The pair met through a website for Orthodox singles. Lisa (Gilbert) Garrett was intrigued when she learned Matthew was an iconographer. Prices range up to $10,000 to $20,000 for an icon covering church walls or ceilings (he paints on canvas he doesn’t do murals). Garrett sells mounted prints for $20 to $50, and small hand-painted icons on wood for $200. If he needs help, he consults his wife, or asks God to guide him. Paints are labeled, and he knows color theory. Garrett uses 23-karat gold because the lower the karat, the whiter the gold looks.Īs for the challenge posed by his red/green color blindness, Garrett said he adapted early on. Garrett uses modern materials, including a synthetic, long-bristled script liner brush and acrylics (largely because they dry quickly and he can create the same effects). The ancients used brushes made from natural hair (such as badger) and painted with tempera (egg yolk, water, pigment). It is considered important to be in the right frame of mind before working conflicts should be resolved. It’s technically very, very well done,” Garrett said.īefore working, iconographers always say a prayer. His work was influenced by Eastern and Western traditions. His favorite iconographer is Michael Damaskenos, a 16th century Greek who painted in Venice. All of the saints before the 11th century are the same for the Catholic and Orthodox churches (before the East-West schism), he noted. Garrett will make icons for any Christian denomination but does icons only in Orthodox style. It took a few years to build up enough referrals to make a living. He considered pursuing a degree in marine biology but ended up with a liberal arts degree.ĭegree in hand, he committed himself full-time to iconography. To improve his skills, he spent his summers and free time in an apprenticeship - even after he was in college. He found that he enjoyed the quiet, contemplative nature of iconographic work. People would say, ‘Oh, that’s beautiful,’ and I believed them.” It was several years before he could give away his work to anyone other than family members, he joked. “I couldn’t tell that my stuff wasn’t good. One of his earliest had the skin tone of Kermit the Frog. When he was 14, he took his first summer job, helping a professional iconographer at the retreat center where his father worked. It’s where your family says their prayers together,” he said. “In every Orthodox home, you’re supposed to have an icon corner or wall. He grew up surrounded by icons - most painted by his father, who was self-taught - and was always intrigued by them. Garrett doesn’t recall having much talent for drawing or painting as a child. His dad later went to work at a library at the Antiochian Village retreat center near Pittsburgh, and that’s where Garrett grew up. Garrett was born in Yonkers, N.Y., where his father studied at an Orthodox Church in America theological seminary, St. “The hand of the iconographer is supposed to be guided by the Holy Spirit,” Garrett said. Many religious iconographers do not sign their work, or they put their name after the phrase “by the hand of.” “I tend to think of myself as a technician who is working for the church,” he said. Garrett doesn’t use “artist” to describe his vocation. The main purpose is to portray the Gospel message. But that’s not their primary purpose,” Garrett said. “There’s nothing wrong with appreciating their beauty. Like the Orthodox monks and clergymen who came before him, Garrett views the icons he paints primarily as ministry, not art. This article discusses some of the issues facing the modern editor of the Towneley plays, particularly an editor who is interested both in these plays as plays, and in communicating the richness of this material - and the scholarly debates that it has generated - to new student audiences.Some ancient religious leaders, including Pope Gregory I, saw icons as a way to communicate the church’s message to the illiterate. Still often but erroneously referred to as the Wakefield cycle, this heterogeneous collection contains some of the best and best known examples of early English drama the beautiful manuscript is also marked by disorder and confusion, both obvious and (as in the case of the Advent sequence) subtle enough to have been overlooked for generations. While these plays have been edited several times since then, including twice for the Early English Text Society, they remain mysterious. more In 1936, when the Surtees Society published the first modern edition of the contents of Huntington MS HM 1 - still at that point owned by the Towneley family in Lancashire - they entitled the work The Towneley Mysteries. In 1936, when the Surtees Society published the first modern edition of the contents of Huntingto.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |