Improving Icon Carving Through Drawing

One of the complex questions that faces modern icon carving is the pervasive presence of the painted icon within the tradition of iconography.   For many reasons which I hope to write about in the future, icon carving became a somewhat marginalized art form as the centuries advanced.  And so for myself and the small group…

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The Robot, the Mutant and The Artist

[1]One of the weaknesses in our vision of the world is that we tend to look at what surrounds us from one side of an opposition.  This is inevitable as humanity’s existence unfolds like a wheel, waxing and waning, pulled by opposite forces from extreme to extreme.   These extremes feed each other, call each other…

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A Carved and Inlaid Cross, a Collaborative Work

I have recently completed a small but highly interesting project, two years in the making, and involving several master artisans. It is a wooden cross with carved stone icons, crafted like a jewel, wholly traditional, and yet quite unlike anything seen before. This is one of those projects that grew, perhaps providentially, from an initially…

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Review of “Icon As Communion” by George Kordis

As an Orthodox convert in search of traditional Christian images, as someone who fled the contemporary art world to find a home in liturgical art, George Kordis‘ iconography challenges me in so many ways. Kordis’ virtuosity is undeniable and his mannerism both of form and color refer all at once to Byzantine art and to Modern and…

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Sacred Symbol, Sacred Art

In February of this year I was invited by King’s University College to give a talk in their Veritas Series on faith and culture.  The theme of this year’s series was “Speaking about God” exploring the different ways we express and address the Divine. I developed my talk in the context of the many discussions…

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Heaven Is Round. Earth Is Square.

This is post 4 of 4 in the series “Ancient Cosmology Today” Jonathan Pageau uses a phenomenological approach to explain traditional cosmology and its symbolism, explaining in what manner it is crucial to our experience of being in the world. Most of The Time The Earth Is Flat. Where is Heaven? Heaven and Earth in…

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Heaven and Earth in The Icon

This is post 3 of 4 in the series “Ancient Cosmology Today” Jonathan Pageau uses a phenomenological approach to explain traditional cosmology and its symbolism, explaining in what manner it is crucial to our experience of being in the world. Most of The Time The Earth Is Flat. Where is Heaven? Heaven and Earth in…

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Where is Heaven?

This is post 2 of 4 in the series “Ancient Cosmology Today” Jonathan Pageau uses a phenomenological approach to explain traditional cosmology and its symbolism, explaining in what manner it is crucial to our experience of being in the world. Most of The Time The Earth Is Flat. Where is Heaven? Heaven and Earth in…

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Nūn, Jonah and The Sign of The Fish

As we watch Oriental Christians in Iraq and Syria being branded, massacred, chased out of the cities they have occupied for nearly 2000 years, we shudder and pray and grind our teeth.   As we watch the burning of Churches, the defacing of icons, the destruction of shrines, even that of the Holy Prophet Jonah we…

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