Window To God: Sister Clairvaux McFarland finds an unexpected mission - the ancient art of iconography

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Icons have not had a deep tradition in the Catholic church. For centuries, those stern-faced saints were the sole province of Orthodox religions, with each ethnic tradition embracing its individual style.

But now, there are a handful of Catholic religious sisters who have entered into the ancient art of iconography (the painting of icons) to deepen spirituality.

Sister Clairvaux McFarland, a Sister of St. Francis who lives and works at Assisi Heights Monastery in Rochester, is one of the first in Minnesota to discover the spiritual depth of icons and to paint them with a professional's touch. Sister Clairvaux's interest in icons parallels a growing interest in icons throughout the Catholic church.

"I see icons as the gates from the visible to the mystery of the invisible," Sister Clairvaux said during an interview in her studio and home on the Assisi Heights campus. "They are the windows to the mystery of God."

Her beginnings

Sister Clairvaux (named for St. Bernard of Clairvaux, a 12th century monk) has not always been a painter of icons. Now 67, she began her ministry with the Franciscans as a teacher and later served as a school administrator. But as she worked in education, her love of art grew personally more important.

Eventually, she began designing religious greetings, Easter and Christmas cards and a few basic icons. Then, a member of her community asked her if, for a special occasion, she could paint the traditional San Damiano cross, which had its origins in the small Italian church rebuilt by St. Francis, the order's founder.

The maintenance crew at Assisi Heights cut out the wooden cross. Then, Sister Clairvaux took it to a remote monastery in Dubuque, Iowa, and painted the figures on the cross.

Moved by that powerful spiritual experience, she began to consider a new vocation, one that would take her from education to the depths of holy experiences.

"I needed to know if this was what God wanted me to do," Sister Clairvaux said. "It was becoming a spiritual vocation."

She decided to retreat into the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, where her sister owned a vacation cabin. There she worked on icons and discovered the next step in her development as a religious artist.

Studies with iconographer

"I heard about Vladislav Andrejev, a Russian iconographer working in New York City who took students on Fridays for seven-hour workshops," Sister Clairvaux said.

She began taking instruction from Andrejev, whose approach to painting icons relied on the pure, Russian style using only natural ingredients.

"When I was a child, at Christmas someone gave me a watercolor paint set with little brushes and those squares of paint," Sister Clairvaux said. "I used it up in one day. I painted pictures of everyone in the house.

"But I was always drawn to icons as a young woman," Sister Clairvaux said. "There was something different about them. We have gotten so realistic in the representation of the image that we have lost sight of the divine."

As Sister Clairvaux studied with Andrejev, she learned about the features that set icons apart from secular portraits.

"The figures are androgynous. They have thick necks, which signify the breath of God, and a small bump on their foreheads, which will remind us of the wisdom of God."

But those are the mechanics of iconography, not the deeper religious connection she has seen icons produce firsthand.

In 1994, Sister Clairvaux was involved in a serious auto accident that left her with disabilities. As she recuperated over the next months, there was only one thing she desired.

"The only thing I wanted was the San Damiano cross. I looked at it. I gave it a prayer of gazing. The icon gazes at you, and you gaze at the icon. We have so many older sisters who say, 'I'm too old. I can't pray anymore.'

"Now, I bring an icon to them and tell them, 'You don't have to pray -- just gaze at the icon. Just sit before that icon -- 10 minutes a day. Soon, the icon speaks the spirituality of what the image is -- the image of the holy.'"

Her work

Sister Clairvaux is set apart from other Catholic icon painters in the United States. "I want to do it in the purest form," Sister Clairvaux says, "the way Orthodox Christians have done it for hundreds of years."

She begins with tempera, a paint that has been mixed with the yolk of an egg, vinegar and water, which becomes the glue that binds the paint to the board.

A board made of poplar wood, for instance, is routed out as a bed for the icon. The outer frame is the Hebrew Scriptures. The inside, the icon, is the Christian Scripture.

She coats the board with rabbit-skin glue, then covers it with a cotton or linen cloth that also has been soaked in rabbit-skin glue.

After sanding 10 coats of gesso, or a mixture of rabbit-skin glue, champagne and chalk, she places the image on the board and incises it with an edging tool. Then, the artist begins work on the halo that always adorns the sainted figures.

The halo is covered with burnishing clay mixed with fish-eye glue. There are four layers painted on the halo, and each is sanded with 2,000-grit sandpaper.

As the gold is about to be applied to the icon, Sister Clairvaux breathes on the area -- "a real heavy, gutsy breath." The gold leaf then adheres to the clay and is smoothed with a burnishing tool. After the gold leaf is secure, the red line is drawn around the halo.

Finally a mixture of green, brown and black tempera is applied to the icon four times.

"The last highlight is creating the uncreated light," Sister Clairvaux said. "It is the light that gives the image of the depth of holiness -- the soul, the radiance. It's like -- something spiritual happens. I do it and yet I don't do it."

After the icon has dried, Sister Clairvaux oils the piece with linseed and other oils. The oil is heated and poured over the icon, preserving it to last for centuries.

Now in the quaint gray cottage on the remote fringe of the Assisi Heights campus, Sister Clairvaux ponders the meaning of her vocation.

"My sole purpose in painting an icon is to offer access through the gate of the visible to the mystery of the invisible, to bring out the spiritual qualities of holiness rather than the outward beauty of the person portrayed. This presence is reflected by an uncreated light not coming from the art, but from the holy."

Icons for sale

Her religious emphasis does not preclude a financial reality check. If you wanted to purchase one of Sister Clairvaux's icons, the system can be a bit cumbersome.

She is forbidden by tradition from even estimating what an icon might be worth. Her advice: Think about how much money the object is personally worth to you. But Sister Clairvaux is no fool.

"When you make an offer," she says, "it should probably be lower than what you intend to spend. I will assume that is your intent and try to up the price."

Clark D. MorphewAugust 8, 1998