Then I added great doses of curiosity, reading, visiting Orthodox churches, talking to people, visiting websites, visiting stores and spending money with dealers. You might find this video amusing (or horrifying) but it's how one learns. I saw icon dealer Dennis Easter setting out tens of thousands of dollars of icons on a sidewalk - and ended up buying three of them.
After a few years of mild interest, I met my first iconographer and talked with her quite a bit that afternoon, and corresponded later by email.
Jacky was a reclusive hermit who came off her island for a brief break and was sharing her love of icons on a quiet rainy day in a little church in Swanage, Dorset. I bought an icon from her that day, then later commissioned a second piece, the Nativity.
I enjoy spending time just sitting with my icons. It's not respectful to have them locked up in boxes or closets or drawers. By 2007, this was the state of the collection, assembled tightly for the photograph.
Over the years, the icon collection grew. It took over the living room and began to look like this:
I've learned a great deal from the many books I've accumulated about icons. Having been in publishing all my professional life, I tend to go overboard on books when I get interested in a subject. Here's the current list of icon-related titles:
01. Icons and Mystical Origins of Christianity - Temple
02. The Icon - Quenot
03. Icons - Cormack
04. Sacred Doorways - Martin
05. Face to Face; Portraits of the divine - Jensen
06. Iconostasis - Florensky
07. Behold the Beauty of the Lord - Nouwen
08. The Glenstal Book of Icons - Collins
09. Icons and Saints - Tradigo
10. Praying with Icons - Forest
11. Life of Jesus in Icons from the Bible of Tbilisi - Moloney
12. The Icon - Weiztmann
13. Light from the East - Evdokimov
14. Holy Image * Hallowed Ground * Sinai Icons - publ by the Getty Museum
15. The Meaning of Icons - Ouspensky
16. The Light of Christ; Iconography of Gregory Kroug - Tregubov
17. Mystical Language of Icons - Nes
18. A History of Icon Painting - trans. Cook
19. Icons on Azalea - Roeder
20. The Icon Handbook - Coomler
21. The Resurrection and the Icon - Quenot
22. The Rublev Trinity - Bunge
23. Icon: Russian Masterpiece
24. Icons & the Name of God - Bulgakov
25. Through Western Eyes - Lamen
26. Oxford Companion of Orthodoxy
27. Engelikonen (Icons of Angels) -- Bentchev
28. Byzantine Painting - Grabar
29. Romanesque Painting - Grabar & Nordenfalk
30. Early Medieval Painting - Grabar & Nordenfalk
31. Gothic Painting - DuPont & Gnudi
32. Imprinting the Divine - the Menil Icon Collection
33. The Power of Icons
34. Icon as Communion - Kordid
35. Early Christian Byzantine Art
36. Techniques of Icon and Wall Painting - Aidan Hart
37. Icons of their Bodies - Maguire
38. From Mask to Icon; Alaska - Mousalimas
39. The Russian Icon
40. Saints and their Symbols - Lanzi
41. Icons Masterpieces of Russian Art - Polyakova
42. Greek Icons - Drandaki
43. Treasures from Moscow - Museum of Russian Icons
44. Mary Mother of God - Parravicini
45. Icons - Kondakov
46. Theology of the icon v1 - Ouspensky
47. Theology of the icon v2 - Ouspensky
48. The world of Icons - Gerhard
49. The Icon - published by Knopf
50. Icons - Weitzmann published by Alpine
51. Icons; Fascination and Reality
52. Imago Dei; Byzantine Apology for Icons
53. Masterpieces of Early Christian Art and Icons - Temple
54. Divine Beauty - Temple
55. A Brief Illustrated History of Icons - Temple
56. The Rise of Russia - Wallace
57. Art of the Byzantine Era - David Talbot Rice
58. Russian Icons - David Talbot Rice
59. Russian Icons from the 12-15th Century - UNESCO
60. Palekh - Progress Publishers
61. Byzantine Wall Paintings
60. Palekh - Progress Publishers
61. Byzantine Wall Paintings
