A Portfolio Begins with Looking Closely

Before students paint, print or build, they look. A seed pod, a folded leaf, the grain of a worn shoe — ordinary objects become studies in colour, structure and surface.

The studio asks students to work across media. A drawing may become a print, a print may become a three-dimensional form, and a form may return to paper as a new composition. Each experiment is documented, not discarded.

Finishing is part of the curriculum. Students learn to edit, mount and present their work, and to write about the decisions behind it. A portfolio is not a collection of lucky accidents; it is evidence of a process.

At the end of the year, the studio opens its doors. Families walk through the exhibition, and students explain what they were trying to solve — in the work and in themselves.