Welcome families and friends of El Rio Charter School.
Our vision is to found a Kindergarten through 5th grade public charter school, opening in 2013, which brings the advantages of a Waldorf style education to Northeast Los Angeles.
We are calling for participants willing to strategize, collaborate and give skills and time to help us
make it happen.

Kim John Payne Lecture. Go.

Posted: January 20th, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: events, Parenting, Private Waldorf Schools | No Comments »

Kim John Payne speaks Monday, January 22 at 7pm at the Westside Waldorf School.  

Heard him lecture last year and he is a fantastic speaker, witty and wise. He argued passionately that there is an undeclared assault on childhood (too much scheduling, too many activities, too many electronic gadgets, too much information) and that is our job as parents to protect our children’s innocence and care-free time because society will infringe upon it.

Get a sitter.  He’s worth it.  It’s open to the public at Westside Waldorf’s Pacific Palisades campus.


EAT PLAY GIVE pictures!

Posted: June 21st, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: events, Fundraiser, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Our Fundraiser, Launch Party, and Silent Art Auction at Tiara Cafe was a great success!

We raised over $10,000.

The dinner tickets sold out. The Silent Art Auction sold out. The food was AMAZING. The music was fantastic. There was a feeling of excitement at the start of something big.

Take a look at these pictures.

And THANK YOU for supporting El Rio Charter School.

Fundraising Dinner at Tiara Cafe

Chef Fred Eric talks about his own Waldorf education. Thanks Fred!

Joan Jaeckel talks about eating, playing and GIVING!

A couple of the pieces in the art auction: A ceramic vessel by Kelly Breslin and a signed print by Shepard Fairey.

Jeff regards the art.

Our Founders; Anna Sarah Russell and Joan Jaeckel.

Jennifer gives a welcome speech.

Dinner music by Preston Smith.

Julia P, Anna Sarah and friend, and Kirsten.

Julia and Jon.

Julia and Jenn.


Saturday 6/25 – Parents of El Rio Play Date

Posted: June 21st, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: events, Friends of el Rio, Parenting, Parents of El Rio Play Dates, play, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Kick off the summer with us!
Join the development team and our families on Saturday, June 25th from 11am to 1pm for a play date with the parents of el Rio.

We’ll be at La Tierra de la Culebra Art Park, located at 240 South Avenue 57 in Highland Park.

From their website:

The centerpiece of [this two acre] art park is a 550 foot long sculptural serpent, La Culebra, as well as revolving mural panels, an urban forest of over 150 trees, gardens, incised ziggurat, a stage, sundial, pond, sculptural amphitheater.

Look for Development Team member Kim Ilas under the trees.
Kim is striking and tall and mocha-skinned and has long dread locks and twin daughters.
See you there!


El Rio Art Auction Preview

Posted: May 27th, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: events, Fundraiser | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Here is a sneak preview of a few of the art pieces that will be available at the silent art auction during our Eat/Play/Give Launch Party and Fundraiser on June 11th.

A huge original painting by Sage Vaughn (!), Sculptural pieces from Nora Jean Petersen and Kelly Breslin. Photographs from Andy Mueller, Jeaneen Lund, and Ginny Cook. Limited edition Prints from Tim Biskup, Seonna Hong, and William Wray. A work on paper from Hadley Holliday and sooooo much more!

You’ve got to be there to bid so purchase your tickets to the event NOW!


“Butterfly Ring” by Sage Vaughn, 2011.
Hand Pulled Serigraph on Coventry Rag Substrate with Hand Painted Butterflies. Signed and numbered limited edition of 24. 36 x 48”.
Sage Vaughn’s work explores notions of control and release as well as the fundamental need for survival, love and liberty.
Gradations of oil paint are slowly built up layer by layer with brilliantly hued subjects taking centre stage within a muted urban backdrop of dreamy pastels. Wild animals run freely through the urban setting and masked children void of inhibitions heroically feature within downtrodden neighborhoods. Such imagery embodies the limits of humankind’s ability to outright conquer the exterior world as well as completely repress inner desires. Vaughn says, “These compulsory wild impulses propel both the feral and the tame throughout our lives, causing beautiful and sometimes savage moments.”
His current solo exhibition at Lazarides, London – “Children of a Lesser God” – has been extended due to popular demand.
Past exhibitions include solo shows at Galerie Bertrand and Gruner in Geneva, as well as Art Agents Gallery, Hamburg, and Corey Helford Gallery, Los Angeles.
Sage lives and works in Los Angeles.
More information can be found here.

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“Flaming Ghost Blossom” by Tim Biskup, 2010. Limited Edition Serigraph Print on Archival Paper. No. 81 of a signed and numbered edition of 200. 20″ x 16″. Biskup is a Southern California fine artist whose work has been shown worldwide, including galleries and museums in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, Kyoto, Barcelona, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Melbourne. Long recognized for his complex color and design theories and a decidedly populist aesthetic, Biskup has amassed a cadre of loyal fans and collectors. Recent years have seen the artist tend towards more complex, personal and conceptual work while maintaining a commitment to visual experimentation. Much more info is here.

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“Bird Virus” by Tim Biskup, 2010. Limited Edition Serigraph Print on Archival Paper. No. 19 of a signed and numbered edition of 200. 24″ x 18″.

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“War Party” by Tim Biskup, 2010. Limited Edition Serigraph Print on Archival Paper. No. 149 of a signed and numbered edition of 150. 20″ x 20″.

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“Mont Blanc 8(3)” by Kathleen Johnson, 2003-2006. Chromogenic print on Sintra. 17.5″ x 15.75″. Johnson’s work investigates fantastic landscapes, both real and imagined, based on the miraculous yet overlooked spaces of everyday life. The artist’s projects explore realms that easily straddle the plausible and the incredible. Her work is a hallucinatory vision of what might be present in the most ordinary of spaces. Awakening us to the wondrous properties of these quotidian worlds, Johnson’s ongoing Pools photographic series imagines a lost Atlantis architecture in which Lovecraftian ice mountains emerge from the floor of the common and unsuspecting Southern Californian back yard swimming pool.

Johnson received a BFA from Otis Art Institute and an MFA from the University of Southern California. Past projects include a solo exhibition at Lucas Schoormans Gallery, NY; The Minded Swarm at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions; and exhibition and performance at David Patton Los Angeles and a multi-year project with Taalman Koch Architecture for High Desert Test Sites.

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“Reflect” by Ginny Cook, 2003. Photograph. 10″ x 10″.
Ginny Cook’s work engages the intersection of language and image in order to explore decay, mortality and loss related to natural and domestic landscapes.

Ginny Cook received her BA in Art History from Emory University in 2000 and her MFA in Photography and Media from the California Institute of the Arts in 2005. Recent exhibitions include Sign/Co-Sign, curated by Light&Wire at Miami Basel, Light & Wire at Circus Gallery (Los Angeles) and Complicity: Contemporary Photography and the Matter of Sculpture, at Rena Bransten Gallery (San Francisco). Her work has also been shown at the Hockney Gallery at the Royal College of Art (London, England), LAX International Airport (Los Angeles), Steven Wolf Fine Arts (San Francisco), AndrewShire Gallery and Norma Desmond Productions (Los Angeles, Armory Center for the Arts (Los Angeles), and the National Center for the Arts (CENAR) (San Salvador, El Salvador). Cook is co-founder and co-editor of MATERIAL, a journal of artists’ writings as well as a collaborative project including readings, curated shows, screenings and other events. Her text Some Notes on Plants was included in MATERIAL Issue Two, which launches December 3, 2009 at Whitechapel Gallery (London) and in Los Angeles in early 2010. She lives and works in Los Angeles. More information can be found here.

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“Pool Horse” by Jeaneen Lund, 2007. Photograph. 12″ x 16″.
Jeaneen Lund grew up in Hollywood, CA and discovered her love of photography while attending Fairfax High School and documenting her friends out at dance clubs. Spontaneity within the photographic process is essential to her work, whether creating a scenario or capturing a fleeting moment of the friends and life around her. Though mainly self-taught, she has turned photography into a career and some of her clients include Dazed and Confused, Nylon, Vice, Teen Vogue, ANP, Glamour UK, L’Officiel, SPIN, Capitol Records, Nike and Nintendo.
Her photos have been exhibited internationally including the Colette gallery in Paris. She’s had the pleasure of photographing Snoop Dogg, Bat For Lashes, Daft Punk, MIA and several others. Many of her shoots have turned into dance parties!
Jeaneen has recently directed, shot and edited music videos. More information can be found here.

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“Tranquil Bay” by Seonna Hong, 2010. No. 92 of a signed and numbered edition of 100 Giclee Prints.  5″ x 8.5″. Seonna Hong is a Los Angeles based artist, active in both the fine art and animation communities. Her paintings have appeared in exhibitions in Los Angeles, New York, the Pacific Northwest and Tokyo, Japan.
Seonna Hong is a unique artist who is active as an animator, and has the achievement of winning an Emmy award. The paintings that Hong creates however, are full of originality and magical charm, and aren’t confined to her career history. Her endearing motifs of young girls and animals, trees and plants, the space that opens up over the whole image, and the ubiquitous young girls with black hair create a feeling of nostalgia. And in all of that, you can sense elements of sadness, confusion, and unease in her paintings, that are earning high praise in the museums and galleries of her mother country, America. [bio from gallery Kaikai Kiki, Japan] More information can be found here.

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“Into The Forest” by Seonna Hong, 2010. No. 92 of a signed and numbered edition of 100 Giclee Prints. 5″ x 8.5″

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“Breezy Hillhock” by Seonna Hong, 2010. No. 92 of a signed and numbered edition of 100 Giclee Prints. 5″ x 8.5″

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“Mercedes Benz” by Andy Mueller, 2010. Photograph. Andy Mueller was raised in the mid-west on a healthy diet of BMX, skateboarding, music and magazines. At an early age, Andy became addicted to the art of image making and photo taking. In 1993, Andy founded OhioGirl Design, a small design/photo/film studio. In 1997, Andy started “The Quiet Life”, as an outlet for purely creative ideas, with a few friends from within OhioGirl.
Andy currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife, two cats, bird, and his young son. More information on Andy Mueller can be found here.

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“Go El Rio” is an original pen drawing in a handmade frame made especially for this event by  Jeff Jamieson, 2011.  Jeff Jamieson was born in Claremont, California in 1960. He graduated with honors from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1984, with a B.F.A. in ceramics. He worked as an assistant to Donald Judd from 1989 to 1994.

Jamieson returned to California in 1994 and started a furniture fabrication company, Wood and Plywood Furniture.

He is the fabricator of Donald Judd’s furniture and has also fabricated furniture for the Josef & Anni Alber’s foundation. Jamieson has for many years, and still continues, to work very closely with the Chinati Foundation, most recently putting the final touches on a three year project that culminated with the presentation of a new, permanent, large scrim work by Robert Irwin, that was unveiled at the Chinati Open House in October, 2006. He currently owns and operates the Compact Gallery in San Luis Obispo.

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“Black Square” by Hadley Holliday, 2011. acrylic and pencil on paper, 12”x12”. Hadley Holliday was born in Kansas City and currently lives in Los Angeles where she received her MFA from Cal Arts in 2004. Her paintings explore a collision of geometric abstraction, ritual experimentation, broken systems, forgotten rules, mistakes and play. Holliday’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently at Sam Lee Gallery in Los Angeles.

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“Birds in Trees” by Chris Stiles, 2011. Sculptural wall hanging made from dried manzanita branches, bases made of hardwood ash and porcelain birds. Every bird is hand carved by the artist and placed on the manzanita branches. Each branch is carefully selected for its unique graceful lines. 10″ x 14″ x 5.5″ Deep.
Chris Stiles has always been drawn to working with his hands and has described his relationship with materials as a conversation. There is as much give as take between these two independent forces and the relationship is truly a friendship. The challenge of this friendship is to create a balance between the materials’ needs and one’s own thoughts.
A common thread running through Chris’s work is the ability to be: inventive, inviting, playful, tactile and most importantly expressive of the human spirit. These elements are why people find his work so endearing. When talking about art and design, Chris is often quoted as saying, “It’s just material until someone sculpts their thoughts into it.”
After receiving a Bachelors degree in Fine Arts from California State University Long Beach in 1992, the next step in his educational training was to work within industry. While working in industry, different techniques and tools revealed new avenues to express creativity. Chris found industry to be invaluable in helping him to find his own voice.

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Ceramic Vessel by Kelly Breslin, 2011. Iron oxide finish w/ glazed interior. Pine needle imprint. 21″ x 12″ x 5.5″ deep.

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Wood Cutting Board by Kelly Brakefield, 2011.
Handmade especially for this event by the artist from upcycled butchers block with inlays of mahogany, purple heart, and birch.
A native of Los Angeles, Kelly was a career gal through and through until 2003 when motherhood came calling. Seven years later, with a beautiful daughter in tow, she developed a love of woodworking and currently juggles the trials and tribulations of freelance, single parenting and developing the skills necessary to keep all her limbs intact while creating one-of-a-kind, functional pieces out of salvaged specialty woods.

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“Drawing of Great Dane with Boy” by Mari Eastman, 2010. Prismacolor and Pen on Illustrator Board. Mari Eastman graduated with an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is represented by Cherry and Martin gallery in Los Angeles where her most recent show was in April of this year. She lives and works in Los Angeles. More information on Mari Eastman can be found here.

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“Untitled” by Alicia Sterling Beach, 2010. Original Pastel Drawing. 17″ x 14″. Born in Caracas, Venezuela, schooled on the US east coast with an MFA from Irvine, Alicia Beach has shown at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, LACE, Rosamund Felsen Gallery (Santa Monica) and many group exhibitions. Some of her most recent paintings were created en plein air, with the immediacy of action and painting driven by the sensation of nature.

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“76″ by William Wray, 2010. Silkscreen. No. 06 of a signed and numbered edition of 20. 20″ x 26″. William Wray has lived in California most of his life and studied painting at the Art Students League in New York.

Making his living as a cartoonist who specialized in painted subjects, he spent many years coalescing a eclectic array of art styles, ultimately finding his voice in a contemporized reflection of traditional California regional painting that focus on humble subject matter rarely considered as fine art.

Wray blends traditional skill sets of realism and the sheer energy of abstract expressionism in an ongoing evolution to find the balance between two seemingly unrelated styles. More information can be found here.

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“Untitled” An original pastel drawing made especially for this event by Brian Smith. 2011. 5″ x 5″. About his work, Brian says, “I took up Visual art as a hobby in the mid-eighties, and have since shown my work in gallery and museum shows internationally since 1989. Most of my works are small paintings or pastel works on paper done in a naïve style. I began doing animation color and design as a career in 1995, and I currently work on the new Scooby Doo Mystery Inc. series for Warner Bros.” More information can be found here.

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“Novenpus” by Ron Russell. 2011. Acrylic on Masonite made especially for this event. 4″ x 4″. Ron Russell received a BFA in painting from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has been working as an animation Background Painter for 14 years at studios such as Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network.

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“Dying is Easy” by Nora Murphy-Berden. Original Acrylic on Canvas. 19 x 17.5″. Nora lives in the LA area with her husband and two cats. She is a background painter in the animation industry and Recent Creative Emmy Award winner.

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“Untitled” by Nora Jean Petersen, 2011. Wood, Foam, Paper, Ultracal, Spray Enamel, Permanent Marker. 5″ x 23″ x 3″. Nora Jean Petersen grew up in Houston, Texas and Cairo, Egypt and now lives in Los Angeles. She received her MFA from Art Center in 2006.
Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions including University of California, Berkeley; Gallery Nomadenoase, Hamburg; Karen Lovegrove Gallery, Los Angeles; China Art Objects, Los Angeles; and Circus Gallery, Los Angeles. She is interested in the capability of the static object to reflect time, fiction, and movement. More information can be found here.

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Parents of el Rio Play Date – Saturday, March 5, 2011

Posted: February 24th, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: events, Parenting, play | 3 Comments »

We have so much fun at these play dates, we’re doing it again! This time Kim is bringing a refrigerator box for the kids to play with/in.
Join the development team and our families on Saturday, March 5th from 11am to 1pm for a play date for the parents of el Rio.

We’ll be at La Tierra de la Culebra Art Park, located at 240 South Avenue 57 in Highland Park.

From their website:

The centerpiece of [this two acre] art park is a 550 foot long sculptural serpent, La Culebra, as well as revolving mural panels, an urban forest of over 150 trees, gardens, incised ziggurat, a stage, sundial, pond, sculptural amphitheater.

Look for Development Team member Kim Ilas under the trees.
Kim is striking and tall and mocha-skinned and has long dread locks and twin daughters.
<—— There she is now!

See you there!


Follow Joan on twitter this weekend at the Alliance conference!

Posted: January 14th, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: events | No Comments »

Our own Joan Jaeckel is attending the annual Alliance for Public Waldorf Education Conference this weekend at Rudolf Steiner College near Sacramento, CA.

Get updates on the latest in the public Waldorf movement by following Joan’s tweets live from the scene: @JoanJaeckel

The next best thing to being there ;)


Parents of el Rio Play Date * THIS SATURDAY 10/9 *

Posted: October 2nd, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: events | 1 Comment »

Another awesome play date is happening this Saturday! Join the development team and our families this Saturday, October 9th from 11am to 1pm for a play date for the parents of el Rio.

This one is at La Tierra de la Culebra Art Park, located at 240 South Avenue 57 in Highland Park.

From their website:

The centerpiece of [this two acre] art park is a 550 foot long sculptural serpent, La Culebra, as well as revolving mural panels, an urban forest of over 150 trees, gardens, incised ziggurat, a stage, sundial, pond, sculptural amphitheater.

Look for Development Team member Kim Ilas under the trees.
Kim is striking and tall and mocha-skinned and has long dread locks and twin daughters.
<—— There she is now!

See you there!


Street Tree Care with TreePeople

Posted: June 13th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: events | No Comments »

Be a part of some much needed tree care in Highland Park.  Julia Posey and el Rio Charter School are teaming up with TreePeople’s Marcos Trinidad to beautify their Northeast L.A. community. Weeding, mulching, and watering will be done to help these young purple orchid and golden trumpet trees get through the summer.

When:  Sunday, July 18, 2010, from 9:00AM-12:00PM.

All volunteers must individually pre-register to attend via the TreePeople site. This is a first come first served opportunity.

If you have any questions, please email elriocharter@gmail.com with “TreePeople Tree Care” in the title.  I hope you can make it!


RE-DISCOVER YOUR CALLING AS A TEACHER. This summer, K-8 Waldorf education experience for public school teachers in Los Angeles

Posted: May 11th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Education Policy, events, K-12 curriculum, LAUSD, Public Meetings, Teacher Training | 2 Comments »

Teaching at Ocean Charter School: public Waldorf education in L.A.

For five days this summer Los Angeles public school educators will have a chance to experience public Waldorf education in practice, not just hear about it in theory.

Begins July 19th at Ocean Charter School. ***PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD*** [Flyer, contacts, registration below]

Educators will EXPERIENCE:

  • Experience the comprehension-inducing effects of storytelling.
  • Experience the focus and learning effect of song, movement, drawing, painting, sculpture and more on the mind.
  • Experience the mind-opening effect of hands-on science.

Educators will TAKE HOME:

  • A KIT with ideas and materials for their grade.
  • Collaborative strategies to form a professional in-house learning community.
  • The ability to make a difference with different learners through Waldorf-based ‘different-learner’ methods.

ONLINE REGISTRATION [*Click on button that says "Waldorf Education for Public School Educators of Southern California"]

  • Some people have found the online registration process a bit trying, so if that’s you, Debbie Brown in the RSC Registration Office will help you:  916-864-4864 and her email is  conferenceregistration@steinercollege.edu.

Waldorf Education for Public School Teachers
of Southern California
[flyer]

JULY 19-23 2010

OCEAN CHARTER SCHOOL
12606 Culver Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90066

Workshop fee: $350

FOR MORE INFORMATION about the course itself or other info on Waldorf teacher professional development, including an MA in Waldorf Education, please contact bonnie.river@steinercollege.edu

In joy, the el Rio Charter School development team together with Ocean Charter School teacher Tamar Kern ANNOUNCE a collaborative project of el Rio, Ocean and Steiner College to boost teacher effectiveness in Los Angeles through a one-week professional development immersion into the K-8 Waldorf classroom experience …

We would love to meet you and invite you to take the plunge this summer!


Change of mind.

Posted: April 22nd, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Child mental health, Education Policy, events, K-12 curriculum, Parenting | No Comments »

TODAY’S CULTURE is increasingly interested in mental fitness. Yet, despite the staggering amount of new information in the popular media about children’s healthy brain development, the data is not being applied practically in most K-12 schools’ curriculum or methods of teaching.  The result, says an educational psychologist, are “escalating rates of learning and behavioral disorders”.   “Crisis in the Kindergarten” tells us even the youngest have an opinion.

Yes. Dr. Jane Healy‘s research suggests to her that the pressure curriculum of today’s one-size fits all classroom “can be the cause of learning disorders”.

To effect a change of the world’s mind about how to educate children for mental health Waldorf educators are teaming up with various colleges, universities and childhood mental health organizations in the Sacramento area to put on a day-long workshop by an educational psychologist,  Dr. Jane Healy, based on her new book, “Different Minds”, called “Developing Creative Minds: How Genes, Brains, Homes and Schools Interact to Help Children Succeed (or not)”.

Details here.