Andover - Art - Faculty

Gail C. Boyajian Instructor in Art	Phone: 978-749-4074
Ten years ago, Gail Boyajian, a licensed architect, left a full-time architectural office job to design ceramic tiles and paint. In 2001, she came to Phillips Academy to teach architecture two days a week. “I enjoy working with students on ideas about buildings, spaces and forms,” she says. When she’s not on campus, she’s painting in her studio in Somerville, Mass. Her paintings are sold in several galleries. As young girls, Boyajian and her sisters loved making things. Their mother was a painter and their father an illustrator, so the house was always filled with art supplies. Boyajian majored in fine arts and received a B.A. degree from Jackson College of Tufts University and a master’s of architecture degree from MIT. Currently, she and her husband, who runs the painting department at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, love to travel. Recently they traveled to Vienna, and they are planning a trip to Venice.

Elaine Crivelli Chair, Art Department Instructor in Art	Phone: 978-749-4077
Elaine Crivelli, has always been fascinated by the power of images. She has taught art at Andover since 1997, and she also is an academic adviser to seniors and uppers and a complementary house counselor in Stowe House. Among her favorite courses is "Rosebud: The Restless Search for an American Identity," an interdisciplinary course she teaches with English instructor Seth Bardo. Using Orson Wells’ classic film, Citizen Kane, as a starting point, Crivelli and Bardo explore the theme of identity through art, literature and film. They encourage students to make connections among the three art forms. She has a bachelor’s degree in fine arts focusing on ceramics and sculpture from West Chester University and a master’s degree in fine arts in sculpture from the University of Delaware. Crivelli is presently working on a series of digital prints and three-dimensional photo constructions that are composites of people, places, family and cultural histories that she has explored through travel over the past several years, including a recent trip to meet relatives in Rome.

Margaret L. Harrigan Instructor in Art	Phone: 978-749-4073

Ruth Quattlebaum Instructor in Art	Phone: 978-749-4069
Ruth Quattlebaum was a history major in college when she discovered that she also loved art, especially the joy of analyzing art and figuring out what it tells us over time. A member of the Phillips Academy art department since 1977, Quattlebaum has combined both interests by teaching art, art history and by serving as the school’s archivist. In the school archives, Quattlebaum presides over 225 years of school records, documents, pictures and memorabilia. Students often turn to her for help finding and interpreting primary sources for research projects on school history. A calligrapher who has also taught courses in bookmaking, she has also served as Summer Session dean of students for many years. Quattlebaum spent a recent summer walking across Spain, in her words, "engaging the medieval, renaissance and baroque worlds through art, architecture and the rigors of pilgrimage." She has a bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College and a master’s degree from Columbia University. She is married to history teacher Edwin Quattlebaum.

Emily E. Trespas Instructor in Art	Phone: 978-749-4071
In her classes on Visual Studies, painting and printmaking, Emily Trespas strives to instill confidence and trust in her students in their artistic abilities and vision. Her own work has been exhibited throughout the Eastern United States, Italy and Denmark. This past July, she traveled to China and kept a sketchbook diary of her observations. In August she continued to hone her visual perceptions while developing a series of plein air paintings in Vermont and on Cape Cod. On the faculty since 1999, Trespas shares Louis Bourgeois' sentiment, "Art is about life, and that sums it up." She holds a bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College, and after completing a master’s degree in printmaking at Cornell University, she taught art with the Cornell-in-Rome Program in Italy. She has continued her education through workshops at fine arts centers, museums and colleges throughout New England. "Living and teaching at a residential high school challenges, feeds and nurtures my creative and intellectual curiosities. I aim to ignite within students a similar enthusiasm," she says. A house counselor in Morton House, she officiates track and is currently exploring the "art" of running.

Shirley A. Veenema Instructor in Art	Phone: 978-749-4072
As a child, Shirley Veenema was always interested in making things, from tree houses to doll clothes. Because she went to a school where you couldn’t take art if you were on the "academic" track, she had no opportunity to study art. In college, she majored in history, but got really hooked by her art courses. After receiving a bachelor’s degree from Bucknell University and a master’s degree in art from Rowan University, she continued to study at the Art Student’s League, School of Visual Arts and Pratt Graphics Center in the New York area, working primarily in printmaking and mixed media drawing. On the PA faculty since 1979, Veenema teaches video (Art 309 and 409); A Hard Rain, an interdisciplinary course combining English and Art 440; and both the electronic imaging and studio parts of Art 200. The majority of her current work as an artist is in media. Most recently, Veenema collaborated with Jim Sheldon on five videos for the show, Dangerous Curves: Art of the Guitar, at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. They are currently working on the second interactive documentary in a series funded by the Cultural Landscape Foundation. The first, Columbus Park: The Prairie Idealized, is available on the Cultural Landscape Foundation Web site.

Stephen B. Wicks Instructor in Art	Phone: 978-749-4595
To learn more about Stephen Wicks, visit his Eyeconography Web site.

S. Thayer Zaeder Instructor in Art	Phone: 978-749-4075
The magic of clay keeps Thayer Zaeder inspired. "Clay is a fabulously forgiving material on one hand and incredibly hard and durable on another," he says. He first got interested in art and ceramics while a student at Phillips Academy. As a PA lower, he became fascinated with the challenge of mastering the potter’s wheel. As a college student, he went from being interested in art to actually pursuing a degree in the subject. At the end of his sophomore year at Wesleyan, he decided to try a year studying art at the Philadelphia Colleges of the Arts. Zaeder now holds a B.F.A. degree from the Philadelphia Colleges of the Arts and an M.F.A. degree from the University of Minnesota.On the PA faculty since 1999, Zaeder teaches Art 200 and 250 (Visual Studies), as well as all the classes offered in ceramics. As the cycling coach, he feels lucky to be able to ride with the team and to witness the devotion and level of personal commitment that these student athletes make. He and his wife, Eva Holm-Andersen, spent a month in Germany last summer with their two children, Eliot and Sylvia, who are being raised bilingual. Zaeder is a house counselor in Bishop Hall.

Therese Y. Zemlin Instructor in Art	Phone: 978-749-4592
Therese Zemlin says her roles as a Search and Rescue coach and an art instructor are similar. “The problem solving skills required to succeed in Search and Rescue are not unlike those needed to develop and execute a work of art,” she says. At Phillips Academy since 2002, she teaches Visual Studies and Sculpture, finding PA students “great to work with, regardless of what course they’re in.” She also is a complementary house counselor in Smith House. Always interested in art, Zemlin wrote an essay in the fourth grade about wanting to be an artist when she grew up. She received a B.F.A. degree from the University of Illinois and an M.F.A. degree from the University of Texas/Austin. She previously taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Tufts University, Wellesley College, Appalachian State University in North Carolina and the University of South Carolina, Columbia. Her own art projects for the past two years involve working with paper and light. The title of her most recent work, “The Bed Project,” refers to beds people sleep on, riverbeds, flowerbeds, seedbeds and deathbeds. “All of these have to do with regeneration, life and death,” she explains.