Egg Tempera
Working in egg tempera is a messy and many layered kind of meditation. I have come to have a great deal of respect for the monks, artisans and scribes who worked for years on icons and manuscripts. They followed strict formulas for both the technique and the subjects. Symbolism was embedded in the colors and shapes that were used as well as in the images depicted.
I have not acquired the self discipline and meticulous attention to detail that is required to religiously follow the rules, but I certainly enjoy the intensity and luminosity of the egg tempera medium. And I find the process the grinding of the colors and the mixing of the egg yolk to be such a mechanical and stepped process that it becomes a kind of meditation.
Egg tempera as a medium was at its peak in Medieval Europe. Most of the subjects were religious (since most of the money for artwork at that time was coming from the church). Altar pieces and icons of the saints were the medieval painters' bread and butter.
I've done on a series I called "Everyday Saints." I like to use this ancient technique to showcase the kind of people we see everyday but sometimes we don't really see them. These are ordinary people trying to live out their values. When working in this seemingly tedious medium, my mind is free to think about just what it is that motivates these extraordinary/ordinary people.
I have not acquired the self discipline and meticulous attention to detail that is required to religiously follow the rules, but I certainly enjoy the intensity and luminosity of the egg tempera medium. And I find the process the grinding of the colors and the mixing of the egg yolk to be such a mechanical and stepped process that it becomes a kind of meditation.
Egg tempera as a medium was at its peak in Medieval Europe. Most of the subjects were religious (since most of the money for artwork at that time was coming from the church). Altar pieces and icons of the saints were the medieval painters' bread and butter.
I've done on a series I called "Everyday Saints." I like to use this ancient technique to showcase the kind of people we see everyday but sometimes we don't really see them. These are ordinary people trying to live out their values. When working in this seemingly tedious medium, my mind is free to think about just what it is that motivates these extraordinary/ordinary people.
