I have been in San Francisco this week, attending a workshop with Juliette Aristides. She has researched and published rather extensively on classical methods of painting. The workshop has thus far had a lot of discussion based around technique-the first day we concerned ourselves with the value structure of a painting, the second was an inquiry into color and the third on drawing. Conceptual notions of beauty, meaning and teleology of paint have asserted themselves as well. Aristides views the atelier movement as a resistance to the post-industrial wasteland she sees us marching toward and views the role of the artist as to remind others of what we once had and have lost. These are values such as unity, appreciation of beauty, sense of place, purpose, sense of identity…