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.

Critics say that Finland is an irrelevant laboratory for the United States. It has a tiny economy, a low poverty rate, a homogenous population — 5 percent are foreign-born — and socialist underpinnings (speeding tickets are calculated according to income).

And yet how attractive is their approach:

“The first six years of education are not about academic success,” he said. “We don’t measure children at all. It’s about being ready to learn and finding your passion.”

I love the NY Times education coverage.

Also art classes taught by a former Waldorf teacher in Atwater:   www.aplacetocreate.net

240 S. Ave. 57
Los Angeles, CA 90042

11am – 1pm.

We’ll be there with the kids.
Come join the fun!
xo,
El Rio

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.

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!

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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