Robert Redford Joins Oxbow School Supporters
Honoring Artist-Parents Deborah Butterfield and John Buck
JUNE 21, 2006, NAPA, CALIFORNIA—Supporters
of The Oxbow School raised $230,000 for scholarships at a recent invitation-only
gathering of 120 patrons on the school’s riverfront campus. This
year the annual “Celebration of an Artful Life,” honored
alumni parents, sculptor Deborah Butterfield and artist John Buck who
flew in from their Montana ranch for the evening. The esteemed artist
couple’s
sons, Wilder and Hunter, both attended the school’s
single-semester visual arts program.
Honorary chairs were school co-founder Margrit Mondavi and longtime school supporter Alice Waters whose Chez Panisse chef, Jennifer Sherman, and staff prepared the rustic summer feast for the evening. The event was sponsored by: Christie’s, First Republic Bank and Icon Estates-Robert Mondavi Winery.
Campus art studios and the Napa River oxbow framed the gathering where Buck and Butterfield contributed the standout auction item of the evening, a visit to their Bozeman, Montana horse ranch and art studios. Other artists whose work was represented in the silent and live auctions included: Louisiana Bendolph, Squeak Carnwath, Caio Fonseca, Anya Gaillaccio, Yvonne Jacquette, Mark Klett, Lee Ming Wei, Manuel Neri, Italo Scanga, Pia Stern and William Wiley.
Actor Robert Redford, who has a grandchild enrolled in the school’s summer session attended with artist Sibylle Szaggars. Others on hand for the evening included: school co-founders Robert Mondavi and Ann Hatch; event organizer Bonnie Levinson and her husband Dr. Don Kay of San Francisco.
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| Sculptor Deborah Butterfield and artist John Buck were honored recently at The Oxbow School’s annual Celebration of An Artful Life. The event raises money for high school scholarships and supports the pioneering vision of school founders philanthropist Ann Hatch of San Francisco and Margrit and Robert Mondavi of the Napa Valley. | Robert
Redford and artist Sybille Szaggars were among those assembled
for the Napa Valley’s Oxbow School to raise funds for
high school scholarships. Redford has a family member enrolled in the Oxbow summer session. |
A pioneering educational concept unique in the United States, The Oxbow School opened its doors in 1999 as an access school under the direction of artist and teacher, Stephen Thomas who continues to serve in that capacity. Students from throughout the nation and several from abroad have completed the program. Some two-thirds of Oxbow’s alumni have come from public schools with 35 percent of tuition income supported by donations like those generated from this event.
Representative of an expanding number of semester schools,
Oxbow offers high school juniors and seniors the opportunity to leave
home for an
intensive course of study in visual arts while sustaining an academic
interdisciplinary focus. Alumni return to their home schools with fresh
awareness of the creative process and how it will enrich their lives.
One-third of Oxbow alumni go on to one of the nation’s leading independent
colleges of art and design; others to visual arts programs at liberal arts colleges
and universities. School faculty and administrators provide equal encouragement
to the student regardless his or her choice to pursue biochemistry, engineering
or forensic science or art and design. Says Thomas, “Many of our graduates
have been heavily recruited with offers of substantial financial aid awards due
to their talent, their maturity and the strength of their portfolios.”
Oxbow’s program instills self-confidence and enables
students to take more active responsibility for their own learning.
The combination of exposure to
artists, both faculty and visiting, real time studio experience, serious consideration
of individual abilities, and a student-centered curriculum enables students to
first imagine, then achieve, artistic and academic performance beyond what was
possible in their previous school settings. Visit www.oxbowschool.org to learn
more.
[Posted: 7/05/2006]
