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.