In June 2009 I was awarded the Gelman Travel Grant, which is a $25,000, 9-month grant  given to one graduating senior from the Rhode Island School of Design who works in the fields of Painting or Sculpture.

With this $25,000 I will be traveling to Russia, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Turkey, and Peru (in that order). I am hoping to make use of the calendar tool in this blog to display the exact dates of when I will be where.

The purpose of this journey is to study the history and contemporary uses of painting workshops. I have always been interested in the great masterpieces of the Renaissance and I have always hoped to reach that caliber of draftsmanship and workmanship in my own artistic practice but I have never been satisfied. I was frustrated with my inability to get even close to painting like Jan Van Eyck, Carlo Crivelli, or Hans Memling until I realized a very important fact that many people today tend to forget: these great paintings were NOT created by one individual. Behind each master artist there would be a whole workshop of assistants, journeymen, and protégé’s that contributed to the completion of masterpieces by constructing  the supports, making paints, building the ground, and even painting the less significant passages of the final painting so that the master painter did not have to waste his time with them. With this in mind I constructed a travel itinerary that would both allow me to see, up close, the great paintings that were made in these 14th-16th century workshops as well as to study directly with craftsmen that still utilize a workshop to create artwork.  Today, many of the painting workshops produce Christian art. Luckily, I have always been engaged in exploring traditional Christian art so the opportunity to learn traditional painting techniques and  Christian symbols is very exciting to me.

I will have a brief visit (June 24th-25th) in London to say hello to my Aunt and to drop off a large bag of clothing/necessities that I will pick up as the weather gets colder (Thanks Joan!), and then I will begin my adventure in Russia, where I will spend about 3 weeks following a Russian Icon tour through Moscow, the Golden Ring, and St. Petersburg (June 25th- July 15th). The leader of this tour, Fr. Ilya, has been incredibly helpful and will help me establish relationships with the owners of various Russian Icon painting workshops in Suzdal, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. While I am on the tour I will decide which icon workshop I would like to work in and ask the owners if they will write me a letter of invitation to allow me to return to Russia (there is a very arduous visa application process) to work with them for 3 months. As of now I am assuming I will probably be spending 3 months in Suzdal, one of the oldest towns in Russia, located outside of Moscow. Fr. Ilya says I could live in a nunnery for free there…. I spoke to a Russian art history professor at RISD and she told me that many of the nuns in rural Russia regularly visit sweat lodges which have steps up to the top. While they are in the sweat lodges they beat themselves with mulberry branches and slowly ascend the steps to the hottest, top step of the lodge. She told me I should probably go just for the experience… Sorry guys, I don’t think I can bring my camera in there!

After the tour in Russia I will be flying to Amsterdam. For the next 6 weeks (July 15th- August 26th) I will be exploring the historic sites and museums in The Netherlands, Belgium, (this is called Benelux and will be described as such for the rest of this blog) and Germany. I have purchased a Eurail pass and will be traveling by train throughout this region.

On August 26th I will return to Russia and begin learning the art of  icon painting in a workshop until around November 26th. I will hopefully improve my gold leaf application and egg tempera painting skills…. as well as my currently non-existent Russian.

After Russia I will go to Istanbul for 3 week. The purpose of visit to Istanbul (besides the fact that I have always wanted to go there) is to compare the Byzantine Icons of Istanbul to the Russian Icons. Hopefully my parents will visit me while I am in Turkey!

Christmas is still up in the air, I was originally going to celebrate Christmas and New Years in London but it seems that my lovely Aunt Joan, who has lived in London for several decades, will be leaving the UK to live in my home state of California. While the timing is unfortunate for my own purposes it will be fabulous to have her closer to the family! So my parents and I may still go to the UK for Christmas but we are also considering going to German Christmas Markets or staying in Turkey. We will see!

After New Years I will be heading to Lima, Peru. In Peru I will be studying in retablo building workshops. As of now there are two workshops that are interested in teaching me the art of retablo building. Some people have mention to me that Peru seems out of place in my proposal, so let me explain why I have chosen included it: When Europe colonized Latin America they established the same workshop and guild system that they used Europe. They also pushed their style of image making onto these new workshops. In the 17th century, the Dutch sent numerous prints of masterworks as well as originals to Latin America for artists to copy and learn from. For instance, look at The Rising of the Cross by Rubens in Antwerp and compare it to Angelino Medoro’s The Rising of the Cross in Lima (Picture coming soon!). It is an excellent rendition the previous painting and both of these I will see in my travels. I find this transposing of visual imagery very interesting and I knew nothing about it until recently. In Peru today, obviously no one copies master works from Europe anymore, however the workshop system still exists to create Christian art pieces which are used to adorn churches or homes and are largely exported to other countries as “folk art.” I am excited to visit these workshops and compare them to those of Russia.

I am planning to be back in the USA on April 1st.