Napa County Recycling and Waste Services recognizes Oxbow for our outstanding recycling and compost efforts in the community. To win a city award, nominees were surveyed to learn how much non-recyclable trash was in their recycling bins as well as the reverse. On May 4, 2011, Oxbow received the California State Legislature Certificate of Recognition and the Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition. California Congressman Mike Thompson, State Senator Noreen Evans and State Assembly Member Michael Allen made the presentations to Tracy Bates, our Head Chef and the person responsible for coordinating our campus recycling program.

This award was made possible through the efforts of ALL Oxbow - faculty, staff and students. The award included a cash prize that was used to add a new air curtain from our Dining Hall to the dining deck.

Thanks and congratulations!

Nina Katchadourian

OS16 Oxbow Visiting Artist
Nina Katchadourian has a photo in the November issue of Blindspot.


Here is a photo from her airplane travel series. For the past couple of years, Nina has been making images while she is flying to different destinations on airplanes. She limits herself to using her iPhone camera and whatever is at hand; she loves waiting until everyone is asleep and using the bathroom as a photo booth.

April, from the early days at Oxbow has published a 36 page artist book titled Damp Patches. Check out her blog at http://aprilgertler.blogspot.com/.

It is with great sadness that we send news of the first loss in the Oxbow Alumni family: Ryan Humphries, OS11, sweet guy, gifted artist, and caretaker to many friends, died in his sleep on May 27th; he will be missed.

Ryan was a student at the California College of the Arts (CCA) with an Annie Glass Scholarship, making beautiful work; his drawings are simply incredible.

You can pay homage to this remarkable young man by visiting his website at www.ryanhumphries.com. You can share your personal thoughts with Ryans family at www.legacy.com.

Brent Turner formerly with Oxbow IT, just accomplished a major life ambition by being accepted by Doctors without Borders.

Napa Register October 24, 2010

English teacher Jennifer Jordan demonstrates book binding.

by Jennifer Huffman

Napa’s Oxbow School is not your conventional high school.

Seeking admission, an Oxbow applicant recently submitted a small suitcase. Inside, the case contained a dress made from her own design out of a netting-like material. Folded into the dress

This “self-portrait” — a requirement for admission — is but one of countless ways that the Oxbow School, a private arts boarding school serving both local students and those from across the U.S., distinguishes itself.

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Oxbow School's new creation is a 'site of imagination'

REBECCA YERGERNapa Valley RegisterSaturday, October 9, 2010 12:00 am

Secluded along the banks of the Napa river on the Oxbow School campus is a garden of inspiration.

Rooted — literally — in garden design history and academic discourse about nature versus industry, this outdoor classroom and its design concepts encourage contemplation of its principles and hypotheses as well as abstract thinking and creativity.

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Blood Work: Norbert Garcia Jr., of Tucson, touches up a giant red blood cell for his final project on AIDS.

Edutopia Magazine July 2006

Under a blue sky during the cool northern California winter, Michael Lopez was conducting first-person research for his final art project at the Oxbow School, a semester-long art program in the Napa Valley. Lopez's subject was low-wage labor, and his research that afternoon consisted of raking leaves. As he worked, he ticked off the skills he had learned in fifteen weeks at the school: time management, self-control, a research-based approach to creating art, and confidence in his ability to talk about his ideas. Strange lessons learned at an art school? Perhaps. But just the sort of skills Oxbow's faculty intend to teach...

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Artweek February 2002
By Collin Berry

It overlooks a narrow bend in the river, the eponymous oxbow that sends the muddy Napa flowing west, then south, towards San Francisco Bay. From the street, its five square buildings stand in stoic contrast to the modest Victorians that line the neighborhood’s shady streets. Although it comprises just over three acres, The Oxbow School—a tiny, one-of-a-kind boarding school in Napa, California, that features visual arts at the center of its curriculum—feels much bigger, like a college campus, a spiritual retreat or a private community. In a way, Oxbow is all of these, and for six years has been trying to prove the legitimacy of an intensive, art-based, interdisciplinary semester program for teenagers.

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