BY TERESE LOEB KREUZER
Winter session runs now through March
Natalie Carbone studied painting at the Art Students League and at St. Johns University — then taught art at the Parsons School of Design for 12 years. Still, for the last year and a half, she has been traveling an hour and a half each way from her home in Queens to take painting and drawing lessons from Enid Braun (who teaches in Battery Park City under the auspices of the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy).
“There’s no one like Enid,” Carbone said. “She’s a genius. I’ve learned everything about color from her — and I studied Josef Albers’ color theory for two years in college. I’ve learned about composition and texture. She’s taught me in pastel and oil pastel. Few people work with oil pastel. It’s one of the most difficult mediums there is.”
One of Carbone’s drawings is on the poster for an exhibit of student work at the B.P.C. Conservancy office (75 Battery Place). The work was created in art classes that ran from May to October. Now, winter sessions are starting and will run through the end of March.
Braun is teaching a class in figure drawing and Elise Engler is teaching “Introduction to Color & Painting.”
“Learning to make art is mostly about doing it,” said Braun. “The big thing for beginners is not to freeze and say, ‘Oh my gosh! I can’t do this!’ ” Braun said that she takes her students “as far as they can go. Some people are more serious than others. If some people are coming to play, I don’t want them to feel under pressure. But some people discover that they do want to be professional. My style is to teach one on one.”
“People think that drawing means having to draw realistically,” commented Engler. “They’re told that there’s the right way to do it and the wrong way. The idea is to let people work in their own way and find their own voice.”
That was the message that Rozanna Radakovich took away from her lessons with Larry Dobens, another B.P.C. Conservancy instructor. Radakovich, an administrative assistant and amateur photographer, has studied landscape painting with Dobens for the last eight years. “I’ve learned to just be myself,” she said. “He told me, ‘That’s your style. That’s the way you paint. That’s unique.’ ”
Jim Cozby, a retired graphic designer, has taken classes at the B.P.C. Parks Conservancy since the mid-1990’s, studying with both Dobens and Braun. “From Larry I learned to experiment,” he said, “and to be less judgmental about my work.”
“I feel my role is to find in each artwork the seed of something beautiful,” said Dobens, who has been teaching with the Conservancy for almost 20 years.
Dobens said that classes range in size from 10 to 30 people and that the Conservancy provides high-quality materials. “You don’t need to bring anything,” he said.
The Battery Park City Parks Conservancy’s art classes are so highly regarded that people come to them from various parts of the city: the West Village, Soho, Tribeca, the Upper East Side, Queens — and, of course, from Battery Park City itself.
From spring to fall, the classes are held outdoors in South Cove. The three-hour winter classes take place on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons in the Verdesian Meeting Room (211 North End Ave.) and cost $290 for nine sessions — including all materials. Everyone is welcome, from beginners to experienced artists.
For more information, or to register, call 212-267-9700, ext. 366 or 348. The art exhibit in the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy office can be viewed from Monday to Friday, 2pm to 4pm, through March 4.
