Arts

Visual Arts

Arts at VAVisual Arts

The Visual Arts department at Vermont Academy works with a wide variety of mediums, which include drawing, painting, collage, pottery, woodworking, and media arts including filmmaking and photography.

Each Visual Arts course combines an understanding of art skills and concepts along with students’ personal creativity. We hope to cultivate visual literacy at Vermont Academy through our classes, our art displays, guest artists, and field trips/weekend trips. Students are always encouraged to bring their own personal style to their work while we teach them essential lessons that relate to the technical level of the class. 

Our arts faculty, who are working artists themselves, encourage their students to enter juried competitions such as the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Each spring, courtesy of the Bob '37 and Beth Campbell Endowment Fund for the Arts and Lecture Series, all seniors are invited to participate in a competition to have their art be purchased by Vermont Academy for our permanent collection.
Fine Arts

Drawing, Painting, Collage-Drawing with Scissors, AP 2D Art and Design, Honors Advanced Art

Within these courses, students will work with a variety of drawing techniques, acrylic, watercolor, pastel, and other media with the Elements of Art and Principles of Design continuously being stressed. Other fine arts techniques taught to students include observational drawing and understanding great works of art, and printmaking techniques such as collograph, monoprint, and linocut. Students will spend more time developing their work by using sketchbooks and in upper level courses, students will create a portfolio of artwork, with AP 2D Art and Design requiring a submission of an AP portfolio at the end of the year. Our Honors Advanced Art course culminates in a student-generated show, with a professional opening on campus.


Media Arts

Digital Photography, Filmmaking, Digital Graphic Design, Animation, History of Film, Honors Advanced Art

While studying media art forms, students will explore the basics and history of each course’s subject and will then put those concepts into practice through the use of Adobe Premiere, Photoshop, and Animate. Lessons about composition, angles, and camera movements and how to shoot using a DSLR camera will appeal to aspiring filmmakers while classes featuring how to compose effective shots and create visual content that tells a story will speak to photographers. Animators will begin with 2D hand-drawn animation, move to create 2D computer animations, and finally create live-action projects using stop-motion animation. For students interested in exploring traditional photography, there is an all-analog class which utilizes film cameras and printing in the school darkroom.
Pottery and Carpentry

Pottery, Build, Honors Advanced Art



VA's pottery studio is equipped with six pottery wheels, a 40 cubic foot gas kiln, two electric kilns, and a large working space. Students learn to make functional and sculptural work using the pottery wheel, mold making, and an assortment of hand-building techniques while investigating all applications of ceramics, from art history to contemporary industrial practices. The on campus raw materials lab allows students the opportunity to mix their own glazes and learn about glaze and clay chemistry. For students interested in woodworking, our Build class covers how to create a drawing, read a drawing, and transfer that drawing onto lumber. Students will plan, draw, measure, cut, assemble, and finish their own projects.


The Latest Edition of PawPrint - VA's Art and Literary Magazine

Visual Arts Facilities

List of 4 items.

  • Horowitz Art Center

  • Pottery Studio

  • Media Arts Studio

  • Black and White Photography Dark Room

10 Long Walk, PO Box 500
Saxtons River, VT 05154
802-869-6200
Vermont Academy is a coed college preparatory boarding and day school in southern Vermont, serving grades 9-12 plus a postgraduate year.