New Book Uses Stories to Inspire Young Artists

Indianapolis, August 24, 2015 (Newswire.com) - Addie Hirschten's new book, The Alchemy of Art: Stories for the Classroom, grew out of the painter's desire to engage and inspire young artists. What better way to engage children, she thought, than to tell them stories? She went on a hunt for folktales, literature and true stories about art and artists, and she worked to adapt and condense the stories she found into tales she could tell her young students as they worked on their own art projects in an outreach program at the Indianapolis Art Center. The result was a collection of stories designed to create an inspirational atmosphere in the art classroom, and she has gathered 50 of those stories in a book that is a valuable resource for arts educators.

Pulling the book together was not an easy process. It took Hirschten four years to collect and adapt the stories, and the process of adaptation was sometimes challenging.

Hirschten's search for stories ranged far and wide, in both geography and history, and in The Alchemy of Art, she leaves no cultural stone unturned in order to find the perfect tales. She turns to ancient Greece for stories of the Muses and Pygmalion, but she also leaps forward to the 19th century to include Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. She examines the lessons taught in the biographies of artists as legendary as Michelangelo, but she also finds inspiration in the lives of 20th-century artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Friedensreich Hundertwasser and Frida Kahlo.

The stories in The Alchemy of Art are especially well suited to use in the classroom--they are appropriate for all ages, and they can be shared in five minutes or less--but they work just as well for artists looking for a burst of inspiration as they consider their own work.

A book launch party at the Indianapolis Art Center on September 10, 2015, from 7 to 9 pm will mark the official debut of The Alchemy of Art, but the book is available now, in both ebook and print verions, wherever books are sold. For details, visit http://www.azhirfineart.com/alchemy-of-art-book/.

Addie Hirschten is a contemporary Impressionist painter. She serves on the faculty at the Indianapolis Art Center, and she has participated in both group and solo shows in Indianapolis and central Indiana. She is also a public speaker and storyteller.

Contact:

Addie Hirschten

ahirschten@gmail.com