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Arts in Ireland Program

Arts in Ireland is a 21-day intensive Visual Art course. It is designed to provide Visual Art and Music majors and minors with an opportunity to develop their artistic vision while living on the west coast of Ireland. This course is taught in association with the Burren College of Art, Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare.

Learn more about this program on our Blog

Student Employment

Wheaton has a robust Student Employment Program that provides on-campus work opportunities that can greatly enrich your educational experience.  Within the Visual Art program, our majors collaborate with faculty on research and creative projects and also hold studio assistant positions that are a vital component to our studio management.  Our research partners and studio assistants receive training and practice in technical, research and managerial skills within a studio setting.  To learn more about Wheaton’s Student Employment Program, Federal Work-study/Community Service Program and Research Partnerships or to search current job openings, visit the Student Employment Office. And don’t forget to talk to a Visual Art faculty member!

Art-related work opportunities are:

Visual Art Faculty

History of Art Faculty

The Beard & Weil Galleries

  • Gallery Intern
  • Gallery Monitor

The Permanent Collection

  • Collection Assistant
  • Curatorial Intern

Arts@Wheaton, Events and Publicity

  • Graphic & Web Designer

Internships

Investigate opportunities for learning beyond the classroom through internship experiences, by visiting the Life and Career Design Institute. Find out how to apply for internships related to your interests in art and how to access Wheaton Edge funding.  As an art major, internships are a great opportunity to explore potential career choices and many of our students have successfully transitioned to the working world through internships at many organizations related to the arts.

Prizes and Awards

Miriam F. Carpenter Prize in Visual Art

This prize is awarded to a student for the best body of work in the Visual Art Senior Seminar.

Maria Victoria DeLuca Forsythe Prize in Visual Art 

This prize is awarded to the student who has the highest GPA in Visual Art courses taken at the college.

Friends of Art Purchase Award

The Friends of Art Student Collection was established in the academic year 1997-98, through the generosity of the alumni organization Friends of Art, to support building a balanced collection across artistic disciplines of the best of student work from the Senior Visual Art Major’s Exhibition each year.  Housed within Wheaton’s Permanent Collection, the Friends of Art Student Collection is a valuable teaching tool in the classroom, and an anniversary exhibition is scheduled every ten years in the college’s Beard and Weil Galleries.

The Patti Eberhart ‘68 Art Travel Award

An overseas and travel grant in memory of Wheaton alumna, Patty Eberhart, ’68. The award is given to support study for up to six weeks during the summer. Smaller amounts are also available for study opportunities of shorter duration. This award is intended to cover the recipient’s expenses, which may include travel, housing, meals, inoculations, etc. The call for Eberhart proposals is sent out mid-semester in the spring, and is open to all History of Art and Visual Art majors. Questions about the Eberhart Grant should be directed to the department co-chairs.

Wheaton Foundation Awards

These grants, generally of no more than $250 each, are intended to underwrite expenses connected to academic work beyond normal requirements in a specific course (research expenses, materials, etc.), and are awarded twice a year by the Committee on Admission and Academic Standing. Applications go to the Advising Center and require the support of the faculty member overseeing the work.

Student Travel Grant

Students traveling to topical and professional meetings, singly or in groups, with or without faculty members, for educational purposes may apply directly to the Provost’s Office for travel grants at any time during the academic year.

Wheaton Fellows

The Wheaton Fellow Program grants stipends to students to pursue projects of their own creation on or off campus over the summer. Qualifying projects may include: unpaid internships, community service, research in which the student is the primary designer of a project which has an informal Wheaton sponsor, or other self-initiated research leading to or as part of an Independent Study course. Other kinds of projects may qualify for support, and students are encouraged to pursue innovative project ideas and to design their own projects in consultation with the Filene Center, which will provide forms and detailed guidelines. (Student/faculty research on projects in which the faculty member is the designer or ” Principal Investigator,” however, will be funded as Mars Fellowships–see below) All continuing students, except (in the summer) Trustee and Community Scholars (who already have summer stipends as part of their scholarships), are eligible to apply.

Davis International Fellows

Summer grants to students for international internships, service experiences or overseas structured independent research, available to students with a 3.0 GPA or better at the end of their sophomore year. Applicants will develop sites or research projects for $5000 summer awards.

Resources

Friends of Art

Members of the Wheaton College Friends of Art include alumni, current students, faculty, and local residents with an interest in the visual arts. The Friends of Art and the Greater Boston Wheaton Alumnae/i Club co-sponsor an annual Fall event coordinated with the featured exhibition at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The Friends of Art sponsors bus trips to New York and other cities, and contributes to the Visual Art and History of Art Department in a variety of other ways, including support for exhibitions in the Beard & Weil Galleries and for Wheaton’s Permanent Collection. Every year, the Friends of Art purchases artwork from the Senior Visual Art Majors’ Exhibition and then donates it to the Permanent Collection. Over the years, these gifts have strengthened our holdings of works on paper, of sculpture, and of animation, among others. In Fall 2010, an exhibition of artwork donated by the Friends of Art was mounted in the Beard Gallery. In addition to these donations, the group annually contributes to the Ann H. Murray Art Conservation Fund, which is used to conserve objects in Wheaton’s collection.

Lectures

For this year’s schedule please visit the Events Calendar.

Beard Gallery Lecture Series

An artist’s lecture or slide presentation precedes the opening reception of exhibitions of contemporary art.

Amy Otis Lecture

Named in memory of Amy Otis, who taught Visual Art at Wheaton, this lecture is given every few years by an eminent artist, usually a sculptor, in conjunction with an exhibition in the Beard Gallery. Previous Otis Lecturers have included Harold Tovish, Hugh Townley, David Phillips and Harriet Feigenbaum.

Mary L. Heuser Memorial Lecture in Art History

The Wheaton College Friends of Art established this annual lecture in 2009, to honor the memory of Professor Mary L. Heuser—Professor of Art History from 1952 to 1981, first holder of the college’s William Prentice Chair, and founder of the Friends of Art. Prof. Heuser completed her doctorate in art history at Radcliffe College, where she specialized in medieval art history; a talented, demanding instructor and scholarly polymath, she dedicated her life to promoting the arts at Wheaton. The lecture that bears her name honors each year the work of a distinguished art historian, and celebrates the spirit of this remarkable woman.