News + Notes

Oxbow's OS25 Elise Wunderlich Honored

04/02/12

Elise.jpg

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.

In the year leading up to Oxbow, I became obsessed with the program, I was entranced with reading testimonials and researching interdisciplinary learning styles. When I arrived at Oxbow I was never disappointed, despite my endless expectations. I will forever cherish the time I spent at Oxbow and the connections I made there. Through Oxbow I was able to hone into the ideas I was thinking about, to refine my artistic process and to see the world in a new light every day of my life. I'm not going to say that without Oxbow I wouldn't be the person I am today, but I will say that without Oxbow it would have taken me at least four years to become who I am after one Oxbow semester.

— Phoebe Dubisch, Fall 2018

The Oxbow School has both a local and national reputation for excellence. Oxbow produces great artists. In its studio, these emerging artists have a community of creative peers who respect one another and foster an expectation to produce thoughtful, sophisticated work.

— Paul Coffey, Vice Provost and Dean of Community Engagement, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

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)

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