Iconography, Day 1: Emptiness

There is an axiom about the blank page being the most intimidating of all pages – and so this applies to the blank canvas as well, warns our instructor in the first hour of the first day of a weeklong iconography workshop.  The blank ‘page’ in this case is the gesso board, a panel of poplar wood covered by linen cloth and made smooth by a mixture of rabbit glue, ground marble, and talc – a tradition in Russian iconography (called the Prosopon Method) that dates to about 1,000 years ago.  On this gesso board, with no art background or inclination whatsoever, I will follow the ‘rules’ handed down by monks and holies of ancient times to “capture light” which will mysteriously reveal itself as ‘image.’

I am writing an icon – not ‘drawing’ or ‘painting’ it – because in the Greek language from which the original icon was manifested nearly 2,000 years ago, there is no word for painting or drawing.  One writes an icon.  And, to be even more specific, one does not actually write the icon, rather it is believed the writing comes through the hands . . .

There is much contemplation of one’s own life in the writing of icons. Once reserved as the lifetime work of monks in monasteries, the tradition of iconography is now available to the unsanctified as well. I sit in front of the blank gesso board, white and blank and empty, and I contemplate that the thing she has just said is not true for me – about the blank page being intimidating.  I’m not intimidated by a blank page.  I am, however, nearly paralyzed with intimidation by a page that has been coaxed and cleaned and edited and gone over a thousand times (by me), and made ready to be handed over to another set of eyes – anyone – the critic outside of me. I am not afraid of emptiness or blankness, or of my own efforts to fill a page and make it whole. I am afraid, however, of my finest work not being good enough. It’s easier for me to do my finest work and then hide it in a closet . . .

But iconography is not about the ego or individuality or forced creativity. It is about aligning oneself with truths that have been known for thousands of years. Iconography is not about the writer – it is about the listener, the one who can listen and let inspiration speak through.

The so-called “Tenderness Icon” is one of four maternal icons depicting aspects of parenthood. It was first written by the Apostle Luke in the first century A.D.  Luke, a physician, writer, artist and apostle, is said to have written hundreds of icons in his lifetime.  The tradition begins with the Apostle Luke, moves to Greece, arrives in Russia . . .

Trusting in the mystical communication between eye and hand, and having only a compass, pencil, knife, and ruler as our tools, we etch the image of the Mother and Child onto the blank gesso board to symbolize that the truths of this icon have already been marked into our lives.  We are born 'downloaded' with universal truths.  Aligning ourselves, capturing light, and revealing those truths – that is what iconography is about.

The Blue Blob

In a dark time, the eye begins to see. -- Theodore Roethke


"A Study of Boats," 1933, Winston Churchill

One reaches a point of just plain tiredness – as it hit me so profoundly not long ago when I was reading a letter from Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, written in his later years, in which he drones about the tiredness of pulling off one’s shoes and stockings at night and putting them on again in the morning . . . as I read those lines, they hit me just so – because, just then, I was profoundly tired of washing my face in the evening and putting on my bit of makeup in the morning – just tired of the routine, the things I could do in my sleep or in blindness – the fixing of toast and tea, the way a table is dusted, the way I walk through the house, the way the clean clothes are folded or made to hang, and even the way the hangers are always tangled and require a certain degree of tug to loosen them from each other – and how one always falls to the floor and must needs be picked up . . . an overwhelming familiarity . . . tired.

"The world is eaten up by boredom . . . It is like dust. You go about and never notice . . . But stand still for an instant and there it is, coating your face and hands. To shake off this drizzle of ashes you must be forever on the go. And so people are always ‘on the go.’"  (The Diary of a Country Priest – Georges Bernanos)

But I’m tired of being forever ‘on the go.’  This is what the young do, and this is what I have always done.  A younger Everyman/Everywoman might seek novelty or new environs – or even new tables to dust and new clothes to fold – anything to enliven the tired mind.  But when we are tired of all that, maybe we seek new ways to see the familiar – or we stop seeing anything at all.

I recall a thin, out of print book I had picked up many years ago when I was content to be always ‘on the go.’  It is titled Painting as a Pastime, by Winston Churchill; it's a sort of memoir about a time between two world wars when he had been ousted from public life and was required to face his inner bleakness.

He suggests a person (public man, he says) acquire two or three hobbies that use other parts of the brain. “It is only when new cells are called into activity, when new stars become the lords of the ascendant, that relief, repose, refreshment are afforded.”  And so this public figure took up oil painting in his late forties.  A daunting and almost paralyzing task at first, he humorously describes placing a bean-sized blob of blue paint on a snowy white canvas with the intention of painting the sky in front of him – then sitting for a very good while – then rousing up a thing he calls Audacity to make the paint be smeared and stroked.  “The spell had been broken . . . I have never felt any awe of a canvas since.”

I suppose Churchill had come upon a new way of seeing things.  “I found myself instinctively as I walked noting the tint and character of a leaf, the dreamy, purple shades of mountains, the exquisite lacery of winter branches, the dim, pale silhouettes of far horizons . . . Now I often amuse myself when I am looking at a wall or a flat surface of any kind by trying to distinguish all the different colours and tints which can be discerned upon it . . . You would be astonished the first time you tried this to see how many and what beautiful colours there are even in the most commonplace objects, and the more carefully and frequently you look the more variations do you perceive.”

He didn’t forget or forego the statesman that he was meant to be; and he certainly could not have foreseen the part that he would play as Prime Minister during WWII.  He took a breather in life, exercised other parts of the brain, and perhaps saw parts of himself he didn’t know existed.  He came back with a vengeance at the beginning of WWII, even perceiving that the world had not “seen” the lessons of WWI and were so destined to repeat them.

Churchill wrote this little book at age 74, a time when he could look back and see with clarity the landscape of his own life – all the shades and hues, the darks and lights – and how they fit together and what they meant for the entire picture.



Churchill In Heaven

 “When I get to heaven I mean to spend a considerable portion of my first million years in painting, and so get to the bottom of the subject. But then I shall require a still gayer palette than I get here below. I expect orange and vermilion will be the darkest, dullest colours upon it, and beyond them there will be a whole range of wonderful new colours which will delight the celestial eye.”

Stormier, Wilder, and More Weird



This alcoved bust of Poe lures me


Whenever the cobwebs get tangled in my brain, I go to the Poe Museum to set them straight.  Each time I find something new and beguiling to pique my interest and hone my understanding of this native Richmond author. Less and less do I think of him as the world thinks of him – in terms of “the macabre” or the paranormal – and more and more do I think of him as a very normal person who saw reality a little too clearly – and much too loudly (i.e. beating hearts).

I had read that an earlier version of Poe’s famous poem, “To Helen,” was discovered by happenstance only weeks ago when the local curator was going through boxes of manuscripts to create a new exhibit. It was found in a journal belonging to Poe’s cousin in Baltimore, and kept in storage for nearly a century. It is handwritten by Poe, signed, and dated.  Only . . . it is different . . . that’s what the curator must have thought when he read and re-read the finely penciled scrawl.  The thing has yet to be “authenticated” by those who spend much time and earn sums of money doing so, but common sense dictated it be put on display at the museum – posthaste.  Nearby is a lock of his hair – only it is hair taken from his notably long eyebrows at the time of his death.  That was a hard thing to look at, mostly in wonder at the thought processes of the person who snatched it from the dead body and glued it to an envelope flap.

The 'mind' of this script . . .

I find handwriting to be as personal as a lock of hair, almost transporting in the intimacy it brings with its creator. I spent much time standing in wonder at the miniscule, curlicued, and faded markings done in fine pencil (his favorite medium), wondering at the state of mind as Poe wrapped a curved line under certain words or put spirals in the capital letters of his initials.  A good many of his letters are an entreaty for money – giving us no doubt as to how normal and human he really was. One letter to his stepmother’s Uncle Valentine outlines “the bitter struggle with poverty and the thousand evils which attend it . . . “ A few pages later, having expostulated on the singular kindnesses which he remembered the uncle had shown him in boyhood (very flattering), the amount and reason for his solicitation is finally announced – $200 to start up a new literary journal to be called “The Stylus.”  Uncle Valentine refuses the money – and “The Stylus” was never begun.  Poe was to die within the year.

The young street artist, James Carling

Next, I saw a small sign pointing to a back building near the gardener’s tool shed which read, “Stormier, Wilder, and More Weird.” Trekking inside, around a corner, and through a narrow doorway (this is a self guided tour, and I am almost always the only person there), I saw a room encircled by original sketches meant to illustrate “The Raven.” What makes them so unusual is that they had never been published in the lifetime of the struggling Liverpool “artist” who did them.  His name was James Carling, also called “The Little Chalker,” a young street urchin who had lived on his own since age five and earned his pittance on the streets of Liverpool through recitations of poetry and a bag of chalk for his art. He was arrested at age seven for drawing on the streets, and put in a type of jail/school for seven years. Upon his release he traveled to the United States where he resumed his street art and also came upon the poetry of Poe.  That’s when he set out to illustrate “The Raven” in 43 frames.  His work was rejected by publishers and hailed as being too provoking; after all, it was nothing like the celebrated Poe illustrator of the day, Gustave Dore.  But Carling believed that Dore had failed Poe:

Stormier . . .


“Our ideas are as wide as poles . . . mine are stormier, wilder, and more weird; they are horrible; I have reproduced mentality and phantasm. Not one of the ideas were ever drawn before. I feel that Poe would have said that I have been faithful to his idea of the ‘Raven,’ for I have followed his meaning so close as to be merged into his individuality.”

Carling died at age 29 and was buried in a pauper’s grave, as penniless as Poe – and virtually unknown.  The drawings remained in storage for generations until the Poe Museum purchased them from a Carling relative. Because of the fragility of the materials, they have been on display only once before now – and that was in the early 1970s.  They will remain on display throughout 2012 in honor of the 90th anniversary of the museum.

I spent much time in this small room, alone, taking in the essence of James Carling’s work and thinking about the storminess of the mind that created them – and what Poe might have thought about all this.  I concluded: Poe would have much preferred this hand (and mind) to illustrate his famous ‘Raven.’

Always there are new and odd happenings such as these at the Poe Museum – always little fanfare given to them – always solitude to observe them privately – and always they are capable of renewing my wonder.

Easter Mystery

There is something mystical or at least unusual about this photo taken the evening before Easter.  Does anyone else see it?  Double click on picture to enlarge . . . 

Daydream Believer

My teenage heartthrob Davy Jones died of a heart attack last week at age 66. I sat upright from the newspaper, suddenly remembering the life size poster of Davy Jones that I had taped to the backside of my bedroom door at age 12 or so . . . his dark brown hair, straight and shiny and longish, with bangs nearly to his eye lashes – his clear skin, bright impish eyes and mouth – oh, that mouth . . . did I not kiss that paper mouth till the lips might have sagged or collapsed from the slobbery pressure of my own lips . . . Davy Jo-o-o-o-nes . . . I would swoon.  That’s what young girls do – or did back in the 60s, anyway.

I had him positioned at a height two or three inches above my own. Davy Jones, a former jockey, was in real life only 5’3 or so. I might have already been taller than that at age 12, and so his paper feet floated several inches above my floor in order to accommodate the fantasy. He was wearing a deep maroon Nehru shirt with some glitzy trim on the edges, and the background of the poster was red – very impassioned.  I loved Davy Jones, the Monkee. I would use my paltry allowance money, walk to the only drugstore in our little town, and buy whatever new ‘45’ was on the market – “I’m a Believer,” “Daydream Believer,” “Pleasant Valley Sunday” . . .

I would rush through dinner on the nights that his TV show aired, run to the El-Khouri’s house (there were five girls in that large family) so we could watch the latest episode together. We each had our favorite Monkee, and strangely I had little competition for Davy. We’d talk for awhile after the show, maybe listen to some of the music I had brought with me, then I’d reflectively walk home in the dark night, humming to myself, “I’m a Believer . . . “ or whatever song I couldn't get out of my mind.  I’d be incited with new passions by the way he had moved on the screen – or grinned – or twinkled an eye at me – or even frowned at stupid Peter or Mickey.  He was the Monkee who really understood about daydreams and believing and all that real life stuff.  I was haunted by the desire to grow up and get out of that small town and become . . . well, a writer. What did Davy Jones have to do with a daydreamy teenage girl wanting to be a writer?

I wrote the first short stories of my youth in that bedroom, and I would pause all the while to glance over at his impish face looking back at me with the expression that never changed. There was something steadfast and promising and . . . believable in his expression.  Somehow, in my memory, Davy Jones is entwined with my first efforts to write.

As I continued reading the newspaper article last week, I learned that the Monkees wrote none of the songs which made them famous – humble Neil Diamond wrote many of them – and they were not allowed to play their own instruments. In fact, Davy was the only Monkee who could actually carry a tune well enough to sing! They were cast as actors first of all – actors acting as musicians. I never knew any of that in my youth.  That paper poster taped to my bedroom door with Davy's feet floating three inches above the floor was pretty close to real life, I guess.  But strangely, I’m not disappointed at all.

Charles Dickens in Virginia

There is great fanfare in England this month, and not only in England but in 50 countries worldwide, regarding Charles Dickens’ 200th birthday which happens to be today, February 7.  According to an article in Smithsonian magazine, “London is . . . buzzing with museum exhibitions and commemorations . . . festivals, guided walks, a reading of “A Christmas Carol” by great-great-grandson Mark Dickens . . . “ – and so on.

I begin my search for Dickens in Virginia . . .

In memory of his birthdate, and because he is one of my favorite authors of Christmases past, I planned to participate and honor him in some local way by visiting a place in Cumberland, Virginia where he once stayed with old family friends from England, the Thorntons, in 1842.

Only a day or two after his visit ended, the Thornton’s 13-month-old son, Charles Irving Thornton (possibly named after Charles Dickens and Washington Irving) died of unknown cause. Dickens was in Ohio by then, but was summoned by the child’s doctor to write an epitaph for the young boy. As it turns out, this would be one of only two epitaphs which Dickens would write in his lifetime.  The other was for his sister-in-law who died at age 17.  That site in London is one of the many stops on the tour for his bicentennial celebration.  I just hope those Englanders or other Dickens fans never come to Virginia to view the only-other epitaph he wrote.  As an American, I would be terribly embarrassed by what they might find . . . or most probably, not find.

The site is located in the throes of what is now called Cumberland State Forest, a great place for fishing and hunting and camping.  I’d already learned that the site was hard to find, though it was made an official Virginia Historic Landmark in 1980. I found someone with an official uniform who directed me to the site while turning and positioning his body in the manner of “as the bird flies.” I was to drive about six country miles down a single lane dirt road, look for a small sign for Oak Hill Lake, take that turn and drive another two or three miles.  “When you see two old barns, park your car, walk across the field in front of you, you’ll see a grove of trees, and it’s somewhere in that grove of trees," he said.  "But there’s no sign for it, so good luck finding it.” As I turned to walk away, he added, “It’s a good thing you’re here in February or you’d never find it . . . “  Then he mentioned ticks.

Somewhere in this grove of trees, he said.

I did everything he said . . . though the grove of trees was really the beginning of a seemingly endless forest.  I realized I was wandering on the old "Thornton homestead" where Charles Dickens had once wandered, land that has been systematically acquired over the last century along with neighboring homesteads for natural preservation by the State.  Slightly into the forest I looked up to see pine trees that had fallen onto other pine trees and were resting precariously at 45 degree angles above my head – everywhere I went.  I was careful not to walk too loudly lest I stir the surroundings and one of those dangling pine trees fall on my head.  I spent an hour walking, searching, softly talking to the woods . . . help me, Charles Dickens, to find the only evidence of your presence in Virginia . . . 
 

Sphagnum moss, my only clue

I saw a lone duck on the lake nearby. I stopped often and listened to profound silence. There was not a human being in shouting distance. I heard birds of a different variety than I hear at home. I saw a type of mossy growth – sphagnum moss, I think it’s called – which is the same variety I’d noticed on the prettified picture of the grave marker on the state website.   I let myself think that I must be nearby.  But I also knew I was wandering in circles with those ominous diagonal trees above me and the silent duck on the motionless lake and the eerie sounds of dusk approaching.  I’m an inordinately determined person, but this time I had to give up.


The official site I had hoped to find

While the rest of the world honors this author’s birthdate 200 years ago today with fanfare, celebrations, readings, and tours, it appears the State of Virginia silently lets its bit of literary history decay into the ground of Cumberland State Forest. 

This is the grave of a little child whom God in his goodness called to a bright eternity when he was very young. Hard as it is for human affection to reconcile itself to death in any shape and most of all, perhaps at first in this his parents, can even now believe that it will be a consolation to them throughout their lives and when they shall have grown old and grey always to think of him as a child in heaven.

-- Charles Dickens

One Mile in My Shoes

"The labyrinth is a reminder that even in chaos there is a path that leads to harmony."


The classic eleven-circuit labyrinth design

Pilgrims of the Middle Ages who could not make the journey to Jerusalem during their lifetime could reach Jerusalem in spirit by walking a labyrinthine path which came to be called “The Jerusalem Mile.” These labyrinths were built in monasteries and were designed according to hidden symbolisms, sacred geometry, and other mathematical representations.

Few of these original labyrinths remain in the world because they were intentionally destroyed or removed over the last 800 years or so.  The most classic labyrinth, to which people still make pilgrimage, is in the Chartres Cathedral near Paris, France. It dates to the year 1220.

I learned through happenstance – the most fun way to learn things – about an exact replica of the Chartres labyrinth, in pattern and dimension and everything else, located at an old monastery in Richmond, Virginia.  The center and final stone of it was laid on June 13, 2008.

Jefferson, Washington, and Lafayette may have walked here

"Richmond Hill," which used to be called Monte Maria of Church Hill, is the highest point in Richmond. It is home to a monastery that was built in 1866 out of two already existing pre-Civil War mansions. They say that Thomas Jefferson stayed in one of the two houses, and that George Washington and Lafayette attended dances there in pre-revolutionary times. When the Civil War ended and the mansions were left nearly destroyed, a group of young nuns were sent there with the directive from their Bishop to pray for the protection and rebuilding of this city which had once been the capital of the Confederacy. Those brave nuns and several generations of acolytes who followed them lived there until 1987 when the monastery was officially closed because the aging nuns were no longer able to care for it. Almost auctioned off for condominiums, it was saved by a group of diverse people who insisted that someone still needed to pray for Richmond. And so it was renovated and reopened by an eclectic group of religious leaders and other concerned people as a place to benefit those from all backgrounds who seek spiritual renewal.  

I can’t begin to understand much less explain the significance of the labyrinth which somehow speaks symbolically to our collective subconscious at a level where language is no longer the mode of communication. The most universally known labyrinth existed 3,500 years ago on the Greek island of Crete – home of the mythical Minotaur. But even before that, simple labyrinths were carved onto stone surfaces throughout the world.


Simply put, the rosette pattern in the center symbolizes enlightenment – and the path to getting there is circuitous and chaotic. The symmetry and complex geometric design, the symbolism, the eleven circuits divided into four quadrants, the perplexing puzzle of it all – that is an intellectual pursuit. For this, the Guestmaster at Richmond Hill recommended a book, Exploring the Labyrinth: A Guide for Healing and Spiritual Growth by Melissa Gayle West.  But the experience is in walking it.  The labyrinth is made to be traveled.

Even a small-scale model can be traveled, either visually or with the fingertip. Kinesthetic sensations will be aroused using the finger to trace over a sketch of the classic labyrinth – bringing the rhythm of it to life in our psyches and offering spiritual direction.

There's no wrong way to begin the walk . . . 

I stood in the center of the rosette pattern of the labyrinth on Richmond Hill, a spot which boasts a 270 degree view of the City of Richmond, trying to figure out my strategy for completing this puzzle walk. There is no right or wrong way to walk the labyrinth. There’s no particular starting point or ending point. You can’t get lost. It’s a thing to be done intuitively. I traced with my eye where each strategy of footstep might lead me. I wasn’t sure how to begin. If I had been in charge, I would have started at the center and systematically walked in concentric manner along each yellow brick, carefully winding myself to the outer edges, always knowing where I was going, until I could say that I had walked the Jerusalem Mile in its entirety. But the pathways just aren't set up that way.

And so, tired of my own thinking, I picked at random a brick in back of me on which to start my journey. This is a real mess.  That was my first impulsive thought as I saw my footsteps going to places I didn’t want to go . . . but then a twist made me go somewhere else . . . and a turn made me wind back . . . and another loop put me in the center . . . and so on and so forth. Not a single step went according to my plan. 

. . . and one should stop often to reflect and meditate

That’s life, I thought, and I sort of gave in and stopped along the way to take pictures of where my feet were planted and of how the sun shown either brightly on them or not at all – and also how the perspective changed as the breeze rustled tree branches above me, causing the sun to come and go – and how clouds did the same thing. I captured many of these pictures – not sure why I did so.  It’s the not knowin’ that makes it interestin’ . . . that’s what Eeyore says to Winnie the Pooh in unpredictable times, and I thought of this phrase as I walked the labyrinth. I occasionally looked up from my pathway to the cityscape beyond me, suddenly realizing in my heart that a war had once ravaged this city. I never comprehended such a thing before, and I thought that was a strange insight to receive. 



The City today as seen from Richmond Hill

When I finished walking the mile, still not sure what I had done or even accomplished, I sat on one of the stone benches along the spiny rim of this old monastery that seems to hang on a cliff overlooking Richmond’s Shockoe Valley and “Hell’s Half Acre” where slaves had long ago been auctioned like cattle. Perhaps those young nuns sat on these same high benches, I thought – for I could feel their presence and the chaos they must have endured when looking out over the post-war desolation and thinking of the directive they had been given – to pray for the rebuilding of Richmond – not knowing how it could ever be accomplished – and the James River that flowed unconcernedly through it all – then, as now.