The last week of February I traveled down to New York City to attend the Transart Winter Residency. While an optional part of my graduate studies, it seemed like too good of an opportunity to pass up.
The residency took place at the Sideshow Gallery in Brooklyn. Sideshow is a cozy gallery, and the perfect size for our group of roughly 40 students. Over three days, each student took their turn presenting their work to date and receiving a critique from both faculty and fellow students. It was a very helpful time for me, and I’d like to take this chance to state what I’ve learned and the effect it will have going forward with my own project.
While I appreciate the comments that everyone made, there were two devastating (and therefore extremely helpful) comments made during my critique. The first was from Nicholas Estevez: When Nicholas stated that, “I don’t feel that they are charged spiritually …”, it was like having the wind knocked out of me; after all, what is the point of an icon if it isn’t spirit-bearing? But, he’s right … the works are more painterly (and good studies) but poor as icons (Mary Ting echoed this in her statement, “Maybe the art thing is infringing on the icon”). In this studio project I’ve approached the icon as artwork, and spent more time in brush-strokes than the spiritual. If my studio project is about creating an icon, than I need to create an icon (not gallery artwork).
The second hard thing to hear was that, even with the two icons of St. Barbara being created using only a single rock from Cobalt and Madoc, the images were still opaque in their story. The journey of their creation (which is central to the Transart project) wasn’t comprehensible. I continue to be frustrated by this because I think it represents a broader cultural blindness to what surrounds us (present both in the art world, and religious communities). This project’s intention wasn’t to set the icon apart, but use it as a vehicle that demonstrates the same reality that exists behind a simple kitchen-chair: Mankind’s ability to create new examples of beauty out of the earth.
With both these ideas in mind (and many other notions, too) I think that perhaps a stronger project can be built around the journals kept in creating an icon (it was Jean Marie Casbarian who first hit upon the idea that a journal might be stronger than a website during the critique). So, instead of creating many examples of icons created from rocks around Ontario, I will focus on creating just one, from my village of Conestoga. And, while the icon will be the ending point, it will be the paper journal that represents the studio project for this semester.
This journal will include the exploration of the story of St. Barbara, my local environment, pigment tests, my daily thoughts and prayers. I’m also committing myself to observe the monastic practices of morning and evening prayers (with the addition of the iconographic dedication prayers for both the objects and myself), fasting and daily meditation during the writing of this icon in an attempt to address Nicholas’ concerns.
There are still a lot of issues that were raised during the winter residency that I’m not decided about. How (or can) religious art can function outside of a religious space? Can aspects of the icon (maybe the halo, or a grain of pigment sand) function as art apart from the icon? For now, I think I’ll let these questions simmer …
Before I close my entry on my trip to New York, I also want to mention that I made a dash to the Onassis Cultural Center and viewed the, “The Origins of El Greco” exhibition which was wrapping up that weekend (a special thanks to Mary for pointing out this opportunity to me!). The icon pictured here was absolutely stunning to witness; and I found myself spending a good deal of time contemplating it. It too was part of my education for the week!
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