Works by Chicago-based printmaker and ceramist Liz Bourne were among those on display at Woodlands Academy in March as part of the Jamie Tuttle Women in the Arts Festival held annually at the Lake Forest Preparatory High School for Girls.
Courtesy of Woodlands Academy
Works by artists Liz Bourne and Anita Powell were displayed at Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart as part of the 2024 Jamie Tuttle Women in the Arts Festival, featuring personal presentations from each artist.
Born is a Chicago-based printmaker and ceramist whose work has been exhibited at venues including the Chicago Cultural Center and the Jane Addams Hull House Museum. In 2012 she founded Hoofprint, a fine art print shop and publisher, with her printing partner Gabe Hoare. Collaborative works made at Hoofprint can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Bourne’s March 8 presentations at Woodlands Academy, an all-girls high school in Lake Forest, included viewings of prints and ceramics followed by a discussion. Born also engaged attendees in a concise printmaking exercise, using cut paper to create bold silhouettes. Participants were encouraged to think about positive and negative space as well as symmetrical versus asymmetrical design in the process.
Powell is a ceramic sculptor and art teacher who lives in southern Indiana and enjoys teaching art to K-8 students. After his first teaching position at a high school in Florida, Powell earned an MFA in ceramics at Southern Illinois University/Carbondale. Her first college-level teaching position was at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, where one of her first students was Woodlands Academy art teacher Deborah McIle.
Powell’s March 18 visit to Woodlands Academy included presentations during two of MacAyeal’s art classes, including a slideshow of her work and a clay building demonstration. Powell made a small model similar to his larger works and explained the plate technique he used to construct his large pieces. She also showed how she maintains a piece during the creation and drying stages. Powell also describes the process he uses to paint his pieces.
In addition to the knowledge of techniques and processes they gained, the participating Woodlands Academy students enjoyed meeting these two professional artists and learning about their lives, art and ideas.
The Women in the Arts event has been a tradition at Woodlands Academy since 2005, when the parents of two female graduates offered to sponsor exhibitions of two female visiting artists. In addition to exhibits of their work, each visiting artist gave a presentation to studio art and photography students. Because this initial event was so well received by both visiting artists and Woodlands students, the donors proposed that Women in the Arts become an annual event.
In 2021, this annual celebration of women artists was named in memory of Jamie Tuttle, a vital member of the school’s art faculty for three decades who inspired generations of Woodlands students with her dedication to the arts. She also taught photography at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design for several years. Tuttle passed away on September 15, 2020 after a heroic battle with cancer.
In 2022, a prominent display of student artwork in the front hallways of Woodlands Academy was named in honor of Tuttle, who had envisioned and then nurtured his love of displaying students’ work.
The gallery includes a memorial display featuring a portrait of Tuttle and two photographs of her chosen by her family. “Hand & Peaches” is a 2008 work selected by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri for its permanent collection. Self-Portrait in the Garden is a 1990 photograph selected by the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, France for its permanent collection.
In addition to being part of such collections, Tuttle’s photography has been shown in exhibitions including the Filter Photo Gallery in Chicago, the Dolphin Gallery in Kansas City, and the Liverpool International Photography Festival in England. She says in her artist statement that after earning an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she began teaching “with the hope of bringing the same passion and knowledge I received to my students.” The memorials created for her at Woodlands Academy are testaments to her success in achieving this goal.
“For years, Jamie has proudly overseen the updating of our student artwork in the front gallery and has also worked closely with the original Women in the Arts series to bring in talented female artists to share their craft with our students Christine, Assistant Head of School Schmidt said.
She and Tuttle began their careers at Woodlands Academy in the fall of 1990. “Jamie has had a tremendous impact on our students in developing their photography skills and, more importantly, she has helped them develop a sense of vision,” Schmidt said.
The Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart is a Catholic, independent, college preparatory day and boarding school for young women of all faiths in grades 9-12. Founded in Chicago in 1858 and located in Lake Forest since 1904, The Woodlands is part of a worldwide network of Sacred Heart schools that spans the United States and 40 other countries on six continents. To learn more, visit woodlandsacademy.org.