Join us for Conversations on Beauty: “Creating a Whole Student” – Nov 15th
SAN DIEGO, CA — On November 15, 2011, from 5:00 – 7:30pm, the Mingei International Museum will host a reception and conversation panel with San Diego artistic and educational legends about the vital role of arts in creating a whole student. The panel includes artist James Hubbell, Maestro Jung-Ho Pak of Orchestra Nova, Dr. John Eger, Professor of Communications and Public Policy, SDSU, and Christine Brady, Founder of Colegio La Esperanza. Dirk Sutro will moderate the discussion.
This is the fifth in a series of conversations that has been sponsored by the Ilan-Lael Foundation, an arts education foundation begun by James Hubbell in 1984 and which calls Hubbell’s historically-designated property near Julian CA its home. The Foundation provides hand-on building experiences, tours, and educational opportunities using the arts to foster exploration of self and harmony with the changing rhythm of our times.
The emphasis on science and math-based achievement along with the fiscal uncertainties being experienced by educational institutions have resulted in arts and humanities studies being reduced or eliminated in many cases. At the same time, businesses and industries are demanding creative thinkers to work in an increasing complex and fast-paced world.
“Our contemporary reliance on technology and knowledge of the physical world, the things we can measure, are training only half the person.” says artist James Hubbell.
“This has a profound affect on students’ view of themselves and where we are as a country. Art is not about knowledge; it is about a very real part of being human that we will never completely understand; the intuitive. It can open windows to possibilities that our knowledge told us were closed. Knowledge can tell you where you are but it cannot tell you where you wish to go.”
New to this conversation is a performance component. Orchestra Nova’s widely acclaimed Every Child, Every Life program will supply a young pianist to perform. In addition, Colegio La Esperanza, a school which James Hubbell has built for the past 20 years along with panelist Christine Brady will be bringing a young violinist from its Tijuana school performing arts program.
~ Tickets are $10 at the door. ~
PANEL
James Hubbell is an important and unique artist who is concerned with art that links us back to the common source — to nature, mystery and community. He can paint, sculpt in wood, stone, and metal, build furniture, create houses and parks. But his art-making is clearly in service to a larger goal of shaping a unified creation where separate objects form a whole that is much greater than the sum of its great parts. James has always been concerned with how it all fits together. With great compassion and skill he makes art through which we can see connections.
Jung-Ho Pak is a conductor who radiates enthusiasm. His vision is to create a joyous, emotional and dramatic musical experience for today’s audiences that attracts a whole new generation to classical music. He has served as artistic and music director with symphonies and music conservatories across the United States and around the world. His personalized, contemporary approach utilizes non-classical connections to make classical music interactive and approachable. He is a frequent speaker about the relevance of art in society and the importance of music in education.
Professor John Eger, J.D. is a telecommunications, lawyer, is the Lionel Van Deerlin Endowed Professor of Communications and Public Policy at San Diego State University, and Executive Director of SDSU’s International Center for Communications. His varied career has taken him from the Nixon and Ford administrations where he was an advisor on the telecommunications industry to senior management at the CBS broadcast group where he developed marketing strategies for its news division. More recently, he’s headed up San Diego State University’s International Center for Communications where he specializes in international communications, emerging trends in media and marketing and revitalizing communities through the use of telecommunications.
Christine Brady is the founder of Colegio La Esperanza, a school for the arts, she founded in Tijuana twenty-three years ago. Her Americas Foundation has brought science, math, technology and a performing arts education to a neighborhood where the average parent has a third-grade education. Her partnership with James Hubbell has created a school of unusual beauty that has united a community and helped it recognize its potential.
Dirk Sutro is our moderator for Conversations on Beauty and hosted “The Lounge”, a nightly arts and culture program on KPBS-FM public radio in San Diego from 1999 - 2004. He was editor of San Diego Home/Garden magazine, and was weekly jazz and architecture columnist for the San Diego edition of the Los Angeles Times. He’s currently Publicity Director at the UCSD School of Music.
Conversations on Beauty – Uniting Matter and Spirit — Creating the Whole Student is organized by the Ilan-Lael Foundation and Mingei International Museum and has been made possible thanks to funding from the Rokenbok Foundation and Ilan-Lael Foundation’s 2011 sponsors that include; Boomerang for Modern, David Alan Collection, Camp Stevens, Girard Gourmet, Graham Wilder PHotography, Hubbell and Hubbell Architects, Lang Contracting, Rancho La Puerta Health and Resort Spa, San Diego Botanical Garden, Slice of Heaven Catering, Stone Brewing Company, The Beach House Restaurant Cardiff, The Pearl Hotel, Wynola Farms Marketplace and Wynola Pizza Express.
