Professor George Rivera is a strong believer in the power of art as a medium to connect people around the world.

While living and working together in rural environments, students create artwork specific to the landscape using a variety of mediums, from sculpture and printmaking to photography and ephemeral assemblages. The field school is designed to expand students’ definition of what a studio practice can be while exposing them to new vistas.

To those who aren’t art professors, students, historians or fine artist themselves, much of the joy derived from viewing what’s commonly called abstract art (though the artists might just call it “art”) is derived from seeing something for the first time, an image or format entirely new to the viewer and their experience.