Office of Summer Programs
Alumni Hall
Dates
July 5 to July 10, 2026
The Program
This is an intensive pre-college program for rising sophomores, juniors and seniors preparing portfolios for art school admission and for those about to enter an art school program. Each day will include a morning and afternoon session. The week will begin with emphasis on drawing and move through design and printmaking. Most college art programs require a portfolio that includes drawing. Drawing demonstrates a range of skills and reflects how an artist sees and thinks about composing the rectangle. Drawing requires the artist to see the whole composition and quickly go through a series of comparisons while having their hand keep pace. The workshop will break those steps down, helping students build portfolios that reflect a more advanced approach to drawing. Building on the language of drawing we will transition into a design project. Using collage, students will be challenged to create dynamic and well- organized images. We will discuss the basic design elements to consider when making an image. Those images will be the basis for a block print which will be printed by the students in our printshop.
Level
High School; Beginners Encouraged
Tuition, Meals & Housing
Program Cost: $1,000
Program Deposit: $100
This pricing includes tuition, materials, meals, and housing. All housing and meals will take place here on Alfred University’s campus.
Discounts
We are pleased to offer a $100 discount off tuition for students whose primary residence is within a fifty-mile radius of Alfred, New York, as well as for children of Alfred University Alumni and returning students from any Pre-College Program at Alfred University. Please contact Pre-College Programs Coordinator Isaac Matson for details.
About the Instructor
Professor Kathryn Vajda was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She received her BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art and her MFA from Indiana University in Bloomington. In addition to her print work, she has taught printmaking and drawing for over 25 years. Her Snow City and Ice prints have been exhibited in numerous exhibitions including “Flickering at the Edge of Anthropocene,” Blockfort Gallery, Columbus, OH (2020); “Mounds Piles and Massing,” Walsh Gallery, Seton Hall University (2019); “Fractured Habitats,” AC Gallery, Beijing, China (2019); “Indigo Celebrates 10 Years,” Indigo Art, Buffalo, NY (2018); The View in the Vandervort Gallery, Old Forge, NY, (2018); and the 6th Guanian International Print Biennial, China 2017. The series was shown as part of “Configuration: Recent work by Kathryn Vajda and Bryan Hopkins" at Indigo Art in Buffalo, NY (2016). She was interviewed by “Hello, Print Friend” in 2023 and has given numerous talks.
