The visual arts at Bryn Mawr offer a faculty-guided curriculum that provides students with a treasure chest of skills and opportunities. The faculty guides students in developing greater imagination and creativity by presenting the best that the visual arts have to offer.
Students work with a wide array of materials and tools that they use in creative ways to explore, capture, and express art from life and from imagination. Tempera, crayon, marker, watercolor, and chalk give shape and color to images. Paper, clay, wood, tile, and wire are the gateways to sculpture, design, and portraits. Printmaking, crafts, etching, landscape drawing, kaleidoscope designs, Pariscraft figures, Chinese brush painting, weaving, stitching, and tile design complement the curriculum.
Here, the emphasis is on observation and rendering natural forms as well as increasing understanding of line, color, shape, form, space, and texture. Non-western art is studied, the principles of design are introduced, and still-life painting and drawing are explored. Computer-generated design is introduced, giving breadth and depth to the visual arts curriculum.
Coursework in the visual arts develops skills while engaging a student's creativity and imagination. Art and design courses provide four levels of instruction in a variety of traditional and contemporary media. Courses in ceramics and photography are infused with diverse cultural styles, and dynamic computer media design classes round out a multifaceted program.
Within each division, Bryn Mawr students have the opportunity to participate in and learn from artists-in-residence who visit the school. The work of students, faculty, and alumnae also is showcased throughout the year. The All-School Art Show and the Neena Tolley Ewing Memorial Photography Exhibit cap a vibrant visual arts calendar in the spring.
At every stage of their education at Bryn Mawr, the visual arts enhance our students' lives.