An interview with George Bilak, fashioner of woodcarvings

George Bilak fashions woodcarved and hand written icons as well as other amazing and unique pieces including crosses, Easter eggs, pendants, and engolpia. Some months back I was forwarded a link to his Facebook page where I spent an inordinate amount of time looking at images of his work. A few clicks later I was at his website carvingart.com and mesmerized. Mr. Bilak was kind enough to answer a few questions I had about his singularly inspiring masterpieces.

Father Aleksandar in front of the new iconostasis on the consecration day of St. Sava Church in Cambridge, MA..

How did you get interested in this medium? Was it an extension of your iconography or of a background in woodwork?

Patriarch Pavle

I started woodcarving and icon painting approximately at the same time. The "revival" of iconography in Serbia wasn't to happen until a few years later, it was an obscure art at that moment and I was learning it by myself with close to nothing to go on. It started with my uncle wanting an icon; given the fact that I was the kid in the family who always "doodled something" he asked me if I could paint him one, to which I answered "of course" without having any clue what that meant. So I did what he described and therefore painted my first "icon" in oil colors on canvas (in hind sight it wasn't an icon at all, it was a copy of a baroque painting of St. Nicholas on a sea shore). My father was next, so I asked him to get a wooden board instead of a canvas, which he did; after I chiseled out the painting "field" the "frame" that was left around looked too plain to me so I decided to carve something on it (at the time it didn't occur to me to make a classical icon by gilding that part of the board, simply because I didn't know anything about icons or gilding. I didn't know anything about woodcarving either, but that at least seemed easy). The idea was to make something that looks like an "excerpt" from an iconostasis; it turned out to be good, so I went from there.


Could you give a little background on the history of this art form? It seems to follow the rules one would adhere to with a "written" icon, but with the addition of a great sense of depth.

Iconostasis - photographed while a work in progress

In my opinion the only carving discipline that can be called Orthodox is the miniature relief that we find in medieval Orthodox monasteries. This type of work evolved over time to reach the typical stylization that we now recognize; the goal is not to achieve realistic look of ancient Greek and Roman reliefs, and certainly not to portray exaggerated human emotions of the Roman Catholic sculpture, but to convey the same feeling a painted icon does while relying on light and shadow instead of colors. What it basically is is adding the third dimension to a pencil sketch of an icon. This type of carving reached its peak at the same time as iconography, and can now be seen in treasuries of many old monasteries, mostly in the form of carved wood or ivory objects - crosses, engolpia, miniature icons, etc, sometimes combined with filigree work.

The level of stylization is not always the same, which is often directly influenced by the size - extremely small carvings are usually more stylized, simply because it is not technically possible to do the same level of detailing in too small pieces of wood. Thus we sometimes see disproportionally large heads, hands and/or feet in some miniatures, or very simplified "angular" characters carved with sharp lines dictated by the tools that the carver had available.

In my own work I have developed my own style that stays within the Orthodox tradition but usually doesn't go into mentioned over-stylization.


There are some pieces that seem to be unique to carving. Could you speak a little bit on that art form? The eggs with psalms are particularly intriguing.

"Panagia of Dechani"

I don't remember ever seeing a carved egg before I started carving them. Also, apart from my own, I've seen just one since then - probably because there aren't many people doing Orthodox miniature carving anyway, and carving a convex surface is technically more challenging than carving a flat one, which adds to the already very long time needed for executing this art form. In the world of the all pervasive "faster and cheaper" mentality spending hundreds or even just tens of hours on a tiny piece that is not a copy and not to be mass reproduced is not something people choose to do often.

I almost always incorporate biblical quotes into my carvings, which is what got me thinking about doing a carving that would consist only of words, and that's how the first "Psalm Egg" came to be. I usually carve the words without empty spaces in between - what I call "the old way" - it's harder to read but it also makes sure that those who don't give up without even trying are really focused on what they're reading.


Having worked out the methodology for carving on your own, how would you recommend someone who is interested in trying his hand at it start out? Are the any woodworking skills he could work on that would benefit him? Where should he start?

"Russian Cross"

The first thing is to learn how the material and the tools behave, so learning some basics of woodcarving before you actually try to carve an icon is important (you don't start playing the violin today and immediately perform at Carnegie Hall tomorrow). The idea is to start slow and stick to the technical part until the actual carving becomes automatic, then you can apply it on any form, including icons. Once you're there you just need to fight the inclination to "improve" upon the style - many people as they become technically proficient have a tendency to keep "perfecting" their carving/painting so far that it leaves the boundaries of iconography and then we have Renaissance all over.


What sort of tools do you use for your pieces? Does the set of tools differ a lot based on the size or detail of the work?

For miniatures you need an exacto knife for lines and a couple of small chisels for removing wood and shaping surfaces. Most of everything I do is done with three tools altogether.

For normal size carvings you need a normal size set of carving knives and a mallet of some kind. In this case what specific tools you need depends on what you're carving. You also need a router for the initial removal of excess wood.


On a practical level do carved icons "function" the same way written icons do? Would a carved festal work be permissible for veneration? Would a priest bless it in the same way?

"Christ the Bridegroom"

Yes, yes, and yes. An additional remark - I carved my "Christ the Bridegroom" icon for a blind girl and these are her first impressions, copy pasted from an e-mail:

Wow! I don't have words in any language to express how beautiful this icon is. I couldn't even write anything for the last ten minutes or so. Tomorrow is the Feast of the Transfiguration (I find this meaningful), and I have just seen Christ in a new way (this is one of the first icons I have been able to "see"). Thank you for your wonderful work.

That's something that a painted icon can't do.


7. I imagine quite a few people are interested in purchasing your work. What sort of lead time is required for commissioned works? How long does and "average" piece take to complete?

I don't make "average" or "standard" pieces, I don't make copies of my work. The only way one can stay on the "art" side of this is to not go into serial production, making copies. It's a part of today's "faster cheaper" psychology, but if you think about it - if Michelangelo carved 20 copies of Pietà or David (as he easily could have done) would they have the same place today in the history of world art? I'd say no, they would be just "products", worth only the material and time spent on producing them. Even if Pietà was a common thing to sculpt at the time they were all unique pieces on the same topic, not just copies that came out of a production line. With the advent of CNC machines today creating unique peaces is the only thing that keeps human work worth something, that makes it special, otherwise a machine can always make a copy a lot faster and cheaper. But then it's just a copy, as worthless as a button that came out of a series of a few million. Nobody can feel special about owning a button reproduced by machines millions of times, no mater how intricate that button may be.

"Psalm Egg II" - Psalm 91 in Serbian

I have enough experience with this to be able to make a pretty accurate guess on the time that I will need for a specific piece. That is just something that comes with practice. The estimated time of completion I give to people is based on my current work and the time needed for their particular carving. I often take in smaller pieces just so I can rest my mind from working on bigger ones - when something requires a few hundred hours to be finished it can become very cumbersome because the mind wants to see things done. Taking a smaller piece that can be carved in two or three days gives it what it wants and then it can go back to the big piece with renewed enthusiasm.

If it turns out that a carving needs more time than I estimated in the beginning - well, whatever is worth something is worth waiting for; you don't get a baby out earlier just because you can afford to have a baby, it takes nine months and that's it. It should be mentioned that it's the same with painted icons - egg tempera should be left to dry at least six months before varnishing; that time doesn't change with the amount of money someone is willing to pay or the fact that the iconographer needs money at the time, the laws of chemistry don't change based on human wants or needs. Unfortunately today you can get icons varnished just a few days after completion from many iconographers but that just makes sure that your icon will have a hard time surviving even a few decades, let alone centuries like the medieval ones did. I call that "After me, the Flood" icon style.

What opportunities are there for people in the US to learn this art form? Are there any schools that people could attend or apprenticeships that you are aware of?

Not that I know of. Many opportunities to learn carving in general, but for some reason in the US that usually means carving ducks or some other wildlife. Carving Byzantine style miniatures was always a rare skill, even in Orthodox countries. If I get enough requests I might consider teaching it to people, though. It would be a waste to take my skill with me when I'm gone one day without passing it on, I think.


What sort of work are you doing right now? Any interesting projects that you're working on or have recently completed?

"Miracles Egg 2" - a work in progress

Miracles Egg 2 is in the process, about half done at the moment! It's bigger than Miracles Egg 1 - has six scenes instead of four (same sized, just more of them) and additional spaces above the scenes for the four evangelists and ....we'll see :) Three of the scenes show the same miracles as in the ME1 but I carved them differently. Here are a few previews so people can see what I'm talking about.


My sincere thanks for your time! Your answers have been quite enlightening and I look forward to seeing future project photos as they are put on your website.

You're welcome, I enjoyed the experience! I will let you know in advance about a few interesting things, I have some big ideas in the works.