Hay Forum - Icons

 

It was lovely to go into St Mary's yesterday to see this exhibition set up, with Gregorian chant as background music.

These are just a few examples of Christina Watson's work.  On the other side of the church she had the Roman style portraits that were put in tombs in Egypt, and she'd also brought examples of the pigments she uses, the rabbit skin glue, linen, and the white paint (gesso?) for the backgrounds.  Some of her paintings were on off cuts of laburnum from Alan Powell's carpentry workshop, and others were on boards from art shops.  The linen is glued to the base (it's the same glue that is used in bookbinding), and then painted white 12 to 15 times.  Then it's sanded down to a very smooth finish and only then is the artist ready to trace the lines of their picture onto the base.  She also uses egg tempura to fix the paint onto the board.

Before an icon painter begins work for the day, there are special prayers that should be said - it's a contemplative process, especially when the icons are intended to be used as a focus for prayer when they are finished.  Christina went on a course about ten years ago to learn the art properly, after a holiday in Cairo.  She was already an artist, and has painted many signs for shops around Hay.  She said she wants to continue painting icons (or 'writing an icon') forever! 

Christina will be holding an exhibition of her work at St John's Chapel over Hay Festival this year, along with Ukrainian icon painters.

To keep us in a contemplative mood, Jenny Bullough came along to do another humming session with us.  She was talking as well about how birds are the motion in a garden and bees are the voice of a garden, and quoted a line about "a buzzing with a bee in it".

There was also some live music from Father Richard, Christina, Terry and Jill, who sang a chant for the dead from Kiev, which is used at funerals, with Fr Richard at the organ.  His organ recital that morning was highly praised.

There was no news from Primrose Farm this month from Hawk and Louise, because it was Hawk's birthday, but they will be back in April to talk about what vegetables are in season.

There will be no Hay Forum in March, because Mary Ann will be in South Africa (she is the organiser).  The next Hay Forum will be on Saturday 13th April, at 6.30pm, because the nights will be lighter, just after Evensong, which is at 6pm.  Peter Ford will be talking about his new book Weston Hamlet, in which he has discovered some little known facts about Hay's history.