RCARA Historyand Activity

Our organization, the Raphael Cultural and Artistic Research Association, Inc. (RCARA) was ‘born’, or technically: legally incorporated in Texas, on September 30, 2011, now thirteen years ago. Though primarily active in South Texas, RCARA now has a worldwide outreach. 
Our artistic research and development organization promotes the cultural renewal impulses of Rudolf Steiner with a focus on the painting training he gave and the painted works and initiatives of Gerard Wagner. We are particularly interested in the therapeutic aspects of this way of painting and how this can be applied to help children and adults. This is the reason for the name: Raphael Cultural and Artistic Research Association, Inc.
We celebrate the Archangel Raphael year-round but especially during Easter as this Being’s cosmic forces are most active in Spring.

“Raphael and Michael work together in Autumn and Spring exchanging places as a cosmic spirit above and an earthly guide below… Specific to Raphael this Archangel works in the whole human breathing system, regulating it, and giving it his blessing. Raphael is aware of every breath that is drawn, of everything that flows from the lungs into the heart and from the heart through the whole circulation of the blood. … Man learns to recognize in himself the healing forces which play through the cosmos in the Raphael-time of Spring. … For this is a great secret: all healing forces reside originally in the human breathing system.”    CW 229 Lecture 5 The Four Seasons and the Four Archangels
We began our quarterly, international newsletter, The Renewal of the Art of Painting, in June of 2020 and send it to recipients in nine countries which include the US, India, Poland, Switzerland, Great Britain, Germany, New Zealand, France, and most recently South Korea. It is a free publication. Contact us at [email protected] to be included in the mailing list.

Publications include PLANET TREES CALENDAR and three little books for children, Morning Bright, Rainbow Child, and The Great Sunflower. We now have our first painting manual ready: ​Painting in Living Color for Grades 1, 2, and 3. We are preparing two more manuals: one for Grades 4, 5, and 6 and another for Middle and Upper School, Grades 9 through 12.
Each year our outreach increases through our e-publications, which include individual painting lessons and courses for children and adults, the Weekly Art Lessons for Waldorf homeschoolers. Our work is founded on Rudolf Steiner’s pedagogical painting indications and the comprehensive work completed by Gerard Wagner in his seventy years work with Rudolf Steiner’s training sketches. This work has never been incorporated into a systematic pedagogical painting instruction for children. 

 But that is not all that we do. Here in our local area, we give painting courses to children and adults wherever we can find an open door. We also set up exhibitions of painted works with accompanying prints of works from Steiner and Wagner. The doors open to our initiatives have included nature centers, schools, churches and most importantly our local library, the Dr. Hector P. Garcia Memorial Library where our little school, the Elisabeth Wagner School of Nature Moods Painting for Children and Adults, has its home. Since 2014, we have enjoyed the wonderful support of the Director and Staff of the Dr. Hector P. Garcia Memorial Library in Mercedes Texas. In this public institution we have been able to freely conduct our workshops and exhibitions. This amazing open door has made it possible for much of our work to go forward in the eyes of the public. There are monthly and weekly painting classes conducted for groups of adults and children. With the help of the grants from the Rudolf Steiner Finance, Social Finance, we have been able to remodel a part of the library, the Texas Room, and build out exhibition areas in three different parts of the library. There is a beautiful plaque attached to the entrance wall of that room which thanks RCARA and the RSCT for the help in beautifying this room and making it more accessible for their activities and ours. We have called this space our “little school”. Our works of art and those of Rudolf Steiner hang in the library during the Easter and Michaelmas seasons. 
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We are primarily a research and development organization with a high priority placed on outreach. 
We exist in an area where little is known of Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy, or Gerard Wagner and all financial support is greatly appreciated so that we may continue to spread Anthroposophy not only in our community here in South Texas but around the world through our newsletter and e-publications.
Please consider donating to our work. Many thanks!