Warren Lee Cohen

I just returned from an action packed day in which we sculpted a bread oven for the Hay on Wye Literature Festival. Aided by the very capable hands of Gavin Pond and many eager children, we mixed recycled clay, sand and straw, using first our feet and then our hands. We shaped this into loaf sized clumps that we pressed around a temporary sand form. The oven quickly took shape, leaving plenty of time for a chimney and some collaborative sculpting. Then to cap off the day we lit an inaugral fire to begin the process of drying the oven out.

For the next week I will be baking pita bread with children and sharing bread stories from Baking Bread with Children. What a nice way to work with others!

Come explore the art of baking bread in a wood-fired oven. We’ll bake a variety of breads using a simple sourdough culture. We’ll touch upon the aspects of baking that create healthy and nutritious bread and, of equal importance that allow for joy and meaning in the baking process. You’ll learn how to make and use your own sourdough culture. You’ll take home fresh baked bread, sourdough starter and inspiration for future baking.

We will bake pita bread for lunch. Please bring your filling of choice and an apron. 

Sunday May 04, 2008
9:00 to 16:00
Wynstones wood fired oven
Wynstones School, Church Lane, Whaddon, Gloucestershire, GL4 0UF

Course fee £50 (includes all ingredients)

To register please call Anne Bass at 01452 537700
or send me a message by clicking here

Baking Bread with Children has now been launched into the world with a proper and joy filled celebration. Leavened with bread poetry by Paul Matthews, bread eurythmy by Glenys Waters, a story told by Julie Swithers and lots of bread (Challah and Dragon Loaves) baked by the Early Year Education Students at Emerson College, the book launch filled my heart with warmth. Such good friends and so much cheer!

 

Dear Far Flung Friends and fellow bread bakers,
 
I am a proud papa once again.
I have given birth today to a new book.
It feels so good after such a long gestation (over 4 years).
I am pleased to announce the premier of Baking Bread with Children.
Here is a Review of Baking Bread with Children with details including the front and back covers.
If you or anyone you know are interested in obtaining a copy or three you can order them through

1. the publisher at http://www.hawthornpress.com/
2. http://www.amazon.com/
3. or signed copies from me by emailing me here

Much love to one and all,
Warren

Fellow bread enthusiast, oven builder and sculptor Kiko Denzer sent me the following thoughts on art.

“Art is engagement. My intuitive sense of the word was greatly strengthened when I found that the word “art” shares a common root with all these:
Harmony, Arm, Articulate, Article, Arithmetic (the art of counting)
Reason, Ratio, Rational, Ratify
Order, Ordain, Coordinate
Reading, Rite, Ritual, Kindred, Hatred!
How can we know harmony (much less reason, order, ritual, kindred) if we only work with one or two of our many innate faculties and senses?”

A sense for the artistic, for the beautiful and an ability to enter fully into an artistic process lie at the core of our ability to connect with the creative principles of nature. Art is a gateway to the creative spirit that lives within and builds us all.

While investigating the connections between projective geometry and Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, I came upon this beautiful diagram that shows an infinite network of interconnected dodecahedrons (12 pentagons). If we can imagine that space is in fact structured, then what might that structure look like? Apparently there are many interesting solutions. This diagram is far more regular (Euclidean) than any proposed by Einstein which would be warped by the matter that created them. Matter creates the structure of space and the structure of space only exists in its interrelationship with matter.

An introduction to Modern Sense Free Thinking
with Warren Lee Cohen

Do parallel lines ever meet? In Projective Geometry they do, at infinity. They lead us through simple line drawings into a realm of beauty and new possibilities for intuitive thinking where sense and spirit touch creative forces that lie within all of us.

8 sessions beginning Friday 18 January 8:00 to 9:30 pm
Stroud, Glos, UK
Cost £80
To register please email warrenleecohen[at]hotmail.com