WORLD REFLECTIONS OF THE LUMINOUS MEDIUM OF PASTEL

Today I reflect on my vision of uniting the world of pastel when I formed the International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS) in 1994.        At that time little did I know that my dream would later surround the world and unite thousands of pastel artists in their own dreams of artistic endeavor.    Pastel artists over the globe are now sharing their dreams and holding hands in friendship and the exchange of ideas with the pastel medium.

One such artist is Heather Harman, a professional artist who obtained her art credentials at a very early age, and held her first pastel one woman shows in 1975 in her home country England.   She started to seriously teach the medium in 1989.    She is noted for having completed possibly the first modern day research into the history of pastel in University in 1990-3 and she continues to teach and share her talent with thousands of grateful students.

I first met Heather through face book, instantly bonding through our mutual desire to raise the pastel medium to its proper position in the world of art.    We both agree; access to pastel tuition is sporadic and sparse worldwide.     Workshops with individual pastelists are location dependant – but full ‘courses’ are rare indeed.

Now with the benefit of the internet, she is rising to an even higher plane of the founding of a new concept, that of the formation of ‘The Pastel Academy’.      Having founded IAPS, and knowing the work that went into it, I recognize that it is a brave and time consuming move; to take time out from her professional career and record, in course form, all she knows about pastel in all forms and genres – the knowledge gained over 45 years of professionally using pastel and 25 years of actually teaching it.

So the Academy mission is; to aide pastel artists obtain their goals and dreams to obtain a more professional standing in the world of art.    By doing so we honor all of the great pastelists , both the past and future.

Heather,  I praise you for your willingness to share with others and I wish you all the best the world has to offer you in your artistic life.

Happy Pasteling!

Urania Christy Tarbet

‘The wonderful enduring medium of pastel is both enjoying a recent resurgence of interest and popularity, and also in equal measure, suffering a lack of tuition opportunities in many parts of the painting world.’   I have often been asked,  why does this fact bother me so much?

Because I have dedicated my creative artistic life to this medium; and that is a lot of years. Yes, I paint also in oil and watercolour, but for me they cant match pastel.   I strongly believe in it and that it is the best medium to learn how to draw/paint;  and it has given me a good career and a recognised name, and so it is time to give back in some way to the medium that has kept my creative inspiration so high for so long.

‘Historically pastel has been subject to the vagaries of being ‘fashionable’, or not:  and that needs to be tackled head on if the medium is going to continue to be taken seriously as a primary fine art medium.’

Couple that with the fact that I am a tutor and as such I have a pretty unusual base of experience in the pastel community;   I have taught the medium for over 20 years in residential colleges in the UK for many weeks every year.  I had waiting lists for most of these courses, and enrollees have travelled worldwide to get a place on my Portrait in Sanguine (Trois Crayons) courses.    Pastel is not on the curriculum in colleges/universities generally, so what I (and a handful of other tutors) were doing for so many years in the 90’s was pretty unusual in pastel; where tuition more often than not comes via a ‘workshop.’   Complete courses – week long and longer – with full lecture evening programs, are rather more intensive than a workshop.