This summer the Grades Building and the cubby room of the Farmhouse on the Grace Farm campus were transformed by a group of OVWS parents, grandparents, alumni parents, and teachers who gathered together to learn the art of Lazure from master Lazurist Charles Andrade.
Lazure is a color technique created by Rudolf Steiner and used in Waldorf schools all over the world. Steiner said that “children need to be surrounded by fluid living color.” The interplay between dark and light in Lazure painting helps to create depth, breathability, and a harmonious soul experience. What more could we want for the space in which our children learn and spend the majority of their day?
The colors for each classroom are chosen based on the development of the child. The rosy, warmer tones stimulate the will forces in the kindergarten and early grades. Moving from reds in first grade, through orange in second, and yellow in third; the cooler tones arrive with a luminous green in fourth grade that mirrors the nourishing green of the heart chakra and the feeling realm. The middle school years cool down with turquoise, blues, and violets, appealing more to the developing forces of clear thinking.
The Lazure workshop was a stimulating and nourishing experience for those lucky enough to partake. It included an introductory lecture and two intense days of hard work, followed by additional hours painting the classrooms and Front Office, and prepping the Grades hallway for future Lazure treatment.
As a social art form, the participants had to work together collaboratively to create the harmonious flow of color. As is articulated on Andrade’s website, “The benefits of such workshops go beyond the instruction of the group and into the community they share.”
If you haven’t yet seen the results, please take a peek into the Grades classrooms, and if you’d like to volunteer to help with future Lazure work, please reach out!
The colors and their movement across the walls are at once breathtaking and calming. As Charles Andrade says, “The role of the arts [in a Waldorf school] is to develop a relationship between . . . human souls and the world of sensory phenomena.” Enveloping the children in Lazured spaces bathes them in this experience.
by Victoria Mansuri
for the Aesthetics Committee
