessions are planned to include many studies and research results,  so we are sure it will be a fruitful time.

The plan is to work seriously, i.e. with lots of investigations and routine discoveries, so that the whole workshop could be experienced as a real immersion in a professional iconographer’s work. Please share this opportunity with others you may know who would like to join us.

The gessoed boards for the workshop icons will be made in the form of a cross. We have planned this so that these icons, when they are finished and varnished, can be used for church or personal veneration. We believe it will be a valuable practice and inspiration for everybody.

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Mosaic detail for iconostasis
Mosaic detail for iconostasis

To finish all the practical news, we will only share one tumbled stone and glass mosaic image as our fresh “production”. It’s a small section of a future iconostasis decoration by Philip Davydov. Other images are still in the planning stages.

Olga and I are both immersed in extensive projects which should be finished within several weeks or a couple of months.

Thank you very much for being our valued subscribers!

With warmest regards,
Philip Davydov and Olga Shalamova

July 2018

Pontifex University
Pontifex University

Dear Friends,
Life is running fast and we feel honored to share a great news:

  • We are glad to announce an official Partnership with Pontifex University. From now on each of our workshops can count as a credit toward Master of Sacred Arts degree. You can see a short description at our website: http://sacredmurals.com/pontifex_university.htm . The proposal came from one of our students, who had already had an experience with them, so we decided to try.  If you want to know more, please check directly the website of Pontifex University, we hope that a possibility to have knowledge and skills officially confirmed might be a good one

    Icon drawing workshop
    Icon drawing workshop

    Our Icon Drawing workshop Holy in Cross Monastery is not filled up yet, – there are still some available spots (unlike the one in The New Skete with a couple of people on waiting list). We have had this program in Melbourne and it worked wonderfully, – by the end of the 5th day, everybody gained much better drawing ability, including the instructors. And one more time everybody approved, that even if drawing is a difficult part, one can enjoy painting much more, having set up a good construction.

  • Olga’s had extremely intense months doing her graphic work, so, that in several weeks we expect images to be published. It is going to be a wall calendar, approximately 40 * 30 cm (16 * 12 inches) and we hope to have some copies to share.

Sacred Murals Studio Instagram Incorporated

  • Social Media: On!
    – As Olga continues running our main Instagram and it has become a good entertainment. Lately, we decided to incorporate it into our website so that everybody might see the latest updates at the left-bottom coner.

Besides, in October we plan to create a special page for mosaics on our website. To start spreading the word about it we decided to begin publishing little images in a separate instagram page run by Philip.

  • Five new icons and a mosaic piece by Philip Davydov:

Annunciation icon
Annunciation icon

Multiplication of bread and fish
Multiplication of bread and fish

Contemporary Image of Crucifix
Contemporary Image of Crucifix

Icon of Mandylion
Icon of Mandylion

Tumbled Glass and Marble Mosaic
Tumbled Glass and Marble Mosaic

Icon of Holy Mandylion
Icon of Holy Mandylion

More  – later!

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With warmest regards,

Philip Davydov and Olga Shalamova

Tons of Models + Workshops

Dear Friend,

Thank you for being our subscriber! We value your time and do our best to publish only most essential news and valuable information.  This time we are happy to share some archives of models for icons, finally launch our workshops in Melbourne and publish two icons by Olga Shalamova.

  1. It’s always a great pleasure to share good things and we decided to start sharing our models for icons: http://sacredmurals.com/more_images/_icons_from_mount_sinai.html . Largest number of icons was downloaded by our friend from Princeton University website: http://vrc.princeton.edu/sinai/, but there are also other albums as well. And the new feature is following, – you don’t have to click hundreds of images one-by-one, you can download entire archives and unzip them directly on your computer. Check the menu on the left side from the thumbnails and on the right side from the images, – hope you enjoy it.By the way, – always forget to mention! – All large size album images on our website are clickable, – image works like “NEXT” button when you click it.
  2. It’s been an intense time here and it’s only now we are launching our program for our workshops in Melbourne! Sorry for being late, but this time the task seemed so hard, – we wanted to produce a brand new series of workshops, dedicated to drawing and we made it!

    Iconography Workshop models to learn iconography drawing
    Iconography Drawing Workshop Models

    The first workshop practically is made entirely to train drawing, from point of view of theory it will include a series of brand new lectures. The second one is more focused and made for more advanced level students. We also do lots of drawing (mostly different types of garments), but at the end we should come out with a drawings of different half figures and one almost finished image of Saint Anastasia. Please click here  to see the details and descriptions >>

     

  3. A little Icon of Christ
    A little Icon of Christ

    It’s a shame have so few new images, but that’s how it is. Researching for new means and ways is a hard and exhausting work, it takes time and efforts, but it keeps us alive and helps moving forward! This time we only can share two icons by Olga, hoping that more images to come in June.

    This Last Supper took more then 2 months to complete. As additional note – the one, which we published in previous Newsletter functioned as one of the sketches for this one, and I think it worked well 🙂 Board size is 56 X 99 cm (about 23 X 40 inches), and it’s done in egg tempera.

    Icon the Last Supper
    Icon the Last Supper

     

  4. The last but not least, – sometimes we all need promotion! So, we are happy to promote our friend’s work and this time it’s father Justin Mcdonnell, who makes  icon boards in Melbourne (Australia). Here he comes:**********
    Traditional gessoed icon boards

    “Fr Justin McDonnell-based in Melbourne, Australia.
    0402-324-694.
    “Constructed from best quality sustainably/ethically sourced local  timbers. All joinery is done by hand using solid timber. Flat or kovcheg, with support struts in the back of the board as required. Boards can be of any size, large or small. Fr Justin is a fully qualified cabinet maker and has worked in a variety of timer related areas-furniture making, wood carving, and is a qualified pipe organ builder. He and his wife, Pani Matushka Lydia, are both dedicated to manufacturing and supplying icon boards of the finest quality to our local iconographic community. We use locally grown timbers and have tried to adapt this ancient craft to the unique conditions present in Australia. We would be very glad to receive your enquiry for any icon board requirements”.

            

    Thank you again for your time and please let us know if you have any questions or comments!

    With war,est regards,
    Philip and Olga