Olga Christine – Inner Space

Here is a very special icon of the Saint Catherine of Alexandria. I completed this work May 2011.

Back in January this year, I wrote about my return to writing* the icon of St Catherine of Alexandria. This was the 2nd icon of this saint that I have worked on.

See the previous posting for background information about the icon and who I think the persona of this non existent saint was based on: Hypatia of Alexandria. http://www.olgachristineinnerspace.com/?p=390

See another icon of Saint Catherine of Alexandria prepared by my hand on my icon website. http://olgachristine.com/icon_stcatherine.html

Friends have asked to see how icons are made. In response, it seemed a good idea to record the process of making icons. Here is my first attempt beginning with an icon that was already 70% complete when I started recording the process.

I began work on this icon sometime during 2007/2008. I always found it particularly difficult. It is a complex icon, much more so than I expected. But more important than complexity, I simply could not find the right space for the icon itself. Something of a space arrived when I found literature on Hypatia of Alexandria and then much later, after I saw the movie Agora, the space of the icon to work from became much clearer to me.

Then came a realization regarding the spaces of icons. From this and other icons I am working on right now, I have begun to understand, and maybe begun to see, that for a creative work to take on its own presence, there must be a seed. This makes perfect sense to me now. I see the seed in the esoteric sense, as the progeny of a greater archetype.

I watched the seed for this one land as I reworked some areas of the icon, especially the face. The presence become more apparent with each session of work until at one point I realized that this icon had her own presence. Not a reflection, not a connection to somewhere else, but the unique presence of this individual icon.

Returning to the process of this icon writing, I re-started by removing the work I had previously done on the face. It had not been good work and there was no sense of presence. Here she is without face and then followed by another view with the new color for the face. Maybe you will notice an absence of presence.

There was much reworking that went on with the gold paint, as well as the wheel, the books, and the robes. That work is not obvious from the photos here.

The next phase is the work on the face. I was very surprised to see that the face that landed here was not very different from the face that I had previously worked on and removed. However the technique for this work was much improved and a much more gentle face emerged, than before.

The next phase that can be seen is the crown and the hair. St Catherine of Alexandria icons are relatively unique for having gold through the hair and jeweled crown.

Also the double headed eagle of the Byzantine Empire, on her cloak, is relatively unique. The astrolabe indicates her work (or Hypatia’s) as a mathematician/astronomer. The books indicate her knowledge and work as a philosopher. The crucifix indicates her devotion to Christ. The palm held in her left hand indicates peace.

Here her crown is almost finished, waiting for pearls to be applied, in paint of course.

The Greek inscriptions are finished here. These tell us that she is St Catherine of Alexandria.

The halo is also finished. The halo and inscriptions are arguably among the most difficult parts of an icon to paint. They are painted directly onto gold leaf (guilding) and every waver shows.

Then comes the pearls. This was an intense phase that took a whole day. For me, it requires a level of care that can be very challenging but is a wonderful experience when complete.

I love each one of those pearls. Here they are most of them on the brocade for the robe. Pearls are also on the crown and around the collar.

At this point I thought I was done and worked the final retouches. For me, just about everything is reworked or retouched many times.

As I retouched the main robe, I discovered that the original color in my paint tray had changed which made a mess of the retouching. Not surprising that the paint aged over 4-5 years. Also this red, or perhaps any mix of red color, is difficult to apply. Red covers very poorly. The application needs to be as good as I can make it.

You can see here some splotches on the red. Every time I retouched it got worse. I left it for a week or wondering what next. I could not bear the idea of removing the red robe color, which by the way I had already removed once back in 2008. ‘Not again’ was all I could think of.

Eventually the remedy became obvious. It turned out that I could remix the color and paint over the whole lower robe, around the highlights. This type of correction is not always possible, but thankfully it worked.

In this final image below, the icon is ready for shellack, to be followed by varnish. You may notice that the first image of this icon (at the top of this post) has more intense colors than the one you see completed below. That is because the shellack and varnish had been applied to the image at the top of the post.

For reasons I do not understand, I find that the image here, without the shellack and varnish, takes me back to the spaces I felt in the writing of the icon and in that sense is different to the image of the finished icon at the top. This image below makes my heart sing -  perhaps because it holds the journey of the making of the icon.

* the traditional description of the work involved in an icon is to write an icon, not paint an icon. From http://orthodoxwiki.org/Icon

The most literal translation of the Greek word εικονογραφία (eikonographia) is “image writing,” leading many English-speaking Orthodox Christians to insist that icons are not “painted” but rather “written.” From there, further explanations are given that icons are to be understood in a manner similar to Holy Scripture—that is, they are not simply artistic compositions but rather are witnesses to the truth the way Scripture is. Far from being imaginative creations of the iconographer, they are more like scribal copies of the Bible.

While the explanation of the purpose and nature of icons is certainly true and consistent with the Church’s Holy Tradition, there is a linguistic problem with the insistence on the word written rather than painted. In Greek, a painted portrait of anyone is also a γραφή (graphi), and the art of painting itself is called ζωγραφική (zographiki) while any drawing or painting can be referred to as ζωγραφιά (zographia). Ancient Greek literally uses the same root word to refer to the making of portraits and the making of icons, but distinguishes whether it is “painting from life” (ζωγραφιά) or “painting icons” (εικονογραφία). Thus, from a linguistic point of view, either all paintings—whether icons or simple portraits—are “written” or (more likely) “painted” is a perfectly usable English translation, simply making a distinction between the painting appropriate for icons and that appropriate for other kinds of painting, just as Greek does.

This is the first of a number of posts about the sublime ancient frescoes that can be seen in the rock churches of Cappadocia. (1)  Below is a older part of the village of Cavusin where I stayed.

I begin with Red Valley because when I arrived in Cappadocia, Red Valley was the first walk that I took in this incredible location. I arrived at my hotel in Cavusin, early afternoon and had a few hours to walk. The Red Valley walk begins in Cavusin.

In this next photo – look at the upper left of the cliff face and you will see a number of rock dwellings and cave churches carved into the rock.

I started out without a plan, or a map, just an idea of the trail from the owner of the pension who advised me that it was well marked. That was not the case. I did get lost at one point and was redirected by a local farmer, who was probably working the orchard in front of this church. He spoke no English but kept insisting that I head in a particular direction, and I am glad he did, otherwise I could have spent the night out there.

The village and the surrounding valleys are famous for the rock or cave churches which had served as the homes and places of worship for ascetic monks between the 1st and 10th Centuries.

This is the first rock church and monks complex that I encountered in Cappadocia and it was very special.

Possibly half of this structure had fallen away. The carving was exceptional in the church. The arches and domes were smooth and beautifully curved. It appeared that there were a number of rooms to the church.

If you look to the top of the entrance to the church you can see partial frescoes.

I could not locate literature on the churches of Red Valley. The dug outs were scattered throughout the large valley. It was obviously a community of ancient Christians. These carvings and style of fresco suggest to me that this particular structure was closer to the 10th century AD.

This fresco of the crucifixion is beautiful iconography. I saw hundreds of rock church frescoes in my time in Cappadocia and those from this church touched me deeply. Perhaps because it was the first I encountered, or because it was an exceptional place of devotion and I thought I could tune into the devotion of the iconographer. I think the latter.

Notice the orange banding or borders with patterns around and through the icon. I saw these borders from time to time and it is not typical iconography. I suspect that it has something to do with the evil eye obsession of the populations from this region and what was once Asia Minor. The patterns inside the borders were common among the rock dwellings usually without frescoes. This made me wonder if the patterns originated from local shaman traditions.

These frescoes have been gouged by vandals. This is a very common sight throughout Cappadocia. The fresco might be pockmarked by rifle fire or sharp instruments.

What I find fascinating is that the frescoes might be vandalized but often not completely destroyed. At times only the faces or the eyes have been subjected to some kind of interference.

My research later indicated that throughout the Ottoman period, the Christian frescoes were largely acknowledged for their religious content, however the faces, and especially the eyes, were considered unacceptable because of the myth of the evil eye.

It is possible that the fresco above is the image of St Symeon, who was a great ascetic from the region. His fairy chimney dugout retreat was not far from Red Valley, in the Pasabaglari Valley no more than 10 kms from this location.

This rock church was a small complex including cave dugout living quarters. I imagine that the cave below is was where the monks lived and worked when they were not worshiping. The dugout panels in the walls look to me like sleeping quarters.

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappadocia