The prominence of the arts at Putney is illustrated by the extensive studio facilities and the exhibited work seen everywhere on campus. Academic and evening visual art courses comprise all of the major fine arts disciplines as well as many media not often offered at the secondary level, such as blacksmithing, lithography, and life drawing.
All of our arts teachers are professional artists who share their expertise and artistic passion with their students. The shared creative energy between students and teachers builds genuine camaraderie and mutual respect. “Talent” is not a word the art department uses, as we believe that we all have the potential to be creative.
Our involvement in the visual arts extends well beyond campus. We travel to art museums in Boston and New York and to the many excellent college museums in New England; to artist's studios; to marble quarries and artist's residencies; to new landscapes of coastal New England and as far away as Italy and Holland.
We also bring art and artists to Putney. Our Art Gallery has hosted such prominent figures as Kara Walker, Sally Mann, David Plowden, and Alex Webb, who have also visited the school. We consider the opportunity to see great art, on campus or wherever we find it, essential to a student's creative development at Putney.
Visual Arts Facilities
The Wender Arts Building
The Wender Arts Building houses an expansive painting and drawing studio with twelve oak easels, work tables, and a 16’ x 16’ north-facing window.
Sculpture classes occupy the southern portion of the Wender Arts Building. Wood and stone carving, modeling, constructing, and critiques occur in the main studio. Oxygen/acetylene welding and torch cutting, MIG welding, arc welding, drilling, shearing, grinding, and forging occur in the Metal /Blacksmithing Room. We have hand and power tools for sculpting in steel, stone, wood, plaster, and clay.
The Print Shop contains facilities for work in monotype, relief, intaglio, letterpress, and stone lithography. The school owns a Vandercook proof press, Brand etching press, a large Pexto plate cutter, and Fuchs & Lang lithography press, along with fifteen large lithography stones. We have a ventilated booth for spray and acid use.
Upstairs in the Wender Arts Building is a loft with eight semi-private studios for use by advanced students, and fully equipped, ventilated stained glass and jewelry studios.
The main floor has a gallery for displaying student work.
Fiber Arts
The weaving room is on the top floor of the Reynolds Building. Additional space is available, for dyeing and for washing fleece for spinning. The weaving program has 14 four harness looms, 1 six harness loom and 7 eight harness looms in use, with several more in storage (because we don't have room to use them). We also have 6 spinning wheels, 4 sewing machines, 1 serger and one knitting machine.
Fourteen Merino, Romney and Borderleister sheep on the Farm provide fleece for spinning and for the Sheep to Shawl Long Spring Trip.
Ceramics
The ceramics facilities are located in the Arts & Crafts Building and include seven electric wheels, one kick wheel, two pug mills, a full inventory of glaze materials for glaze-mixing, a wide array of tools, a computerized electric kiln, a 35 cubic foot gas kiln, a Raku kiln and a brick structure for pit-firing.
Photography
The school has a large ventilated darkroom with a central sink and ten Beseler 45 enlargers. There is a second lab for processing film. The camera inventory includes Nikons, Cannons, Pentax K1000s, Holgas and a Toyo 4 x 5 field camera and a variety of lenses. All chemistry is collected and recycled. Our Digital facilities offer 12 iMacs, Photo Shop and In Design CS4, 3 Epson 1400 printers and 2 Epson V500 scanners.
Filmmaking
The filmmaking studio is equipped with multiple DV cameras and 5 Apple iMacs. The iMacs are loaded with many software packages including iMovie, Final Cut Express, iStopMotion, and Dragon Stop Motion.
