Bringing the Arts to Life Conference

We are sorry to report that BATLCon has been cancelled. We wish we could have gone forward, unfortunately we did not have enough registrants.

However, Luc Travers will be hosting a Touching The Arts event on Saturday, Nov. 19th. If you were interested in BATLCon, we're sure you will be interested in this event. Find out more information here: www.LucTravers.com

We hope to bring back BATLCon in the near future!
Best,
Lisa VanDamme
Luc Travers

Overview

For many years, passionate art educators Lisa VanDamme and Luc Travers have been teaching children and adults alike how to thoroughly understand, deeply appreciate and personally connect with great works of visual and literary art. They are now pleased to announce that they will be hosting their first ever weekend arts conference, with the goal of “Bringing the Arts to Life”—to your life.

In their classes, Miss VanDamme and Mr. Travers will introduce you to gems of poetry and painting, and will teach you a method of appreciation that will reveal how deeply moving, startlingly illuminating, and profoundly personal experiencing a classic work of art can be.

They will host a visit to the Getty Center, where you will have the opportunity to apply your new skill to some of the world’s most beautiful works of art in one of the world’s most beautiful settings for art, followed by a banquet dinner full of animated discussion of your discoveries.

And as a bonus, you will have the opportunity to observe a VanDamme Academy art and literature class, witnessing art education as it might and ought to be.

We hope you will join us for this soul-satisfying weekend of learning, discussing, exploring, socializing—and of enjoying great art. 

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Courses

Art — With Luc Travers

For many people, a visit to a museum feels like a draining cultural obligation or a tedious history lesson—not like a thrilling voyage to another world, with captivating characters, dramatic situations, and thought-provoking messages. It is only from books, music, TV and movies that they seek the drama, excitement, and inspiration of art.

Mr. Travers, a passionate lover of the visual arts, knows that some of the most deeply satisfying and intensely meaningful artistic experiences can come from gazing at a painting or sculpture. And he knows why most people don’t believe that.

None of us have been taught what to do when we are standing in front of a work of art.

The typical museum-goer wanders around the halls, stops to briefly examine a painting or sculpture, forms some cursory, unexamined reaction, reads the information on the plaque, and moves on. Hours later, he leaves the museum drained.

In this course, Mr. Travers will teach you what to do in front of a work of art: how to “read” it”—observing all the details, making connections, immersing yourself in its world, identifying the meaning, and relating that meaning to your own life. He will show that reading art can be as exciting as reading your favorite novel—and can leave you not drained, but invigorated.

Drawing from master visual “story tellers” such as John W. Waterhouse, Jean-Leon Gerome, John-Everett Millais, and more, Mr. Travers will help you learn, practice and master a method of true art appreciation that you will be forever able to recreate on your own.

The culmination of this experience will be the opportunity to apply your new skill to the treasure trove of art at the beautiful Getty Center Museum.

(Familiarity with Mr. Travers’s book or tours is helpful but not required.)

Poetry — With Lisa VanDamme

Many people have a vague apprehension that they should love classic poetry, but the consistent experience that they don’t. They might enjoy a few poems, but the pleasure is not deep enough and the discovery not common enough that it is an art they turn to eagerly and regularly.

The goal of this course is to show how captivating, how moving, how soul-satisfying poetry can be.

In this course, Miss VanDamme will explain why you do not typically experience the pleasure of a great poem simply by reading it. Full enjoyment requires that you follow a method—very simple, but rarely taught or understood—of unlocking the poem’s meaning and value.

In this course, you will learn that method. You will experience the process done for you—seeing the meaning and substance of a poem rapidly unfold before your eyes.  You will learn the steps in the process—discovering how to apply the simple, straightforward steps to seemingly impenetrable poems. You will practice the process—allowing you to master it and apply it any time on your own.

And you will do all this while being moved by some of the world’s most powerful poems. You will leave the course having been enraptured by classic poetry, believing it can happen again, and knowing how to make it happen.

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Schedule

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Register

Space is Limited to 40 – So Register Today!

Courses – Two Days of Art and Poetry Courses

Learn from innovative art educators Lisa VanDamme and Luc Travers how to more powerfully experience the arts. This package includes Miss VanDamme’s poetry course and Mr. Travers’s art appreciation course. Each course totals two-and-a-half hours split between Saturday and Sunday at VanDamme Academy. Lunch on Saturday, with the opportunity to mingle with Luc and Lisa, is also included.

Getty Experience – Tour and Banquet at the Getty Center

Join Lisa VanDamme and Luc Travers at one of the most beautiful art museums in the world. There you will apply the techniques you learned in the courses to the Getty’s wonderful collection of art. You will be directed to a hand-picked selection of powerful artworks, and with the aid of specially designed self-guided tour worksheets, you will experience an art museum like you never have before.

Following the visit to the museum, you will enjoy dinner in a private dining room on site at the Getty. The breathtaking venue includes a terraced walkway with views of the surrounding hills and Los Angeles basin. There you will have the opportunity to share your experiences with Lisa, Luc, and your new art museum companions.

(We strongly discourage you from choosing only the "Getty Experience" if you have not attended one of Luc Travers's tours or read his book Touching the Art.)

VDA In-Class Experience and Reception included with either package…

As part of your purchase of either the “Getty Experience” or the “Courses,” you are invited to join Mr. Travers’s junior high classes for an afternoon. Witness the enthusiasm of the students while getting a sneak peak at art education as it might and ought to be. Following the classes, you are invited to stay for a reception and informal discussion of education and the arts with Mr. Travers and Miss VanDamme.

More Information

If you have any questions (including queries about lodging and transportation around the conference) please contact Kate at mrswatkins@vandammeacademy.com, or call us at (949) 510-4861.

Space is Limited to 40 – So Register Today!

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About Us

My name is Luc Travers.  And this may sound unusual, but I don't remember going to an art museum until I was in my late teens, and I saw no reason to.  I only really got into art through my interest in history and philosophy.  And though I went on to get a degree in art history, I still felt there was something lacking in my appreciation of art.  That's when I started trying to figure out how to create a different kind of experience—one more like the kind I'd have while reading a novel and not a history book.

For the past ten years I've given tours at art museums from the Louvre to the Legion of Honor.  In 2006 I started teaching art appreciation to elementary and junior high students at the VanDamme Academy. And in the summer of 2009, I decided I needed put my ideas down on paper—one year later, I finished Touching The Art.

Today, I teach junior high literature and art appreciation at VDA, I give tours all over the U.S., and I'm excited to be hosting my first Bringing the Arts to Life Conference!

I am Lisa VanDamme, founder and director of VanDamme Academy, a private elementary and junior high school in Aliso Viejo, California. I often say (only somewhat facetiously) that my motivation for starting the school was resentment for my own education. And one of the subjects I resented most was literature.

Throughout my education, reading literature (and especially poetry) felt like a cultural duty, a history lesson, or a didactic chore. We hunted down metaphors and similes and symbols; we turned poetic masterpieces into vocabulary exercises; we studied the historic significance of the work and not the work itself; we forced our way through seemingly impenetrable text in the name of being “educated.”

Then I took one literature course that changed my life. I learned that great novels, plays, and poems were not collections of symbols, historical relics or vocabulary lessons—they were thrilling stories, epic characters, timeless themes. They were art.

Thereafter, I declared myself an “evangelist for literature.” Teaching literature at VanDamme Academy and at conferences around the country, I have had the privilege of awakening children and adults alike to the power of literary art. I am thrilled to have a new opportunity to bring art to life.

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Testimonials

Praise for Lisa VanDamme’s Poetry Courses

"This was an amazing course. I have always been taught to appreciate poems 'as they are' and not how they relate to my values and my life. For this reason I could never really connect to any poem. Lisa's method worked wonderfully and I look forward to reading many of the poems she recommended."

"[Lisa's] enthusiasm for the subject was contagious... Prior to this course my attitude toward poetry could be described as 'intentionally muddy to appear deep'."

"I got chills."

"Experiencing my understanding 'bloom' as I grasped what these strange words meant was uniquely valuable."

"I am a fan of Miss VanDamme's articles and videos on education, but was not very familiar with or appreciative of poetry. I took a chance, and it paid off!"

"I appreciated Ms. VanDamme's straight-forward and kind manner in making the poetry more accessible and acknowledging the struggles one might have in approaching it... Very enjoyable and moving course overall. Next time please provide tissues... it was a tearjerker several times over."

Praise for Luc Travers’s Tours and Book, Touching the Art

“For me (and I’m over 50) your tour made art visceral for the first time.”

“Up until your presentation I thought I could obtain this kind of fuel only from music and fiction.”

“I just want to say again how much I enjoyed it all - I've learned a great deal from your approach to art appreciation and I've been enjoying visual art my whole life as it was.”

“This book is amazing! I will never look at a painting or sculpture the same way. I had no idea that a work of art could be experienced in such a moving and personal way.”

“This book is both emotionally moving and deeply conceptual; intelligently written, concise, easily absorbed in an afternoon's read, yet affecting so many aspects of art and life that it will take years to fully apply. Wonderful for anyone who wants to enjoy art more or who seeks ways to motivate others to do so. The artworks discussed, all of which were unfamiliar to me, not only suit the purposes of the text but are moving, realistic romantic works that I am glad to know. Thank you, Mr. Travers!”