At Ranney School the Visual Arts are an essential part of curriculum at every level of learning from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. Our goal is to cultivate each child’s unique capacities for expression, communication, and discovery. These qualities blossom with hands-on experiences in the arts provided at each stage of development. While each stage of artistic development sparks new insights into materials and ideas it is quite common for interests, proclivities and even abilities to fluctuate over time – the direct result of new observations, understanding, and skills. Therefore students at Ranney are encouraged to try unfamiliar art forms throughout the continuum of their education, and to deepen their understanding of familiar ones. These include ceramics, drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, design, animation, sculpture, filmmaking, and architecture. Experiential learning of all sorts is critical to the process of gaining knowledge and understanding – and so in addition to studio art practice students in the Lower, Middle and Upper schools are introduced to the abundant and diverse cultural resources available beyond the borders of our campus.
We host a chapter of the National Art Honor Society on campus, focusing efforts on making the Visual Arts more VISIBLE at Ranney School. Contact me for more information on application and membership guidelines.