Arts

Visual Arts

Arts students at Westover discover themselves and their worlds through a variety of experiences that encourage process and risk-taking as a means to express, create, and connect.

The Visual Arts Program

Visual arts classes are supportive process-oriented environments where students think creatively, work collaboratively, make connections, and take risks. 

Courses are taught through a number of electives that build skill and invite exploration. With no studio fees, few prerequisites, and opportunities for experiential learning through field trips and artist collaborations, students are invited to discover themselves, each other, and their worlds through the arts. 

Visual arts classes are supportive process-oriented environments where students think creatively, work collaboratively, and take risks. Through a wide range of photography, video, drawing, painting, ceramic, and multimedia courses, students are invited to build skills to encourage further advanced study and portfolio development. Complemented by art history courses to build skills in analytical thinking, and with opportunities for experiential learning through field trips and artist collaborations, students in the visual arts at Westover are invited to discover themselves and their worlds as a means to express, create, and connect. 

List of 4 items.

  • Drawing, Painting, & Ceramics

    The drawing and painting curriculum at Westover centers student choice, connection, artistic growth, and imaginative exploration by developing skills in observational drawing and painting, by exploring creative expression through varied media and source material, by building community through class critique, and by collaborating with visiting artists through the Schumacher Gallery or by experiencing art through field trips to museums. Students may re-enroll in courses at an advanced level. 
  • Photography

    The photography curriculum encourages students to create work in response to world events with an emphasis on art as a creative agent for change and activism. From traditional photographic darkroom processes through to modern digital practices and software, rotating courses are designed to encourage students to think creatively and critically, while learning how to use a remarkable variety of photo imaging and video making equipment. 
  • Art History

    Arts & Culture courses develop visual literacy and critical consciousness through a writing-intensive approach in order to analyze how art shapes culture around the world.

    Courses explore ways of thinking, creating, believing, communicating, and being in a global, transnational world through a historically grounded approach. This designation critically engages the visual culture of various parts of the contemporary and historical world through a variety of perspectives and subjects, including art history. 
  • WISE/Arts

    The WISE/Arts courses integrate the fields of science and engineering with the arts through real-world application in order to extend, through collaboration and exchange, the scope of each discipline. WISE/Arts collaborations, while respecting each disciplinary framework, expand the methods and perspectives of WISE and Arts towards common project-based goals by valuing creative problem solving, visual perception and literacy, collaboration, visual documentation, communication, and experiential learning. Through a student-centered model that emphasizes process and design-based thinking, WISE/Art courses provide opportunities for students to freely explore through an integrated doing of art and engineering.
Westover School admits students of any race, color, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, national and ethnic origin, or disability to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the School. As a gender-diverse girls school, Westover welcomes applicants and students who are assigned female at birth and/or identify as girls. The School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, national and ethnic origin, disability, or any other status protected by applicable law in the administration of its educational policies, admissions and financial aid policies, and athletic or other school-administered programs.