Creative Workshop & Residence

Creative Workshop: Interdisciplinary Engineering - Art - Innovation and Sculpture - Thin Shells of Reinforced Concrete Modeling

The Philosophy

Albert Einstein: The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

Karl Jaspers: Training for [...] professions is spiritless and makes us inhuman if it does not lead us back to the whole, develop our perceptiveness, or show the wider horizon—in short, if it does not give us the "philosophical" perspective.

George Santayana, about tourists: The human heart is local and finite, it has roots: and if the intellect radiates from it, according to its strength, to greater and greater distances, the reports, if they are to be gathered up at all, must be gathered up at that centre. A man who knows the world cannot covet the world; and if he were not content with his lot in it (which after all has included that saving knowledge) he would be showing little respect for all those alien perfections which he professes to admire. They were all local, all finite, all cut off from being anything but what they happened to be; and if such limitation and such arbitrariness were beautiful there, he has but to dig down to the principle of his own life, and clear it of all confusion and indecision, in order to bring it too to perfect expression after its kind: and then wise travellers will come also to his city, and praise its name.

Johannes Bettisch: What I saw travelling through the world helps me understanding what I didn't see.

Who, What and Where

Who: For anybody younger or elder, learning or for the pleasure to learn, travelling or having found home, and who, like us, doesn't stop "digging down to the principle of his own life... in order to bring it too to perfect expression after its kind".

What: "Informal debates" on fundamentals of art, technology, creativity, innovation and training to experiment hands-on, as a leisure artist, the medium of reinforced concrete thin shells, completing during our travel, the discovery of a "wider horizon / arbitrariness", of industrial and engineering beauty among many others and "leading us back to the whole". Also, where possible, we can organize lectures and debates on interdisciplinary themes with the participation of some of our special guests.

Where:

• anywhere during our tours, at no extra cost. For all our guided tours longer than 8 - 12 days, we organize (at request), a cycle of 3 - 5 participative workshops, during different days, at the end of the travel program. We "concretize" the philosophic debates with the discovery of the reinforced concrete thin shells technology, utilized industrially for spectacular architecture works, but applied here for modeling small artifacts. By the end of the trip, coached by our guide Marius Hegedus (an engineer and sculptor having experienced this medium), each participant will have created his own (small) artwork. All the needed materials and tools are supplied and transported by us. The workshops will be held in adequate spaces (with current water, work table, chairs) provided by certain accommodations.
• In Resita, at Marius Hegedus' Workshop. Sessions of 5 sittings, any time, during a week or longer. Price: €150 per group of maximum 3 persons.
• In our residence, in the "Trei Ape" Lake mountain resort, in Romania. Sessions of 1 week (6 days / 7 nights) can start any time in July and August. Price: €300 per room, hosting maximum 3 persons; for a total capacity of 14 persons. Included: accommodations (a room in the residence), presentations, daily assistance for the intended works (might be decorative zoo / anthropomorphic or abstract shapes, or utilitarian like vases or flower pots), materials (cement adhesive, plaster, polishing plaster coat, wire and fiberglass nets), access to the work studio, to the self catering facilities, and the other mentioned facilities if needed. The participants should have (or preliminary order from us) their own tools (putty knifes, rounded knife, protection gloves, plastic recipes for mixing) and eventually the desired finishing materials (spray / acrylic / oil paints and brushes or ceramics, faience, gritstone - possible in small broken pieces). The finishing has to be applied after the shape's solidification and requires its own drying time. In case of retouches, it might happen that the proposed work might not be finalized during the session.

We add an article about the thin shells reinforced concrete industrial technology and another one about related remarkable architecture works. For more info and reservations, please contact us.

The Residence

Our vacation house from Brebu Nou hosts arts & crafts workshops in the marvellous Semenic Mountains, the Trei Ape Lake resort, Romania. The house has to offer:

• 3 triple rooms (a matrimonial + a single bed) with a shared bathroom, for maximum 9 persons
• an apartment (2 communicating rooms + bathroom), for maximum 5 persons
• an approximate 30 square meters work studio, with self catering facilities (gas stove, fridge); also restaurants in the nearby
• a big garden, location surrounded by nature and a rivulet

An artist willing to rent the place shall recruit and bring his own participants. The renting price of the residence with/without the apartment can be found below:

• in June and September: €400/ €270 per week
• in July and August: €600 / €400 per week; or €150 per room per week

For reservations, a non refundable 30% deposit is required. Changing the period after the reservation has been made could be accommodated, depending on availability. For more details, please contact us.

We are also offering:

• reciprocal promotion for the artist, his workshops and other residences on this website; this requires a link to us from the partner's website
• free accommodations for 2-3 days in a room of our vacation house for artists having a background in organizing workshops and promoting them on their website
• in collaboration, arts & crafts tours and vacations including the artist's own offer (at his home location)
• our free assistance for local tourist attractions and for the arrival and departure trips
• a welcome presentation of M. Hegedus about his sculpture - modeling workshop with thin shells of reinforced concrete, assistance and materials for the participants who are willing to experience this too