Dr. Margaret Felis on Icon Painting

In March I was able to interview SF member Dr. Margaret Felis about icon painting.  The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Thanks to Margaret for her generosity of time and editing help.  

elissa mondschein

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.

Virgin Glykofilousa  Egg Tempura on wood.  Artist: Margaret Felis

With regards 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.  

Agios Andreas  Egg Tempura on Wood   Artist: Margaret Felis

e: The very, very first class you took, was it taught in Italian? 

M: Yes, it was.  

e: So your first study of the making of icons was in a second language?  3rd language?   4th? 

M: Yeah, it might be 4th language, I don’t know! Growing up you could always hear some combination of Aromanian, Greek, Albanian or English in my house. I’ve studied other languages, but Italian was an easier language to understand because my grandmother often spoke to me in Aromanian. 

e: Wow, impressive.  

M: And then, when I went to Greece, the class was in Greek. I didn’t actually get English instruction [in making icons] until I studied in Western, MA. 

e: Of the time you studied in Italy and Greece – about how much time did you study this form? 

M: A couple of years. 

When I moved back to Massachusetts, it was hard to find a teacher. However, there was a very accomplished iconographer who was living in Western, MA, and by chance I connected with her at a church luncheon, and I think I remember saying to her something to the effect of, “I heard there’s a woman who’s an iconographer out here, and do you happen to know her?” and she said, “Yeah, it’s me.” I remember that she had this beautiful house out in the woods and behind her house she had this amazing art studio. Long story short, I went to her house one day because she had invited me to see her icons but emphasized the fact that she wasn’t taking new students.   So, I went there and brought one of [my] icons with me, because I thought that maybe if I showed her that I’ve already done some of this work she would change her mind. I showed her the icons and she said, “ok, I’m not taking new students, but I will take you.” I was so excited that she agreed, and I studied with her for a couple of years, until she passed away suddenly. She was a wonderful teacher, mentor, and very gifted iconographer. I am so grateful to have worked with her and blessed to have known her. 

elissa: And what was her name? 

M: Her name was Jacqueline Mizaur. I was talking to a friend of mine one day– she loves to write.  And she would say, “I just get lost in writing, I get lost in doing my work.” And while I was writing my dissertation this kept coming to my mind, because writing was never something that I would get lost in, but the one thing that I really get lost in is if I’m sitting in front of a canvas and I’m painting icons. I don’t want to use the word meditative practice, but it’s a very spiritual practice. When I [paint] I am completely absorbed. That would be the time I would forget to eat. There are very few times I forget to eat, very few times I lose track of time. But when I start working on an icon, I would lose track of everything.   

elissa: So the painting, that’s your zen moment? 

Margaret: Right, exactly. Since then, I studied with a couple of other teachers, as well, and I’ve worked in different mediums. I’ve painted a few icons in acrylic, but most of my experience has been working with egg tempera, where you have the powdered form of the pigment, and you mix it with a little bit of the egg yolk, and a little bit of vinegar, wine, or water (the binding agent) and you whip it up to whatever consistency you want it to be for your painting.  

e: When you use the egg yolk, and is that an actual yolk or is that dried? 

M: You would actually crack an egg, you don’t want the transparent skin on the yolk. You would puncture it to get the liquid out. And you …[use this to] mix up your pigment and binding agent. 

e: That’s for all of the colors, correct? 

M: That’s right. 

e: Are the icons done by you drawing something out, or is it done with a projection? Or both?  

M: Typically … say you’ve found an icon that you really love and you wanted to paint or replicate, and you wanted to work on this icon. I would take that icon and then I would use tracing paper to get the main outline of the icon image. I would work off of something that I would then put on my board, and I would go from there, and etch it into the board. Once you have the outline, then you can start painting, filling it [in]. With the egg tempera you can really get this sort of idea of multiple layers and the play on light, and the sense of sheer materials [floating colors].  The other thing I found interesting is you start with – at least with the egg tempera, is you actually go from dark to light So if you were going to [paint] the face, the face would be this very dark olive color you would start with, and that would be what you would work off of, and keep adding and adding. 

e: And each icon, each saint, has things that are associated with the icon, right?  

M: You’re right, you can often tell who the icon is of, even if you can’t read the letters on the top. For example, if you see that there is a woman that’s holding a bowl, and there are two eyes in the bowl, that’s usually Agia Paraskevi, Saint Paraskevi, because she is the saint that’s associated with healing for the eyes.  

Also the colors of the garments are very specific. Now artists play with the genre a little bit more, so you see a lot of colors that weren’t traditionally used.  Also, a lot depends on what you have access to. If you’re looking for a very specific pigment that comes from rare earth minerals, you may or may not have access to it. 

 e: What did you paint on, was it a canvas or wood?   

M: It was wood that I gessoed [a surface prepared with gesso, which is a painting primer] in Jacqueline’s studio.   

M: You know that there’s an iconography museum in Massachusetts? It’s called The Icon Museum and Study Center. And they bring icons from all over the world – they have different exhibits. They used to do a lot of iconography workshops and that’s how my teacher/mentor got into iconography, was through one of these workshops by Vladislav Andrejev, Prosopon School of Iconology.  If you look at the link for the Prosopon School, that’s the style/method that my teacher/mentor taught. 

elissa: About how many icons have you completed?  Can you also say about how long it takes to complete one? 

Margaret: Oh, my goodness. I cannot remember how many I’ve done. I can tell you that, because I don’t do it all the time, I’m not painting every single day, it could take me months to complete one icon, because I would put aside a chunk of time – say, every Wednesday from 9 am to 1pm, or something, so it would be 4 or 5 hours a week. And so if we’re going with 4 or 5 hours a week, it would probably take me, say, from September to December, to do one. If I’m able to put in more time, obviously you can get more done. If I was working on it non-stop maybe a few weeks? Acrylic, I can complete in two days.  I’ve done workshops with acrylic where I’ve completed the icon in a weekend.  So, that’s very quick. But working slowly and methodically with egg tempera, that takes a lot more time. And the other thing with acrylic is that it dries more quickly… they both dry in different ways.  

elissa: And is the acrylic also on wood?  

Margaret: Yeah. Acrylic is also on a wooden canvas.  It definitely has a different look to it. Equally beautiful.  

St. Gabriel The Archangel  Egg Tempura on Wood  Artist: Margaret Felis

Margaret Felis grew up in central Massachusetts. She is a 4th generation member of the Society Farsharotu and a member of the SF Digital 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,