Blessed is the Kingdom

Seeking The Kingdom In All Things

Heart of Gold

DSCN0145[1]Today was a late day at the icon studio. I ended up staying an additional three hours to continue working with the shell gold we made earlier this week. Instead of using the process of floating to create all the highlights, we are creating some also from paint made from gold leaf. These highlights will be on a few of the garments as well as the wings.

We spent about an hour and a half making the shell gold and today I tried to imagine what the gold should look like on the board before actually applying the paint. Twenty-four carat paint is too expensive to waste! Eventually I looked at the unfinished sections that are still in need of gold highlights and decided they can wait until tomorrow morning.

An important lesson for me in the creation of this icon is the need to take things slowly and to step back every now and then to see the whole picture. I make better decisions when I can take the time to do that.

One thing that remains consistent in my experience of writing icons is the massive amount of energy involved. Physically, mentally and spiritually I am exhausted, but looking forward to one more day of creating.

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This entry was posted by on Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 8:48 pm and is filed under gold, patience, prayer, St. Gabriel the Archangel, struggle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

About The Author

Fr. Christian is the pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Lenoir City, TN.

Comments

  • Elizabeth Mahlou

    I love these lessons on life that you are drawing as parallels to iconographic work. Another one that you have not mentioned yet but maybe will, in conjunction with how long it takes to reach your destination (a completed icon), is that often the journey (in this case, the work) is more important than the destination (the completion). What one learns along the way and the people who become involved in the journey are often important not just to one journey but to an entire lifetime.

  • Fr. Christian Mathis

    One of the basic concepts of iconography is that it is primarily an act of prayer meant to mirror the journey of a lifetime. And yes, the journey does seem more important. Hopefully each iconographer is continually shown his or her strengths an weaknesses through the journey and moves closer to God as he or she continues to draw closer to Christ and the saints along the way.

  • s-p

    These are wonderful posts. I love seeing the stages explicated. I remember 40 years ago drawing for 12 -14 hours and time “stood still”. The creative process taps a different exhaustion that more people should have some way of accomplishing in their life.

  • Mark G.

    In writing my single icon of Jesus, I was absolutely exausted at the end of every day. Yet it was one of the most gratifying weeks of my life.

    I found that one need not search too hard about the parallels to the spiritual journey of Christian life – they make themselves apparent as the different steps are made.

    The greatest lesson was a simple one: even as I was bringing an image of Jesus into the world in paint and gold, that Jesus would bring an image of himself into the world in me in flesh and bone.

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