Please note: This is a hybrid event: you may attend online or in-person at Lightforms Art Center. Email info@lightformsartcenter.com to register for the online viewing link and for more details. 

Peter Elsner studied visual arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Braunschweig (1980), and transformation and metamorphosis at the Goethean Studies Center in Vienna (1989).From 1990-1997 he taught drawing, painting, and modeling at the Goethean Studies Center in Vienna, and from 1998-2022 he was a lecturer and teacher at Snellman-korkeakoulu in Helsinki.

Elsner’s research into metamorphosis has resulted in both artworks and publications. His books include Metamorphosis in Nature and Art, published by Hawthorn Press in 2013, HOMO LUDENS (2021), and Grundlagen zur Metamorphosengestaltung (2010 and 2025). His work continues to investigate transformation as both an artistic process and a fundamental principle of nature.

https://www.peter-elsner.com/

We are surrounded by light and darkness. Colors exist as the result of light. We enjoy colors in our environment - plants, clothing, food, wall paints. Our inner world of emotions reacts to light and color even if we are not conscious of them. Science is slowly coming to understand and accept color and light as a healing modality. They are coming to it by a very long route but we will explore it by shortest possible route – we will look within. To understand how color can be used as a healing modality, we will go back in history, realize how much was known, how much was suppressed over the centuries, and how we can use it today thanks to many courageous people who believed all along that “we are born of light, we live in light, and we die in light” (saying by Osho). These teachers spent decades teaching and documenting about healing of various known and unknown malaises.

Mariola Strahlberg has been using color and light in her acupuncture and children’s practice for over 25 years. She became aware of her won sensitivity to light, weeks after college, while working at Bell Labs under fluorescent lights and having experiences with electronic devices. Many years later, in her acupuncture practice, in her search to help children with their health, learning and behavioral issues, she met many teachers who deepen her understanding that both color and light are tools that can be helpful when science has no answers. Come with an open mind, wear your favorite color, and take a trip into light and color world.

Please note: This is a hybrid event: you may attend online or in-person at Lightforms Art Center. Email info@lightformsartcenter.com to register for the online viewing link and for more details. 

Peter Elsner approaches art as a form of research to “penetrate deeper into the different levels of nature and spirit,” making the invisible visible. His multimedia practice, which includes photography, performance, digital art, and installation, centers on transformation and metamorphosis.

“For me, creative activity in the field of art was always like [being] on a sailboat that connected me to different directions of inner and outer being,” Elsner writes. He studied visual arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Braunschweig (1980), and transformation and metamorphosis at the Goethean Studies Center in Vienna (1989).From 1990-1997 he taught drawing, painting, and modeling at the Goethean Studies Center in Vienna, and from 1998-2022 he was a lecturer and teacher at Snellman-korkeakoulu in Helsinki.

In the second of the four mystery dramas written by Rudolf Steiner, we follow the familiar characters into greater complexities of crisis, as each meets the trial of soul he or she must pass. There are flashbacks to a shared former life in the middle ages,  increased attacks by the great adversarial beings Lucifer and Ahriman, and the tightening of the unconscious karmic knot that ties them to one another.

All of these will be brought as a ninety-minute storytelling by actress Laurie Portocarrero, in the midst of the art exhibited currently at Lightforms.

Rudolf Steiner said that, in these four dramas, is contained and depicted all of the wisdom of the human being, all of anthroposophy. He said if we really lived with the imaginations in these dramas, he would not need to write the books or give the lectures. In these dramas is the story of our own human struggle to develop and evolve beyond the forces that hinder us, toward true brotherly and spiritual love and the true community of the future.

Comments from the storytelling of the 1st Mystery Drama: "...I love that the characters came to life, as people who we know and care about..." "...Told in the storyteller's own words, this complex drama becomes relatable and graspable..." "...Filled with humor and life..."

Rick Harlow is a painter whose works are on view at Lightforms currently. Since 1986, he has spent much of his life among the indigenous peoples of Colombia, beginning in the Amazon with the Makuna and Yucuna, who first showed him how to build a deeper relationship with the natural world. Since 2008, he has worked closely with the Traditional Elders, or “Mamos,” of the Kogui, Arhuaco, and Wiwa peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in northern Colombia, supporting the preservation of their traditional practices.

In turn, the Mamos have shared with Harlow the “occult science” of their Law of Origin, teaching him, in his words, “to study nature, to see past the form and shape of things and perceive the energy that permeates all life.” This is what the Kogui Mamos call “The Invisible World.” The paintings in this exhibition emerge from that orientation: an investigation into and a manifestation of the understanding held by indigenous cultures around the world that everything is alive and contains its own energy.

Harlow will share more about his experiences at this lecture, and you will have an opportunity to ask questions, too.

Gail McManus is a communications counselor and mediator with training in Nonviolent Communication (NVC), New York State mediation, psychosynthesis, spiritual psychology, biographical counseling, and Waldorf education.

NVC, developed by Marshall Rosenberg, focuses on observation, feelings, needs, empathic listening, and clear requests to support understanding and constructive conflict resolution.

Gail is also a painter, bringing themes of balance, harmony, and personal transformation into both her artistic and professional work.

https://gailmcmanus.com/testimonials/