Dan Eastman (Residential College). I live in Winona, Minnesota, and teach interdisciplinary arts at Winona State University in the Residential College and the Mississippi River studies program. Typical classes include: Art and Physics, World Views and Drama, Cultural Time Constructs, Cultural Uses of Color, Photography, Creativity and Beauty, and Caribbean Festival Arts. I was a guest artist for a year with the Centre of creative and Festival Arts at The University of The West Indies in Trinidad, 1998-1999. I remain a conferred professor and serve on occasion as a third reader.  I return often including a 2005 Jerome Foundation Grant.

In 2004, I was able to travel in China on a Fulbright-Hays Seminar Abroad Grant where I encountered the Minjiang River which flows wild out of the mountains until bridled into one of the most ancient irrigation systems on earth. I also occasionally teach a field studio course, most recently in 2006, with our Pacific Challenge Study Abroad and Adventure Travel Program in New Zealand. While on Mt. Cook I followed a tumbling chaos of ice, rock, and water called the Tasmin River. These, along with the Mississippi River are all places of grandeur and grace that influence my art.

“The willingness to revive one’s location in order to place oneself in the path of beauty is the basic impulse underlying education.”

“How one walks through the world, the endless small adjustments of balance, is affected by the shifting weights of beautiful things.”

These two quotes from On Beauty and Being Just by Elaine Scarry compel me to continue making and sharing art with students. Reach me at: deastman@winona.edu.