Oregon College of Art and Craft // Portland, OR

 
 
 

Since 1998, OCAC’s Jordan Schnitzer Family Art Adventures Program has served as an inspiration for very young artists of 18 – 36 months to children and teens entering grades 1 – 12. Art Adventures’ year-round programming provides a place where everyday materials turn into amazing art objects, where beauty is in the landscape as much as on the canvas, and where every child can discover the artist that resides within. Based on the College’s mission, Art Adventures programming offers all students the opportunity to start their journey to becoming the next generation of self-reliant makers and thinkers through the hands-on learning process, provided by OCAC’s committed artist instructors.

Programs include:

  • Youth Art Day Camp – grades 1 – 5: Offering four exciting hands-on art workshops daily, cultivating creativity in budding artists with outdoor art activities on OCAC’s 10-acre wooded hillside campus
  • Young Adult (YA!) Day Camp – grades 6 – 8: Middle school students, entering 6th – 8th grades, experience OCAC’s professional art studios, explore 2D and 3D techniques with two in-depth workshops daily. Created specifically for middle school students’ beginning in 2012, this offering – the only one of its kind in Portland – fills before all other sessions.
  • Pre-College Workshops – grades 9 – 12: Summer workshops are weeklong studio-focused opportunities to learn new mediums, hone existing skills, work closely with professional artists and develop personal works. The offerings can be taken as a single course or, for those students looking for an immersive experience with a particular craft, the college also offers the entire series of workshops in one area as a studio intensive.
  • OCAC’s four-week, Summer Residential Pre-College Program offers an immersive and intensive art program designed for 15 to 18 year-olds. The program introduces the art college experience, while following a college-level studio curriculum and living on-campus in student housing or commuting daily. Students build a portfolio through 2D and 3D exploration in a challenging, focused, and serious setting.

About Oregon College of Art and Craft 

Oregon College of Art and Craft (OCAC) has earned a reputation as a leading college of art and craft in the United States. Known for its exceptional faculty of artists and makers, the uniquely small, mentor-based community is comprised of approximately 200 students who pursue full-time BFA, MFA or certificate degree programs, in addition to the 2500 students enrolled annually in youth and adult programs. At OCAC students are encouraged to work across the full range of its specialized facilities in the seven studio areas that comprise Craft at OCAC. The hands-on, studio-based approach to learning – one in which critical thinking informs making works by hand – is enhanced by a robust, integrated liberal arts component that prepares graduates to become creative and informed makers and thinkers eager to interact with the world around them. The over four hundred OCAC alumni, 82% of whom are employed in the arts, exemplify the vital role artists and makers play in satisfying the global demand for new ways of thinking, making and innovating. Founded in 1907, OCAC (pronounced “O-see-A-see”) is an active player in the Portland, OR ethos as the home of the small batch, hand-made, environmentally sound, and ethically entrepreneurial.