Chasing Light - Painting and Teaching Within the Magical Landscape of Altos de Chavon

By Lily Olive (MFA 2015)

I spent this past August immersed in the magical environment of Altos de Chavon as one of the recipients of the New York Academy of Art ­ Altos de Chavon Artist and Teaching Residency, living and breathing what seemed to be some kind of mirage of an idealized ultimate painter's paradise. I along with three other NYAA alumni: Ivy Hickam (MFA ­ 2013), Ian Factor (MFA ­ 2014) and Alfonso Gosalbez Berenger (MFA ­ 2014), were given the fortunate opportunity to be selected to teach and work at La Escuela de Diseño Altos de Chavón, a design school in La Romana, Dominican Republic this Summer as part of an ongoing dialogue and exchange program NYAA and Altos de Chavon established last year. Chavon is an affiliate of Parson ́s School of Design in New York.

Ian and Ivy went down in June for the first residency round, and Alfonso and I followed in August for the second round. Ian instructed a class on anatomical drawing, Ivy gave a class on introduction to printmaking, Alfonso taught a landscape painting class, and I taught a class on art historical modalities and contemporary art, a brief survey of a variety of historical technical processes and painting exercises, lectures and several conceptual drawing exercises.

We all overlapped our time there by one week in the beginning of August. Ian and Ivy, along with the wonderful teachers and staff of Altos, helped welcome Alfonso and I to the school and showed us the lay of the land. It was very special to be able to spend that time together with each other painting outside, printmaking with Ivy and the students, taste­ testing delicious Dominican foods liketostones (fried green plantains!), and working on my Spanish language survival skills.

One night, we even ate fried parrot fish at Bayahibe, a beautiful nearby local beach, inside a gift shop surrounded by dresses, wind chimes, painted shells, and palm tee paintings, as torrential rain surprised us and had interrupted our dominos game and dinner on folding tables in the sand..the scramble to retreat inside away from the sheets of gusty rain, grabbing plates of steaming hot fish and cold Presidente beers wrapped in soggy napkins as we ending up moving our dinner from beach to open air gift shop was an experience I will not forget anytime soon.


I kept telling the other residents and teachers at the school that the stunning natural beauty was so overwhelmingly gorgeous, it was borderline saccharine. Certainly a nearly impossible feat to try to capture moments of fading suffused sunsets, jeweled sunbeams dancing and diving across frothy turquoise crests, mangos and coconuts weighing down above, hanging heavy amongst the medieval style architecture.

Bright yellow plums dotted the pathways, butterflies darted in and out of huge yellow, radiant magenta, pink and white tropical blossoms, and light flickered in and out of swaying palm trees.  Geckos and iguanas roamed in and out of our housing, and stray kittens mewed at us for scraps. “Cheese” the cat, a beautiful
mottled gray and white gregarious feline with emerald eyes befriended me quickly, and he spent days following me around, jumping into my lap and demanding attention and treats.



It was paradise realized as far as I was concerned. Perhaps we had landed in an episode of Lost or were living like Tom Hanks character in Castaway I mused, as I scrambled up trees to grab mangos and coconuts, victoriously smashing them open. Life existed everywhere I looked, cacti sprouting out of red rocks, orangey red flowers from the Flamboyant trees lining the roads, pathways, swimming pool, and lighting up the environment with their fiery chroma.
A brief background on Altos. Recreated as a 16 community, perched upon a cliff above the Chavon River. Construction of the village began in 1976 and the village was inaugurated in 1982 with the concert by NYC's one and only Frank Sinatra at the amphitheater. The village was designed by Dominican architect Jose Antonio Caro, and created by Italian master designer and cinematographer Roberto Coppa.The village, in addition to being home to the Altos de Chavon School of Design, also house shops, boutiques, fine art galleries, restaurants and an archaeological museum atop the picturesque cliffs.  The residency consisted of having art studios in a great thatched hut to work out of, and one week of leading and teaching a painting workshop; mine was called History of Painting Techniques and Contemporary Art.

The schools administration and staff were beyond welcoming, Carmen Lorente, the schools academic director, helped us realize and make possible the lessons and ideas we had for our classes and material lists. It was fantastic!
We had lunches together almost daily, and debriefed each other on how our students were progressing, what ideas we had planned for our class lessons, and often lobbying for trips to the beach to plein air.

As a teacher, the experience of having such hardworking and dedicated students was extremely rewarding, and it was a pleasure to push them and see the results. A week is unfortunately not nearly enough time to impart as much knowledge as one would like, but it is long enough to experience very intense immersions into a variety of techniques and experiences together as a class. I gave lectures, painting demos, assisted during lessons, and encouraged the students to keep pushing through the lessons, which were very challenging for them, but they stood up to the demands and dove into their work, with impressive results. It was not uncommon to spend quite a bit of time after class, sometimes hours, assisting the students in continuing to work through their paintings and assignments for that days class. I was touched with how much genuine dedication and love they had for their crafts.


After the classed ended, I spent the rest of my trip outside, plein air painting from life. The time escaped quickly, and I spent entire days working frantically to try to put down color and light and capture as much of the environment as I could.

The landscape, the students, the staff and the entire experience was beautiful and rewarding. We are all so grateful to have been given these opportunities, and I am looking for ways to go back and visit my new Dominican friends as soon as possible.



Mucho Gracias!
Lily


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Ivy Hickam (MFA ­ 2013), Ian Factor (MFA ­ 2014) and Alfonso Gosalbez Berenger (MFA ­ 2014) and Lily Olive (MFA 2013) spent their summer on an Academy sponsored teaching residency in Dominican Republic.

When Plan Change You Go With Them

By IvY HickAM (MFA 2013)

When plans change you go with them.  Instead of teaching my planned for week long monotype course I would be teaching a three day intensive workshop.  Last minute, Carmen worked her magic and I ended up teaching the most wonderful group of students.  I was lucky enough to have a few current students of the design school, going into their second year, and a handful of alumni who lived locally and wanted to be at Altos learning art again. I had painters, drawers, and installation artists.  I had the most engaged and engaging students a non-Spanish speaking nervous teacher could ask for. I had assisted teachers all through the past year in various community collages around New York but it was my first class to teach all on my own.

I had to restructure my class the night before, but with the level of artists I had in my class I was able to teach them just as much information in the intense short time we had together. Painting, scraping, drawing with sticks and q-tips--a whirl of monochromatic prints, watercolor, Japanese paper handprints and experiments in viscosity.  My students ventured outside to paint from life, using the beauty of their surroundings. They used themselves and each other, still life, found images, and their imagination.  I drilled image after image by Degas (an avid maker of monotypes and a favorite of mine) into their heads. I spoke about the importance of contrast, wiping out the lights, and about negative vs. positive. I showed them current working artists as well, showing them how varied monotypes can be.  They showed me, that even with a language barrier, I can show a class what I know and in return they will show me their voices as artists.  The students worked very hard and the amount of prints they made revealed their excitement for the process, leaving time to joke, listen to music and experiment with accidental prints of course.

The smile on everyone’s face as they lifted the paper from their plate, the moths diving into the water baths where the paper was soaking outside, the tables covered with an increasing number of prints--then suddenly the students hugging me and running to catch a bus, it was Friday and the workshop was already at an end.  I left feeling the students were as excited about the monotype process as I am…success! Everyone had helped everyone else, sharing paper and translating and critiquing each other’s work.  By the end they were helping each other print on their own and they didn’t need me anymore. They were self-sufficient printmakers. A far cry from the first morning when at the very beginning of my lesson on how the monotype evolved throughout history, I was interrupted repeatedly in the middle of trying to say the inventor’s name, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, by the local cat Cheese’s loud meowing.

Dream Land: Leipzig Residency, Part 3

By Tim Buckley (MFA 2014)

Welcome to Halle 18 @ The Spinnerei

Dream Land. This is dream land. The time is flying by here in Leipzig. Our first month is nearly up, and the experience has so far exceeded any expectations I might have had. To bring everyone up to speed, I’ll quickly list a few very important things in bullet format and show some pictures.

• Berlin is an entrancing city where one can responsibly stay out until 5am.
• Hans Holbein the Younger is pretty good.
• Danish cheese is frightening.
• Cospudener Lake is a castle in the air/land of milk and honey/Elysian field.

Philadelphia in Leipzig: Mike Bruno of Mike Bruno and the Black Magic Family Band
and Megan Biscieglia of Bad Braids.

My old roommate Megan and neighbor Mike were on a month-long European tour. They played a show in Leipzig at LU99, a once vacant, now repurposed building on the east side of the city. Everyone piled into Sam’s (a painter from Belgium, and past resident at L.I.A) van and went to the show. There was homemade rhubarb schnapps and ice cream, and it was a wonderful time.

Reppin’ dat Plagwitz. Kevin’s turn to cook dinner, and a dinner it was.
Chow Mein for the children.

There is a healthy sense of comradery here at L.I.A as we all take turns cooking big dinners. 

One of the many robots at Bimbotown

Every Tuesday night, The Whiskey Bar opens here at the Spinnerei. A few buildings behind us, the trampled down weeds lead you through a chain link fence, between some trailers and into a most commendable homespun hang out/barbeque/bar area. An ample man with a large black beard flipping sardines with chopsticks and simultaneously grilling pork chops is the debonair keeper of this domain. The food is delicious, the beer is cheap and soon after sundown the place is filled with people as they leave their studios in search of a drink and conversation.  

When you need to use the bathroom, you get to walk through Bimbotown, the creation of British artist and inventor Jim Whiting. Bimbotown is like a psychedelic Pee-Wee’s playhouse nightmare in the best possible way. A most commodious interior filled with bizarre robots, hidden passages and fun house architecture.

Pixelated currywurst now with gnats. Das Original! Travel Tip #0: Be wary of the tempestuous currywurst.
More than one in a day and you're going to have a bad time.

We have a houseplant.

 

The 2013 Leipzig group with Academy alumni Lily Koto Olive
outside of the Neo Rauch Graphic Arts Foundation

A few days ago we all took a train with Mareike (who is currently interning at L.I.A) to the town of Aschersleben. A little over an hour away from Leipzig, this small town is where Neo Rauch spent his childhood. The graphic arts foundation has in its collection one edition of every graphic work the artist has created. In addtion to lithographs and screenprints, the foundation has sketches and small working drawings on display. After a tour of the gallery, we drank apple juice and talked about important things. 

Ponder that painting.

I first became acquainted with The New Leipzig School as a sophomore in undergrad. Until now, my only contact with it has been through print media or the Internet, save for the one show I saw at David Zwirner. Like the English Renaissance, I was way late and far removed from the original ideas and culture that made these works of art. My interpretation was devoid of history and intent. 

A month has now passed as we live, work and form new friendships with people in Leipzig. Slowly I’m beginning to put the pieces together. We live in a massive piece of communist architecture. Everyday we pass De Chirico-esque towers, ride our bikes through small passages along the canal and walk through corridors and streets that seem familiar but until now have only existed in my memory through the paintings I’ve seen. 

At night we drink with others who themselves or whose parents grew up in a very different East Germany. We receive history lessons over 50 cent beers and argue about painting. My first month here has been a time of immense personal growth, and I’m sure the month ahead will be just as rewarding.

On May 31, four Academy students arrived in Leipzig, Germany, to start a two-month residency hosted by the Leipzig International Art Programme. Alicia Brown, Tim Buckley, Krista Smith and Shangkai (Kevin) Yu (all members of the class of 2014) will share their experiences here throughout the summer!