Coming u next, a rare find in Pittsburgh.

An artist who paints icons using knowledge and techniques that date back for centuries.

Also tonight, it may look real but it's not.

On Q visits one of the most impressive train displays in the region, and the weather is just right for snow tubing.

A trip with Dave and Dave is coming up.

So stay connected.

On Q starts right now.

Welcome to On Q magazine.

I'm Stacy Smith.

Over the years, On Q has brought you many stories about talented artists and craftspeople.

But this evening, we're going to explore the work of a local man who combines arts, religion, and centuries of history.

He is a Russian immigrant who creates icons considered sacred by some, magnificent work of art by others.

And as Carol Gliesby reports, it is the work and knowledge of generations.

An icon is.

A reflection of God's face.

It's the gateway to heaven.

It's the window to heaven.

They become very popular.

I think a lot of people like them, but they don't know what their true purpose is.

It's not that we look at them.

They look at us.

They listen to our prayers.

They may be beautiful and captivating, but these paintings aren't just colorful works of art.

They're religious icons, and they're an essential part of worshi in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

We don't worship an icon.

People say, well, you pray to the saints.

No, we do not pray for the saints, and the saints even state: do not pray to us.

Pray with us.

Icons can be traced as far back as 2000 years ago to Greece and Eastern Europe.

Most portray Jesus, his mother, Mary, the angels and saints.

Yet they don't look like regular paintings at all.

Religious icons are more stylized because they're meant to convey the glory of God.

In Bloomfield, Cemeon Larivonoff a Russian immigrant, continues the tradition of painting icons using strict guidelines established centuries ag by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Cemeon, in fact, is the last in a long line of Russian iconographer dating back to the 14th century.

My greatest passion is my icons.

This is my sole reason for living, to produce good icons and to pass them o to people who would need icons.

Paintin icons is not only Cemeon's joy, it's his profession.

It's how he supported himself and his mother, Anna, after they left their homelan in the 1960s because of reforms within the Russian Orthodox Church, reforms that included changes in the look of icons.

You can.

The patriarc supposedly was going to correct our church books and he didn't correct them.

He put innovations into them.

And through these innovations, he changed the number of fingers.

Instead of using two, he started three communion instead of seven pieces of bread on the altar, he wanted one.

He took contemporary Gree culture customs, which were not what we wanted.

And this caused a split in the Orthodox Church To this day, Cemeon still considers himself a believer of the old ways.

Coming to America though, has enabled him to freely continue making icons the traditional way.

When I came to Pittsburgh, a friend of mine, wanted a few icons and they wanted actually six icons, and I came to Pittsburgh and I figured, well, I have to find someplace to live, while I'm going to paint these icons, because these were very big icons, these were as big as the door.

And I found this place, and I've been here ever since.

Painting a icon is a complicated procedure.

Sometimes it takes days, even weeks, to complete.

It's a spiritual process that begins with cleansing.

I will take a bath I will not eat the whole day.

There's no water, no eating.

I will put 104 floor bows in asking the saint's intercession and asking God's forgiveness, askin that he will accept my attempt to paint.

After the cleansing, Cemeon will create an icon image from what's known as a transfer sheet.

It ensures the icon will look like those produced ages ago.

The image is then stencile onto a specially prepared piece of oak, birch, cypress or alder wood.

This ritual has been followed by generations of Russian iconographers.

After you put your transfer onto your panel.

You take your [Russian] This is what you transfer your image with.

Only thing you must do is go up the outline of the image itself that you have the image image is already transferred.

Then what you do is you take your paintbrush, you outline your whole image.

And then the painting begins.

Cemeon create his own special blend of paints.

Another age old practice.

Now there you see how.

How good it is.

I would ask my [Russian], my great grandfather.

What?

What colors they use how they made this color, that.

And he would say, well, they use the, [Russian] is a color that, you only find, on an oak tree.

It's an oak.

And they use the browns, they're made from onion skins.

You boil them and they would drain them off and put it into white tempera and they would concentrate it.

What would your response be to someone who would say, that's a lot of work to go through.

Why don't you just get paints?

The purity is what is important.

An icon has to be started with prayer and ended with prayer.

To go to a store and to buy the colors.

You are not iconographer.

This is a very controlled tradition.

You do not dare deviate from this tradition because you are deviating from the established theology of the church.

So if it says, well this saint has a blue garment on you use a blue.

And another part of the tradition displaying a grouping of icons or, the iconostasis.

They must always face east towards Jerusalem.

This is the Vladimirskaya, our Lady Vladimir.

This is a copy of the Vladimi icon that was painted by Luke, and it was brought into a Russian, became miracle worker, and it saved Russia many many times from Mongol invasions and from the invasion of Napoleon from Batu Khan.

They call Our Lady of Tenderness because the hand here is going around her neck to show that is, loving.

Then you said always placed at the center.

He is the center of every iconos in every home.

An iconostas without Christ is not a complete iconostas.

You have to have him.

Cemeon's icon can be found around the world, including Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

But you don't have to travel far to see them.

Locally, his icons are sold exclusively at an antique shop just outside of Pittsburgh.

How did you meet Cemeon?

He came into my shop looking for oil lamps because that's what he uses in his home.

And I never realized tha there was so much more to him.

Donna Ramsey is a religious art dealer.

When she first sa Cemeon's icons, she was amazed.

And it opened a whole new world.

And he talks about the Russian Revolution.

He talks at great length about religion.

He speaks six languages fluently.

But his icons, that's really who he is as a religious art dealer.

Donna recognize Cemeon skill as an iconographer and offers this advice for would be collectors.

You need to do a little homework.

I've seen icons that were marketed and sold as authentic icons.

But upon closer examination, they were they were made in Asia.

They were mass produced.

So this is a really large icon.

This is the largest one you have here.

This is a church icon that Cemeon did.

And, this is the prophe Elijah, from the Book of Kings in the Bible.

And he was told to go into hiding.

And God said, don't worry, I'll look after you.

So you can see the raven here bringing food.

This is Saint Nicholas, and the colors are so vivid and wonderful.

And he saved entire families from poverty with his acts of kindness.

The Santa Claus figure is taken from Saint Nicholas.

Is this a disappearing art?

Should we worry?

What Cemeon is doing is very special.

And it is, it is vanishing.

What is your wish for this?

I mean, do you want it to continue?

What's your hope?

I ask God many times let this continue to show that our faith is a living faith.

This is not for museums.

This is not for collectors.

Icons are for prayer, not for collection.

You want to collect something?

Collect stamps, collect po bottles, but don't collect the icon.

God gave me a gift of painting icons.

I'm doing this for humanit to show them that this exists, and to respect the icon, and value the icon, and love the icon as I have loved it.

This is my whole passion, just to paint icons.

Now, there was time when many of the true icons had to be smuggled out of Russia.

With the decline of communism and the opening of trade, many counterfei icons have flooded the market.

And that's why it's such a treasure to have found someone like Cemeon living right here in Pittsburgh.

Yeah, obviously Cemeon put a lot of effort, a lot of time into these things.

Are they expensive?

Well, if you if you put them in line with original art, I'd say they're right in line with pricing.

And it depends on the size of the icon.

They can go from several hundred dollars to several thousand.

Who can be on an icon?

Can you name a saint and have him painted?

No you can't.

And I know you have a few you want to name, but his icons are restricted to the saints of the Russian Orthodox religion, and they have to be prior to the mid-16th century.

Those are the saints that were canonized then.

That's before the reforms began.

Fascinating, Carol.

Thank you.

And if you would like some more information on the icons, you can go to our website, wqed.org, and then clic the On Q logo on the first page.

Coming up next, there is something about a model railroad that captivates both children and adults.

And we're going to catch up with a local enthusiast who is getting national attention for his impressive collection.

And then coming up a little bit later, a winter sport that requires more bravery than skill.

We'll take you snow tubing, coming up.

So stay connected.

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Many of us grew up with a model railroad circling the Christmas tree.

And then, of course, it was put away at the end of the season and not seen agai until the following Christmas.

But for model railroaders, that yearly tradition was the beginning of a serious hobby.

On Qs, Chris Moore recentl caught up with a model railroad enthusiast whose collectio is getting a lot of attention.

I love railroads, trains, and I'm just driven to build.

I don't know, it's hard to define it.

Don't ask me why, if you ask me how I do it I can tell you.

It might look real, but it's not.

It's actually a model built by model railroader Rob Enrico.

Im doing an ‘O scale model railroad of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Monongahela Division, summer of 1970, which is Penn Central.

In recent years, Rob's model layouts have gotten a lot of attention from his fellow railroaders.

Not too long ago, his railroad layout was featured in a national magazine called Model Railroader.

The Pennsylvania Railroad.

It's so huge you couldn't model all of it.

So this is a two track mainline which was easy to model and I'm familiar with it fro being down there over 20 years on the Mon River watching this.

♪ I've been working on the railroad.

♪ Rob's fascination with the model railroads started when he was a child.

The large model train layout his father would start to set up around the holidays, sparked his interest.

♪ just to pass the time away.

♪ Every Christmas we put up a Lionel train layout and it went on forever.

When I got older, I started doing it.

Then I went into H0 scale back into the Lionel and then I got introduced to this.

O scale.

There's this is one of the hardest scales to work in because you got to do everything from scratch practically.

That makes it more interesting.

O scale is one of the many accepte sizes used in railroad modeling.

The scale is the differenc in size between the model train and the real train.

So for O scale, one quarter inch of the model train would equal 12 inches of the rea train.

Everything's to scale.

Those telephone poles are t exact scale done off of prints.

Everything is.

The track work, everything's scaled out.

That's why you get the look.

It looks real.

And you need a lot of room for the O scale.

Rob's layout takes up almost all of the room in his two car garage.

First thing you do, draw it out on paper.

What you think you're going to want.

Then from there, you build your bench work it's called.

Then from there, then you get your track, start laying your track next.

With scenery, your room should be prepared first.

The backdrops up the lighting up, that's first.

Then you build your bench work, track work.

Then you start your scenery.

Then there's buildings involved.

Then you have painting the cars.

I made the telephone poles.

There's just so much.

How much?

You know, the wiring, electronics, the panels you see around here were all made.

Being in this O scale, you're almost obligate for detail because it's so big.

So it has to be.

It's all there.

Everything's accurate.

A lot of these cars I have ar brass and they're very accurate.

The rivets are all where they should be.

So when you get the car like that, so you make sure it's painted accurately and the numbers and all the data is accurate.

It's all done through research.

We have photo through the historical society I use.

A lot of information to make that car as accurate as possible.

When Rob says accurate he means just that.

Often down to how the paint fades on the cars.

And so focused is Rob's attention to detail.

This is called hand laid track.

And all the track is all the ties are glued down individually, the gravel glued in place, and then you lay the rail on top and every spike is put in one at a time with a pair of pliers.

The telephone poles alon took him close to a year to do.

One of the items I made was the the communication poles.

Telephone poles as they're called.

This is made from scratch out of wood, and some soft metal castings, and brass.

They're all hand drilled, stained, and it's done off of plans that I found.

The Pennsylvania Railroa had out drawing, specifications for just telephone poles.

how they're planted, their guide.

The amount of sag in the wires, important.

See the sag in it.

That's real important for expansion and contraction over the time and for wind blowing it.

So you dont rip everything down.

This has to be set up, if one pole were to fall, the whole line comes down here.

The Monongahela Division was one of the busies for the Pennsylvania Railroad.

What I'm modeling here is mostly a coal hauling railroad.

They do other things but the majority of it is for co So when a power plant somewhere or a steel mill at the time needed coal, they get in touch with the mine.

The mine will get back to the railroad.

How many cars they needed to haul out of Monaco?

What the railroad would assign a train to a crew of certain cars and give it porters.

That crew would take that trai to, which I model Sayres yard.

to West Brownsville Yard.

to West Brownsville Yard.

That train is taken to there.

So Rob spends a lot of time getting his mode layout to mimic the real thing.

He never forgets: The most important thing about this hobby is you got to keep them running.

That holds.

The answer is yes.

I do play when there's times I come in here, I don't.

There's days I don't do any work in here.

I'll just run them.

That's what I'm doing is I want to run them.

I want to see them run.

I like to see trains run.

That's why we do this.

Yes, I do play with trains a lot.

Rob recently hosted an open house to show off his trains.

And if you want to see him, he'll host another open house and a senior clinic of the Pittsburgh Model Railroad.

Jamboree 2005.

For more information on location and times, log on to our website at wqed.org and click on the On Q link on the first page.

We are all talking here about how realistic that whole scenery is.

Did you have a model railroad?

No.

No?

No I didn't.

We had friends who had some trains and they would never let us rent them.

So I'm deprived, I wa on the wrong side of the tracks.

All right, thank you.

Chris.

Still to come, the weather is finally cooperating.

It's the perfect time to take up snow tubing.

We'll show you what that's all about.

So stay connected.

♪ Here we go Steelers, here we go!

♪ Our sensational Steelers.

Will it be a Super Bowl championship?

Hopefully, we can just ride this thing all the way out.

And just imagine being a rookie on this team.

Is it just like a dream?

It's the best team in football.

So, I mean, it was it was just a fantasy to be in the position that I'm in right now.

The in-depth story of Steelers rookie Max Starks.

What a year.

Thursday night at 7:30 On Q, one of the fastest growin winter sports does not require expensive equipment, and thrill seekers o just about any age can enjoy it.

That would be snow tubing, and you don't have to travel very far to give it a try.

On Q's Dave and Dave Report.

So where are we an what's going on behind us here?

Well we're at Wild Mountain Snow Tubing at Wildwood Highlands, which is located just one mile from North Park and as you can see we're on the snow tubing hill.

A good place to come and have fun.

How long has this been here?

We've been operating for years.

We opened on New Year's Eve of 2001.

The main hill is 100ft tall, 800ft long.

It used to be a driving range when they first opened the facility.

It was a driving range, and snow tubing sort of took off.

I know I went and did it up at Seven Springs and, you know, had a blast and kept looking at the hill here thinking, oh my God, you know, it couldn't be more perfect for that.

What are the rules?

What can't we do?

When you come down the hill, you have to either sit or lay down on top of the tube.

We allow linking of tubes, which means you hold onto the tubes you're going down with Up to four people at a time.

The height restriction is 42in, which, we find generally is about four years old.

I actually had my mother out here two days ago.

And we have grandmothers, grandfathers that come down the hill all the time.

Did your mother get any air coming coming off any of these hills?

No.

Now, we try and discourag that, but, you can on occasion get some pretty good air coming over those hills.

when you don't stop what, do you fly into a wall?

Well, if you look behind us, right over here, we have a padded wall.

A lot of people think that's a target back there, but it's not.

So youre not aiming for that so much.

No.

Your goal is to stop well before you reach that area.

Have you ever hit the wall?

Once.

How was that?

Not too pleasant.

Luckily, it's padded though, so we give people a couple good warnings, and after that they'll start to drag their feet When you come to the end they tell you to drag your feet.

Yeah, well, you don't know when to start dragging.

And then I was thinking, well, what if I break my ankle dragging my feet, you know?

And, you know, people your whole life tell you stop dragging your feet!

Right.

So how do you get back up here That's the best part about it.

In my da when we used to go snow tubing, you had to walk back up the hill every time you came down.

Basically what you do is sit down on your tube.

We attach you to the lift, it will take you to the top.

There's an attendant up top that will detach your tube from the lift, and you come right back down again.

I don't mean to alarm you, but it looks like somebody started a fire.

We always have a fire over there.

Yeah, that's real popular with the moms.

Or anybody else that wants to stay warm.

My husband and I brought our kids down and I thought I'd sit tonight.

So you've gone down?

Yes.

And how'd that go?

It was very thrilling.

Do you ever get the urge to, like, take anything else down here, like a recliner or something?

No, I can't say that I have.

I think the tubes are enough right now.

How fast do you think you're going when you're coming down here?

20, 25 15 or 20 I actually clocked myself once.

That's about 35 miles an hour.

What if I said 35?

I'd take it.

We were hoping to break the speed of sound.

Well, on a night like this I think you just might.

Just got a haircut so I'm feeling very aerodynamic tonight.

You guys do this a lot?

No.

This is my first time.

I see you talk in stereo too.

Is it scary?

No.

It's not scary?

No.

Cold?

No.

It's not cold or scary?

No.

Is it frightening?

No.

Is it terrifying?

No.

It's fast.

It's so fun.

Is this a school night?

Yeah.

Shouldn't you be doing homework?

No.

Is this your homework?

Yeah.

Do a paper on this.

500 words.

So you guys never did this before?

No.

We havent.

What can we expect on here?

Well, I want to hear you hollering when you come down that hill.

Your stomach's going to be up here.

Your body's going to be down here, and it's just going to feel, exhilarating.

As soon as you hit those black mats, put your feet into the ground and you'll stop in between those orange cones and that blue backstop.

You should be okay.

I mean, the whole object of it is you are going to go fast.

These hills are pretty fast, but if you drag your feet should be okay.

So I guess it's a good thing we wore shoes.

And Wildwood Highlands is open seven days a week for snow tubing.

You can find out more by going to our website at wqed.org.

Click the On Q button on the first page, and then we'll link yo to the Wildwood Highlands site.

And for more Dave and Dave action, don't miss their very own show.

Dave and Dave's Excellen Adventures every Saturday night at 10:30 right here on WQED TV 13.

Thank you for watching.

We'll se you live at 7:30 tomorrow night.

Stay connected and have a good night.