Rare Lawrence and Anna Halprin Conversation with James van Sweden Discovered

In preparation of his final book, The Artful Garden, written in collaboration with Tom Christopher (Random House, 2011), James van Sweden conducted a series of firsthand interviews exploring the idea of “creative inspiration.” The final book included summary essays that grew out of a number of these conversations that ranged from painter Robert Dash and textile designer Jack Lenor Larsen to explorations of rhythm and movement that grew out of his visits with Yo-Yo Ma and Julie Moir Messervy as well as Lawrence and Anna Halprin.

The Halprin/van Sweden conversation, chronicled in just four brief pages in the book, grew out of a lively visit by Jim van Sweden with the Halprins at their Sea Ranch home on May 28, 2006. Recently, a complete twenty-page transcript of that conversation was discovered in the files at Oehme van Sweden Associates, and is now available here.

Covering such diverse subjects as the Bauhaus, Baryshnikov and Bush, the candidness of the conversation is remarkable for its breadth, perspective and honesty.