This summer I attended two workshops at the Woodstock School of Art in New York. Yes, it's THAT Woodstock (although the rock festival actually took place forty miles south of the town). The school has purchased the same site that was used by the Art Students' League in NYC for their summer school for many years. It's a great setting, with several old stone buildings, which house painting, sculpture, and printmaking studios; all nestled in the Catskill Mountains. The town of Woodstock has been home to several artists' colonies since the turn of the century, at least.
I took a week-long portrait painting workshop from Lois Woolley, followed by a figure painting workshop given by her husband, HongNian Zhang. They have written a book together (his painting & palette philosophies; her words),
"The Yin/Yang of Painting." Many of the students who came to the workshops were there because they were inspired by the book. I shared the on-site barn with a woman who had come from the Virgin Islands to study with HongNian! He is a Chinese master, having studied classical, western painting in China. He was even commissioned by Mao's to produce some propaganda art, among other things.
This was a life-changing experience for me. I have been taking portraiture classes at the NJ Center for Visual Arts for five years, and I have never been as inspired as I am now. I suppose that's due to Hong Nian's influence more than the school itself, and I will write about that more on the "Palette" area of this forum. Here I just want to say that the facilities, surroundings, and people--the whole Woodstock milieu--was conducive to being productive and inspired to make art.
I recommend it heartily.
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