VSA - creative arts summer camp

This creative arts summer camp and program is perfect for young artists who want to take their work to the next level. New trends in art are discussed, from found art to art in public spaces. But the fundamentals of this course are built around skill building and portfolio development.

PORTFOLIO DEVELOPMENT

Every artist requires a great portfolio to showcase skill and talent. For students looking to study art in college, portfolios are a required part of the college application process. An art career or an opportunity to host a gallery show will start with a fundamentally excellent portfolio. Whatever the state of your current portfolio, you will leave this creative arts summer camp summer session with a stronger and more advanced presentation.

SKILLS AND PERSONAL EXPRESSION

The other major focus of this course is pure artistic skill building, from drawing and painting to sculpture and mixed-media. Students will learn and improve their skills in visualization using many mediums, drawing objects and forms from direct observation. We will also work in three dimensions, using found materials and our own imaginations!

Students last summer created ceramic masks that were not only gorgeous but complex and each student got to choose the theme for their mask and create something that they could really be proud of. With full access to a well-equipped art studio, students made great strides in building their skills, developing a deeper confidence in their creations, and making art on a college level.

Poultney is also the home of the gallery of Kerry O. Furlani a graduate of the Frink School of Figurative Sculpture in Stoke-on-Trent, England. Furlani began experimenting with a regional stone not often pursued by sculptors — slate — and found it to be the perfect material for her love of incised line and relief carving. In 2011, she spent three formative months in Wales studying letter carving with master carver, John Neilson. She has shown her slate lettering work in numerous exhibitions in Vermont and New York. We hope to visit Kerry in her studio as well to have her visit our on-campus studio.

We are planning visits to the College’s own Feick Art Center, the Carving Studio in West Rutland and the Southern Vermont Art Center in Manchester will give students the chance to see art in action, and to see what people are currently working on, and to study trends and developing modalities in painting, drawing and sculpture.

COURSEWORK

Design principles such as Rhythm, Repetition, Balance, and Proportion will become part of an intensive art practice during this summer’s programming at the Vermont Summer Academy.

You will work with various mediums Drawing, Block Printing and then a building relief with plaster and clay based on your 2 dimensional concepts. Imagery will be drawn from the environment and a personal collection of found objects, reflecting the landscape of Southern Vermont. Working in the studio will be paired with time on the trail, to better explore naturalistic design and form more directly.

Staff profile:

FLORA NATALINI
Flora Natalini is a proud graduate of Hampshire College where she studied Visual Art and its healing properties. She currently resides in Northampton Massachusetts, where she works in the care field with true spectrum of people: toddlers and elders. Flora enjoys bringing artwork into the lives of her clients and is passionate about using art as a tool to enjoy living. She struggles picking a medium of choice when it comes to making art, because she gets a kick out of mixing mediums and seeing how they interact. This usually results in sculptural three dimensional forms using found objects. Flora loves being a facilitator of art and is thrilled to be a part of the Vermont Summer Academy. She is very excited to teach both the technical necessities of art making and the fun that comes from experimentation!