Theophany begins – St. Mary’s Icon School 2013
Work in progress- roskrysh
It has been a long time since I entered a blog about the St. Mary’s Icon school but that is because there is not enough time in my week to keep up a regular blog anymore. Which is good! But at the same time I do want to honour my students who are working very hard and taking the process of writing an icon extremely seriously.
2013 is the second year since I set up the school not knowing what would happen and how it would develop. It is one of my foibles not to worry overmuch about these things but to wait and see what transpires. This is what makes life such and adventure and discovery all the time. People tend to be hung up of ‘numbers’ and ‘success’ as if they are the only markers for achievement – government take note. As I work in education for 60% of my week tutoring students, I often see young people completely fazed and stressed, some as young as six or seven, because they are told they are not performing to some level or target. There is a constant demand on the young to be reaching a target and this inhernetly sets up a cycle of inadequacy and fear of failure, or anger and rebelliousness due to the inaptness of the target for the person. Parents unwittingly get drawn into this never ending wheel of inadequacy as they then start to fear their young people are not performing up to some arbitrary standard.
One of the beauties of working with icons is that is is a very forgiving technique, one builds up in layers from the rough roskrysh or foundation of chaos, to finer and finer levels of detail that bring out the beauty from the sturdy base layers. Often the rougher the chaos the more bautuiful the finhsed product, the chaos is inherently beautiful when studetns try to control it and paint it too carefully and too neatly the overlying layers become more wooden and less vibrant.
People, especially children, are not robots. They are human beings with thoughts and feelings and skills and talents, as yet mostly totally untapped, through being pushed into ‘achieving’ for the sake of being a number in a system that requires so many of these numbers to be in a certain category at a certain time in life. This is control and it takes away the beauty of the true life of a human being.
My novice guardian pointed out to me the other day, in broken-hearted tones, that there is a rise of 68% in self harming in young girls in this country. This makes one feel total and utter despair over a world that does not look at or listen to each person and see them as an individual human being. Each one of us is unique and each one of us has at least one talent or skill that no one else has in the way we have. Yet so many people live their whole lives without ever finding it, discerning it or enjoying it. If the truth were known – it is our unique skill or talent that is the one thing, in contribution with all those unique skills and talents others have, which could make the world so much more joyful and exciting to be part of. The creation of the internet was through one such endeavour in that a whole group of American scientists were given carte blanche to develop whatever ideas they had without worry or direction or agenda except simply ‘to discover’. Many ideas came to nothing, but from such a free thinking boiling pot, every now and then something radical and world changing emerges.
Social entrepreneurianism is the new buzzword and I agree wholehearttedly with it but to find good social entrepreneurs the world needs to allow its people to become who they truly are and to find ways to help them discern it.
There, now I have indulged on my soap box I shall post some great pictures from Aylesbury Quaker House and the Icon School- we had to move due to Ash Wednesday services last night. My students learned to oil gild and then begin applying the first layer of pigment called Roskrysh- which means chaos, foundation and opening. they are opeing the light which is white and allowing colour to bring life to the cosmos of the icon board. See the concentration and smiling faces as this work of unification of worlds, dimensions, time and space unfolds in the mystery that is the Baptism of Christ – the Theophany.
Melanie smiling- our brand new student who is being baptised with fire and in at the deep end.
Class in quaker house
Gill working as carefully as a.lways
Rona working carefully and studiously
Debbie smiling- hopefully not in pain from all the previous inscribing.
- Christine working on the painted transcript.
Isobel deftly painting in some delightful angels with the most serene faces.
Thank you muchly to the Aylesbury Quakers and especially Jane and Geoff the marvellously welcoming wardens. We shall look forward to bothering you again when we are homeless for an evening.
As ever, a lovely highly individual look at the world and its behaviours.
You are so very right about the control aspect of society, in particular with respect to children. So very limiting in its lasting effects.
I love the pictures of the latest class, almost makes me wish I had signed up for it, but I would have had to miss last night’s Ashing Service, and try as i will I can’t be in two places at once.
Blessings.
February 14, 2013 at 12:50 pm
I do wish I wasn’t 120 miles away from you. If you ever fancy moving to the South Coast you will be made very welcome!
February 14, 2013 at 10:21 pm
As I originally came from Brighton and lived in Lewes for years, I would move to the South Coast at the drop of a hat! Thank you Nancy.
February 15, 2013 at 7:31 am
Wonderful Blog Constantina and well said. It reminds me of Brother Martin at the Shantivanum Ashram in India (founded by Bede Griffiths) when he explains the problematic dogma of “original sin”. From that philosophy comes the idea that we are not adequate as we are, by our very nature, and therefore have to strive to be “something other” (i.e. a lot better than we are). We are not good enough and need to get to another place (and then the government compounds the whole shebang by making targets for children to achieve), and this sets up an inner conflict with the subsequent self rejection. He introduced me to another theology, which is that we “unfold” to be who we need to be by a process of relaxation, and that is the movement that we can focus on without harming ourselves. After all, we don’t look at a toddler and think what an inadequate adult ….. we enjoy it for what it is, and know that in time it will grow and flower. He says that our present thirst for spiritual riches is like a fish in water saying it is thirsty, not understanding that it is swimming and nourished and breathing in the water all the time! He also uses the metaphor that we are like a block of ice in water, bobbing about and seeing ourselves as separate from the world in which we find ourselves. What is needed is a “melting” process ….. there is no “there” to get to from “here”, so nowhere else to go. Thanks for the stimulating blog … as ever. Jonquil xx
February 18, 2013 at 8:58 am
Dear Jonquil What a great reply! Thank you. I like the metaphors, especially your comments about a toddler, that is very true.
Constantina Please visit and support: http://www.ukashray.wordpress.com Artist in Residence: St. Mary the Virgin, Aylesbury icon gallery blog @constantina777
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February 18, 2013 at 9:17 am