VAN JAMES
holds a BFA in drawing and painting from the San Francisco Art Institute, and is a graduate of Emerson College in England and the Goetheanum Painting School in Switzerland. He is a painter, illustrator, graphic designer, and visual arts instructor at the Honolulu Waldorf School, where he has taught for the past twenty-five years. He is a faculty and board member of Kula Makua — Teacher Training Program in Hawai'i, and a regular guest instructor at Taruna College in New Zealand and Rudolf Steiner College in California. He is chairman of the Anthroposophical Society in Hawai'i, editor of Pacifica Journal, and an award winning author of several books on art and archaeology, including Ancient Sites of Hawai'i and Spirit and Art: Pictures of the Transformation of Consciousness.
Painting is an art which man can experience inwardly. Whether he creates as a painter or just lives in and enjoys a painting, it is a soul event... Really, what is experienced in painting—despite the imperfections of pigments—is the soul's free moving about in the cosmos.
—Rudolf Steiner
If the human being is an image of the divine, then it stands to reason that portraiture is a seeking of the spirit, a searching for the highest within the appearance of a person. How is it that the art of the portrait reveals not only the physical likeness of the sitter but bears something of what is hidden behind the appearance as well? Can the portrait have a transformational effect on the one portrayed and can the self-portrait have a similar effect on the artist who produces it? Do the portrait and self-portrait lead to self-knowledge? In like manner, is the landscape a portrait of Nature and can it too reveal being within appearance? We will pursue these and other questions in this pastel drawing and watercolor painting course, which will consider a wide variety of approaches to the portrait and landscape. This course is for beginners, teachers, and artists alike.
Materials fee: $75