12 Jul Rudolf Steiner’s Art of the Identifying Motif A Search for a New Motif for the Anthroposophical Society in Canada.
Early in Rudolf Steiner’s public life, he developed the practice of creating unique identifying motifs for anthroposophical activities. These motifs quickly became visual cues that artistically communicated the essential anthroposophical character of what was taking place. Rudolf Steiner’s intention was that these unique forms would stand as a signature for what was arising out of his work. These forms rapidly became identifying elements integrated with anthroposophical events and initiatives. These distinct identifiers quickly established that the event taking place was arising out of, and in relationship to, Rudolf Steiner’s impulses.
Over the years this new art form has evolved extensively, becoming integral to anthroposophical initiatives wherever they occur. As such the quest for an appropriate motif, often accompanied by lettering that relates to the form, and colours that enhance it, have become inseparable from anthroposophical initiatives. One of the most important steps in developing a public presence for an initiative is the search for an identifying motif that captures its essential character in a visual sign.
Out of this longstanding practice, the Council of the Anthroposophical Society in Canada has begun a search for a new, distinct motif for the work in Canada.
Background
Over the past decade Federal regulations governing charitable organizations have significantly changed. This has meant that these organizations have had to review their structures and adapt their purposes to these new conditions. This has affected a broad range of charitable organizations across the country, among them the Anthroposophical Society in Canada.
In response, the Council for the Society, along with its professional advisers, have undertaken an extensive review of the Society’s structure and purpose. This has led to the by-law revisions adopted in 2014, as well as the granting of the Certificate of Continuance under the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act. Accompanying this process, the Council has worked extensively with groups of members across the country on the development of an updated “Purpose”. The intention of the “Purpose” is to capture with a brief statement the central impulse that lies behind the organization. This development of a new statement of purpose, took place from 2013 to 2015, arising out of the contributions of members across the country.
Purpose of the Society
This process resulted in the draft of a revised formulation of the Purpose that was presented to members in the 2016 AGM, and is currently being reviewed by federal regulators. This is provided here along with the wording of the original Purpose as it appeared in the Charter of the Society when it was first established in 1953, and as was reconfirmed when the Society was incorporated as a Charitable Organization in 1988.
Purpose of the Anthroposophical Society in Canada – 1953 and 1988
To promote and foster the study of the science of Anthroposophy and the dissemination of its principles, according to the teachings of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, and thereby to promote and foster the development of human brotherhood and the moral, artistic and cultural life of humanity.
Purpose of the Anthroposophical Society in Canada – 2016
To foster the life of the soul and a true spiritual understanding of the world, both in the individual and in human culture, based on the path of knowledge brought by Rudolf Steiner; our intention is to make a contribution to the artistic, scientific, and cultural life of today, and for the future.
The activities of the Society have not fundamentally changed. In 2016, there is less of an emphasis on disseminating the work of Rudolf Steiner, and more on fostering the life of the soul, and awakening to the spiritual dimension of life, based on the spiritual knowledge brought by Rudolf Steiner.
Anthroposophical conferences, workshops and lectures are both educational in nature, and have a strong artistic component to them. The Society’s activities place an emphasis on developing relationships, on meeting each other. Many of us who participated in the 2016 Ottawa conference experienced this “Encountering our Humanity” and a way of working together that was a co-creating experience. The emergence of individual initiative, research, a strong artistic component, and the 7th Social Art of co-creating are developing processes in the Society across Canada.
With its adoption of this revised formulation, the Council of the Society sought for a process that will also lead to the development of a new Identifying Motif that will give a new artistic stamp to it. As with the development of the Purpose, the Council seeks to involve artists working out of an anthroposophical art impulse, to become coworkers in this quest. To support the Council with this task, they have asked the Canadian members of the Visual Art Section Council to help guide the process.
What is the Quest?
How do we capture this new gesture of our shared work in Canada as a new motif that reflects this newly adopted Purpose? One that reflects our time, and that can carry us into the future of the Anthroposophical Society in Canada? It is an exciting and potent moment! Will you help?
The intention is that this process includes the selection of a lettering font that complements the Motif and includes the Society’s formal name, in both official languages.
Anthroposophical Society in Canada / La Société Anthroposophique au Canada
The goal is to establish a standard motif and font that provides a consistent visual recognition for all of the Society’s communications and publications. This would extend, in a similar manner, to the Society’s online presence.
As part of this quest, over the next six years we are preparing for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the General Anthroposophical Society, at the Christmas Conference of 1923/24. Our hope is that this new Motif and lettering for our Society, will contribute to the impulse of the Society in Canada toward this commemoration.
The History of the Motif Adopted in 1988
In 1953 a small group of members took the step of separating themselves from the Anthroposophical Society in the United States to found a new Society in Canada. At the time, a majority of these individuals lived in the Toronto area. As such, the structure of the new Society developed around this geographic centre. The Executive Council of the Society lived in the same area and became the group that carried communication with the members and the Goetheanum for the following decades.
As anthroposophy proliferated in Canada this geocentric structure of the Society became less and less representative of the membership. Substantial groups, and centres of activity developed in Montréal and Vancouver, with smaller centres in multiple locations on both sides of the continent. By the 1970’s, the tension between the geographic dispersion of the membership and the geocentric structure of the Society came to a crisis.
The use of proxies at the Annual General Meeting was the only option available for members wanting to become active participants in the management of the Society. In 1975, 22 years after the founding of the Society, a representative of the membership in the West was asked to participate in the Annual General Meeting with enough proxies to control the AGM and the decisions made there. This representative, Steven Roboz, was one of the founding members of the Society in Canada. While in Toronto he had an important personal experience, a sense of the human essence of one of the members of the Executive who was perceived as blocking change.
Stephen Roboz decided that this experience of the essential humanity of the other had to take precedence over establishing a new organizational structure. This personal experience, and the decisions arising out of it, then created an opening for a slow metamorphosis of the structure that occurred over the following decade. Slowly members from across the country became active on the Executive. This new leadership for the Society began meeting with members across the country, searching together for a form that could adequately support the complexity of the membership and their initiatives.
Two significant processes for change were occurring concurrently with this quest for a new structure for the Society. Most significant for those in Canada was the aftermath of the 1980 referendum on Sovereignty Association for Québec and the increasing politicization arising from it. At the same time, the Anthroposophical Society in the United States went through the process of reviewing its own organizational structure and making the decision to regionalize its structure.
These two processes had a significant impact on the exploration for an appropriate form for the work in Canada. Soon after the first Québec referendum, the Council of the Society in Canada made the pivotal decision that whatever form should arise it was critical that our structure fully integrate and support Francophone members. This was in stark contrast to the regionalizing process in the United States. This decision acted as a primary impetus for what developed, and then was formally adopted in 1988. The basic structure that arose for the Society was one of movement and inclusion. That the Council for the Society was made up of members from across the country, and that it would travel from centre to centre to hold its meetings, and that the AGM would be held in different places each year became the pillars of its way of working. Behind all of these steps was a conscious striving to bring about forms that would weave and connect members in an immediate way through the “roving” nature of its activities. This wide and inclusive gesture became one of the primary considerations in the Motif being developed at the same time.
The other realization, that had an influence on the development of motif, was that the membership at the time had two strong, and seemingly opposite ways of working with anthroposophy. On the one hand there was a proliferation of activities seeking to spread and make public the work of anthroposophy, the “wideners”. These activities were complemented by those who felt the need to deepen and quietly strengthen the life of anthroposophy, the “deepeners”. Once recognized, these two gestures within the life of anthroposophy in Canada were easily identified as fundamental to its gesture in Canada.
It is these two fundamental recognitions: first the significance of imagining the Society as a living activity that encompassed all of the regions of the country, and the double nature of the members and their activities, to deepen and to widen the life of anthroposophy, that provide the genesis for the form of Identifying Motif that then was adopted in 1988.
The colours used were selected to reflect the broad gesture of the Anthroposophical Society in Canada which mirrors that of the world Society centered at the Goetheanum. A light rose stationary was selected with a soft moss green ink for the new Motif, colours that were intended to have an artistic connection with those of the membership cards for the General Anthroposophical Society
An Impulse to Support Visual Artists
Along with both processes – the revision of the Society’s structure and the development of a new “Purpose” along with the goal to develop a new Motif – the Council of the Society in Canada has had an ever increasing awareness of the importance of the arts for our work together. At the same time artists experience that they are working in isolation, finding it difficult to come into relationship to the wider anthroposophical community. The recognition of this tension was central to the decision of the Council to support the largest juried exhibition of visual artist that has ever occurred in north America as part of the 2016 North American conference in Ottawa.
With the goal of furthering opportunities for visual artists, the Council seeks to use the need for a new motif as a vehicle to further the contribution of visual artists. This has resulted in the development of this project.
Project Outline
Against this background, and with the development of a newly adopted Purpose, the Council is inviting artists to become active in the development of a new Motif for the Society in Canada. This article provides a picture of what has been done, and a history of what brings us to this point. This process will be guided by a collaboration of members of the Council of the Society and of the Visual Art Section in Canada.
The following is an outline of how this will take place.
- Identification of Participants
After reading this background, if you would like to participate in the process, please contact either Bert Chase or Dorothy LeBaron, whose contact information is below. Please provide your contact information and indication of interest by September 01, 2017
- Formal issuance of the Call:
Once the participants have been identified, the detailed structure for the call for submissions will be circulated and a submission schedule provided.
- Selection of Finalists
The jurying of submissions will take place as a blind competition.
- Preliminary Selection of Finalists:
Based on the submissions received, the committee will provide three recommendations for finalists.
- Publication of Work:
In order to support the artists participating, the Society will publish in Glimpses, and on its website, the submissions of the finalists. The intention is to share with the membership what has been submitted, and to provide the artists an opportunity to elaborate on their work and ideas.
- Final Selection:
Out of this process a final selection will be made and developed.
- Formal Award:
A formal acknowledgment of the selected motif and artist will take place, and a formal recognition included on the Society’s website.
Both the Council of the Anthroposophical Society in Canada and the Project team of the Visual Arts Section very much look forward to working with visual artists on this exciting project. Please contact Bert Chase or Dorothy LeBaron and let them know of your interest in participating.
Bert Chase Dorothy LeBaron
865 Roche Point Drive 5 Victor Ave.
North Vancouver, BC Toronto, ON
V7H 2W6 M4K 1A7
Telephone: 604-988-6458 Telephone: 416-465-2830
<hsca.inc@gmail.com> <lebaron@nauticalmind.com>
Barbara Gunther
Posted at 15:18h, 21 MayI could not find the submissions sent in by the various artists. I had hoped to see all of them, then the short list. Also had hoped to be able to contribute to the final choice, as I am very interested in such images…In which issue of Glimpses were they published? I checked quite a few, but found nothing.
The first glimpse I saw of them was at the current AGM. They were posted,but no invitation for comment was issued