Spotlight | on students, classes & instructors

Not Just an Actress | Donald Seigel

“Live From New York, it’s Saturday Night.” If you’ve been conscious and living on this planet for any of the four previous decades you’ve no doubt heard this introduction, and, at least once, taken in the hour and a half of late night satirical comedy that followed. For me, like so many others, watching Saturday Night Live was a weekly ritual enacted with no less than ten of my closest friends; it was the very centerpiece of my weekend around which all other events revolved.  More

Jump on the Fitness Train | Amanda McCauley Higgins

A twenty-four year old volleyball player had the bad luck of discovering he had developed a tumor in his shoulder crippling his ability to play ball. The doctors delivered the unbearable news that it was, in fact, a rare form of cancer. The boy had the tumor removed as soon as possible, and immediately began radioactive treatment. It was during this treatment, in which he stayed in a lead room for several days, that the doctors noted his exceptionally fast recovery. More

Drawing Room | Christian Chensvold

Image by BAC student Robert Kane

Learning to see the world as a series of lines and shapes is the first step in becoming an artist. And developing this basic skill is more popular than ever at the Brentwood Art Center, where beginning and advanced students alike are signing up for classes in the fundamentals of drawing. More

Dean’s List | Christian Chensvold

Photo by Julia Dean student Will Cole.

There’s an artist inside you, you just don’t know it.

It may require a natural gift to become a Mozart or Rembrandt, but photography is one art form that anybody can do with a little training. “I tell my beginning students that one of the many reasons I love photography is that you don’t have to be born with an innate talent,” says Julia Dean. “It can become a learned skill. It took me seven years to create my first good photo.” More

The Power of a Song | Donald Seigel

As a writer, I have always wanted to share the experience that impacted and shaped my life more than any other: the early loss of my father and what it was like growing up without the presence of a male role model.  I always assumed this would be in the form of a book, given the amplitude of the loss and all I had to express.  My assumption magically changed with an introduction to a songwriting workshop taught and run by a most incredible woman. More