Iconography and the rat-in-a-maze school of vocational discernment

A dimly lit trail of breadcrumbs

Professional development

George Kordis working

With the Substack getting into a groove, and my daily life starting to settle into a fairly orderly routine of writing days and drawing days, in the last week or so I've decided a couple of things. I can start to be confident that the formula I've developed, the schedule and frequency, tone and approach, are where I want it and are not dependent on sudden bursts of “inspiration” and magical days when I’m unusually full of energy. When you want to get things done, the better model is the steady plod.

“In Byzantine art, all elements are unified, which proclaims, but does not describe, a unity characterized by spiritual peace, stillness, love and reconciliation. Such forms function as messengers of the ethos and spirit of the Orthodox Church. They express the Orthodox experience of life. As I have already explained, this does not mean that these qualities are directly expressed in Byzantine art, or that these qualities are visualized or rendered perceptible by a specific technique of icon painting. Based on the evidence of extant sources on the subject, Byzantine artists appear never to have claimed that the aim of their art wants to express such abstract theological ideas through the specific manner in which they depicted forms or through their iconographic style. Rather, they sought to achieve, and indeed succeeded in realizing, certain realistic goals. Thus, Byzantine artists indirectly developed certain qualities in their art which project the spiritual fragrance of the Orthodox ethos.” (pg. 98, Colour as Light in Byzantine Painting by George Kordis, published by @stsebastian_press).

So now it's organised enough I can cautiously add some professional development. I've decided to take no more commissions for the time being. I'll finish the two I've got now but then will concentrate on developing technique and for that I need all performance pressure turned off. I've looked at a bunch of online courses, Patreons etc. and decided to splash out on George Kordis' online iconographic drawing course.

Τμήμα Αρχαρίων - Iconographytoday

UPDATE: Ok I emailed them and the course is indeed go-at-your-own-pace, but it’s in Greek with English subtitles. So, that’ll be a factor.

It's not terribly expensive as professional level courses go, and now that the writing part of life is little more organised, I can actually schedule it in so it doesn’t compete or overwhelm me. It’s go-at-your-own-pace so I can put it into the free slots of the week.

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The lady whose Patreon I've followed for the last few years was a Kordis student, and I'll always recommend her for beginners. Julia is a great place to start, but if Kordis himself is doing online classes, why not go for the top of the field.

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What I wondered is if there is anyone out there who would like to learn this way too and join me. We could do it together, a buddy system, and I thought we could make some proper use of the Substack sections option (the tabs thing at the top of the main page) to talk about the work, show our progress and share information.

Some of George Kordis' icons.

Kordis is considered in the iconography world to be about the best instructor you can find in the English language. (He also teaches in Greek). The other options for Latin Catholics are pretty limited. There’s a thriving school at St. Elizabeth monastery in Minsk, but I think the Ukraine war is going to preclude most of us going there. There are schools in Latvia and Romania but they don’t teach in English.

I’ve felt the pull to get more serious about the painting end of things, to get deeper into it, and I think this is the time. I think becoming a Kordis student formally will be the best way to answer the many questions I still have, and I’m sure to develop more and better questions.

For a very long time since leaving LifeSite, and then losing Norcia in the earthquake, it’s been a matter of getting my head sorted out, figuring out what to do next in life, trying to settle and recover from those traumatic shocks. It’s been a long time since that awful morning of August 24th, 2016, and it seems like I’ve only really recovered now.

It’s also taken this long, and taken this much exploration, to understand the worldview of the Byzantine iconographer well enough to have enough basis for making a directional decision. I knew when I started there was a mountain of things to know- and a whole worldview to accommodate. I haven’t completely sorted it out, but it feels now like the darkness is fading to grey a bit.

The study of iconography I’ve undertaken so far has deeply changed me, and I think it’s been in a good way. And it’s only been the merest taste. But it was a way that I could not have predicted, or even known enough about to have aimed at or wanted. It sot of just had to happen. All this is very much unexplored territory for me, and all I can say about it for certain is that I think now, with nearly five years under my feet, it seems like the outcome has been positive. It feels like it’s going the right direction.

This has the feel of a vocational discernment, a trying-on, step by step in dim light heading toward a goal I’m not even able to firmly identify, which is given to me, rather than one I’ve come up with myself. But there’s a … compulsion is too strong… a faint feeling of being drawn forward that has about it the scent of the old magic.

I’ve felt all my life that I have been following a dimly lit trail in the woods, a trail of breadcrumbs. It’s taken me to some very unexpected places. I’ve long characterised my sojourn in journalism and activism as a falling away from the real path. Maybe that’s true, but it seems more likely that life is just complex and side trails are sometimes just necessary. It’s being sorted out for me, more than me sorting it out myself.

And this is pretty much how things have always gone. I’ve called it the “rat-in-a-maze” school of vocational discernment. All you know for sure is you can smell the cheese; it’s behind one of these doors; you have to just keep tying doors until you find one that isn’t locked, and that’s the way forward; as long as you can still smell the cheese you know you’re more or less going the right way.

Anyway: the takeaway for this short extra post:

• I won’t be taking commissions bcs I’m going to back to being a student much more seriously

• If you’re serious about learning this spiritual art form, you might want to try Kordis’ course too and maybe we could do it in tandem, like a buddy system.