our ten year anniversary celebration of the art hall!
When Torin Finser visited Cedarwood Waldorf School in its earliest years, one of the most distinctive takeaways from his recommendations was the importance of honoring community, both Cedarwood and its surrounding neighborhood.
For example, we could host a weekly market in the gym, or the youngest grades could place handmade May Day flower baskets on neighboring doorsteps. While he said to reach out, he implored us to do so by reaching in, to identify the resources we in our school community could share with the larger community outside our walls and to start to collaborate more broadly.
As an Art History major in my undergraduate years, I imagined one day directing an art gallery; maybe an art center where all felt welcomed to share their many forms of creativity, and where delicious, nourishing food would be served.
Fast forward twenty years to when my children led me to Waldorf education, and specifically to this fledgling school in SW Portland, then still running out of a church basement. My family immediately joined an ever deepening and broadening community. While my children graduated in 2008 and 2011, I am still here.
I am here because of all that I was given and continue to receive: a life enhanced by community; a collaborative community where we all raised our children together for the betterment of our and their futures; and at a place where the seeds of creativity are nourished daily for every one of us through an education infused by art. That I can direct our non-profit Art Hall as part of Cedarwood Waldorf School is a miracle, an experience which has contributed to my understanding of life as miraculous.
Our system is one of “pay it forward”. To help us get started with some seed money, Jannebeth Röell, then and still a pillar in the anthroposophical community, offered to donate 50% of her sales from our first exhibit in 2013. It was a great idea and we stuck with it.
These generous donations, from all the artists displaying at our anniversary celebration, have paid for a professional installation system, bountiful reception tables, advertising, travel costs for visiting artists, and more recently the fabulous gallery lighting system.
This ten-year anniversary exhibit and celebration is an honoring of and a thank you to all the artists who have trusted us and invested in our initiative, to their patrons who have also made this possible, and to the school without which none of this would have happened. Thank you, everyone!
Indeed, there are so many people to thank that I would likely leave someone out. So, thank you all…past, present and future members of our Cedarwood Waldorf School Community!
jacob wooton: light inside and out
We are greatly pleased to share The Art Hall with one of Cedarwood’s own faculty members, the prolific artist and Middle School Math and Science Teacher, Jacob Wooton. Jacob truly is a modern-day practitioner of what Goethe put forth for us all:
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back—concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans; that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. WHATEVER YOU CAN DO, OR DREAM YOU CAN DO, BEGIN IT. BOLDNESS HAS GENIUS, POWER AND MAGIC IN IT. BEGIN IT NOW.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Jacob shares the following in his Artist’s Statement prepared for this show, which so poignantly illustrates the phenomenological approach to life:
I can’t be the only person who believes that any bird’s nest is a more impressive work of art than anything I could ever craft. And yet I keep trying. I think that is because I also believe that there is no better way for me to show my appreciation for the gift of life and time that the universe has granted me, than to venture out into the breathable air and look closely.
The practice of painting and drawing has been in my life the single most powerful tool to build an understanding of the world, and sometimes a glimpse into myself. It can also be emotionally taxing and sometimes opens darkened doors, and it is the emotional part of creating that seems most magical and elusive.
But I don’t know how to speak to that. Instead, I will offer you the first definition of science that I googled and say that there is nothing in this description that does not agree strongly with the way I create art, and similarly no mention of emotion. But maybe you can imagine some emotions between the cracks in there?
sci·ence /ˈsīəns/ noun. “The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.“
We look forward to seeing you at the opening this Thursday with our signature bountiful reception table!
anne mavor: healing images
I have known Anne Mavor peripherally for about 15 years through our local Waldorf community. Back then, I only knew of her encaustic work which she taught at Portland Waldorf High School. Then I visited her show of a series of stone paintings inspired by her pilgrimage to her roots in Great Britain: I was met with works that invited one to travel back in place and time. It was mesmerizing. In February 2020, after it traveled around the country, I had the opportunity to meet Anne again and experience her well-known installation, I Am My White Ancestors: Claiming the Legacy of Oppression. This extraordinary exploration has much to teach us all.
Next, I started seeing Anne’s watercolor and gouache paintings on Instagram and was struck by the simple beauty, joy, and sense of connection I experienced, like the more graphic works of Hilma af Klint. I phoned Anne to visit her studio and was met with her gentle warmth in both character and artwork. We agreed that she was to be featured at The Art Hall to welcome students back to school in October 2020.
For two years Anne has patiently collaborated with us in our rescheduling as we adjusted and then readjusted to the pandemic. Always thinking creatively, Chelsea Slaven-Davis, Marketing Director at Cedarwood Waldorf School, offered to create our second online gallery showcasing Healing Images. Please note the flier and do have a look! (Just click here during the show dates, January 25 – March 18, 2022.)
When researching Anne for this blog post I came across her publication from1998 Strong Hearts, Inspired Minds: 21 Artists who are Mothers tell their Stories. What a delight to learn that this highly praised publication was part of my own art library all these years, long before I knew Anne.
Given Anne’s writing skills, please read the following from her own website: her Biography and an entry about Healing Images. Enjoy!
Biography
Anne Mavor is an artist and writer based in Portland, Oregon. Her work combines storytelling, research, performance, visual imagery, and collaboration. Originally from Massachusetts, in 1976 she moved to Los Angeles to join the Feminist Studio Workshop at The Woman’s Building. Anne received a grant from the John Anson Kittredge Fund for her book Strong Hearts, Inspired Minds: 21 Artists who are Mothers tell their Stories, published in 1996 and a writing residency from The Mesa Refuge. Since 2010 paintings from her Mounds and Stones series have been exhibited in Oregon, Washington, and Massachusetts. The touring installation I Am My White Ancestors: Claiming the Legacy of Oppression premiered in 2016 and has been supported by The Puffin Foundation, the Regional Arts and Culture Commission, and individual donations. Anne has a BA in art from Kirkland College and an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University, LA.
Healing Images Statement
This series began in early 2019 to support my internal healing process as I recover from Parkinson’s and transform how I approach the world. Happily, that has also included how I made art. I am so pleased to share this amazing experience with you.
Rather than trying to prove anything, please anyone, or promote my career, I focused on enjoyment and connection to myself. As a result, a stream of gentle abstract shapes made from curves and circles seemed to pour out onto the paper. I made hundreds of paintings, large and small, on all sorts of pieces of paper, whatever I had on hand. If an image did not feel beautiful and true to me, I didn’t force it. Instead, I expressed thanks for what it taught me and moved on to the next one. With my goal of quantity not quality, all were successes. Common themes that surfaced were two shapes wanting to connect and lines of energy winding back to themselves. All reveal my journey of connecting to my soul and heart.
and…now we’re really back!
The Art Hall at Cedarwood Waldorf School is pleased to announce that we are moving forward with the opening of The New Five Collective exhibit, For the Love of Trees, on Friday, November 12, 5:00 – 7:00 PM.
We are grateful for the staff at Cedarwood for working with The Art Hall for our first in-person exhibit since March 2020 after pandemic restrictions delayed the original opening of this show for two months.
A big shout out to Chelsea Slaven-Davis, Director of Marketing and Communications, for creating an online gallery on The Art Hall page of the CWS website making the exhibit accessible to all. Click here to view.
And another big shout out to Jeremy Smith, Facilities Manager, for his planning for and direction of the installation of our new gallery level lighting system, on display for the first time at this opening. We were able to pay for the installation with years of donations from exhibiting artists and their patrons and for the fixtures with an anonymous donation. We are grateful for everyone’s generosity.
The governor’s still-existing mandates for school settings allow us to invite adults who are both vaccinated and masked to this opening. Attendees will need to provide proof of vaccination upon admission. Please direct any inquiries to Founder/Director, Robin Lieberman by phone at 503-222-1192 or by email at arthall@cedarwoodschool.org.
and…we’re back!
After thriving through more than a year of hybrid learning during the pandemic, Cedarwood Waldorf School reopened its doors fully to students and faculty this September. The New Five Collective is honored and delighted to share their exhibit For the Love of Tress; installed by director, Robin Lieberman, and ever-supportive colleague Patricia Lynch, with her keen eye and vast experience, just in advance of the school’s reopening. We have already received rave reviews from faculty and staff!
We are also especially delighted to announce that the gallery space is now complete with a beautiful gallery-grade lighting system. We have been saving artists’ contributions and others’ donations for eight years now in hope of achieving this goal. Earlier on, a generous parent installed a gallery level hanging system, for which we will forever be grateful. We also want to give a huge shout out to Jeremy Smith, Facilities Manager at Cedarwood, for designing the lighting system and coordinating its installation with Viking Electric. And last, a big thank you to a patron of The Art Hall who anonymously donated the fixtures from Globe Lighting.
For the Love of Trees was imagined and manifested over many months during the first year of the pandemic and its exhibition space changed several times due to a series of understandable, unfortunate, and recurring pandemic-related restrictions. Hope in the hearts of the Collective’s membership (MJ Connors Davison, Robin Lieberman, Patricia Homan Lynch, Jannebeth Rӧell, and Jenny Siegel) kept the creative fires burning, stoked by their regular meetings in support of one another’s ongoing work.
Fittingly, The New Five Collective was the last group of artists to show their work at The Art Hall as the pandemic unfolded and closed the school to in-person learning. And now with the emergence of the delta variant, they have once again gone with the flow and have delayed the opening reception, even as the show is up. Please keep checking back here or with our curator, Robin, as we hope to host a Closing Reception on Friday, October 01st, to include artists’ presentations usually slated for our opening.
We at The Art Hall are delighted that The New Five Collective can at last offer their art in this newly refined space as a salve to our collective healing in this still dynamic and uncertain time. We hope that this show does just that for all who enter and remember our connection with our trees. A portion of all sales will be donated to Friends of Trees.
the new five collective: color keepers
The Art Hall is pleased to announce the opening of our next exhibit by The New Five Collective, a collaboration among five Portland-area artists all connected to Waldorf education: MJ Connors Davison, Robin Lieberman, Patricia Homan Lynch, Jannebeth Röell and Jenny Siegel.
You will then understand the times when there was a feeling for what lies on the other side of the Threshold, for that which weaves and lives in the bright clouds, for that which weaves and lives in the mist rolling up; so that in those days painters, for instance, were in a quite different position from what they were later. Then, colour which to them was of a spiritual essence took its right place on the canvas. The poet, then conscious that the Divine, the Spirit spoke in him could say: “Sing, O Muse, of the wrath of Achilles,” or “Sing to me O Muse of the great traveler” …
Just as poets in olden times could speak thus, so the old painters, even at the time of Raphael or Leonardo could say, because they also felt it in their own way: “Paint for me, O Muse. Paint for me, O Divine Power. Direct my hands for me. Carry my soul into my hands, so that You can guide the brush in my hands.” It is really a question of understanding this union of man with the spiritual in all the situations of life.
Rudolf Steiner lecture: Mystery centers, lecture 2, GA276
Like Hilma af Klint and her early 20th century group, The Five, The Collective are five women artists working together and devoted to bridging spirit and matter. They create in various media through the color realms, celebrating life and collectively holding hope for all living beings. And as Steiner both encouraged and cautioned Hilma, they strive to be directed by their own inner guidance.
The Collective’s exhibit flows out of their current collaboration influenced by exercises crafted by Laura Summer of Free Columbia, a sister also on the journey who greatly inspires them in her never-ending pursuit of understanding through painting:
I am a painter and I only really understand through painting.
In art we are working with something quite different from everyday concerns. We are learning to observe reality, see what is needed, and then to act. What is freedom? What is responsibility?
While all five women have exhibited individually and in other group exhibits, this show is their first as they live into The New Five Collective.
So, with open hearts they invite you to their opening reception, graced by the Orion String Quartet PDX, Thursday, January 16, 2020, at The Art Hall, Cedarwood Waldorf School, 3030 SW Second Avenue, Portland, Oregon.
Please direct all inquiries to Robin Lieberman at robin@robinlieberman.net or 503-222-1192.
waldorf 100: an update
Phase I. Upon learning that Cedarwood faculty and staff would be creating chalk pastel dragons as part of their pre-school in-service, we at The Art Hall got in to gear and prepared the work for installation to greet the students on opening day, September 4! (Many thanks, Jeremy!) Two people worked together on each of the sixteen pieces which now fill the space with color and wonder. Please arrange for a tour if interested.
Phase II. This will occur as originally announced and will incorporate the work of many artists, both local and from around the country, who have contributed their pieces and accompanying statements on COURAGE. The opening reception will take place at The Art Hall during Portland’s First Thursday, October 3, 5:00 – 8:00 PM. Sue Levine, Cedarwood’s Head of School, will facilitate a discussion on the theme. All are welcome!
Please come, participate, share your story, enjoy the evening’s bounty, meet new folks and perhaps purchase a piece of art. As usual, proceeds will be shared between the artist and The Art Hall, with the gallery’s portion going toward future improvements to the space. Questions? Please contact Robin at robin@robinlieberman.net or 503-222-1192. The exhibit will continue through November.
anca hariton: metamorpha
We at The Art Hall are delighted to announce the opening reception for our next featured artist and Portland Waldorf School Lily Kindergarten Classroom Assistant, Anca Hariton, on Thursday evening, March 07th.
From Anca:
The roots of this show go deep, before my immigrating to the US. Bucharest, where I grew up, used to be known as the city of more than 200 churches, before the end of WW II. However, with the arrival of the communist revolution, worship was reserved for the Party, while traditional faiths/church attendance were discouraged, infiltrated and reported, especially in the capital. I still remember how in 4th grade, for example, our teacher admonished us, “I shall not see any of you going to church on Sunday!” Instead, families taught their children to pray secretly.
I left communist Romania for good in the mid 80’s as a trained architect. Years forward, after September 11th happened, I decided to become a teacher. I earned my credential and then my Waldorf certification. For teaching the third grade Waldorf curriculum, I had to learn from scratch what I had missed: the holy stories of the Hebrew and Christian traditions. In particular, the story of the Seven Days of Creation held many revelations for me and, in conjunction with reading Rudolf Steiner’s fascinating lectures on them, they inspired these paintings.
To be given permission for what I was not allowed to openly experience as I grew up, to learn about and teach these ancient stories felt like poetic justice. Which is why I am grateful to be able to have this series shown here, at the Cedarwood Waldorf School. Thank you!
My warm appreciation goes to all who helped this show come true: from my family and old friends (many far away) to my new Portland community and friends, including Robin Lieberman (founder and Art Hall director), Robin’s son (who designed our invitation), Christine Badura (who put us in touch), Cedarwood School (which is offering a warm/soul-filled art space), and all my friends and colleagues who encouraged this effort.
Anca Hariton
February 2019
Portland, Oregon
Metamorphora, the name of Anca’s show, is a neologism, a mash-up of metamorphosis and hora, a circle dance popular in the Balkans, Israel and Yiddish culture worldwide.
We welcome you to join us for Anca’s opening on Thursday, March 07th, 5:30 – 8:00 p.m., with her artist’s presentation at 6:00. For more information Anca’s work or to contact her directly, please visit her website, Sacristima.
phyllis helland: a working artist
The Art Hall is pleased to begin its sixth year (!) exhibiting art created by artists working out of the spiritual impulse of anthroposophy, with Phyllis Helland, from Eugene, Oregon, joining our roster of locally, nationally and internationally recognized artists at her opening reception on Thursday, January 17th.
From Phyllis:
A YEAR OF ART IN THE LIFE OF PHYLLIS HELLAND
“Our lives are an art. To live in a creative way nurtures our souls and improves our lives.
It’s a daily practice. Each new day given to us is a blessing and a chance to try again.”
~ from Jennifer Thomson, one of my teachers ~
In my practice I find drawing helps me to see and understand what I am looking at, and what is looking back at me. I carry a sketchbook with me most of the time.
Painting is a dialogue with color. Sometimes I paint purely to explore color and mood and watch for a motif to reveal itself. When I paint outdoors, en plein air, the natural world reveals colors that are not readily seen, but are there, nonetheless. The more I work with color, the more color I see in nature, and the more color reveals to me.
Some of these are pieces I made in the past year, others earlier. However, in the past year I have put all these pieces “to work” in various exhibits, study groups, and on social media. Whenever a piece of art engages with a viewer, something happens that is entirely between the viewer and the piece itself.
There is the work of making art, and then there is the work that the art does when released into the world. Art work.
Please join us for Phyllis’ opening reception Thursday, January 17th, 5:30 – 8:00 p.m. and hear Phyllis share her unique perspective on growing art in the world at 6:00.
marty levin and tom klein: our dynamic duo
We at The Art Hall are pleased to present a joint exhibit of geometric string and metal art by Tom Klein and Marty Levin, long-time anthroposophists whose lifelong passions for experimenting with dynamic form and space have drawn them together in recent friendship and artistic collaboration.
Please join us this coming Thursday, March 08th, for the opening of their show titled String and Metal; Movement in Space. Doors open at 5:00 and we’ll enjoy a talk by the artists at 6:00 p.m.
Marty and Judy Levin’s second stop when exploring Portland as a possible new home was the opening reception for MJ Davison at The Art Hall in January 2016 after a welcoming dinner with Jannebeth Röell and James Lee. Since then, the Martins have become regular attendees providing invaluable support at events at The Art Hall and others in Portland’s anthroposophic community. In addition, last Fall Marty had a stunning exhibit of his geometric sculptures at the Multnomah Art Center. Warm and gentle by nature, he has had a rich and rewarding career as a mathematician and Waldorf teacher.
From Marty:
After receiving my Ph.D. in mathematics from Johns Hopkins University, I met Georg Unger in 1970 in Dornach, Switzerland. He introduced me to mathematical work based on indications from Rudolf Steiner, in particular the geometrical work of George Adams. Dr. Unger also suggested the Platonic solids as forms worthy of contemplation. I spent most of my career teaching mathematics in Waldorf high schools, where the students’ ability to visualize forms and the movement of forms was developed through geometric drawings and models. After retiring, I further perfected my techniques for making the geometric models, exhibiting them in math conferences and art galleries.
The ancient Greeks found that there are exactly five convex regular polyhedra, called the Platonic solids. In modern times we have found that these same forms represent all possible types of finite three-dimensional symmetry, thereby showing once again that they are fundamental to the nature of space. The geometric sculptures, exhibited here, show some of the geometric relationships between the different Platonic solids, and are designed to suggest planes and lines coming in from the infinitely distant periphery. They are made with a minimal amount of physical material; what’s important is not what is there, but what is not there, which the viewer sees with their inner eye. When viewing a piece, if you close one eye and move slightly, you will find positions in which various lines suddenly coincide, giving startlingly beautiful and different views.
Tom Klein, together with his dear wife, Ruthi, have been pillars in our Portland anthroposophic community for over 40 years. At the helm of the start of the Portland Waldorf School, manager of the former Steiner Storehouse, Cedarwood School’s first administrator, anthroposophic library keeper, board member of PCCI (a local Camphill-inspired initiative)…the list goes on. We at The Art Hall can always count on Tom (and Ruthi!) to pitch in, take the lead, sell books, set up, man the registration table…yes, that list goes on, too.
As a twelve-year graduate of the Rudolf Steiner School in NYC, Tom has been building and creating his entire life. Many of the chairs, tables and play stands in the local Waldorf schools have come from Tom’s workshop. And he does beautiful custom orders for dining tables and outdoor furniture. Your home may already be graced by Tom’s extraordinary string art which he clearly elevates to new levels: large or small in scale, colorful and intense, these creations are beautiful and mesmerizing. Tom has been a guest teacher locally, sharing his process and forms with young student-artists as part of their Waldorf school geometry blocks. Having worked for 28 years at Head Start, Tom’s dedication and love for children and their well-being is contagious.
From Tom:
I first met string art in sixth grade geometry and again in eighth grade when studying conic sections. I have actively pursued this interest for the last 50 years. In elementary school I worked with circles with 12-points. In the 1960’s I worked with 48-point circles and in the 1970’s started working with 96-point circles. I also developed and worked with spirals. In the conic sections work, which also began in the 60’s, I worked in lines consisting of…points placed as close as possible.
When invited to exhibit together there was no hesitation from either of these two new friends. They began meeting to collaborate on how they would share the space in the hall with great joy and excitement: a match made in heaven…and manifesting here, for us!
Again, please join us this Thursday, 5:00 – 8:00 p.m., for the opening, with a talk by the artists at 6:00 p.m.
laura summer: art dispersal and two-day workshop
We at The Art Hall are delighted to announce the return of Laura Summer. Four years ago, when we first hosted Laura, 36 of her paintings were dispersed. We are so fortunate to have the opportunity to feature 30 new stretched canvases specifically painted for Dispersal 2018!
Laura is working to create the conditions for artists to be able to work freely: patrons can become the steward of a painting but cannot buy or own it. But in donating, the patron could at least, for example, pay for the materials to make new work, thereby supporting the artist to keep creating.
Each painting in the exhibit/dispersal will have a tag indicating a range from zero up to what the piece might typically sell for. This way of communicating encourages both artist and patron to engage in a relationship with the art and with one another.
The reflective/contemplative patron may ask herself “what can I afford to pay for this painting that so touches my soul?”, or “when I first looked at it, what did I imagine the price would be?”, or even “what can I truly afford to spend to enrich my world?”
One may donate and not become a steward. Or one may donate, become a steward, and live with the painting. Later, perhaps one then feels moved to share it with someone else, letting the artist know where the painting now lives. Or, when the painting has met its need, the steward can simply send it back to the artist, renewing the process.
Laura has said, “each painting has its work to do in the world and I want them all to be dispersed.…Color is healing for the human soul.” You can read more about Art Dispersal on the Free Columbia website, the school Laura co-founded based on the same monetary principles. Her biography appears below the post.
Many of us in the Portland and Eugene areas have been looking forward to Laura’s visit since we began planning last May. Also on the west coast agenda is a two-day workshop titled The Gospel of St John, to occur the Saturday and Sunday following Friday night’s Dispersal, adjacent to The Art Hall in the South Performance Space at Cedarwood Waldorf School.
Unfortunately, due to challenging family circumstances, Laura needs to postpone her west coast teaching schedule. However, with her heart-felt blessing and loving guidance we will proceed with the Dispersal as scheduled on Friday, January 19, 2018, and with the two-day workshop to follow (see the accompanying flier below or click here for the same details). Please continue to sign up with Robin Lieberman (503-222-1192; robin@robinlieberman.net), who will facilitate the workshop.
We will welcome Laura back to Portland in due time. For now, we send her our blessings and gratitude as we continue to learn and grow from her creativity and teachings that she so generously shares with the world. And we are sending love to her family.
Artist’s Biography. Laura Summer is co-founder with Nathaniel Williams of Free Columbia, an arts initiative that includes a full-time program based on the fundamentals of painting as they come to life through spiritual science. It is completely grass roots donation supported and has no set tuitions. Her approach to color is influenced by Beppe Assenza, Rudolf Steiner, and by Goethe’s color theory. She has been working with questions of color and contemporary art for 30 years. Her work, to be found in private collections in the US and Europe, has been exhibited at the National Museum of Catholic Art and History in New York City and at the Sekem Community in Egypt. She has published seven books, four with painting and drawing exercises and three with stories. She founded two temporary alternative exhibition spaces in Hudson NY, 345 Collaborative Gallery and Raising Matter—this is not a gallery and initiated ART DISPERSAL 2012-17, where over 450 pieces of art by professional artists have been dispersed to the public without set prices.
jacqueline freeman: behind the veil ~ the mystery, beauty, and joy of the elementals
The Art Hall is pleased to announce our next featured artist to kick off our 2017 – 2018 season: photographs by Jacqueline Freeman, a biodynamic farmer who sees the world from Nature’s perspective.
When Jacqueline was seven years old, she discovered a small stone chair and a tiny clay pipe in the woods. Thereafter, she spent much of her childhood in places where the Elementals showed their presence on the land. She learned to communicate with plants and nature spirits, animals, and the muses. The Elementals on her farm have, for many years, shared imagery and communications with her. This exhibit, her first, shows the evolution of their relationship.
Jacqueline’s book, Song of Increase: Listening to the Wisdom of Honeybees for Kinder Beekeeping and a Better World, explains how bees experience the sacred. She appeared in the documentary, Queen of the Sun, and worked with rural farmers in Dominican Republic, helping them return to historic methods of agriculture. In 2017 she founded the nonprofit, Preservation Beekeeping, through which she is creating respectful ways for humans to interact with bees. Her website, www.SpiritBee.com, shows videos of her working amid thousands of bees, free of protective equipment, celebrating the caring and considerate ways humans and bees exist in harmony.
Jacqueline and her husband Joseph live in southwest Washington surrounded by orchards, gardens, greenhouses, a small forest, rich pastures and wildflowers. The farm is a haven for native pollinators, birds, cows, an exuberant dog, fleet of cats, wandering flocks of chickens and turkeys, small frog ponds, and many nature spirits who live in harmony with this blessed land. These relationships are based on respect, love and kindness, paths that open communication with the unseen realm and invite a co-creative resonance that increases the divine energetics of holy land.
Please join us on Thursday, September 14, 2017 at 7:15 p.m. for Jacqueline’s opening reception, with an artist’s talk at 7:30 p.m.
katie montgomery: a photographic journey with the bees
As an Early Childhood Teacher with the Woodland Garden Program, our featured artist is affectionately known as Ms. Katie in the Cedarwood Waldorf School Community. She has been an early childhood teacher for five years and a caretaker for children for over a decade. Her interest in photography was sparked in her early years of college when she often wandered through the local gardens and was enchanted by the flora and fauna. Born and raised just outside of Los Angeles, California, Katie has been a nature and bee appreciator since her youngest years.
Katie studied Conservation and Resources Studies at the University of California Berkeley with a specialization in School Garden Education. She was invited to work with a research team which focused on native bee diversity in urban areas. Katie initially contributed to this work with visits to schools where she taught children about the many gifts of pollinators and helped to demystify the fears surrounding bees. She soon joined her mentor in conservation research, traveling to gardens throughout California to monitor native bee species. During her time closely observing bees, Katie discovered her passion for macro photography.
Katie is completing her last year of Waldorf Teacher Training at the Rudolf Steiner College in Sacramento, where she has spent much time in between classes sitting in the Biodynamic gardens to quietly view the blooming flowers and their winged foragers.
A Photographic Journey with the Bees offers a uniquely intimate perspective on the honeybees and native bees of Portland. Katie’s work shows how, if one observes and listens closely, the bees of the world offer messages of wisdom and wonder. Katie is also currently writing a children’s book about native bees, and she dreams of one day creating a bee sanctuary in her community.
Please join us for Katie’s opening reception on Thursday, April 27, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m., with an artist’s talk at 6:00. Her beautiful work will hang through Thursday, June 1.
regional sketch group exhibition 2017: studies of nine training sketches of nature moods for painters by rudolf steiner
In the summer of 2014 Laura Summer, founder of Free Columbia art school and a 2014 Art Hall artist, offered a workshop based on Rudolf Steiner’s Nine Training Sketches of Nature Moods for Painters, in Corvallis, Oregon. Artists from Portland, Eugene, Corvallis and elsewhere in the region were inspired to further pursue their investigations. We at The Art Hall are now pleased and privileged to offer an exhibition of ten participating artists’ interpretations of their artistic research.
Please join us to meet the artists at our opening reception on Friday, January 13th, 5:30 – 7:00 p.m., and take in a presentation by Wade Cavin, High School Life Sciences and Mathematics teacher at Portland Waldorf School, who will introduce these studies in his typically comprehensive and engaging style. To learn more about the week-long workshop which gave rise to the works please read fellow 2014 Art Hall artist Patricia Lynch’s personal reflections in the January 2017 newsletter of The Portland Branch of the Anthroposophical Society.
valerie miles: playing with color, rhythm, and form
We at the Art Hall are delighted and honored to exhibit the gloriously colorful work of Valerie Miles, a pillar in Portland’s Waldorf and larger anthroposophic communities for years with her husband, John.
Valerie was born and raised in Nottingham in the English Midlands. She found satisfaction as a young child in drawing the nature that she saw around her. Valerie later studied at Nottingham College of Art and then at Hatfield University, gaining her first degree in Art and Literature.
Valerie raised her children in Germany. While there Karo Bergman, a well-known anthroposophic artist and professor at Dusseldorf University, invited Valerie to paint and draw with her on a regular basis, which they did for several years in Karo’s studio.
After the family returned to England, Valerie trained as a Waldorf Teacher and then first taught the History of Art in the High School. One of her first pupils, Gill David, is now the Director of Tobias School of Art and Art Therapy.
Soon afterwards Valerie became a Class Teacher, taking her first class through Grade 8. Partway through her third class the family moved to Canada and then at last here to Portland, Oregon. She again taught as a Class Teacher at the Portland Waldorf School.
Valerie then trained as an Art Therapist at Tobias and later, with her husband, John, founded and taught at the Micha-el School, which offers a full kindergarten through Grade 8 Waldorf education. She also has taught at the Micha-el Institute, especially at Summer Conferences, which among other things has provided teacher training and continuing education for many of Waldorf teachers in the Portland area and beyond.
Valerie has now retired and is developing her own work, “playing” with color, rhythm and form. Please join us for the Opening Reception Thursday, October 27, 5-7:30 and Valerie’s presentation at 6:00. Private viewing can easily be arranged by contacting Robin, at 503-222-1192 or robin@robinlieberman.net.
jennifer thomson: show and five-day retreat!
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After years of loving invitations (“might you accompany your husband, Philip Incao, MD the next time he comes to Portland?”) the legendary Jennifer Thomson has agreed to lead off our 2016 – 2017 season at The Art Hall as our September artist! In addition, Jennifer is offering a five-day painting retreat, until now exclusively held at her marvelous studio in Crestone, Colorado. Excited? Indeed!
The following excerpt is from Jennifer’s website:
Roaming the rolling hills around her childhood home in Tennessee, Jennifer developed a spiritual connection to nature. In her art, she strives to use color to reflect the “aliveness” of the natural world, to express the interweaving of the living, musical elements of light, darkness and color. Jennifer is an established fine artist and art teacher. Her Studies included, Goethe’s color theory, Rudolf Steiner’s color indications and Spiritual Science at the Beppe Assenza School of Art in Dornach Switzerland. Jennifer’s paintings are created watercolor, gouache, acrylic, encaustic, plant colors with beeswax and mixed medium on different surfaces. Jennifer’s work with students is very individual; her goal is to help students find their own path and voice through the unfolding colors. For 11 years, she was director of the Internationally known Atelier House School of Painting in New York, while continuing to develop her own work. Her students came from North America, Europe and Asia. She taught art at State Institutions for handicapped children and adults, Triform Camphill, Senior Citizen’s retirement centers, in Michigan, New York, Switzerland and Colorado. Presently Jennifer lives in Crestone, Colorado, teaching and developing her art.
The installation of Jennifer’s paintings, featuring new work and several works on loan from private collections, took place on Tuesday, August 16, 2016. To learn more, join us for the opening reception on Friday, September,16, 2016, including Jennifer’s presentation “A Path of an Artist.” If you are interested in Jennifer’s five-day art retreat, please contact Robin Lieberman at 503-222-1192 or robin@robinlieberman.net.
pamela whitman: creating a space through light, color, and darkness
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We at The Art Hall are both honored and pleased to host Pamela Whitman as our exhibiting artist in March. Please join us for the opening reception on Friday, March 11, 2016, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m., and meet Pamela for her presentation titled Creating a Space for Spirit through Light, Color and Darkness at 6:00.
We are especially grateful that Pamela will also be offering a two-day veil painting workshop for all levels of experience the weekend of the opening: Watching Paint Dry: Exploring Color Space through Veil Painting. Please join us! As Pamela says, “we develop ourselves as we develop our art”.
Pamela Whitman, M.A., is a certified Light, Color and Darkness Painting Therapist and an international teacher of the work of Liane Collot d’Herbois, Rudolf Steiner and Goethe, including as an adjunct faculty member of Rudolf Steiner College. She has always had multifaceted interests spanning art, science and spirit and the relationship between them. She brings her love, enthusiasm, patience, understanding and dedication to this work to her students and clients.
Pamela has done art since childhood, often inspired by religious themes and calligraphy. From an early age, she was also drawn to science and worked actively to develop this interest. Her dream of attending MIT became a reality and she was one of fifty women in her class of 950. She pursued her love of crystals and science through Materials Science but felt something was missing. Halfway through, she changed her major to Humanities and Science, to be able to include more art, philosophy and psychology in her studies. In retrospect, she feels that what she was really looking for at that time was Goethean Science. Her B.S. thesis focused on the work of Teilhard de Chardin, integrating science, spirit and the evolution of consciousness, themes she took up in various ways until she found anthroposophy about fifteen years later.
With a foundation in both science and the humanities, Pamela has worked across the spectrum, including teaching in a boys’ reform school, making and marketing radiation detectors for medical and space applications, being a milieu therapist in a psychiatric hospital, doing environmental research and monitoring on Lake Tahoe, and being an educational activist. She has traveled widely, seeking the perspective of the rest of the world, including driving from Germany to Nepal and back again with a friend. She studied calligraphy and other arts over many years and did freelance calligraphy and graphic work. Teaching has woven through all of her adult life, and she helped to found and administrate a Waldorf School. Through Waldorf education she discovered anthroposophy, which eventually led her to her true vocation in the pioneering work in Light, Color and Darkness of Liane Collot d’Herbois, anthroposophical artist and therapist.
Pamela has done considerable study of art and anthroposophy at Rudolf Steiner College and has sought out and worked with many of the early practitioners of the work of Collot d’Herbois in this country and in Europe. She has studied painting most extensively with artist Leszek Forczek. She participated in the second international training in Light, Color and Darkness Painting Therapy at the Emerald Foundation in The Hague, completing her requirements as a Painting Therapist as part of her Masters degree program in Human Development. She feels fortunate to have met and worked with Collot d’Herbois during the last five years of her life. She received her certification as a Painting Therapist from the Medical Section at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland.
Pamela’s career and interests bridge the fields of science, art, spirituality, consciousness, psychology, healing and education, all of which she incorporates as a painting therapist and adult educator, and on occasion, as a lazure artist. She is grateful now for the impetus to devote more time to painting, research and writing. Her husband is an acupuncturist and healer; they have two children and two grandchildren and live in Grass Valley, CA.
A rare opportunity in Portland has arrived! Please come meet Pamela on Friday evening, March 11, and then join her for this “artistic and practical, challenging and inspiring” two-day veil painting workshop that weekend. Please see the accompanying flier below (or click here) and contact Robin Lieberman at 503-222-1192 for more details.
mj davison: color and light at midlife
The Art Hall is pleased to announce the opening reception for our next exhibit by international artist and Portland Waldorf School parent, MJ Davison, titled Color and Light at Midlife, on Wednesday, January 13, 2015, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m., with an artist talk at 6:00.
MJ is a lifelong artist who has recently devoted her career to understanding color and light through veil painting. As a child, she asked “where am I?” and interpreted the world through drawing, painting, and collage. As a teen asking “who am I?” she painted and made found fabrics into wearable art and home fashions.
Her BFA from Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, encompassed crafts, fashion, and French. While here, she asked “who and what inspires me?” Professors Marlene Mancini-Frost, textiles, and Daniel Rohn, color theory, were most inspiring. The beauty and harmony of ancient Greece led MJ to form life-size figures in ceremony, made of printed and painted fabric, for her graduate thesis.
Narrative and 3-D collage work continued at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, where MJ earned her MFA in Book Arts/Printmaking. There, Bobbie Lippman, papermaker, Hedy Kyle, bookmaker, Sarah Van Keuren, photographer, and Frank Galuszka, painter, were all instrumental in her artistic development. In Philadelphia, MJ asked herself two questions: “who are we in relationship?” and “what is beyond us?”
Here her work started to explore the family system and the spiritual self beyond the physical. These two questions would be answered through mixed media books and prints over the next two decades in two different cities, yielding many works collected nationally and internationally. One example is her book, Evidence of Attendants, produced through a residency at Women’s Studio Workshop. Another is her non-silver photography, for which MJ received a grant from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Council.
MJ developed a fondness for teaching papermaking and bookmaking to all ages while living in Philadelphia and then in New York City, where she continued to exhibit in group art shows, locally and nationally. Commercially, MJ developed lines of hand-painted wallcoverings for design showrooms in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.
Marrying and moving to San Francisco, MJ kept answering the question “what is beyond us?” through larger-scale acrylic paintings. The themes expanded into astronomy, astrology and eastern wisdom. The benefits of Anthroposophy came into MJ’s family life through Karen Rivers, teacher, and the Marin Waldorf School community. It was there she began to unlearn what she thought she knew of painting in order to begin to ask “what is this beyond that which is?”
Settling the family in Portland, MJ has grown through therapeutic painting with Robin Lieberman, along with workshops given locally by Robin, Laura Summers, Marie-Laure Valandro, Sandra Burch, and Cheri Munske, and in Crestone, Colorado, with Jennifer Thomson. Her personal study in conjunction with these teachers comes from readings on color and light by Rudolf Steiner, Goethe, Liane Collot d’Herbois, and Laura Summers.
Please join us on Wednesday, January 13, for the opening at 5:30 p.m. and for MJ’s talk at 6:00! The exhibit will remain open to the public by appointment through Thursday, February 11. As usual, you may contact Robin with any questions.
carolina allen: works on paper
The Art Hall at Cedarwood Waldorf School is pleased to invite you to an opening reception for a new exhibition, Works on Paper, by Eugene artist, teacher and mother, Carolina Allen, on Thursday, November 12, 2015, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m., with an artist talk at 6:00 p.m.
A child her wayward pencil drew On margins of her book; Garlands of flower, Dancing elves, Bud, butterfly, and Brook, Lessons undone, and Plum forgot, Seeking with hand And heart The teacher whom She learned to love Before she knew T’was Art.
Louisa May Alcott
For Carolina art is the golden, shining thread of life which magically weaves together the things that matter most. Sixteen years ago she found Waldorf education, eventually became a Waldorf teacher, and through doing so discovered that we are all artists…including herself. Before that she had no idea that spreading colors about on paper could tap into such a deep wellspring of joy, as immense and multilayered as the starry and sacred skies.
Carolina is a single mother of two beautiful girls and an adopted son, a Waldorf teacher who runs The Mother Tree kindergarten and preschool out of her home, and in so many ways a community builder who strives to weave these myriad elements of her life into an expression of beauty as an artist, finding balance along the way. Each role brings different hues to her palette: seeking mentors for her children (and being worthy of imitation herself), ushering forth the other young souls in her care, and sharing her home with those in need all create an opportunity to inspire within a warm and inviting space—messy though it sometimes is!
Carolina also serves on the Board of Circle of Children, which seeks to provide an enriching environment for children and adults to explore and discover their inherent gifts through hands-on and service-based learning. Circle of Children offers all of its services as a free resource through a gift-based economy and thereby strives to bring forth a new level of consciousness regarding money. The organization works with schools, such as the School of Arts and Academics where Carolina’s eldest daughter attends, small business programs, and corporations hosting conferences at its Triangle Lake Conference Center in the foothills of the Oregon Coast Range.
She hopes her paintings reflect her joy of living and in some way help each of us get more in touch with our own creativity, that which is our birthright. Following the opening showings will be available to the public by appointment through Friday, December 04, 2015. If you cannot join us at the opening please contact Robin Lieberman at (503) 222-1192 or robin@robinlieberman.net to schedule your visit.
a special event: the question of consciousness today
The public is in need of experiences that are not just voyeuristic. Our society is in a mess of losing its spiritual center…Artists should be the oxygen of society. The function of the artist in a disturbed society is to give awareness of the universe, to ask the right questions, to open consciousness and elevate the mind.
Marina Abramovic, performance artist
Dormant most of the summer, The Art Hall at Cedarwood Waldorf School came alive once again with art submitted by member artists attending a special conference here, August 28 – 30, 2015, featuring Virginia Sease from the Goetheanum on The Question of Consciousness Today.
During the Friday evening public lecture, Virginia spoke about the necessity of relating one’s inner experience to the outer world. We’d like to note that the day was the anniversary of Goethe’s birth, who had emphasized the same process and principle in illuminating his color theory. Indeed, this is what the creative process, inherent in our humanity, invites us to do—whether one is an artist or not!
The artists were invited to answer the question, “What does the question of consciousness today mean to you and how is it reflected in your work?” Six artists were available to participate in this exhibit that accompanied the Conference and imbued the hall with qualities of soul. The artists were introduced to the audience and their answers recited. Then everyone entered the hall to experience the works with this in mind.
Art is eternal yet its forms change. And if you realize that art always has a relation to spirit you will understand that both in creating it and appreciating it art is something through which one enters the spiritual world.
Rudolf Steiner, in Spirit and Non Spirit in Painting, from the Color Lectures
Carrie Gibbons. Carrie is an active member of The Visual Arts Section, School of Spiritual Science in North America and most recently organized the section’s annual meeting here in Portland. She is a prolific artist with a keen interest in the social aspects of art and is currently a doctoral student in Transpersonal Psychology, focusing on recognizing and improving the spirituality of our speech. Her displayed work, The Listening Bowl Series, offers each participant an instrument and process to creatively explore encounters with others. The series were available to view for a week after the Conference and then traveled along with Carrie to participate in community development for Camphill communities. You can email Carrie to learn more about the Listening Bowls.
Acknowledging the sanctity within the encounter with another creates the space to both gift attentiveness, and to receive wisdom of the unseen forces weaving through every dialogue; this represents an essential element in the process of awakening.
Robin Lieberman. Robin is the founder and curator of The Art Hall as well as a psychotherapist and painting therapist. Seven pastel paintings of the Manzanita sunset are on view.
Every moment is an opportunity to see and experience with all our senses what is novel; like gazing at the stars, or painting a coastal sunset form the same physical space over and over again-there is always the wonder and awe that inspires me to soften my edges, breathe freshness and compassion into (my) life and work.
Patricia Lynch. Patricia just completed 30 years of teaching and leadership at the Portland Waldorf School, most recently as the High School Fine Arts Teacher. At the Art Section Annual meeting last month in Portland she and Carrie presented their impressions of the Portland anthroposophic artistic community after conducting dozens of interviews. Two of her oil landscape paintings hang in the exhibit.
Out of my wakefulness, I move towards or am interested in something. I make a choice out of myself. My choice is working with color expressing my interest in nature.
Cheri Munske. Cheri is an anthroposophic art therapist and master puppeteer.
For me, the question of consciousness today begins with movement towards, a striving to cultivate interest in, warmth for the other. In the case of the artistic process, being awake to the colors, movement, [and] gesture can bring a certain consciousness, which can lead to an experience of something deeper wanting to shine forth. (more…)
robin lieberman: an artist’s images from her pilgrimage on the camino de santiago de compostela
We are pleased to announce our next show, An Artist’s Images from Her Pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, by Portland artist, psychotherapist, and Art Hall curator, Robin Lieberman.
A lifelong painter and student of art, Robin majored in Art History at Skidmore College and continued her artistic pursuits while earning her Masters in Social Work at the University of Michigan. Abstract painting dominated her early work until she discovered wet-on-wet watercolor painting while her children were in grade school at Cedarwood Waldorf School, in Portland. The concept of form coming out of color was both exciting and intimidating: she was going to have to learn to paint anew–and did–with greater freedom and capacity to see.
Robin further developed her appreciation of and technique for watercolor painting through study of Liane Collot-d’Herbois’ Light, Darkness and Color in Painting Therapy and independent study with fellow painter, anthroposophic nurse, painting therapist, eventual mentor, and inaugural Art Hall artist, Jannebeth Röell. Their work began with painting studies following Rudolf Steiner’s Color lectures and eventually, coincident with Robin’s mother’s passing, evolved into a five year-long odyssey of weekly studio sessions, during which they explored the properties of color as indicated by Collot-d’Herbois.
Robin now augments her psychotherapy practice with anthroposophic painting exercises which she learned from Jannebeth and continues to study on her own. She also offers painting workshops, classes, and weekend retreats at the Oregon coast, and co-teaches a series with Shakti Sharon Hanson, Pilgrimage to the Garden of Your Heart, in which they combine their passions—painting and yoga—for truly rhythmical and grounding experience.
The current show features images inspired by Robin’s 500-mile pilgrimage while walking El Camino de Santiago de Compostela for a month over the summer of 2014. Please join us for an opening reception on Thursday, May 14th, 5:30 – 8:00 p.m., with an artist’s presentation on Color on the Camino at 6:00 p.m.
gemela foster: the golden spiral
The Art Hall is pleased to announce its next exhibit: photographs by Portland native and Cedarwood Waldorf School Lead Teacher, Kindergarten Aftercare and Day Program, Gemela Foster, Thursday, March 05, through Thursday, April 16, 2015.
Ms. Gemela, as she is known to the hundreds of children who have been in her care over her twenty-year career, began experimenting with photography while exploring the forests in and around her home city only about two years ago and has quickly cultivated a devoted group of followers.
What makes Gemela’s photographs stand out is how intimately she relates to her subjects, focusing with fairy eyes on magical finds in the forest. You may find her on a trail with one of her own children or sisters, a friend, one of the precious children under her care, or with her beloved Chihuahua, Romeo.
Why the Golden Spiral? Gemela’s study of Anthroposophy in the teacher training at the Micha-el Institute informs her sensibility. In so many of her images she captures aspects of sacred geometry and the Fibonacci Sequence so often evident in nature. Thus, The Golden Spiral was born!
We hope you can join us this Thursday, March 05, 2015 for Gemela’s opening, with an artist’s talk on the Essence of the Fibonacci Sequence at 6:00 p.m.
celia kane: light and darkness in various media
The Art Hall is very pleased to announce our next exhibition: LIGHT AND DARKNESS in Various Media, works by Celia Kane on exhibit from January 15 through February 12, 2014.
Since she was very young Celia has been creating art in a variety of media, including knitting, sewing, embroidery, jewelry, ceramic pottery, drawing, and painting. She attended Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School in Ghent, New York for seven years as a child, graduated from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin with a degree in Studio Art and Anthropology, and completed the Rudolf Steiner School teacher training at Taruna College in New Zealand.
In 2001, after teaching at a Waldorf School in Wisconsin, Celia attended a training session for Light, Darkness and Color Therapy, taught by Janny Mager in East Troy and following the indications of Liane Collot d’Herbois. While Celia had already been drawing on her own appreciation of color her art making was revitalized by the new concepts and related revelations coming out of her meditation. The painting exercises create fertile spaces for potential, in which the viewer can either rest or feel moved to take action. A synergistic blend of artistic, spiritual and scientific principles gradually developed, including a greater appreciation for Johann Goethe’s theory that color is born out of light entering into darkness and a greater respect for the laws of physics as seen at sunrise and sunset. (Some call the movement of colors in the sky at sunrise and sunset “the map of the Spirit world.”) The acrylic paintings and pastel drawings on exhibit, drawn from Celia’s last four years of work, are variations of the watercolor veil painting exercises that are typically done over the course of three full days in the formal Therapy training.
Having completed half of these exercises in acrylic Celia now occasionally has time to spend an uninterrupted day or more working on a new veil painting. She also spends much of her time mothering two beautiful boys, supporting her husband in his medical practice, and most recently studying at Western Seminary’s MA in Counseling Program here in Portland. She’s busy!
We hope you can join us for Celia’s opening on January 15, 2015, 5:30 – 8:00 p.m., with an artist presentation at 6:00 titled the necessity of doing art: light into darkness.
marie-laure valandro: save the date!
Please join us on November 06th for a rare public exhibit of veil paintings by world-renowned artist and teacher, Marie-Laure Valandro.
Marie-Laure’s extensive education, travel, and teaching have brought her in touch with artistic and religious traditions across Europe, the Middle East, other parts of Africa and Asia, and the Americas. She eventually encountered Anthroposophy, studied the painting methods of Liane Collot d’Herbois, and founded her own school on the technique in Wisconsin, where she also developed expertise with biodynamic farming methods. Marie currently lives in Bellingham, Washington.
Please join us for this very special event. The opening reception will occur on Thursday, November 06th, 5:30 – 8:00 p.m., with an artist presentation on The Arts at 6:00 p.m.
The Art Hall at Cedarwood Waldorf School 
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