Creating beauty with egg yolk, vinegar and vodka
Local
Every Thursday morning, a group of a dozen or so people from different religious backgrounds get together at St Theodore’s Anglican Church in Dulwich – all in the name of a unique and ancient art form.
Mostly retired, they make up the St Luke’s School of Iconography (St Luke is considered the first iconographer and is the patron saint of artists), the only such group in Adelaide and one of a handful across Australia.
A couple of the more established attendees have been coming along for about 20 years but there are people of just a few months too.
Alfonso Polvere
Alfonso Polvere, from the Hectorville Catholic Community, is the first person to greet me after sending copies of his icons Saint Donato (the patron saint of his family village Pago Veiano, about 70km north of Naples) and Mary and Jesus.
Sr Sue CSBC, from the Anglican St Barnabas and St Cecilia community in Prospect, is the school’s de facto leader and recently met Cardinal Mykola Bychok CSsR when he attended the Ukrainian Catholic Church, Our Lady of Protection, in Wayville.
She was there to present Cardinal Bychok with a 7x5ft icon which she says “is hanging on the left side of the church”. A commission copied from a 14th century painting, it is unusually done in acrylic and it took her 18 months to complete.
The process to make an icon is, on the face of it, straightforward.
It starts, says Alfonso (pictured below), with a piece of timber which has a piece of cloth (often linen) stretched over it before gesso (a liquid primer) and rabbit skin glue is applied (about 10 coats) to ensure it is smooth.
“It’s one layer a day for 10 days, I can do it quicker by putting the air conditioning on,” he says. “Then you pick a story, it has to mean something to you.”
The groundwork done, the artwork is a case of copying paintings and images, tracing initially and then overlaid with a mix of egg yolk and vinegar (vodka has also been a constituent) and powdered paint.
Work is done, typically, just once a week at the group meetings. Members tend to sit in the same seat and checking out each other’s output is not a thing. Mutual support is the message.
A communal prayer to St Luke is said close the start of every class.
“We are not an art club, we are here to serve God,” says Sr Sue. “We don’t really compare pieces, we are promoting God and his image. Icons are a message from God of love and of Christ.”
Connecting with God through their work is what it’s all about.
“It opens up a space to talk about religion,” says former Catholic schoolteacher Kate Ordon, adding it is also a way to broach religion with her four grandchildren.
Similarly, much of Alfonso’s output ends up with grandchildren. He says commissions and presents are other destinations.
Two icons hang in St Theodore’s Church, says Nick Kosmadopoulos, who worships at a Greek Orthodox church and was a scientist in his working life. Like all the iconographers present, he is self-deprecating when it comes to his artistic abilities. His work is nothing less than first rate.
“A former priest at St Theodore’s would come in (to the icon class) for a chat and said ‘we don’t have an icon in the church’. The room here is free so we donated an icon,” Nick says.
Later, another icon was commissioned by St Theodore’s.
Typically a painting will take about six months to dry before it is waxed to complete the physical process. But there is still one more essential stage. St Luke’s day, October 21, is when all paintings are blessed and the ceremony can take place in any church (Norwood’s Greek Orthodox church was the setting last time with Annunciation Church in Hectorville the year before).
“It is a painting until it has been blessed,” insists Alfonso. “And then it is an icon.”
Any aspiring iconographers can come along to St Theodore’s Church in Dulwich at 10am every Thursday during school term or contact Sr Sue on 0466 384 447
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