Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists: Kristina Wenger

Picture this: I am asked to write a blog featuring my photography and my homemade photo cards, and how my eyes and my art and my faith all come together. I agree. I prepare to comply, and as I write, I realize that I am really very new to photography. Sure, I have been an artist for decades, but visual art has come more recently to my palette. For most of my life, I’ve expressed myself in a completely different form. I am actually a teller of tales, a storyteller. I have been (though I didn’t know it, then), ever since I was a child and wanted to out-tell my daddy when it was joke-telling time. I’d crawl up into his lap, after a meal, and we’d tell jokes and laugh.

In my first 2 decades, I made up stories for playmates, told jokes, acted in plays, and bored my friends and family with every detail of my escapades. But it wasn’t until I was a teacher in a small Christian school, daily telling Bible stories to my first graders, that I realized how much I enjoy telling stories! My students would listen, enraptured, as we re-lived the stories together. I began to realize why Our Lord Himself used so many stories in his teachings: we learn through them. It was fun! And I was hooked.

Courtesy of Matthew Lester Photography

In the decades since, I have told stories to my own two children. At the church we attended before we became Orthodox, I began telling them to other people’s children, as well. I now am blessed with the opportunity to go into schools and libraries and tell folktales from other places, and learn from those tales, while celebrating the beauty of the cultures in our world. I am grateful for the opportunity to read and re-tell each week’s Gospel reading  for children in a way that I pray will help them pay better attention during the reading at church each Sunday. It is still fun! And I’m still hooked.

I should have guessed that I would eventually launch into photography. You see, when I am telling stories, I remember them through a series of “photographs,” or mental pictures, that remind me of the significant events in the tale. It’s like I make a little mental scrapbook of the story and simply walk the listeners through, one detail at a time… So, I suppose photography was a logical next artistic step for me.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a “noticer.” Especially in nature, I make an effort to notice things.  The childlike part of me wonders, and I am determined not to outgrow that wonder! On any given day, you will hear me say, “Don’t miss the (insert name of amazing detail, ie: sunrise; clouds; perfectly red leaves; cute little person; etc.)!!!” This world is a beautiful work of art, and I don’t want to miss any of the Artist’s carefully placed details! And, as I walk through the scrapbook of His love for us, I intend to proclaim what I see, and simply walk those around me through it, as well, one detail at a time…

However, the “noticer” needed others to help her to truly see…  As a child of missionaries, growing up in Guatemala, I was constantly surrounded by much beauty. From the lush green rainforests where I lived to the brilliant colors of the flowers and clothing of the people around me, to the gleam of huge Guatemalan smiles, my surroundings were astonishingly lovely. I enjoyed them all, but didn’t truly realize their beauty until I returned as a young adult, with another artistically-minded friend, who really showed me what I had been seeing all along, but hadn’t noticed. Within the last six months, I returned to my home country again, this time with my husband and children, and, this time, I was completely mesmerized as I saw “my” world, through their eyes. What a gloriously beautiful place! I have learned that we all need others to walk with us, through the scrapbook of His love, to help each other see one detail at a time…

When I take a picture, I am chronicling a story. Perhaps I am telling the story of the events of our family, or I am simply conveying the tale of the incredible beauty of the world as I see it. I try to notice the small things, the details, and capture them with my camera. Nature is my favorite subject matter. As I see what God has done or created, I know that not everyone is there to notice it at that particular moment, but I don’t want them to miss it! So I capture what I can, with my camera, so I can show off His work to others, later.

Saint Basil the Great said, “I want creation to penetrate you with so much admiration that wherever you go, the least plant may bring you the clear remembrance of the Creator… Scripture depicts to us the Supreme Artist, praising each one of His works; soon when His work is complete He will accord praise to the whole together…  A single plant, a blade of grass or one speck of dust is sufficient to occupy all your intelligence in beholding the art with which it has been made.”

Picture this: the beautiful world that God has blessed us to live in awaits your notice. Is it not amazing? Whatever you do, soak it up! Allow it to penetrate you with so much admiration that even just a tiny plant reminds you of the Creator. Don’t miss it! Then it is up to you to take each picture that He gives you, and walk those around you through it, so that they don’t miss a single detail. But, here’s a warning from this storyteller-photographer:  It’s fun! You’ll be hooked…

Since I was very young, I have made my own cards. I love receiving handmade cards because I know the time and love that was put into crafting such a gift for me, and I try to reciprocate. At some point in my young adult years, I began to use photographs as the main image on my cards, usually photographs of God’s beautiful creation. After Christmas 2010, when most of the gifts that I gave were handmade cards, enough people inquired about their availability for purchase, that I launched “Cards Through My Lens,” at www.CardsThroughMyLens.com. With this blog post, I am launching my latest line: “Beautifully Guatemalan,”  highlighting my home country as I saw it in the middle of 2011. I hope you’ll visit my website, and that you don’t miss the amazing moments that God made for us all to enjoy!

Kristina Wenger is a wife and mother of two, a community volunteer, and a peace-lover who teaches children about other cultures. She enjoys crafting, singing, reading, baking, hiking, and photography, although not necessarily simultaneously. She loves to laugh, and delights in little things and in little people. She is grateful to God for bringing her, her husband, and her two children into the Holy Orthodox Church on Holy Saturday of 2005.

Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists: Jane G. Meyer, “Becoming Jane…For the Hearts of Children”

It has been my absolute delight to be working in the world of children’s literature these last—almost–twenty years. It started with writing simple stories, leading to longer ones with plot lines and chapter breaks. It blossomed when my first son was born and he was (still is) a child who gobbles stories, eating them for both dinner and dessert. His delight in a book is tremendous, and being a mama who loves words, and languages, it was a perfect naptime match—he napped and dreamt of other worlds, and I wrote.

Fast forwarding many years, and many stories. Now, I sit here at my desk, marveling at the winding road God has paved for me. Not a road of financial success and worldly gain, but a road where truths have been discovered, where my obedience has been tested, and where a longing for potato chips has become an obvious sign that I need to get back to work! It’s still true, after all these years, that I like stories, but it’s even more true that I like children, and it’s triply true that I love Christ. And as an artist, that is how I try to live out my days. Liking stories, but loving Christ.

For many years I had the honor of not only writing, but being part of a team that acquired, edited and produced children’s books. I was able to work with dozens of authors to help shape their stories. To me this was a little taste of heaven, and I’m grateful I had that time rooting others on. It taught me that Community is a powerful thing. That joining forces, producing a book, or doing any sort of work together, makes something better than what could be done alone. We are the body of Christ.

Orthodox children deserve beautiful words and images to inspire them, don’t you think? We should labor over every aspect of a book for these children who openly (or even reluctantly) are led into that land of saint or story. That is my joy, knowing the potential is there to inspire deeper thinking or change a heart. Yes, the heart! We must, as parents and guardians, as teachers and grandfathers, nurture the minds and hearts of children, with loving time together, and with stories that build deep faith in a little one…

Liking stories, but loving Christ. If we, as a community of writers and illustrators and book designers and publishers, can keep Christ before the story, then we will accomplish exactly what God intends. We will be part of a team that changes real, beating and feeling hearts! And in that work, my heart will also be changed. For the stories that flow from my pen are not mine alone. God helps, aids, teaches, inspires, gives me courage. His hand appears when least expected, and I try to keep a prayer begging for His presence on my lips when I’m working—it sounds a lot like this: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me!

My ultimate goal is to be completely, fully, totally enveloped by Christ, and becoming the Jane that God has envisioned. And if there are still stories to write as I become that Jane, then you can bet that I’ll be here at my desk, praying the Jesus prayer, rooting on my fellow workers and their stories, and dreaming about little ones and their beautiful hearts.

Jane G Meyer is a children’s book author and editor. She lives in Santa Barbara, California with her husband and three children, where they attend Saint Athanasius Orthodox Church. Her next book due out is The Hidden Garden: A Story of the Heart, and will be published by Conciliar Press in the fall of 2012. You can see more about Jane on her website, www.janegmeyer.com —she also blogs about bread baking at www.janegmeyer.wordpress.com, hoping to inspire others to stretch and give just a little more, and she welcomes you to be part of her community of friends on Facebook, where she shares her blog posts, snippets of her life, and photos…

Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists: Jonathan Kotinek, “Reverse Perspective”

Jonathan’s initial reflections on his subject appeared in a guest post on this blog in September. To read the first post, click here.

As a photographer, painter, and poet who happens to be an Orthodox Christian, I find that my overt attempts at expressing something about my faith tend to be more wooden than if I simply try to let my artwork be a faithful reflection of the beauty I experience in the world. To some extent, I suppose, this is a reflection of my amateur status. I have not yet practiced the technologies of my camera, or brushes, or language well enough for my intent to be expertly woven into my work. It is when I am doing my best to be transparent that I get out of the way enough to let God speak through me.

I have been writing poetry the longest, since I was in middle school. As I have grown older, I am writing less. Not only do I have less time to write, I find that I am not as often inclined to write. I think this might have something to do with having a more-or-less stable and happy life; much of my younger poetry was angst-inspired. I have begun writing again more recently, though it is hard to say if this is because I am feeling more angsty (which might be true) or if I’m finding more depth in feelings as I get older and need an appropriate outlet. I have written a handful of poems since converting to the Orthodox Christian faith eight years ago, but only two of them, Become As A Little Child and Exile, deal at all with issues of faith.

Melinda Johnson, in inviting me to write this post, wondered about Wordsworth’s concept of poetry as “emotion recollected in tranquility,” and whether or not that “tranquility helps or hinders the poet’s…chance at transcendence.” Given my experience of being a more prolific writer during turbulent periods of my life, I have some doubt that tranquility would elicit the same emotion. I concede, however, that the added perspective one might gain by recollecting strong emotion after having achieved some peace might allow the writer to produce a more nuanced and evocative product. And, after all, I’m no Wordsworth.

Much of my photography has been since my conversion. While I do not make particular attempts to photograph Orthodox subjects (except when recording a particular parish event), I do find that the faith-inspired awe I have of nature and the Christian imperative of seeing Christ–and therefore the beauty–in every person permeates my approach to subjects. I am particularly fond of taking portraits and still-life compositions.

My good friend, J. Vincent Scarpace, with whom I was privileged to lead a group of university students in contemplating the idea of transcendence in art, explained to me once why he got started painting fish. He had worked closely with Koi fish and when he went to school was told that he needed to have a subject matter he knew well. I used this insight when I began painting with J. Vincent; though I am not a candle expert, I often find myself staring at the candles lit in prayer during worship.

As I have practiced more painting candles, I try to think about the reasons we Orthodox Christians light candles in prayer and set them in front of icons. I also try to think about what my life looks like, and this swirling darkness, the confusion, disorder and distraction I feel serves as the chaotic background to the candles I paint. My hope is that a person viewing my paintings finds a measure of comfort in the juxtaposition of the candles and the chaos, even if they do not apprehend my particular intent in locating that peace in Christian tradition.

I have had the privilege of sharing my love of art by engaging students in the process of creating art. While J. Vincent did the technical instruction, I took the lead in discussing the idea of art as a means of transcendence with our students. As an Orthodox Christian, transcendence has a very particular meaning for me. I did not foreground my own perspective, but I did get to share a bit about the theology of icons and juxtapose that to other ideas of transcendence. In particular, I was happy that on a field trip to Houston, I got to take my students first to the Houston Byzantine Fresco Chapel and then to the Rothko Chapel. Our conversation about the experience, while somewhat superficial, did suggest that the students came away with an appreciation of the difference between the particular transcendence in the former and the diffuse transcendence of the latter.

I think, finally, that the success of a piece of art, whether poetry, photograph, or painting, depends on an interaction of the art, artist and audience: the rhetorical triangle. The particular genius of Orthodoxy in emphasizing the personal nature of our interaction with God gives a new flavor to art that reveals grace in our experience. Like the reverse perspective in Byzantine iconography, the art is not complete until the audience is participating, until there is someone to receive that grace.

Jonathan Kotinek is a convert to Orthodoxy, father of two, and constantly in awe of his veterinarian wife. An educator, amateur artist, and writer who likes to ponder the intersection of faith, social issues, and education, Jonathan blogs occasionally at http://jkotinek.blogspot.com.

Hello! It’s me again.

Promoting books, mine and other people's, at the OCA All American Conference

I’m breaking in on the “Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists” series to say hello and tell you how it’s going. When I first visualized the series, I thought I’d have one guest each month. After some preliminary research, I thought maybe I’d have two. Shortly after the series launched, I realized I should abandon this measured approach and just stuff guests in wherever they fit.

My guest list is growing like a slinky rolling downstairs. You can meet someone new on this blog every week between now and next summer.  Or perhaps fall.  Or winter.

In my adventures searching for creative Orthodox people, I have confirmed my suspicion that there are many of us, that we would love to be connected to each other, and that we all hope to see a robust support system in the Orthodox writing world equivalent to what is available to secular writers.

So far, it seems to me that Orthodox artists are slightly better off. Iconographers, for example, seem more likely to be featured in local newspapers. Iconography is an art form known by the secular world. It may be valued only as art, but people know what it is.

No such luck for Orthodox writers, it seems. Why is this? Why is an icon accessible to the general public, but an Orthodox book is likely to be read only by the Orthodox? Perhaps looking is not as demanding as reading. Or (allowing my less cynical self some air time) the spiritual content of an icon has the power to attract people.

Orthodox illustrators seem to fall somewhere in the middle, perhaps because their artistic skills can be used for secular or sacred purposes. In their Orthodox lives, however, they share many experiences with Orthodox writers.

To date, this series has been enormously fun for me. I love finding new writers and artists, I love learning about what they do, and I love talking to other people about it. Much of the networking I did at the OCA conference a few weeks ago centered on this blog series. It was such a high to move from one end of the conference hall to the other, talking to people about my guest posters and how great they are. Way better than champagne. As good as chocolate. As good as having the whole box of Godiva TO YOURSELF.

I’m currently working on some new features for the blog, and continuing to ponder ways to water our Orthodox creative world and admire its blossoms. I look forward to being in touch with you as this project grows.

Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists: Magnus Frangipani

Prayer and poetry arise from the unspeakable, mirroring the soul’s appetite for beauty, unity and wholeness.

In the Orthodox understanding/experience of the world, the interior world, of which the exterior is but a reflection, man was created in a state of pristine innocence, the nous clear as windows. As hieromonk Damascene writes in Christ the Eternal Tao, and St Gregory of Sinai, quoted in The Philokalia, he knew no mental distraction, following the principle of the universe, the Logos, God’s Word.

This universe is ordered, it is liturgical. The earth resolves by revolving in ordered patterns, we experience seasons, pulls, a silent drawing forth – again, internally as well as externally. The universe is one verse of God’s breath invigorating life, from mountaintops down to vibrating photons and electrons. And so good poetry, I think, reflects this natural, even musical process of becoming.

Poems, like icons in the Orthodox Church, signify something of greater, even timeless, value. The Greek word for poetry is poiesis, which is a verb meaning to transform or continue the world. It is an action, a movement beyond death. This movement is experienced both individually as well as communally through the Church, in her cycles, liturgically in liturgies of Saints John Chrysostom, Basil and James as well as the psalms.

Words are vessels through which we share ideas, emotions and experiences in attempts to express and glorify the uncreated. St Nicodemus of Mount Athos writes that “God has placed man to be a sort of macrocosmos – a ‘greater world’ within the small one,” elucidating that man is a sort of bridge between the visible and invisible worlds. Poetry is a gate into this mystery.

Translator Tony Barnstone notes how in classical Chinese painting, the white space defines what forms emerge. The way a sky’s negative space in painting defines mountains and trees, so too a mind polished of thoughts and passions by prayer and fasting mirrors the light shining before it. Like apostolic fishermen, some poets – - and the poems of Saints Romanos and Symeon, in particular – - cast nets over the whole of the universe for nourishment. Like prayer, good poems arise from the unspeakable and reflect the soul’s appetite for wholeness, unity, beauty. Barnstone is right. If we place an ear against our heart, while reading poetry one discovers not only what the poem says but what it does.

Magnus Frangipani writes children novels, poetry and non-fiction. On a pilgrimage to India, he found Christ in a Himalayan cave and converted to Orthodoxy in Alaska upon his return to America. Magnus lives and prays in Port Townsend, Washington, where he attends St Herman’s Orthodox Church. Glory to Christ our God for all things.

Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists: Emma Cazabonne, “Beauty will save the world.”

“Beauty will save the world,” wrote Dostoevsky in The Idiot, first published serially in 1868-1869.

Many Orthodox writers and thinkers have since used the phrase. I encountered it about 25 years ago in a book by Paul Evdokimov, and it never left me. At the time, I was just discovering Orthodoxy; but I had been exposed to art for many years and was doing a bit of drawing and painting myself.

After two world wars, numerous ecological disasters, and ugly terrorist acts all over our planet, we may be tempted to despair. But I believe “beauty will save the world.”

To attract your attention, whether on paper, on the little screen or on your monitor, the media focus almost exclusively on ugliness and catastrophes. But beauty will save the world.

Now an official member of the Orthodox Church, I believe in the saving beauty of Christ’s redeeming death and Resurrection.

I also believe that following Christ means participating in His redeeming work, at many levels. I will only speak here about one level. As an Orthodox believer, I feel particularly called to spread beauty in our world. And I strive to do it through my artwork and my writing.

Born from French parents gifted with talents for drawing and painting, I started painting in grade school; I even remember nailing old sheets on a piece of wood to make my own “canvas.” I was not 10 at the time.

A few years later, an art teacher introduced me to the fascinating world of colors, and I attended weekly art classes until university. After some low years in art production, I discovered rock painting. I have now been painting almost exclusively on rocks for 10 years. I paint things I find beautiful and believe will introduce beauty in the life of others. Seeing the joy of my customers when they discover my rocks brings me a lot of hope, as they have a glimpse that everything may not be rotten and in our world.

Beauty will save the world.

 

I paint birds, flowers, landscapes, etc, memorial rocks for deceased pets, from pictures taken by the pet owner, and icons and Orthodox stain-glass style designs.

Beauty will save the world.

God’s saving Beauty was made visible in the flesh: “The Word was made flesh.” John 1:14. We have access to this multi-faceted beauty in our daily contact with the Word in the Scriptures.

I believe we can find and propagate beauty not only through visual arts, but also through The Word and words. I have loved words since I was about 4, when I started reading by myself. Since then, I have grown into a passionate lover of words and books.

It is not only fascinating to read, but also to share with others the beauty I find in books, whether they are fiction or non-fiction works. I started a book blog a year ago, and it has been a deep experience to interact with others on the beauty and depth of words. I entitled my blog Words And Peace, to convey the idea that you can reach some peaceful depth in yourself through reading and sharing, and of course I could not miss the opportunity of introducing a pun, on War And Peace, as you would all have guessed. My blog’s address is: http://wordsandpeace.wordpress.com. The last Orthodox book I reviewed was:

You can read my review here.

I write a lot every month through my translation work of articles and books, mostly from English to French, and occasionally from French to English. The world of translation is absolutely fascinating. I deeply believe we still need bridges in our global world. The image of the world as a village is still a myth, not exactly yet part of our daily reality: we still need help communicating with each other on our planet, and that is the beautiful role of translators, among others. The more we understand each other, the easier we will be at peace. I believe part of my mission as an Orthodox believer is to be a “beauty and peace maker,” by helping people understand each other.

I believe I contribute to this bridge building also through my online French classes, geared to students of all levels, from total beginners to Ph. D. students and proficient learners who just want to keep up with their French conversation skills.

Beauty will save the world.

More creatively, I have given lots of conferences focused mainly on monastic spirituality, both for Western and Eastern Christians. Some of these conferences I have published as articles. The most relevant to our topic here is my article on Gregory Palamas. Discovering that few Western Christians knew about him, I tried to write an accessible presentation of his life and works. I initially wrote and published it in French, then in English and Spanish. The English version is available in the Cistercian Studies Quarterly 37:3 (2002): 303-333 .

Who better than Gregory Palamas wrote about the beauty and depth of our faith? I discovered Gregory through the mystery of the Transfiguration back in the late 80s, and since then I have striven to propagate this beauty.

And last but not least, I published a book a few years ago focused on light. Early on, I discovered that as much as Eastern Fathers and Mothers, writers pertaining to the Western Christian tradition focused a lot on the topic of light. I decided then to publish an anthology of short spiritual texts related to the theme of light in Cistercian Fathers and Mothers:

A Light to Enlighten the
Darkness: Daily Readings for Meditation during the Winter Season Selected by Emma Cazabonne (Cistercian
Publications, 2008) ISBN: 978-0-87907-227-8

Beauty will save the world.

Some of our contemporaries may think beauty, whether in art or in words, is something totally irrelevant to our busy and efficient modern world, where the main goal seems sometimes to make money and buy things. Just as we need our daily bread, I believe that more than ever, we need our daily portion of beauty to survive and thrive.

To paraphrase a passage by Nina Sankovitch in her latest book Tolstoy and The Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading (Harper: 2011), I wish for all of us that beauty may become “an escape, not from, but into living.”

_______________________

Note: I am referring to this passage:

“Cyril  Connolly, twentieth-century writer and critic, wrote that ‘words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living.’ That was how I wanted to use books: as an escape back to life. I wanted to engulf myself in books and come up whole again.” p.20

 

Emma Cazabonne is a French tutor, an English-French translator, and a rockpainter. She was born in France and has been living in the US for 10 years. After 20 years as a Trappistine nun, she converted to Orthodoxy. With her husband, a clinical counselor combining Orthodox spiritual elements and psychological principles in his practice, she attends a small ROCOR parish in the Chicagoland.