Contact: Jenni Brockman
Telephone: 804-443-3357
Fax: 804-443-6781
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Resident Artists Enrich SMS Programs
Tappahannock (October 15, 2001) - Students at St. Margaret's School have a unique opportunity this year to learn advanced art skills from working professionals, thanks to the school's newly initiated resident artist program.
Photo left: - Ceramicist Alex Hibbitt, the first visiting artist in a new program at St. Margaret's School, is providing students with artistic opportunities they would not usually receive in high school. Here, she advises sophomore Maria Montes.
"It's important for students to see and experience a wide range of artistic techniques and perspectives," said Fine Arts Department Chair Catherine Neuhardt-Minor. "By including contemporary artists in our programs, we can offer girls an education that they would not ordinarily receive at the high school level - as well as a real-life glimpse into fine arts careers."
Ceramicist Alex Hibbitt, the first resident artist, is teaching pottery and leading the ceramics after-school activity through November. She is providing students with a broad foundation in the ceramic arts, including lessons in art history, design principles, hand building, wheel throwing, and decorative finishes. Her residency will culminate in the creation by students of a site-specific, functional artwork for the school.
Hibbitt's specialty is slip casting, a technique in which she pours liquid clay into molds of her own making to produce sculptural forms. Her current work examines the cultural influence of television through a series of monitor-shaped pieces that explore the relationships between surface, image and depth. It has been shown in more than 15 exhibitions in this country and abroad.
A British native, Hibbitt earned a foundation diploma in art and design from the Central School of Art in London, a bachelor of arts degree in ceramics with honors from London's Camberwell College of Arts, a diploma in ceramics from the Gerritt Rietveld Academy of Art and Design in Amsterdam, and a master of fine arts degree from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Before coming to SMS, Hibbitt was a graduate assistant at Alfred University. She also taught at Amsterdam's "Knutsel Academie," a non-profit art program that she co-founded when many art activities were phased out of the urban public school system.
The SMS resident artist program will continue in the spring, with a residency by a fine arts photographer.
