Bayhill’s Visual & Performing Arts Program is a rich array of opportunities for students to explore visual arts, digital arts, and music. Many Bayhill students have exceptional talents in artistic areas. Additionally, the department provides opportunities to display their talents for the school and public.
Annual Art Show
Each year the Art Department holds a exhibition at the Kala Institute in Berkeley where student art is showcased allowing community members to view the work created over the year. The Bayhill Band also performs a set of songs. Creative writing and poetry might also be shared at the event.
Visual Arts
Students who would like to develop their artistic skills in painting, sculpture, drawing and other mediums have the chance to receive multiple years of instruction and support.
Art Fundamentals is a first year introductory in which students spend most of their time learning about art by making art-designing, assembling, and revising their work.
In Advance Art: Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, and Sculpture students expand their knowledge of techniques, materials and ideas. The first semester focuses on three-dimensional work (sculpture). During the second semester students work in “flat” media- drawing, painting and printmaking.
Studio Art I: Self and Context focuses on completing several in-depth projects. Some projects are based on specific assignments and some are planned jointly by the students and the instructor. Students expand their knowledge and ability in critique and discuss the role of art in culture presently and in the past.
In Studio Art II: Surfaces and Meaning Students study the use of several different materials used in art, and learn to understand how the physical properties of different materials create different kinds of surfaces and visual effects. The class also looks at the work they create in class and the work of many notable artists and talk about the relationship between the materials used in the work and the feelings and ideas the work communicates.
Photography and Digital Media I & II is an interdisciplinary course with an emphasis on interactive projects. Students explore historic and contemporary fine art photography while developing their own photography portfolio. In addition, students gain the skills to strategize, implement, and edit unique multimedia digital art. In year II, student expand their skills to include more indepth analysis and development of multimedia projects.
Performing Arts
Band is largely performance oriented, meaning students work together to develop a repertoire of music that is challenging, fulfilling to perform, and instructional. Through learning to perform songs from our rich history of popular music, students learn basic fundamentals of music theory, aspects of a disciplined performance practice, and historical / cultural context for the music being performed.
Students also spend some of their time together covering important periods in music history, including an introduction to, and overview of, various musical styles and forms from around the world. In addition to these areas of study, they also encounter how music intersects with other subjects – mathematics, science / physics, visual art, computer technology, sociology, language and creative writing, among others.
At times, we also offer courses in Dance, Drama, and Creative Writing.