“It is our natural state to be a radiant being of light.”

Is there a more beautiful expression of radiant light than that of childhood?  Our children are light. Our children are play and energy. Our children are love and peace and whirling dervishes and wild abandon. Just as light dances off the clouds and mountains and streams… so do they.

By its design, Waldorf education celebrates this light within.  Each child’s unique spirit is honored, rejoiced in, and fueled by freedom.   The freedom to be, the freedom to create and the freedom to learn through multiple disciplines, is at the heart of this education.  And what fuels this freedom? Art.

Within Waldorf education, every day, our students create art. Art gives them access to their light, their genius…to thought that does not know boundaries.  Within our curriculum, students experience academics through painting, drawing, drama, poetry, music, foreign language, handwork, and movement.  Art is not taught to turn students into artists, but rather to inspire them to exercise their creative will and to counteract the tendency of our time to separate learning from imagination and creativity.

As part of our annual fundraising campaign, the Artworks – Light Vessel Project is an inspired and practical demonstration of freedom that creating art brings.  Students, Faculty, Administration and Parents will be using wool fiber to create vessels/lanterns/sculptures with some form of light source.  Parents are invited to join in classroom time with multiple opportunities to get involved like:  foraging for materials and light s

ources, working on design elements and construction with the students, constructing bases and armature, and adding finishing touches with bead or hand work. The project will culminate in a First Friday Art Walk Show on November 3rd, 2017 in Downtown Bend, OR with the greater community of Bend invited to celebrate its completion.

This Light Vessel Project also offers a beautiful expression of our community values in action.  We believe that education is a collaborative effort and we strive to further ourselves as faculty, staff, and parents to become exceptional role models for our children and to create an inclusive community. Through this project we will explore the idea of “Be the Light” and what that means to us individually, to our children, and as a community.  How can we bring our light out into the world so that it may bring a brighter future for all?

As we come together to create this project, it lays the groundwork for exploration, a shared sense of community and strengthening our connections.  It also provides the means in which Waldorf education can thrive in Central Oregon.  We are all radiant beings of light.  Through this artistic expression and endeavor we might all come to remember what it feels like to dance off the clouds and mountains and streams…as our children do.

Fundraising proceeds from this project go directly to enhance our programs and support faculty and staff.