Writing Icons

From Religion and Ethics Newsweekly:

In the Orthodox Christian tradition, icons are said to be written, not painted. The Orthodox consider making icons more a form of prayer than art, and they believe the iconographer's hand is guided by God. We visited an iconographer, Maria Leontovitsch Manley, in her Bethesda, Maryland studio to learn more about the process, which can take days, often weeks, for just one icon. She also showed us how she decorates eggs for Orthodox Easter celebrations.

MARIA LEONTOVITSCH MANLEY (Iconographer): Before I start work, I like to say a prayer. And I usually go into a room where I have an icon corner.

It's very important to be at peace with yourself and with the world around you. Writing an icon is a form of prayer. Each brushstroke is like a form of meditation.

 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I very much like this description of painting icons.  The Iconographer (painter) speaks of her work as a form of "writing."

In my own writing, I often use icons--Christ, Elvis, John and Bobby Kennedy--because they make me feel something deep and true about what it means to be alive.  How intriguing that the painter describes her process as a prayer, as a form of meditation.  That is often how I feel when I'm writing.

Of writing (painting) icons, it has been said:   "Like all religious images, an icon has as its purpose acting as a 'window to Heaven,' a portal through which one sees greater Truths than can be revealed by word alone."

This is how I would like my writing to be viewed, as a document through which the reader can see a greater truth.

Photo credit:  John Kennedy, 1960 by Garry Winogrand.  From a postcard sent to me by Erin B., a former student.

Article from Religion and Ethics Newsweekly

Quote about "greater Truths" from Apologia