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winter ’16 |

> in this issue

2 letter from don

3 The Intimate Gift of Artsculpture given to rsf spurs thoughts on making and experiencing art

4 Benefits of Biodynamic Educationstudents at high mowing school uncover more than just science lessons from horticulture study

7 Cultivating Artists in Santa Monicasouthern california center provides creative space for over 8,000 artists since 1988

what is

art?the nature in

Artist Yvette Gellis working on a painting. Photo courtesy of 18th Street Arts Center.

2 winter ’16 | rsf quarterly

LETTER FROM DON

Stewarding Creative Transformation

Welcome to the New Year! I hope that the holidays brought you joy and insight, connection and renewal.

The turn of the year is an important time for us here as we wrap up 2015 and begin implementing our 2016 plans. What will mark this year, and the years to come, is a transition in how we finance those initiatives and social enterprises that will have the greatest or deepest transformative benefit—and in how we will advance RSF’s purpose of transforming the way the world works with money. We have been a recognized leader in the field of social finance, and have grown in size and impact over the last thirty-two years. Now that the field is established, other larger financiers see its potential. Our challenge and oppor-tunity now is to perceive what is called for to move into the future—the one we are co-creating with clients and other leaders—without compromising our core practice of assuring that every transaction is direct, transparent, and personal, and based on long-term relationships. Our guiding theme is taken from mindful agriculture: an increased diversity of revenue streams, along with a more sophisticated and inte-grated approach to deploying capital.

You might wonder what this has to do with a Quarterly issue focused on education and the arts. But the lessons are direct. Students learn through stewarding diversity in the garden, reaping what they sow while saving and planting seeds for the next generation of students (page 4). Needed space is provided to artists without the burden of heavy capital investment so that they can envision the truth of the present and the seeds of our future culture (page 6). But the last lesson is in some ways the most profound for us. In November, we received the gift of a beautiful and enduring sculpture created specifically for RSF. It reminds us every day of just how central gift is to the appreciative quality of life experience, and thus how a financial system founded in gift inherently builds a more social and transformed future.

In gratitude for your being part of this community,

Don Shaffer,President & CEO

Dear Friends,

Painting by Dolores Erhart, a visiting artist from Argentina. Photo courtesy of 18th Street Arts Center.

what is the nature in art? | www.rsfsocialfinance.org 3

Completion presents a moment in which the entirely private toil of creativity becomes an opportunity

for public experience. For those of us viewing, we know that the artist has invested time and gifts we call talent, or creative capacity, to the production of the work. This is perhaps the most self-evident aspect. After that, we could judge the work simply on the level of craft, but that would entirely miss the deeper purpose—a quality of experiential transmission.

The artist transforms ele-mental material through the application of imagination, inspiration and intuition. The moment the artist refers to is when the work itself becomes a gift to the world, and illuminates the intimate nature of the gift itself—spirit embedded within transformed matter.

Something rich happens when the artist recognizes that their work is in its moment. The artist’s intentions, mani-fested through the work, begin to stimulate a sense of meaning in and for viewers. Such a moment is a vulnerable one for the artist.

Relinquishing ControlNo artist can presume a knowledge of how people

will experience her or his work in a public context. Herein lies the essence of the artistic gift. Within that moment of vulnerability, when the work enters the public view, the artist relinquishes control of the experience, of the work. It is this release of control that defines the nature of gift. The artist’s intentions and being move into the work through the creative process, and are solidified in physical form. They are

latent within the work, and accessible to the viewer through a contemplative process, which may or may not connect the viewer with the originating intentions.

This is what we call the intimate nature of gift. If a viewer connects with the work, recognizes its nature, and is awakened or transformed by it, the experience

becomes a part of that individual. This process transmits the true gift from the artist’s inception to a public reception.

Axiom is bornSculpture has a special

quality in that it offers more than the individual inner experience described above. It also enhances our experi-ence of dynamic space, our movement in relation to it and to each other. We asked sculp-tor Miles Chapin about this idea and how it relates to the work he recently created for RSF. He responded, “Sculpture itself is about interconnection.”

On November 3, Chapin presented his sculpture—

named Axiom—to RSF. He structured it with three interconnected, irregular arches and an open space in the center—an artistic direction inspired by the irregularities Chapin witnesses in nature, and also by Rudolf Steiner’s ideas of the threefold social organism. Formed from a 500-pound mass of Dakota mahogany granite, the piece had a harmonious and process-driven creation. Chapin does not just come up with a concept; he works with the ebbs and flows already existing in the stone.

Chapin grew up on the coast of rural Maine where his retired grandmother would spend time finding

INSIGHTS

The Intimate Gift of ArtJohn Bloom, Vice President of Organizational Culture, and Enrique Perez, Marketing Manager

“I will say that each sculpture never feels done. You can always keep going on these pieces and keep getting everything more perfect. A lot of the job is to know when to stop and feel that it’s in its moment.”

Miles Chapin, Artist

> Continued on page 7

Axiom, a sculpture created by artist Miles Chapin, in the RSF entrance lobby.


GUEST INTERVIEW

Katrina Steffek: Tell us a little bit about High Mowing School. Brad Miller: We’re in our 73rd year since the founder, Beulah Emmet, started this school. She chose this place, which was originally her summer farm home, to provide young people with something she realized was needed: fresh air, trees and granite. A fire here in 1970 destroyed the majority of the old school building. All of Mrs. Emmet’s personal possessions were destroyed; however, nothing of the students or the new school was damaged. There’s an interesting metaphor in there: that this is really a place for students.How did you first get involved?Miller: I have been involved with the school since 2009. I was running a CSA program on the property and renting land, and I started volunteering with students. In 2010, I offered two horticulture classes. Within two years, I was full time at the school, and we had integrated horticulture and garden work across the science curriculum and more. Now the program is a signature one for the school. How has the horticulture program affected students?Miller: For those freshmen who went through it four years ago, when we broke ground together and erected the greenhouses, they have a sense of accomplishment. The students that arrive now often

can’t tell that the garden hasn’t always been there, so it’s different. Now they are maintaining or nurturing something that’s not for them but for the future, which is very hard for an adolescent to grasp. When that happens, it becomes more than just taking care of the carrots or the beets. It’s about soil micro-biology. It’s about resource management. It’s about fair and equitable distribution of resources. That’s what they are actually more concerned about.But I sense a real difference in your program, where it’s not so much a lesson plan just outlining best practices. It’s more of a conversation that starts with the ground and soil, and then spurs on deeper learnings. Miller: A colleague and I have researched and discussed how so many land grant universities and alternative farming programs teach the mechanics of farming, and so few teach about one’s heart

connection to the land. That’s conversation and language that I have with the sophomores, juniors, and especially the seniors. As they mature, we go from direct planting, seeding, compost management, and the alchemy of that to conversations about how we know whether a practice is right. How can I assess what’s best for this place? How would I know in my own life if this is the

Benefits of a Biodynamic EducationConversation with Brad Miller and Katrina Steffek, Chief Operating Officer

Abbot Hill in Wilton, New Hampshire, is home to High Mowing School, a Waldorf boarding high school, and Temple-Wilton Community Farm, one of the first biodynamic community supported agriculture (CSA) programs in the U.S. Also nearby are farms owned by the Yggdrasil Land Foundation, an agricultural land trust committed to protecting biodynamic farmland. The result of such close proximity has been an extraordinarily collaborative project between High Mowing, which purchased farmland adjacent to its campus, and Yggdrasil, which purchased the conservation easement rights. The protected land is now used by the school, and is also leased to Temple-Wilton to support its grazing and feed needs.

In the midst of all this activity, Brad Miller, a biodynamic farmer turned teacher at High Mowing, developed an innovative horticulture program that engages students in the many facets of stewarding land while learning life lessons. Katrina Steffek spoke with Miller about what his students gained in their study of diversified and balanced farm ecosystems.

Student posing in front of high tunnel. Photo courtesy of High Mowing School.


right choice? It becomes a metaphor for how these students are going to ground themselves and move on in their lives.Other than the connection to Rudolf Steiner’s philosophy, why is the biodynamic aspect important to the horticulture program?Miller: It’s necessary to know the science and the basis for how to grow food. But if one doesn’t meditate and have a self-development practice, one is going to miss the very subtle influences that farming, weather, and nature unfold. It isn’t a linear exercise. So often when I was first farming, 16 or 17 years ago, I would say, “I grew that.” If something was in the way, I took it out. It was very self-centered. As I became more exposed to people practicing biodynamics for 10, 20 or 30 years, I would hear, “I don’t know, let’s wait and see.” This was a completely different approach.

With the kids, rather than say, “I’m the expert,” I now say, “I’m learning, too.” And when we look at a situation closely, we sometimes see it in a different light. A pest may not be a problem because it ate four plants; we still have 600. If we wait, is it going to be a problem next year? My experience is now that things come and go. What’s changed in the garden since transitioning to biodynamics?Miller: It’s now a place for living things. There is a multitude of species that are in balance with each other. I haven’t had disease pressure. I haven’t had pest pressure or predation where it harms the garden. Things are in check. Our bird life is up. Our insect life is healthy. It isn’t wilderness, but there is wildness. On this property, we’ve had bear, coyotes, owls, foxes, weasels, groundhogs, a mountain lion, wild turkeys, deer, and a whole range of arthropods and insects.

We’re now looking at the microbial life underneath, and the kids are starting to realize that the soil is alive. Where before, one of the most common things out of their mouths was, “Oh, that’s dirt, and you just put a seed in dirt and it’ll grow.” Just like their own thoughts and their own dreams, not every seed grows. It takes some nurturing. It takes some maintenance to get it to grow and to bear fruit.How do these lessons translate into your conversations with students?Miller: They are less conversations than observations of what students are experiencing in the garden. I have students who would never want to farm or garden—and yet the garden has provided them a platform and place. They now understand that you have to care for something and that it goes through cycles. In a very subtle but profound way, I think it plays very well to the adolescents’ own sense of time.

Teenagers are known for having an inward looking lens. Does the horticulture program aim to bring them out of this mode?Miller: We don’t want to take that away from them because it is their time to be inward. One of my past mentors told me it was more important that the young people see that I care for the garden deeply as a teacher here. They’re not going to remember the lessons. They’re going to remember me and the effect of how I treat the land or vegetables or even a tool.A tool?Miller: That’s been probably the biggest lesson: whether I pick the tool up and put it away even though it’s wet, we’re tired, and the bell rang. Do we take the time to finish what we started or do we walk away? I had to point out to students that when you leave, you also leave the chickens, pigs and plants that still need your help. You can’t just walk away. Rarely do teenagers, young people—and we should even say adults now—recognize or sense where they’re needed. As soon as somebody is needed, their life is validated. So then it’s not just a rake, but our rake and the next year’s students’ rake. It’s not disposable. What do you see as the future of the horticulture program?Miller: It’s really an exciting time because the program has more to give. If we look back to Mrs. Emmet’s original impulse to provide adolescents and young adults with an opportunity to be educated in and amongst nature, we are perfectly positioned at High Mowing. We allow young people a rapidly disappearing opportunity to cultivate their education while immersed in nature. We’re now looking at starting a fifth-year program for people out of high school who want to do a semester or a year here. We have people in their 20s, 30s and 40s who want to come here to work. So we’re trying to create a program that can enrich their lives as well.

Students watering and tending to plants.


When artist Susanna Bixby Dakin and writer Linda Frye Burnham founded Santa Monica’s

18th Street Arts Center in 1988, they wanted to break a common cycle: Artists move into a neighborhood with cheap rents, the neighborhood becomes trendy, housing prices rise, and the artists have to leave. What would happen if the artists could stay?

With this in mind, Dakin and Burnham purchased five buildings on an acre-plus lot in Santa Monica’s Pico neighborhood. They turned it into a non-profit arts center and specified that the site could never be sold for any other use. Since then, 18th Street has evolved from a small, alternative, artist-run space into the longest-running artist residency center in Southern California. It has provided living or working spaces for more than 8,000 artists over the years.

The center now includes 19 live-work and studio spaces for artists, three galleries, a performing arts space, and housing for several non-profit arts organi-zations. Local artists accepted into the program can rent studios for three to five years at rates under half of market rents. Visiting artists, from abroad as well as the U.S., are eligible for residencies of one to three months.

“By providing affordable studios and creative spaces where artists can develop their work, 18th Street plays an important role in nurturing the arts, both in

Southern California and internationally,” says Reed Mayfield, senior lending associate for RSF Social Finance.

Inspiration: Space for Struggling ArtistsWhen Dakin and Burnham started the center, they

were running High Performance, a magazine devoted to the then-nascent performance art world. They were attuned to the emerging arts scene, and realized that what struggling contempo-rary artists needed, more than anything, was space.

Artists in residency at 18th Street now get more than an afford-able place to work. They also get valu-able exposure, in Los Angeles and beyond.

“A residency at 18th Street confers a certain level of recognition and access,” says Jan Williamson, the center’s exec-utive director. “It’s an opportunity for artists to gain

recognition as well as develop new work.”Since its inception, the center has

hosted 400 visiting artists from 50 countries. Among its most notable graduates are San Francisco–based Guillermo Gómez-Peña, a MacArthur fellow, and Indonesian Heri Dono, who represented his country at the 2015 Venice Biennale.

While ownership of the property provides 18th Street with the power to keep rent prices affordable, it also adds a challenge familiar to any homeowner: upkeep.

“We have five midcentury warehouses that need constant maintenance,” says Williamson. “It’s a huge capital investment.”

Santa Monica Non-Profit Cultivates Contemporary ArtistsMegan Mendenhall, Marketing Associate

IMPACT

Lita Albuquerque, an artist based in Los Angeles with a studio at 18th Street.

Kaoru Hironaka, a Japanese visiting artist, working on a painting.


interesting rocks and wood on the beach. Chapin joined her in these excursions and adopted the same keen curiosity for the shapes and colors of stones. “Stone has such a sense of place, espe-cially where I grew up,” explains Chapin.

To create the piece, Chapin used various hand tools. But since granite is such a hard material, he also uti-lized a diamond blade on an angle grinder to cut into the stone. As the extraneous pieces broke off, Chapin proceeded to cut, grind, smooth and polish the stone into its pres-ent glossy and textured form. The final piece, now residing in the reception area of RSF’s offices, sits on a cherrywood pedestal that Chapin made specifically for the sculpture.

Asked how he knows when his sculptures are complete, Chapin responds that he is “in search of a feeling for each piece.” Once he achieves that, he says, he no longer worries about anything else. There are those who appreciate his artwork and those that do not understand. Regardless, Chapin embraces the idea of sharing a piece of himself and his voice. And because he does, we at RSF—and all those who visit our offices—have the honor of experiencing the inti-mate nature of his gift.

> “The Intimate Gift of Art” continued from page 3

Several years ago, the 18th Street board of directors decided to refinance the center’s mortgage to reduce its rate to market level and free up cash for improve-ments. The mortgage was just over $1 million, but a dozen banks turned the center down, largely because its assets were not liquid, says Williamson.

After two years of looking, the board finally had an offer in hand. At the same time, Williamson con-nected with RSF through a colleague in the art world.

“When I met with lenders from RSF, my first thought was, ‘This is too good to be true,’” says Williamson. “I was very skeptical, to be honest.”

Mission Fit: Creative Economy PartnershipWilliamson asked RSF to match the other lender’s

terms, which it did. “We really had to stretch on the terms because

it was a competitive situation,” explains Mayfield. “We wanted to make the loan because we think 18th Street delivers tremendous social value with the infrastructure they provide for both artists and creative economy businesses.”

It felt like a fit. “RSF is really a partner to us,” says Williamson. “They believe in our mission and the work we do, and we’re not just a loan to them.”

What really swayed the board, though, was that RSF also offered to extend a construction loan to replace one of the center’s aging buildings and expand its facilities so it could meet growing demand.

The center receives four to five inquiries a week from artists looking for studio space, as well as requests from partners such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to host visiting artists, notes Williamson, adding, “Honestly, if we could build even more studios, we would.”

Impact: Expanding Support for Contemporary Artists

Because of the mortgage from RSF, 18th Street is now paying down the principal on its loan more quickly, putting the organization on a faster road to financial freedom. Furthermore, RSF demonstrated its commitment to the arts by facilitating a Shared Gifting Circle at the site, from which 18th Street received a grant for programming.

In 2017, with the help of a RSF construction loan, 18th Street plans to break ground on a project to replace a deteriorating building with 12 additional studio spaces. It is also redesigning the campus to make it more pedestrian friendly and to draw more visitors from the soon-to-open light rail Metro station next door. Most important, 18th Street will be able to continue performing its vital mission of supporting contemporary artists.

“People often think contemporary artists are not as important as historical artists, who have proven their worth over time,” says Williamson. “But we can’t anticipate who will be important and who will not, except for an educated guess. What we we’re doing is supporting artists as they create new work today.”

“Within that moment of vulnerability, when the work

enters the public view, the artist relinquishes control of the

experience, of the work. It is this release of control that

defines the nature of gift.”

Miles Chapin, sculptor, chiseling stone.

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Upcoming Events – Winter 2016 what’s aheadThe next RSF Quarterly theme is Social Finance and it will be published in April 2016. We like hearing from you! Send any comments on this issue or ideas for the next to [email protected] Alliance for Public Waldorf Education Conference

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