Today I am pretty happy as I finished something my mother and my aunt have been asking me to do for weeks now. The thing is after my grandmother died in 2000, she left behind seven children, tens of grandchildren, a million memories and a number of family treasures in her house in the village called Skado in the Northern part of Naxos island. The village had been mostly deserted but lately people are turning to their villages to renovate their old family homes and use them as country houses. So did my aunts, who have recently refurbished my grandparents' 100 year old house.
As you may know - although most of Steemians are way too young and too far from that reality to even imagine, during the World War II Greece was one of the countries with the higher death rates, having suffered millions of deaths from Mussolini's and Hitler's attacks. The islands were especially targeted due to their strategic location and had been occupied subsequently by both armies.
My grandfather had already fought two wars but he was not even 30 at the time of WW2. My grandmother was 20+ and had already given birth to six children, out of which THREE died during the war. Naxian and Greeks in general I would say are religious people though, true believers and that always helped their survival rate during hard times. That is why we name our children after saints, so as to have their protection. During the war my grandmother gave birth to uncle Costas, who recently passed away. They named him Costas after Saint Constantine or Constantine the Great.
Note: Constantine the Great was a Roman Emperor from 306 to 337 AD. Although he and his mother Helena are worshiped as great Saints in the Greek Orthodox Church, Constantine the Great didn't turn to Christianity until he was in his deathbed. His mother St. Helena had turned to Christianity, long before her son becomes Emperor and when Christianity was banned and Christians were punished. Thus Constantine the Great was the first Emperor in history to show tolerance to Christianity, and indeed set the legal framework within which the Christian Church could evolve. Although it is said that he had followed his father's religious beliefs and that he worshiped the one god, The Sun, he allowed his mother St. Helena to run a huge search project for the discovery of the Holy Grave. It is widely accepted that St. Helena discovered the Holly Cross, and this is why all Eastern Orthodox religious icons depict Saint Constantine and Saint Helena together holding a cross
Back to the story, those early years of my uncle Costas and his brothers and sisters were TOUGH times. My grandparents did what they could for their children, grew vegetables and grains, tried to maintain a small farm with animals mostly sheep and chickens, but the Italian soldiers would steal them or force them to give them up from time to time leaving the family with sparse food. The illnesses of the time were deadly. My uncle Stelios died at 11, while sleeping next to my uncle Costas. Stelios had a wonderful voice just like my grandfather did. But fate wanted him to go silent. Boys were considered extremely precious at the time as they would grow strong and help the family and the country, however it seems that they were more vulnerable growing up. The only boy left alive in the family was Costas, and my grandmother prayed and prayed. And she prayed to his protector Saint Constantine.
PS. Later in life my grandparents named a daughter Eleni, after St. Helena.
My aunt recovered her icon from the old house in the village and my mother brought it to Athens and gave it to me to try to restore it somehow. Not that I had done this before, but both sisters trusted I would find a way. Problem was that it wasn't even a real artwork, just a framed print out full of holes. How was I supposed to correct that?
Let aside that my mother didn't want me to color the Saints on top and it was risky too, she was right, as the wet paint would probably destroy the old paper. So I did a long Google search of the images of St Constantine and St Helena until I found the exact same image and printed it out at the size of the original. Or as close I could. Unfortunately the colors were not the same, as my grandmother's version had lost its colors and had turned green and yellow. In any case, I printed out the image and glued the old print out on top. Surprise! Now I had their names showing.
I decided to deal with the color differences later. There was a lot of work waiting for me. The frame had to be restored and that was not something I had done before... I had to trim it but the normal way of rubbing wood would not work, as the wood was really really old and needed extra care in the way I held it and extra effort to take out the old paint that had remained rock solid on the fractured surface. What could I do?
And then it hit me.
MY ELECTRIC NAIL TRIMMER
It proved out to be a really good idea, because I managed to take out all of the old remains in great detail, and then with a final touch of the traditional method the frame was almost as good as new. The top part was materially damaged so I couldn't correct it a 100% but still, it is nice to see the scars of time sometimes. Like wrinkles on a face.
And a more artistic shot!
Now I had to color it. I chose a water ink that goes into the wood without covering it up. It look more natural and would be more compatible to the islands' traditional style. I also cleaned up the glass and cut a piece of carton with felizol to create some support.
