Aromanian News: Issue 5
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Dr. Margaret Felis on Icon Painting
An Interview with Elissa Mondschein
Margaret Felis grew up in central Massachusetts. She is a 4th generation member of the Society Farsharotu and a member of the Society’s Advisory Board. She earned her Doctorate in Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and has worked in higher education for a number of years. She has always had a strong interest in learning about her heritages and teaching her two young children about them as well. She currently lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two children.
Elissa: Tell me where you were living at the time you started painting the icons, and how did you come upon the chance to study this type of painting?
Margaret: I had always wanted to study iconography and to paint icons since I was a little girl. Growing up in Worcester, MA, I loved icons, I thought they were beautiful, and I just had a strong desire to paint them. In my early 20s I was in Siena, Italy, and there was a flyer that a local organization had posted about an iconography class. I thought, why don’t I just try it out? That’s how I started, by taking this class focused on traditional Byzantine style iconography.
The first icon that I ever painted was of the Virgin Mary and child (Virgin Glykophilousa), StaMaria, and I painted it for my father because it was his favorite saint. That year he was being awarded for his extensive service to the Worcester Greek Orthodox community. When he received that award, I was still overseas, so I had sent the icon to be given to him with the award. That was the first icon that I ever painted. I have that icon now and it hangs in my children’s room.
With regard to methodology, in that class, we worked with egg tempera and mixed our own paints; trying to keep within the original tradition of icon painting. Of note, you’ll sometimes hear people talking about “writing” an icon, because the icon is telling a story. I prefer to use “paint an icon” because I come from an approach where painting for me is also a literacy and form of expression, and a way to tell a story. I don’t like to favor or place more value on writing vs painting.
Shortly thereafter, I was in a small town in Greece, and the community happened to have multiple iconography classes, and they brought in this iconographer, who I think was originally from southern Albania but living in Northern Greece. He was a talented iconographer and instructor, and I was able to continue learning how to paint with egg tempera. This time the icon I painted was of Saint Andreas. And so that was really the beginning; that was how everything got started…
Treasures from the Archives: “The Evil Eye”
by Steve Tegu
The late Steve Tegu wrote this wonderful, wide-ranging 1991 piece on the common belief among traditional societies in the Evil Eye (yes, we have it, too — we call it “ocljiu” in Aromanian) and how to neutralize it with a phrase and gesture that also have an interesting history…
Discovery: An Amazing Family Odyssey
by Rebecca Townsend
Photo by Rebecca Townsend
A first cousin, twice removed, “was a true modern day hero,” and I was amazed to learn more about him. My husband Tom is the genealogist in our family, and, having documented his own family thoroughly, took on the challenge of looking into my side–a bit more complicated! Tom was documenting names and important dates and other facts about family members, filling in details from publicly available documents and those through ancestry websites. Among the materials he refers to are obituaries.
My father, John W. Custer, Ed.D., was the first of our family to be born in the United States. His parents, Harold J. Custer (born Jani Cinako) and his wife, Esther, each immigrated here, from Albania and Greece, respectively. Both ethnic Aromanians, they met and married each other by choice (itself a story for another day). My grandmother’s birth name was Anastasia Fatsy; her father was Peter Vangel Kusma Fatsy, born in 1879 in Almyros, Magnisia, Thessalia. There’s a wonderful photo of him, his father Cosmachi K. Fatsis, with some of his brothers, standing in suits, holding an American flag.
He had two sisters, Sophia (Fatsy) Cashavelly, and Jenny (Fatsy) Costulas, and in the photo were brothers Ahilea, Shuka, and Licha (“Nick”). One brother was missing: I only knew of him as Thanas.
The Art of Weaving
by Maria Psomiades
During my visit to Samarina village in Greece last summer, I saw a fascinating exhibit with hand-woven tapestries. They were temporarily lent for the exhibit by the residents, who preserve them and pass them from one generation to another. Although I was familiar with the art of weaving, I was blown away by the elaborate designs, intricate geometric patterns, and vibrant colors.
The tapestries were woven with a loom, a wooden hand-operated machine. In the old days, almost every household had a loom and the girls used it to weave their dowries. The women made the yarn from sheeps’ wool with a spinning wheel and spindle and dyed it with natural colors.
Ms. Haido Agorogianni-Voutsa, the curator of the exhibit, explained that the red background color of these woven tapestries originated from the root of the plant “rizari”, which produces a red pigment suitable for dyeing yarn. Rizari is a native shrub that grows in Southern Europe and its official name is red ruby or dyers broom (rubia tinctorum). All the colors were made from plants. Brown was made from walnut shells and walnut leaves, yellow from dried mulberry leaves, blue from flowers. One of the themes, maybe the most philosophical, is the tree of life. The tapestry from 1895 illustrates in its center the tree of life which, according to a philosophy of religions, symbolizes the three worlds, the subterranean, the physical world, and a spiritual realm.
These woven tapestries were used as curtains, called berdes (μπερντες). Others were hung on the wall, cover the beds or used as mats (kilimia). They decorated the households, evoking a sense of warmth, and a cozy and inviting feeling. The women in Samarina and other Vlach villages in the area were able to develop a unique technique and style to display their creativity and shared their weaving tradition with their community.
I could not help thinking with pride that I also own a kilimi, from my father’s dowry, who was from the nearby village Perivoli. Although it is more than 100 years old, the colors of the flowers are vivid with rich hues. Visiting this exhibit and learning so much about the way these woven tapestries were made, made me further appreciate my heritage and the creative art of weaving.
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Discovering an Old Photo and with It,
Some Family History
by Janine Tegu
I always thought that there weren’t that many Greeks/Vlachs in the Vermont area (I guess my mistake). I thought that there were a lot more in the Massachusetts and the New Hampshire area.
Well, some time ago, I found this photo taken July 26, 1931 at Lake Hortonia, Vermont. It would now take folks from St. Johnsbury, New Hampshire, 2 hours and 22 minutes by car to get to Lake Hortonia. God knows how long it took them to get there in 1931!
I tried not to open up the original photo too many times – it measures approximately 30″ long x 6″ wide and it made me feel that I was opening a ‘Dead Sea Scroll’ as it was so creased and difficult to unwind and impossible to lay flat. The original photograph was professionally photographed crease by crease and digitally copied into the full length of the original. But it was amazing to see how many people attended the Second Annual Picnic Vermont Chapter Order of AHEPA #244 (the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association, founded in 1922 to fight for the civil rights of Greeks in America, who were often targeted by the infamous Ku Klux Klan. AHEPA’s mission is to promote the ancient Hellenic ideals of education, philanthropy, civic responsibility, family, and individual excellence through community service and volunteerism.)
The photo was taken by A.A. Murray, Rutland, VT. I think I counted about 150 people and I found 4 Vlachs from my dad’s family (his mom, his 2 sisters, and a nephew). There might be other Vlachs.
I created a PDF of the Tegu family members who attended the picnic, along with their names — see below. I added the names of the Tegus who were either not in the photo or did not attend (see arrows in red with a number that corresponds to their names on the chart). I did this in case it helps people in genealogy searches.
I wonder, since there are some Vlachs in the photo, if any of you who are Farsharotu subscribers might also find family members in the photo. I was able to find my grandmother and her two daughters and grandson immediately.
Happy searching!
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