Her profile is LOADED with sources on Byzantine dress from ceremonial garments of military to bridal costume to even eunuchs! I nearly fell off my couch! They’re RECENT also, and free! FREE. I had to share! The only way Byzantine personae in the SCA will grow is by the continued research and study of the subject. Bamf. You’re welcome. Now if you excuse me, I need to go download all the things to my Kindle Fire. ❤
So.
Once upon a time, Avelina II, Queen of the East, challenged her populace to a garb challenge for Birka. This challenge, was to take your favorite sports team, and basically turn it into garb. Me, having the huge words, “COMPETITIVE SUCKER” written across my forehead, went, “Oh, it’s on.”
You see, class, Anna is not a fan of anything Boston/New England. I grew up in Tampa, and therefore, have suffered through some really horrible seasons with really horrible teams. Fortunately, the Rays are no longer horrible, and the Lightning have never really BEEN terrible, but the Buccaneers? Oh man, I have stories. Your priest on Sunday should not include, “And please let the Bucs win!” during the closing invocation of a Catholic mass during the Vinny Testaverde days.
First, I needed to make a choice. I had three professional teams I could reasonable choose from, and then a huge span of time to play with as far as the garb would go. I gave myself 2 options: Keep it simple, or, MAKE THEIR EYES BLEED! Both the Rays and Buccaneers had been blessed with pretty garish color schemes during their inception, and have since toned down the colors. This also resulted in winning records. Since then, us TB fans have a superstition that changing uniforms makes a winning team. The Bucs broke that, but 2 for 3 ain’t bad. The original color schemes of the teams were creamsicle orange, red, and white for the Bucs; black, blue, and white for the Lightning, and hot green and purple for the Rays. I could feel my eyes bleeding as I tried to mentally design apron dresses around these teams. It was a Viking event after all. I decided to ditch the Lightning first, not that turning contrast stitching seams into lightning bolts couldn’t be awesome, but it seemed the most subdued. Then, I turned to the Rays and the Bucs. I’m not one for being subtle. (To quote my friend Konstantia Kaleothina, “Byzantines put the ‘b’ in subtle.”)
My mind reeled over the idea of designing an intricate “devil ray” in the Norse style for applique on a purple wool dress, baseball stitches on the seams, with a hot green tunic, but I was at a total loss with the idea of the Bucs. They were, well, pirates. Straight out of the cavalier period, even:
Bucco Bruce!
If I went that route, I needed to go uber-late period. I was at a loss. Both outfits were going to require a significant amount of time and resources, and late period requires scary undergarments.
My prior experience with the period.
So, instead of drawing stuff out, and weighing pros and cons, I simply called my family in Florida, who don’t really SCA, and asked their opinion.
“#$%! those Boston fans. Blind the bastards.”
Us Tampanians are so eloquent.
I was still a bit torn, the throwback Devil Ray Viking would be just as hardcore as throwback Buccaneers Elizabethan, but the ultimate deciding factor were members of the Barony of Stonemarche issuing their own challenge to wear orange at Birka.
Challenge: ACCEPTED. (I was so screwed.)
Alright, first, pick a period. It would have to be as late as I could go. Cavalier is technically out of period, you’re looking at the 1630s post-English Civil War, and I’d be damned if I was going to wear a cavalier hat like every other rennie, so I rolled back the clock 30 years, and got to this:
This is Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford, from a Masque she put on in 1606. She was a huge patron of the arts in the courts of Elizabeth I and James I. She was my muse.
Oh. My. God. It was perfect. Not only did I find a shape I could work with, but this was instant documentation for the use of orange. There’s always a debate on orange in period, and there’s a great deal of evidence that not only did it exist, but it was also wildly popular. Especially in the Elizabethan/Jacobean period. I’ve always been a fan of late period fashions, mostly Italian over English, but I don’t really have the “draw” to the history like I do the Roman and Byzantine Empires, which is why I don’t particularly dabble in the 16th/17th Century.
So period: Check.
Cut: Check.
Colors: Easy enough.
I bought the orange linen from Fabrics-store.com as soon as I saw it. “Flame orange” is the name, and it was on sale. Done. Mine.
ZING! Sunny Delight, anyone?
Now to approach the details. I entertained a great deal of ideas of how I was going to do trim and lace. Venetian lace I found easy enough, but the stripes…I wasn’t sure. I figured I could use different color bias tape, and make it easy on myself, and that’s what I was pretty much going to go with, until my boyfriend got me a sewing machine for Christmas that embroiders. Oh LAWD, he created a monster!
I had one more issue: I’m dieting. In fact, I’ve lost 4″ from my waist since the challenge was announced, and I needed a corset. I HATE MAKING CORSETS. I figured I could spend the money, have someone do it for me, and then just re-sell it, but I caved, saved myself about $50, and bought the materials myself. The game was afoot.
First I made the skirt. It’s a simple 6-gore skirt with a drawstring waist. Not accurate, it should be gathered into a band and hooked closed, but…it was a 10ft rule competition, and I’m not Elizabethan. I was going to take shortcuts. I sewed the skirt together, threw it over the hoop, and laughed, really hard, over how orange it was. I sent a picture to the boyfriend, and he was mortified. I created a simple embroidery pattern using the stock stitches on my machine, and chose them for the following reasons:
The white reminds me of sunbursts or lightning bolts. So it pays a bit of homage to the other two pro teams in Tampa Bay, and the red were palm trees. This was my little salute to home. The red-white-red pattern is the same as on the orange uniform components.
The smock was another fast garment, all things considering. The pattern is basically the same as a t-tunic with some minor variations, in this case, I created a mock partlet (another shortcut, don’t kill me, Elizabethan personae reading this!) and embroidered the snot out of it with my machine to resemble blackwork in orange. I applied the wider Venetian lace around the color to mimic Lucy Russell’s look, and did the orange-red-orange stripes on the cuffs as seen on the white jersey pieces of the uniform. It’s 100% white linen.
The two unfitted pieces of clothing were done. Now came hell: I needed to make the corset before I could fit the jacket. I had no choice but to wait until last minute to ensure a proper fit to whatever measurements I was at. (Being that I started the diet at a 37″ waist and am now 33″…I’ll take it.) This happened on January 19th, I wore this thing on January 25th. I used the Elizabethan Corset Generator and just followed it step by step. I used boning casing to help me measure out the lengths that I needed. This created an extra step, but I think it helped the rigidity of the corset, which was good. I had to call for backup to my friend Faelan MacLochlainn, a man of many tools, to help me snip the boning because I couldn’t do it with the tin snips he had loaned me. It took him a total of 10 minutes. I capped the bones myself, and sewed the sucker up without a hitch. The real issue came when I had to pop the eyelets open. I broke two seam rippers and the corset flew across the room. After that outburst, I resigned to a pair of sharp little scissors, and laced myself up. It fit. Hot damn, I made a corset in about 12 hours that didn’t hurt me, or pinch, and I could jump around in it easily without the girls popping out. It wasn’t the finest piece of tailoring I’ve ever done, but it WORKED. Plus, the wooden busk is fun to knock on and impresses your friends. The corset is made out of 100% cotton twill I had laying around.
!!@#@##$!!!!!!!!!!!!Elizabethan spankies. Totes adorbs.
…Then I got sick. I decided it was a wonderful idea to catch a cold Sunday night, so all day Monday, I felt terrible. I got enough strength to go into the sewing room and put the sleeves together for the jacket, but that was it. I lost a whole day. Tuesday, I forced myself off my ass and in there, embroidered the sleeves, and started on the sloper for the jacket. I did use Reconstructing History‘s pattern for the gored English jacket, which helped, but I’ve worked with her patterns enough to know that they aren’t full proof, you NEED to make them fit. I had a friend who was supposed to come over and help, and then it snowed 6″ to spite me. Because Providence is not known for their expert snow removal, I was on my own.
A late Elizabethan/early Jacobean gored jacket.
The first fitting was fine, and I even had wiggle room. So I went in, put the whole thing together, kept one side of the sleeves open to make it, you know, “swashbuckle-y,” I spent hours getting those inset gores in place only for them to all look horrid and have to be redone, and when I finally went to put it on…it didn’t fit. I was living a nightmare. I was ready to give up. Crying, I consulted a couple of friends on Facebook on my options. Inserting fabric was always a good choice. They had stomachers, and it’s always period to add little gores and gussets where you need them. So, I measured out the difference, made gores, sewed them on, had a LARGE glass of wine, and went to bed. Tomorrow was another day, but it was also cutting it close.I ran out of hooks and eyes, and had to wait until my boyfriend came home Thursday night for an emergency run to Joann’s in order to get it all together. It took me a couple hours to sew on the 22 little pieces, but I wasn’t sleeping until it was done. Friday morning came, and it was time to pack, but wait, there’s more! Because of how low-cut the jacket is, I decided to create a stomacher for my corset with the same stripe pattern as the smock, I added MORE embroidery to the jacket so the gores were accented as seen in period pieces, and then I went and made the cap with the same false blackwork to look like the Bucs helmet stripes. So help me God, I was done. I didn’t want to sew another stitch!
It’s very hard to take a picture of the back of your head.First full fitting before I added more embroidery to the jacket.
My hat I purchased from Stitches in Time (I’ve never made a decent hat and figured this was a bad time to try), I got obnoxious socks from Sock Dreams, and the hoop was just a cheap commercial one from eBay. The pearl strand I had was a vintage piece that my mother found at a white elephant sale for $5. They are actually low-grade saltwater pearls from the 1920s that have lost their lustre, but whatever. REAL PEARLS! I threw some glass drops from another necklace I had on silver hoops, and called it a day. We were off to Birka!
It was very hard not to explode and tell everyone what I was doing the whole time. A few people knew, especially Isabeau Du Valle and crew (The 14th century Sporting Portugal soccer team, for those who were there) who had also shared their idea with me. We were all insane, that much was for sure. I wanted to just shout, ‘HEY EVERYONE, GUESS WHAT I MADE?!” But I refrained, albeit almost bursting at the seams. And Saturday morning, I doned basic Byzantine to get breakfast and get some strolling through the event done before I turned into a walking traffic cone. At 11:30am, I saw someone wearing a Bruins apron dress, and that was it. I needed to change.
Somebody dropped the Big Sombrero on Ray Perkins.
I was nervous. I had tried it all on at home, and I knew it fit, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to pull it off. Orange is a hard color to wear. Even though I felt I looked okay, and so did the recipients of my test shots/selfies, I remained a bit unconvinced.
Then I took this selfie, and I realized that I never felt so posh in my life.
The way that the lace fell around the neckline was exactly as I had imagined it, and my thankfully [lightly made up] olive complexion just glowed.Unlike my poor Lord Geoffrey, who reflected it he came too close. I had begun emanating my own force field of Tampa Bay Buccaneers creamcicle orange.
I EVEN GLOW!
So after the typical fuss and muss and pin and fixing a falling off hook, I came off the elevator into the lobby into a sea of stares. People were closing their eyes and blinking, or even looking away. I had effectively managed to blind a small percentage of the event before I even hit the main drag. I’m pretty sure I broke a few Laurels. 😉
Mission: accomplished.
Most reactions were “WOW.”(or maybe it was “ow?”) Others were just wided eyed in wonder/horror at this lacey orange monstrosity that had appeared before them. So I paraded around the merchants, receiving compliments and, “WHY?” from several folks. I tried to find the perfect knife to hold in my teeth, but Geoffrey insisted it was a bad idea. Most people asked if I was representing Syracuse University, being that my persona is from Syracuse, Sicily, but no. Once I mentioned it was old school Bucs, I got a lot of rolled eyes and, “Of COURSE you would do something Tampa!” Sneers. Hah. Mission doubly accomplished.
The fashion show was…AMAZING. There was nobody there that didn’t astound me, and Baron Xavier and Baroness Maria’s Patriots landsknecht totally deserved the win. They were unbelievably detailed up close, and I really wish I would have brought my camera down to get pictures of everyone. Once a public gallery goes live, I’ll post it here to share.
WHAT HAVE I LEARNED:
– Do not be afraid of trying new things. Ever.
– A properly fit Elizabethan corset will not hurt you, nor are they that hard to make. You can even put it on, lace it up, and take it off yourself if you spiral lace it.
– Lucy Russell was a pretty amazing woman for her period.
– I look good in dayglow/signal corps orange. I cannot wear Lord Geoffrey as an accessory, though.
Will I wear this again?:
I’d be foolish not to wear it again after all the work I put into it, but it will just have to wait until the right time and place. Probably Pennsic for Midnight Madness. I may bring it down to the Bay Area Renaissance Festival in March when I go to visit my family, but that site is very dusty and usually turns the hem of whatever I’m wearing kinda black.
They aren’t scanned fabulously, but heck, you get how they work. These WILL be posted on my Eastern Roman Garb page as well, but I wanted to get these on a blog page and tagged for searchability as I plan a better layout for the current page, but this is a huge step in the content direction.
HERE GOES.
Also, let’s try to start using the Greek terms, Kamision and Delmatikion, for Tunica and Dalmatica respectively to help disseminate Greek over Latin.
These patterns are pretty self-explanatory for folks that are used to basic medieval clothing. Byzantine garb is basically all t-tunics, with only a few minor twists. The biggest issue is really the width of your fabric allowing for the nice curved underarm seam, that’s about it. These blocks are not the be-all-end-all ways to make these garments, but rather one interpretation to show you the pieces needed. Once you get a handle on the basic construction, all that’s left is embellishment and sleeve variations.
My pattern is based off of the 7th Century tunic in the permanent collection “Under the Stairs” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
Kamision (Tunica) instructions:
Recommended fabric: linen or very light wool
Recommended yardage: 4 yards of 60” wide
First, assess your fabric, and see if you can use this pattern layout, note the positions of the folds. This pattern is not to scale, and the average sized person may not have enough extra fabric on the sides to warrant the inclusion of the gores. This is okay, as they can be cut separately.
A breakdown of the measurements you will need as laid out in the patterns, they DO NOT include seam allowance:
A: Tunica length. Measure from the nape of your neck to where you want the tunic to end.
B: 1/4th Chest measurement + ease. Typically what I do is take a chest measurement, divide it by 2, add 2 inches, and divide again by 2. That is your number.
C: Upper arm length has everything to do with the width of your fabric and not your arm. If you can fit the length of your upper arm (shoulder to elbow) here, that’s awesome, but it’s not necessary, you will want at least to the half-way point between your joints, otherwise your underarm will not fit.
D: ½ Bicep measurement. Remember your fabric is on the fold at the top for your sleeves here, so you don’t want this to be very wide against your body. Tunicae were fitted as dalmaticae were not, so you will want to adjust ease here as necessary.
E: Lower arm length is the difference from where your upper arm length ends to your wrist.
F: ½ Wrist circumference is actually ½ the measurement you get around a closed fist. You want to get your hand into your sleeve, after all.
G: Gore length is the measurement from the top of your hip to the desired hem of the tunic. Now, if you have a fine derriere, so to speak, feel free to elongate that gore to your waist, but the original tunic’s gore comes off the hip.
There’s a variety of formulas out there to make a neckline. I have a small neck at 13”, so my go-to cut is 4” from the center point on each side, with a 1” dip in the back and 3” dip in the front, but a 2” dip in the back and a 4” dip in the front should fit most people. A boatneck, or basically just a slit, is also a common style for this period. The tunica at the Met has a keyhole neckline with the opening on shoulder seam. I’ve done that before as well. I recommend finishing your neckline with bias tape or a narrow hem before moving on.
Before any piecing of the pattern takes place: GET YOUR EMBELLISHMENT DONE. There is no way to apply clavii to a tunica once those side seams are in place. Get any roundels or segmentae you want on as well. It’s just easier to handle at this point.
Follow the diagram on the piecing. If you are going with the smaller gores if you were able to cut it from the folded fabric, follow the illustration at top, if you cut gores from a separate piece, follow the bottom. Apply trim over the seams where the upper sleeve joins the lower sleeve. This is definitely something else you want to do before you sew up the side seams.
Now all that is left is to join the front to the back along the side seams, hem the sleeves and bottom, and finish trims, and you’re done!
Delmatikion (Dalmatica) instructions:
Recommended fabric: Linen, silk, damasks/brocades, light to medium weight wool
Recommended yardage: 5 yards of 60” wide
Think of the Dalmatica as an oversized tunica, but as the tunica can be worn by itself as one layer, the dalmatica is an overtunic only. This is a unisex garment, and sometimes for women you may see it referred to as a “gunna.” Either way, this is where you really get to jazz up your wardrobe. They can be floor length or short enough to show off your tunica embellishments.
Sleeves can be short, long, or extra-wide as was the style in the 11th and 12th centuries when my persona lived. The only real difference is that typically the dalmatica was cut from one piece of fabric, including the skirt width, whereas the tunica had gores. However, gores are still a perfectly period option in the event of a smaller bolt width. Follow the instructions as laid out above for the tunica, and you should be in good shape. As far as embellishments go, the best way to go about this is to follow some period examples. Clavii didn’t seem as popular on dalmaticae as the centuries progressed, and richness was displayed not so much with embroidered bands of trim but rather in the heavy silk damasks and brocades that were in fashion. My drawings including clavii to better illustrate how to embellish.
Note that I included a curve at the edge of the skirt portion in order to better facilitate trim application on the dalmatica’s hem. This is optional, especially if separate gores are chosen, but note that wide trims will require careful piecing and pleating to better conform to the hem.
Just like in the Tunica instructions, remember you NEED to add any embellishment such as clavii and other appliques BEFORE you close the side seams.
Once your garments are completely sewn, then it’s time to go in and add all the really rich goodies to your pieces, such as hundreds of pearls and other gemstones. 🙂
I made this specifically for my friend in the East Kingdom Artisanal Exchange for this fall. Typically, Mary would be in red, but since this was based on an in-joke between the recipient and her friends, I put her in blue. Aside from that, I can happily say that my skills have improved since my last attempt. Egg tempera is a tricky medium.
I’m sure readers are wondering why a woman, who is normally focused on the clothing of Rome and Byzantium, is now making Norman garb. Well, for one, I’ve wanted one for a long time. For twos, my persona is half-Norman. My boyfriend is Norman, and the freehold I am apart of is a Norman keep. So…it was only a matter of time before I made Norman garb for myself. My friends in the neighboring barony are being invested as baron and baroness this coming weekend, and they are Saxon. So, what could be funnier than all of their pals showing up as Normans to the party? Our area 12th Night event is also very early 12th century and traditionally a 10 foot rule event, so I needed to make something appropriate for that, also. The only hitch was that I’m 11th Century, 1090s to be exact, so I had to find evidence to support the wearing of this garment in that period. That was relatively easy, as the Bayeux Tapestry clearly shows women wearing snug dresses with droopy sleeves. Tada!
Queen Aelfgyva says, “Whatevs.”
I found the spot of evidence I needed from Sarah Doyle’s Page on The Clothing of Norman Women in the Late 11th and Early 12th Centuries. She gives a wealth of sources that made it easy to get an idea of the style I wanted to make, as bliauts can vary quite a bit. I wanted to keep it relatively simple with sleeves a reasonable length such as Aelfgyva’s above, and line then to show contrast as what seemed popular during this period. The only other real issue I had was determining a neckline, and I went with the keyhole rather than the V-Neck. It will be mostly covered by my veil anyway.
The process didn’t take too long. I made an underdress out of black linen and 4 gores. I threw some trim on the neckline, cuffs and bottom hem. The main gown is made from a deep red linen, that also has 4 gores and cut-out underarms to allow for the easier attaching of the sleeves. The sleeves were really the most tedious part, but still not difficult. Linings don’t scare me, but I ran into some hiccups as far as being able to ensure the hiding of seams but still closing a side seam up after the sleeves were inserted. So I basically had to partially complete the sleeves and then leave about 5-6 inches unsewn so I could attach it to the main body of the dress. Easy enough. Under normal circumstances I would have sewn just the linen together and then finished the green silk lining over the seam by hand, but it was fighting back and some points weren’t matching as well as I planned them too, SO, the silk got machined into the seam and finished with a zig zag. This makes me worry a bit about fraying, but it was the best option given the circumstances, and that I decided to make this 3 days before wearing it. More on that later. Here’s some pictures of the sleeve process.
Before pressing.After pressing.Attached to the body. There’s also trim on the outside, which I should have waited to do by hand.
Once the sleeves were on, the dress came together much faster. All I had to do at this point was finish the trim on the neckline, sew on the side gores and then close the sides. The dress itself is a foot longer in the torso than a normal tunic dress, this allows for the ruching look that was desirable during the period. I opted to not lace the side of the dress. This results in some interesting shimmy shimmy shakes to take it off, since I had to take in the sides to make it tight enough.
I told you. Long dress is long. This is what it looked like before I shaped the side seams.
And here’s a snapshot of my first test fitting before taking in the sides.
I pulled in the sides a bit more after this, and made the girdle out of the leftover trim I had. The only REAL mistake I did was attaching the trim on the upper arm before sewing the side seam. This sounded like a great idea at the time, but they don’t match up, which you can kind of see if you’re standing behind me. I expect to hear some crap about that this weekend. So I figure once the event is over, I can go and remove the trim, and replace it by hand so I don’t have that problem. I’m still not sure why my measurements are off.
The only other real “problem?” I’ve lost weight. 8 inches total from my hips alone to be exact from two points, so making a fitted dress earlier in the year was going to be a problem. Chances are if I keep this up, I’m going to have to not just take in more from the sides, but put in the lacings to MAKE it tight enough. This is why I had to wait until last minute to make it. 🙂
So last weekend (the 21st of September) was our Artifacts of a Life event here in the East Kingdom. There were some some amazing displays there!
The premise of the event was to create a collection of artifacts pertaining to your persona or another persona, something that they would have had during their life, grave goods, etc. I chose an 11th Century Byzantine woman, which, by the way, is rather hard. Because the majority of the artifacts we have from the Byzantine period are earlier. Here is my display:
Left to Right: Oxymel syrup, Icon of St. Michael the Archangel, Mosaic of a Black Dolphin, and a necklace of garnets and pearls based on one at the Met.
Here is a close up of the necklace. I totally failed in posting updates of me making it, but it took 2 seasons of Sons of Anarchy marathoning in the background to emulate the look. I swear my fingers still hurt looking at it.
And the original:
I tried to get a little bit of everything, namely aspects of a Byzantine life: Spiritual, Temporal, Wealth, and Food/Drink. I tied it together with that silly backstory I previously posted.
I did well, I learned a lot, and met some wonderful people. Although I did not win the category I entered, I did go home with an autocrat’s prize, that is a lovely HUGE book of Italian Renaissance paintings that is totally drool worthy. I can’t wait to do this again, I think next year my “persona” will be Roman Egyptian. 😉
While on my backpacking across Sicily, I decided to stop at an inn for the night in the city of Syracuse. The inn, which was more of a bed and breakfast by American standards, was in an old annex to an even older house. I’m not one for architecture, but if I had to guess, it was built during the baroque period, with some parts perhaps even earlier, but knowing how homes in the older parts of the world had a tendency to be rebuilt many times, it was difficult to say.
I was the only guest for the evening, and the older couple who ran the establishment put out their nightly assortment of rich Mediterranean pastries and gave me a unique beverage that tasted of honey and vinegar. Not wanting to be rude, I accepted the drink and cookies without question, and joined them at their table. Meeting locals make these journeys more enjoyable, with the exception of course, being the language barrier. My Italian was shaky at best, the same with their English, but I learned that the drink was an ancient recipe, one that would revitalize me after my long day of backpacking through the city. After some additional language struggles, I did manage to communicate the purpose of my trip.
“I’m studying to be a classical archaeologist, and I enjoy trekking through ancient regions.”
The couple became incredibly excited, and without a beat, asked, in perfect form, “Can you speak Greek?” The conversation officially began.
The couple, named Marco and Maria, claimed they had a fine collection of artifacts they wished for me to look at. They explained that Maria’s family had roots in the Byzantine Empire, and Marco’s had hailed from a town in Thrace. They had sought refuge in Italy when the Ottoman Empire sacked Constantinople in 1453, bringing only what they could carry. I was intrigued, and yet somewhat unsure if these older Sicilians were simply trying to pull a joke on me. One can never be too cautious when traveling alone. Reluctantly, I agreed to view their so-called collection.
Maria took my hand gently, and we followed her husband into a parlor, where he slid several modern cedar chests into the floor. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was expecting, but I do know that when they were opened, I nearly stumbled back. These weren’t just any artifacts; these were museum-quality heirlooms that spanned generations. Jewelry, silks, pearls, Bibles, manuscripts, this was an unbelievable haul of personal, priceless treasures that had been preserved lovingly to protect a lost cultural identity.
Maria reached into one of the chests, and removed a few items that were gingerly wrapped in stained ancient silk. She placed them out before me: A mosaic with a dolphin on it, a necklace of gold, garnets and pearls, and an Orthodox icon of the Archangel Michael. I sat and blinked. These were not the typical goods of a poor, refugee family.
“My grandmother told me as a young woman that these are the oldest.” Maria began, “From before the Crusades. Her name was Anna, and she was part of the imperial family in Constantinople.”
I knelt down to get a closer look, and she lifted the necklace for me to see. “I was told that when my ancestors fled the city after it had been destroyed by the Turks, they had to save what they could from the old homes and graves. Looting had already begun by the infidels, so they had to hurry. The necklace they were able to save from Anna’s grave. The icon was in the family crypt, and the tile was once part of a large floor in the palace apartment that Anna was said to have lived in. Dolphins are a symbol of our family, you see, and also the old symbol of Syracuse before the times of Rome. My family goes back before the times of Alexander.”
I was unsure of the provenance of anything, but I promised Maria that if she would let me take pictures, I could bring them home and do research, then send her all the information. She agreed, and then I proceeded to go through the rest of their impressive collection. I turned in for the night as my mind reeled on what it would have been like to have been the last of the Byzantines, fleeing with what bits and pieces I could from the crumbling remains of the once glistening empire.
The next morning, as I prepared to leave for my journey, Maria and Marco saw me off with a small package of leftover pastry and a cup of strong Italian coffee…and a small box with the artifacts of the life of Anna, Maria’s eleventh century ancestor. Despite my protests, she urged that I keep them as a gift. She had no daughters of her own to pass them on, and this way I could study them, and perhaps place them in a museum for the rest of future generations to enjoy. The final parting gift was a small bottle of vinegary smelling syrup. Marco told me this was called oxymel, the beverage they had served me when I arrived, it was to be diluted in water, and used just as the Romans and Byzantines did centuries ago.
I placed the goodies into my already-full backpack, but allowed myself to take on the additional burden for these people who had allowed me, a stranger, into their home and hearts for nothing more than a night.
Well, this didn’t come out as well as I had hoped. In fact, it doesn’t look anything really like an “icon” as we know it, but looking at some actual period ones from the empire, most of them weren’t as structured as the ones we see today from the Russian schools are. Which makes feel A BIT better, but meh. An artist is never happy with her work.
However, this was my first ever attempt at ANYTHING like this, my first use of painting from dry pigment, let alone using period materials, so I can’t really be upset with myself. I learned a lot, and I know that if I want to try this again, I have a good foundation of where to start. First things first: work on faces, and get finer brushes. I will include my “next time” notes with my documentation for Artifacts of a Life. Judges always appreciate learning about what you learned. It was a journey and a process.
Here’s some action shots of my last 2 days of work. I have to let it cure overnight, so I can’t put more than a few hours of work in at a time. That and my eyes start going “NO.” And I get impatient.
Egg Tempera is a solution of egg yolk and white wine. I had a heck of a time separating the egg, then puncturing the yolk, but I was able to make the solution with some pinot grigio.
Yum.
You add this to natural, dry pigments.
No lead. Promise.
Then you start laying down the sankir, or skintone layer, and eventually all of the dark under layers. This is called the roskrish. This is what I got done last night.
Today I started the highlighting process, and it was uh…interesting at first. It’s a system of layers and building, so I had to step back, think, blend, curse, re-blend, paint, curse, try again, etc. Either way, Michael is starting to get that “illuminated” look that is typical of most icons. I feel I should be finished in the next couple of days. I don’t think I will have time tomorrow as my last class gets out rather late, but Wednesday afternoon I should be able to put a good dent into it.
I’m fairly pleased with how it’s coming out so far, and can’t wait to see the finished product now.
Well, so far. I got the gilding down tonight. This makes me insanely happy, since it was probably the part I was most worried about.
St. Michael the Archangel, patron of Constantinople. Naturally.The red stuff is called bole. It’s a mixture of red clay and animal skin glue. This is the adhesive for the gold leaf.GOLD LEAFS. Okay, it’s composite gold. I was too afraid to invest in the real stuff just yet. I figure after some more practice if it looks like I can get this technique down, I will take the leap of faith to the 23kt sheets.
HOLY SHINY. LITERALLY.
I did it! I applied gold leaf for the first time ever!
There are a little gaps, but it’s all fixable using shell gold, which is using the leftover leaf and mixing it with gum arabic to make a paint.
After the pictures were taken, I burnished the leaf, and used a modern sealant that came with the leaf because, well, I’m a rookie, and I’d rather be careful while I learn. So tomorrow I will try mixing the natural pigments into egg tempera, which is going to be the next hurdle.
Easy enough.
Anna's New Rome 
You must be logged in to post a comment.