Three-day plain air workshop in Kazimierz Dolny
On 5 September 2022, IB2 VA students, alongside the IBDP Coordinator, Ewa Stawecka, and English teacher, Mateusz Białas, went to Kazimierz Dolny on the Vistula to participate in a three-day plain air workshop. Not only did our students have the opportunity to visit the studio of the painter Jerzy Krzysztoporski, but also to see a 160-year-old cottage, typical of the Lublin Region.
The latter belongs to Professor Waldemar Baraniewski who was so kind as to give us a guided tour of his delightful dwelling. Later, the Professor talked about the work of exhibition curators, the responsibility that all VA students are supposed to assume as part of their final exams.
Moreover, the students saw the photography exhibition by Zbigniew Nita, Tomek Sikora and Pavlo Dorohoi, the paintings by Grażyna Ulman as well as the exhibition by Stanisław Chmielewski, a Professor of Mathematics, in the Dzwonnica city gallery.
As part of the Pardes Festival (in Hebrew, ‘pardes’ means ‘garden’ or four ways of reading the Torah), there were also lectures on the artists who are barely known to the Polish audience, such as a painter Helena Berlewi or a sculptor Eli Nadelman, born on Marszałkowska Street in Warsaw.
Over and above, IB2 students visited the newly refurbished museum in the Celejowska Tenement House, where one can relish the chance to watch a marvellous collection of the artists inextricably intertwined with the pre-war artistic colony of Kazimierz Dolny as well as of some later artists for whom this town was a place of inspiration.
On the whole, VA students worked on their CS and PP both in teams and individually. The weather outside was very good, and during the dinner prepared together, we talked about art and not only… Kazimierz’s colours and light were genuinely favourable for sketching and painting experiences of the students who found themselves the entire trip very inspiring.
