Caroline Woolard OS4

University of Hartford, Assistant Professor of Sculpture, Hartford, Connecticut

Caroline Woolard attended Oxbow during Oxbow's second year of operation, when the dining hall was located in the fairgrounds across the street. Oxbow asked Caroline to sense the power of her own volition, and to become responsible to it. If Lewis Hyde describes inspiration as "inhaling the memory of an act never experienced," then Oxbow allowed Caroline to inhale the memory of an artistic life not yet experienced, and to pursue it wholeheartedly. After Oxbow (OS2), Caroline went to Cooper Union (BFA 2007), and from there she co-founded a number of interdisciplinary projects. Caroline has developed an approach to art-making using both online networks and sculptural environments which has been the subject of two documentaries on PBS / Art21. When Caroline is not making art or teaching as an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at the University of Hartford, she is playing soccer, hiking with her wife, or eating incredible food in New York City. She joined the Oxbow Board of Trustees in 2018.

Advice I would give to future students is to just do it and come to Oxbow and not overthink it because it will most likely (99.9%) be the best decision you have made in your life.

— Malachi Snyder, Spring 2018

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 Association, College of Art and Design (AICAD)

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

A School Like No Other