Transcript for Episode 140 – Iconographer, Reverend Timothy Dols (Wilmington, NC, USA)
Published January 21, 2021
Full recording here: https://wisefoolpod.com/iconographer-reverend-timothy-dols-wilmington-nc-usa/
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Matthew Dols 0:11
So, this is probably one of the most awkward podcasts I’ve done to date, because my guest is my father. The right doctor, Reverend Timothy W. Dols.
Timothy Dols 0:24
No right yet, but that’s right. I thought it was right. Now that’s a bishop. Just Dr. Reverend Doctor,
Matthew Dols 0:33
the Reverend Dr. Timothy W. Dols. Okay. So I mean, start off with the first thing I always ask everybody, please pronounce your name correctly. Timothy Dols. Thank you. So, of course, I know all these stories about you. But for the listeners, I sort of want to give them some background. So start off with like a little bit about sort of your work. Now, later in life, you’re you’ve sort of defined yourself a bit more as a creative person. But your childhood was there creativity in your childhood, some classes, your parents, something of that sort of influenced you that sort of led you down this path.
Timothy Dols 1:12
My childhood is based on being a twin. And the two of us did not get along very well. So my parents send us to school all the time. We went to school 12 months of the year. So during the summer, we went to a special school that was for teachers. And so for 30 students, there were 30 teachers. And we explore things we would never have done in elementary school, classical music, art interpretation, through closing your eyes to music and crayons, and see what comes out of nature walks in the Glen, biology, gymnastics, things that back in the 50s were never done in elementary school. And so we did that all year round, till junior high school. And that started the creativity. And then in high school, I ended up being in the what was called the art service League, a way to get into school early, and avoid all study halls and pick my classes. I would have to make posters for the school. So I learned a little bit of calligraphy, and a little bit about art and balance in the mail filler was the teacher and he he was at all football player. And he so he he approached her heart in a very, very constructive and pedantic way. But it made it fun. And we all enjoyed it. And we did all the artwork for the whole school.
Matthew Dols 2:45
Just to be clear, though, this was Baltimore, Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland. Yes. Now over the course of your lifetime, of course, which is most of my lifetime and to the I always saw that you did a lot of creative things. Now. Just to clarify for the minister you you’re a Reverend. I never know like, what to call Reverend. You’re not a priest. You name a priest. You are I’m so confused on the right terminology on that. Okay. Technically, what would you call yourself Reverend priest, Father? Priest? church? Seriously? Yes. Okay. I always referred to as Reverend. That’s a written title. Oh, that’s the difference. Okay. I didn’t know that. All right. So throughout the years, like at the church, you did needle pointing, you designed your own vestments. You did posters, I mean, I remember, as a child, we used to do the silk screens at claggett, and things like this. And so, you know, so you found a way to, even though you chose a profession that maybe was not necessarily inherently creative to somehow incorporate these creative ideas and techniques and practices into your daily life.
Timothy Dols 4:01
When I was interviewed for seminary, senior in college, I explained that I was a fine arts major, and that I was going to always be interested in the arts. And after the interview, the the Dean of the seminary, turned to me and said, Well, how do you see the priesthood, enhancing your art career? I never thought of it that way. And I think I probably made mistake I, I emphasized the priesthood more than the art career. And then just found ways that throughout the work of working with children and youth, silk screen, and all the different ways of visual, your music, and everything else, since I sang in a cathedral choir, from the age of seven, I was used to the liturgy the church and tried to make it a little more lively, and more fun.
Matthew Dols 4:53
Yeah, I’ve always been incredibly envious of the fact that you can like pick up a musical instrument and like, play it beautifully and like 10 minutes. Well, thank you. I never realized you don’t you don’t remember that, like you still was just pick up random musical instruments that you brought in a pipe organ into the church and like 30 minutes later, you were just playing it as though you’d played it your whole life.
Timothy Dols 5:17
Well, there was transferred from instrument instrument.
Matthew Dols 5:21
Plus, I can’t sing to save my life. And you made that very clear to me when I was in the choir. When you told me not to be in the choir. I don’t remember telling you that. Yeah, you did it in a subtle way. But it’s, it’s fine. I totally accept it. I have a horrible singing voice. I’m fully accepting of that. That’s fine. Okay, so then moving on. So
Timothy Dols 5:42
as I said, like, you designed your own vestments. You did these needle points, you did hundreds and hundreds of needle points throughout the years. I mean, it took decades really to do all of them because you there were what 250 322 kneelers in the church, they were Cathedral chairs. And they had a little attachable kneeler which was a little leather piece of thing and which was most uncomfortable. So I designed from the lesser feasts and fasts of the Episcopal Church, a symbol and reminder of each of the lesser feasts and fasts. We never finished but when I left the after 26 years in one Parish, the group is still doing needlepoint commemorations on the kneelers. So it’s a continuing project.
Matthew Dols 6:32
Yeah, I mean, I remember growing up we they were you would need to point your own investments. He also did those big banners that we used as well, like, there was always some element of creativity, you know, and it was something that I always sort of was like, looking for as a job for me like a career for me. I was like, okay, he has something he loves, which is his job. And he has something else that he loves. And he’s figured out a way to put them together as one. Yes,
Timothy Dols 7:00
yes. We also did a labyrinth and one of the chapels, and that was sort of fun, forgot for people to help me paint it is a large project. But we had a portable Labyrinth and took it on retreats. And we could just roll it out and have a labyrinth to walk through. But you know, you were you were away by that. Okay. I’m like, When was this? I don’t remember this. This is after late, late in my ministry there.
Matthew Dols 7:29
Okay, great. Then, okay, so and then in your ministry, you have now lend, have you sort of gone on to do iconography, hagiography. And so it actually is relevant to how your profession is being a priest as to how that came about. So what’s the story of like, how did you even get to being an icon writer?
Timothy Dols 7:50
Well, it was all very innocent. In beginning on my senior Warden, wanted to go to a lecture at the Virginia seminary by some icon writers. She was somewhat intimidated by the seminary community. So I said, Well, I’ll go along, and, and while you’re listening to the lecture, I can go through the bookstore. Well, of course, it didn’t happen that way. When they came out, the two of us sat down. And there was a young man who talked about his icon writing, he used the wonderful, quick method. And he could paint an icon, as he said, in an afternoon, sell it and make money. So I was not impressed by that. But then a young lady got up from Rockville, Maryland. And she said she and her friend from Russia, had a studio. And they did icon writing using the ninth to 12th century canons of color design, and taught and sold. And she went on to tell about it sounds fascinating. And as we laughed, my senior Warden said, Oh, I’m going to take a course with her. And I said, Well, that’s wonderful. And bound. Oh, my three, four months later, she came to me and she said, there’s been a real problem. The young lady who spoke to us at the seminary, has absconded with the funds from the studio and going to Ireland and Iona actually, to open her own studio. But left I’ve Reno Bella Cova, Russian iconographer in Rockville, sort of holding the bag, and she needed some income. She had a 16 year old son, her husband worked in government from Russia. But they she needed help. And I said, Well, I do not like writing checks. I don’t think that’s a way to really help people. So I said, Well, what we can do, we can offer her a class every Saturday for two hours. And every student will give her $20 and we had five students, and that would be $100 a week and I think that would help her.
Matthew Dols 9:57
Okay, wait, what year was that? About 1981 Okay, because $20 that doesn’t sound like,
Timothy Dols 10:06
Well, no, but for for two hours, we weren’t trying to make a big deal of it, but just to give her some money, so she could survive, basically. So that was she said, okay, and I made the announcement and found I had four people who would do it. But I said, I promised fine, I thought, Well, you know what, I’m number five. So I went as an affiliate and for $20, and that lasted eight years. I was a felon for eight years. And I retired and came to North Carolina. And the class continued, I Rena still teaches she restored icons. In Soviet Russia, they were not allowed to write icons, but they were allowed to restore them. So she said, you’d be surprised. You can restore from a blank board, a whole icon. But she was very talented. And she still is. And she works with the National Cathedral in Washington, the Greek National Cathedral, and does icons for them.
Matthew Dols 11:11
Did you say the Greek national Greek Orthodox,
Timothy Dols 11:15
okay, yeah. She’s Greek Orthodox, we became, we became very good friends. And she never got understand that a priest would be doing this kind of work. But we never tried to explain that we just did it. And we had to the class got much larger. And she enjoyed it.
Matthew Dols 11:35
Okay, so just for the listeners, but also maybe for me as well. So a little bit, give us a differentiation of the the nature of an icon versus a painting, if you want to go back into like the nature of like, what makes an icon also kind of thing.
Timothy Dols 11:50
Most people look at an icon. Thank you. Oh, isn’t it beautiful, lovely in my living room, North America, what’s nice, nice decorative painting, an icon is not intended isn’t as decorative painting. At least it wasn’t until your slab School of the 17th century, decided to abandon the canons of color, so that people could decorate their homes with icons with the right color for the right room. So that’s when the Virgin Mary became baby blue rather than red. Because people want to blue in their bedrooms with their Virgin Mary. And that’s the way I count writing sort of deteriorated as far as I’m concerned in the in the 19th or 17th century. The older system of icon writing was was very precise in the ninth century. And it was done by priests in the monastery. It was done with all natural products. An icon was be the representation of the presence of God symbolized with a gold, the 24 karat gold background, usually, at least halos. So you, it’s not an icon until the gold is on. And gold goes on first, because God has always first.
Matthew Dols 13:02
Okay, just stupid little technical thing you said 24 karat does it always have to be 24 karat is that sort of, yeah, I’m looking for a little bit of like technical things like,
Timothy Dols 13:12
if you’re going to do a real icon, you should use a 24 karat, okay. And if you’re going to do it, you use all natural things sable brushes, tempera, which is a big emotion, with fine, finely ground pigment. And that gets all mixed in. And then you get to paint with that. All natural things. When I do it, even the cotton used to apply some of the gold is cotton that I picked out in Holly Ridge, North Carolina. So it’s all very natural. And it’s sort of fun to go and do it that way. It’s a very slow and deliberate process. For my students, when I teach for a seven by seven inch icon is going to take them about eight Saturdays, eight weeks, eight sorry, two hours for each Saturday. But the time in between is good because that allows the paint and all the pigments to dry and you do not go back and correct. Some tendency in the in Western art is to have a cloth and wipe it off when it’s wrong. And I can writing you leave it and look at it and learn from your mistake how to correct it without removing it or having to make make a mess of the whole thing. But there are there are ways I’ve had many different ways to have to repair students work. One student, her dog lick the face off of the icon because of the egg tempera was so tempting. So we had to learn to put the face back on john the baptizer. And actually it turned out very well because her first rendering with the dog removing most of the pain left a good background for us because the background is always a board. wooden board, linen put on it jesso with rabbit skin glue. And what you’re doing is you’re making a stone, a stone is a stone upon which there will be offered a sacrifice. The sacrifice of Christ on the altar is the main one. And most it for tradition, the Roman Catholic Church for centuries, in the middle of the altar was always a stone for the sacrifice, because that’s where sacrifices are made on stone. So that board is made, and then from the board, once it’s finished, which takes a long time, five to 10, coats of Jessa. And Jessa was his powdered marble. So that gets put on and sanded, burnished, and polished. And then you then you can start outlining your icon, of course, not an icon, until you get it all drawn on. And then place the gold, Gill, the background, and the halos and the things that need to be gold. And then you’re working on an icon. There is a prayer we use before every session, there’s are certain things we don’t do. We’re not supposed to talk now I’ve had trouble with that. But we, we said we talked quite a bit. And we learned but I use all of the classes to try and teach how the icon is to be read. That’s why we write icons, we don’t paint them, we write them to be read, if you know the language, you of course, it would help if you know Greek, but if you also know the language of lines, and colors, by knowing that you can you can look at an icon and you will know who the icon is, is who the person is, and the event that has been portrayed. But it takes a while to learn all the language.
Matthew Dols 16:49
You and I have had many conversations about the different colored wardrobes that that people wear, you know, like you said, like Mary and her blue, red, red, red, red,
Timothy Dols 17:01
red is a flesh, symbol of flesh, blue is a symbol of the holy. So Mary would wear a another garment of blue, because of her inner holiness and an outer garment of red because of her fleshiness. She was she was a woman, Jesus. On the other hand, when you portray Jesus, you have an inner garment of red and an outer garment of blue.
Matthew Dols 17:26
Okay, well, one of the things that I’m always interested in, when I look at any icon, whether it’s your work or not, is the nature of the symbolism, because I mean, artwork in general has symbolism. But iconography is sort of very inherent into symbolism. And usually whether it’s locks of hair, colors of wardrobe, locations, etc. So are there some that like, you can just sort of give out to say, like, okay, anybody anywhere in the world, if you see an icon from this period, these are some symbols that you should try to recognize.
Timothy Dols 18:02
Part of it is repetition of things, the idea that the Eastern Church, The Orthodox Church, very Trinitarian. So if there is something there is going to be there three times, and three is three is a very, very important thing. And then the use of gold, as a highlight. Gold is a sacred color. It reflects, and what the icons to do is to enhance and present once again, an event when God acted in this world. So each person gets to see the icon, and I people ask me what an icon is. And I try and tell them, it’s not really a picture. It’s like an icon on a computer. It’s something that you touch. And when you touch it, it opens a whole new world for you. That’s what an icon does. Or when you if you know how, how to touch it. Now to push the right button. It opens a whole new world, each icon has an infinite meaning. And is, is to be used as a spiritual thing. It’s it’s not I have trouble with showing icons and art show. They’re really not items to be shown their artifacts, they are religious items. So it’s me, is it a sacred item? Or is it a picture? No, it’s not a picture. And they are not portraits of people. They are representations of humanity, and presentation of the holy. It’s a unique piece of art. And it’s also a very Eastern, the Western world doesn’t understand. The Western world has the sun up in the left hand corner and cast shadows. An icon if it’s if it’s any good, has very few shadows, because all the brilliance comes from the Christ child or the with the presence of Christ. And so all this there if there are shadows, they are from Christ. The Inner Light is part of the whole idea of an icon.
Matthew Dols 20:00
Right. So basically there should be almost no shadows because the gold is the light emanating into the gold is from behind more or less. So
Timothy Dols 20:10
it’s it’s actual image of the Christ or a holy figure, one of the profits or, or it’s from that person comes forth the light, light and darkness are absolutely important to an icon. Because when working in the eastern school, you start with a darkness and bring the light into it. So that unlike Western art, where you shadows and you had a little black or brown, and it makes it dark, and you have a shadow, no, no, no, you start with a shadow, and then put the light on top of it. So God is, is bringing light into the darkness. Okay,
Matthew Dols 20:52
you mentioned that you do Greek and that you a lot of this is Greek, Greek Orthodox, this kind of stuff. Is there. Isn’t there a Christian version of this? This is Christian. Okay, yeah, my, I’m being ignorant on this. So clarify, why Greek? Like why not? Is there Roman Catholic? Or is there?
Timothy Dols 21:13
Well, there was the Orthodox Church, which is the Eastern Church, and the western church, Roman Catholic center, and the center in Constantinople. So you have two warring groups, each, each saying they’re right about the Christian faith, the Patriarch of Constantinople, is the head of the Orthodox Church. Now the Orthodox Church, took them on as time went on a nationalism. So there’s, there’s Greek, orthodox, Russian, orthodox, Serbian, orthodox, whatever country, you’re in Orthodox faith, and they all have some uniqueness. They also has some unique colors they use. So you can tell sometimes, like the great convent in the Sinai, St. catharines, you can usually tell an icon that was done there, because they use patterns of fabric that you can see have been transported and imported from Cyprus, and from from different places in the Mediterranean. And these little details help you identify where it came from. And what what monastery probably came from, never is an icon signed by the person who works on it. This is not a personal statement. That’s one way you can tell a real icon. If it has a signature on it, it’s not an icon, someone who missed Miss was misinformed as to what they were doing. The object is of itself valuable. The meaning behind it is timeless. There’s very little we can do. In some of the icons, we can’t really tell where they were made. I’ve done some that are copies of icons from the sixth century, a little bit more primitive, but have a great deal of power. The trick is, the truth of an icon is His faithfulness to the church fathers. So when I write down a con in this day, in time, I get to reproduction, a photograph of an icon and and then work from that, and try and hopefully, hopefully restore some of the colors as they were intended, from the canons of the ninth to 12th century, which were very specific. For instance, a mendicant monk would always be in brown. And that’s why St. Nicholas is usually shown in brown, whereas in Virgin Mary always has red shoes. That’s an interesting thing, because she’s the Queen of Heaven. There are different little, little things like that, that give you a clue. Most profits, I have green, very rarely to use green for our investment for a priest there blues and reds and whites and blacks. But each color means something.
Matthew Dols 24:02
Okay, but we you just mentioned these cannons are these cannons written down somewhere or these like passed down, you know, teacher to student,
Timothy Dols 24:10
some people try to write them down in between the ninth and 12th century to try and keep the order so that everyone could read them. If you do an icon and no one knows the colors Dan for it was sort of useless. So the monks did write them down. But not all the monasteries agreed on which color meant what? So it and then it fell apart. And as I said in the 17th century, when people decided they liked they liked the icon with Like a Virgin Mary holding the baby in her lap with a nice picture, but they wanted it blue to go in the room which was decorated with blue curtains or something. And so the eurosonic School of icon writing, abandon the colors. They didn’t abandon the forms. However, there are certain things about angels and Human beings, all the icons of the Annunciation, for instance, there’s a very clear distinction in space between the space that Mary has, and the space of the angel has, usually, you’ll see a divider between the two. And the angel speaks to Mary and Mary listens. But there’s no they never touch each other. That’s just one of their little oddities.
Matthew Dols 25:25
Wouldn’t I remember a story, I don’t know, if you told it to me, or I learned it somewhere else that basically, like the icons were the sort of physical embodiment of the stories of the Bible. For the the illiterate, basically, they’re the people who couldn’t read back in, you know, ninth to third 16th century or whatever you were talking about. So the idea of being consistent makes sense, because that way, if somebody traveled from church to church or to, you know, move from location to location, that they could still visually understand the same story, because there was that consistency of tones, colors, motifs, and all this kind of stuff.
Timothy Dols 26:04
Yes, that’s exactly. And even the lines, the way the lines are done, and the balance of an icon, if it’s balanced properly, your eye will be taken to the holy person who’s involved. It’s not a random scene. It’s not realistic. It’s not a portrait, but your eye will be drawn by lines and color to the Holy One.
Matthew Dols 26:28
Right, but okay, but then I’m leaning to the point of like, Are there sort of endless icons that could be created? Or is it like, there are only so many stories in the Bible, and so therefore, there sort of only so many depictions of this they can ever be created.
Timothy Dols 26:42
The biblical ones are usually narratives, you’re telling a story that happened, I’m just finishing, I can now have the story of Jonah. So it shows Jonah standing on the shore and then getting the boat and then being thrown out of the boat swallowed by the fish and spit out on Nineveh. So the narrative is right there, you can, you can read it, the idea of doing modern icons has taken a different sense of bringing the ideas and images that have meaning for that person. For instance, there have been icons down of the papal figures of the past, and they will incorporate specific symbols of their time as the Bishop of Rome, or St. Nicholas has changed from being St. Nicholas to being more or less like Santa Claus. But, and that their fiachra is an interesting new one. fiachra was found, I don’t know where you find these things. But someone found fiachra by was a gardener. And he he always had a shovel. And he he was became what we call the patron saint of gardeners. Well, there is there’s your icon, you do this man standing there with a little shovel. And with little flowers and things around. That’s that sound I can develop in present day by bringing symbols in, that will tell you something about this individual who is through his work expressing the presence of God. Some of them are very good, some of them wrong. St. Francis, for instance, always shows Francis with birds and animals. That’s really not what St. Francis was working. St. Francis was a person who gave everything he had to the poor. So actually, an icon of Francis, in his brown robe will be showing the giving away of things, instead of an ornate gold church in the background, or some some valuable thing. He did not, he would, he would not have been that way. But it’s pretty to see a saint with some birds in his hand. So that’s
Matthew Dols 28:57
okay, a lot of artists work with iconic imagery, iconic sort of references, you know, like, there are many contemporary artists using gold and using even the canon, you know, so the colors and the poses and everything. So how do you feel as sort of a, as I’m gonna say, as a bit of a purist? How do you feel about like modern artists into reinterpreting through new mediums or new methods of expression, what I’m thinking, photography and digital and other kinds of ways of sort of reinventing this idea, like, what’s your input on that?
Timothy Dols 29:34
Well, I think color and shapes have an innate way of communicating and that needs to be used and in any way, whether it’s through photography or digital work, for instance, I was in in Romania and saw a church that was restored with frescoes. And instead of using the traditional colors that were used to. They did everything in Gray’s plaque, white, and red. And that was it a very dramatic use of color in his huge building. It was all all the frescoes were those colors, I thought was a very powerful piece. But very unusual. It wasn’t the same as looking at an icon for sure. But it certainly had power and made made the presence of God. All the more obvious.
Matthew Dols 30:30
Okay, wait within that there’s one thing, you only do two dimensional icons are icons, three? Or can they be three dimensional? Or is it only the two dimensional
Timothy Dols 30:41
icons are two dimensional, but they’re usually covered with a result or shirt to protect them. And the result was then elaborated with gems and jewels. I was going to ask you about this
Matthew Dols 30:56
stuff. Yeah,
Timothy Dols 30:56
they are. They’re amazing that museums love the results. But the icon writers became very lazy when the results took over. And they would only paint the face in the hands, and then put the result on, there was nothing behind them. So it was a defeating purpose, unfortunately, but it was they were decorative. And then a lot of people made a lot of money on it. But that’s not what an icon is all about.
Matthew Dols 31:22
Okay, which leads to the great question of like, the sales versus, you know, teaching like, okay, you’re my father. So I know probably a little bit more inside baseball here about you than a lot of people. But you you’re not a fan of the idea of basically commercializing or monetizing your creative expressions, I can call your artwork, you would you like from our conversations, you would rather try to make some income off of teaching other people how to do this, rather than just selling an icon.
Timothy Dols 31:56
Right? I had the choice when I was leaving college, to go to seminary, or to go to a museum and become a course of concert worship. And when I realized that the concert worship was sound, it sounds very nice. And be nice to be a curator, something that I found that was really the person who raised money for an institution. And you learned all the historical facts about things, and could date furniture, and was all very fascinating. But I thought, that’s not really what I want to do. And I had a terrible time selling any of my work at that time. Because my art professor used to say, always sell it at a price that when you when it’s gone, you still feel alright. So it sort of pays for losing something you really love, as well, that that’s, that’s a sort of an interesting half way to do things, I wouldn’t want to have to live that way. So I went to seminary instead of the art artwork. I think even now that I wonder if I should have gone and taken that course, it would be much more lucrative in terms of the financial, but I think teaching, I can honestly, I’ve never had I used I used iconography the college students here at UNC, I just gave them a little board seven by seven inches. And waist and we did the face of Christ is really called the Holy Face, not made with human hands. And I taught them the rudimentary parts of what an icon was, at, I have never, I think in my work with colleges, I’ve never seen a group actually become aware of something different. And another way of expressing so quickly, is to participate in doing an icon. And each icon was different. They all were different, because people see things differently. That’s that has. That’s the root of it. Actually, I taught a course in one little Washington, North Carolina Parish, and this woman drew the image on the board. And I looked at it, it looked nothing like the image that I had on my board. So I stopped the class. And I asked her, I said, Is that what you see there? Just the Oh, yes, it’s just right. And I thought, well, you see something that I don’t see, or I see something you don’t see. But in a way, that’s your icon. So I encourage you to continue doing it the way she saw it ended. It ended up being a very lovely icon. But it was not, shall we say authentic and accurate reproduction of a seven century icon, but it certainly was hers. And teaching also, I had a class one time that one one student, a woman who came and I had just introduced them to the class. We were going to be doing this icon and I said we were doing the face of Jesus and was it a little bit of silence. She didn’t say much. And the next day, she started working by Wednesday. We were interviewed by newspaper at the local newspaper, and she listened to her interview. And she said, Oh, yes. She drove all the way from Georgia, all the way up to Highlands. And she was thinking about what’s saying, what woman’s saying she was going to do an icon. And when she arrived, and I told her, she was doing the face of Jesus, she suddenly panic. She said, I gave up Jesus a long time ago. And I thought, I had no idea all this turmoil was going on right there in my little class. But she went ahead and did the face of Jesus. And afterward, after the week was over, and she finished her icon. She said, she appreciated being faced with something she really hadn’t faced for years. And that had brought her to a different place. And I think that’s what teaching of icon writing is really all about. You see differently. You’re brought to deal with things you may not want to deal with. Everyone says, you have to be a really good artist. And no, you just have to be willing to try and reproduce someone’s image of God’s presence. It’s very difficult. What? Okay, which
Matthew Dols 36:15
lends to the question for me have to be an icon writer, Huggy ographers? Because I know you love that title. The the does one have to be religious? Like, do you have to believe in what you’re drawing? Okay, that was easy.
Timothy Dols 36:31
I think it’s a reading of the holy if you don’t believe in the Holy, I’m not sure what you’re writing. I don’t think it has to be Orthodox Christianity, in the sense of you believe all the Creed’s and all the different things, and all the canons and laws of the church. But did you have some sense, some theological sense in your life, a relationship of the holy and the human? It’s pulling together parts of what I believe are reality in a moment. And then once icons done, I always get the feeling once I finish it, and look at our eyes look at and say, did I do that? It’s creating something that you had no idea that you could do. And in a way, I would say, from my perspective, I didn’t do it. I was only responding to a spirit that was embedded by the the ancient fathers, and through the centuries has come down to us now. I wish we could recover more of that. But that’s
Matthew Dols 37:35
all right. No, but how did how do you feel about icons? Okay, well, I guess the first question would be, where should an icon be? And how do you feel about the fact that a lot of bad ones that probably were written digitally in churches have now ended up in museums and private collections and things like this? Like, is there a perfect place where they should be? And how do you feel about them not being in that perfect place? Probably
Timothy Dols 38:04
a perfect place. Yeah, it is, on the iconic faces, the wall of icons in a church. But since reformation, icons have not been favored in the church. But I think what happens when an icon becomes an artifact, it loses its power. And that goes to the museum, which is nice people read the date and all that. That’s, that’s nice. But that’s not what an icon is for an icon is suppose to help you help you see something more now. One of the, like, where do you put an icon, I had a student who worked for IRS. She was one of the big mucky walks in IRS in Washington, DC. And she just when it came time for income tax in her office was a just a very hectic and wild place. And she was the one in charge. And she said she didn’t know what to do. She was at her wit’s end. And I gave her an icon of Christ child. And I said, just put this in your desk drawer. And when things get really bad, open your store, and just sit and look at it for a few minutes and then put it back. She’s like, well, that’s silly, but she did it. And weeks later, she said, Can I keep the eye? I said, why would you want to do that? She said, because it worked. I thought, well, it’s not supposed to be magical or anything. But what it does, it helps you move spiritually from where you are, to where you might be, if you understand the presence of God, even in the IRS. And so I know it works. Some people live on their walls and put candles around them and do you think I don’t think they’re to be held up and worshiped? I think they’re to be used to help people worship The eye kind of spaces in Orthodox Church is a wall of icons. And we say, as a wall, it blanks out the Holy of Holies. Behind that ball is the altar and where the priest celebrates communion. But for an orthodox person, the wall with all the icons actually helps you see the Holy of Holies behind it. So the wall helps you see behind it. Whereas a Western person, a wall makes it so you can’t see behind it. It’s a whole different way of thinking is, I always say it’s something like the Japanese idea of spirituality to watch a stone grow. That to us is just in the Western world, like you’re really not talking logical. That’s right, we’re not talking logical. Alright.
Matthew Dols 40:50
So when it comes to the production, you early on, you talked about, like, using the certain materials, and all this kind of stuff, like, how important is the purity of that, because keep in mind, my perspective on icons, more or less comes from you, because you’re the prominent part in my life that sort of discusses in where I get my knowledge about icons. But there are many other people that make icons, and they use all kinds of different materials would be at the wood, to the jesso, to the grinding your own pigments, all those kinds of is that important in the actual experience for the viewer? Or is it more about the process of the creating,
Timothy Dols 41:31
alright, think the way it is done, becomes part of the expression of the icon itself. I mean, I’ve seen many icons, that paper icon with a laminate over it, and then they sell them for, you know, 15 to $20. And people buy them for souvenirs, that’s nice. And it’s a souvenir. That is not, that’s not really what an icon is. They want to use oil paintings, or they fast drying stuff they use. Now, that’s not an icon. That’s a picture. That’s a painting. When I was in, in Europe, one time I con studio, this gentleman was was painting an icon. And it was really a very beautiful piece. And he was doing it. So it would be finished in about three hours. And then he could sell it. And I thought that’s misses the whole point. Because each layer of an icon has to be done very carefully. You start with a background, with a darkness, you come forward with the light, you carefully, depending whether you ignore North grad school, or, or the or at some other schools of icon, right, how you outline them, or highlight them. Greek icons, for instance, there is a break between the gold and the individual in the icon, they maybe put their fingers through it or an angel’s wing hangs over. There’s a breakthrough from the holy into this world, somewhere in the Eastern Orthodox icon. Now the Greek icon is always self contained. But that has to do with the Greek mindset, and the philosophy of order and containment. So if you see an icon and the hand of the figure goes over the line from the goal out into the border, then it’s not Greek, it’s it’s something else, probably Russian, those are ways that people tried to express in very simple, and they’re not not offending, but they’re just saying, This is what we believe. We believe in the transcendence of God, that God does come into this world. And so the Eastern Orthodox Church tries to have icons, where they break through.
Matthew Dols 43:44
Okay, so what do you think about the nature of the fact that like, these days, we’re talking now contemporary art, and an artifact even, which is what your references are, like, once they’re taken out of the church? Is that like, how do you feel about them being sold on like auctions? And again, again, being put in museums and things like this, like, does this still feel sort of pure to you? Or does it feel like it’s just, you know, taken away from it?
Timothy Dols 44:11
Well, it’s a shame because I don’t know how you put a monetary value on a religious item. When I started, I had a price of like, $350 for this seven by seven inch icon. And then I said, you can buy it for $350, I will have done it, or you can come do it. And I’ll charge you $350 for the course. But then you have your icon of the same thing. It’ll probably be better, because it’s yours. Now, now, where’s the money in that? It It means that the value of the icon becomes the work that’s done not in just some arbitrary value because someone thinks it’s really important, historical, or unique. There are some icons Unfortunately, the Roman Catholic Church has said that the, the only iconographer, they recognize would have been the one who did the Trinity, which is alright. But I don’t think identifying an iconographer is of any value, who did the work is, is not important. It’s what the work is of. It’s someone’s interpretation of a biblical story, or biblical person, or a person who has experienced God, ever since. Since canon, the Bible is sort of being wrapped up, more or less all the data revealed there was a revision I just read the other day, it was done in 1998. And I thought you’re still translating the Bible. But whatever you use, since then, there have been events that should be put on icons. Mother Teresa was a good one. Her being able to say to people, she was not there to heal them and sense of physical, but that they could die with dignity and in peace. As human beings, that kind of quality can be expressed, I think, in the lines and colors and, and figures that I can write, I can do rather than a portraiture. Yeah, but I don’t want to put money on it, how much? How much does that cost? I, I have no idea. I saw I said, Well, whatever I can get person to pay for it. That’s all charged word. And one person said, I can never lower the prices of my icons. And I, I got, I’m not sure what that’s all about. I
Matthew Dols 46:32
guess. That’s why I’m not in the business. Well, that was gonna be sort of my next question is like you have actively stayed away from the sort of the business side and the the marketing and the publicity side of the arts world. Like I remember, as a kid used to keep telling me like, being creative is great. But being creative for money is not a great way to live. So the So what, you know what? I guess the question would be sort of like, Where did you get this sort of position of not wanting to engage in the arts, we’ll call the art market, maybe?
Timothy Dols 47:07
I’m not sure. I guess, it’s kind of got to have had its, its beginning. In college, when I was so called majoring in art. This was a there was no such thing as an art major at Washington, Lee University when I was there, but I created it. And that was one of the beauties of a small college. If I could get to two other students to do it with me, the professors would give me the course. So I got I got a lot of people to do a lot of things. And I learned how to do Engraving and Printing and silk screening. And cover plates are always fun to cut with the acid, and then portraiture and in oils, and learning, many, many different ways of work. But we never talked about selling, and what you did, you would sell your work. It was yours, then, but in the midst of that I entered some things in an art show. And then some people want to buy some. And then I was that was when it started. You also what do I charge?
Matthew Dols 48:14
It’s the endless question to all artists. Yeah. And I
Timothy Dols 48:18
and I thought it audit in a way it all depended upon when I thought it was worth and then also when I thought the person could pay and without making it they give up eating for a month or something. Um, but somebody who has so much money it doesn’t make any difference. And that’s what’s what’s happened to a lot of art people with with more money than they really need. I just sort of buy art as if it’s a little thing. always buy some art. Let’s go out and have a big dinner Let’s help party is buy a car. And they become items that are dispensable and they can be bartered with and played with. That’s not art, tourism. I think art is far, far more personal. And more and if you don’t mind my saying so more precious than all the other things. And so I treasure them. Like there’s some icons, I could never so I could never argue will not part with what ones that you did. Yes. Yes. Why? Well, one of them is because my teacher iryna helped me do it. And I know, I know the parts of the icon that she helped me do. This is St. George, john, St. JOHN the evangelist. And there are parts that she did. And I don’t tell people which parts she did because they all look so good. I did part of it. And we had it was I kind of came out of discussion. And what some people consider a mistake. There’s some errors in the way that icon was done. But that that brings back a whole relationship with a teacher who, who was just an amazing iconographer. She still is. She has a quality, she can take a brush, and that brush will do things you’ve never seen before. me.
Matthew Dols 50:17
I remember you always telling me stories about Washington Lee and all the different professors. You had some of the great stories which I then have instigated in or implemented in my teaching methodology, like who the great stories of I believe it was Professor Junkin, doing a saying, like, if you, Pat, if you do what I asked if you get a C, you do more than what I asked you, you get a B, and if you can teach the course you get an A.
Timothy Dols 50:43
Yeah, I was one of them. Yeah, they were all sorts of interesting little things like that. The teachers did, but that’s because it was a university where the teachers went down Dr. Junkin, the same person always said, I would love to have a good relationship, you come halfway, I’ll meet you. But you have to come the halfway up, a relationship doesn’t start, because you sit in hope. Absolutely. You have to go halfway, and the teacher meets you halfway. And then I had a teacher who used to, we handed in paper every week, said, professor who did sociology. And each week we handed a paper. And by the next class, which was up two days later, he would hand the paper back, and he’d written more than you wrote, in commented, and started sort of a dialogue with every student on their papers. That is really what teaching is all about. And so I tried that when I was at Cape Fear Community College. And I have students write papers every every day, every week. And I’d write back to them. Some of them didn’t understand it, which was fine. And they thought, now what I were interested in was the grade. And I said that, that as far as I was concerned, the grading was the same way. If you do, if you do, you just attend and stay awake, most of the time, you get to see that we used to call the gentlemen See, if you did a little bit more, you could get a B. And if you could enter into this dialogue with me, and help me learn, as you learn, then you get some the students are very happy with that some of them did not like it. But
Matthew Dols 52:23
now as a teacher, I wonder whether that’s like a new thing like is that Arjun then like, wow, I guess I’m younger than my generation. But like, Is it the Is it the newer generation that is less interested in learning and more interested in grading? Absolutely. Because grading grading is, is the way that people judge people now?
Timothy Dols 52:41
Yeah. Well, so what grades did you get in seminary grades that I get in seminary, I probably hopefully, I think I got all A’s, B’s, and C’s. But that was because I was married 10 days before going to seminary. And I had more important things to do, than studying all the things that professors gave me. And so it was a different thing. I had a friend, who if he didn’t get an A, he was distraught. And I said, Well, if you go to a parish, to be their parish priest, or they’re gonna ask the grace of your classes in seminary, he said, Well, they might I say, Well, if a parish asks for my grades, that’s not where I’m going. Their values are different. And nothing has happened. We’ve reduced people to a grading system, which is not very consistent,
Matthew Dols 53:29
by the way. It’s true. Yes. They try to do at the government’s try to enforce like rubrics is and all kinds of silly things to make it consistent. But it’s so subjective, like, there’s no way and, and like I’ve been in, I’ve been in the academic world and being an artist for 20 some odd years now. And not a single person has ever asked me my grade point average, even in academia, they’ve never asked of me, they just wanted to know if you graduated, and see examples of your work. So like, the the I wish that the emphasis was more on quality than some random rubric that is arbitrarily given kind of a grade, like, in a certain way. And I sort of, again, envy like the the position you have, where you teach courses, sort of on your own time and your own thing, and you’re not associated with any sort of schools or anything like this. So there’s no grades, they just do it. And then you go, and they’re happy. Done. They learned. That’s a really envious position.
Timothy Dols 54:32
The people who do my class, find that that salary for two hours is a time that’s different from any other time of their their week. And I’ve one woman who has been doing this now, for 13 years. I keep thinking, how many icons does she have to do? But she said, That’s not the point and she gives them the way she gives him to her church or to friends. And she just is delightful when she comes And she, she gets her older work, they’re stuffed in front of her to do her work. And she’s, we say our prayer, and she just goes to work is not a great, I wish I would say she’s not a great artist, but she certainly does her best to reproduce from the church fathers, what she sees. And she had some interesting problems. The we have fun with her because she’s not too self conscious in that she did a an icon about Elijah’s ascendancy into heaven with a chariot, and she had some eight horses. But she had like 20 legs, and we’d send you there are too many legs for your horses. So she, she just laughed and said, Well, we just get rid of a few legs. And I thought, well, that’s one way of doing an icon. But I thought we just copy what was there. And of course, it worked out. And it was really looking at the old icon, but it depends on each student, each student has their own way of approaching it, everyone comes. And I found out that most students come, they will do what I tell them to for the first icon. And after that they have an icon they want to do. And it’s hard. Because a lot of people, when I do an icon, it’s actually a painting. And transferring from one medium to another is not to say it’s impossible, and you can’t do it. You can try and comes out with a beautiful product, but it’s not the same. I have a woman who is now doing an icon of a Leonardo painting. And I said, you know, you will never have an icon that looks like an Leonardo painting. One. Leonardo was doing realism. We’re doing idealism. And we’re doing we’re doing symbols, not perfection. One One student asked me once, if you could put some rouge in the Virgin Mary’s cheeks? I said, Well, no, you can’t. Because it’s not a person. It’s it’s an icon.
Matthew Dols 57:06
Okay, wait, you just used words symbol and representation? So it to a certain extent, like is metaphor is that too far of a word? So that is an icon meant to be a symbol, but not a metaphor?
Timothy Dols 57:21
Yes. Okay. All right. I think metaphors too, too technical, I think symbol union idea of symbolism, with the wonderful symbols that you came up with, that helped us understand how we connect as human beings through symbols. And those are the symbols that are are really important. And metaphor. metaphors are fun, but I don’t know assemblies are fun to open. Okay,
Matthew Dols 57:51
just asking. last little bit here. Okay. Um, I guess the question, because there are sort of a limited scope of icons that exists in the world, what keeps you motivated to continue to do them, I would imagine at some point, you’re going to run out of ones you can do, because I’ve already seen you do copies of the same ones over and over a few times,
Timothy Dols 58:17
while doing it, I can’t do one and then you like it, and you want to improve it, you have to do it all over again. You can’t just sort of fix it. And so that’s why I’ve done there. The transfiguration. I think I’ve done four times, some of which were, some were sold, some are given as gifts, and one stays with me. So I don’t think there’s a limit to it. And just the number of books that I have on iconography, just show me that there’s no limit. I have limited myself in some ways, because I don’t like doing icons of what should we say, sort of religious rituals. There was one idea of the the gathering of the Nicene Council, the Council of Nicea under Constantine,
Matthew Dols 59:11
but that’s not the Bible.
Timothy Dols 59:13
No, no, it’s not. But it’s an interesting icon. And it’s an interesting moment in in church history. And I did it, and it was sort of fun to do. But I didn’t I don’t, I don’t think that has much to it as a religious figure who did some writings or did some, I mean, even Irenaeus, or, or some of the early church fathers, the Desert Fathers, the and even people. I think that someday there’ll be an icon for Henry now and, and people like that, who spoke of in a language that was so simple, and so easy, but he also understood the limits of teaching and spirituality, aloneness, and solitude and the difference of these things. And, and he did it barn words. And I think I try and do it with the symbols of the church.
Matthew Dols 1:00:07
Speaking of that, like now that I think about it, and I’m sort of reflecting on in this conversation is that I’ve never seen the crucifixion I’ve never seen the, the the. Okay, fine, yucky. There’s the crucifix I’ve never seen. I’ve never seen the the Last Supper, I’m thinking like the more broad, more cross cultural imagery, like the very Christian imagery, I think is are those not as frequently in icons, or are you just choosing not to do them,
Timothy Dols 1:00:45
I just choose not to do some of the Last Supper, I think it’s been done, or it’s the sort of a fresco and it’s beautiful, I don’t need to do that. I like to pick ones that are going to say something that I think the people today need to hear. One I had fun with is over there on the walls. The adoration, actually is the presentation of the gifts of the Magi to the Virgin Mary, and to the baby Jesus. And I found this in the border of a large icon. It wasn’t the icon itself, it was the border. And I found it, I think it’s one of the more powerful pieces of showing what adoration maybe about these strange looking men, with some of them having crowns, I’m not presenting gifts that we don’t understand. But the colors and the way, the thing is, is centered and focused on on the Christ child, without actually making the right child, the center is part of what I think people need to hear. So I use that for, for for Christmas, rather than the one in Bethlehem. And we’re always in a cave or an
Matthew Dols 1:01:56
activity scene I’ve never seen in the 70s into and
Timothy Dols 1:01:59
they’re terrible. Because people didn’t know what to say made a narrative of it. And we’ve got to remember, as Christians, the birth of Jesus is not important to the early Christians. By even by the ninth century, birth of Jesus was not important. Christmas became important only later, when people want to know how to get here. For centuries, that was not the issue. century was the question really, essentially, was, who is he? And what’s he doing? And what are we supposed to do? Not how the editor, but then when there’s things shifted, and the whole concept, what’s the center of the world anyway. And then he may put it into a narrative. And the narrative is sort of fun, but it’s not it doesn’t have it. I see going to Bethlehem and seeing what people have done to the church there where Jesus was supposedly born. I always tell the story that I was there with a group of clergy one time, and is one clergyman, the group of 90, who kept asking the dumbest questions everywhere we went. And finally we got to Bethlehem. And he looked at the center of where Jesus was. And he turned he said, to the group, he said, Well, this isn’t where Jesus was born. I thought, Oh, he’s finally understanding that this is a symbol of wedges. And I said, I shouldn’t have said, but I did. How did you get to that? He said, Oh, well look around. They couldn’t have been born because the the cows and the animals were slipped on the marble. Yeah. Yep, that’s what we have to put up with. But so I don’t so I don’t have pictures of that I, I think are over done. The Annunciation is one that I tried to work on for about 10 years. I tried to do it in that situation. But I realized that every church I went into in Europe, and ever almost everywhere I went frescoes, mosaics, icons, there was always an association. I thought, I think I said for time, and most people don’t understand anyway, angels don’t talk to people that way. And a little girl becoming pregnant without anything else. It just doesn’t work. So let’s, let’s not do that one. So I use I use a lot of the other things I found the Old Testament prophets are fun to do.
Matthew Dols 1:04:20
I’m sure they have the best wardrobe to paint. Yes, they do. Now, I’ve asked you this, privately, but I’m gonna ask you on podcast also here, which is why have you not chosen to sort of interpret or which create contemporary versions of this because I know you of course, you’re my father, I know you very well. But you’re very creative. You also have your own sort of interpretation of things. You have this amazing wealth of knowledge and skills from your practice of icon writing. What has Is there something standing in the way of the the idea of like producing your own sort of contemporary interpretation? Have this or is it that you just are happy with what you’re doing? No need to do that
Timothy Dols 1:05:06
my concept of icon writing, being a hog er, a writer of the holy, the holy, as universally accepted, is very hard to find. But in the old icon writers, there was a universality about them. And I like I’m trying to recapture those images today, and be part of that, so that what I write is not something that I dreamt up or thought about, but that I’m bringing something from centuries ago, and bringing it into this world redoing it, and presenting it again and say, Did you ever see this before?
Matthew Dols 1:05:52
Right, okay. But my point in that is that these are very old. And, and to a certain extent, at this point, a lot of people so I mean, I’m going with the idea of the general average person on in the world, so not educated, not necessarily even religious. And as you know, as average person, they’ll just look at that and say, Oh, that’s old. And then they don’t connect with it in any way. They don’t, they don’t feel some engagement with it, other than as a historical elements, whatever, or even just old. So my, my thing, you know, I would be very interested to see if you could find some way to take these two very traditional ideas, and the canons and the colors and the techniques and make it so that people today would be able to connect with it in a in a more active way. That’s my push to try and make you do something new.
Timothy Dols 1:06:45
Well, yeah, I don’t know. All right, I don’t find that the contemporary world, as exciting as the old world, in how they, they represented things. Now, the one icon, which is the one I always use, the first one was, the legend is it was done by St. Luke, the Holy Face, not made with human hands, is really unusual, because it’s just a face, there’s no clothing, there’s no, there’s nothing except a face. And it’s the face of of Christ. I think it has a quality that no other no other work does. I mean, in other words, he’s looking at the vastness of the other figures, with the roads that where they’re standing, what they’re doing, who’s nailed to a cross, whether the cross is upside down, or all this wonderful little while Peter was supposed to, okay. The angel gabriel are aware, all these wonderful things that have lost their beautiful wings, and
Matthew Dols 1:07:45
dragons.
Timothy Dols 1:07:46
Yeah, you have all sorts of stuff. I think that in a funny way, that face of Christ is a simplicity of what I think that the gospel has to get back to. And that is very simple sense that God, the Holy witch, gold symbol, is made part of this world, through an image of a person. So there’s a person, and a spirit, all involved in that icon. And as your people into that new way of thinking, I’m not sure that many people were going to do that most people see as idolatry. And if you if you do make it the end, and Beall, it is idolatry, and therefore needs to be destroyed, but I don’t think that’s what is intended. The church has gone two ways on it. I’m not going to get into that battle, I, I sort of feel like this is a way that we as as Christians can share with others. what we think is, is God’s presence, through the Old Testament, and through the New Testament, and through some of the contemporary stuff. I mean, I think that face of Jesus is very contemporary, since my theology says that God is not in time in the time space continuum, then that takes me out of the time space continuum. And that’s hard to do.
Matthew Dols 1:09:18
Alright, any advice that you might have for any sort of future icon writers, future creative people from your years of experience and knowledge?
Timothy Dols 1:09:27
I think the trying icon writing with a discipline that I use, from the ninth to 12th century is a wonderful, spiritual discipline. Doesn’t sound like a spiritual discipline sounds like a technical discipline. But it sounds like
Matthew Dols 1:09:42
being a painter in a studio. Right? Yeah. But it’s more than that. Because when you start, you’re given limits, and then you’re, then you’re told how to do it and, and but you don’t like it and you’re like, why am I doing all these lines and what I’m doing it in black and white, and then I do it and then I engrave this piece of wood. And then why am I doing all this? Next there’s just relax. It’s, it’ll, it’ll come, and then you put the paint on, and the paint will sit. And when you put other paint on top of, at least with tempera, it changes. And, and when when, finally, when you’re doing and I got the whiteboard gets covered with paint, and the moment that happens, all the colors change, and you can’t, I can’t tell you that you can say, Oh, yeah, sure. That’s right. Now, I think you have to experience that. I’ve got some icon writers now work with me, who, when it finally like finally happens, they go, Oh, finally, no more white. And, and then it changes everything. And then you say, Well, you know, that makes color, a relative thing equal how much other things are relative. And that started building up from it. It’s an experience and I think discipline, I have one priest who started an icon with me, I think about four years ago, he’s never finished it. And I keep thinking that I feel that there’s something wrong. And then I found out there is something wrong, this man’s life is a mess. He is an alcoholic, he has been divorced, he’s going through all sorts of therapy. It’s just absolutely endless. The problem is, this man is no wonder you can’t finish an icon. He can’t finish anything. And, and it became very clear. And so the part of the part of the person becomes part of the process of icon writing. Some people find solace in it, some people find challenge. And one person I had did an icon it was it was okay. It was nicely done. It was not as a wonderful work. But it was it was good. And when she finished, she said, You know, I’m not gonna do any more. That’s it. Okay. Is there a reason? She said, Well, I don’t know of anybody else who wants one. So what she was doing was doing it for someone else. I could have though I didn’t say you want to do one for yourself. Because she wasn’t at the place where she could do that. All she could think about was doing for these other people. That’s what I think icon writing is all about. Now, you got to remember I couldn’t writing in this tradition was always done by a priest and always, always written by men, obviously. It my inviting women to do it. And I also have women priests doing it, which is outrageous in terms of the tradition, the church, but that’s okay. I keep saying I’m not sure what that you’ve really understood it. Unless you’re welcome all people, the sense of inclusion is in doing the work also. I’ve had a wonderful time people say, I don’t know whether I should take the course or not. So why did you pray about it? And now Well, I don’t have time I said, Well, if God didn’t give you time to do it, don’t do it. If God gave you the time, and tells you to do it, do it. Well, that’s people’s like, I don’t know what to do with that. That’s right. The icon writing is going to be a challenge where you do have to come every week for 10 weeks? No, you don’t have to know you don’t have to, I’m not going to be that way. You You come when you can. I mean, sometimes people can do them in the eight weeks, I think it’s quite adequate. But some take, you know, four or five months to do an icon as the same icon that I did an overnight basically, by although I can’t do it, I think the fastest I’ve ever done, I got to be five days. I managed, although it wasn’t dry when I finished but it was close enough. The use of that icon then becomes an issue. When you when you finish an ICA, what do you do with it? Or the when I taught up in in Highlands at the museum, they gave me a house to live in for the five days, six days or so. And what I did, I gave the owner of that house the icon. And I said you know I want to thank thank you that way of doing that is to give you this icon that we created. They just they didn’t know doing it. They thought that unbeli unbelievable. No, it didn’t fit the decor. But then again, it did. Well, I mean, that’s sort of the question is like in this day and age in contemporary like, I guess the question that I would wonder is, in your opinion, where if y columns are being made today, where should they be where you see them?
Timothy Dols 1:14:38
I just gave someone an icon and they said they put it inside their door, front door where the light comes in in the morning. And so when they sitting in the breakfast room, the light bounces off that they sit and they said you were there anybody else is not important but they see it and that brightness just is maximum day,
Matthew Dols 1:15:02
I would put it in the bathroom. Yeah. It’s a pleasure. It’s a place that I always see multiple times a day.
Timothy Dols 1:15:10
That’s probably unfortunate. I just don’t like people putting it like, well, I’ll put it over on the mantel. You know? I think that that sounds like, well, what what do you put on a mantle? You know, a status symbol? Yeah. If
Matthew Dols 1:15:27
something is something you’re showing off to somebody else.
Timothy Dols 1:15:30
Yeah, I had one person, buy one. And then he invited me to his home to show me what he did. He put it in a hallway leading to so the back of the house, so that anyone going to the back of the house, saw that icon. And he said, that’s what he wanted. It wasn’t for the living. It wasn’t the living room or the entrance with the kitchen. It was entering into the more familial part of the house bedrooms, and study, places like that. As you know, I’ve done a whole wall in my office. So I have my own kind of spaces. But it’s a nice reminder. a plumber did some work in my house, I was writing a check at my desk, and he came in and he looked at the wall, he said, Hmm, someone religious is here. I said, how’d you guess?
Matthew Dols 1:16:23
Yeah, it’s pretty obvious.
Timothy Dols 1:16:26
But in the way that I kind of stays served his purpose. I mean, that person was very aware there was something religious going on in here.
Matthew Dols 1:16:35
Pretty hard to miss. Yeah.
Timothy Dols 1:16:37
Well, that’s, that’s, well, I, I think that’s true. If it was like yesterday, second Sunday, an event. I took the icon of john the baptizer and put it up by the altar, because the gospel was about john the baptizer. Now people can listen to the lesson, and they can see him.
Matthew Dols 1:16:55
All right. Well, thanks.