How Ani Private Resorts Supports Local Artists - AFAR

"Located on a four-acre site overlooking fruit-laden hills and white-sand beaches in rural Rio San Juan, this nonprofit full-time, full-tuition art school trains novices into professional artists over three to four years. Under head instructor Maxwell Miller and following a curriculum developed by Anthony J. Waichulis, roughly 50 students practice about 35 hours a week, beginning with fundamentals — how to grip a pencil and render spheres, cones and cylinders — and progressing to painstaking charcoal and hyper-realistic oil painting that can capture a sitter’s essence (even evoking small sensory details like the smell of Vanicream). Admission is limited to applicants 18 or older with regional citizenship and a high-school diploma or equivalent but requires no portfolio; the program also teaches commercial skills such as framing and pricing so graduates frequently take portrait commissions, illustrate textbooks, or show work in galleries in Santo Domingo." - Laura Dannen Redman