KIMONOS ART CENTER
To practice any art,
no matter how well or badly,
is a way to make your soul grow.
So do it.
Kurt Vonnegut,
THE CREATIVE HUB OF PAPHOS
CHARALAMBOS MARGARITIS
YIANNIS
SAKELLIS
Genius Loci
Kimonos Art Center / Self Portrait
Εντοπίζω σημαίνει εδώ καταρχήν: υποδεικνύω τον τόπο.
Κατόπιν θα πει: προσέχω τον τόπο.
Martin Heidegger
Kimonos Art Center has been active in the field of fine arts since 2015 and has already presented a rich body of work, making use of many means of creative expression and going through all the stages of artistic work.
In the Center's activities is included a complete educational program, with separate courses for children and individuals, covering the entire scope of fine arts (painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, animation and others), led by established artists, in collaboration with institutions and art schools (France, Germany, Denmark and others), in conditions that allow in its members to deepen the knowledge in the essence of their arts, to develop their technical knowledge and to constantly enrich their spiritual and philosophical wealth.
Since the beginning, its has been the main aim of the Center to locate, to demonstrate and to widen a fertile, free place, able to open up, on an every day basis, our ability for a fundamentally other situation, meaning a fundamentally other way of life.
The foundation of this place was sealed by the noble gesture of Kyriakos and Aphrodite Margaritis, who offered to the Center its base: the building at 2 Kimonos Street - their home.
The function of the Center is regulated by this dimension of home; the Center is a refuge and a basis, a shelter and a starting point; it aims at gaining and at spending, at offering and at distributing; as a home, the Center honors the principles of hospitality.
The way has found its place and the place (for example, Pafos) received its spirit: genius loci, a guardian angel, a new and life-bearing demon.
This dimension of the Center makes it impossible to attribute to it a precise definition. perhaps it resembles an evening school, an event space or a cultural café, but in reality it is something completely other than all these.
Above all, Kimonos Art Center, as a place, is its own specific way of being, which is: the unlimited care for all that we love; our attention (for people, the world, the things) expressed by the very serious game of art.
Those interested in being part of this, may visit the locations of the Center, in order to discuss with the artists and to get a personal experience of the creative atmosphere, the professionalism, the eventualities for various kinds of collaboration, but also of the quality of the education provided in the Center.
Λάθε Βιώσας*
Kimonos Art Center / Regulations
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At the spaces of the Center we live and work discreetly; for no reason does anyone shout or make noise; we respect the other members - teachers, students, fellow artists. If our work requires making noise, we inform the others beforehand and we make sure that this lasts as little as possible.
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In the Center, the principle of friendship and the cornerstone of the house is nobility: our participation in any way in the activities of the Center equals our initiation in the "aristocracy of the spirit".
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The code of principles and values on the basis of which the Center was founded is composed by these elements: dedication, the sense of mission, self-denial, integrity, assuming responsibility, honesty, proffessionalism, passion and endless seriousness. This is the code by which each member and friend of the Center is called to abide.
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The greatest work of art in Kimonos Art Center is the Center itself, the buildings, the studios, the exterior spaces; we make sure to keep them clean, by following the basic principles of health and safety, inside and outside of the spaces: materials and tools are returned in their place after having been used; teachers and students respect the space of which they are responsible: they clean and tidy it up after class is over; it is inconceivable for any member or friend of the Center to throw away cigarettes or rubish in the garden; no member or friend of the Center leaves the space (inside and outside) in a mess: ustensils (glasses, cups etc) are returned in the kitchen, where they are washed, so that the others may use them, without having to clean up in our place; we empty and clean ashtrays in outside bins and we never leave full ashtrays in the studios of the Center; we take extreme care of the space of the toilets, keeping in mind that someone else will have to clean up after us – by conseuqnece, if one likes living as a "messy artist", one may live as such in one's own place. The Center does not belong to the artists, it belongs to Art.
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We do not live and work in the Center in the expense of others, but on their behalf. Those unwilling to function with this principle have no place in the Center.
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Punctuality and precision are capital to the function of the Center: our working program is literally sacred. The members (teachers, students, associates) do not violate the schedule (by being late, not coming etc) unless there is a reason for it. in that case, they inform the others on time and make sure to make up for the absence, without having the others do their work for them.
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The members of the Center do not engage in any kind of gossip for artists outside of the Center, or the other various schools of art in Pafos, or elsewhere, for teachers, students etc. Gossip and whining is strictly prohibited in the Center.
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The members of the Center have to carry on with their training beyond the set working or class hours, by studying theoretical texts, following the various forms of artistic creation, cultivating their sensibilities and widening their spiritual range. In the Center we do not practice a "hobby" - in the Center we cultivate another way of life, which is outlined in the present set of regulations. Whoever prefers a different way is absolutely free to search for it and to apply it, but he will have to do so elsewhere.
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The Center is not the personal workshop for anyone. It is the open space in which all members coexist following the same strict regulations of use and behaviour: personal eccentricities and "strangenesses" do not have a place here.
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In the space of the Center, superficiality of any king is prohibited: every kind of amateurism of being stops in the threshold of the builfing. In the Center we exist professionally because our work, as well as our studio is our Promised Land.
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Most people have (with the help of conventions) turned their solutions toward what is easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must trust in what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it [...]. We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it. It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love.
Rainer Maria Rilke
*"Live Secretly" (Epicurus)