By Torrey Kist, Chair of the Visual Arts and Design Department
Evening of the Arts is a beloved Tower Hill tradition dating back to 1994. It is a time for the whole community to come together and celebrate all the creative talents of our students.
The Art Department implemented some changes this past school year, including the launch of a new “Visiting Artist” initiative to bolster the annual event, which exponentially grew student and visitor engagement and increased arts visibility throughout the school. These updates were added to an already thriving art program and are supplementing a deep foundation of art here at Tower Hill.
Tower Hill is very fortunate to have a strong department of five faculty members who all specialize in different media. The disciplines our faculty teach have been sustained by a collective 60+ years of teaching. Our undergraduate and graduate degrees have served the school well in helping guide our students in their respective fine arts paths here at Tower Hill.
Tower Hill students are uniquely fortunate in having full access to a comprehensive woodshop at the heart of the school, a large photography darkroom and digital lab, a ceramics studio with two kilns and three painting and drawing classrooms at their disposal. They also benefit from highly educated teachers who present these respective artistic assets and the necessary techniques to understand each of these disciplines.
VISIBILITY
As it comes with the territory, the Art Department has worked towards increasing the visibility of student artwork—both physically and virtually. As of this past year, Middle School artwork is now highlighted on the hallway digital screens in addition to its regular rotation along the walls of the main Middle School hallways.
Also, the department is now encouraging Middle and Upper School students to hone their drawing skills through all-community art contests such as Inktober, which provides students with sketchbooks to help develop strong observational drawing habits. Students receive prizes for participating in contests, which encourages the development of their fine motor skills through drawing and their pursuit of a skill that is offline. Participating students’ work is highlighted in The Weathervane, on hallway screens and announced during assemblies.
Other visibility initiatives include a new, large-scale, collaborative installation in my sixth grade class that focuses on worldly environmental concerns. The 2025 installation will educate our community about rainforest deforestation and ways our community can help. Once a year, Middle School students also have the opportunity to present relevant art-related knowledge on stage to the entire Middle School during assembly. For example, this past year, several students were selected to present research and artwork based on important artists celebrated during Black History Month.
In the Upper School, ceramics students sold ornaments during Tree Trim to visitors in the entryway of the Field House. You can look forward to this new tradition again in the coming school year. Other ways we have been promoting our student successes are through a new Upper School tradition called Fine Arts Fridays. Every Friday, a different student is highlighted on the big screen during Morning Meeting. The discerning efforts of art students are enjoyed by their peers as we feature everything from ceramics to paintings to photography every Friday.
We have been asking more students to create bespoke public artwork for a variety of purposes, such as Earth Day and community-focused content for our front of school bulletin boards. These are true examples of student-led public works that educate our community about celebrated holidays, important world figures, monthly observances and more.
Asking the students to create these pieces further deepens their understanding of the subject and speaks to the core of the Tower Hill mission of engaging our scholars by providing opportunities to educate themselves and their community through the arts. Upper School students continue to drive their own sources of arts visibility through the Lit Pages, Arts Board and Arts Club all of which stepped up their respective engagement this past school year, demonstrating creativity by channeling school spirit through a variety of media.
ENHANCEMENTS TO EVENING OF THE ARTS
If you attended the 2024 Evening of the Arts, you surely experienced many of the exciting new additions to the program! On top of what you have come to love about this event—admiring over 1,000 paintings, ceramic and woodworking pieces, photographs and more—new elements, such as an interactive craft table, open art classrooms, more student demonstrations and a food truck, were all part of what was a beautiful evening on campus.
A hand-painted Earth Day mural made by two recently graduated seniors hung on the main bulletin board found through a colorful balloon arch. Our younger students worked steadily at a craft table to create fish drawings that were added right onto the mural! Walking down the Lower School hallway, our families enjoyed hundreds of Lower School artworks, including a second grade Chinese shadow puppet show. In THE Hub area of the Upper School, Studio Art students demonstrated their fantastic painting skills, live! Around the corner, many of the smaller study rooms were converted to art installations of varying media composed by Upper School students. Downstairs in the Founders’ Gallery, hundreds of visitors gathered to listen to small ensemble jazz and band members perform while enjoying Middle and Upper School artwork. Highlighted in the gallery was the cumulative work of the talented class of 2024. This year, we added a special treat—The Woodside Creamery ice cream truck in the Underpass area! Additionally, we opened up the ceramics studio, where students demonstrated wheel-throwing, and the woodshop, where you could see in-progress woodwork displayed.
Evening of the Arts is always a special event where our faculty and families can reflect upon our students’ artistic efforts and engage with other families and teachers. Likewise, it is a true demonstration of cross divisional and collaborative student efforts, emblematic of our creative community and the spirit of Multa Bene Facta. If you didn’t have the opportunity to visit campus during this year’s Evening of the Arts program, we hope you plan to attend next spring—you won’t want to miss it!
WHAT’S NEXT?
The Art Department is planning even more positive programmatic initiatives to unfold over the coming years. You can count on seeing more collaborative and cross divisional programming, new featured student artwork rotating in and out of the main entry hallway, more student-made front hall bulletin boards, student Instagram “take-overs” [@tower_hill_art] and an even louder voice from our student artists here at Tower Hill via platforms such as Arts Board and Arts Clubs.
We will continue to proudly share the successes of our student artists with this community, and we hope you are ready to see more from the Art Department in the future!
