Resources

As a student interested in Art and Design, the Department of Fine Arts offers you a number of distinctive opportunities, including:

Studio Facilities: Beautifully renovated dance studio, two well-lit drawing and painting studios, a new wet darkroom, a comfortable seminar room with large couches and giant critique wall, a 20-station Dell computer lab featuring the Adobe Creative Suite, a ceramics studio with two electric kilns and five wheels, a printmaking studio with a mechanized press, and semi-private studio space for seniors.

Regular field trips: To museums, galleries, and artist studios in Washington, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York.
Internships: Has included positions as Photographer at Busch Gardens Amusement Park in Williamsburg, VA, an Administrative Assistant at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, and a graphic designer with a firm in Washington, DC.
 
Preparation for graduate study: Fine Arts Majors have enrolled in recent graduate programs at Mt. St. Mary's University, Slippery Rock University, and Temple University, as well as in graduate programs at Wilson College (MA Humanities and MFA). 
 
The Brenda Ashton Aiken '57 and Robert McCutchen Aiken Study Abroad Endowed Scholarship: This competitive $5000 scholarship is awarded biennially to a full-time, fine arts student. The scholarship supplements travel, living and education expenses for study abroad in Italy. The location, length of the program and exact coursework will be left to the discretion of the Department of Fine Arts and final approval of the Academic Dean.
 
Francis S. Farmer Endowment: Francis S. Farmer graduated from Wilson College in 1950 and went on to serve a long and distinguished career in the protection of her beloved country, the United States of America. She also had a life-long love of the arts, especially dance. As a competitive ball-room dancer, she traveled extensively, and performed across the country, and upon her death in 2014, at the age of 85, an endowment in excess of $600,000 was established in her name in the Department of Fine Arts and Dance to assist qualified students in making successful transitions to professional careers in the field of fine and performing arts.

Visiting Artists: Each semester, professional visual and/or performing artists are invited to campus to talk about and perform their own professional work and meet with students to discuss student work. They come with varied backgrounds as professional artists and educators working in a variety of media, and bring new perspectives to current Wilson students.

The Bogigian Gallery: Two exhibitions are hosted each semester, with a concentration on women artists. The schedule includes the annual juried Student Show held at the end of the Spring semester and a Biannual Faculty/Staff Show, along with a variety of local, regional and nationally known artists.

The Cooley Gallery: Located on the second floor of the beautifully renovated John Stewart Memorial Library, Cooley Gallery provides space for students and professional artists to share their creative voice with a community of scholars. Professional artist exhibitions typically run for an entire semester, while student and resident artist exhibitions run during summer months.

The Hunnicutt Gallery of Classical Antiquities: A wonderful collection of artifacts from Egypt, Greece, Rome, and other great civilizations of the Western world. Students have the opportunity to study the collection in depth and are invited to physically engage the objects.

Summer Artist-in-Residency Program: Open to visual and choreographic/dance artists and small dance companies (3-5 people). Free studio space and free housing for ten-day residencies. Artists participating in the Wilson College Summer Artist-in-Residence Program can immerse themselves in creative work away from the stresses and distractions of home, work, and regular routines. Artists have 24-hour access to spacious, quiet, and well-lit studios, and all residencies are self-guided. Informal and formal critique/discussion with Wilson College students and fellow residents is encouraged, as Wilson is a community of scholarship. Artists exhibit/show work produced during the residency in Bogigian and/or Cooley Galleries, or Appenzellar-Buchanan Dance Studio.