40th Wedding Anniversary present - secret!

Dearest beloved friends,

As some of you will already know, on 19th August 2017 there is to be a great celebration of Mum's and Dad's 40th wedding anniversary, to which you are excitedly invited.  You will receive more details of the party by post when formal invitations go out over the next few months.
 

Mum and Dad know about this party - but do NOT know about the following plan - so please keep it secret from them!
 

We have been giving a great deal of thought to conceiving the right idea for a present.  For so many people mum and dad are wellsprings of love, life, friendship and hospitality.  August's party will enable us all to get together in celebration and gratitude for everything they are and have been.  Conceived in a conversation around the campfire late on the night after Rose's amazing wedding in September, we would like to create the opportunity for everyone to contribute to a single gift that will express how precious they are to us all. 

Our hope, for which we have the great Bob McGarvey to thank, is to give them an icon of the Holy Family, to be painted by Martin Earle (Katherine's husband).  For those who might not know, this pictures Jesus, Mary and Joseph at home in Nazareth.  The traditional themes of this image are family, love, hospitality, and the uniting of diverse gifts and roles to create a joyful and rich community.  This would be significant to mum and dad for many reasons: faith, fine craftsmanship, beauty, and the creation of a loving and welcoming home.  

Gin, an essential ingredient!

Handmade icons require considerable skill and time from an experienced craftsman, and will take Martin several months to complete.  A traditional icon is made with gold leaf, precious stones and minerals such as lapis lazuli and azurite, ground up and mixed with gin and egg yolk, and is set on a tulip-wood board which the iconographer makes from scratch.   £2500 is the low-end price of a hand-made icon of reasonable size with 3 - 5 figures.  Were more to be raised, we would be able commission a more ambitious piece which could comprise extra panels depicting further images, with doors painted on the inside and carved on the front.   

Azurite, gold leaf and an egg

To see examples of the sort of icon Martin would be producing, you can look at the website of Aidan Hart, a leading iconographer to whom Martin has been apprenticed over the past few years: http://aidanharticons.com/.  You can also look at Martin's own website, which is in development but does have some examples of his work to date: http://martinearleicons.com/.

If you feel able to join us in making this gift to mum and dad, you will be able to via an online giving portal.  The link for that will be sent out soon.  We hope to give Martin the go-ahead and the particulars soon, as he needs to plan his work commitments for the coming year. 

We hope you are all as excited about this gift as we are.  Should there be any excess left over, it will be divided between the two institutions which represent mum's and dad's concerns so well.  Mum has been a tireless volunteer for MacMillan Cancer Support as a bereavement counsellor for many years (https://www.macmillan.org.uk).  Dad has been an ardent advocate for the rights and opportunities of young Asian photojournalists, represented by the Bangladeshi college Path Shala (http://pathshalainstitute.org/).

Please do email with any questions.  In the meantime, this comes with all our fondest love to you all,

the daughters Grey