Congratulations Ashley!

Ashley Howell, a student at The Guild Atelier had her first solo show this summer and sold six works. Congratulations Ashley!
To the left, Ashley and her boyfriend Kevin at her opening and below, two of Ashley's works that were sold in the show.

The Guild Atelier Opens its doors

I am so pleased to announce that The Guild will open this fall with ten full time and 18 part time students enrolled in classes. A very special thank you to Rodney, Claudia, Kerry, Todd, Ashley, Eric, Mom, Dad, Sean, Andrea, Irvin, Kevin, Jeremy, Carlos, Angela for your help and dedication to The Guild. What a long way we have come in two months.

Architectural Casts for The Guild

The Architectual Casts for The Guild arrived today, they are just stunning!

The Art of Narrative

“The destiny of the world is determined less by the battles that are lost and won than by the stories it loves and believes in.”
—Harold Goddard
(The Meaning of Shakespeare)

Religious Narrative Painting by Bonnat

Leon Bonnat
French painter, teacher, portraitist & collector
born June 20 1833- died 1922
Director of: Ecole des Beaux-Arts
Professor at: Ecole des Beaux-Arts
Student of: Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863)


I was fortunate to see the above painting a few years back at the Metropolitan Museum. It is a deeply moving work of art. Bonnat, with a single figure, captures the story of Job

New Sculpture by Jiwoong Cheh

Cheh teaches at The Grand Central Academy of Art. He recently completed this sculpture of my self and as always I have increased respect for models. Posing is very difficult.

To see more of Cheh's work please fallow the link below:
http://grandcentralacademy.classicist.org/cheh.html

The Guild's First Press

“The classical language is a tradition characterized by its transformations. Every age takes its previous uses and lessons and transforms them to reflect yet a new culture’s identity; and so it has gone for millennia.



Much of the language’s beauty is in its adaptability and flexibility to respond to the times while maintaining a thread that binds us all to nature. It uses a thread that Plato called, “nature’s greatest secret”. A common, singular element found in all things NOT man made. This is the basis of the classical language. The ability to go “simply” from the “one to the many”; allowing the inherent simplicity of complex beauty to emerge; it is NOT the confusion of the “complicated.”



When understood and employed by man, its use allows our works to have a natural resonance with the nature that’s in us. These works resonate with nature and us because how they are made is how we are made. We are nature too.



It’s Plato’s recognition of the “secret”, he empirically observed in all of nature that allows man to transcend the bonds of earth through our individual works. Its importance has been recognized, through to modern times as evidenced in its mandated use in the ecclesiastical commissions of the church, eastern temples, Mesoamerican ritual sites, and the list goes on. Its existence crosses all times and cultures; the “secret” was observed, recognized and employed by all cultures at some time.



Ms. Davis’s “The Guild Atelier” can only be seen as another necessary and continuous extension of Plato’s secret of nature in man made art. A necessary continuation of the conversation started thousands of years ago. At worst, those with the skills learned are excellent beyond the norm; those with the skills and the ability to transcend them are masters, like her. There is no beginning, middle or end, just the continuation of the conversation.



The real beauty is that there is not an end, just the continued elation of the life long search.”





Professor Demetria Papadakis

The Art of Narrative

“There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.”
—Ursula K. LeGuin

Mythological Narrative

Adolphe William Bouguereau (French 1825-1905)
Orestes Pursued by the Furies, 1862

The Eumenides (also known as The Furies) is the final play of the Oresteia, in which Orestes, Apollo, and the Erinyes go before Athena and a jury where the homicide court of Athens held its sessions), to decide whether Orestes' murder of his mother, Clytemnestra, makes him worthy of the torment they have inflicted upon him.

Aristotle Poetics

2.2 Object

" Those who imitate, imitate agents; and these must be either admirable or inferior. (Character almost always corresponds to just these two categories, since everyone is differentiated in character by defect or excellence.) Alternatively they must be better people than we are, or worse, or of the same sort.......
.....The very same difference distinguishes tragedy and comedy from each other; the latter aims to imitate people worse than our contemporaries, the former better"

-Aristotle Poetics

Religious Narrative Painting by Bouguereau

This incredible masterpiece was open to the public for viewing at Christie's Auction House. It is a great technical masterpiece and a moving work of art; The mother's loss of the son.

Why We Love Classicism II

Painting at The Guild

Angela, Todd and I had our first portrait session at The Guild. The beautiful and graceful Rosario was our model. I have painted her twice before. She is such a joy to work with.

Ode to Graydon Parrish

Graydon is currently at GCA for his final week of his Munsell Color Theory Workshop. The class is incredible, the students are doing great work and as my workshop was going on at the same time I was able, as always, to hear what an incredible teacher and person Graydon is. The students are right. We are so lucky to have have Graydon. He is a truely extraordinary painter and a really really good person. Above -myself with the famous Mr. Parrish. Center -Mr. Parrish working on his Master Work. Below- One of my favorite drawings of his, just beautiful!