Category: Easter

Easter Celebration

Easter observation for us Greek Orthodox Christians. Holy Week, for many of us, is full of fasting, food shopping and preparation, and much church going. To say it’s exhausting is an understatement.

The frantic pace of holidays, with all the preparation and anticipation, can leave us with the feeling that nothing will ever be finished in time. In the end everything falls into place anyway.

Finally, when the week is done we can celebrate on Easter Sunday with family, and more food including all the traditional Greek/Armenian delicacies.

Christ is risen! Christos Anesti!

 

Photo for Friday

These are traditional Easter bread called Tsoureki in Greek, or Choreg in Armenian, which are sweet like brioche and decorated with red dyed eggs. I baked some twists, rounds, and a couple in a Byzantine cross design my grandmother used to make. 
This year Orthodox Easter coincides with the Catholic calendar. For the Orthodox to celebrate the holiday it must be the same time as Passover because the Bible says Jesus was also celebrating that week.
We greet each other in church with Kali Anastasi, which means: anticipate a good resurrection.
After midnight services Holy Saturday in the Greek Orthodox church we exclaim Christos Anesti! Which translated means Christ is Risen. In Armenian we say Kristos harryev ee merrolotz!
I hope everyone enjoys a blessed Easter and sweet Passover.

Progress in the Process

I have a busy Monday ahead of me today. And an even busier week to come, this being the lead up to Easter. I just can’t believe a year has passed and here I am in the middle of another Holy Week. Didn’t I just do this? Didn’t I just blog about this? Time just flies by.

The big question is this: Will I have any time for myself and painting? I seriously doubt it, but I will try to squeeze some work in. This time last year I don’t think I was using twenty minute increments of time to paint. I think I remember working on one piece for a while.

There’s nothing wrong with that either. However, since I found how productive I can be using twenty minutes to paint I’m not sure how/if I can go back. Maybe if I find something interesting to paint I may have to work on one piece twenty minutes at a time. That could work.

But this week is rough for me. Fasting, baking, cooking, evenings in church take up alot of time. I’m pooped already. Can I skip any of it? I don’t know if I can. I’m so used to going to church almost every night of this week. I’ll see how I feel.

Shell Bits and Pebble

I painted these shells once again, but this time I added that pebble. Moving the set-up around to see the other side this time, made the still life look different once more. It’s working for me so I’m not going to change it up and chance a bout with Mr. Resistance.

Then I happened to get a flash of motivation and quickly sketched the objects again before we headed out for dinner Saturday night. I moved the items around again, found a pleasing arrangement and  dropped in some color before we had to leave. Done.

I am definitely making progress with the process!

Photos for Friday, and a Recipe


Here are some photos of my labor on Thursday: traditional Greek sweet Easter bread called tsoureki, and red dyed eggs.  A photo I took of my red fingers came out blurry so I didn’t include it.  No matter how many times I washed my hands, the dye would not come off.  I have included a link to a tsoureki recipe and information, but it’s not the one I use.  They suggest twelve eggs!  I don’t think so.
I wish everyone a blessed Easter or Passover.  Kali Anastasti! (Anticipate a good resurrection).

Thursday Thought

Cathedral of St.Paul, NY Palm Sunday 2009

“Today He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon the Cross. He who is King of the angels is arrayed in a crown of thorns. He who wraps the heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery. The Son of the Virgin is pierced with a spear. We venerate Thy Passion, O Christ. Show us also Thy glorious Resurrection.”

~Hymn of Holy Thursday Evening in the Greek Orthodox Church

Yarn to The Rescue

I was too tired to drag myself to Holy Week services last night. Trying to keep a meatless/dairyless fast is not easy.  Maybe vegans can do it, but that’s not my bunch.  This afternoon I’m definitely going.  The service today is Holy Unction and the worshippers are annointed with blessed oil for healing.  Two services are performed today and the afternoon is less hectic than the evening.  Ok, people bring their crying, screaming children in the afternoon, but I think I can block them out and be in my own zone for an hour or so.  And I could always use some healing.
It’s just impossible to do much art related endeavors while my mind is busy focusing on each coming day this week.  I’m not resisting just distracted, edgy, and tired.  The way I’ve been able to slow down the rushing moments and float away is by looking at yarn.  I ordered some really colorful yarn for something and time stops when I look at the color, feel the texture, and play with it on my needles.  Time stands still for that moment.  I know I could look at my paints and those colors, my new watercolor paper, but then I might find myself painting and losing valuable time being lost in that!  We’ll never eat dinner!
Yarn is available, within reach, and not too time consuming.  My stash sits in a big basket next to my little dream corner couch and I can take a few minutes out to get to it.  Isn’t the color of this yarn delicious?  It’s amazing in person too.  I had a certain thing in mind when I ordered it, but it’s not the right gauge.  There’s no way I’m returning it though.  I’ll do something else with it.  In the meantime, I ordered another few skeins of a different brand, a better gauge, with better maintenance and great color, online anyway.  Gotta have color!  It better be great color when I get it, too.  Otherwise I’ll have to order something else.  
So it’s Wednesday and the week is close to over.  It better be over soon or I’ll be up to my eyeballs in yarn.   

Who Could Paint This Week?

The weather is as horrible today as yesterday.  The rain is unrelenting, the sky is gloomy and the wind is starting to pick up.  It’s mid-morning and if this is the way the day is going to go I won’t get any errands done. Besides, this week is Holy Week for those of us who are observing the Easter holiday, and it’s not fun in bad weather.

As Greek Orthodox christians, this is the holiest week in our calendar.  Many of us observe Holy Week as if we are living it.  There are church services each day and all day, if people are interested in attending.  Every day is a different service and story leading up to the Passion, and finally, the Resurrection of Christ.  It’s great theater if you look at it that way.  But between attending services, the dietary rules of fasting, the cleaning, baking, cooking, preparing, it’s a rough week.  Who could paint?  I’m not sure I will even get to post to this blog this week.  We will see.

Beginning the evening of Palm Sunday and through to Tuesday night is the Service of the Bridegroom, from the parable of the Ten Virgins signifying the need to be ready when the “bridegroom” calls for the brides, very symbolic.  Holy Monday commermorated the story of Joseph the Patriarch, son of Jacob from the Old Testament.  Tonight, Holy Tuesday, the church continues to celebrate the Ten Virgins, but also the Parousia, or the Second Coming, with the subject of spiritual vigilance.  My favorite part of the Tuesday service is the Hymn of Kassiani, which the music and lyrics written by this nun are quite beautiful and awe inspiring. 

Born around 810AD in Constantinople (Istanbul now), Kassiani had to be one of the earliest artist/feminists in history.  Beautiful, wealthy and smart, she spurned the advances of the byzantine emperor Theophilos, who wished to marry her, with some terse words:

                      He said: Through a woman came the baser things..
                      She said:  And through a woman came the better things..

You know that wasn’t going to go well.  Pretty angry, he chose to marry Theodora instead and had Kassiani scourged with a lash and banished to a monstery where she wrote poetry and music to accompany it.  She was probably thrilled thinking, Oh great, now I can just go do my art!  Seems in those days, besides religious belief, people chose monastic life to pursue their art and were involved in icon painting, illuminating manuscripts, writing liturgical music, and the like.  Hey, why not?  Think about it, peace and quiet, time to paint, write, whatever, without distraction.  Sounds great!

Will I attend services tonight?  I’m not sure if I will.  There’s a whole week ahead of us.  Just thinking of all the things that go into this week kind of makes me want to hole up in a monastery to get some painting done.