A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN ICON ARTIST

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN ICON ARTIST

Dr. Ksenia Kisselincheva

“Touching beauty through art makes life worth living”

Airports have always had a special fascination for me - the roaring of planes coming and going, the sense of vast open spaces, so close to a big city, the people hugging each other on arrival or parting. And the seductive lulling voice of the announcer which gives an urge to visit as soon as possible all those far away, unknown destinations: Casablanca, Helsinki, Osaka, Adelaide...

I first met Iskra Vlasseva on a long summer afternoon at Sofia airport. We were both exasperated with the long delay of the Stockholm flight and we were both trying to cool down on the spacious verandah, overlooking the runways. She was all in white, with only a green-blue splash of paper flowers on the wide-brimmed hat and I was captivated by the exquisite ceramic locket she was wearing. It was in the shape of a miniature Virgin Mary and later I found out it was her own work and she attributed to it the magic power of a talisman... She had immediately spotted my passion for icons a few minutes earlier at the souvenir shop and she proposed to me to take me to her private gallery in the VIP area. While we were going down the stairs past the restaurant and out of the departure lounge towards the VIP area, I explained to her I was looking to buy an icon as a wedding present for a friendly couple. Moreover, my friend Niels was a professor in history of art at Stockholm University and his home was cluttered with art objects and antiques. When he came to Sofia he always discovered new items to add to his collection.

I had a good look around the small gallery while my new acquaintance went to get some coffee. I had almost made up my mind to buy not an exact copy, but” an author’s icon” whose phosphorescent green and blue colors gave me a transient sense of airiness and elation. At that moment she came back with a coffee tray and we had only another ten minutes before rushing to the arrivals lounge...

But we exchanged name cards. A few days later I paid her a visit at her studio at the 8-th floor of a recently built apartment house near the Zografsky hotel in Losenetz. This time I had my recording machine with me and a bottle of white wine and I was keen on learning much more about her and her life. While we were sipping wine, laughing and chatting, I was struck by Iskra’s resemblance to Lady Di and I was tempted to ask her whether she subscribed to the overwhelming trend of nurturing modern idols out of celebrities. She said she did not need to idealize human beings, no matter how distinguished they were, and she realized these modern myths were the result of well orchestrated media and public relations campaigns. “But, still” - she added - “Lady Di obviously had something special about her personality which made her so much loved and admired”.

“Iskra Vlasseva, a free lance artist, the manager and owner of ”Deisis” gallery, as the business card describes her. But certainly there must be more to it.

And we go back in time to her childhood memories from Sierra Leone, Africa, where her dad was on a trade mission for a couple of years. Was it then that she was mesmerized by those intense and sparkling colors that recurred in her paintings on wood, pebble stone or canvas? She would never forget the huge kites she used to fly in the sky, the graceful figures with bundles and trays on their heads that walked as if dancing, the aroma of fragrant herbs and exotic spices floating out of the kitchen window. And she would never forget the long walks at sunset, when the beach was spattered with seaweed, shells and logs. And later when she traveled all over Europe she never felt a stranger and she made friends everywhere. She adored the exhilarating sense of discovery... She has been drawing and painting as far back as she could remember. She started learning how to do modeling at the age of twelve. Then she studied ceramics with the Petya Panayotova, one of the household names in the field. Then she started doing the advertising of the students’ town-she liked the job and stayed with it for more than fifteen years. There she met Roumiana and they shared their love for icon painting. They worked side by side, they admired and criticized each other.

And in 1990 they embarked on another adventure. They opened their own private gallery. “Deisis” gallery, named after the famous icon from the Bachkovo monastery, was not situated on a major thoroughfare, it was in the students’ town but still it attracted people of all ages. The blond Iskra and the dark-haired Roumy shared not only enthusiasm for their enterprise but they shared a vision. They wanted to give young talents a chance to find themselves - they were open to different styles and techniques, no matter what their personal preferences were. For instance, Boris Kolev, who is now greatly appreciated throughout Europe, had his first individual exhibition at “Deisis” gallery. Blagovest Apostolov is another more mature artist who was associated with the “Deisis” gallery and whose work is greatly admired abroad. They attracted a few more male artists to their experimental workshop, they inspired and helped each other, they fought together in court against the landlords, they dreamed together...

How were sales going? Iskra says they have been going well since the very start-they had lots of pictures and icons sold abroad. Also they had art events organized which were so popular that the gallery couldn’t hold all the visitors and they had to stand outside. Iskra wanted to tell me about one of these events. “The common topic was about sin and sinfulness - actors, artists and musicians got together and expressed their feelings and ideas about the topic through their specific medium. It turned into an avant‑garde happening and we sang and danced all night. And at the following art fest there were crowds of people, all wishing to get in and take part. Such instants of touching beauty through art make life worth living...”

Apart from all that, the gallery is a place where laymen get introduced to the know-how of art, they come and consult Iskra and Roumy about details and nuances. This inspired them to organize courses once a week for amateur artists, young and old. The students were all very keen, very eager to learn. The lady teachers just helped them find their own theme and style, find their own medium and technique. At a later stage, they would show the students how to develop and master the technique.  There were a variety of courses organized- in graphics, illustration, ceramics, painting. The longest one was in icon painting. And now after the gallery moved to the airport in 1996, the courses still take place at Iskra’s studio. There were a few traces from the latest teaching session when I got to the studio-the pervading smell of oils, the brushes, stuck in a jar of water, the preliminary sketches scattered around the floor...

Iskra had just got back from a plein‑air event, organized in the Rodopi mountains.

She was telling me about the strange cross-like signs on trees and stones in “the Crucifix forest” where they witnessed a minor miracle-their fire kindled of itself. The more skeptical companions of hers found a logical explanation for “the miracle” but they were all under the magic spell of this holy place and gazed at the huge stars well into the night, unable to go to sleep...

Plein‑air events have been a regular practice of Deisis gallery ever since 1992. The first one took place in the Srebarna nature reservation, near the Danube River. It was sponsored by a newly formed party. It turned out to be one the most memorable events in Iskra’s life and she was eager to tell me about it: “While we were strolling among flowery bushes, a pheasant would suddenly run across the path, a hare would ruffle the undergrowth, a wild grouse would dip into the pond, frowning its smooth surface with tiny ripples. The exhibition was arranged in a shelter, paintings hanging among lianas and branches from the flowery bushes. Finally, the artists rose and sang a patriotic song for the sponsors and everybody was so surprised and touched. After that we danced well into the night and did not go to bed until we could watch the sunrise...”  Other such events followed every year - at the seaside near Sozopol, or in the mountain, like the plein air on icon painting at the Troyan monastery. There was an award fund and prizes were given. The people from a nearby village managed to raise money and donated to the monastery one of the awarded icons.

Since the gallery moved to the airport, Iskra had more time for herself, exploring new materials and new techniques. She did a lot of painting on wooden logs and river pebbles and tried to achieve more elaborate designs with more figures and more expressive of motion. She explored transparent colors which seem to express best her idea of spirituality. She prefers to make copies of older icons, as far back as the 14-th century and she prefers the Bulgarian tradition to the Greek one, because it is informed by human vibrations and it emanates hope and trust. The Greek technique is more stiff and aloof. Iskra is telling me of how her life spins round her visions in color and shape, how it shuttles back and forth between the family, the studio and the gallery. During the summer break, travel and friends take up most of her time - she hoards impressions and makes plans about the future. She likes to share her projects with her friends, to discuss things with them and to take their advice. She thinks there is beauty and magic, not only in art but in human relations. I am skeptical to such an attitude, in view of the many disappointments and betrayals we have all experienced, but Iskra is incorrigible, she wouldn’t stop hoping and believing. And she looks for support in transcendental writings and supernatural events. They get together in her studio once a week and discuss their own experiences or what they have read in Paco Raban’s book or in Shirley McLaine’s. And when they leave late at night, Iskra tiptoes to her easel and canvas and tries to render in color her palpable perception of the unseen spiritual world .These are intense, luminous colors, which remind her of the huge kites from her childhood days in Africa. She would never forget that ecstatic feeling of being closer to God...                                 

Sofia Western News monthly, 1998