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News + Notes

Head of School Seeks Creative Side of Students

10/17/12

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Napa Valley Register: 10 Questions - Head of School Seeks Creative Side of Students
By Jennifer Huffman
October 16, 2012

Stephen Thomas is the founding director and head of school at the Oxbow School in Napa. Oxbow is a visual arts–oriented, one-semester boarding school located in downtown Napa. Thomas, who has been an educator since 1984, described what he likes about working with high school students. “Their never-ending creativity,” as well as their idealism, energy and hope, he said. To read full article and his responses to all 10 questions click on the above link.

News + Notes

Oxbow's OS25 Elise Wunderlich Honored

04/02/12

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Lake Oswego senior Elise Wunderlich earns a national Portfolio Gold Award for her art accomplishments. The Portfolio Gold Award is the highest level of achievement in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, the country’s longest-running and most prestigious award and recognition program for creative teenagers. She is one of just 15 high school seniors in the country honored with the Portfolio Gold Award, which includes a $10,000 cash prize.

"She credits her success to the intensive program she attended this fall at Oxbow in Napa, Calif. “Oxbow encouraged her to look at a wide variety of media which included performance art and sculpture,” said Katie Brink, one of Wunderlich’s art teachers at Lake Oswego High School." See the full article in the The Lake Oswego Review, Mar 22, 2012.

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Oxbow was, without a doubt, the best part of my high school experience. A year after leaving, and I still feel as though it were yesterday that I was sitting on the lawn, eating in the dining hall, and laughing with my friends in the studios.

— Julia Weir, Fall 2015

The art that goes on in most high schools is usually relatively skill-based. At Oxbow, there is more emphasis on looking and seeing and more critical thinking about what you are doing, the human connection, that personal element. Through art you can begin to understand yourself better. That may be the biggest eye-opener for students. It is almost a preview of college. Get out of the mechanical factory high school education and get into something open, new, and invigorating in a small environment.

— Bill Barrett, Former Oxbow Board Member, Former Executive Director of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art & Design (AICAD)

I learned to drop all previous assumptions I had about people because I had never met anyone like the other students at Oxbow. For the first time, my peers and their insightful thinking inspired me. For example, during the ‘Einstein’s Dreams’ presentations, I kept looking around the room thinking, I can’t believe all of these students are talking the way I think.

— Sara DeLong, Spring 2010

A School Like No Other