How much are you willing to sacrifice to ensure the craft you love will serve others? Not all revolutions come in the form of coups and guillotines. Often, a revolution consists of choosing to challenge accepted ways of doing things, ultimately to create a brand new approach that inspires, influences, and unlocks each person’s fresh potential and leaves a brand new legacy behind for others. Revolutionary acts like these can often require significant self sacrifice.
Such revolutionary selfless love and deep commitment to one’s craft can be a rare occurrence that is rarely recognized by contemporary peers. It is often appreciated primarily by subsequent generations, those that come afterward, who most experience the real beneficial effects of such extraordinary gestures. The true revolutionary realizes this, and still advocates for and actively implements radical changes, the benefits of which he or she will hardly be able to experience in their own lifetime. One who selflessly loves their craft will be willing to upset norms because they strive for a cause that is important. Especially when it comes to educating our young, these rare few revolutionary people step up and are willing to sacrifice for the next generation.
In the realm of the arts, there have been many individuals who have influenced and sacrificed to advance their craft: names like Leonardo Da Vinci, Van Gogh and Michelangelo have left an extraordinary mark in history through their distinct craft. In the tradition of these masters, our search for a revolutionary in arts education has led us to Myron Barnstone. Born February 20, 1993, Barnstone was an American modernist artist, painter, and master art teacher, internationally known for his work featuring the compositional system of dynamic symmetry, who showed a remarkable level of selfless devotion to creating and sustaining a unique approach to fundamental arts education.
Barnstone started drawing at an early age. He was born and raised in Portland, Maine, and graduated from Deering High School. He briefly attended the Portland School of Fine and Applied Arts, and later, got into a commercial art school, the New England School of Art in Boston. In the mid-1950s, Barnstone was enlisted in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War and was honorably discharged in 1957. After serving, he attended the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at the University of Oxford in England through the G.I. Bill. During his time at Ruskin, Barnstone was influenced by the British painter (and Myron’s drawing teacher) Geoffrey Hamilton Rhoades; Myron also discovered the Fletcher System of palette control here, and was introduced to Charles Bouleau’s seminal work, The Painter’s Secret Geometry: A Study of Composition in Art.
Barnstone was deeply affected by the fate of the Jewish community during WWII, including members of his own family. A large body of his work focuses on the plight of survivors of the Holocaust and nuclear devastation. Myron was dedicated to the work for peace, and knew that to prevent such horrors in the future, tremendous effort would need to be focused on youth, the citizens of tomorrow. In 1966, before moving to France, Barnstone performed a ceremonial burning of a great deal of his work, symbolizing the ephemeral nature of victims of war. To Barnstone, the burning of these paintings was akin to releasing the past to make room for the future.
Barnstone studied and travelled widely in Europe, and visiting museums to study original works and becoming a follower of the system of dynamic symmetry called the Golden Section, alternately called the Golden Ratio or the Golden Mean. It was in his studio in Spain where he reached his artistic mastery, discovering his own unique artistic voice as well as his skills at teaching. In 1976, Barnstone returned to the United States, settling in Allentown, Pennsylvania and began teaching at the Baum School, Moravian College, and the Lehigh University.
Just one year later, Barnstone founded Barnstone Studios in 1977, a studio that to this day continues to teach Myron Barnstone’s methods to students of all skill levels. Myron taught at Barnstone Studios for more than thirty-five years: the core of his teaching revolves around the mastery of traditional drawing and design systems that he felt should be required training for any student of classic design. His classical, atelier-style approach flew in the face of many more modern approaches that put talent and superficial technique above practice, precision and mastery of fundamental concepts.
In 2014, Barnstone decided to retire from his live, in-person art school. He moved from Whitehall Township to Frederick, Maryland, and continued to teach students virtually. While his recorded lectures had been available since 2005, in 2014, he placed a new emphasis on making the classes available to students across the globe by selling DVDs and virtual sessions of his classes through his website. In addition, Myron published two works relating to art education during his lifetime; The Barnstone Studios and Dartmoor.
Barnstone passed away on October 29, 2016, at the age of 83, leaving behind a huge impact on the Lehigh Valley, Philadelphia, and the New York art scene. Recorded and live classes taught by his alumni continue to teach principles of the Barnstone Method to this day through Barnstone’s online presence, BarnstoneStudios.com. Thanks to his tutelage, he helped launch the careers of many award-winning commercial and fine artists: in fact, thousands of Barnstone Studio alumni have gone on to distinguished careers in art-related fields around the globe
Myron Barnstone was a unique mentor in many ways: he was passionate, demanded dedication and perseverance, and found a myriad of ways to help his students to excel by finding their own unique artistic voices. Barnstone’s daughter, Catherine ‘Cat’ Barnstone told a publication spotlighting Myron that, “…none of his students ever saw it (his work). He didn’t want to influence how they saw things.” Myron selflessly released the pursuit of personal fame in favor of teaching; he had the dedication and foresight to train master instructors, capture those lessons, and take advantage of modern technology to share this knowledge to students worldwide. Dedicating his life to teaching the next generation, Myron helped revolutionize fundamental arts education, ensuring that every person who wished (not just the talented, but truly every person) could indeed “learn to draw very well.”