Spring/Summer Art Section Newsletter Now Online

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Landscape Painting Retreat

August 21thru 25^th noon

Experience nature through Color & Form with Jennifer Thomson

Explore Goethe’s Color Wheel as a landscape with veil painting technique. Afternoons create the essence of trees, flowers, mountains & water, in landscape moods with different color exercises inspired by Monet. Some works will develop into finished art.  Composition will be explored. Critique.

 Materials:  gouache paints & charcoal

Work space:  Sun Studio & outdoors into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to experience Nature through direct observation.

Daily class:  9 am to 4:30 pm

Lunch break:  12:30 to 2:30

Tuition:  $250 includes 4 organic veggie lunches & snacks

Deposit:  $75 nonrefundable, to reserve a space

Supplies:  $35 extra or bring your own (list provided)

Accommodations:  www.crestonecolorado.com      www.crestoneeagle.com

Camping:  5 minutes driving to Sun Studio

Info:  Jennifer Thomson, PO Box 894, Crestone, Colorado 81131, 719-937-7694

Sunstudio.thomson1@gmail.com

www.jenniferthomson.net

Join us in Crestone, Colorado…..August 21-25 noon

Art Section Newsletter Seeking a New Volunteer Co-Editor.

The Newsletter is looking for a new, volunteer, non-North-American Co-Editor to replace Marion Briggs. Requirements include being an active member of the Art Section, working knowledge of a page layout program (such as Adobe InDesign or maybe Microsoft Publisher) as well as an image-editing program (such as Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements), and being fluent enough in English to edit articles and text (including things like grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.). If  interested, please contact David Adams at ctrarcht.nccn.net.

Workshop with Van James in Honolulu

The Role of Art in Education:

Practical Examples and Current Research

A half-day drawing workshop with Van James

Saturday, January 18, 2014  

9 a.m. - 1 p.m., Niu Campus Hall

Honolulu Waldorf School, 350 Ulua Street, Niu Valley

This hands-on workshop is for parents, educators and those interested in how the child learns by means of his/her creative faculties. At a time when technology increasingly pervades education it is important to be aware of what capacities children need to develop. In this workshop we will do children’s drawing exercises that lay the groundwork for skills and faculties such as visual thinking, cognitive feeling (emotional intelligence), and moral imagination. We will focus on basic artistic principles that enhance the learning experience in grades 1 through 3 and the transition stage that occurs for the 9-10 year old. No drawing experience is necessary.

Van James is a Hawai’i based artist, author and educator; a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, Emerson College in England, and the Goetheanum School of Painting in Switzerland.  He teaches art at the Honolulu Waldorf High School and is a regular guest instructor at Taruna College in New Zealand, Rudolf Steiner College in California, and numerous schools in Asia. He is editor of Pacifica Journal, and chairman of the Anthroposophical Society in Hawai’i, as well as the author of several books on art and culture including Drawing with Hand, Head and Heart: Learning the Natural Way to Draw. He is known locally for his award winning series of Ancient Sites guidebooks.

This workshop is sponsored by Jeff White Associates—

A suggested donation of $30 will benefit the Annual General Fund of the Honolulu Waldorf School.

Space is limited. RSVP-- please call 377-5471 to reserve your place.

Upcoming October Workshop with Van James

Transformative Power of Art Part 2: Rudolf Steiner's Aesthetic and the Art of Color

Van James "Architypal Plant" motif after Steiner 

A retreat-workshop with Van James
October 14-19, 2012
Prado Farms, Lubao, Pampanga, Philippines

For artists, teachers, art therapists, and creative people of all kinds ...
Join renowned teaching artist Van James, (www.vanjames.smugmug.com), author of Spirit and Art: Pictures of the Transformation of Consciousness and The Secret Language of Form, in The Transformative Power of Art II: Rudolf Steiner's Aesthetic and the Art of Color, the second visual arts retreat workshop in the Philippines, from October 14 to 19, 2012.

Link to more information and PDF for retreat-workshop flyer 

Free Columbia ART Dispersal

Sunday/ Monday - May 20/21 3pm-9pm Basilca Hudson
ART for 100% of People

#12 Dan Pate 24x29 inches

Red, Yellow, Blue   Laura Summer 10x10 inches

#3 Nick Pomeroy 8 X 10 inches

Can you imagine going to visit someone and finding their home full of artwork? Can you imagine needing to stop and ask directions on your way there and finding that person’s home full of artwork? Can you imagine appearing in court to pay your parking ticket and finding the courtroom walls covered with paintings  that were  somehow consistent with your being in a courtroom? Can you imagine a society where many, many people are working artistically and everywhere is something that has been created by someone? Can you imagine a society where these people also have time and materials and enough to eat?

The Free Columbia Art Course is a year long investigation of art in relation to the spiritual aspects of the human being and the world. As a new experiment in our ongoing attempts to de-commodify art, Free Columbia is planning an art dispersal event.http://www.freecolumbia.org/art-dispersal.php See the web album at https://picasaweb.google.com/103588655269987228457/ArtDispersal
As a society we have placed original visual art outside of the financial means of the majority of people. At the same time we have impoverished most of our artists. We need to turn this situation around.

At the art dispersal event, which will occur on May, 20 and 21, 2012 we will present three different, and not necessarily connected, actions.
 

1. We will make approximately 100 pieces of visual art by various artists available for dispersal to people who would like to live with them for an unspecified amount of time. This means that the recipients will take the work home and will not need to return it. If the time comes when they no longer want to keep the artwork they can give it to someone else who does want it or they can contact the artist to return it.
2. We will have festive cultural evenings with music, food and conversation. People will be encouraged to support the event but there will not be admission charges.
3. We will let people know that Free Columbia is trying to raise the majority of our yearly budget, ($55,000) so that we can be one year ahead of our operating expenses. In order to create a free cultural space Free Columbia is supported by a freely given gifts. Everyone at Free Columbia is encouraged to participate, but these new donations would allow us to teach for the year free of asking our current students to support the current year. Any money that was collected in donations during the year could assure the existence of the next year’s program. If we raised an amount over $55,000 we could expand Free Columbia’s programming. We have had strong and positive experiences of what happens when you separate education from tuition and we are convinced that being one year ahead of our expenses will significantly increase the experience of what we, as a community, can bring. 

How are these actions connected? Only in terms of visibility, time and space. That is, the event will make people aware of the availability of the artwork and of the possibility of contributing to the gift economy that supports Free Columbia. Those who take paintings will be encouraged to make a financial contribution but it will be clear that this is not connected to a value assigned to the art work, rather it is an opportunity to support creative activity which the person obviously values since they are taking the work home. Also people are free to contribute to Free Columbia and need not take any artwork home.  We don’t know what will happen but we will know more after we try it.
There are a limited number of paintings available for people who do not live locally. These can be seen athttp://www.freecolumbia.org/art-dispersal.phpPlease contact Laura Summer if you are interested laurasummer@taconic.net
We will hold the main dispersal event at Basilica Hudson, 110 Front Street, Hudson, New York on Sunday and Monday, May 20 and 21 from 3pm to 9pm.
Perhaps you have wanted to live with a painting by one of these artists, perhaps you have wanted to contribute to free culture but how to do this was unclear, perhaps you are simply curious about what will happen…    for whatever reason, please participate in the art dispersal event.

Let us see what happens when we ask people to support the conditions for creativity instead of purchasing artwork.
 

Artists Participating:
Lailah Amstutz
Simeon Amstutz
Lisa Archigian
Laura Charlton
Lindy Chicola
Christine Hales
Martha Loving
Christiane Marks
Cassidy Muckleston
Brooke Nixon
Dan Pate
Nick Pomeroy
Mado Spiegler
Laura Summer
Nathaniel Williams

See the web album at https://picasaweb.google.com/103588655269987228457/ArtDispersal
Basilica Hudson 110 front street hudson NY 

Upcoming Conference at the Goetheanum

Here is a link to the program for the International Art Section conference in May at the Goetheanum.

Report From Free Columbia

All improvement in the sphere of politics is to proceed

from the ennobling of character- but how is character

ever going to be ennobled while under the influence of a

barbaric political constitution?  Presumably we have to find

an instrument that could enable this, an instrument not

provided by the state, that could open up living springs which,

whatever the political corruption, would remain clear and true.

-Friederich Schiller on culture and fine art

Report from Free Columbia in 2011-2012

If you travel north by train from NYC along the arm of the sea (the Hudson River), you will come to the town of Hudson in the county of Columbia.  One of the many things going on in the area of this whaling town become antique hub is a project dedicated to the practice and study of art and culture called Free Columbia.  It has been growing over the last four years.  It began as the collaboration of two artists but now includes the contributions of many more.  The main activity of this project has been the creation of workshops, conferences, puppet shows, lecture evenings and, most ambitiously, a nine month full time course.  This course is currently in its third year and it includes painting, drawing, puppetry, eurythmy, philosophy of aesthetics, Goethean observation and study of anthroposophy.  Our faculty includes Laura Summer, Nathaniel Williams, Ella Lapointe, Karen Derremeaux and Henrike Holdrege. In addition we welcome guest lecturers, Sarah Hearn, Craig Holdrege, Seth Jordan, Michael Howard, Ted Pugh, Fern Sloan, Doug Sloan, Patrick Stolfo, and Steve Talbott. With the participation of such able faculty Free Columbia can be seen as an experiential Foundation Year in Anthroposophy as well as an introduction to painting.  

                  No matter the project at hand, Free Columbia is always an attempt at approaching art’s spiritual aspects.  Working with spiritual science and Steiner’s anthroposophy is a great leaven in this.  Free Columbia is a place to cultivate the dialogue on culture with Kandinsky, Rothko, Van Gogh, Beuys, Cezanne, Goethe, Schiller, Merlou Ponty, Gadamer, Klee, Steffen and Deleuze among others.

Over the last year the project has grown.  The year long course has quadrupled in size.  The work is intensifying with the growing number of people investing their participation. 

Free Columbia has a circle of supporters who value what we are trying to do.  They contribute materials and supplies, books and monthly financial pledges.  We are trying to create an atmosphere at Free Columbia that supports creativity and autonomy, so we are not interested in external accreditation or funding with strings attached.  We are also trying to make it accessible to those who should participate in it due to their interests and abilities regardless of their financial means.  There are no fixed tuitions for participation in any courses.  The annual expenses are presently a humble $55,000. 

We are at the beginning of this year’s journey. If you would like to follow along with us block by block, you may do at http://freecolumbia.blogspot.com/

We will accept applications for the 2012-13 year from March 1^st to May 1^st 2012.

Information about the course and the summer intensives can be found at http://www.freecolumbia.org/

Nathaniel Williams and Laura Summer


"I'm glad to participate in such a positive space, amidst responsive people, where good things can touch ground."
Travis Henry, Full Time Student

“The atmosphere here is one of free thinking and free learning that I have never really experienced before. It is a mood of inquisitive exploration and observation. To nurture each others beings and to bring something good into the world pervades life together in the studio.”
Laurel Iselin, Full Time Student

Upcoming Art Section Conference Information and More Developments

Dear friends of the International Art section,

With warm greetings from Rik ten Cate you will find attached information, you probably have waited for.
He and the section council, Christiane Schwarzweller, Michael Howard, Gottfried Caspar and Martin Zweifel, will be pleased if you read the announcement and take part in this process.

With kindest regardsTanja Hietsch 

www.internationalartsection.com

Liebe Freunde der Internationalen Sektion für Bildende Künste,
Liebe Interessierte am Fortgang,

mit herzlichen Grüssen von Rik ten Cate darf ich Ihnen das Schreiben im Anhang senden. Auch der Sektionsrat, das sind Christiane Schwarzweller, Michael Howard, Gottfried Caspar, Martin Zweifel, freut sich wenn ihr die Inhalte der Ankündigungen wahrnehmt.
Viele von Euch warten schon sehnlichst auf Informationen.

Mit herzlichen Grüssen
i. A. Tanja Hietsch 

Assistentin von Dr. Seija Zimmermann 
Vorstand am Goetheanum 

Tel.  +41 61 706 43 64 
Fax   +41 61 706 43 14 
tanja.hietsch@goetheanum.ch

Link to Rik ten Cate's Letter of September 22, 2011 and Conference Schedule Here

Summer Conference in Columbia County, NY: August, 5-7

-Image Arts from the Perspective of Spiritual Reality-

the conference and its context

In August of 2010, in Hudson, NY, a conference took place called –The Search for Humanity in Contemporary Art-.  This conference, which sprouted out of the soil of the art section of the school for spiritual science, consisted in a struggle to bring post modern art and art theory into a new light by seeing it in relationship to spiritual science, and likewise to see anthroposophy in its relationship to post modernity.  This was attempted in many ways.  Of course, only the smallest beginning could be made.  A group of around 50 people, mostly artists, gathered together to try this.  You can get an impression of the activities, exhibits, research and events of last summer by going to

http://www.freecolumbia.org/report.php  

 

During August 5, 6 and 7 of 2011 another gathering will take place in Columbia County, NY.  It has grown out of last summer’s gathering.  Our question has become more specific, -Image Arts from the Perspective of Spiritual Reality-.  The relationships between painting, photography and Cinema, and the greater effect technological reproduction (particularly of artwork) has had on the world and culture, have been central themes for artists over the last decades.  Striving to achieve clarity in these relationships out of a spiritual understanding of reality, this task is left to those working with spiritual science.  A group of artists is also preparing an exhibit to take place parallel to the conference.  The theme of the exhibit is -The Metamorphosis of Fear–.  As you will see below, this work can be seen as a preparatory step.

As we continue to look forward, a larger gathering in the near future is coming into sight which will take all this work and tie it together.  Rudolf Steiner indicated, in conversations with an artist named Jan Stuten, that a new kind of marionette theater needed to be developed to act against the harmful effects cinema had on the human being.  A century has now passed since they worked together on initial plans and sketches for this, but the project never reached maturity.  This was to be a new art, for the small stage, of moving light. Rudolf Steiner saw that in cinema the highest form that could be achieved would be animation. His idea for a renewal of puppetry would be related to what we know as animation, only guided and performed by human beings.  Rudolf Steiner suggested that the first piece he and Stuten could create for this stage, might be called -The Metamorphosis of Fear-.  This summer we are creating an initial exhibit on the theme of the metamorphosis of fear and exploring the arts of painting, photography and cinema in a conference.  Hopefully during the summer of 2012 or 2013 we can bring all this work together to see if we can take another step.

If you would like to join us this summer, or would like to learn more you can contact either:

Nathaniel Williams:  nafanyel79@gmail.com   518 672 4090

or

Laura Summer: laurasummer@taconic.net    518 672 7302

Trial Run Post: Michael Warms Things Up

It has been a cold winter in Amherst but Michael keeps 

his wood pile stacked and his studio warm.