Icons, Icons, Icons

I have had icons on my mind lately as I am reading “The Little Oratory.” Elizbeth Foss and Leila Lawler are doing a wonderful summer read-along podcast that has been so lovely to listen to. Normally, books like this have a tendency to discourage me as my inner critic begins to take measure of me against some “ideal.” But listening to Elizabeth and Leila’s conversation, I’ve found relief in the idea that we are all on a journey toward that ideal — even the authors! That has been a consoling thought.

As I’ve followed along, I’ve been going around the house gathering up the many sacred images that we have strewn about and lying on dressers and bookshelves. I’m attempting to bring some kind of cohesion to the collection and create a space of focus for our home.

The result? Well…it’s a process. In my case a rather slow one — one step forward, two steps back.

I Found My Kindred Spirit

But icons have also been on my mind as a metaphor for, well, metaphors. Let me back up a bit. Did you ever read something and suddenly get the sense that the author was saying something very familiar to you? When it seemed as though she was writing your own thoughts? Your own experiences? For me, Madeleine L’Engle has become that author and I’m mad as hell that I didn’t give her a chance until I was in my forties! [I tried to read A Wrinkle in Time in fifth grade after our class watched the filmstrip version (hey, remember those?) but I couldn’t get into it and quit.]

I recently started reading A Circle of Quiet, the first book in her Crosswicks Journal series, and was hit over the head with that “she knows me!” feeling. Especially in chapter five when she talks about writing (or being creative) with young children around. What really got me thinking though, was this beautiful bit:

An image is something that helps us catch a glimpse of reality. A poet, a storyteller, could not work without images. Nevertheless, an image is only an image, a reflection not unlike the reflections of the shadows of reality in Plato’s cave. …

A true icon is not a reflection; it is like a metaphor, a different, unlike look at something, and carries within it something of that at which it looks….An icon, if it “works,” is more than itself; it bears a fragment of reality.

…A photograph can be a simile, an image; it can seldom be a metaphor, an icon.

“Metaphor is the lifeblood of art”

as Twyla Tharp says — a fact that I have written about before — but when your medium is photography it becomes a lot harder to move from image and simile to icon and metaphor. That is where I want to go. Sounds like a lofty goal, right? Now to start target practice.