CCHAP Eastern European Bus Tour, 2008
SubjectPortrait of
Marek Czarnecki
(Polish-American)
Date2008 April 19
Mediumborn digital photography
ClassificationsGraphics
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
CopyrightIn Copyright
Object number2015.196.548.19-.26
DescriptionPhotographs of the Eastern European Bus Tour visiting the studio of iconographer Marek Czarnecki in Meriden on April 19, 2008.
(.19-.24) Photos of Marek Czarnecki discussing his icon paintings.
(.25) Photo of Polish pottery arranged for the group coffee break.
(.26) Photo of bus tour participants looking at artwork in Marek Czarnecki's studio.
NotesSubject Note: The Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program at the Institute for Community Research collaborated with Manchester Community College (MCC) on a cultural tourism project in 2004-2008. Each year, three or four day-long bus tours visited cultural events and artist studios in ethnic communities living in different parts of the state as a way for new audiences to experience and meet Connecticut’s ethnic and occupational communities. Project goals included 1) expanding awareness of unfamiliar art forms and heritage tourism assets, 2) encouraging access to little-known ethnic or occupational communities, 3) creating audience and artist interactions, 4) stimulating sales and commissions of traditional arts and foods, and 5) developing new partnerships with community organizations and artists. The tours were developed and led by the Connecticut state folk arts program director, Lynne Williamson along with artists from each community. The partnership with MCC ensured that the tours were advertised in the Credit-Free Catalogue each semester. Audiences for the tours were primarily members of the Older Adults Association, a core audience for MCC’s Credit-Free courses. (.19-.24) Photos of Marek Czarnecki discussing his icon paintings.
(.25) Photo of Polish pottery arranged for the group coffee break.
(.26) Photo of bus tour participants looking at artwork in Marek Czarnecki's studio.
Each day-long bus tour included a visit to folk artists’ studios or shops to observe them producing or selling their work, while engaging with visitors in discussions on the history of their communities and the background of their art form. Tours stopped at related landmarks and/or restaurants in the artists’ neighborhoods, or attended a local community festival. The artists and community groups visited gave insightful presentations on their cultures and artistic traditions. Each tour included a traditional dinner or lunch where visitors could sit down to eat and talk with the artists and community members. CCHAP received an NEA Challenge America Cultural Tourism grant for a pilot series of bus tours in 2004. Subsequent project funders also included the Greater Hartford Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism.
On April 19, 2008, a tour of sites important to some of Connecticut’s Eastern European communities visited Meriden, New Britain, and Terryville. First stop was at the studio of traditional iconographer Marek Czarnecki who demonstrated and discussed his work in creating icons and statue restorations. He served a typical Polish Easter Table with butter lambs, babka, and other traditional foods for the season. The tour then traveled to Broad Street in New Britain, commercial home of the city’s large Polish community, for a walking tour of Broad St. Polish shops, Sacred Heart Church, and a Polish lunch and stops at local shops. The final stop visited Terryville to see the remarkable icon screen at St. Michael’s Ukrainian Catholic Church and meet resident priest Father Paul Luniw, a remarkable pysanky maker of etched and dyed Ukrainian Easter eggs.
Biographical Note: Marek Czarnecki began writing icons in 1990 for his home parish of St. Stanislaus Kostka in Bristol, CT, in his first studio there. It was appropriate for this first generation Polish-American that his first icon would be of Our Lady of Czestochowa, the Black Madonna of Poland. Iconography is a fundamental liturgical art form that provides authentic, meaningful and dignified images which exemplify the larger consciousness of the Christian Church. Icons carry a patrimony of both theology and art, conveying essential dogmatic and biographical information and embodying the presence of the holy ones depicted. After studying with several iconography teachers, Marek began a life-long apprenticeship with master iconographer Ksenia Pokrovskaya in 1999 until her passing in 2013. He has translated her teachings into an English language technical manual for iconographers, and taught workshops with her at several national sites, including St. Tikhon's Seminary in South Canaan, PA. Following established tradition, Marek’s icons are made with natural materials; the foundation is linen glued to a wood panel and primed with a marble-based gesso. Painted with egg tempera mixed with natural earth and mineral pigments, the halos and backgrounds are gilded with 22 karat gold. The icon is then varnished with copal resin.
Marek’s icons can be found in in the homes and chapels of individuals, as well as churches across the country, including the Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Springfield, IL, the Franciscan University of Steubenville, St. Thomas More Chapel at Yale University, and Sean Cardinal O'Malley. His icon of "Christ the Eternal High Priest", originally written for a seminary chapel, gained him international attention when it was chosen by the United States Council of Catholic Bishops as the image to represent "The Year of the Priest". This icon was widely distributed; more than a million copies were printed, reproduced and used in dioceses as distant as London, Stockholm, Singapore, and Sydney. Marek is also a skilled restoration artist, working with statues from churches across the country, and he creates ornaments and installations to mark festivals and holy seasons in his parish church of St. Stanislaus in Bristol Connecticut.
Marek has helped edit the book, "Hidden and Triumphant: The Struggle to Save Russian Iconography in Twentieth Century Russia" (Paraclete Press, 2010). He continues to teach students and write icons out of his home studio in Meriden, CT. He has won a CT Commission on the Arts Painting Fellowship in 1996 and 2004, the 1998 American Council for Polish Culture Award, the 2006 Polish American Historical Association Outstanding Achievement Award, and a Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Grant to teach an advanced student. Articles on his work have appeared in the Hartford Courant, St. Anthony Messenger, Catholic Digest, Our Sunday Visitor, and New York Times. His website is www.seraphicrestorations.com
Additional materials exist in the CCHAP archive for this event and this artist.
Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.
Status
Not on view
2008 April 19
Daniel Boucher
2008 March 8
