Divine icon stations of cross hang at Blessed Seelos

   The Stations of the Cross at Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos Parish blend in so well with the wood floors and pews at the 150-year-old church that it seems they were always there.
   But, in fact, the stations – icons written by artist Larisa Ivakina Clevenger – are fairly recent additions, painted after the former St. Vincent de Paul Church suffered a fire in May 2003 and then was hit by Hurricane Katrina.
 
As the church was being restored to its natural beauty after the fire, former Blessed Seelos pastor, Father Joe Benson, came up with the idea of icon stations of the cross in mahogany. He was familiar with icons, having some done by a Cistercian nun in Ireland given to him after his ordination.
   “So, I thought it might be a nice idea to have the stations done as wooden icons,” Father Benson said. “The wood stations of the cross would bring a cohesiveness to all the natural wood (original oak pews from 1908 and cedar floors) in the church.”

Living in Birmingham
   Father Benson had noticed Clevenger’s paintings of the angels Gabriel and Michael, St. Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe in a small prayer room inside a parish building. He was so impressed that he spent time tracking her down in Birmingham, Ala., where she landed after Hurricane Katrina. She got the job by emailing him sketches.
    “She sent me her work, and it was exactly what I was looking for,” Father Benson said. “It was the Byzantine style of Roman stations.”
   He asked her to use mahogany so they would last, and, if they ever took on water, they would be okay.
   Father Benson said the icon Stations of the Cross were not cheap – totaling more than $30,000, yet still less expensive than ordering new, traditional-style stations. So, generous donors came forward, and plaques with their names are placed on the back of each station.
   A formal blessing of the stations was held Dec. 8, 2006, the day before the official dedication of the reopening of the church.
   “We had a tremendous response to the stations,” Father Benson said. “We never got a negative comment from anybody on the restoration.”
   Clevenger’s mahogany stations are painted in egg tempera and accented with 24-karat gold leaf.  She used brass Roman numerals to identify the station. They are sealed with beeswax as protection from humidity and other damage. She is preparing to re-wax the stations again.
   It took several months for Clevenger to complete the 14 icons. She said she was traveling back and forth from Birmingham at the time. One of most laborious parts was finding the right shade of mahogany, then priming it with a clear prime of fish glue made from sturgeons.
   “I had no idea how many shades of mahogany wood there were; some were very dark and others were very light,” she said.
   Blessed Seelos’ current pastor, Father José Lavastida, said the icons are beautiful.
   “They are a window to the truth of the faith,” he said. “With icons, you don’t see them. They speak to you. You are not reading them.”
Originally from Russia
   Clevenger received her training in art in her native Russia. She was a good student and graduated from high school at age 14. She attended college in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and studied art, concentrating on restoration of religious works in all mediums.
   She learned iconography at the Academy of Arts in Leningrad but studied many mediums while attaining a master’s degree in fine arts from Cuban University. She also does sculpture, etchings and stained glass.
   “I like to do things differently,” she said. “I enjoy painting icons. When I start doing icon, I feel like someone else is doing it, not me.”
   She married an American and moved permanently to the United States in 1994. After Hurricane Katrina destroyed her home in St. Bernard and more than 300 of her paintings, she moved to Birmingham, where she went to work at the Birmingham Museum of Fine Art.
   When she returned home, she was able to restore two icons – one of Russian saints Boris and Gleb that she sold in Birmingham, and the other of St. Paul, which she gifted to her son.
   She’s back in New Orleans and has Art in Bloom studio/gallery in the French Quarter, where she displays oils, acrylics and watercolors.
   In addition to work at Blessed Seelos Parish, Clevenger spent a few years working at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, completing oil paintings, an icon cross with Jesus, painting four apostles on the pulpit and restoring the 14 stations of the cross. It’s also where she started to understand the compassion of the Catholic church through the actions of the former pastor, Oblate Father John Sokolski.
   “He helped so many children from the housing projects and sent them on trips and helped families who wanted to move out of the projects,” she said.
   Another of Clevenger’s icons hangs in the sanctuary at St. Nicholas of Myra Byzantine Catholic Church on South Carrollton Avenue in New Orleans.
   Christine Bordelon can be reached at cbordelon@clarionherald.org.