Saint Helices 70, 24" x 18", oil, metal leaf, and assemblage on panel, 1996. Artist's collection.

My personal interest in the visual allure of icon painting is manifest in this version. This painting began in the form of a "spoiled" wood panel that had been kicking around my studio for more than a year. I considered it spoiled because my initial attempts to prime the surface of the panel failed in terms of its uneven surface. The panel's redemption follows a rather conventional methodology in the school of icon painting--I gilded the surface of the panel. I then gently hand-sanded the surface which revealed the uneven pattern of the matrix of layers of priming through the applied metal-leaf. I prepared and painted the edge forms separately and applied them to the surface. Then I glazed on the Saint Helices color scheme with layers of pigmented varnishes in the appropriate areas of the composition, and on the highlighted areas of the edge forms.