Opening a Window to God: Sister Clairvaux McFarland has found an ...

Opening a Window to God: http://www.texnews.com/1998/religion/icons0802.html
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Sunday, August 2, 1998
Opening a Window to
God: Sister Clairvaux
McFarland has found an
unexpected mission: the
ancient art of
iconography
By Clark Morphew / Knight Ridder Newspapers
ROCHESTER, Minn. ­ Icons have not had a deep tradition in the
Catholic church. For centuries, those stern­faced saints were the
sole province of Orthodox religions, with each ethnic tradition
embracing its individual style.
But now there are a handful of Catholic religious sisters who have
entered into the ancient art of iconography (the painting of icons) to
deepen spirituality.
Sister Clairvaux McFarland, a Sister of St. Francis who lives and
works at Assisi Heights Monastery in Rochester, is one of the first in
Minnesota to discover the spiritual depth of icons and to paint them
with a professional's touch. Sister Clairvaux's interest in icons
parallels a growing interest in icons throughout the Catholic church.
"I see icons as the gates from the visible to the mystery of the
invisible," Sister Clairvaux said during an interview in her studio and
home on the Assisi Heights campus. "They are the windows to the
mystery of God."
Sister Clairvaux (named for St. Bernard of Clairvaux, a
12th­century monk) has not always been a painter of icons. Now
67, she began her ministry with the Franciscans as a teacher and
later served as a school administrator. But as she worked in
education, her love of art grew personally more important.
Eventually she began designing religious greetings, Easter and
Christmas cards and a few basic icons. Then a member of her
community asked her if, for a special occasion, she could paint the
traditional San Damiano cross, which had its origins in the small
Italian church rebuilt by St. Francis, the order's founder.
The maintenance crew at Assisi Heights cut out the wooden cross.
Then Sister Clairvaux took it to a remote monastery in Dubuque,
Iowa, and painted the figures on the cross.
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Opening a Window to God: http://www.texnews.com/1998/religion/icons0802.html
Moved by that powerful spiritual experience, she began to consider
a new vocation, one that would take her from education to the
depths of holy experiences.
"I needed to know if this was what God wanted me to do," Sister
Clairvaux said. "It was becoming a spiritual vocation."
She decided to retreat into the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania,
where her sister owned a vacation cabin. There she worked on icons
and discovered the next step in her development as a religious
artist.
"I heard about Vladislav Andrejev, a Russian iconographer working
in New York City who took students on Fridays for seven­hour
workshops," Sister Clairvaux said.
She began taking instruction from Andrejev, whose approach to
painting icons relied on the pure, Russian style using only natural
ingredients.
"When I was a child, at Christmas someone gave me a watercolor
paint set with little brushes and those squares of paint," Sister
Clairvaux said. "I used it up in one day. I painted pictures of
everyone in the house.
"But I was always drawn to icons as a young woman," Sister
Clairvaux said. "There was something different about them. We
have gotten so realistic in the representation of the image that we
have lost sight of the divine."
As Sister Clairvaux studied with Andrejev, she learned about the
features that set icons apart from secular portraits.
"The figures are androgynous. They have thick necks, which signify
the breath of God, and a small bump on their foreheads, which will
remind us of the wisdom of God."
But those are the mechanics of iconography, not the deeper
religious connection she has seen icons produce firsthand.
In 1994, Sister Clairvaux was involved in a serious auto accident
that left her with disabilities. As she recuperated over the next
months, there was only one thing she desired.
"The only thing I wanted was the San Damiano cross. I looked at it.
I gave it a prayer of gazing. The icon gazes at you and you gaze at
the icon. We have so many older sisters who say, 'I'm too old. I
can't pray anymore.'
"Now I bring an icon to them and tell them, 'You don't have to pray
­ just gaze at the icon. Just sit before that icon ­ 10 minutes a day.
Soon the icon speaks the spirituality of what the image is ­ the
image of the holy.' "
Sister Clairvaux is set apart from other Catholic icon painters in the
United States. "I want to do it in the purest form," Sister Clairvaux
says, "the way Orthodox Christians have done it for hundreds of
years."
She begins with tempera, a paint that has been mixed with the yoke
of an egg, vinegar and water, which becomes the glue that binds
the paint to the board.
A board made of poplar wood, for instance, is routed out as a bed
for the icon. The outer frame is the Hebrew scriptures. The inside,
the icon, is the Christian scripture.
She coats the board with rabbit­skin glue, then covers it with a
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cotton or linen cloth that has also been soaked in rabbit­skin glue.
After sanding 10 coats of gesso, or a mixture of rabbit­skin glue,
champagne and chalk, she places the image on the board and
incises it with an edging tool. Then the artist begins work on the
halo that always adorns the sainted figures.
The halo is covered with burnishing clay mixed with fish­eye glue.
There are four layers painted on the halo, and each is sanded with
2,000­grit sandpaper.
As the gold is about to be applied to the icon, Sister Clairvaux
breathes on the area ­ "a real heavy, gutsy breath." The gold leaf
then adheres to the clay and is smoothed with a burnishing tool.
After the gold leaf is secure, the red line is drawn around the halo.
Finally a mixture of green, brown and black tempera is applied to
the icon four times.
"The last highlight is creating the uncreated light," Sister Clairvaux
said. "It is the light that gives the image of the depth of holiness ­
the soul, the radiance. It's like ­ something spiritual happens. I do it
and yet I don't do it."
After the icon has dried, Sister Clairvaux oils the piece with linseed
and other oils. The oil is heated and poured over the icon,
preserving it to last for centuries.
Now in the quaint gray cottage on the remote fringe of the Assisi
Heights campus, Sister Clairvaux ponders the meaning of her
vocation.
"My sole purpose in painting an icon is to offer access through the
gate of the visible to the mystery of the invisible, to bring out the
spiritual qualities of holiness rather than the outward beauty of the
person portrayed. This presence is reflected by an uncreated light
not coming from the art, but from the holy."
Her religious emphasis does not preclude a financial reality check. If
you wanted to purchase one of Sister Clairvaux's icons, for
instance, the system can be a bit cumbersome.
She is forbidden by tradition from even estimating what an icon
might be worth.
Her advice: Think about how much money the object is personally
worth to you. But Sister Clairvaux is no fool.
"When you make an offer," she says, "it should probably be lower
than what you intend to spend. I will assume that is your intent and
try to up the price."
(c) 1998, Saint Paul Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.).
Visit PioneerPlanet, the World Wide Web site of the Pioneer Press, at
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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