Private lessons and small group classes
for adults, teens & children
in the Hudson Valley and NYC

please visit here for more information


and, to read students' thoughts on study with Shuster, please visit here

please don't hesitate to call or write with any questions.
i look forward to working with you.

Making a mark on paper - drawing charcoal across a surface, bringing paint to canvas - it's a mystery, and a beautiful one, how utterly and deeply I'm moved by this simple act.... it touches the deepest part of me and often prompts song and spontaneous thanks .... and, if I'm lucky, with time, song emerges on my paper or canvas too... Of course, I don't mean to say that every moment in the studio is a joy. But to work from and for one's heart, that's truly a blessing, both grounding and liberating…

I hope you'll join me on another occasion to explore our world, ourselves and that wondrous, simple act of making marks on paper.

o glorious spring!

For the Love of Art
life drawing workshop

for adults & teens (ages 16 & up)

May 15, 16 & 17 (friday, saturday & sunday)
10am-5:30pm each day with break for lunch

Art and art-making open our eyes, and stir our hearts and our minds in unexpected ways. They are vital resources for the individual and the community. While art-making is an act of creating, it also provides inspiration for further creativity of all kinds in all facets of our lives. As we know, creativity is essential to life, creativity is life. In this time, when the earth seems to be moving beneath our feet, it is a fine time to tap into our greatest ingenuity, our highest spiritual and creative selves, and to revel in the beautiful simplicity of charcoal on paper.

from THE ART OF SEEING by J. Krishnamurti:

"We were saying the other day how very important it is to observe. It is quite an art to which one must give a great deal of attention. We only see very partially, we never see anything completely, with the totality of our mind, or with the fullness of our heart. And unless we learn this extraordinary art, it seems to me that we shall be functioning, living, through a very small part of our mind, through a small segment of the brain. We never see anything completely, for various reasons, because we are so concerned with our own problems, or we are so conditioned, so heavily burdened with belief, with tradition, with the past, that this actually prevents us from seeing or listening. We never see a tree, we see the tree through the image that we have of it, the concept of that tree; but the concept, the knowledge, the experience, is entirely different from the actual tree....."
Madras
January 3 1968