Icon Workshop
An annual summer event
Sunday evening, July 21-Friday afternoon, July 26, 2024 (full)
The annual icon workshop is one of our most popular offerings. Using traditional materials of egg tempera and gold leaf on gessoed panels, students in this workshop use techniques developed at the end of the Iconoclast period (before the year 1000 A.D.), to reveal, through a gradual, step-by-step process, face gradually emerging, glowing with an internal light. In this class, artistic experience and painting skills are not prerequisites; trusting the process is the most important thing, as our instructor takes you through that process step by step. In this prayerful practice, one is said to be “writing,” rather than “painting” the icon.
Each day of the workshop begins at 8:10 with Morning Prayer and concludes around 5:00 p.m.
This year students may choose one of the following icons to write: Jonah, Our Lady of Protection, or the Holy Face.
Participants in the previously-offered icon workshops—lay people and clergy who have come from St. Stephen’s Church and beyond—have found it a deeply enriching experience. Many in the workshop are repeat students.
Use the tabs below to read more about the workshop.
(This year’s workshop is full. Be sure to sign up for our notification email so you’ll know when the 2025 workshop is scheduled and when registration opens.)
Iconographer Suzanne Schleck has been teaching the class since its inception. A retired public school art teacher, Suzanne has studied for more than 20 years with the Rev. John Walsted, master iconographer and expert on 14th to 16th century Russian icons, and has taken additional workshops with Robert Lentz and the Prosopon School of Iconography. She is in great demand, and her work has been published in national Episcopal media and Princeton Theological Seminary.
The weekday schedule begins with Morning Prayer at 8:10 a.m. in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit at St. Stephen’s Church. Students then move to their classroom in the parish house where one of St. Stephen’s clergy blesses each student’s hands, and the work begins. There is a break for lunch midday, and the day concludes around 5 p.m. Friday’s class time sometimes concludes earlier.
It is important that registrants be present for the entire week. There are no shortcuts to the process. This popular workshop always has a waiting list, and if you discover that you cannot attend the entire workshop, we ask you to allow your space to be taken by someone who can be there for the whole week.
Many students come from out of town to attend the icon workshop. Please know that meals and lodging are “on your own.” The Café @ St. Stephen’s is open until 11 a.m. and offers coffee, tea, espresso drinks, bottled and canned drinks, and some breakfast and snack items for purchase. There are several restaurants and a small grocery store with a deli within walking distance of the church.
For the 2024 workshop, tuition is $375 and includes instruction and all supplies. We are grateful that we have not needed to raise the rate in recent years. Please note that this fee does not include meals or lodging.
Registration opens in March each year and will be linked from this page.
A deposit of $100 is due to reserve your place. We prefer online payments but if you wish to pay by check, please make your check payable to St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, write “icon workshop” in the memo line, and mail it to the church. (If you hand deliver a check, please do not leave it on an unattended desk.)
If you are not paying the full tuition when you register, please note that the balance is due by May 31 to ensure that your spot is not offered to someone on the waiting list.
This workshop is very popular and there is always a waiting list. If you find you are unable to attend, please let us know as soon as possible so someone on the waiting list may fill your place.
Payments are refundable until May 31.
After that date, your payment is refundable if we are able to fill you place with someone on the waiting list.
The workshop usually fills within 24 hours of registration opening. If you would like to be added to an email list to be notified when registration opens each year, follow this link. (If you have been on this list in the past, you do not need to sign up for this notification email again.)
Please note: signing up for this list does NOT reserve your place in the workshop–it simply provides a way for you to be alerted when registration opens each year.
If you live in the Richmond area and would like to continue working with icons after taking the workshop, please use this form to ask members of our icon guild for more information.