Barnstone Studios Announces Gwendolyn Stine Scholarship; Recipients to Receive 9-part Art Course, Master Guide Coaching
Barnstone Studios alumnus Gwendolyn Stine inspired students and art aficionados alike with her teaching skills and intricately rendered drawings. Now, a scholarship in her name continues her legacy for the next generation of artists.
THURMONT, Md., May 27, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- On March 11, artist, teacher and spiritual sage Gwendolyn Stine lost a year-long battle to cancer. To celebrate the magnificent body of work she created, and the many students she inspired, Barnstone Studios is honored to announce the launch of the Gwendolyn Stine Scholarship.
Stine was a Barnstone Master Guide; one of an elite group of distinguished Barnstone Studios alumni who studied directly with the late master art teacher, Myron Barnstone. The guides mentor students studying Barnstone's recorded classes, critiquing their work, offering tips and guiding their progress as they develop their artistic vision and skills. Click here for information about the scholarship.
The two winning Gwendolyn Stine Scholarship applicants will receive the complete Barnstone Method 9-part video series, and a 30-minute personal Master Guide session every two weeks for three months. They will also receive a plaster Perrier bottle and hand-crafted red oak calipers, both essential tools for mastering Barnstone Method drawing skills.
Even before she began years of study with Barnstone in his Coplay, Pennsylvania studios in 1989, Stine was already an artist. She studied Fine Arts at Kutztown State College in Pennsylvania. "Someone saw my work and said with direction, I could be pretty good," Stine remembered. "He introduced me to Myron, and Myron had me start immediately, in mid-semester."
For Stine, that was when her belief since childhood that everything was divinely interconnected started to come into focus. Barnstone drilled his students in dynamic symmetry and the geometric precision at the foundation of all great works of art throughout history. That same element of design, which utilizes the Fibonacci sequence, is echoed throughout creation.
"I immediately latched onto the Golden Section -- that rectangle that runs through all of nature," Stine said. "For me, it was the triangle of art, science and spirituality."
From that point on, Stine's artistic studies merged with her spiritual path. Armed with her new understanding of dynamic symmetry and the Golden Section, she found "…a solid expression of my understanding of Creation. Everything is related. No thing arbitrary. While I tend to the technical aspects of bringing these pieces to the page it is something much greater than myself that compels me to see and capture what I do."
Her charcoal drawings reflect the very essence of the child, family, pet or plant she studied with such precision and accuracy, many of her pieces are at first mistaken for photographs. She started leaving the geometric grid of the Golden Section on some of her work to show people each portrait or landscape was actually done by hand.
While her own highly lauded and awarded work is prominently displayed in galleries and private collections around the nation, Stine took particular pride in helping young artists awaken to the mysteries of the sacred geometric design underlying all of creation. She was a master Instructor in the Drawing & Painting Studio at the Mesa Arts Center in Arizona before joining the Barnstone Master Guide team.
"It was such an honor to display Gwendolyn's work right next to Myron's when we began hosting gallery exhibits," said Catherine 'Cat' Barnstone Szafran, Barnstone's daughter and Director of Barnstone Studios, now located in Thurmont, Maryland. "Myron's own students had not seen his original work. When he made the transition from master artist to master teacher, Myron destroyed hundreds of his paintings and drawings, and locked the remaining 500 away, to keep from influencing his students.
"It wasn't until after Myron's death in 2016 that we made the decision to open his archives, and share his work with the world. These pieces had not been seen by the public for the 35 years he taught, and since his last Paris show in 1967," Szafran said. "We exhibited many of his paintings along with the work of some of his most accomplished alumni. Of course Gwendolyn's pieces were an important part of the shows. We are so excited to continue to memorialize Gwendolyn's phenomenal work, and her dedication to her students, through this scholarship that bears her name."
Szafran announced Barnstone Studios will invite artists to submit an application for a Gwendolyn Stine scholarship, along with a representation of their current drawing skills. The deadline for submitting applications is midnight June 12. Two winners will be announced June 21, which would have been Gwendolyn's birthday.
Five percent of the sales of Barnstone's art will go directly into the Gwendolyn Stine Scholarship. The award is also funded in part through the Barnstone Studios Patreon community. Patrons support the Barnstone Art Education project through monthly donations ranging from $1 up to $1,000, and receive discounts on Barnstone art, classes and resources. Additional support for the scholarship is through individual donations from people supporting fine art education. The logo for the Gwendolyn Stine Scholarship was created by Barnstone Studios alumnus and award-winning graphic designer William Childs, http://www.billchilds.com.
Barnstone Studios at 202 A East Main Street, Thurmont, Maryland, is dedicated to fostering an appreciation of fine art, and helping to make art education accessible to all who desire to develop their talent and enrich their lives. Additional information about Barnstone Method classes, the Patreon program, private coaching from Barnstone Master Guides, original works or limited edition prints and other related products is available online at https://www.barnstonestudios.com/, or by calling 301.788.6241.
SOURCE Barnstone Studios
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