Paul Ré
Paul Bartlett Ré (pronounced Ray) is an American artist, writer, poet, and peace worker. He is known for his book THE DANCE OF THE PENCIL: Serene Art by Paul Ré, his widely shown traveling exhibit of TOUCHABLE ART FOR THE BLIND AND SIGHTED, and most recently for the Paul Bartlett Ré Peace Prize administered by the University of New Mexico Foundation. His new book ART, PEACE, AND TRANSCENDENCE: Réograms That Elevate and Unite is published by UNM Press . It received the 2016 New Mexico – Arizona Book Award for Philosophy. http://nmbookcoop.com/BookAwards/2016-Winners/2016-Winners.html
In 2007, the University of New Mexico (UNM)established a bi-annual peace prize named after Paul Bartlett Ré honoring his commitment and work for promoting peace around the world. http://goodnewsnm.org/portfolio/paul-bartlett-re-peace-prize-unm-foundation/ In 2012, the pool of eligibility for the award was increased to include all UNM alumni, a group of about 160,000 individuals in 129 countries. The Ré Peace Prize has been endowed to operate in perpetuity.
Biography
Paul Bartlett Ré was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico in the U.S.A. in 1950. Valedictorian of his high school, Ré went on to earn a BSc in Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1972, graduating with honors (fifth in his class).{Veronda; 1977, 1989} Ré selected as medium the drawing pencil.
Ré started exhibiting in California and New Mexico during the 1970s. Since then, he has had 22 solo exhibits in 13 states, including those at the UNM Jonson Gallery, Albuquerque Museum, Triangle Gallery, Wichita Museum, Sumter Gallery, J. B. Speed Museum, the Colorado Springs Museum and the Karpeles Museum.
In 1979, Ré created the embossing works which gave a tactile form to his visual creations and the resulting exhibition “TOUCHABLE ART: An Exhibit for the Blind and the Sighted” traveled in the United States and into Canada from 1981 to 1994. The exhibition, with 18 showings, was met with great success{Wepman, 1988; Reed, 1990} and a handmade, Thermoformed companion volume with braille and text was produced in 1983. A documentary film on his Touchable Art was produced by SCETV in 1990. He is now making a second tactile exhibit INSPIRED BY NATURE which is dedicated to environmental conservation.
In 1993, the volume "THE DANCE OF THE PENCIL: Serene Art by Paul Ré” collected and chronicled the development of Ré's work up to that date.
Music is another facet of Ré's creativity. His 50-minute recording COMPOSITIONS FOR CLASSICAL GUITAR included an introduction to the traveling exhibit TOUCHABLE ART FOR THE BLIND AND SIGHTED. This was reviewed in the Summer 1986 issue of THE LOG OF THE BRIDGETENDER of the American Council of the Blind by Editor Sue Tullos.
Paul has received enthusiastic reviews from scientists and Nobel Laureates Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Richard Feynman and Roger Sperry; artists Georgia O'Keeffe, Raymond Jonson, and Ed Garman; Caltech President Emeritus Tom Everhart and many others. http://www.paulre.org/dance.html
In 2007, the University of New Mexico established a bi-annual peace prize named after Paul Bartlett Ré in recognition of his active work for promoting peace in the world.
Ré Peace Prize
Extending Paul Ré's work promoting "harmony in the world", the bi-annual Paul Bartlett Ré Peace Prize has been established at the University of New Mexico. http://www.paulre.org/peace.html Managed by the UNM Foundation, the bi-annual prize awards that UNM student, faculty, staff person, retiree or alumnus who has demonstrated notable achievements in promoting world peace and understanding.
The recipient of the award may be an artist but may also be an individual in any field who has pursued peace and harmony with creativity and dedication. Emphasis is on promoting both internal and external peace and fostering discussion of what really constitutes peace. Possible projects may be environmental, involve individual or social healing, integrative medicine, sustainable energy or green architectural design, art creation or preservation, human population control and family planning or any positive endeavor. Included is Conflict Resolution, but Conflict Prevention is to be particularly strongly emphasized.
The 2007 awardee was Stephen Littlejohn, faculty at UNM in communication and journalism. Alternate awardee was Arti Prasad, internal medicine professor at UNM. Honorable mentions were given to William Gross, professor emeritus, engineering, and Hakim Bellamy, graduate student in communications and journalism. In 2012, Bellamy became Albuquerque's first Poet Laureate .
In 2010 the awardees were Arti Prasad, founder of the UNM Center for Life and Peace Talks Radio , cited for its efforts in communications.[1] http://www.goodradioshows.org/peaceprize.htm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDpS7kwqsDE.
The 2012 awardees were William Brown for his environmental work including with the Climate Reality Project , and Peace Talks Radio for its more than 140 archived programs on a diversity of peace issues.
The winner of the 2014 Peace Prize in the general category was Peter Nardini for his work with Green World Health Net, a malaria prevention project which uses a solar powered fan to cool malaria nets so one can sleep under them; it also addresses climate change and poverty. Three lifetime achievement awardees were also named. The husband-wife musical team, Lynne Jackson and Mike Palter , who reside in Manchester by the Sea, Massachusetts (near Boston), are perhaps best known for their peace anthem, "We Dream a Brighter Day." The anthem was commissioned by the United Nations for the 40th anniversary of UNICEF. This, "The Peace Song" and their other compositions have been sung in churches, synagogues, events, and concert halls around the world. They are also known for their work with the “Jazz is a Rainbow” Program which bridges students from divergent backgrounds.
A Lifetime Achievement Award was also presented to Rudolfo Anaya Rudolfo Anaya, widely known as the Godfather of Chicano literature. The author of dozens of beloved works from Bless Me, Ultima to The Essays, he has long emphasized a deep respect for the environment and our sacred relationship with the earth. Albuquerque resident Anaya holds three degrees from UNM. He is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of English Language and Literature at UNM and has received numerous honors ranging from the Premio Quinto Sol Literary Award to the 2001 National Medal of the Arts. Anaya states, “Love never ends. We must renew our purpose daily. We must bless all of life.” For more on the 2014 awardees, please see .
Dr. David R. Muñoz is the winner of the 2016 Ré Peace Prize in the general category for his efforts in humanitarian engineering including water and sanitation projects in Honduras and other countries. He integrates local art and culture into the implementation of his projects and makes the development of understanding and harmony the focus of his work. Muñoz helped establish the Humanitarian Engineering minor at Colorado School of Mines, currently serves as a member of the Fetzer Institute Advisory Committee for Engineering Professionals, and co-founded Village Science, a non-profit working to enhance science education.
Three 2016 lifetime achievement awardees were also be named. William M. Brown III, a resident of Arroyo Hondo, N.M., was acknowledged for his environmental conservation and sustainability work. He is one of the primary presenters and mentors for The Climate Reality Project. Denise Elia Chávez (Denise Chavez) is an author, actor, and teacher who focuses her writing and advocacy on the border corridor of southern New Mexico, West Texas and northern Mexico. Chávez co-founded the internationally renowned Border Book Festival which brings public attention to books and art and their power to heal and transform the world. Chávez is now archiving and preserving the history of the region through the development of the Museum of the People, an arts residency center, library, and venue for multi-cultural literary, musical and art events. Vincent Barrett Price (V.B. Price) also received a Lifetime Achievement Award for his work as a distinguished poet, human rights and environmental columnist, author, and teacher. Perhaps his best known volume is The Orphaned Land which chronicles the successes and failures of efforts to preserve New Mexico’s environment.
Additionally, in 2016, the Emerging Promoter of Peace Award was presented to Carolina Belmares-Ortega. Ortega has been involved with the Center for Academic Program Support, University Advisement Center, Center for Development and Disability and the Agora Crisis Center. She is the Scholar Support Coordinator for the Simon Charitable Foundation.
The UNM Foundation article about the 2016 Ré Peace Prize Awardees can be found at https://www.unmfund.org/donor-story/2016-paul-re-peace-prize/.
Writings and Awards
Paul Ré's writings appear in Leonardo 13-2, 14-2 and 15-2, SPIRIT OF ENTERPRISE: The 1990 Rolex Awards, The Journal of Visual Impairment, New America, La Mamelle and Design Journal. Illustrated essays, 1000 to 3000 words in length, on Ré's work are included in CONTEMPORARY GRAPHIC ARTISTS 3rd edition, GREAT MINDS OF THE 21st CENTURY 2nd and 4th editions, and THE DICTIONARY OF INTERNATIONAL BIOGRAPHY 36th edition. He is also profiled in WHO'S WHO IN AMERICAN ART, WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA, and WHO'S WHO IN THE WORLD and other reference volumes worldwide.
His three books are TOUCHABLE ART FOR THE BLIND AND SIGHTED (a handmade limited edition) , THE DANCE OF THE PENCIL: Serene Art by Paul Ré , and ART, PEACE, AND TRANSCENDENCE: Réograms That Elevate and Unite which is published by UNM Press . It received the 2016 New Mexico – Arizona Book Award for Philosophy. http://nmbookcoop.com/BookAwards/2016-Winners/2016-Winners.html. In that awards program, it was also a finalist in Arts; Science; and Large Format Cover Design. http://nmbookcoop.com/BookAwards/2016-Finalists/2016-Finalists.html
Paul is editing his collected poems THE IRIS BALLET and compiling his 48 volumes of aphorisms and micro–essays into THE RéCYCLED DICTIONARY .
Notes
References
- "Paul Ré: Expressing the Art in Physics", by Winnifred Veronda, Caltech News, Dec 1977.
- "My Drawings and Paintings and a System for Their Classification", by Paul Ré, Leonardo, vol XIII n. 2, spring 1980, Oxford, England: Pergamon Press, pages 94–100. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1577977?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
- "On My Drawings and Paintings: An Extension of the System of Their Classification", by Paul Ré, Leonardo, vol XIV n. 2, spring 1981, Oxford, England: Pergamon Press, pages 106-14. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1574401?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
- "On the Progression of My Figurative Drawings Toward Higher Abstraction and Outward Simplicity", by Paul Ré, Leonardo, vol XV n. 2, spring 1982, Oxford, England: Pergamon Press, pages 109-14. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1574544?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
- "Ré, Paul B.", by Dennis Wepman, Contemporary Graphic Artists, Vol 3, Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1988, pages 181-3.
- "Expressing the Art in Science", by Winnifred Veronda, Caltech News, Vol 23-4, Aug 1989, pages 6–7.
- "Balance and its Significance in my Drawings, Paintings, and Tactual Embossings for the Blind", by Paul Ré, Symmetry of Structure Symposium Abstracts, International Symmetry Association, August 13-19, 1989, Budapest, Hungary. http://symmetry-us.com/Journals/0-2/re.pdf
- "Touchable Works Are Pleasing to All", by Jimmy Milling, The Item, May 2, 1990, page 7. https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1980&dat=19900502&id=VpUiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=takFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1383,142984&hl=en .
- "A Book and Two Traveling Exhibits for the Blind and Sighted", Spirit Of Enterprise: The 1990 Rolex Awards, edited by David W. Reed, Bern, Switzerland: Buri International, 1990, pages 378-80.
- "The Dance of the Pencil: Serene Art of Paul Ré", Paul Ré Archives, 1993 (limited edition of 1,000).
- "Paul Ré, Dance of the Pencil", by Dennis Wepman, Journal of the Print World, Fall 1994, page 23.
- "The Dance of the Pencil", by Kelle Schillaci, Alibi, March 15, 1999:
- "Artist Ré extends Jonson's transcendental vision", by Wesley Pulkka, Albuquerque Journal, October 7, 2001, page F5.
- "Réograms and the Paul Bartlett Ré Peace Prize at University of New Mexico", by Paul Ré, Journal of the Print World, Fall 2009, page 21.
- "Duke City Native Starts Peace Prize", by Martin Salazar, Albuquerque Journal, March 22, 2010, page A4: (subscription required)
- "Greening the Peace Movement", by Anna Adams, Mirage Magazine, Fall 2015, pages 38-39. http://www.unmalumni.com/mirage-magazine.html (scroll to pages 38-39.)
- Art, Peace, and Transcendence: Réograms That Elevate and Unite, by Paul Ré, UNM Press, 2015.
- "Art of Living: Physics, Nature, and Inner Harmony Infuse the Diverse Works of Paul Ré," by David Steinberg, Sunday Albuquerque Journal, Life in New Mexico, February 7, 2016, page 17. http://www.abqjournal.com/719728/entertainment/physics-nature-and-inner-harmony-infuse-the-diverse-works-of-paul-re.html
- "Art, Peace, and Transcendence: Réograms That Elevate and Unite," Jason Ronstadt, Journal of the Print World, April 2016, page 23.