Van James is an artist, author, Steiner-Waldorf educator, and international advocate for the arts. A longtime teaching artist in Hawai'i, he is a council member of the Visual Art Section of North America, a mentor with the Academy of Himalayan Art and Child Development, editor of Pacifica Journal, and an award-winning author of numerous books on culture and the arts, including Painting with Hand, Head and Heart: A Natural Approach to the Art of Painting (2013); The Secret Language of Form: Visual Meaning in Art and Nature (2007); and Spirit and Art: Pictures of the Transformation of Consciousness (2003).
In drawing attention to the fundamental elements of form inherent in all graphic and sculptural art, Van James opens our eyes to the alphabet of the language of form. Through the simplest of indications, we find ourselves able to read the meaning of works of art from other cultures and times. We begin to know these cultures and peoples in ways we could not know through oral and written language alone. Likewise, we can begin to read the language that Mother Nature speaks through the form of every created object and being. We can join those on the cutting edge of a new science that investigates the spiritual forces at work within physical phenomena through exact perception of qualities of form. For everyone who is fascinated by nature, art, and life in different cultures.