Workshops & Sessions: The Center for the Arts

Workshops & Sessions: 2010

Course and Description Dates Instructor Reserved for Guests at FLM January 2 - 9 AVAILABLE January 9 - 16 AVAILABLE AVAILABLE January. 16 - 23 AVAILABLE Art & Soul: “Creativity with Pastel & Soul Collage” - DESCRIPTION of COURSE Register Now January 23 - 30 Susan Low Beer & Dr. Ana Bodnar Read Bios

Workshops & Sessions: 2009

Workshops & Sessions: 2008

Workshops & Sessions: 2007

About Our Sessions

Tuition Fee includes the following:- Daily access to the Art Center’s workshop and finca facilities

- One-on-one professional instruction for all levels
- Large on-site studio for round-the-clock participant use
- Unique and delicious cuisine prepared by our talented Panamanian cook
- Comfortable accommodations in our spacious and private hacienda
- Daily maid service and housekeeping
- Hiking, horseback-riding, relaxing in the pool or jacuzzi in our luxurious tropical climate

NOT included, but available:- Supplies and equipment necessary for some courses are indicated in individual course descriptions
- Organized field trips to the local beach, a village built in a volcano crater, open markets, restaurants

Submit a Course Proposal

We invite teachers, educators, professionals of any kind to submit proposals for one-week sessions at Finca La Maya. On a first-come, first-served basis, consideration will be given to each proposal, and we will do our best to accommodate preferred session dates. Please send us a short and concise course/session description, dates preferred, and a resume or biography of the organizers. Session organizers are responsible for their own course promotion, although in some cases FLM can also promote the session locally. Group rates are available. Minimum of 10 participants. Reduced rate available for double room occupancy. Please contact us directly for further information.

To make a course suggestion, please fill out the form below.

Panama hats on display at a local vendor. Local wildlife taking part with a tourist. Your Name:(required) Email(valid email required) Phone Message

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Course Descriptions

Art & Soul: “Creativity with Pastel & Soul Collage” Description Art & Soul, Susan Low Beer and Dr. Ana Bodnar. This workshop will be consist of two sections: Part I: ART. Pastel or a medium of your choice (watercolour, pen and ink), Three days, Monday-Wednesday, 25-27 January, 9-3:30 pm Part II:   SOUL Collage Two days, Thursday and Friday, 28-29 January, 9-3:30 pm. Open to local participants Session I: Pastel, Watercolours, Pen and Ink. In this workshop we will integrate the development of your creative self and expand your knowledge of the pastel (or other mediums) through teaching and working outdoors in selected landscapes. The workshop will include instruction as well as extensive time for working, with an emphasis on individual instruction.  Pastels, watercolour and pen and ink, lend themselves beautifully to the rich and colourful landscapes around Finca La Maya. We ask that participants choose their medium, to work in pastel or pen and ink and watercolour for the entire workshop. In this session you will: *Learn about the material of your choice:  pastel, watercolour and pen and ink. *Learn techniques for that material *Introduction to aspects of colour theory *Improve your composition and artistic technique *Work will be in various landscapes to provide various artistic experiences Materials list will be sent upon registration. Suggestions will be given for easy travel. Session II: Soul Collage In this aspect we will introduce participants to the Soul Collage Process, an imaginative way to create your own archetypal cards for insight and support in your personal journey. Through the Soul Collage process, you will explore aspects of self, what supports and nurtures you, and how you connect with Spirit. The process of Soul Collage is an intimate conversation with your “Self” where your personally-created deck of cards acts as a visual journal of your life, allowing you to connect and heal the divide between your conscious self and your unconscious self to bring new insights and creativity into your life. Soul Collage has been developed by Seena Frost. Materials: Will be provided. Please bring any images or photographs you would like to use or include. For entire week including accommodation and meals: $ 1500 per person for the week For the two-day class (Panama locals only): $ 80 per person includes lunch both days Deadline to register and full payment is due one month before the workshop. Please Register online or call Finca La Maya, in Panama:  (507) 240-8281 Register Now TOP of PAGE

PASSION & CREATIVITY Description

Passion and Creativity, Sherry Miller. The one thing I’m passionate about all my life is creativity. I will help anyone anytime explore, discover, expand, and develop his or her own creativity. Usually people who cross my path want or need a boost to their own creative efforts. If anyone even asks me about painting, I tell them to start at once because if they had no talent, they would not have inquired. I NEVER inquire about playing the saxophone or taking music lessons!!! Since tropical third world people have been the subject of my paintings for several decades, I am thrilled to be going to Panama and absorbing the incredible colors and textures we will find there. My students are welcome to paint landscapes or figures or both. I will encourage you to let go of your ideas about orderly streets and gardens and indulge in the lushness, wildness and overabundance of tropical vegetation and growth. I will encourage you to use more paint more freely than you have ever dreamed of and to tackle subjects that are probably outside your previous experience. All levels of students are welcome. The only requirement, besides the desire to take a painting class, is a completely off the wall bizarre sense of humor. See you at Finca La Maya.

Read my blog: SherryArt.
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GENDAI REIKI HO - LEVEL 1 Description

Gendai Reiki Ho - Level 1, Rene De La Iglesia and Luis Carlos Herrera Durango. Reiki is a very simple system of healing carried out by placing hands over a person with the intent to channel healing energy. To receive Reiki through your hands or those of another person is to be held and supported by the life force of the universe itself. It is to receive cosmic energy, which flows through everything on the earth. Whether your life seems lacking or you live it to the fullest, or whether you are a spiritual seeker, a single-minded materialist, or experiencing a period of depression, or adapting to change, Reiki embraces and enriches.

The Gendai Reiki Ho techniques are divided in 3 different levels: Reiki 1, Reiki 2, Reiki 3. The Reiki course prepared for Finca La Maya will be level 1 (one). In this level, students will learn about Reiki (the meaning) and how energy works. They will learn the concept of healing the mind and spirit before healing the body as well as meditation and breathing energy techniques.

Diploma (certificate) and INTA membership is given to the students after completing the course. English and Spanish spoken.

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BONES FOR LIFE® Description

Bones for Life® Segment I. This program’s inventive strategies for securing optimal human posture
and locomotion are effective in increasing the strength and resilience of your bones, and to decrease their likelihood
of fracture, without provoking injury.

A springy walk is the natural motivation to stimulate bone strength. People can learn how to restore a healthy functional posture
that can transmit force without endangering vulnerable joints. The program introduces movement in a gradual and safe
way that is sensitive to the needs and conditions of the individual. The movements are efficient, effective, fun and readily
integrated into the activities of daily life.

Program Themes:

• protecting the hip joints and knees from friction
• sparing the neck from compression giving relief to the lower back
• opening more flexibility in the stiff vertebrae of the thoracic spine
• conditioning individuals to react effectively to a loss of equilibrium
• developing the skill to fall without injury, improving stability
• streamlining posture and upgrading general vitality

A 60 hour program, Bones for Life® presents 90 sophisticated movement processes. The program’s creator, Ruthy Alon, developed Bones for Life® using principles of the Feldenkrais® Method as a foundation.
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BONES FOR LIFE® Description

Bones for Life® Segment II. For processes 30 - 60.

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PURSUING YOUR LANGUAGE Description

It is not the literal past that informs us, it is the images of our past.

Those images are often as highly structured and selective as myths.

Images and symbolic constructs of the past are imprinted similarly in the way genetic information reflects our sensibility. Your stories and histories are as unique as you are.

The aim of this course is to push through to our own unique interpretations and experience the individual story each of us holds - whether the beginnings are formed as poem, a journal, a letter or a novel?et’s see were it takes us!

This class was presented last April 2007 at Finca La Maya and one student went on to produce two full length novels from this exercise.

I look forward to working with each and every one of you.

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CREATIVITY & PAINTING Description

Rembrant to Kandinsky - A new approach to painting. Karen Moller will teach a one week practical introduction to painting (in all medias) to help the student to develop their own talents, creativity and originality.

Materials required: canvas or canvas board, brushes, paints, mixing tray and easel, preferably all easily transportable.
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KNEI KUNG Description

KNEI KUNG is a thousand-year-old exercise which was done by the practitioners of Kara-te. It is designed to bring about the circulation of KI or inner energy throughout the body (in accordance with Chinese medicine). It is said that without the practice of Nei Kung, the Kara-te fighters can have exceptional capacities up into their fifties and after that begin to decline because of stiff joints locked muscles etc.- but the practitioner of NEI KUNG will continue to be supple and strong into very old age.
Mr. Arias-Mission studied with the only Chinese master of Nei Kung in the West, Master Chu. He has practiced this art for more than 15 years - into my seventieth year - and happily says he is as limber as when he was forty.

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MASSAGE TECH & CERTIFICATION Description

Our Healing Hands. This six-day course is based on simple, yet effective massage techniques to reduce stress, alleviate muscle tension, and provide deep relaxation to a client, friend, or loved one. We will go over grounding techniques and proper body mechanics for the practitioner.

The techniques will be a combination of Swedish, table Thai, polarity, reflexology, and some deep tissue moves. Students will be shown proper draping techniques ( how to cover the client and use the sheets to drape).The class will build over the week, focusing on different body parts each day, and the last day we will trade 90 minute full body massages. Over the week I will give each participant a full-body massage so students can feel the flow and timing. We will all be trading outside of specific class time. I will encourage everyone to take advantage of the amazing location, La Finca de Maya, and practice trades outdoors in the panama sun, or under the mango trees…

Participants who will benefit from this class: people with interest in the healing touch, people interested in basic techniques to care for a loved one, people looking for a unique environment to learn how to “let go” on the table and receive loving touch, even people who have never received or given a massage will be in an inspiring, comfortable atmosphere to gain basic knowledge. Finally, this course and the Certificate of Completion, may help participants seeking a new career as a professional massage therapist.

Day one: We will go over some deep relaxation techniques for our own bodies, AND techniques for clients. We will begin on the feet. I will show you basic reflexology and Swedish techniques.

Day two: We will learn stretches to care for our own bodies before and after giving. We will massage the legs- front and back, incorporating Swedish and Thai table techniques.

Day three: We will massage the arms and hands

Day four: We will massage the back using Swedish, deep tissue techniques, and polarity energy balancing.

Day five: We will massage the neck, head, and face.

Day six: Classmates will trade 90 minute massages. Certificates of completion will be awarded.

Throughout the week participants will be encouraged trade and practice what we are learning. I will provide handouts with basic anatomy, benefits of massage, as well as an outline for all the strokes we will practice. We will have opportunities to ask specific questions and I will demonstrate everything we will learn. Tables, sheets, and oil will be provided. Participants should bring comfortable clothes that are easy to move in.

A certificate of completion will be issued to those students who are able to demonstrate, by the end of the course, sufficient knowledge required to practice as a professional masseuse.
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STONE AND FLESH: THE YOGA OF LUCID WRITING Description

Being awake to “the dialogue of “stone and flesh” can lead to lucid writing, a way of writing full of surprise, insight, and a little challenge. Through lucid writing, we attempt to know through our senses what is real without the smudge of preconceptions.

Each morning will include a half hour of lucid yoga, appropriate for anybody (& any body) plus a two-hour to two-and-a-half-hour session that will blend yoga tools with writing experiences. Each afternoon will include a two-hour Soul of Craft workshop in which we will discuss facets of craft and share our writings in a safe, honest environment.

Writer, editor, and yoga teacher Jeff Davis will weave a seamless experience of riveting dialogue, research drawn from his explorations of wonder & brain science, a study of renowned writers’ works, as well as creative writing experiences that blend yoga with writing and that take you through the landscapes and inscapes of Panama. He lives near Woodstock, New York and is author of the acclaimed book The Journey from the Center to the Page (Penguin).
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Painting and Pastels, All Levels

Join us to learn or practice painting or pastels in glorious tropical Panama! This course is scheduled during the absolute best weather of the entire year, which gives students the opportunity to work in a studio environment, or on-site in glorious gardens and spectacular outdoor scenery in tropical Panama! Watercolor, acrylic, and pastels will be demonstrated by renowned French artist Bruno Mathon. All levels welcome. Bones for Life® is a comprehensive program offering over 60 movement processes. The program’s creator, Ruthy Alon, developed Bones for Life using principles of the Feldenkrais® Method as a foundation.

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6 Branches Yoga

Organized with “Panama Boutique”. Locals welcome with reduced tuition. Register and view itinerary and cost details at: www.panamaboutique.com/alltravels/
yoga_retreat.com.

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Painting & Drawing in Panama’s Tropical Paradise

All skill levels welcome. Students will be encouraged to let go of their ideas about orderly streets and gardens and indulge in the lushness, wildness and overabundance of tropical vegetation and growth. The only requirement is a sense of humor..

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Silk and Fabric Painting

Students will learn design, composition, technique, and various applications for creating fabulous textile art. Easy and fun, students’ fees include basic materials needed for the course. Morning lessons, afternoon studio/workshop.

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Gourmet Cooking Class

5 morning workshop and lunch (on results!) at FLM, or on-site at local restaurants. Learn to cook easy but exotic recipes from expert chefs specialized in international cuisine.

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Healing Hands Massage Workshop

Become a professional masseuse! This is a five-day certification course is based on simple yet effective massage techniques to reduce stress, alleviate muscle tension, and provide deep relaxation. Techniques will combine Swedish, Thai, polarity, reflexology, and deep tissue massage.

Register Now

Reike Practices

Gendai Reiki Ho techniques are divided into three levels. The Reiki course prepared for Finca La Maya will be level one, where students will learn the meaning of Reiki and how energy works. They will learn the concept of healing the mind and spirit before healing the body, as well as meditation and breathing energy techniques. A diploma certificate and INTA membership is awarded to students after completing the course. English and Spanish spoken. Register Now

Sustainable Tourism Seminar

Tourism is affecting people world wide. What are we doing about it in Panama? What opportunities does tourism bring? What threats does tourism pose? These and other questions will be addressed in this workshop-seminar. Register Now

Meet the Instructors

SHERRY MILLER - BIO

Boith

Sherry Miller, a native New Yorker, was born and bred in Philadelphia. She began painting at age five and hasn’t stopped yet. At 17 she escaped to New York, via Montreal, where she attended Barnard College by day and the Art Students League by night. By the time she was 22 she had obtained a B.A. in Anthropology and had studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art, Tyler School of Art, the Art Students’ League and Columbia Graduate School in sculpture.

New Yawk
New York in the early sixties was Abstract Expressionist or Nothing. Sherry was Nothing, a painter and sculptor of figures, landscapes and interiors. Around 1972 she moved from New York’s Soho to the Siberian visual paradise of rural Maine. Painting constantly, she was always moved by the spectacular Maine light and terrain that had captivated American painters for over a hundred years. Since 1978 she has held regular exhibitions through the Northeast, New York and Pennsylvania. In late 1991 she moved to the Bay Area where she has exhibited at Red Oak on Solano Avenue in Berkeley, Falling Dog Cafe in the Mission and at the Breger Art Institute.

Colah
Sherry Miller, aka Miranda Knickerbocker and Valencia Guerrero, works in oil pastel, oils, watercolors and laser printing. Her only conscious interest is in color and her subject matter is her vehicle for using color. She began creating imaginative tropical and third world settings long before she saw such places. After painting alligators, palm trees, tropical plants and non-Caucasians for years, Miller traveled to West Africa and Central and Northern Asia.

Qvilts (sic)
Miller also sews painted quilts. These consist of pieces of painted paper, or a series of small paintings or laser prints of original paintings, machine stitched together. Her American Landscape Quilt, 6′ x 7′ consisting of 42 oil paintings, was displayed in a craft exhibition in the San Francisco Airport.

Writah
Miller was an art journalist and critic for major New England papers. In the Bay Area she began innocently writing about new work and new personalities in digital media. She became Managing Editor for a world wide web site about nanotechnology and then built the SherryArt web site using her writing, graphic and technical skills. On her site she published the first digital art review of a digital art show in 1996.

Les Enfants Terribles
Miller/Knickerbocker/Guerrero used to have three children, all geniuses. Now she has eight and a half. Go figure.

A Word from Sherry
“I paint Africans and third world people. Every year I also make four to six Monet-like paintings and these are sold immediately. I’ve been a painter all my life and exhibited frequently on the East Coast before moving to California in 1991. Here I maintain a studio in Sausalito in the ICB Building. You are welcome to visit, look, talk and buy paintings.”

For further information and a visual glimpse, please visit her blog: SherryArt.

DR. ANA BODNAR - BIO

Dr. Ana Bodnar:  Ana is a clinical psychologist, yoga and meditation teacher, as well as a Consulting Psychologist to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. She offers workshop on mindfulness and psychotherapy as well as expressive arts therapy and Soul Collage for mental health professionals and in the community. She has taught at the University of Toronto, Canadian Naturopathic College, Yoga Studio, Yoga Space and other settings. For more info, see www.anabodnar.com.

LUIS CARLOS HERRERA DURANGO - BIO

Luis Carlos Herrera is a Panamanian citizen who has been dedicated since 2001 to teach and bring Reiki therapies in the Republic of Panama and abroad.

By 2001 he becomes to be a Reiki master at the Occidental technique with the Usui Shiki Ryoho. Years later, in 2005 Master Herrera decided to learn the essence of Reiki and travel abroad Panama to learn the original japanese techniques at the Gendai Reiki Ho, obtaining the level of “shihan” (reiki master), with a direct lineage of Japanese Mikao Usui School with only 4 previous masters.

Luis Carlos Herrera is the founder of Reiki Panama School and up to date has more than 1,500 practicant students and has initiated 19 new reiki masters (shihans).

REBECCA TASSI- BIO

Rebecca Tassi has been teaching English and Creative Writing (Poetry, Fiction and Drama) for the past fourteen years at various universities. Although a native of the United States, Rebecca has lived abroad extensively and taught English as a second language to both children and adults. She is a published poet/dramatist and recently her play Lucio Park was performed in Austin, Texas at Arts On Real Theater. Currently a resident of Panama, her desire is to extend the opportunity of learning the arts to those that reside in the historic area of Casco Viejo. Rebecca holds a Master’s in Creative Writing and is a Ph.D. candidate in Poetry Performance at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. To contact Rebecca: rebeccatassi@gmail.com or call (507) 225-4167

KAREN MOLLER - BIO

Karen Moller spent her first years in art school engrossed in the old masters, until she was captivated by the pictorial influences of Cezanne and Picasso. Only when Abstract Expressionism caused the enormous shakeup that stunned the art world did she realize, in her third year of art school, what was to go on a canvas was not just a picture, but an event, a single rush of unchannelled and heartfelt raw emotion.

That was her incredible awakening, as was Kerouac’s book On the Road. With that book under her arm she set off for San Francisco, the beatnik heartland - just as hundreds of other young people were to do in the years that followed. Over the course of three decades it seems Karen met pretty much every hip personality that defined the times Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Bob Kaufman and the beatnik brotherhood at City Lights. But San Francisco was only the beginning of the adventure, with next stop New York where she had the luck to hang out at the Cedar Tavern with Abstract Expressionist icon Franz Klineand the little known but soon to be famous Avant-garde.

In Paris Karen continued her art studies with Cubist painter Andre Lhote until she began taking part in the 1960’s art activities of Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, Daniel Spoerri, Beuys and Robert Filliou. She met and was influenced by their friends John Cage and Andy Warhol as well as writers Gregory Corso, William Burroughs, Joe Jones and J.P. Donleavy.

In London she started her own little hippie boutique on a shoestring (Twiggy modeled her clothes) and established the first textile design studio in London with her prints. She went on to dazzling success in the renaissance of poetry, pop music, fashion and the arts in Swinging London as one of those Carnaby Street designers. She now works with the world’s most

important artists and designers in her fashion consulting and design business in Paris.

The artist in training, Karen painted her way through all the art periods as she developed her talents and creativity while becoming familiar with all forms of painting and decorative arts.
She will teach a one week practical introduction to painting (in all medias) to help the student to develop their own talents, creativity and originality.

Materials required: canvas or canvas board, brushes, paints, mixing tray and easel - preferably all easily transportable.

JOY SCHLITZ - BIO

“It is my belief that each one of us possesses the inherent capacity to heal ourselves. I see massage as a wonderful way of reaching out to one another so that we might help each other to tune back into our own healing power. Massage allows us to touch each other in ways rarely experienced in the superficial interaction of our daily lives. This healing contact penetrates far beyond the surface of the skin, and actually reaches into the depths of our being in order to help us once again experience wholeness. It’s exciting me that we are rediscovering the value of this ancient healing art”.

I received my first training in massage and deep relaxation techniques at University of San Francisco. As a collegiate athlete I was constantly sore and also familiar and fascinated with the power of the body. My interests in massage therapy lead me eventually to Cypress Health Institute in Santa Cruz, California where I studied anatomy, Swedish, deep tissue, and polarity therapy. I also began working in a cranial sacral physical therapy office. Still hungry for more information I headed to Katmandu, Nepal to the Healing Hands Center where I studied Thai massage and ancient healing techniques. This opened my soul and heart to the possibilities of healing touch.

Returning to Santa Cruz I shared my inspiration with clients at the Sanctuary Day Spa where I have been practicing massage for five years. I also took classes at the Monterey Peninsula College to study more specific anatomy and isometric release techniques to relieve neuromuscular tension. I currently work at the spa and have a private practice. I have a bachelor’s degree in environmental education, with a minor in education. My love of teaching shines when I am able to share these amazing techniques to care for our bodies.

My goal is to provide a comfortable space for clients to reduce stress, treat injuries, gain knowledge of their own bodies, and experience peacefulness- a moment in their day- where they can tune into their own natural rhythms to access solution, to hear the wisdom of their own body.

GRETCHEN LANGNER - BIO

Gretchen Langner is a Bones for Life® Trainer, US Bones for Life® Director and Certified
Feldenkrais® Practitioner.

Since 2001, Gretchen has worked closely with
Ruthy Alon, creator of the Bones for Life® Program
as the U.S. program organizer. This opportunity
has deepened her understanding, and enthusiasm, to
share and teach this work.

“Essential for life long mastery of skeletal
ergonomics and the Art of sustainable movement
and posture”.

For further information and a visual glimpse, please visit: www.bonesforlife.com

JEFF DAVIS - BIO

A national workshop leader, writer, editor, and yoga teacher, Jeff Davis is author of The Journey from the Center to the Page: Yoga Philosophies and Practices as Muse for Authentic Writing (Penguin 2004) and City Reservoir (1998). He serves as Contributing Editor for Wildlife Watch Binocular, and his essays, articles, short stories, and poems have appeared in publications around the country and in London including The Comstock Review, The Sulphur River Literary Review, Conscious Choice, and Wisdom Publication’s You’re Not Here and Other Buddhist Stories. He teaches at Marist College and leads creative writing workshops at the Taos Summer Writers Conference, The Writers Lab in Skyros, Greece, and the Block Island Poetry project among other places.

From his life-altering and imagination-altering experiences with yoga, he founded the Yoga As Muse for Authentic Writing workshops and CenterToPage Writing Services.

He is researching for his next nonfiction book and is completing his next poetry collection Woman Burning Another Woman. Jeff resides in Accord, NY, between the Catskill Mountains and the Shawangunk Mountains, where he tracks wonder and fixes broken steps at his old farmhouse.

For further information and a visual glimpse, please visit: www.centertopage.com

ALAIN ARIAS-MISSION - BIO

Alain is author of several novels in the U.S.- a part of the experimental American writing. He is also a frequent contributor to US literary reviews on writing, as well as the arts. His visual writings, an art form, have been shown in hundreds of group shows, museums, throughout the world; he has had a score of personal exhibitions. He lives in Paris and Venice.

BRUNO MATHON - BIO

Bruno Mathon is a French artist, living and working in Paris. He is a painter, writer, teacher, and well-respected art critic for the French national radio and television, Fr 3, - a special radio and press organisation dedicated to the arts and culture.

Monsieur Mathon completed his philosophy studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, and Film-making diploma at IDHEC (Institute of Film Studies). Mathon has published a book on Luis Bunuel’s films (ed. Du Cerf Paris), and produced several short films on painting: Bosch, Uccello, and one about the poet G. de Nerval. He has also published two shorts stories, Town people and Photo photo.

In 1969 Mathon left film-making to begin painting again, which he had practiced since childhood. He then also began to study and teach etching. Monsieur Mathon has exhibited his work in Paris and France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, U.S.A. and Japan. He has been an instructor of etching in Paris (Henri Goetz workshop) and Venice (Venezia viva.), and has been teaching painting and drawing for ten years in ADAC in Paris. Currently, he teaches painting, drawing, and pastels in a private atelier (workshop) he created two years ago.