Van James is an international advocate for the arts and a guest tutor at art colleges and Steiner-Waldorf teacher training centers throughout Asia, Oceana and America. He is an active visual artist, graphic designer, photographer and an award-winning author of numerous books on culture and the arts. He was a co-founding teacher of Tobias School of Art in England and a elementary class teacher and high school art instructor at the Honolulu Waldorf School for over 35 years. He has been a mentor for numerous Steiner-Waldorf teacher development programs as well as for the Academy of Himalayan Art and Child Development. He is a council member of the Visual Art Section of North America and editor of Pacifica Journal. Van teaches Master Classes for the online platform Nurture’Studio and paints, writes, sings and dances daily. He has a degree in drawing and painting from the San Francisco Art Institute (BFA), and diploma’s in the Fine Arts from Emerson College in England and the Goetheanum Painting School in Switzerland. He lives in Honolulu with his wife and two cats, has four grown children and four grandchildren.
vanjames.smugmug.com
About Van
At age 21, while finishing my degree in painting and drawing at the San Francisco Art Institute, I was hospitalized with a severe case of hepatitis. As I was recovering, I walked into the washroom of the hospital and looked over to see a long-haired, yellow skeleton in the mirror. Realizing that it was me I laughed at the reflection only to see the image of death laughing back at me. It was then I realized I had to drastically change my lifestyle from one of living on the edge to one of living in a more harmonious and healthy way with myself and the world.
Two years later, I was blessed to have artist, Anne Stockton, and art history teacher, William Mann, take me under their wings as I engaged in a Foundation Year and then a Visual Arts year at Emerson College (UK) in the early 1970s. I was further rewarded to have mentors in the arts, sciences, and the study of anthroposophy. John Davy, John Wilkes, Arne Klingborg, Rex Raab, Michael Wilson, Dr. L.F. Mees, Rene Querido, Hagen Biesantz, Rudy Marcus, Ted Roberts and many others, all made deep impressions on me. When deciding what to do after my studies at Emerson, I met with art therapist Margarite Hauschka and painter Liane Collot d’Herbois, and worked briefly with Beppe Assenza, Margaret Fröhlich, Rudolf Kützli, Carlo Pietzner and Gerard Wagner. I ended up studying for the next four years at the Malschule am Goetheanum (the Painting School at the Goetheanum) with Gerard Wagner.
Upon completion of my diploma, Anne Stockton invited me to be one of the co-founding teachers of Tobias School of Art in East Grinstead, England. I taught there for three years giving courses in painting, black and white drawing, form drawing, graphic design, lazure wall painting and art history until health concerns (my doctor advised me against the English climate) and marriage brought me back to my home country.
I took on a class teaching position at the Honolulu Waldorf School (HWS) in Hawai’i for four years and then became the art teacher, helping some years later to start the high school and Kula Makua, Waldorf Teacher Training Program. I also worked in the Artist’s in Schools program teaching art at public schools throughout the islands and became a board member of the Hawai’i Alliance for Arts Education. Also at this time, my interest in world petroglyph art took me into a practical study of Hawaiian art and culture. I became a life member of the Society for Hawaiian Archaeology and the Hawaii Watercolor Society.
While teaching high school art at HWS I regularly traveled within Oceania, to Asia and mainland America to do adult education work in the arts at Steiner schools, colleges and university art departments. My teaching included return visits to Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, India, Nepal, Australia and the mainland US. Teaching a regular two-week arts curriculum course took me to Taruna College in New Zealand for 14-years and provided the background for my books on drawing and painting. I continued to do my own art and wrote a dozen books dealing with various arts topics and cultural themes (this despite being dyslexic and not having read until I was twelve years old).
Research into Native Hawaiian art and culture led to the writing and publication of the three-time award winning book, Ancient Sites of O’ahu, and three other Hawai’i field guides. In the mid-1990s I became the Country Representative for Hawai’i in the General Anthroposophical Society (Hawai’i has an independent society from America) and was appointed a Class Holder in the School of Spiritual Science and became a council member in the Visual Art Section of North America. I was part of the founding of the Asia Pacific Initiative Group which organized regular conferences in Asia and in this connection I transformed our local Hawai’i newsletter into Pacifica Journal, a publication for communication of anthroposophical news and ideas in the larger Asia-Pacific region, which still publishes biannually.
My wife (a three-cycle class teacher) and I retired a year before the pandemic after forty years of teaching at HWS. I also retired as Country Representative from the Anthroposophical Society in Hawai’i after twenty-six years. I am still an active Class Holder, council member in the Visual Art Section of North America, and editor of Pacifica Journal.
Suddenly and unexpectedly, due to the pandemic, a career in online teaching opened-up, which now allows me to continue the work I love as a teaching artist and to explore my own work from home. Because my teaching has dealt with all age groups, mediums, and styles of 2-D visual art (painting, drawing, graphic design, etc.), my own artwork tends to be rather diverse. I change my style of working according to what courses, projects, or commissions I may be working on. I don’t find a fixed style to be advantageous unless one is intent on establishing a brand—not my goal. I am extremely grateful to have found and continue to find an artistic deepening possible in my life and work.