Studio journal
Workshops, icons in progress and encounters along the way.
Closed, the two doors show the Annunciation: Gabriel on one side, Mary on the other. Open, the Nativity appears, with the angels and shepherds on the wings. The same object holds the promise and its fulfilment.
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On the island of Lérins with Jacques Bihin, then in Versailles with Véronique Vié, I learned that iconography, however codified, leaves room for each iconographer's style. Véronique Vié's icons, elegant, fine and precise, made a deep impression on me.
I continue to study with the iconographers Piet van der Ploeg in Noordwijk and Martin Mandaliev in The Hague. Workshop after workshop, the gestures become surer: preparing the panel, laying the gold, building a face from dark to light.
I wanted to write an icon for my parents, and I was naturally guided toward the Holy Family of Sister Marie-Paul Farran, and her motto: “If your gaze is radiant, you will illuminate all things.”
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In my first workshop we learned each stage of the icon by writing the Archangel Michael. Yet at the end of that first experience, it was Gabriel who became my first icon. I like to think he had chosen me before I knew it.
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