By Marion Lynch
RED BANK – Two years after opening its doors, Ani Art Academy, a school that offers free art training to military veterans, is ready to host its first exhibition. Equinox, an exhibition of work by Ani students and alumni, takes place from 6 to 9 p.m. Sunday, April 27.
Ani is a dream fulfilled for Tim Reynolds, a Middletown resident who co-founded Wall Street trading firm Jane Street Capital. Reynolds had a passion for art and studied with Tim Jahn from the DuCret Art School in Plainfield. When Jahn began studying with contemporary artist Anthony Waichulis, he introduced Reynolds to Waichulis. Reynolds’ vision of creating a worldwide network of schools that would create new artists from different cultures around the world began with the Waichulis school in rural northeast Pennsylvania, which became the first Ani Art Academy.
The name “Ani” is a play on the Swahili word “Andjani,” meaning the “road” or the “path ahead.”
Reynolds’ idea was to open schools in areas where there were few economic opportunities but located in exotic tourist destinations. Hand-in-hand with the academies would be the Ani Villas, exclusive luxurious resorts which would help fund the academies while providing a steady stream of potential customers for the local artists, said Kevin Moore, dean of the Red Bank academy.
The first international academy opened in 2012 in Anguilla with Tim Jahn as its instructor, followed by two schools in the Dominican Republic, then Thailand and Sri Lanka.
The Red Bank school is the fifth academy to open and one of only two Ani academies in America. When the Red Bank academy was launched in 2016, far from the exotic tourist locales of the international schools, Reynolds shifted the school’s focus to offer art education to men and women who served in the military.
Ani students are taught the Waichulis curriculum developed by Waichulis, a contemporary painter and instructor known for his trompe l’oeil paintings. Meaning “deceive the eye,” trompe l’oeil is a technique that uses realistic imagery to create the optical illusion that the work is three-dimensional.
Ani philosophy is, “Great artists aren’t born – they’re educated.” With the Waichulis method of training, students need no previous art experience to be accepted into the program, only a passion and commitment to the process. Most students complete their training in three to four years. Much of the curriculum involves meticulous, repetitive exercises that start with lines and moves through a series of spheres, cylinders, cones and cubes. Students begin in pencil and repeat the same training with painting. All training and materials are free for all students.
Kevin Moore, an artist and alumnus of Ani’s Waichulis academy, has been teaching in Red Bank since the doors opened two years ago. “It’s rewarding to be a part of this and provide this service to veterans,” Moore says. “Some of them find it to be very therapeutic. The program wasn’t designed to be art therapy, but it can be therapeutic. In addition to the regular students, Moore teaches a weekly workshop for veterans that the United War Veterans Council brings to Red Bank from Samaritan Daytop Village in New York.
One student is George Weiss, a Sea Bright resident who served in the Army in 1954. Weiss was working on a still life that he hopes to com- plete in time for the Equinox exhibition. The Ani program is helping him to fulfill a lifelong ambition to create art.
Alessandra Alma, an Air Force veteran from East Brunswick, sustained injuries during her service that prevent her from working, so when a veteran’s organization introduced her to the program at Ani, she signed up as one of the school’s first students. She took some time off from her art training for the birth of her daughter, Allessia, now 10 months old, whose portrait Alma was working on at her easel last week.
For Orlando Lovelace, a Red Bank resident and Air Force veteran, the opportunity to train at Ani is the fulfillment of a lifelong passion. “I understood that it’s a rigorous program that offers practical techniques,” he said. “With the bonus of it being free, I knew I had to be a part of it.”
“To be able to be involved in my life’s passion, it’s a rewarding experience for me every day,” he said.
The Equinox exhibition is open to the public and nearly all of the works will be available for purchase, with 100 percent of the sales going to the artists.
Ani Art Academy is at 143 Broad St.. For more information, visit aniartacademies.org/America.
