The Last Supper by Olga Shalamova. Paper, mixed media, 2025
ITALIANO

PAPERWORK(s). Newsletter October 2025

Topics:
1. COURSES
2. TWO SCHOOLS OF ICONOGRAPHY
3. ROUTINE
4. ITALIAN VISAS
5. NEW IMAGES

1. COURSES

Dear Friend!,
This newsletter we also decided to start with photos from our latest in-person Workshops , which Olga conducted in July in Scuola di Iconografia di Seriate (Italy):

Our second piece of news is the calendar of our courses because we have finally managed to extend our schedule to 2026. It is almost the same as we had this year, just one day earlier, - see it on our main page.

Melbourne (Australia) schedule update:
Our first Beginners group for the workshop in Melbourne is now full. This is the reason why we turned our second week workshop into one for beginners too, - have a look if you are interested. In addition to the main workshop program I plan to share my latest discoveries in the field of visual richness and principles of interaction.

The New Skete (USA):
The registration for our in-person workshops in the New Skete (NY, USA) was launched in August. The Beginners course is on May 12-16, and the Advanced course on May 26-30, 2026. Here I also plan to extend the course program showing how to enhance the visual richness of our works based on models made by our predecessors.

Iconography Study Group result - icon of Christ Pantocrator as an example for Iconography Study Group program. For those who've attended several of our online courses, we suggest seriously considering ICONOGRAPHY STUDY GROUP. This long-term program is designed to consolidate your knowledge and skills by guiding you through the process of painting an icon of Christ. Bringing together everything learned in previous courses, this program also introduces several essential new skills. You will learn in detail how to paint hair and beards, and how to harmonize all the individual elements of the icon. Each student receives personalized mentoring and comprehensive feedback on every exercise submitted. We will guide you step-by-step—from initial planning and sketching to completing a finished icon of Christ. By the end of the Study Group program you will have a deep understanding of the full process and methodology of professional icon painting. So far we have 12 people in the group—it looks already like a perfect number.

NEW COURSES (in progress)
Each of us is now working on a new program. Olga is preparing an online course on ¾ FACES (as promised), and my course will teach how to see as artists. I'm making this course for anyone willing to start seeing the world instead of just recognizing objects in it. I have a feeling that for all my life I never saw this issue, and so I was the worst art student ever.. With help of Dato Sulakauri and Alexander Kornoukhov I opened up an entirely new world of vision. Now I feel that this my hard and difficult learning experience allows me to see issues of many people… Allows me to exemplify and explain things which seem evident to professional visuals, but were never explained to others (like me). I am thrilled to share these things as during the last year they fill me with constant joy—it's about the aspects of visual world which I have partially described in an article earlier this year. We both hope to present these courses to you in the nearest future and we hope that you will like them just like we do.
Stay Tuned!

2. TWO SCHOOLS OF ICONOGRAPHY (an article)
Article about two approaches to drawing, published in our Giornale di Arte Liturgica Our online courses are such a great extension of our reality. Not only do one has to think about verbalizing and visualizing own thoughts when recording video tutorials. It turns out that in addition to the universal knowledge we share with each other through texts and images, each of us as a person has a most valuable layer of personal experience, accessible only through immediate communication.

In this regard we are very happy when we receive from you, our colleagues and students, some information about your life, and about your artistic problems and discoveries in iconography. It seems to me that thanks to the opportunity to communicate and exchange experiences, we all continuously enrich each other with new knowledge. Interacting with students brings another dimension to our reality, because they ask questions...

Some questions are rather technical, but from time to time there are questions, which in their clarity and straightforwardness inquiry about the very core of iconography. This is exactly what happened earlier this year, when one of our online students asked what makes iconographers choose copying over creative drawing or vice versa. I had spoken briefly on this topic many times before, but this time I managed to turn my anwer into a whole article. I tried to answer as neutrally as possible, and I very much hope I succeeded, and that this text will be useful for understanding the situation of contemporary iconography. Here is the article in both English and Italiano, - please, have a look.

I'm sure that the situation this student noticed requires most serious consideration, and if you have a comment or argument on it, please share what you think.

3. ROUTINE

icon of Christ Pantocrator. Hot encaustic on old wood by Philip Davydov Before speaking about life I want to mention that our work on the film about Svaneti is continuing. Last weekend Alla presented the 3rd cut of the film. We all agreed that it is not enough to show frescoes and their keepers—we need to provide context, to speak about the place of Svaneti art in the history of Christian art. Besides, there will most likely be 2 versions of the film. One will be made as a classical documentary, and the other version will include most of the frescoes and icons we filmed to share them as a treasure with iconographers and other artists. All this should be done soon and I am very much hoping that we can finish this project before the end of the year. Thank you all so much for your patience!!

Life changes may bring unpredictable consequences. Even without any specific desire, our life in Tbilisi turned out to be more social than in Russia. Working in our studio in Saint Petersburg - right on Fontanka river, 15 minutes walk from home, we used to only see our relatives, members of our parish on Sundays, and extremely few other persons a year as our guests.

Living in Georgia, we no longer feel like reclusive artists whose main company consists of ancient frescoes, mosaics, and icons—as it used to be. Having lost the opportunity to live and work in our own country, we suddenly felt ourselves to be tiny particles of a huge community that had been shattered into fragments. It turned out that the only parameter uniting us all was our belonging to the sphere of culture, with which each of us in our own way had connected our lives. It became clear that there are very many like us—those who quietly sat in their cozy nests and spun their yarn, and with the start of the war turned into nomads, rushing about in search of work and housing.

This universal restlessness has made each meeting more precious, as an opportunity to grieve together and exchange hopes. The world on one hand has shrunk to several dozen people from "our boat," and at the same time, has expanded incredibly. It turned out that geographically Tbilisi occupies a very convenient position. After all direct flights between Russia and Western countries were canceled, Tbilisi and Yerevan became the cities where Russians who left meet with their friends and relatives still living in Russia. Icon of Nativity of Christ by Philip Davydov. Wood, gesso, hot encaustic, 2025 The reality of our small private icon painting workshop suddenly became part of the reality of our very distant neighbors, measuring the distance to each other in time zones and hours of travel. It turned out that we are all cells of an invisible network, connected to each other through social networks, rejoicing in each other's successes and lamenting each other's sorrows. Suddenly all our ideas about the past, in which some special titans of spirit, word, and image created and lived, suddenly lost their meaning. Instead, there arose a sense of the uniqueness and continuity of time, in which, to the best of our abilities and capacities, we all simply continue what was begun before us, because we chose this.

In this sense we can say that everyday life is beautiful, because doing your work, you simply do what you can for yourself and your loved ones, but the situation is constantly changing. Sometimes pleasant news comes that someone got a job and their visa was approved. But everything is constantly changing, and plans change. For example, our son Lev returned to Russia in February 2025 because he wanted to finish his bachelor's degree program at his institute in person. We agreed with him that after getting his diploma he would come to us again in Tbilisi, and together with him we would look for a Master's program for him somewhere in the West... He successfully finished his bachelor's degree, but while he was studying, he witnessed criminal cases being opened against some of his classmates simply because they left the Russian Federation and did not appear at the military registration office. This made a strong impression on him, and he changed his mind about leaving Russia. Wishing to avoid having a criminal case opened against him, he managed to obtain approval to fulfill his military obligation through the Alternative Civil Service program, which appears like still working. In September he already worked a month in a hospital as a floor cleaning machine operator, and in early October he received the final document granting him the right to this alternative service, which will begin for him in April 2026. Thus, right now he lives in Saint Petersburg and for the moment he seems to be protected from serving in the army. We tried in every way to influence him to immigrate, but understood that in this case we cannot make the decision for him and now we simply pray for him… Since our Lev is not a public figure, and we hope he'll be okay.

Icon of Harrowing of Hell by Philip Davydov Nevertheless, among our friends there are those who conduct active public activities, and regarding them, heavy news comes. In August there were two such pieces of news at once. The first was that our old friend, our son Lev's godfather, REV. ANDREI KORDOCHKIN, who has been speaking out against the war since February 2022, was declared a Foreign Agent in Russia. Apparently this happened in part because of his active support for other anti-war priests, for whom he founded charity fund "Peace to All" ("Mir Vsem"), declared in Russia an "Undesirable Organization."

Also in August, our friend, journalist XENIA LUCHENKO, who has spent her whole life writing articles about the life of the church, was not only declared a foreign agent, but was also recognized as a criminal for what she writes.

Recently she published a book about the history of the Russian Orthodox Church. The book is good—perhaps that's exactly what prompted this. To give you an idea of what she is writing, here is a couple of publications: Report for Free Russia Foundation, Xenia as a co-author at Russian.Post, Some articles at Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, the latest interview translated into English, And an article about the book in English too). If you like to read her texts in Russian, here is her Patreon and Telegramm channel Orthodoxy and Zombies. Her book has just got published electronically, it only costs €12 to purchase: "Paved With Good Intentions., and her personal Paypal for individual support.

We ask you to pray for Father Andrei and for Ksenia, and that the sanctions of the Russian state do not affect their lives and professional activity. If you would like to help the anti-war priests, we can recommend the above-mentioned fund "Peace to All", (click the blue circle with European flag on the top left of the page to choose your language).
And if you would like to help Ksenia, use the links above.

4. ITALIAN VISAS
icon of St. Francis by Philip Davydov It's been almost a year since Olga and I made a decision to stop trying to convince Georgian authorities to grant me a residence permit and prepare to move to Italy. Now is the time when my actual process of obtaining a long-stay Italian visa has turned into its active stage.

And before speaking about details I wanted to use this newsletter to one more time express our gratitude to lots and lots of you, particularly to those who agreed to write support letters for us! Now we have about 40 recommendations from several church institutions and private people in different countries. THANK YOU!!!

I began collecting documents for this visa in March, and in addition to the recommendations I am providing financial documents about our income and taxes, which should demonstrate to the ambassador that we can support ourselves and that we have lots of clients and students in many parts of the world. I was so worried about making things right and having all the necessary documents, I went to Italy for one week in the beginning of October. Once there, I attended several Italian immigration departments of several state institutions and now I have a feeling that I have everything I could possibly need. And to make sure nothing gets lost in the process of application I printed all the papers in 2 copies, so my current pile of documents weighs almost 3 kilograms— hope it will be enough.

On this coming Friday, on October 31, 2025 I have an appointment at the Italian Embassy in Yerevan. I will be applying for a special Italian visa which will allow us to live and officially work in Italy for one year with a possibility to extend the stay by presenting necessary documents. Once the documents are accepted, the embassy will have 120 days to make a decision regarding our visas, and of course I will keep you posted. For now I just ask you for this short period of time to possibly remember us in your prayers.

5. NEW IMAGES
It's funny to realize that we would not have done so much if we stayed in Russia. Not that I recommend everybody move away from home to another country... Now I just think of immigration as a rather natural part of life. In a new country everything is new and even the environment makes you reevaluate all that you used to consider final. Seeing how the ways of life and habits differ from country to country gives inner freedom and allows you to stop paying too much attention to formalities, to assess intentions rather than actual moves.

I think one of the most important changes we have experienced here in Georgia is broadening our professional horizons in terms of variety of forms of ecclesiastical art. For many years we only worked in a narrow field of strictly liturgical art, and here in Georgia I realized that different types of art (genres) follow different sets of rules. It's out of the question that the portable icons are made exclusively for prayer; however, there are many other types of artistic work which are much less regulated and give much more freedom to artists.

Since here in Georgia we have no commissions for icons, we switched to other kinds of art—the ones which have fewer formal limitations. Painting on ceramic, wood, mulberry paper and other unusual surfaces removes the fear of responsibility. You stop worrying about a potential (even the best) client's evaluation and focus on doing your work the best way you can—no more excuses. Here below I am sharing all the 43 images Olga painted on different types of paper during the last 3 months:
As you see, they present traditional iconography subjects, realized in an individual manner. Although the subjects are recognizable, she managed to avoid borrowing traditional iconography approach and patterns directly, omitting stylizing the highlights and shadows to fit the patterns. There were several reasons for this shift—firstly because the paper surface and texture naturally suggest finding a new method of painting which would fit exactly the properties of this material. Secondly because of the reasons described in the article I quoted above—if you use your energy to create, you have one kind of result. If your energy is mainly used to replicate something already existing, your work will also show it as "someone's"—not yours.

We hope that you will see them as a possibility for inspiration and try working on your own.

Don't be afraid! Just move on, try drawing and painting and stay alert for images and thoughts which can teach you!

And please feel free to share with us what you'd like to discuss!!!

Warmly,
Philip & Olga

P.S. If you missed our June Newsletter, it is here.
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