Van James is an artist, author, Steiner-Waldorf educator and international advocate for the arts. A longtime teaching-artist in Hawai’i, he is a council member of the Visual Art Section of North America, a mentor with the Academy of Himalayan Art and Child Development, editor of Pacifica Journal, and an award-winning author of numerous books on culture and the arts including “Teaching Art History: Engaging the Adolescent in Art Appreciation, Cultural History, and the Evolution of Consciousness“.