Icon Workshop
Sunday evening, July 27-Friday afternoon, August 1, 2025
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 weekday begins at 8:10 with Morning Prayer and concludes around 5:00 p.m. (though the group generally disperses around midday on Friday).
Participants in our 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.
Soon we will announce on this page the icons that students may write this summer.
Use the tabs below to read more about the workshop.
As of March 24, registration is full and there is a waiting list.
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 this 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.
For the 2025 workshop, tuition is $400 and includes instruction and all supplies. Please note that this fee does not include meals or lodging.
Registration opens in March each year and will be linked from this page.
This workshop is so popular that registration has become a stressful process for some. To reduce anxiety, this year we will use a lottery system. You may register anytime between Sunday evening, March 16, and Sunday evening, March 23. On Monday, March 24, we will randomly draw names from among those who have registered and assign a number to each one. Those with numbers 1 through 25 will then be considered registered for the workshop. Numbers 26 and beyond will be added to a waiting list in the order drawn. We will notify you by email about the status of your registration.
If your name is among the first 25 drawn, we will ask you to make a deposit of $125 to secure your spot within 48 hours. That means you’ll want to check your email on Monday, March 24, at noon.
The balance is due by May 31 to ensure your spot is not given to someone on the waiting list.
If you do end up on the waiting list, do not lose hope. We often have students whose plans change, opening up additional spots.
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.)
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.
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. (Please remember that you must be able to attend the entire workshop in order to have a place.)
Payments are refundable until May 31.
After that date, your payment is refundable only if we are able to fill you place with someone on the waiting list.
Suzanne will offer three icons for this year’s workshop in addition to the Holy Face (a good one for introducing new students to this practice).
John the Baptist
Sojourner Truth
St. Anne (shown in its early stages)
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.