Why are lessons so hard sometimes?

Today I am writing in frustration. Too little time and then unforseen forces leading to accidental circumstance. One of our cats has scratched two of my icons and then sent my pigments flying into powdered puddles on the floor. Basically wounds and dust. I am trying to see a lesson amidst this feeling of angst. Trying to let it float off me instead of weighing down. Help.

I miss Ksenia. I want to find that rhythm that leads their days. Paced, slow, meditative, timeless. The shape of time is different in the here and now, and I know that, but feeling the need to place that blueprint within to fit when the time is right. Interior survival.

All I hear is Soren's breath, these keys being typed, the windchimes outside, and the tick of the clock. Good sounds. Oh to go crack an egg!

Here are some images (not a very good ones) of Ksenia's studio and some icons up. Visual reference points. Encouragement. May my brush not be hasty, and my patience not be short.

I am bathed in this most wonderful sense of being gazing upon her icons: the smell hits me, the beautiful mystery and familiarity, the reassurance of history. I put my hope in what lies ahead--obviously in the ultimate beginning, but also in release from days of being a novice when I will wield a confident brush. Those days will come.

New babe and the door of winter yet to open...

It has been months. Time rolling by as my pregnancy built. No words passed by this zone in the build to new life--I stretched and encompassed the little growing Soren within me. And now here he is, gently breathing asleep on my chest as little Emma collects paper clips on the floor, busily making piles and singing as she goes. It is amazing to ponder the enormity of life change possible in several seasons passing...
And so now I slowly pull together the shape of life in this time. Two little people totally dependent on me (not to mention the three older ones), and a significant desire if not insatiable need to continue to hone the skills in becoming the iconographer that calls to me. How to do this? To take what little time belonging to me (in napping times of the little ones) to enter that space.
And here comes winter as we round the corner of Thanksgiving next week.
I jumped back into writing the face of Christ the other day feeling out of sorts--not truly myself, missing and hungering to pray in that way. So I did. And Christ looked back at me for two hours as I lined his hair with raw umber as lovingly as I could and paved the way in pompeii red for the outline of the cloth from which his face looks out. A simple way to love I suppose, but the love gave back. And questions poured forth, and I know that I must continue to find whatever time I can to contemplate this place of simply being and being loved--a place where there is a semblance of understanding and being understood. And drawing forth to take with me upon leaving that time and space, so it is still with me. Like the Jesus prayer. To be able to pray without ceasing and to love continually.
I am excited about future plans for the Saints to come out of the door I write. Now I see the flaws of each past attempt, which actually encouraged me that I saw the growth and the struggle. Another reason it is so important to forge ahead and keep growing. To keep the eye discerning and seeing more--opening up to do the best it can in working with hand and heart.
So for now, the paperclips are played and little eyes upon me to move on.
But I will return to share pictures and images.

Cry not over me, Mother

"In my arms I hold thee as a corpse,
O Loving Lord,
who hast brought the dead to life;
grievously is my heart wounded
and I long to die with thee",
said the All-Pure,
"for I cannot bear to look upon Thee,
lifeless and without breath."

"Where, O my Son and God,
are the good tidings of the Annunciation
that Gabriel brought me?
He called Thee King and God
and Son of the Most High;
and now, O my sweet Light,
I behold Thee naked, wounded and lifeless."

"Release me from my agony and take me with Thee,
O my Son and God.
Let me also descend with Thee, O Master, into hell.
Leave me not to live alone,
for I cannot bear to look upon Thee,
my sweet Light."

--From the Good Friday Compline


Here we are, gazing through tears, at the foot of the cross bearing the extinguished body of Our Lord. Here the ultimate paradox in that the Creator, who descended from heaven and was born as man, allowed himself to be mocked, judged, tormented and killed by those he himself had created: "Today the Master of Creation stands before Pilate; today the maker of all things is given up to the cross. The Deliverer of the world is struck on the face, and the Creator of all is mocked by His own servants."
And the Sun disappeared. And the Earth shook.
"Holy Holy Holy!" cried the grieving cherubim and angels...

"And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself"
(Jn 12:32)

(*side note~ Kenosis: He has emptied his body by submitting to death, expressed by the open wounds in the hands and side. The redeeming quality of the water and blood that ran out of the wound in his side, is passed on by the sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist.)


I wrote this icon of The Man of Sorrows before working with Ksenia, with egg tempera for the corpus and encaustic paint in the background. Here I know nothing. I want so badly to express my love, but it still falls so short, so burdened with flaws... But laying it out, is like exposing one's sin. I will look forward to the day of re-doing it under her tutelage.

As for now we await the Ressurrection...

Washing feet and applying rabbit skin glue

We move steadily towards Good Friday, and it seems fitting that I sit here with drying tightening glue on my fingers after fixing cheesecloth to my birch panels for future icons. Time to dry, time to hold sleeping Emma, time to prepare the heart and spirit for our symbolic Passover seder approaching. And then perhaps later tonight, when the children are asleep, to apply the gesso or levkas to my board--many fluid layers building up to symbolically represent the uncreated Light of God upon which the icons will be written.

Why does this world lay such burdens at our feet? Why do we not press harder towards the goal? One wants to take the perfumed oil and pour it lovingly on the feet of Christ. To gaze upon the Face that knows what is to be suffered and anoints with boundless love. How to make each moment gifted for God, even when enfolded in the mundane, how to love the sinner and cast the sin back where it belongs, how to live a life ripe with fruits of God's grace--to shine with the transfigured light of our Lord? To not fall asleep or fall short of that which we are called... Deepen my interior prayer as I focus and settle upon the breathing in of Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, exhaling have mercy on me and on the whole world.

I want to be a better Christian.

More prayer. More sacrifice. More love.

Love--love the cleansing of dirty feet, love the gift of making visible the invisible in the process of writing icons, love the process of motherhood and gift of life within, love the sacramental marriage to the man I love who is such a gift to me. Love that I have been pulled across the chasm to a new land to help to build a New Jerusalem.

I am off now to put another coat of terra verte green with a touch of ultramarine to the background of my Theotokos. I am hoping to gracefully reinstate the lines of my drawing to make it as beautiful as possible. Last week I almost finished my Theotokos with Ksenia, and I am needing to practice it again. And again, and again and so on. Little by little we start to see and find the way.

Holy Week immersion

Snow is still everywhere, as Emma and I sit locked in this never-changing incubated winter that most hopefully is coming to an end. I don't think I have ever felt so forcefully contained indoors before with temperature and ice preventing a breath of fresh air. Time for the re-greening of spring, for a new page to be turned and this little girl napping in my lap to run in the grass. Resurrection, melting, new life. Soon.

And we have entered Holy Week. It almost seems too early, except for this long-feeling lent spent in arctic tundra instead of arid desert.

Am I being tested?
--God give me patience.

I am happy that my icon of St. Paul is finally complete. I am going to remove those old pictures I have of my embarrassing earlier attempts at icon-writing. Thank God for Ksenia's instruction, without that I would be lost--or most surely working outside tradition. And I want the confines of this living tradition to shape me on my path. So much to learn. To find the beauty in the path back through time, and make it new.

A question was posed to me the other day: What first got me interested in icons--especially as there is little emphasis or connection to real icons in the Catholic Church?

I have always been drawn towards icons since I was quite young--most probably it was the year spent in France when I was 15 that marked my experience. Many of the old churches in the South of France date back quite some time, most were Medieval, and definitely pre-Renaissance. There was a purity in the artwork even if not coming from recognizable space (I didn't realize the iconographic space was their starting point). It seemed that early Christian art had a sincere mark of passion, even if not that beautiful. Why was I stirred this way? Growing up and pursuing art professionally I always struggled with the vast majority who point to the achievements of the Renaissance as the ideal. I always loved artists like Giotto and Fra Angelico and yes, the austere beauty of Andrei Rublev's icons which held me and transported me to a more pure expression. I then prayed before a very simple icon of the angel with the golden hair (very old with very large eyes) and had a profound experience. It was a window to the eternal--a tool that God gave us to accompany us on our journey through this world. It is only now, convicted interiorly of having to pursue icon-writing, I am starting to understand. Going back in history to the thoughts and writings of St. John of Damascus, and exploring the earlier significance of icons, reading of the iconoclasts and the schism between East and West, I can see that the Western Church lost so much. The icon is essential to preserving beauty and truth. A return to this form of Christian expression is needed especially in today's media-driven world that is too quick to label icons as archaic and crude. And within our Church that doesn't even place value on the integrity of images. So I will make whatever small contribution I can with my efforts towards pointing back to the authentic, simple and true.
I count it a blessing to spend such time with the angels, saints, our Lady and Christ himself. I want to hold up windows of beauty and proclaim truth through these images. This is a joy...even if it will be a long road to do it well.

Slowly, I am learning to walk in this iconographic world.

Gratefulness, anew

New Day. New Month. New Year. Some time has slipped as I rebelled against the world of computers and tried to focus attention to attempt the icon-writing of which I am yet so blind and ignorant. So much to learn, and very grateful for Ksenia Pokrovsky and her master eye with whom I am working in a NH State Arts Council Arts Grant this year. I met with her now two times so far in my apprenticeship, and I am going to use this space to record the lessons to some extent.

1/24 ~ Being with Ksenia is a gift not to be taken for granted. Ascending the three flights into her home is a private Mt. Sinai.-- wild birds flying, the smell of cigarettes, oils and varnish and the quiet gaze of Saints, Theotokos and Christ... Time stands apart here.
It was the three of us yesterday: Ksenia, Sister Faith and myself. Much laying off of self as I had to show my meagre attempts of icon-writing--my struggle with the brush, my infinite mistakes... One has to start somewhere, and I learned a good deal in the six hours of time--especially about the need to abandon self and trust this woman wholeheartedly in the process to learn. I hope she could at least see my desire to paint in my lines and strokes that fall so short. It's like being blind--or not being able to swim--and yet I can almost feel as if I know what its like, and it makes me yearn even more to get there. I see why the master iconographers say it takes 15 years to actually become an iconographer.
A strange paradox was at work in my lesson as I could sense that she wants to train me as an artist in this sacrament, to be able eventually to move beyond being a mechanical copyist. She wants to train my eye to be able to compose, and to do that one has to immerse self into the iconic space and into the process with one who knows. I am in good hands. This is a gift and I am flooded with gratefulness.