“Castleton was the perfect environment for me to grow as a person and into my own as an artist and educator."
Castleton University offers a bachelor’s degree in Art that nurtures your natural curiosity and inspires a fascination with discovery.
The Art Program is a strongly humanistic course of study in which you develop skills in creative and critical thinking along with aesthetic and historical appreciation. The guiding principle to a career in art is that art is a form of communication, a visual language requiring a course of study that involves imagination, research, and discovery. You will learn to understand a visual language and acquire a visual vocabulary by learning to perceive, analyze, and critically discuss works of art, and the world around you.
Through studio experiments, you will learn to sharpen your senses of perception. Creating artwork means distilling your observations, ideas, and dreams into a physical form. Along the way, the materials, technologies, and methods you use will challenge you to make complex decisions and come up with original solutions.
As a Castleton art student, you will gain insight and self-confidence to describe your own place in the contemporary world, culminating with a senior show.
Students are encouraged to pursue internships while completing their Art degree at Castleton.
Castleton students have been awarded internships in the following work settings, as well as opportunities to work alongside nationally recognized artists living in the area.
The proximity of Castleton University to major art centers, such as Boston, Montreal, and New York City makes it easy to gain firsthand knowledge of original, historic, and contemporary works of art.
There are also multiple museums and galleries, such as Hood Museum, Williams College Museum, Clark Museum, Mass MOCA, Middlebury College Museum, and Fleming Museum, which are all within easy reach of the campus.
In nearby Rutland, The Castleton University Bank Gallery exhibits faculty and student shows and showcases regional and national artists. The Christine Price Gallery presents the work of both professional and student artists. The Student Gallery provides opportunities for group and solo exhibitions of student work, including annual Senior Exhibitions. Students have the opportunity to study abroad in Italy, Ireland, Holland, England, Greece, Nepal, Tibet, India, and China.
The Art Students League, a campus club, sponsors visiting artists, film series, studio visits, and collaborative projects as well as trips.
The creative epicenter of Castleton is the Fine Arts Center on the main campus. The Art Department shares this dynamic space with the Theater Arts Department and Music Department.
The Art Department has five major studio workspaces in the Fine Arts Center:
Additionally, Wooldridge Households the woodshop, welding area, carving benches, outdoor space for sculptural installations, and upstairs studio space for art majors. Students also have access to a state-of-the-art computer lab for graphic design and digital photography.
The optional art portfolio is a creative platform for you to present your accomplishments and introduce yourself to members of the Art faculty by highlighting your best creative work. Our faculty members enjoy this opportunity to connect with you, and it allows them to nurture and guide your talents and skills toward the best possible outcome.
Our Art majors are equipped for a variety of successful careers or to continue their education with graduate studies.
Our graduates have found rewarding careers in:
Graduates have also gained licensure to teach art in elementary and secondary schools when combining their art degree with additional coursework in education.