Dendrite Food: Art-Making, Nature, & Children

Ask Esther James, a Whidbey Island resident, about her work and she will tell you she is a virtuoso potter. Trained as an art therapist, she prefers the title "art doula." Doula provides a clearer definition of the process of birthing-through-art one's experiences and knowing. "Art making and relationship to Nature is dendrite food, stimulating brain growth," Esther says. Her organizing questions are about how Nature teaches, how we can insure that children have access to nature and art, and why this access is a requirement for humanity. http://www.gfone.biz/gfone1/gft/GFT6Y.html

Art therapists in America usually attribute their lineage to Margaret Nauman or Edith Kramer, but Esther told me the story of Edith Kramer's teacher, Freidl Dicker-Brandeis. Freidl was part of the Bauhaus school, and studied with artists like Klee and Kadinsky. During the war, Freidl was taken from the ghetto and then moved to the concentration camps. Being an artist, she brought along a suitcase of art supplies. She was permitted to work with the children of the camps to restore hope. Just before she and the children were whisked away to the gas chambers of Auschwitz, she gathered all the children's art work and hid the two suitcases of 5000 drawings to be found later.

Esther James is now in the midst of writing two books and working on her legacy project. As she approaches her 82nd birthday, she is working on "The Flowering of Death."