https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=hzQkolwWkwE
So hello everybody I am delighted to be here with Aiden Hart. Aiden Hart is an iconographer, he is a writer. And for me it’s very personal because he’s also let’s say someone who came before me as an icon carver someone someone who represented icon carving to an Orthodox world that that had forgotten a little bit about that tradition. And so very early in my own career I reached out to Aiden you know for advice and for criticism. He was always very gracious to give it. But beyond that he has written several books on iconography I would say the Bible of iconography. And, and he’s also written about theory, he’s done so many things and so I’m very delighted and grateful to have him with me today. This is Jonathan Peugeot. Welcome to the symbolic world. Aiden thank you for coming to talk to us. Thank you Jonathan. Thank you for your honor of finally having time with you. I’ve known you so well to our correspondents here face to face virtually. Virtually exactly. Yeah several years ago I had the hope of, you know, going to England and studying with you and doing all that thing but you know then then reality of being with a family and trying to set up carving practice hits you very hard. But maybe tell people a little bit about your, your story because you’re in a way a precursor to many of us being some of you know one of after Spensky and that kind of very first seed of iconography you were one of the first people to plunge in completely into the world of icons of sacred art and representing it to the world so I want people to know a little bit about how you came to where you are. Thank you. I did my degree in English literature, and also mathematics. I’ve always loved the arts and the sciences and this actually played out quite well later on when I became an iconographer. And then I trained as a teacher, and left that quite quickly to follow my, my heart really be a sculptor. And I was in a high looking church so I was aware of the role of art in general, that in my sculpting or searching for ways of showing the inner as well as the outer I was interested in bringing together the spiritual and the material, and I was looking for I was interested in finding a way to do this and I came to some conclusions how to unite the two. And then a friend of mine in New Zealand I was raised in New Zealand, had just visited two orthodox monks in New Zealand one of whom was an iconographer. So I went and visited these monks and immediately I saw the icon, I realized that the icon had been doing for 2000 years almost what I’ve been trying to do in my own little sculpting work. Plus a lot more of course, and then I was really drawn to the monastic life and realized that behind the whole icon culture was a way of seeing a way of seeing the world where you’re seeing God. So to cut a long story short I became orthodox and ended up coming to England I was born in England, though raised in New Zealand so it wasn’t a problem settling here. And because I had been a sculptor before I became orthodox and actually started carving, and then my parish priest suggested I also start to learn to paint icons, and it all grew from there really. I was able to go full time pretty soon which allowed me to dedicate my whole life to iconography, which to me is a form of prayer as well as not just being an artist. I’ve always been interested in mission as well, about knowing God as well as I can but also communicating that to others and I noticed through the icon all sorts of doors open like I’ve given talks at the British Library and places like that where you could never be asked to talk about Christ but you couldn’t talk about icons, apart from talking about Christ in the secular setups everything just fell into place very nicely all these different parts of me that had been a little bit different orders naturally found together. And you also at the beginning of your work you also spent several years on my life those living as a monk for several years. Maybe tell us a bit about how that fit into your work as well. That’s right, I was very, I’d always been attracted to the monastic life even before I became orthodox. My original intention was to join the monks in New Zealand as a novice. They while I was overseas, they suggested I travel overseas a bit before returning to them things changed for them. They had to move into the city to look after parish. So I stayed in England, and there was another in the parish I was in, and so there are a lot of monastic services. And I really wanted to join a monastery in the English speaking world, but at that stage the door wasn’t open at St. Sophanie’s monastery. So, I thought well probably Athos is the only place so I went to Greece to study modern Greek first Bishop Callistos my spiritual father suggested that I studied the language first so I was taking one step at a time, and really intended to go to Athos slightly with a saddened heart because I really wanted to be in the English speaking world. So after studying for a year I went to run back to England to arrange my affairs and ended up staying with Father Barnabas the Welsh monk and joined Timberson novice. So I spent with that three years, and then I think he found it hard to have people with them he wanted people but being old and that he found it hard so the bishop said well it seems you’ve got to move on from there, and land was bought in England for me to be a hermit. So at that point my archbishop sent me to Mount Athos for training, not to stay there but for training before settling as a hermit here. So I was there about, I don’t know, just over a year and a half with my beloved abbot there, Father Veselius of Himbaventri, and then came back and lived as a hermit for about six years, and every year went back for about a month to Averon monastery, which was my monastery at Athos. So I lived there for six years. I would say living as a hermit in fact, as I say jokingly to people if you want to live a quiet life don’t be a hermit. People find out about these hermits on the hill, let’s go and visit them. So it’s a pretty tiring and social life sometimes. One of the things you, sorry. I was trying to think about some of the things you talked about in terms of wanting to be in the English speaking world and I think this is something which really characterizes your work as an iconographer is a desire to both meld into the universal tradition, you could say the universal imagery of iconography, but also try to adapt it to transform it or to connect it let’s say to the place where you are, let’s say the English speaking world, its own tradition and try to connect it to the world of iconography. I think that’s one of the most important aspects of your work and maybe tell people a little bit why you think that’s important to do. Yes, thank you. It’s true right from the beginning I thought well Christ was incarnate on earth, and not some kindness in the world in general, but the whole Christian life I think is is a extension of an incarnation so I’m British I’m not from from Greece. Greece is in many ways retained that icon tradition but I feel my job as a Christian is not just to introduce myself into Britain, but to resurrect the icon tradition of Britain. So I think it’s my theological but also pastoral I think people think that orthodoxy is an exotic import from Greece, then it’s not really reflecting life with Christ. I think it’s not really reflecting life with Christ, it’s a personal experience and I’m British I’m not Greek. I think it’s the logic is really important, and also historically. It’s always happened that the icon tradition has gradually expressed itself a unique way it always struck me how Russian Russian churches initially were quite by some time they had a rounded down, but then gradually they developed the onion dome. And so they used those practical reasons to shed the snow but partially they felt that that expressed their experience of God. More accurately than than around the dome. They extended the drum, they did all sorts of things so identified the orthodox that it’s Russian you wouldn’t get that in West Bank him. Fortunately in Britain, but we have a long tradition of of of early sacred art that is in the orthodox sort of ethos, the Romanesque in particular to my mind. So quite often if it’s appropriate, I’ve drawn on that so for example the church for my parents is. I’m from the seventh century, eighth century foundation, the church itself is about 13th 14th century. So when I first go these wall and drew heavily on some illuminated manuscripts from what’s called the various and him and gospel. And the pastiche wasn’t just a straight copy but it was clearly influenced by that so when people visit it, they realize actually this church is orthodox but it’s also British, you know the iconography reflects that. And what is your approach because I think this is my one of my big concerns is to create something which is both traditional completely traditional completely soaking in the language that has been given to us, but also like you said not a pastiche or not. A pastiche is a nostalgic piece of art and it seems difficult to find the line between the two but I’m wondering if if what is the approach that you have to be able to create something which is both traditional and authentic at the same time. I think it’s a challenge in some ways, we can say that the icon tradition has revived after the time of decadence you feel like both in Greece and Byzantium but I think we’re still incredibly immature as a sort of a orthodox iconographic culture that we don’t really understand I think the time is well enough to do this well, I think, people like yourself and the Orthodox Arts Journal are exactly on the right track. And we know what you’re trying to do, but I think it’s take a few decades for us to really understand this time as principles so as you say we’re living within the tradition. We’re not doing a pastiche, we’re doing something that’s authentic, but to do that, we need to not only just know and I hedge those timeless principles, and therefore what can be changed adapted, but we’ve got to be in it. So I think I feel myself I’m still learning a second language, you know it’s not my first language so I’m happy with some of the things I’ve done I’m so aware that I’m speaking a second language so I think the first thing is just to be intelligent, you know, I’m not really scared, not to think, oh yeah I’ve got to copy something from Moscow 15th century iconography if I do anything else I might get all decadent. Yeah for the rest of my life I’ll copy these. I made in Hagen do my own thing, you know that’s the other extreme, but both extremes I think are extremes. I use a lot of intelligence to sort of think well, you know, actually, what is the central and and what can I draw from my own culture that is usable I was talking to one of my students yesterday he’s not from Norway, and husband is an orthodox priest, I was thinking of doing a doctorate on how to develop say an icon screen appropriate for Norway drawn on the Norwegian folk tradition have amazing folk patterns they paint on the wooden churches and I’ve got the state churches. The stage as a stand probably doesn’t express the orthodox liturgy well enough but one can start with that and then adapt it. I think more and more people thinking like this, you know, we’re fully in the tradition, but lovely culture feel that a lot of needs to be redeemed and completed and show that you know crisis and kind of now in Norway or this one on Canada or US. Yeah, and I think this is what you said is, is very important because there’s a, we have a tendency to have a kind of duality, which is, on the one hand, we, we find people who are really attached to their culture almost like in a nationalistic sense and they feel like this is the thing they need to grab on to in order to to survive, you know, in this this chaotic world. And then the other extreme and then the other extreme we find are people who want to deny all particularities and see it as suspicious and see it as idolatrous and everything. And it seems like this breathing in and breathing out let’s say between how God is the source of our identity but that we have to be careful not to be attached to these secondary identities but see them through the lens of Christ, let’s say, and that’s when they their full color that’s when their, their true colors appear and their true value appears is when they’re submitted to something higher so many to something which is beyond it. And I know you’ve had some insights into that let’s say in terms of, in terms of iconography. And so, as I’m sorry I’m a bit selfish because I’m asking this in a way that just for me, you know, there is a temptation also this is a temptation that I have I don’t know if it’s a temptation or if it’s a, if it’s a temptation or if it’s an appropriate desire, because we live in a world where we have all these images, we can look we can go online we can find images from, you know, the catacombs to Russia to Greece and everything. It’s difficult not to have this mosaic in the back of our minds you know as we as we work. And so, and for myself also living in America, where we have this strange collage of culture so I’m French right my first language is French but I live in Canada and, you know, I live in America with all this English speaking world. And so there’s also in me at least there’s a desire to create something which is synthetic is the only way to say it which is particular but also draws not only from let’s say I would draw from the French Romanesque or from, but also kind of pulling in little threads from, from the Scandinavian world you know from even from Coptic icons and pulling them together to create something which is moving towards synthesis. So I don’t know if there’s something of that that you find that you find it’s a dangerous way of working or if you think that it has some value. That’s a really good, very important point you’re making Jonathan because I just most things a strength as a potential weakness. The fact is we do live in a world where all these different icon styles traditions are available and even opinions themselves on us whether or not we like to expose to all these things so it’s a fact, we can’t pretend that is not a fact so I think we’ve got to be real and think well this is going to affect us and that’s a good thing. So the next question is how to make it authentic. How to have it come within a living experience from within a living experience rather than just just be a gluing together arbitrarily. How to do that. I really think ultimately it’s only living the life of Christ and the church. So you’ve got that sort of music, we have that music of heaven in us. And it’s only why we’re making all these millions of decisions when you’re carving something painting something designing it. And so the choice we make. It’s got to consciously or unconsciously be decided the insight music within us that that that experience to the life of Christ and if it jars with that in a music thing now I’ll leave it aside, but if it corresponds with that, then we can use that element of Norway or I don’t think there’s any formula we can use. And I think it’s just living that life in the community of the church living a life of prayer. But in the end, liturgical arts got to support worship and awe and thankfulness and joy and humility and compunction. And as we experience that ourselves we’ll make the wrong decisions. So I think I think in summary, we do live in this postmodern age, we exposed all these things, and I think it’s only natural, whether or not we do it consciously unconsciously that what we make is going to be affected by that, but we’ve got to measure it against that experience of prayer, does it support it doesn’t support the right virtues or does it make his noisy inside and confuse us. I mean that brings me also to another thing that I’ve at least experienced in myself as I’m working because there is also a desire to be, you know, let’s say how can I say this there’s a desire to impress in the sense that we want, like I want to make the best image possible. And I’m always on a line between, you know, making something which is amazing. And I’m always saying to impress others and then saying to myself that I’m doing it for the glory of God. But it’s not always true right it’s not. Sometimes I just I just know that if I do it this way, it’s going to, it’s going to be, it’s going to be impressive. And for me at least you know in light of what you said I think I struggle with that quite a bit as well, trying to find the balance between being technically proficient and having something which kind of embodies this music or this kind of living music that you that you talk about. Yes, and this is one thing that Father Vassilius, the Albert of Aberdeen, taught me he had this lovely term this a perfect imperfection and the imperfect perfection. And there was a wonderful exhibition of Byzantine icons that came to the Royal Academy in England a while back. And in the very last room there are quite a few icons from Sinai, and the festival icons I remember in particular from about the 12th century. And the thing that really struck me is how free and messy they were. And at the same time incredibly beautiful and you get the impression that the person you painted was like a prophet and the word of God was in his soul and burning in his soul. And you just had to get it out. He wasn’t too bothered about, you know, putting a bitonard in that. It’s done with great skill, excellent skill, but they weren’t bothered about the little details the buildings were a bit wonky. The spirit come through, whereas I’ve seen a lot of icons that are made with consummate skill but somehow the skill encrusted the spirit didn’t embellish the spirit. So, I’m very interested in the approach of the Japanese traditional Chinese painters and I’ve done a few articles on elements of philosophy of the painting, especially from a book called the mustard seed garden book of painting. And one thing they say there is the different stages first is to gain great skill consummates, and the top thing is to discard skill and just express the, the, the lie that the inner essence of things, of course, the skill comes through. And it’s true, but it’s like your first language so you don’t have to think about grammar because it’s part of you. So I think a lot of us, I mean a lot of people around you don’t even have the skills, they’re just really bad, you paint that icons, then you get the next level, highly skilled but you’re way down by that skill. And then you get to the next level like Theo found the Greek is Chris goes, this is a prophet speaking the word of the Lord burns out as a burning bush you’re looking at, not a not a topiary bush or nice and good. So it’s that fire we’re trying to communicate. And you see I think, you know, I. There are some artists right now like that seem to have kind of this internal I’m thinking about court is of course but court is who has internalized the language so much know that like you said it’s not he’s not in the second language anymore it’s not something he’s learning to become his own inner grammar. And so, when he’s working. There’s, there’s both kind of this deep tradition of the church and there’s also an idiosyncratic aspect to it, which is just him just doing it. You know, you watch him draw something, and he just goes right in and there’s no sketch and there’s no measuring and it just goes straight. There is something about this Chinese approach where, you know, once the skill has been mastered and centered then there’s almost a There’s a capacity to just do without thinking without planning. And you almost, it’s almost it’s Sunday there’s something theological about this idea to that, that the idea of will or freedom we tend to think of it as deliberating. And it’s truly in this music, you know truly in this kind of this, this song that you have inside of you, there is no deliberation there’s just action there’s just this, you know, the straightforward manifestation let’s say of these higher things. And so is that the same time there must always be sobriety, and you must be listening more than speaking artistically because I’ve had the blessing of knowing some saints, St Piusius, a bit Father Perpilius, a bit St. Sophrony rather. And I think the greatest, they wouldn’t always answer immediately, you felt that there are tons of things they could say all of which would be true, technically, but they would listen, and then speak, and it was just precise it was just just the right thing that was said. I think you can get highly expressive by calligraphers, but to me, it’s too expressive. It’s a story about some, some highly educated people looking at a painting on the wall I think it was an icon but I don’t know what I can or was but how to say how live it was and how wonderful then a peasant lady was overhearing us and she said, I couldn’t have overhearing a conversation and may I say something to you? Of course, she said, I don’t think this is a good icon because it’s too alive. It’s too noisy, it’s too much full of itself. It’s like a charismatic person that swamps in your mouth. And you think, wow, what a charismatic person but it’s just that person, no one else is in the room. So that was interesting, that quietness. That’s amazing, like Theophon the Greek, you know, he could be highly expressive in his frescoes, but then you look at his panel paintings and he’s really quite gentle and quite highly worked there and he knows how to be appropriate in each situation. So I think it’s really, it’s sometimes difficult to get the balance but yeah there is this expressiveness but it should be quietness as well. Yeah, so you’re not aware of all of us artists are so free, you know, you’re talking about the art rather than the saints, you know, I want people to forget my icons. But if you’re talking about the same type of picture, you know, that’s the important thing, that’s when you know it’s worth it. No, I totally agree. I had the chance of having my first experience as a commission. You know, my bishop asked me to make a panegia for him and that was the first time I was getting a commission. I had no idea how to make miniatures. You know, I was just thrown into this and so I found someone, a Serbian carver that I had to exchange with and he guided me through making this little thing and I was so obsessed with the technical part of it, trying to get it right, trying to have it, you know, and he was Serbian, this iconographer, George Bielak. So he was ruthless with me. He was just ruthless. He kept insulting me as I was making the icon. It was wonderful. And so I worked on this, I made this thing, and I brought it to my bishop. And all I was thinking about was if I had done it properly and he took it, he unwrapped the little icon, and when he saw it, he crossed himself and he bowed. And then I was just, I was floored and I realized, okay, this has very little to do with me. Like, you know, I am a vehicle for something much bigger. And that’s when I knew I wanted to be an iconographer because I thought, you know, Picasso will sell his work for millions and millions of dollars, but no one will kiss his icons. No one will kiss his paintings. No one will venerate them. And the only thing I have to give up is the credit for that to happen. And I was like, okay, I’m willing to do that and just be, hopefully be as much as I can a vehicle for the saints that are being represented. But yeah, that was my first experience as a commission. And so I wanted to shift a little bit and talk a bit about culture because many of the people watching this are people who are just interested in culture where it’s going. One of the things that we have in common and that I’ve seen in your writing and in your work is a desire to not want to completely oppose the world of sacred art and the world of secular art of secular culture but rather see them as, let’s say, the sacred as the source of the secular culture and the sacred as something which can feed into other arts and become, you know, like a light for culture. And maybe I know people would love to hear you talk about that a little bit. Yes. Yes, it’s interesting when I was a sculptor in New Zealand before I became Orthodox I was looking for art that helped express this sense of otherness. I wanted people not to see a face that’s interested in faces primarily but I said where the spirit behind the face and Van Coozie, funny enough, as I was into quite sort of naturalistic sculpture, Van Coozie really seemed to be very profound, and I realized gradually that behind the incredibly refined work was actually the Orthodox alicity. He was actually a charger in the in the Orthodox choir, he’s Romanian and sort of rose out of the Romanian culture. And then you look at his Indus columns all these things were actually rooted in the liturgical culture the Indus column is inspired by Indus columns which were over gravestones in memory of people that’s like the soul was sent into heaven. And the other thing that got me on this track was the vision of Ezekiel where he has a vision of a temple, and an angel is showing him around, and then from underneath the altar of the temple runs a river and wherever the river goes it brings life. So I thought well, the worship of the church, the whole liturgical symphony if you like, is the source and then it’s not a fountain that goes up in the church and comes down again. It’s a river that flows out into the world and wherever it goes it brings life. So I thought well, if a culture is falling apart it’s because there’s worship is blocked, you know there’s no river flowing out. And then we go back to Bankesia, a lot of his aphorisms had to do with this he said, my studio in Paris is just an extension of the monastery and he names the monastery of his village in Romania. He talks about simplicity and complexity resolved. And he’s wonderful pearls of wisdom, sort of come out of the whole Orthodox culture. So, I think with a lot of scholars beginning to realize that early 20th century modernism, abstractionism actually had a religious inspiration. And then we look at Kandinsky, again actually he was Russian, a lot of his insight was from Orthodoxy. For him abstraction wasn’t to depart from reality, we tend to think of abstraction as departure from reality. For him it was to distill the essence, to abstract, to draw out the essence of something and depict it visually. And this is just what an icon does, you know you’re indicating the fire of God within. And then we look at the Kandinsky, he was the father of modern abstract art, convinced Kandinsky of the father of modern abstract painting. And these came out of religious roots. Then all that was forgotten and that would be to sort of play around with this abstraction, they’d actually forget what they’re trying to do. And that’s what they’re trying to do, to abstract and reveal the invisible. So I think liturgical art, unfortunately there are a lot of zealot orthodoxies that write off any other art, but I think healthy art in the world that isn’t liturgical but feeds the soul, like Dostoevsky’s writing I think of his and his category. I’ve dubbed this threshold art, it can help to bring us to the threshold of the church. In fact, the man who baptized me, Father Ambrose in New Zealand, he came to Christ through Dostoevsky, he was studying Russian literature. So he sort of wasn’t ready to go into the church in the fullness but he touched the hem of Christ’s garment, reading Dostoevsky and then went further and then looked up and there was Christ looking at him. So how, I’m curious to see, because I think a lot of people will see that in principle, let’s say we’ll see that in principle. And so are there ways that you’re seeing this happen today, are there some places or some areas some art or some literature that you feel that you’re, or ways in which iconographers are able to maybe help or feed into this, because I know a lot of people have that desire and we see it like Dostoevsky is of course an example but very few of us are Dostoevsky, sadly. Do you see places in the world where this connection can happen? Of course, the question, I don’t know about places but it’s more international communities like I think Orthodox Arts Journal is really important because it’s trying to work toward a fresh authentic understanding of tradition, but it’s not exclusive in the sense that it has this sort of openness to liturgical art being 11 to inspire healthy secular art in a positive sense in the world, what I might call gallery art or threshold art. I think not so much places, it’s sort of places of culture of thinking, of a way of thinking, then the individuals who can be inspiring is a thing called the Orthodox Arts Festival which just went online briefly and so they’ve got a category for iconography, a category for also just writing, you know, so I think there are some writers there who are doing short stories. I think there are online experimental bodies as it were for people to try things out and get honest feedback from other people and it’s all Orthodox Arts Journal has been, you know, there’s openness for genuine professional caring response to people so you can iron sharpens iron. I always have this long term dream of a liturgical art center where you’re training people in liturgical art, but also we have conferences and meetings for those who feel perhaps they’re not called to be liturgical artists but you know perhaps they’re composers like John Tavern, I knew you said John Tavern very well. He’s got a liturgical music on the hold, sometimes he got it right, but his role was actually to be in the world, and as it were be like a horse of Troy sort of smuggle the sacred and the profound into the world. So that’s been my sort of dream I don’t think it happened my own lifetime I’ve worked with Prince Charles a bit and trying to have something happen and my my political art. Three year part time course as part of that, but I just love to have a center where these are buzzed where people can come and share ideas but I’ve a French cafe was doing the 20th century we don’t discuss ideas but a center where there is a church where the different series liturgical art training programs apprenticeships, but also we have artists who are not as orthodox but Christians who feel that their role is in the world. I think this I think this idea has been buzzing around now for 10 years you know and I think that it’s slowly starting to show fruits, you know in the US, Andrew Gould is also working on something similar that the Antiochians here have this, these ideas and so I think we just need to be patient and slowly work towards something like that happening you know. People have also talked about here we know people talk a lot about Terrence Malick as a place also where this type of where there’s in with his recent movie a hidden life where you really get this, this desire to create. I don’t know to visually show in a movie a, a Christian experience, you know, so I think I think that there are definitely places where, where this is happening now, I guess I’m going to turn the tables a little bit and ask you. There’s a very experimental iconography going on right now and so on the one hand we have this sense that that liturgical art and the power of our traditions can infuse popular culture, but there’s also the things happening both ways and so I obviously I don’t want to name this, it’s important to I want to avoid polemics, but do you, I’ve seen a lot of icons that present themselves icons but go very far in integrating either modernist or even postmodern aesthetics, you know, effect I would call it something like that and so do you feel like sometimes that can also go too far or do you see it as sometimes I see it as a laboratory like this is bubbling on the edges, and it’s not going to continue it’s just going to be idiosyncratic but a little bit of it will enter into a tradition and follow the kind of entry into the stream, but I don’t know if you have some perceptions about that type of work happening. Yeah, it’s a very important point to raise it on the phone I think the two sides to it I think there needs to be a certain freedom and fairness and experimenting. It depends partially on what spirit that experimenting is done, you know, is it to show off my ego, or my genuine trying to make the liturgical art iconography, composing, whatever it is that helps people get closer to Christ. Because I wanted to be authentic, you know, I’ve got to try these two different things so that’s fine, that’s fine I think life in Christ shouldn’t be dominated by fear. And you throw these things out there and if they’re not quite right they’ll just die a natural death so I think there is a part for certain, a place of certain experimentation. On the other hand, I think you get to a certain point, we experimenting with things that you’re playing with you’re playing with fire, you know, experiment as an artist. Don’t put it in front of people saying no you try to play with this, you know, so I think, I think some iconography there I just think it’s just too great. I appreciate it as art, but don’t pretend it’s an icon I think it’s just going a bit too far. So I think, on the one hand, you’re people who say iconography is not art, it is art it’s much more than art but it’s at least art, it should have a beauty, a harmony. But then some of this contemporary iconography is just getting a bit too arty, lovely as art, you can’t, it’s got to be taken a case by case basis I think. And so one of the things that I think is happening and this is difficult because, you know, we have we have a sense, the modern man has a has a feeling you could call it you know the shock of the new or the, the effect of novelty, and that the effect of novelty has a surprising element like when you see it it surprises you and it creates a certain, a certain sense that a certain sense of wonder you could call it and to be fair to it. And so I think that what I’m seeing in a lot of the lot of the more experimental iconography there’s a danger to confuse, let’s say this deeper, this deeper encounter that you talked about the stillness of encounter with the icon to confuse the experience of shock of the new and this kind of surprise because it’s there’s an elation in that surprise. And it makes you want to even on the in the online world, world especially because you want to get attention and so you, people will share an image of an icon which is slightly askew because it will be able to gather get people’s attention quickly as they’re scrolling down their Facebook feed. And so I, to me I see that there is a little bit of a danger to confuse the, the experience of novelty with the deeper, you know, encounter with the sacred, the sacred. I don’t know what you think of that. If you look at nature, things adapt by very slow increments. You know if environment changes you’ll find that nature begins to adapt slowly bit by bit there’s a mutation, most mutations are not useful but the odd one is useful. They really do get something, you know, there’s a bird suddenly grow four wings. I think in our time, we need to move toward a more authentic Western iconography by small increments that that’s how I approach it, you know, I’m not a particularly great painter myself I’ve got to move very slowly and gradually gradually I adapt. There are some people far better than I you can can can can move more quickly, but it’s just my insufficiency that I just move in very small increments. I think you know some of the works as you suggest are just a bit too shocking really they’re just jumping too far ahead of themselves as well. But on the other hand, I think, just to do minders copying. It might be safer but I think it’s a bit dangerous because basically we’re saying, life with Christ is what it’s like the man who buried his talent, he buried it was he’s afraid. Exactly. And risk, you know they invested their two talents five talents that took a risk, it might have failed. But they thought well you know this, my master trust me with his money. So he must believe in me so I’m going to take a risk and invest it and hopefully it will increase and it did. But the one who only had one he was afraid and he buried it and he was told off. So I think just minders copying is actually acting out of fear. It’s fascinating because we talked about the world of technology as creating this mosaic of new images you know and this constant novelty and this constant change that it’s difficult for not to attract us but the same technology is what is making it possible for people to just So we have to kind of individually copy, you know 16th century Russian art because we have these high resolution pictures that people can have in front of them as they’re working, you know the ancient medieval artists couldn’t stand there in front of these amazing images and just copy them And so they had to go back to the letter they had to, to draw them from afar and then bring them into the studio and you know and so this was that would create just a natural transformation without it, without a desire to be in to create innovation, it would just happen on its own because you can’t completely remember the thing you saw in the cathedral. They had to internalize it, they saw it for half an hour, then three months later they get back home and paint it so they had to internalize that image and of course that would mean that they were translating and I’ve done some translating from Greek into English and it’s quite a creative act, you know you’re translating a content rather than a word. And so one of the things that you’ve also been known for I think that you know we talked about you as an iconographer as an icon carver but you, your, your work spans much more than that you, you’ve designed churches you designed the third vehicle objects, you’re really more a liturgical designer. And so, I’d like to know a little bit about how you see this coming together, because there’s something, there’s something different about let’s say designing a reliquary or designing a church and the icon itself and so maybe you can speak a little bit to how this these different ideas come together in, in the experience of orthodoxy in, like, as a European like as an English person you know to be able to create these these spaces that are, you know, you’ve created iconostasis with icons on them and I’ve seen you done everything from a bishop staff to, to, you know, to reliquaries. How do you decide or how do you kind of pull in your different influences when you are creating things. I suppose I start with place first, you know, where’s this place I’ve done work for a church in Madrid and another announced to them so for example the stone icon screen I made the church is at Nicholas in Amsterdam. And there’s different cultures there. So, in the, the roughly one meter by one meter three foot by three foot stone clocks and then if the icons. I made designs that reflected the different cultures there gets Anglo Saxon, there was something more from the So I started with the actual place I think place is important, you know, the gods and kind of in that place. And the fire of the burning bushes is in that particular bush, you know, it’s it’s it wasn’t a bush brought in from England that was the most as all it was a, it was an Egyptian Bush was burning. So I researched the, the art of that culture. And I suppose this is discernment where discernment is quite required you know what what is usable in that culture what isn’t a slight deviation but it does express what I’m saying that said Nicholas of Japan to my mind is the great one of the great missionaries because for seven years, he just studied Japanese culture, you know, and he really gained got a respect for it. And after that seven years he began to speak to people about the faith. And then when Japanese converted they realized that they’re actually converting to Christ not to being a Russian, he was able to embed the faith in Japan. So, but all that required part of the research and appreciation of the Japanese culture. So that’s the first thing research really. And secondly, this object that might be relatively whatever is, I realized it can be part of the larger symphony, and it’s got to work with that symphony. And I think this is why I’ve got involved in some of the different media that I feel I’m here to serve the church serve Christ and the worship. That requires a certain unity of worship, and I think we’ve suffered too much from this iconographer then put an icon painting on the wall and you get a, another person from another place to do the icon screen it doesn’t fit but you know he, he’s Romanian so do Romanian one or whatever he’s Greek so do a Greek screen. So get this computer will critical mishmash. And this upsets me, you know, I feel there’s no aesthetically, you know, another attempt to make the uniform, a beautiful thing that dances together you know everyone’s just jamming doing your own thing it’s cacophony. So I think it’s out of that that has felt compelled to try to respond to the need and get involved in different media. I think she going to be working on a novel soon partially out of the desire to create a church I probably never been able to design and and make a whole church so in this novel it’s all about this process of this man who’s, whose uncle is called into the reading of his world and the uncle was a very wealthy man, and he made a vow to God to build a church, and but he got cancer and he knows he’s not going to have time to build it. And he says to his, his nephew, I’m giving all my wealth to you. And as long as you build a church, this church for this monastery and then you can have the rest of the money, and the whole novel goes on about the process of him and other people changing the process of not just building a building, but decorating it inside. And the other thing that’s interesting about the process of it is that you’re not just creating an individual that had to go out object but you’re creating a symphony, and that’s symphony is an improvisation and the sense of God just doesn’t drop from heaven a complete score and you’re just to play it. He sets a sort of theme and improvise on that. Yeah, there’s this unique you’re going to improvise in Canada and a different way would be singing this from the same sort of not true, but the same theme that Christ has given to us both. Yeah, there’s definitely I love the images you use I think that really theme and variation is exactly the way to see it, you know, and that there is this, there has always been, because we, we’re so polar in the way we think, you know, we tend to think of tradition is something which is completely solid and completely fixed. And then we have the idea of the modern world which is idiosyncratic and improvisational but when you look at, like you said the great iconographers, you see this strange play between the messiness and, you know, and a desire to be in tune with the inner music that they are the hidden music. One of the biggest difficulties I think one of the biggest questions, this is a very practical question but it’s not. It, there’s also something theological in the question that say is that many of us like that example of the parish where I am, you know, the parish where we are we are renting from a Catholic Church. So we have this space which is a 1960s Catholic Church you can imagine, you know what that means. And we were taking over from a Romanian church I was there before and you know for all my love of them and respect of them. They put up an iconostasis which is as if, like an extraterrestrial ship had come down you know it’s Baroque it’s highly ornamented and it’s spray painted and it has, you know, all of that. And so, what is your advice to people who are in spaces which are not liturgically conducive in the outset, how can you, what kind of advice you have to for people who are in spaces that are ugly or that are look like strip malls or, you know, how is it that you can, without, like I said without creating this strange disjunct you know how can we adapt our, our work to these kinds of spaces. Sorry for the hard question. I think it’s basically taking the same merits and sometimes it’s damage limitation is probably more often than not as damage limitation that’s probably impossible to make something really beautiful but I think the first principle is the appropriate to space, you know, don’t force it to be something that a dissent is one parish I know where they bought a Methodist church, which is just a rectangle really. I think they should have treated that bit like a basilica, you know, but what they did was they created inside a four column dome church at a plasterboard. You know, and once you if you’re blindfolded and walk in with all the three and ice, you go outside, well that’s rather weird. I think that that was being dishonest to what was there, it would have been better to think okay this is like a basilica down to basically rectangle, let’s work with that. So I think authenticity, so if it is just a 1960s white wall geometrical thing or circle whatever it is. Well let’s make the best of that as a limitation but let’s make the limitation our strength. I think, often we don’t listen enough to the space, you know we just jump in and do what we saw done in Greece or Romania. So I think listen a lot, you just worship in a place, look at it and think okay well, what can this place teach me, you know what our strengths as weaknesses how can I capitalize, not just be one strength. How can I capitalize on that. And that, I think that’s all I can say at the moment. Yeah, I think each place as it goes. Sometimes you can put it in reverse and take things out. That can be pastoral challenge because we’ve always had that and you know Joe Blanks gave it to us and would be an insult to take it out so that’s the job of the priest ready to really gradually educate the priest. The icon screen I made for Amsterdam, the priest was brilliant there. He, I think a lot of the Russians are expecting a high Russian screen. So, about a year before we did the work he had in the back, a whole and had talks and all that about the history of the icon screen, and he had this display in the back with photographs. So gradually people realized actually the Russian icon screen with five stories was actually quite a late thing. And in fact, you know having this one layered screen is actually quite traditional. So there’s often a lot of education that is needed patient education into history more often than not, not just theology but history, you know how’s the church and the past out with it. So education and humility and listening I think are things that can all help. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you So when you say listen, it’s difficult. We don’t want to, you know, because we actually don’t have a lot of love for the space. But I see what you’re saying really even in a way maybe the way to approach popular culture in general or modern culture, which is that in order, this is something that I think that in order for something to exist, there has to be at least some seed. There has to be. There has to be some seed which is making it exist. And so if we’re patient and attentive and we watch, we can find these little, these little, these little sparks, let’s say, sometimes they’re very small and sometimes they’re very hard to find, but they kind of have to be there or else. Yeah, or else we wouldn’t even be able to perceive it. But I think sometimes you’ve got to acknowledge that one generation is not beyond salvation, but you’re not going to find much good in that. So you’ve got to think ahead. What about the next generation? So what I’m talking about here is future purpose-built orthodox architecture. And at the moment, most of the orthodox churches I’ve seen in America just don’t work. You know, they put, oh, orthodox church got a dome, they put a dome on, they’ve got arches, they have arches. But you don’t understand at all what you’re doing. Acoustically, for example, when I was doing work in Houston, Texas, I was talking to a priest there about domes. And he said, not one purpose-built orthodox church have I been through in this country which has good acoustics, you know. And he said, we’ve done, out of our hubris, we haven’t really studied Byzantine churches properly. And but I did read a very good article by an orthodox man who’s an acoustic engineer for NASA, he knows his stuff. And this article was outlining some principles of good acoustics. And often they’re surprising, you know, right angles is not a good thing. Flat floors isn’t a good thing. I think one of the reasons why we’re finding it difficult to make successful contemporary architecture is the materials we use. Unfortunately, concrete is here to stay. But with stone, you’ve got to have an arch. If you want to have a roof that’s out of stone, you’ve got to have an arch. So all these shapes arose out of the weakness of the materials. And they’re natural and they work well. But concrete doesn’t necessarily need an arch, sometimes you do, but we’ve got this material, reinforced concrete that’s really strong, doesn’t have many limitations. But we pretend that it’s something of a distance. So I think we need to think ahead and figure out, well, what are the principles of good orthodox architecture? What can be changed? What makes makes most old orthodox architecture work consistently? So we need to be thinking one or two generations ahead, you know, really get serious about this. You know, orthodox churches and orthodox systems have got a dome on top. And I think we really need to look into this and do some serious thinking. And yeah, we’ve got a lot of work in here. Even in terms of culture, I think what you’re saying is true. That is, there’s something, this is one of the reasons why we started the Orthodox Art Journal at the outset, is that we realized that it was the seminarians that we had to talk to in a way. That we wanted to create something, a vehicle to show beauty, to show adaptation, to show all these things. And our target was not so much the older priests, but thank God if they can hear it, but it was really to affect the seminarians. And we’re seeing it now, you know, Andrew Gould, if 10 years ago, you know, was within the balance of his work, he was struggling to get liturgical commissions. Now he gets them, he has to refuse them. You know, and so you can see that the transformation is slowly happening. Of course, it’s not complete. There’s still a lot of work to do, but we can see the fruits of the seeds that we planted and that you planted, you know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago are starting to appear in the culture. And so I think there’s a lot to be grateful for that. Yes, I was approached by the Chancellor of the Church’s Cathedral, I made a cathedral in the south of England to help them start a liturgical arts center. So I said, that’s fine. I myself can’t do a lot with the practical training of the liturgical artists. It wasn’t just icons, the whole thing. My two apprentices, they can go down and be the core of the practical training, but I said, I don’t want us just to look at training the liturgical artists, but I want to look at training future priests. Well, ideally also contemporary priests, but most of them already set in their ways, because the commissioners need to be educated, I said, as much as the makers of liturgical art, because a lot of them don’t realize the importance of liturgical art. They think liturgical art is just getting a painter to paint something that’s sort of a sacred subject, but it’s how it’s done, which is fix the soul as much as what is done. Like you can’t, you know, sing the psalms to rock music and liturgy, it might be great rock music, but it doesn’t help prayer. Same words, but have the same words to Byzantine and Gregorian chant, have a different effect on the soul. So you’ve got to train the commissioners, which is basically the priests, and I think they’ve got to go hand in hand. I’m just astounded that Orthodox priests and Anglican and Catholic are all talking the same thing, that their seminarian training doesn’t have any compulsory training in liturgical art or liturgical beauty. I thought, you know, what can they do for Russia? That’s right, exactly. Most of all to Orthodox, normally some aspect of the beauty of it, that’s the fragrance, then they find, well, where does this fragrance come from? But the thing that stimulates in longing is beauty, but you’ve got nothing there in the seminarian training. I think something’s wrong here. So I’m pushing every theological academy to have a compulsory, at least one day, you know, after three years, one day, please, where you give them a taste of the importance of liturgical art. I think that’s so true. And there is a, here in America, we’re kind of seeing a little bit, I don’t know how it’s integrated into the seminars, but we’re seeing St. Vladimir’s developing this art center. I mean, it’s not a practical, it’s more theoretical, but that’s okay, because they’re priests, and you can see it at St. Ticons as well, they want to have a kind of art center. So I think it’s coming, it’s burgeoning, but we definitely need to encourage it. And to all you, I know a lot of seminarians will be watching this, you need to put pressure on your own seminaries as well, to make sure that you’re able to get a, and like Aidan said, you know, I’m seeing it, the people that are attracted to orthodoxy through the things that I’m saying, it really is the beauty which is attracting them, you know, the beauty, you know, of the scriptures, the beauty of how this integrates into liturgical life, you know, these, these powerful patterns that show us that the world is meaningful, that the world is, is actually leading us towards God, if we are capable of engaging with it and paying attention to it in the proper manner. And so, so, you know, I think you’re completely right. When I was in my hermitage, a priest came with his parishioners to talk about things and I did deliberately say something that I knew that would shock the priest. And I said to the parishioners, look, and they’re all converts, forgive that orthodoxy, it’s life with Christ, you know, orthodoxy is just a name. Orthodoxy, I know orthodoxy is the fullness of the truth, but it’s, the thing is that you’re a human being before God, feel all the oxys and the isms, and beauty, this is the thing in beauty, it doesn’t have an ism or an oxism, the beauty affects your soul profoundly. I remember when I was doing up the hermitage, it was run down this 20 acres of property and had to do a lot of work on it. And I converted half the barn into a chapel and frescoed it and made a wooden mosaic floor and such like. Anyway, there’s still work to be done and I’d get 10 tons of gravel delivered or sand and there’s one day this big truck comes up and it’s a really wild place, it’s up in the hills, there’s a big mushy man with tattoos all over delivers the truck and delivers the sand and he said, what are you doing here? I said, I’m making a hermitage. I said, I’ll show you the chapel and this guy sort of walks into the chapel and he just stood there, didn’t say anything and I saw him being to cry, you know, just being to weep. And I didn’t say anything, you know, he wasn’t a religious man, I think, but it just touched him, just beauty touched him. So it’s just one person, he didn’t know anything about orthodoxy, it didn’t matter, you know, he met God in that place. So I think we just have to go back to the basics, you know, it’s all to do with life as a human being on this earth and God’s wonderful creation, loving God and beauty is the fragrance that comes out of that loving one another and loving Christ. Well, Aiden, I think that’s a really wonderful place to finish our conversation. Thank you so much for the encouragement and for your wisdom and also thank you for your work, you know, I know how much influence you have and you know, you remain humble and discreet, but I know that so many I know that so many iconographers have been influenced by you and not just that but just as a person, you know, for me as well, I want to thank you for the advice you gave me at the outset, you know, when I started and just knowing that you were there I could always send you things when I was struggling with some images I’ve always sent you some carvings to get your opinion and even sometimes you’ve been harsh on me with some, you might not remember but there’s sometimes when you said, you know, stop doing it this way. And I was like, well, you know, I think he’s right. I changed the way that I carve, because of your advice and so thank you for thank you for also talking to the people for I’m happy that people are able to discover you a little more everybody that’s watching this please go online you will find several books by Aiden you if you go on Amazon you will, you will discover his writing his work on the Orthodox Art Journal, there are several articles by him. And also you’ll see some of his projects so Aiden thank you for your time and for being here with me. Thank you so much, Jonathan it’s been a joy to talk with you.