Visual Arts
The Visual Arts Department provides a program that offers students an opportunity to build skills, express ideas and to become visually literate and aesthetically aware. Our curriculum focuses on cultivating an understanding of design, the development of both traditional and technology-based artistic skills, and stimulation of visual and creative thinking. While traditional drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture mark the cornerstones of our curricular foundation we encourage our students to work in technology-based and experiment with the visual limits of these traditions.
Students are encouraged to develop their imaginations and experiment with visual language as they cultivate their own personal visions in supportive classes. We want our students to learn to use their imagination freely and promote its use as a creative tool. Our students are encouraged to embrace failure as a part of the creative process, to learn from and build upon the lessons this affords. Our curriculum prepares those students who wish to pursue the visual arts at a professional level and develops a deep interest in the visual arts, fostering a lifetime appreciation and engagement with the visual arts. Across all divisions students are introduced to different artists and movements from the history of art, often through interdisciplinary approaches.
Students are encouraged to develop their imaginations and experiment with visual language as they cultivate their own personal visions in supportive classes. We want our students to learn to use their imagination freely and promote its use as a creative tool. Our students are encouraged to embrace failure as a part of the creative process, to learn from and build upon the lessons this affords. Our curriculum prepares those students who wish to pursue the visual arts at a professional level and develops a deep interest in the visual arts, fostering a lifetime appreciation and engagement with the visual arts. Across all divisions students are introduced to different artists and movements from the history of art, often through interdisciplinary approaches.
Did You Know...
- Almost 60% of Upper School students participate in the visual arts; we offer four full-year courses and a dozen electives.
- 15% of seniors take AP Portfolio. Their work, which includes ink drawings, representational and abstract painting, printmaking, sculpture, architecture and digital creations, reflects the wide range of artistic approaches our student's experience as underclasswomen.
- Annually we organize many field trips to area museums and art galleries, such as the MET, the Guggenheim, MoMA, the Montclair Art Museum and the Brooklyn Museum.
- Primary School students experience an in-depth investigation of art history as well as the work of indigenous peoples.
- In the seventh and eighth grades, 25% of our girls choose arts electives, such as 3D Design/Sculpture and Let's Face It, a class that focuses on observing and creating portraits based on a variety of ideas from art history and contemporary culture.
- The Art Department began an initiative to put together individual digital portfolios to catalog much of the work each of our students has created in Primary School through Grade 12.
- All students have the opportunity to exhibit work both in the school gallery and in local art exhibitions.
Learn
View Our Course Offerings
Meet the Department
List of 4 members.
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Mr. Carey Gates
Department Chair / US ArtUniversity of Pennsylvania - B.F.A.Bio
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts - M.F.A. -
Ms. Marie Micchelli
US/MS ArtMontclair State University - B.A.Bio
Montclair State University - M.A. -
Mr. Ken Weathersby
US ArtUniversity of Southern Mississippi - B.F.A.Bio
Cranbrook Academy of Art - M.F.A. -
Ms. Melissa M Wood
PS ArtWesleyan University - Connecticut - B.A.Bio
Wesleyan University - Connecticut - M.A.L.S.
Kent Place School is an all-girls K through 12 independent college preparatory day school with a coeducational Preschool, located in Summit, NJ.