OX-BOW SCHOOL OF ART & ARTISTS’ RESIDENCY was established in 1910 and continues its mission of connecting artists to a network of creative resources, people, and ideas; an energizing natural environment; and a rich artistic history and vital future. Ox-Bow’s egalitarian and intimate environment encourages all artists, regardless of experience, to find, amplify, rediscover, and share their impulse to create. Faculty, Visiting Artists, Residents, staff, and students live together in a temporary intentional community on our campus in Saugatuck, Michigan, where they share meals, social time, and the exchange of ideas. We actively encourage our participants to engage across differences in age, regional location, race, and gender identity, learning what it means to be a community by participating in one.
CONTACT US
WEBSITE : www.ox-bow.org
E-MAIL : oxbow@ox-bow.org
SAUGATUCK CAMPUS
3435 Rupprecht Way Saugatuck, MI 49453
OX-BOW HOUSE 137 Center Street Douglas, MI 49406
FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM & FACEBOOK @oxbowschoolofart + @oxbow_hospitality
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CATALOG DESIGN BY: ASHLEY M. FREEBY
photo by Gregory Copitet
Photo by Ian Solomon, Summer Fellow 2023
WINTER SESSIONS AT OX-BOW
Join us at Ox-Bow School of Art & Artists’ Residency for a restorative winter session! On campus, winter is a great time to enjoy Ox-Bow’s landscape, live and work in a small community of artists, and to enjoy quiet, uninterrupted time for making. This winter we are offering two-week, for-credit, in-person, and online courses in a range of topics including ceramics, print, fibers, painting and drawing, poetry, and science.
IN-PERSON COURSES
January 5–18, 2025
Every day during the session (including weekends) 9:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m EST
CLAY MAKERSPACE
with Kylie Lockwood CERAMICS 657 001
3 credits | $200 lab fee
ALTERNATIVE PRINTMAKING
with Sarita Garcia PRINT 606 001
3 credits | $150 lab fee
SOFT MEANING: WEAVING, KNITTING, AND FELTING
with Abbey Muza FIBER 632 001
3 credits | $100 lab fee
VVINTER SUN: MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLES IN THE STUDIO
with Elijah Burgher & Rebecca Walz
PAINTING 681 001
3 credits | $100 Lab Fee
THE SUN ON THE TONGUE: PAINTING & POETRY IN THE LANDSCAPE
Upon completing a two-week course for credit, students will receive 3 credits. Students enrolled in in-person classes will reside on Ox-Bow’s campus in Saugatuck, Michigan and enjoy 24/7 access to the studios, delicious meals prepared daily, and discussions with a small community of peers. A class at Ox-Bow fulfills a portion of SAIC’s off-campus study requirements.
CLAY MAKERSPACE
with
Kylie Lockwood
CERAMICS 657 001
3 CREDITS | $200 LAB FEE
This course provides students of all levels with the opportunity to work on their own projects and to improve their ceramics skills. Students will have access to all materials in the Ceramic Studio, and can choose from a variety of firing options, including the electric kiln, gas kiln, or raku. Demonstrations will include hand building, vessel creation, construction methods, proper firing methods, and encourage intermediate understanding of drying times, methods for building sound pieces, techniques for minimizing loss, and studio safety. Taking inspiration from historical movements and contemporary ceramicists, students may engage in coil and slab building, slip casting, have time on the potter’s wheel, and practice a variety of surface design techniques. Assignments are designed to build understanding of each method, and students will conceive projects that reflect their interests. Instructors will be available to help facilitate individual, collaborative, and interdisciplinary projects.
Lockwood, Left foot poised between movement and repose, 2019, Porcelain, unfired clay and nail polish, 8
KYLIE LOCKWOOD (b. 1983, Detroit, Michigan) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work reconciles the experience of living in a female body with the Western history of sculpture. She received her BFA from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit and her MFA from Hunter College in New York. She has been an artist in residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Hambidge Center for Arts and Sciences, Offshore Residency, Caldera and Contemporary Artist Center. Lockwood completed a permanent public sculpture in collaboration with the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oregon Lewis Integrative Science Building. She is represented by Simone DeSousa Gallery, Detroit, Michigan and her work has been exhibited at PS1 MOMA, Long Island City, New York; Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; Cleopatra’s, Brooklyn, New York; Lord Ludd, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Synchrotron Radiation Center, Stoughton, Wisconsin; Coop Gallery, Nashville, Tennessee; Interstate Projects, Brooklyn, New York; Popps Packing, Detroit, Michigan. Lockwood currently lives and works in Hamtramck, Michigan.
Specifically designed for Ox-Bow, this alternative printmaking course is a combination of etching, monotype, and relief. It is the alternative print medium for painters, printmakers, and all two-dimensional visual artists who are looking for a tremendous range of line quality and color, as well as the opportunity to create multiples.
SARITA GARCIA is a Chicago based artist, educator, and cultural worker, born and raised in South Tejas. Garcia holds a Master of Art in Arts Education and a Bachelors in Fine Arts with a focus in Fiber and Materials Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Garcia is a fiber artist and printmaker informed by architectural spaces of her vernacular culture. Using an image archive to talk about consumerism, identity and cultural hubs, these fantasyscapes showcase a vocabulary of iconography as a means to empower and remix the reality of these spaces.
Garcia has exhibited work in Chicago such as the National Museum of Mexican Art, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago Art Department, Chicago Cultural Center, Roots & Culture, Heaven Gallery, ACRE, Mana Contemporary, SITE Galleries, Laband Art Gallery Los Angeles, California, City Gallery San Diego, California, and Blue Star Contemporary San Antonio, Texas. Garcia has been featured on the Chicago Tribune, Hyperallergic and Southside Weekly. Garcia currently works as an arts administrator at the Hyde Park Art Center and holds expansive experience working alongside nonprofits, cultural institutions, and artist galleries centered on art education programming.
In this course, students will make fiber-based work while developing an understanding of how the materials we use create and hold meaning. Focusing on the sustainable material; wool, students will explore a variety of treatments to create yarn, felt, cloth, and sculpture. We will build D.I.Y. handheld looms for our spun yarn, design flat works, explore dyeing, felting, and simple knitting techniques in the service of making soft works, as designed by the students. We will look at how the specific materials and techniques we use influence how we think about and create meaning in our work in relation to histories, cultures, and ecologies. Course readings and lectures will deeply consider how we can think about materials from various perspectives, and will include artists such as Ektor Garcia, Hana Miletić, and Cecilia Vicuña, and texts by authors including T’ai Smith and Denise Ferreira da Silva. Assignments will guide students through processing a locally sourced sheep’s fleece and learning the rudimentary techniques of spinning, weaving, knitting, and felting, using this fleece and other fiber materials, including sourced and foraged materials from Ox-Bow’s campus. After learning a variety of techniques and conducting initial material experiments, students will make final works (which may take any form) that engage thoughtful and personal consideration of materials and their meanings.
ABBEY MUZA uses weaving and other forms of image-making to explore narration, identity, image-making, and abstraction. They are interested in the specificities inherent in textile objects - for example, how image and content can be imbued into a textile, or the uniqueness of a textile object’s relationship to ways of seeing and being in the world. They have been an artist in residence at ACRE and Alternative Worksite, and have been a Fulbright France Harriet-Hale Wooley Awardee, a Leroy Neiman Fellow at the Oxbow School of Art, and a visiting artist at the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. They have shown their work in solo and two-person shows at spaces including Tusk, Slow Dance, and the Fondation des États Unis. They have a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture.
Abbey Muza, L: Divine and Darling, R: Inversions devient Urania, 2022, silk, wool, cotton, organza, enamel, wood,L: 67 x 26 in.; R: 82 x 26 in.
Magalie Guérin, Untitled (GT), 2023,Oil on canvas on panel, 16 x 20 ins.
This course for beginning to advanced students will include extensive experimentation with materials and techniques through individual painting problems. Emphasis will be placed on active decision-making to explore formal and material options as part of the painting process in relation to form and meaning. Students will pursue various interests in subject matter. Students may choose to work with oil-based media. Demonstrations, lectures and critiques will be included.
MAGALIE GUÉRIN (b. Montreal, 1973, pronoun she/her) lives and works in Marfa, Texas. Her work is shapebased and abstract in nature although it employs strategies of representation (figure/ ground relationship), which brings these invented shapes into an unknown yet seemingly familiar frame of reference. The experience of foreignness and discovery is at the core of Guérin’s practice.
Guérin holds an MFA in Painting & Drawing from SAIC (2011). She has had solo shows at Sikkema Jenkins & Co (New York), Corbett vs Dempsey (Chicago), Amanda Wilkinson (London), Chapter NY (New York), Galerie Nicolas Robert (Montreal), Schwarz Contemporary (Berlin), and Anat Egbi (Los Angeles). She is the author of NOTES ON, a compilation of studio writings (The Green Lantern Press, 2016/2019). Awards include Pace at FAWC (2019), Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant (2018), and Chinati Foundation residency (2018). She is represented by Sikkema Jenkins & Co in New York, Corbett vs. Dempsey in Chicago and Galerie Nicolas Robert in Montreal/Toronto.
VVINTER SUN: MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLES IN THE STUDIO
with Elijah Burgher and Rebecca Walz
PAINTING 681 001 3 CREDITS | $100 LAB FEE
Since prehistory, art has served as a way to make meaning of the difficult and mysterious aspects of human existence, particularly the cycles of birth, death and regeneration that structure life on this planet. For this interdisciplinary class, Michigan’s wintry landscape will serve as a point of departure for thinking about these cycles and their mythic symbols, such as Ishtar’s descent to the underworld and the death and resurrection of Attis. This course focuses on drawing as an archaeological and regenerative practice within the interdisciplinary field of contemporary art. Through studio projects, readings, screenings, lectures and group discussions, students will speculatively apply concepts of birth, death and regeneration to the process of making art, exploring themes of continuity, recurrence, rupture, metamorphosis, critique and appropriation. Topics will include cave painting, Mother Goddess cults, solar and lunar mythologies, alchemy, ritual, surrealism and the occult roots of modernism. Class projects will emphasize drawing as a research methodology. We will take inspiration from artists including Leonora Carrington, Forrest Bess, Ana Mendieta, Geta Brătescu and Paleolithic
IN-PERSON COURSE
cave painting, historic tarot decks and alchemical manuscripts. Selected readings will include Metamorphoses by Ovid and Prehistoric Painting: Lascaux or the Birth of Art by Georges Bataille. Students will engage in performative and ritualistic exercises including “Womb of Chaos,” which invites them to rapidly generate drawings and raw materials for self-directed projects. Mercurial values of intuition, risk, ingenuity, trickery, theft, speed and quantity will be emphasized. Students will also create a self-guided independent project that includes a written proposal, research, sketches, material studies, and final work of art or a series of works. Artists will be encouraged to consider how site or installation, material choices, and historical references shape meaning and context within their work. Suggested themes: origin myth, cave art, time machine, underworld journey, union of opposites, mother goddess, solar/lunar cycle, rebirth.
Using painting, drawing, and printmaking, ELIJAH BURGHER works at the crossroads of representation and language, figuration and abstraction, and the real and imagined. Drawing from mythology, ancient history, the occult, and ritual magick, Burgher cultivates a highly intimate code of symbols to investigate the personal and cultural dynamics of desire, love, subcultural formation, and the history of abstraction. Burgher lives and works in Berlin. His work was featured in Block Party at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg, Pennsylvania; Scrivere Disegnando: When Language Seeks Its Other at Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, 2020; For Opacity at the Drawing Center in New York City, 2018; and the 2014 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. He received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute, Chicago and a BA from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. Elijah Burgher is represented by P.P.O.W in New York City, Western Exhibitions in Chicago and Ivan Gallery in Bucharest.
REBECCA WALZ is a visual artist, educator, and curator based in Chicago. Currently working mostly in the areas of drawing, mixed media, and collage, she has maintained a collaborative practice with her partner, Ryan M. Pfeiffer, for the past decade. Drawing from research, her works synthesize concerns about desire, myth, transformation and formlessness. She holds an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Her artworks have been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including The Carnegie Museum of Art, International Museum of Surgical Science, Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), Institute of Contemporary Art (Singapore), Breese Little (London), Abbaye Saint–Magloire Galerie (France), among others. Her works are included in the following public collections at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), and more.
Rebecca Walz + Ryan M Pfeiffer, Sorcerer Saint-Cirq La-Popie, sanguine lead, graphite, charcoal and colored pencil on paper, 22 x 30 in.; (left page) Elijah Burgher, Elagabalus in the Afterlife, 2023, colored pencil and watercolor on paper, 16 x 12 in.
THE SUN ON THE TONGUE: PAINTING & POETRY IN THE LANDSCAPE
Inspired by great artists like Etel Adnan and Elizabeth Bishop and the winter landscape of Ox-Bow, this assignment driven studio course will activate writing for painters and painting for writers. Class discussions and readings will be wide-ranging with an emphasis on the creative process, the development of a personal voice, exchange of ideas, and practical topics in fine arts. Individualized critiques and meetings will follow the group discussions. Students will be expected to define a contextual framework and vocabulary for talking about their work as well as resolving form, content and technical issues. Areas of studio practice as well as outside of class assignments will explore expanded definitions of painting
and writing that relate to the body and things of the world, The course is designed to prepare students to pursue individual creative projects in a setting that supports critical thinking, risk-taking, and the production of a body of work on paper and other supports. Students in this course will be assigned a semi-private studio space and can work in the media of their choice. We will take inspiration from readings and screenings from artists including; Etel Adnan, a Lebanese-American poet, essayist, and visual artist. named “arguably the most celebrated and accomplished Arab American author writing today” by the academic journal MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States,. Elizabeth Bishop, who worked
Arnold J. Kemp, Garfield Park, Chicago, 2024, Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10.25”
as a painter as well as a poet, and her verse, like visual art, is known for its ability to capture significant scenes, and Renee Gladman, a writer and artist preoccupied with crossings, thresholds, and geographies as they play out at the intersections of poetry, prose, drawing and architecture. Other readings will include Marie Howe’s The Good Thief, Deborah Digges’ Vesper Sparrows, Josh Ashberry’s Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, and Letters to the Future: Black Women/Radical Writing, as edited by Erica Hunt. Assignments will invite students to adapt sensations experienced in the Ox-Bow landscape through words and drawing, inspired by Richard Hugo’s The Triggering Town, and to trade pieces of writings with confidants to develop works in watercolor or acrylic based on these writings. These exercises will require us to trust in what we can make of a synthesis of the known and unknown. Walking through the landscape, speaking to trees, looking for foxes, and screaming at the frozen lake will inform our final works.
ARNOLD J. KEMP is an artist and writer. He is Professor of Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was previously the chair of Painting and Printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University. He has received awards from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; PollockKrasner Foundation; Joan Mitchell Foundation, and Academy of American Poets. His writing has appeared in Callaloo, Three Rivers Poetry Journal, Agni Review, MIRAGE #4 Period(ical), River Styx, Nocturnes, Art Journal, Tripwire and in From Our Hearts to Yours: New Narrative as Contemporary Practice. Kemp’s critical writing has appeared recently in Texte zur Kunst, October and Spike Art Magazine. He has presented his writing publicly at The Poetry Foundation, Chicago and Human Resources, Los Angeles. His work is shown internationally including at Biquini Wax, Mexico City, The Drawing Center and Martos Gallery, NY; The Neubauer Collegium at University of Chicago; Apalazzo Gallery, Brescia, Italy; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA; JOAN, Los Angeles, The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, Nassau, Bahamas, and M. Leblanc, Chicago.
ANIMAL BEHAVIOR
with Dr. Dianne Jedlicka
SCIENCE 3523 001 | 3 CREDITS
JANUARY 3–16, 2:00-4:30 p.m. EST/ 1:00-3:30 p.m . CST
This course will incorporate field observations in the natural environment surrounding Saugatuck, Michigan into the study of animal behavior. Students will formulate and test hypotheses through the acquisition of data in the field. Topics covered include: classical learning and instinct, reproductive behaviors, and interactions between and within species.
NOTE: LIBSCI 3521: Animal Behavior is a separate course and may be taken for credit in addition to this one. NOTE: SAIC Students must have already taken English 1001 & 1005 in order to enroll in this course.
DR. DIANNE JEDLICKA teaches numerous Biology courses at SAIC including Animal Behavior, Evolutionary Mammalogy, Ecology (Natural History), and Human Anatomy and Physiology. Her primary research has been at the community level of organization focusing on the feeding strategies and predation of tree and ground squirrels based on their functional morphology. Observational data collected on nocturnal foraging of the eastern cottontail rabbit was published recently. All of these animals are found throughout the Ox-Bow region and offer Dr. Jedlicka’s students’ ample opportunity for scientific observations. Dr. Jedlicka has also presented and published articles on new teaching methods and labs in the college classroom.
a reflection on WINTER and it’s
rhythms
Written by Shanley Poole, Engagement Liaison & Storyteller
Winter in West Michigan necessitates a slowing. Gone are the summer days packed to the brim with beach outings. Fall’s apples have all been harvested. The squirrels have cashed an abundance of seeds, and now they spend their days conserving energy and gathering together for warmth. Deer layer up with winter coats. Meadow mice and brown bats, some of Michigan’s few species that undergo true hibernation, will not be seen again until spring. There’s lessons to be had here. The sun sets early and rises late. It creates a rhythm that’s easy to lean into, if only one listens. And at Ox-Bow, it’s easy to listen. Quiet mornings and cozy nights, many cups of tea and hours by the fireplace… these are staples of campus during Winter Session. While the sun offers itself more sparingly during these months, its presence becomes all the more powerful. Its efforts double with the help of its seasonal companion: snow. It reflects not only light, but light’s energy (heat). At this time the sun is
at its closest, making the light that reaches us its most intense. The summer rays were what originally drew Plein Air Painters to Ox-Bow’s meadow, but it’s the cutto-the-chase winter sun that has my affections. It beams down to campus in a fashion that says, “I got here as fast as I could!” While the rest of us focus on a time of slow and steady, the sun hustles to keep us warm.
In the anthology Women Writing on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the collection is divided into seasons. The section on winter accounts for nearly a third of the book. How appropriate, given that Michigan’s winter stretches well beyond its quarterly allocation. For winter, the poet Catie Rosemurgy writes in the anthology:
Why am I always being the weather? There were days in the winter when her smile was so lovely I felt the breathing of my own goodness,
During the months I’m not on Ox-Bow’s
campus, it’s hard to “be the weather.” With air conditioning, overhead lights, and a surplus of hours spent indoors, I disconnect from my environment and create a halfhearted facsimile of one inside my apartment.
Ox-Bow’s campus gives access to one of the few places where I can embody Rosemurgy’s poem. Winter’s smile beams over the frozen lagoon and illuminates the meadow. Her laughter manifests in the chatter of the goldfinches, sparrows, and crows. And her warmth (alongside the diligence of the maintenance team) keeps the hearth inside the dining hall roaring. Whereas summer at Ox-Bow promotes lively shenanigans and spirited adventures, winter draws intimate community and quiet conversation. We tip our hat to those lessons of nature. We draw together, cache books, layer ourselves with sweaters, nestle into studios. And when the sun emerges, we lift our heads and smile back at her.
REGISTRATION
In-person registration begins Monday, November 18 at 8:30 a.m CST in the Neiman Center, 37 S. Wabash, Chicago, IL 60603.
Online registration begins at 10:00 a.m. EST/9:00 a.m. CST via ox-bow.org.
TUITION & FEES
PROGRAM TUITION
GRADUATE 2-WEEK
UNDERGRADUATE 2-WEEK
$5,778
$5,544
For-credit payments should be processed via check to SAIC or credit card payment through SAIC’s payment partner, CASHnet, which is accessible through Peoplesoft Self Service.
INFORMATION SESSION
Want to find out more about our winter session? Come to our information session on October 17 from 4:00-5:00 p.m. CST on the 1st Floor Neiman Center, 37 S. Wabash, Chicago, IL 60603.
Can’t attend the information session? Email us at oxbow@ox-bow.org to have your questions answered.
ROOM & BOARD
ROOM & BOARD COST
SHARED ROOM 2-WEEKS
SINGLE ROOM 2-WEEKS
$2,080
$2,990
Room and board fees cover more than just your cozy 13-night stay. At Ox-Bow, the kitchen is the heart of campus and aims to provide all participants with three restorative, sustainable, and healthy meals per day. This team uses locally sourced ingredients as much as possible and can adapt to any dietary restriction. Meal plans are included in the room and board fee.
Single or shared rooms are available. Single rooms are limited, first-come-first-served and we encourage those interested to register quickly.
DROP POLICY
If a student drops their course from the time of registration until four weeks before the start of their class they will receive a tuition and room & board refund minus a $350 drop fee. If a student drops within four weeks of the start date of their class, no refunds will be given.
Requests to drop must be submitted in writing to the Ox-Bow registrar via email by 4:00 p.m. on the last day of the drop period. It is not possible to drop an Ox-Bow class through the SAIC Self Service, through the SAIC registrar, or to use scholarships granted by Ox-Bow to cover the costs of drop fees.
Students who register for an Ox-Bow class assume the risk that they may need to leave Ox-Bow due to testing positive for respiratory or other illnesses and are encouraged to consider insurance options. Ox-Bow does not provide refunds for students who leave campus prior to the completion of their course for any reason.
Ox-Bow is dedicated to providing students with the experience described in the catalog, but cannot guarantee the listed faculty. In the rare event that a faculty cannot instruct their class due to an emergency, a replacement of similar expertise will be provided. Faculty replacement does not make a student eligible for a refund.
In the event that Ox-Bow must cancel a course due to low enrollment or for any other reason, full refunds will be given.
Ox-Bow reserves the right to adapt this drop policy after the publication of the catalog, per evolving guidelines and recommendations.
FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
Students can be awarded funding from Ox-Bow to take a course via the Merit Scholarship, the Work Scholarship, and the Need Based Scholarship. Awards for all three scholarships are partial in nature but can combine to cover costs associated with an Ox-Bow enrollment.
Ox-Bow hires a diverse panel of artist professionals to review applications whose intersectional perspectives help identify merit in applications, with the goal of building a diverse student body and expanding equity in aid awards. Please see below for details and instructions.
Ox-Bow Merit Scholarship
Ox-Bow will award a limited number of partial merit scholarships this winter. Applications are due October 20 by 12:00 a.m. EST/11:00 p.m. CST. All students are eligible to apply. These portfolio based applications are reviewed by an outside panel of diverse arts professionals.
Students who receive a scholarship are able to preregister for their preferred course. Apply online at ox-bow.org
Ox-Bow Work Scholarship
Ox-Bow will award a number of work scholarships on a first come, first-served basis to students enrolling in Ox-Bow classes for-credit. The work scholarship is equivalent to 50% of the cost of shared room and board while attending Ox-Bow.
Students work 13 hours per week while on campus in one of the following jobs: kitchen, housekeeping, grounds and maintenance. Each work study scholarship field is unique and requires teamwork with other Ox-Bow staff members in their departments. Tasks specific to these departments may change based on the time of year or priority projects but general descriptions are as follows;
• Kitchen work is often dishwashing, cleaning the dining room, or prepping ingredients for meals. Housekeeping is often cleaning bathrooms, sweeping floors, and turning over bedrooms. Grounds & Maintenance is often raking leaves, snow removal, setting up tables and chairs for events, and trash removal.
Students who receive a work study scholarship will receive confirmation of their field when they arrive on campus
from Ox-Bow’s Deputy Director of Campus Life & Operations, Claire Arctander. Schedules are dynamic, based on the current needs of each department and students will be scheduled to work, at times, during class. Faculty are aware they may have a student who is working toward their work study scholarship and will keep them caught up with the syllabus. Failure to complete any of the hours assigned will result in a removal of the scholarship.
Work scholarships can only be claimed in person at Ox-Bow’s registration event in the Neiman Center starting at 8:30 a.m. CST November 18.
Ox-Bow Need Based Scholarship
This scholarship is available to students enrolling in an Ox-Bow class who demonstrate financial need. Applications for this scholarship are informational, not portfolio based, and are reviewed by the Ox-Bow Scholarship Committee on a rolling basis.
If a student is interested in a Need Based Scholarship for their winter 2025 enrollment, they should submit that application by Sunday, October 20 by 12:00 a.m EST/11:00 p.m. CST. Awards will be communicated to the student at least one-week prior to open registration.
COMMUNITY HEALTH GUIDELINES
Ox-Bow reserves the right to update their participant guidelines in response to emergent and/or ongoing local, regional, national and/ or global public health, safety and environmental concerns at any time and without warning. This includes, but is not limited to, requiring any participant to provide documentation of a negative COVID-19 test result and/or vaccination status prior to their participation, including approval for overnight accommodation.
SAIC FINANCIAL AID
Undergraduate and graduate students from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago may be able to use their financial aid award and merit scholarships from SAIC toward for-credit tuition for courses at Ox-Bow. Students will need to complete an SAIC Winter 2025 Institutional Financial Aid Application available at www.saic.edu/ faforms. Applications must be submitted before the term begins.
Please contact the SAIC Student Financial Services office or refer to the application for exact deadlines. Financial aid typically does not cover room and board or lab fees at Ox-Bow. Learn more about applying at the School’s Office of Financial Aid, by calling 312-629-6600, or by emailing saic.sfs@saic.edu.
WINTER LIFE AT OX-BOW
The winter session at Ox-Bow is small and hosts no more than 30 students on campus. Faculty and students have the unique opportunity of living and working on campus together, sharing meals, and growing in a community of dedicated, thoughtful artists. Students reside in Ox-Bow’s Main Inn which also houses the dining room with a fireplace, the main office, and the lecture room. Students may request single or shared rooms, bathrooms are shared. A full orientation guide will be provided after registration.
Frederick Fursman
OX-BOW WAS FOUNDED IN...
SIT BY A FIRE
Enjoy the warmth of a cozy fire during the cold Winter nights.
Frederick Fursman and Walter Clute, two faculty members from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, founded The Summer School of Painting (now Ox-Bow) in 1910.
LOCATIONS: - New inn dining room - Campfire Ring by the lagoon
Sauga-what?
Who, what, where is Saugatuck?
Saugatuck is nestled along Lake Michigan and the Kalamazoo River and is defined by rolling dunes and lush countrysides. Saugatuck is home to a small number of yearround residents and slows down during the colder months.
GETTING TO OX-BOW
Our campus is located in Saugatuck, MI about 2 ½ hours from Chicago. Students are responsible for arranging their own transportation to campus. Driving is most convenient but public transportation is available. Please make travel arrangements early and be aware of weather conditions prior to your trip.
MEET THE NEIGHBORS: White-tailed deer and foxes are year-round residents in Saugatuck. Both species have been sited on campus and in the Tallmadge woods. If you visit Ox-Bow this winter, you might have the chance to meet them!
STUDIO BUILDINGS
» Open-air glass & metals studio
» Print studio for lithography, letterpress, silkscreen, + linocut
» Indoor/outdoor ceramics studio featuring a woodfired kiln.
SNOW FALL
L ast year nearly 40 inches over the winter (West Michigan area)
The Crow’s Nest 2.1 mile loop is hikeable year around – but there’s something special about hiking the trail with cocoa in hand after a fresh dusting of snow.
Icons via noun project by Oliver Silvérus (snowflake), Nanda Ririz (train), Trishul (car), Luketaibai (fire), and P Thanga Vignesh (Michigan); Photos by Aaron Huber via Unsplash (deer); Ray Hennessy via Unsplash (fox)
WHITE-TAILED DEER
RED FOX
Photos courtesy of staff
POLICIES
Accommodations Policy
Ox-Bow is committed to providing students with disabilities equal access to the classroom and other events on campus. Because of the unique nature of learning at Ox-Bow, students are asked to communicate their needs related to living and learning to the Ox-Bow staff when asked during registration so that preparations can be made with the campus team and their faculty. If at any time a student needs to make a confidential accommodation request, they can do so by emailing oxbow@ox-bow.org.
Admission Policy
Ox-Bow reserves the right to deny admission to any individual who has demonstrated a history of behavior that, in the judgment of Ox-Bow, might contribute in any way to the disruption of the educational processes or residential life on campus.
Attendance Policy
Due to the intensive nature of an Ox-Bow course, students are required to attend in full and everyday during the session to be granted the credits assigned to their course. Ox-Bow will work with students who miss class, and their faculty to understand their needs and get on a path toward completion. Missing one day of class or arriving tardy more than once will trigger a mediated conversation between student, faculty, and Ox-Bow administration. Failure to correct unexcused absences will make the student eligible for a non-passing grade.
Grading Policy
Ox-Bow adheres to a credit/no credit grading system. Students enrolling in classes for-credit are indicated by the grading basis CR, or Credit, on the registration statement and transcript. Students enrolling in classes for non-credit are indicated by the grading basis AUD, or Audit, on the registration statement and transcript.
Guest Policy
No companions, guests, or visitors are permitted during your stay. All residential housing and studio facilities are limited to participants enrolled in courses.
Studio Policy
Each studio has specific policies in place to ensure the safety of students and equipment. Additionally, these policies ensure that all participants receive a quality education with equal access to faculty and equipment. All studio-specific policies will be explained on the first night of classes. Any student found in violation of these policies will be asked to leave the course without refund. These same policies are applied to any work conducted in the OxBow landscape or on the Ox-Bow grounds. Because Ox-Bow is a community, we ask that all students respect the rights of their classmates and fellow community members by following our policies.
Suspension & Expulsion Policy
Ox-Bow reserves the right to impose sanctions including suspension and expulsion, without refund, upon students whose behavior, in the judgment of Ox-Bow, contributes in any way to the disruption of the educational processes or residential life on campus. Additional policies are listed in the Ox-Bow Policy & Procedures Handbook. SAIC students will be subject to disciplinary procedures and sanctions as outlined in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Student Handbook.
OX-BOW BOARD & STAFF
OUR DIRECTORS
Shannon R. Stratton
Executive Director
Claire Arctander
Deputy Director of Campus Life & Operations
Ashley Freeby
Communications Director & Head Designer
Maddie Reyna
Academic Program Director
OUR BOARD
Steven C. Meier
Board President
Scott Alfree
Evan Boris
Delinda Collier
Christopher Craft
Chris Deam
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Dawn Gavin
Keith Goad
Loring Randolph
jina valentine
Keith P. Walker
Ox-Bow’s Board of Directors contribute their time, expertise, and resources to ensure that future generations of artists will benefit from Ox-Bow’s rich tradition and outstanding programming. We are grateful for their dedication and support.
EMERITUS
BOARD
Ox-Bow’s Emeritus Board confers special honors and distinctions upon former members of Ox-Bow’s Board of Directors and Auxiliary Board who have exhibited noteworthy dedication and commitment to Ox-Bow. Membership in the Emeritus Board is a lifetime appointment that celebrates Ox-Bow’s important legacy.
OUR STAFF
ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF
Maggie Bandstra Manager of Retail & Community Liaison
Aidan Burke Retail Associate (Tuck Shop)
Hannah Bugg Gallery & Retail Assistant
Bobby Gonzales Programs Manager
Christopher Kubik Consulting Business Manager
Molly Markow Grants & Relationships Manager
Kate Nguyen Community Engagement & Events Manager
Shanley Poole Engagement Liaison & Storyteller
Karen Wentworth Bookkeeper
CAMPUS OFFICE
Rowan Leek Campus Manager
Jon Lewis
Campus Office Coordinator
HOUSEKEEPING
Aaron Whitfield
Housekeeping Manager
Michael Stone
Housekeeping Assistant
WELLNESS
Magnet Curry
After Hours & Community Care Assistant
CULINARY
Sabrina Allen
Assistant Culinary Manager
Ren Rodriguez Assistant Culinary Manager
Baxter Baas
Cy Brogan
Jake Brown
Peach Gallant
Rama Singleton
Frankie Rose Winum
Culinary Team Member
FACILITIES
John Rossi
Facilities Manager
Nate Skiffington
Assistant Facilities Manager
Zain Sorathia Operations Manager
STUDIO MANAGERS
Dasha Klein
Print & New Media
Studio Manager
Nick Fagan
Metals Studio Manager
Zena Segre
Ceramics Studio Manager
Rachel Brace
Glass Studio Manager
Steven Valera
Glass Studio Technician
Lexi Ziebarth
Glass Studio Technician
IMPORTANT DATES
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17
Information Session
1st Floor Neiman Center, 4:00 - 5:00 p.m.CST
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20
Merit Scholarship Applications & Need Based Applications Due 12:00 a.m. EST/11:00 p.m. CST
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18
Registration
Begins in-person in the Neiman Center, 37 S Wabash, at 8:30 a.m.CST and online at ox-bow. org, 10:00 a.m. EST/ 9:00 a.m. CST
