Artists Abroad is... Enriched Travel
To help make your travel more memorable and valuable, the Artists Abroad staff includes its founder, painting and drawing Professor Karen Edelmann, and your art historian-guide, artist, author and art critic Owen Findsen. (see following bios)
And now with social networking links and the worldwide resources of the internet, we can help guide you to instruction and new experiences in digital photography and photo manipulation, sketching with your ipad or iphone, media and technique changes such as oil painting for water colorists and vice versa - and you name it.
To summarize: make your first step toward art travel with Artists Abroad and Afield.
We may invite you to join us in a group tour. Or, recognizing your individuality, we may be able to propose a special travel package just for you.
Artists Abroad is... the Pleasure of Travel with Friends
Using its experience, exploration and the input of artists and art lovers,
Artists Abroad and Afield offers you a unique group art-travel package
with distinct advantages. It blends your painting, drawing, photographic
and travel-journal wants with trips to magnetic destinations. Discover
these historic art and architectural sites with like-minded people in
our group.
Above all, Artists Abroad offers you individuality. Choices. For example,
you may choose to explore or polish your art on your own. Or you may
choose to receive painting and drawing coaching, or choose to participate
in
group or one-on-one critiques. You may choose to tour with the group
in this year’s scheduled, cost-included, trips.
Or you may want to go off on your own to other towns and cities.
It's a menu set before you, amidst dramatic landscapes, in historic
towns, among congenial people like yourself, and in a region affording
dining opportunities to suit virtually any palate or purse.
Artists Abroad is ... Staffed For More Memorable Experiences
Landscape
artist-Professor Karen Edelmann created Artists Abroad and Afield with
the advice of artists and art lovers to meet their needs and travel
wants better. It's why we can say, "Travel created by and for artists
and art lovers." (Also see philosophy and economy sections below.)
Importantly for those traveling with us, Karen brings over two decades
of college
level painting and drawing teaching, plus insight gained from teaching
and managing painting and drawing tour/study programs in the US, France
and Italy.
Karen received her BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, her MFA from Syracuse University, and today is Professor of Art, St. Thomas Aquinas College, New York, where students have regularly named her to Who's Who Among America's Teachers. A landscape artist of note, her work is in corporate and private collections in the US and Europe, and is exhibited in galleries from New York to the Gulf Coast. (See Tips & Links page.) She is a member of New York Plein Air Painters, the National Arts Club and arts groups in the Hudson River Valley.
To fulfill its mission and its promise to you, Artists Abroad enlists travel professionals and consults authorities in the arts and art history.
In
2006, 2007 and again this year, Owen Findsen will provide a series of insightful
audio and visual presentations on the Hudson River School art and artists – with
surprising links to his home, Cincinnati. Mr.
Findsen, author, art historian, University of Cincinnati design professor,
painter,
photographer,
graphic artist and most importantly the Cincinnati Enquirer art critic
and arts columnist for over 30 years, brings his multifaceted interests,
energy and enthusiasm to bear on the art and history of the Hudson Valley.
You'll gain fresh perspective with his breadth and depth of information
before and during the tours of historic sites.
Ed Edelmann
digs for facts others overlook and scouts locations for Artists Abroad
and Afield. During his more than four decades in communications, this research,
analysis and discovery has yielded insight and understanding for his
clients.
That was especially true during a 15-year run as partner, president
and chief marketing officer of Edelmann Scott Inc, the Richmond, Virginia,
ad agency
still carrying his name. Today those skills, combined with travel agent
training, a thirst for new places and digital photography create a natural
partnership
with his wife, Karen, in Artists Abroad.
This year Ed will be leading trips,
providing maps, logistics and site information and, as before, is also available
for digital camera and computer processing tips.
Artists Abroad is ... a Philosophy
"I took the advice of mentors to leave home, to come back with new eyes. ' Things will look different,' they said, 'and previously hidden things will be revealed'."
One
reason I created Artists Abroad in 2000 is my experience and belief in
a centuries-old tradition. Namely, creative people thrive and grow when
they travel. For example, Corot and Turner sought the challenge, mystery
and inspiration of faraway places. Artists follow in their footsteps today,
literally and figuratively, recharging their vision, working and studying
the art of those who came before them.
For nearly two centuries, this tradition has meant no serious American
artist could imagine a complete education without travel. And usually
European travel. The Paris experience changed Edward Hopper's art. Spain
changed Sargent's. Consider that Van Gogh's masterpieces were painted
in the south of France, far from his native Holland. And Gauguin needed
Tahiti. Their journals, sketchbooks and work caught the light, color,
culture and excitement of places far from home.
"I was changed forever by my first trip to Europe. It led to a complete break with my earlier art - led to landscape. I abandoned the human face for the drama of earth, sky water. I realized there are no two places where the light strikes the landscape in exactly the same way. The land reflects, hides, absorbs, and obscures the light changing its color. One time saturating it, another time making it thin and pale. Each time of day is different. Each day, different again. And each season is a revelation."
If
travel has advantages for the individual artist, then, when creative
people travel with us, they say their experience is continually magnified
and enhanced by observing and working with one another. It's the kind
of camaraderie felt on campuses, long nights and days working together
in communal studios. It's the give and take of impromptu critiques, the
exchange of ideas and philosophies, the support and encouragement of
friends when you doubt yourself. Yes, the trip will end, but the memories
and those kinds of friendships last.
Based
on conversations with many artists, I want to share my thoughts and theirs
to put the pleasures of group travel, and individual art and one important
subject in perspective.
"While there can be joy and sensation in working on-site, I also believe it is just one part of the whole. For some plein air painters, on-site work becomes the end product. Not for me. It doesn't matter if you don't even take out a brush. The important thing is to see it, live it. Drink it in. Create a memory. Write about it. Sketch it. Photograph it. Feel it - all so you remember the experience and can recall it in your work."
To
summarize the thoughts and experiences of those who have commented on
traveling with us: Like food stored for a long winter, the notes, sketches
and insights stored in a travel journal nourish art in the studio. For
some, these gatherings of just one trip may feed inspiration for a career.
Perhaps enough to make history.
See the places with a history of inspiring artists.
See the art that made history.
Make your own art.
Make your own history.
Let's go. Start at the RESERVE or CONTACT pages.
