Founder's Message

What creates an ideal environment for creativity? After all, every artist is different, every creative process is unique. Four things, however, are important: time to work, an environment supporting total concentration, good studio space, and faculty and peers who challenge, confront, support and share in the arduous task of forming and expressing the artist's vision. PASCA invites serious art students and faculty to join its community, and, at the same time to have the opportunity to experience life in a small French village from the inside -- a village that supports artists and takes seriously Gauguin's challenge that artists should have le droit de tout oser, the right to dare anything in their creative process.

Caroline Boyle-Turner
Founder and Director of School Development

News from the Founder

Wendy Edwards (Brown) and Gerry Mishak (Brown and RISD), PASCA faculty alums, were featured in a front page article in the HOME section of the New York Times on Thursday, March 20, 2008. While the former firehouse they restored (and stunningly so!) was the focus of the article, several photos also showed their work.

Julia Bland and Tom Morrill (RISD, PASCA summer, 2007) are part of an exhibition/band event entitled: "ClopShitClop: Paintings of Paintings." www.bigcar.org

Zoe Nelson (Columbia MFA program, PASCA Post-Bac alum 2006, is exhibiting in the Columbia 1st year MFA group exhibition. The reception will be held at the Nash Building on Friday, April 4th, 2008 from 5-8pm. Following the closing of the exhibition on Sunday, April 13, there will be an open studio. www.zoenelson.com

From Ebony Patterson (Edna Manley College of Art, Jamaica, grad; MFA Washington University, now teaching at the University of Kentucky; PASCA alum summer 2003) "I wanted to let you all know that this year I am taking on my first curatorial project: Taboo Identities: Race, Sexuality + the Body - A Jamaican context. The show will first be staged in the summer in Kingston, Jamaica at the Olympia Art Center June 26th-July 26th 2008, with an opening reception on June 26th at 6pm . It will then travel to Lexington, KY to the University of Kentucky in October. I have received 2 grants from the University for this project to come to fruition. The show will feature a number of young Jamaican rising artists, and I have also extended an invite to one American artist to participate in this discussion. It is a truly interesting for me to be on the other side of the coin. I am really excited about how it may all come together! Official website: www.taboo876.zoomshare.com

Guy Yanai (PSCA summer session alum) now lives in Israel, where he has been running an art gallery in Tel Aviv and gaining success as a painter. On April 8th, 2008 he is giving a lecture and critique at Hampshire College in Amherst MA.

If you are a PASCA alum and you have news to share, please write to: c.boyle-turner@pontaven.org