Evolving...

Dear friend,

If someone would have told me a year ago, that for 3 months will spend lots of hours, days, evenings and nights changing the look of our website, I would not believe. And even in July, when I just started choosing a template I was told, that it will take more than two weeks, I would probably refuse any changes... But my IT friend Anton said, - Phil, - you know more than one language, - why not learn another one? And here I am, - almost experienced user of MODx, transferring the last pages our website to the new shell.

So, here is our First: - the new Website Version (the 5th version since 2001).

The main purpose: in an overwhelming ocean of visual information we choose the template, which only shows what we need to be shown, without occupying screen with any unnecessary frames or menus. The navigation is performed through four "circles", each of them has its own individual role:

The ↖ top-left one will always bring you to the Home page. We will change the design, but the placement will remain.

The ↗ top-right circle opens the main Menu with main subdirectories, such as "About", "Portfolio", "Workshops", "Store" and "Contacts".

The ↙ bottom-left one is made to "share" pages in social media, and ↘ the bottom-right - to jump to the top of the page.

We regret the fact, that the loading process now takes longer, - sometimes I feel like it abuses my patience... But when the images finally get loaded, they are much more comfortable to look at, (scrolling horizontally), - we hope this pays off the waiting time. Most images published in the new version were reviewed, re-edited and re-titled. And, as previously, - if you wish to send an inquiry about anything, feel free to slick the "Inquiry" button below.

The Second
This happened in September, but it worth mentioning and talking about. After a year-long work, Olga has finally completed the Epitaphios for Holy Mary Magdalene church at 70W 107 West street NYC. The orthodox priest fr. Jacov, who commissioned it, gave Olga total freedom and she undertook this adventure, immersing herself into the creative research process. The coolest time for me was when I spent 23 hours transporting a new loom for the weaver from Finland. The first version came out well, and the second one in these days is exhibited in "a little town, named Alexandrov (outskirts of Moscow) at an exhibition, which is positioned as a smaller paraphrase of "Gifts", which took place in December 2013 - February 2014.
(Other images on fabric are presented on a new page of our website - "Liturgical Textiles/Fabrics". Besides, we have a plan to publish a special article, dedicated to the use of contemporary technologies in church art. Among all, it will feature the pochoir, tumbled glass mosaics and other cool things.

The Third
is all about our workshops and the photos from them. Since August Newsletter we have had 2 Advanced Iconography Workshops near Milano (Italy), one Regular and one Icon-Drawing one in the US. Now we are happy to share the best moments, and I want to use this opportunity to address all our iconography veterans, - all students, who studied with us in these past 14 years: - If you feel, that that any of your photographs on our website should for some reason be removed, please, let us know.

Normally we take pictures to illustrate how the iconography workshops are taught, so most of them show the general views of the classes or capture the working process. We hope that the faces are not very easily recognizable for non-participants, but - who knows. From now on I plan to post all the future iconography workshops photographs just to our website. Besides, I hope to add some of the old ones as soon as I can.

Upcoming Icon-Painting workshops: It's a nice to see, that the Extended January workshops for Advanced Level iconographers, (as well as the regular one) in Melbourne get gradually filled up, and in addition to them, we were asked to lead two more. One in Queenscliff (Point Lonsdale, Victoria, Australia) and one in Russell (New Zealand)in June. These are going to be regular iconography workshops, and we have chosen for both of them a fragment of recently restored icon Salus Populi Romani, survived from the VI th century to our days in almost perfect conditions. If you are interested in attending, please check out the brand-new page for the Icon-Painting Workshop in Queenscliff (Australia) and the page for the Icon-Painting Workshop in Russell (New Zealand)

The fourth piece of News is about the past. Or, rather about one of the most talented iconographers of the XX th century,- Gregory Kroug. I proudly present you a very good article about an exhibition, which took place in Paris last Summer. None of us could come (unfortunately), but some people did and the present article gives a good feeling of a dedicated visit. Enjoy the reading from Orthodox Arts Journal:

The Fifth point is a little unusual, but I think it may open some new doors... We used to speak about fasting from certtain food for our stomach, but more rarely think about ways of spending spare minutes of our time... This gentleman speaks about fostering our ability to focus.. Hope you may like him :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu4Yvq-g7_Y

Thank you very much for being our valued subscribers!

With warmest regards,
Philip Davydov and Olga Shalamova