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Yes, I wouldn't mind seeing more of those kinds of paintings in public places.
There was an interesting conversation between Jordan Peterson (caveat: I do not endorse some of his recent move toward establishment American conservatives and selling gold... but his old Jungian lectures on The Lion King and Pinocchio are excellent) and Jonathan Pageau. Previously he had been working on carving traditional icons, and has recently started working more on retelling traditional fairy tales. I will be interested to see if anything comes of it. The best conservative storytelling of the last century is that of the Inklings, because it's legible to children, but still rich enough for adults. But I don't get the impression the current system is built to allow professors enough slack to sit around at pubs talking about their imaginary worlds for 20 years.
I'm not sure about grown up stories. I think it's more useful to think of excellent stories than right wing ones. The best American fiction is probably Faulkner, as much for his prosody as because of the stories. Or entirely for that, and his use of specifically American culture, since half the time I couldn't tell what the story was when I was reading him. Dvid Foster Wallace had so much talent, but inanition to being more left than might be ideal, I and those I know have only succeeded in reading his essays, not his stories, because they're even more convoluted than Faulkner, as far as I can tell. It's fine when someone writes nonfiction or Based on True Events pieces well, like Solzhenitsyn. I've heard good things about Tom Wolfe, though I haven't managed to read anything by him, despite trying a couple of times. Same with Flannery O'Connor; I tried, but just don't get it. A lot of intellectual conservatives including in my family think she's great, though.
So that was all the 40s and 50s, mostly. Then things have stagnated for about two generations. People have been reading terribly written self help books like "The Purpose Driven Life" and political dross like "The Democratic Party Hates America." I read Brandon Sanderson novels because at least he writes novels, and doesn't just give up half way through. It seems like the thing to do is lean into our local subcultures and inherited religions more. Unsung is lovely, if insufficiently edited, in a similar trippy way to Charles Williams. I would still recommend it to rightists of taste, regardless of differing politics, because it isn't about narrowly defined politics, but about Heaven and Hell and whether to world is made up of math or not, like all good stories. It would be great if he could find and talk with someone who could write Tom Wolfe style satire about Bay Area tech people and blockchain stuff. I'm unhappy that the current model is to dribble thoughts out on Substack, and would like more compilations and stories. I don't know how one would go about encouraging this, not being oneself able to produce anything much in writing.
I don't know. If I knew I would have learned Byzantine mosaic and be working away at it already, since this is something I've been interested in for a decade. Instead, I watercolor plants in my garden and make felt quail, like everybody else. I've learned the basics of encaustic (the medium used for the Christ Pantocrator of Sinai icon), but have neither training in how to progress past embedded leaves and accretion, nor anything to do with the pieces when they're finished. My mother had a lot of artistic potential, but mostly just painted and scratched some egg art, then gave up because she didn't have anything in particular to do with them. A man came to my school district to do a workshop with the art teachers about retablo once. He was self-taught, since the art form had mostly died out in the early 20th Century, but he was motivated to work on painting cultural connections to his ancestors and religion. It was great, we all loved it, but it took over a year to set up, then we don't actually know what to do with the information afterwards.
There's a church being built in town. I should probably go there and see if there are any iconographers about. They had bells cast, and now have a bell tower set up, and have presumably trained or are training a bell ringer (https://youtube.com/watch?v=faa5TZtnfzc). Perhaps there are things going on that I could participate in? And also because I miss church, but have stopped going on account of life circumstances and changes in my favorite parish. But also, my kids are too little just now, I'll probably have more bandwidth in a few years, and can take them to learn traditional arts too.
Absolutely agree about Peterson. He's at his best when talking about Jungian stories and archetypes, and getting into the idea of perception needing a structure of value that is outside narrow scientific and 'rational' frameworks.
That icon is beautiful, and thanks for calling out the method. My girlfriend really likes to sew and knit, do you know any icons or methods that are made in those ways?
Not iconographic, but just saw this rather impressive thread artist https://www.ceciledavidovici.com/
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I don't know too much about it. I learned sewing and embroidery in, one might say, the British tradition, from a woman who's mother was a seamstress in England. So I hand sewed a Regency era ballgown. I haven't examined it since, because whenever I have enough time to embroider, which is rare, I just do something else instead.
The words that come up, though, are vestments and regalia, though they're more embroidered and beaded than knitted. https://www.monasteryicons.com/product/christ-the-lifegiver-vestment-emblem-559ve/165
I personally love Albanian (and Turkish) wedding dresses, which are vestment looking, and worn on holidays and anniversaries. https://static.themarthablog.com/2018/03/IMG_3432.jpg
Native American regalia is often also beautiful, and people put a lot of effort into it. There's some especially excellent beadwork involved. There was a Christian Alaskan man I met once who had made himself a deer hide jacket, and designed and painted Jesus and Christian symbols all over it in his local style, and it was really neat.
I used to have some Scottish pieces from my great grandfather's clan, featuring a clan tartan and "Dread God" brooch that I would wear sometimes, but couldn't find enough occasions, so eventually I seem to have lost it.
It seems like there's pretty strong demand for wearing special garments, hence the popularity of cosplay and reenactments. But Americans aren't really sure how to wear them seriously or liturgically. Perhaps I should make my daughters folk dresses from where their father is from and have them wear it to Pascha or something. It looks like I would have to order some special trims, but is probably feasible if they don't grow out of them before they're ready.
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