Royal Oak — Local artist Danielle Simonson sat at her drawing board one day: praying, but filled with frustration.

“I realized I was focusing way too much on myself,” said Simonson, who resides in Royal Oak.

“And I just said, ‘Lord, I want to paint you. I want to paint something that expresses the love that I feel from you and I don’t know how to do it,’” she explained.

Several years later, she encountered some iconographers: individuals who paint, or rather, “write,” images of Christ, Our Lady, saints and Bible passages in a style dating from nearly the beginning of Christianity.

“I thought, ‘What is that? What does that mean?’” said Simonson. “It was like my eyes were opened and I started looking around and saw that it is all around us.”

Simonson grew up Catholic, so iconography “was always there … I just didn’t know what it was. I mean, Our Lady of Perpetual Help. I looked at it as a kid thousands of times, and didn’t know that there was this vast array of images just like that.”

She eventually entered an apprenticeship with iconographer Sr. Nancy Lee Smith, IHM, of St. Joseph Studio in Monroe, beginning a “period of intense growth.”

“(Sr. Smith) took me on and she was a very good teacher,” Simonson said. “She leaves no details undone. She’s also very good at directing people into seeing the things that are hindering them, even spiritually.”

Simonson did not begin writing icons immediately.

“I worked my way up to being able to work with the paint, because it’s intense,” she said of the apprenticeship, which lasted about five years. “She had me do everything from gardening to sanding. She had to learn to trust me and I also had to learn humility, which she taught me.”

Simonson learned that writing an icon is not a mere art project, nor an act of self-expression, but a process of prayer.

“Every step you take throughout the process has to be in prayer,” she said. “I’ve learned not to work if I’m not prayerful. If I’m struggling in my prayer life I back off the work and try to refocus on Christ, and figure out what it is he needs me to do at the time.”

Fasting is also a crucial aspect of iconography. Simonson explained that it gives one the ability to “give it up to God and put it in his hands. And you take that trust that you gained from prayer and fasting and you do it.”

Today, Simonson has written a number of icons, including Christ the King, St. Catherine of Siena, the Guardian Angel and the Virgin of Vladimir. She is currently working on commissioned icons of the Wedding at Cana, St. Francis of Assisi and St. Joan of Arc.

She said an iconographer does not begin anything until he or she knows the background of the saint or Gospel image. The iconographer may research for months before even starting a preliminary sketch.

“The sketch is always based on the language of the Church,” said Simonson, explaining she is careful not to interject any theologically incorrect symbolism or imagery.

She said the sketch is “a constant back-and-forth” of researching, going over notes, and, depending on the project, “working with a theologian or priest or someone who has insight into what you’re trying to display.”

Generally, an icon takes at least two years for Simonson to pray through, grow with and complete.

“It’s really important for me to understand and build the relationship with that saint, or to understand the Gospel passage personally,” said Simonson. “Otherwise, it’s just a sterile image.”

She said that being an iconographer, while a vocation in itself, is a smaller facet of her greater vocation as a Catholic in “revealing the glory of God; the beauty.”

She added that beauty is a difficult concept to grasp: “Beauty means the entire; being able to look at the entire thing and see the harmony and the way that it exists, and be in awe of that person or the Church or God’s creation. And that beauty helps us understand the good.”

She views her role as an iconographer as being led by Christ, and reaching people through “beauty and the good and the truth.”

“And once you understand the truth, you want to be with him,” she said.

 Iconography

To contact Danielle Simonson about her work, email her at [email protected]. To learn more about St. Joseph Studio in Monroe, visit www.saintjosephstudio.com.