Artist DAVID BROWN, who famously lives in and whose work is inspired by a house made out of hay, teaches a number of classes at the Guilford Art Center. Brown is a painter and organic farmer whose art and life are intertwined, as he tends his acreage and raises chickens, and also paints his house and landscape as his ever-compelling subject.

Brown lives simply, in a unique abode in Old Saybrook, the Hay House, so named because it is constructed out of bales of hay. Built in the 1970s, it is the oldest dwelling of its kind east of the Mississippi River, and Brown has lived there since 1986. "My whole house is a still life," Brown comments, and as he portrays its landscape in changing seasons, his rustic belongings, and his friends who gather there, he tries to convey that "there is a limit to how much people need," and that "this is more than enough." He was the subject of a documentary, "David Brown and the Hay House," by Jeannie Newman of SamDog Films, in 2004.

Among Brown's other works are Community Mandala, a group portrait of everyday "heroes," and Fifty-two X Two, a yearlong series of dawn and dusk views. Spurred by children's books he is working on, Brown says he is currently painting eggs-"grids of them."

During the 1970s, Brown taught art and English in Nepal and established a handcrafts cooperative among Tibetan refugees. He later worked as a photographer for UNICEF and the government of India Department of Tourism, and as Operations Director for the Tibetan Cultural Center of Connecticut.

Brown teaches Oil Painting and Oil Painting En Plein Air. Locales for the outdoor classes include beaches, woods, and orchards, and places class members suggest. Brown inspires students to relish the process of working in the open air: "They should enjoy the actual experience. It's fun to paint outdoors."