Through the support of the McLear Visiting Artist Fund, we were honored to welcome Rebecca Kamen this fall, an artist and lecturer on the intersection of art and science. Kamen says her “artwork is informed by wide-ranging research into cosmology, history, philosophy, and by connecting common threads that flow across various scientific fields to capture and re-imagine what the scientists see.” She worked with students from Diantha Giltz’s and Domenic Frunzi‘s art classes to explore these connections between art and the sciences. Students first visited the lab in the Science Center to look at various types of soil (and the organisms in it) through microscopes, then used what they saw as inspiration for their sketches and art pieces.
Kamen says she loves coming to Westtown and working with our students; this is her second visit. In fact, she was the inaugural artist in the McLear Artist-in-Residence program, though her residency was cut short by the pandemic. The McLear Artist-in-Residence Program was created in January 2019 to support a residency in the Upper School visual arts department. Artists-in-residence are chosen by the Upper School arts faculty, and preference is given to artists working in the visual arts, particularly those exploring the intersections between art and science.
The Upper School fall play was Peter and the Starcatcher, a thrilling prequel to Peter Pan! The story begins as a young orphan and his mates are shipped off from Victorian England to a distant island ruled by the evil King Zarboff. They know nothing of the mysterious trunk in the captain’s cabin, which contains precious, otherworldly cargo. At sea, the boys are discovered by a precocious young girl named Molly, a Starcatcher-in-training who realizes that the trunk’s precious cargo is starstuff, a celestial substance so powerful that it must never fall into the wrong hands. When the ship is taken over by pirates—led by the fearsome Black Stache, a villain determined to claim the trunk and its treasure for his own—the journey quickly becomes a thrilling adventure.
Our thanks to Theater Director Shawn Rowley, and our amazing cast and crew for this excellent production!
What are the holidays without the beautiful refrains of seasonal music? The community was treated to both the Middle School and Upper School concerts before the winter break, showcasing the work and talent of our students. You can enjoy the galleries of photos from the Middle School concert here and the Upper School concert here.
Spring is the time our students showcase their musical talents and demonstrate all they’ve learned throughout the year. If you missed the concerts you can at least enjoy photos our students’ performance here!
The Lower Schoolers sang, danced, drummed their hearts out at their end-of-year concert! See the gallery here.
The Middle School strings ensemble, band, and chorus regaled the crowds at their spring performances, one in the Barton-Test theater, and one showcase in the Center for the Living Arts. Enjoy the photos here!
Bravo to our Upper School musicians on their wonderful performances! String Orchestra (photos by Coco Chen ’25), Symphonic Band, and Jazz Ensemble performed for our community a diverse repertoire written by composers from around the world. The String Orchestra and Symphonic Band also performed at The Hickman, a Quaker retirement home in West Chester, to share live music with their residents. Their performances showcased their hard work and talents! There are more photos of their performances here!
The spring dance concert, entitled A Bouquet of Movement, was a celebration of our graduating seniors and their work. There were also student-crafted dances from Upper School and Middle School dancers and collaborative work led by dance teacher Amy Grebe. You can enjoyphotos from their wonderful performance here!
On Friday May 30, our 7th and 8th grade band students participated in their first Trills and Thrills Music Festival. This festival has events throughout the country hosting school music ensembles from elementary to high school to participate in an adjudicated performance before spending the day celebrating at an amusement park. This year the 7th and 8th grade band and their director Jason Wu went to Boyertown Area High School for their adjudication, where they performed two pieces and earned an Excellent Rating which is the second highest rating in the event. They spent the rest of the day at Dorney Park! Well, done middle schoolers!
The Upper School production of The Addam’s Family was a smash! From set builders to light and sound technicians to the actors on stage, the students did a remarkable job! Enjoy photos of this fabulous musical here!
At the end of the year, students, faculty, and families gathered for Senior Art Exhibition. The Senior Art Exhibition is a summative experience that brings together works of students from all visual arts disciplines — drawing and painting, photography and digital art, sculpture, ceramics, and fiber arts created during the 2024-2025 school year. This year’s talented artists included Sophia Atkins, Sofia Burgos, Coco Chen, Ella Dobrzelewski,Adele Daughenbaugh, Nick Fabricatore, Nia Foote, Kennedy Hall,Georgia Smith, Bitong Sun, and July Wen. You can visit Westtown Senior Art Exhibition website to see the students’ work and can visit the gallery here for more photos of their work.
The Senior Art Exhibition was part of the Evening of the Arts celebration which began with a reception in the gallery and concluded with performances by our Jazz Ensemble and Symphonic Band.
We are fortunte to have robust Artists-in-Residence programs in all divisions here at Westtown. This year, three artsists worked with students to share their talents and create special works with students.
The Lower School welcomed Margaux McAllister as our 2025 Candace Freeman Artist-in-Residence. The Lower School Artist-in-Residence program is coordinated by Lower School art teachers, Kelly Nicholson and Jane Chesson. Margaux is a multi-disciplinary artist whose recent work has featured various fiber techniques to explore the theme of identity. Throughout the residency, Margaux worked alongside PK – 5th grade students during their art classes to teach the process of rug tufting using punch needles. Students learned about working collaboratively while practicing new fiber-based skills. They will be able to continue building upon this work as we integrate these new techniques into our Lower School Art Studios after the residency concludes. Margaux took the students’ work back to her Phoenixville studio to assemble a collaborative fiber work, and it was installed in the Lower School this spring. You can see the final piece in the Gathering Room.
The Candace Freeman Artist-in-Residence Program began over thirty years ago and focuses on bringing professional artists to Westtown Lower School to share their artistic process and inspiration with our students. The opportunity for young artists to work alongside a professional artist is a valuable and an important piece of our arts curriculum. You can see many of the Artist-in-Residence projects from years past throughout the Lower School hallways.
This spring Middle School and art teachers Cindy Hodgson and Marta Willgoose Salo welcomed Stephane Rowley, Philadelphia-based mixed media artist, as the visiting artist. Stephane collaborated with students using weaving, quilting, embroidering, sewing by machine and hand, knitting, and more to create a fiber piece which will be installed in the CLA. Students explored textile traditions, especially pertaining to reuse and repair such as Kantha, Sashiko, and piecework quilting to create an installation to minimise and upcycle textile waste.See her work with students here!
The Upper School was thrilled to have Westtown alum Sarah Bourne Rafferty ’00 as the McLear Artist in Residence this year. Sarah worked with students to create cyanotype prints and together they created the beautiful work that hangs in the CLA Jehan ’94 and Jeannie Chu Gallery, pictured below.
Sarah’s work ranges from photographs to books to prints with a particular love for alternative process/non-silver photography. She is engaged in a line of inquiry that stretches beyond a particular medium. Sarah is mesmerized by the interweaving of thoughts into words. She is consistently inspired by the natural world, be it her small back yard or adventures on mountain tops far away. Parts of the natural world often appear intertwined with words or lines of text as she tries to dissect what is happening with the changing of the seasons and how they can relate to communication.
She is the founder ofAtwater Designs, a cyanotype design studio that produces original cyanotypes, fine art prints and paper goods. Her more experimental and personal work is what appears here in her portfolio. She is also a teacher of photography to high school students and finds working with students to be integral in her process. Sarah’s work has been shown both nationally and internationally. She currently lives, makes, and teaches in Southeastern PA.
