Reflections of a Coptic Iconographer

“I rush towards my dry brushes, and like Christ, am nailed to my easel.” Marc Chagall, 1938 As I begin writing this article, an organ player downstairs strikes a melody on the church organ. My studio is situated in the mezzanine of the church, built by Canadian Anglicans in the late 1800’s and presently owned…

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Recent Fresco Iconography in Belgium

The rector, Fr. Dominique Verbeke, and his counsel, asked me to present a proposal on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Orthodox parish of the Holy Apostle Andrew in Ghent, Belgium. I was to decorate the ‘first church’, a big room in a house of the Old Beguinage (17th century)…

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Interview with Iconographer Baker Galloway

Mother of God "Of the Sign"

Editor’s Note: Following upon Aidan Hart’s recent post about applications currently being accepted for the 3-year Icon Painting Programme taught by him, we present an interview with a 2019 graduate of that program, Baker Galloway, conducted by Seraphim O’Keefe on behalf of the OAJ.  Introduction Baker Galloway is an American graduate of the 3-year Icon…

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The Epiphany of the Eye

  “The eye is, to be sure, a small organ in size, but it is more important than all the rest of the body. […] Actually, of course, everything in us is a proof of the wisdom of God, but the eye is so more than any other organ. In truth, it governs the entire…

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Designing an Image of Everything

The Cosmic Mountain

For many years now I have been studying the traditions of iconology, the sacred visual language which has developed in the Church.  Long before becoming an icon carver, the pattern of my thinking had already been built through meditation on the images of both the Christian East and the medieval West.  Although I am mostly…

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Canon: Time for a Paradigm Shift…Part II

    Are There Rules and Where to Find Them?   However, how can we discuss the concept of a list of icon-painting rules if there is the slightest possibility that it might be imaginary? First, let us recall that imaginary entities can define our behavior just as much as physically existing ones. Let us…

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