Guest Artist Creates Moving Masterpiece
Painter, Alexander Technique teacher, and craniosacral practitioner Elizabeth Castagna visited Millbrook School on Monday, treating the community to a movement art performance. The hour-long live art piece took place in the Holbrook Arts Center’s Warner Gallery, and students and faculty quietly gathered at the entrance to take in the special moment.
Before the performance began, Art Instructor and Warner Gallery Curator Kiernan Pazdar explained how Millbrook art students could learn from it.
“Having something like this that’s so direct can help us get students to loosen up or understand what can happen when they do,” She said. “Also, she’ll be responding to our space and our noises, and this gallery space in particular.”
With chalk in both hands, Ms. Castagna began working on a massive sheet of black paper hung from the gallery wall and stretched across the floor. Using her entire body as her brush, she moved around the paper, driven by the energy of the Warner Gallery. The paper canvas was soon filled with chalk lines and smears, a physical map of the artist’s spiritual connection to the space.
Along with responding to the moment, Ms. Castagna drew from a special history she has with Millbrook to create the piece: She remembers bringing her son to the Trevor Zoo when he was little. As he recently went off to college, she intermingled memories of him as child at the zoo with emotions connected to letting him go to guide her motion.
The finished drawing will live in the Warner Gallery for the duration of the fall exhibit Natural Gestures—a group show featuring works in mediums such as sculpture, weaving, painting, and photography.
Monday’s movement drawing performance is a reminder of how Millbrook is uniquely positioned for developing the next generation of artists. Students have easy access to a thriving art scene in New York City, thanks to the school’s location in Mid-Hudson Valley and their working-artist teachers’ industry connections.
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