I know I am not an iconographer... but what does that question mean?
There are some people who will insist that icons are "written" rather than "painted" but it is not an Orthodox belief. There are those who have developed a pious custom out of a mistranslation. In Greek, the word used for "paint" is the same as for "write" and so to distinguish between ordinary painting and icon-painting, some people insist on using the wrong word just to make the distinction clear. As an iconographer, I tell people that I paint icons. I use paints as a medium, I use paint brushes, and I move those brushes in a similar way to other painters. I see no value in calling this process "writing." With that said, your question can't really be taken seriously.
I'm not an iconographer, but this is what I would say. It's important to distinguish between what an iconographer does and what God does. The iconographer represents something that has already happened or is happening through painting. They don't make it happen. They give us a mystical window into that event or that person.
On the other hand, God creates those events and people. God doesn't represent them through other media.
What an iconographer does, the iconographer does through God. The iconographer may be the painter who paints the icon, but it is always God who moves the iconographer to do his/her work. You really can not draw a line between what the iconographer does and what God does because there is a symbiosis there. What each does is equally important to the process of creating an icon and they are not inseparable from each other. Do not attempt to draw false distinctions that really do not exist.
THat's an important point Michael. BUt surely you and I agree that there is a difference between the actual creation and the icon of the creation. The icon (because of God's work through the icon painter) is mystically connected to that event, but it is not the event itself. Right? I mean, we agree on that, I would imagine.
I apologize if I wasn't clear enough in my last post.
There is a difference between the icon of the creation and the actual creation itself. However, my priest has made it quite clear to me that whenever an iconographer paints/writes an icon he/she is partaking in the act of creation with God.