Preliminary Research

Final Project is officially underway! After conducting some preliminary research over spring break, students turned in their project proposals on Wednesday. OS28 is now deep in the process of exploring and solidifying ideas for both research topics and artwork. We'll report back soon on what that process looks like. In the meantime, we'd like to invite you to engage in an activity that the students completed over break--the Final Project Brainstorm Scavenger Hunt! This activity is designed to get the brain juices flowing, and to get students into the mode of identifying and exploring topics that interest them. 

If you were designing a Final Project, what would you investigate? 

Meet Raven

How did you find out about Oxbow? And why did you want to come here?

I found out about Oxbow through one of my classmates at school who came here last semester. I wanted to come here for the simple fact that Oxbow seemed like an awesome place to come and explore within myself abilities that I didn’t think were there.

How has it been adjusting to life away from home, and a totally new school environment?

This is a totally new environment but I feel comforted and safe between the faculty, staff and students. I think that the hardest part is waking up on my own in the morning… that’s something that was new for me because my mom always did it! Ultimately being here has tested my independence. 

What aspect of the Oxbow experience (curriculum element, art project, community life, etc.) has been the most impactful for you?

The curriculum is something so different and impactful for me because I never really was in tune with myself. I think one thing, since being here, that has helped me is channeling my feelings and writing personal essays. I was always so used to analyzing that I never really thought about me. 

What is your favorite color and why?

I love the color red because its so rich, and I personally think that I look the best in the color red.

What kind of music do you listen to when you’re making art?

I tend to listen to Beyonce mostly. I think that’s because she has different genres of music. Some is pop, some is techno pop, some is rhythm and blues…I listen to it all, on FULL BLAST.

What kinds of things inspire and inform your artwork? (Where do you look for inspiration?)

I think that my past experiences inspire me. I tend to personalize my artwork so that it applies to me directly, or to something that has affected me negatively or positively. I hadn’t really realized until recently that I tend to use more of a dark pallet of paint colors. I don’t know why that is.

Are they are any artists whose work you are particularly excited about right now?

I don’t have anyone in specific but Larry Thomas’ art is one that really opened eyes for me. I think that his intentional lines embroidered within text is something that I would love to try doing. His passion for helping others work with ink and other mediums was just really inspiring and special to me.

Do you have any special or secret talents?

I can sing and dance real well!

Meet Jose

We've decided to launch a series of student interviews as a way to showcase the dynamism of OS28. Jose from Emeryville, California (via Mexico) has offered to be our first interviewee. Thanks Jose!
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How did you find out about Oxbow? And why did you want to come here?

In my freshman year, Jordan Felling came to promote Oxbow to my school. When I saw videos, I really got inspired to apply. I decided to come because I wanted to expand my artistic abilities as well as become more independent and meet new people.

You are more than half way through the semester already. How has it been adjusting to life away from home, and a totally new school environment?

It’s surprising to realize that I’m almost done with this amazing journey. It has been that, an amazing and beautiful journey. Since day one, I’ve loved my new home, but in the first days it was really difficult to be away from home. However, as I got comfortable with my roommates and all the students, I began to feel a sense of family with everyone and my experience became a lot better. 

                                    What aspect of the Oxbow experience has been the most impactful for you?

The most impactful project for me was writing my personal memoir book for English class. I remember writing at around 1:00am while everyone else was asleep. When I began to write about my mom I got a little emotional and it reminded me of all the reasons why I was here, which gave me an extra push to stay up even longer and finish the entire book. 

Do you have a favorite Oxbow meal?

Oxbow for me has been a place of discovery. An example is the variety of new foods that I've tasted. At Oxbow I discovered that I do not hate all salads, and I finally found a salad that I like--Caesar salad. However, even though I find the Caesar salad delicious, there is no better meal at Oxbow than when there is Mexican food. 

What kind of music do you listen to when you're making art?

When I make art I love being the only one in the studio because I can play my own music loud on the speakers. My favorite music to listen to when I make art is rock in Spanish, salsa, cumbia (which almost nobody in this school even knows about) and sometimes hip-hop.

Tell us a little bit about this painting on the left.

My Narrative project painting made me discover many things about myself. Before this painting I felt really uncomfortable using paint. I personally did not like painting before this project. However, when I decided to paint the Mexican flag and a reflection of myself, I got really into it and I began to have a personal relationship with the paint. I got so attached to it that I did not even want to leave the painting studio. I was in there every single minute of open studios and I was even late to lunch because I wouldn’t notice the time. This painting made me realize that I can enjoy painting and that it is really interesting for me to make art related to Mexico. Even though I was not born in Mexico, I feel 100% Mexican. I feel good learning about the culture and even better making art about it.

Looking at Language

OS28 students are currently in their last rotation of the Focus units, intensive two-week courses in History, English, and Science. In English class, students are working with the theme of personal memoir, and exploring the art of bookmaking. 

Katie W.

What makes a book a “book”? For this English project, we are studying a book as a sculptural object, an artwork that can be a vehicle for a compelling story and can be aesthetically pleasing in its visual form. Over the weekend, students were invited to consider various experimental visual techniques used by writers to carry forward a message or change the way we look at language. In short, this was an opportunity to “reinvent” a found book…to make it new! Here are a few examples:

Zoe H.

Emily Rose N.

Nora S.

Annie C. 

Sprung Spring

Spring on the Oxbow campus is fantastically beautiful. Thoreau might call it a "delicious" time of year, and rightfully so...the trees are blooming, the birds are singing, and the gardens are booming. The greenhouse is full of tender new green life. It happens every year, but it never ceases to be a surprise.

This hasn't been the rainiest of winters, but it certainly was a cold one, and for a while there it felt like nothing would ever grow again. Then, seemingly over night, there is so much to eat. Look at the leeks! And the arugula! And the broccoli is huge! And the hens have started laying again! Delicious indeed.

Self Portrait

Here at Oxbow we like to ask big, juicy questions. Essential questions. These questions provide entry into research, and the impetus to begin art making. One question that gets asked a lot, perhaps to the point of exhaustion, is "Who am I?" It starts before a student even arrives on campus -- as part of the application process, prospective students are asked to create a self portrait in any medium. That's it -- no other guidelines are specified. It's an assignment that requires the asking of other (sub-essential, you might say) questions: How do I present myself to the world? How do I want to present myself to the world? What are my passions? What role do I play in my family / my school / my community? And so on. 

The theme of "self portrait" is revisited several times throughout the semester, both in art projects and in humanities coursework. In the New Media studio, students in the Narrative unit were at it again, creating short films in response to these questions: Who am I? Where have I been? Where am I now? Students were asked to think of their film as a "poetic interpretation of the self," and to use a combination of moving images, still photographs, sound, and text to create the narrative of their self portrait. Emily Rose (from Massachusetts), Vasaris (from Illinois), Lesedi (from Texas), and Stanley (from Massachusetts) each took a very different approach to the assignment, and have generously offered to share their films. 

EMILY ROSE

VASARIS

LESEDI

STANLEY

Light, Composition, and Honest Expression

Lucas Foglia, drawn by Izzy P.

This week marked the finish of the semester's first visiting artist residency. Lucas Foglia, photographer extraordinaire, spent ten days working with OS28 in and out of the studios. OS28'er Izzy introduces Lucas: "Lucas Foglia’s work has roots from his childhood spent on his family’s farm not far from New York City. His most recent work, titled “A Natural Order,” focuses on the details of lifestyles alternative in their essence, by sustaining themselves close to the earth. From images of coal-miners to families living in wigwams, we can reflect on our own lives. We ask ourselves why the images provoke feelings of strangeness, familiarity, or quiet beauty. The poignancy of Foglia’s photos are snapshots from weeks on the inside of individual lives--an existence based on a genuine connection to the land. Currently, Foglia teaches at San Francisco Art Institute, and is showing his work in six countries this spring." 

Over the course of several days, Lucas asked the students to make 300 photographs of "things that interest you." Students then carefully reviewed their stock of photos, searching for a common theme, and curated a suite of 20 images that embodied and demonstrated that theme. Their final task was to write an artist statement. Izzy writes, "From the beginning of the week with Foglia to our final presentation, it was enlightening to see the evolving interest and sophistication that took place in our photos. Lighting, narratives, composition, honest expressions, and 
complexity were reoccurring themes that Foglia pointed out in our photos and had us 
strive for."

Liz, Maximum, and Joanna have offered to share images from their final suite of photographs. Excerpts from each student's artist statement accompany the images. 

LIZ

I am an artist because art is a way to communicate my feelings of my past.

I am drawn to the decaying of life and objects that I  find in my world. While I find parallels between destruction in the world and my own life, I can express things more positively through my artwork in ways that help me and my community. 

JOANNA

I am drawn to the idea of movement amidst stillness. We can never freeze a moment in time with our bare eyes, but in this series of photographs, I attempt to capture these instants. 

Our memories are often blurred, and there is very little we can do to preserve precise details. I seek to create an unreal ghostliness and eeriness through photographing striking settings while juxtaposing harsh lines with fluid figures.

MAXIMUM

Everyone’s perspective changes how he or she views the world. 

For my project I wanted to expand on my curiosity about how depth of field and focus affect an image and how it is perceived. I explored this through experimenting with multiple perspectives and different depths of field.

Going to Walden

Last week OS28 finished the Connections unit, the four-week course during which the students read Walden. As part of this unit, students keep a field journal--for taking notes in class, completing homework assignments, and as a platform for exploring big ideas. Flipping through a student's journal is like peeking into his or her brain--it's a real privilege, and at times, quite funny (caricatures of Thoreau occupy many a journal page). I've extracted some choice doodles from a few journals, so you too can get a peek. Enjoy.      - Lenora
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Going to Walden

by Mary Oliver

It isn’t very far as highways lie.

I might be back by nightfall, having seen

The rough pines, and the stones, and the clear water.

Friends argue that I might be wiser for it.

They do not hear that far-off Yankee whisper:

How dull we grow from hurrying here and there!

Many have gone, and think me half a fool

To miss a day away in the cool country.

Maybe. But in a book I read and cherish,

Going to Walden is not so easy a thing

As a green visit. It is the slow and difficult

Trick of living, and finding it where you are.

                                                      

Thoughts on Hiking

An integral part of the Oxbow curriculum is what we call "co-curriculars." Twice a week, students spend two to three hours outdoors engaging in physical activities, led by Oxbow faculty. This semester the offerings include Boot Camp, Biking, Gardening, and more. Student Ali reflects on her time in the Extreme Hiking group:

Ryan, Anna, Angie, and Ali

Every Tuesday and Thursday morning our group of four ventures off into the woodsy outskirts of Napa guided by our fearless leader, Jennifer, in the co-curricular known as Extreme Hiking. On our first hike together she took us to what I consider to be my favorite spot in Napa, Westwood Hills. It’s a place I’ve made an effort to visit twice since, and plan to visit many more times in the future. To all those unsure of whether to take the trip over, let me just say it is certainly worth the two-mile walk from campus. True, the littered sidewalk trip down Second Street is not the most scenic, however the view from the plateau makes even the worst travel experience forgettable. This view, which to me can only be described as infinite, overlooks all of Napa. My favorite part is being able to see the hustle and bustle of cars moving through the city in a place that feels so removed from it, creating the feeling of a true escape. 

Here's Ali, looking an awful lot like she is inside of a Thomas Cole painting

It becomes a harmonious joining of the man-made aspects of life, and nature in its rawest form. The hike we took this past Tuesday had a similar feeling. As we trudged up Skyline, we overlooked, as Anna noted to me, “not only the industrial parts of Napa but the rolling hills as well.” It only seems fitting that we are talking about Sublime American Landscape in Connections this week. We hear of the Hudson River School Painters who were entranced by Niagara Falls and the Hudson River, but I find myself wanting to interject about the sublime landscapes that are just a matter of minutes away.