Trained at the Institute of Iconography at Mount Angel Abbey in St. Benedict, Ore., she works with all the elements of the centuries-old tradition: pristine and glowing colors, simplicity and precision of composition, inverse perspective and 22-carat gold-leaf backgrounds.

And she talks the language of tradition. "It's obvious that the icon does not seek to represent physical space and time," she says. "Its venue is heavenly space, and its time is eternal."

But Burleson also paints icons that offend some viewers. She has painted icons featuring dogs, cats and even goats, following the icon formula right down to the golden haloes and architectural backgrounds. She has received both positive and negative responses to what she calls "part of the Celtic background that Anglicans share, where all of creation is divine."

Among those who tend to find her work offensive are those who are most identified with the tradition of icons. "The Orthodox are not so amused by this," Burleson says.

A Greek-American man who attended one of her icon workshops turned out to be "almost a cousin." His family was from the same Peloponnesian village as Burleson's family. "We talked and had a nice visit. And as soon as he got comfortable, he took out the card [a reproduction of one of Burleson's animal icons] and said, tapping it, 'No. No. This thing with the dogs, it's terrible. How can you do that? This should only be for saints!'"

Burleson has received support from many quarters, though. Bishop Jerry Lamb of the Diocese of Northern California owns several of her icons. "If the bishop sees one of my icons without an animal, he's a little disappointed."

The bishop and his wife have an icon of Burleson's Welsh corgi, Annie, in their home that is "nearly a spitting image of our corgi, Fauvi," Lamb says. "In my office, I have two of her icons: one of Mary, the mother of God, and one of St. Francis, shown with a corgi and a cat. They are just beautiful. ...

"They just put a feeling of sacredness and joy into that office. You can't look at the Francis without smiling.

"There's a feeling of the sacred and the 'other' coming through the icons that is just very special," he adds.

Burleson was baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church to please her Greek immigrant grandmother. But there was no Greek Orthodox church in Petaluma, Calif., where Burleson grew up, so her family attended a Presbyterian church. For the last 20 years, Burleson has been an Episcopalian, attending Christ Church in Eureka, Calif. She's a member of the vestry and many committees and the force behind the installation of the church's labyrinth. She is an associate of the Community of the Transfiguration, a religious community for Episcopal women.

Burleson calls the sisters "my closest friends." "It's really the feminine face of God, what I've encountered through them."

In turn, the sisters support Burleson's creativity. In their restored Craftsman-style home in Eureka, the prayer room exhibits classical Burleson icons of Jesus and Mary and angels. One of Burleson's paintings of a cat in icon style is the focal point of the living room. Eyes twinkling, Sister Teresa points out that the dragonfly appearing to the calico is really another annunciation.

In the dining room, a large oil painting of a loaf of bread hangs over the mantel, each oat grain sprinkled on top perfectly outlined. The loaf glows with inner light, practically whispering, "I am the Bread of Life ..." The sisters smile and say, "Oh yes, before she painted icons, she painted a series of bread and potatoes. And have you seen her frog series?"

Burleson considers herself "almost a renegade iconographer" within the Episcopal tradition. "I find I'm most attracted to icons that speak of the feminine -- you know, Mary and the other saints. I'm enjoying doing St. Alban, but I'm not doing him beheaded," she says with a laugh.

The St. Alban icon is a commission for a church in Arcata, Calif. "'The bishop said, 'You need a dog in there, you need an English sheepdog,'" Burleson relates. The Rev. Eric Moore Duff, rector of St. Alban's, suggested using his dog, and she did.

There are precedents for such inclusion. Wealthy donors of paintings often have appeared in the works, no matter how incongruous they looked. A Nativity by the Master of Moulins, painted around 1480, includes both the donor, Cardinal Rolin, and his dog, seated at his feet.

Burleson uses the animal icons in her workshops to break down barriers. Participants have painted icons to deal with the loss of a child, childhood traumas and other spiritual concerns. She herself is working through the barriers that kept her from knowing her Greek grandmother, Eleni Hlebakos, and is writing a book about her.

Hlebakos was a poor peasant, working in the fields in Kiparissia, a tiny village in Greece, when she met the son of a wealthy family. They married and had two babies. Then he was killed in World War I.

"So she was a widow at a young age with two children, and she was cast out," Burleson relates. "And -- I tear up whenever I say this -- her baby starved to death." The father's family took the other child, and Burleson's grandmother never saw her again. Hlebakos came to America, married and had five children, always hoping to bring her daughter from Greece.

"She taught herself to read and write so that she could communicate with her family. And during the Greek civil war, when things were just terrible ... the little bit she could eke out pretty much kept them alive. She never forgot them. She always did what she could for them."

Burleson has visited her relatives in Greece, meeting the lost daughter and her children. She was touched when some elderly cousins gave her photographs that Hlebakos had sent with the money and clothes over the years. "They lived in this little house with really almost nothing in it. And in a box underneath the bed were the pictures that my grandmother had sent."

The connection with her grandmother is woven into Burleson's interest in the feminine face of spirituality. "She was always kind of mysterious. But she had a lot of faith, and that was obvious. In my book, I'm creating some conversations that I wish I'd had with her." And Burleson has just completed an icon of Hlebakos.