UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — “I can’t draw.” “I’m not an artist.” “I’m not the creative type.” These are claims we hear daily, but what is creativity? Stuart Kestenbaum will offer his thoughts on that topic based on his nearly 30-year tenure as the director of Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Kestenbaum’s lecture, "Writing and the Creative Process," part of the Penn State School of Visual Arts’ Anderson Lecture Series, will take place at 3 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 8, in the Palmer Museum of Art's Palmer Lipcon Auditorium.
Kestenbaum is the author of four collections of poems: "Pilgrimage" (Coyote Love Press), "House of Thanksgiving" (Deerbrook Editions), "Prayers and Run-on Sentences" (Deerbrook Editions), and "Only Now" (Deerbrook Editions). He has also written "The View from Here" (Brynmorgen Press), a book of brief essays on craft and community. Kestenbaum has written and spoken widely on craft making and creativity, and his poems and writing have appeared in numerous small press publications and magazines, including Tikkun, The Sun, Beloit Poetry Journal, and others, and on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac.
He was the director of the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine, for 27 years. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Educator Award from the James Renwick Alliance. Currently chair of the American Craft Council, he was named an honorary fellow of the council in 2006. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser has written, “Stuart Kestenbaum writes the kind of poems I love to read, heartfelt responses to the privilege of having been given a life. No hidden agendas here, no theories to espouse, nothing but life, pure life, set down with craft and love.”
This lecture is co-sponsored by College of the Liberal Arts, and the John M. Anderson Endowed Lecture Series.