Our Mission

OX-BOW CONNECTS ARTISTS TO:

• A network of creative resources, people, and ideas

• An energizing natural environment

• A rich artistic history and vital future

Overview

Ox-Bow offers a wide range of opportunities for artists at all stages in their career. With year-round programs that cater to degree-seeking students, professional artists and those new to the field, Ox-Bow is a protected place where creative processes break-down, reform, and mature.

As much as Ox-Bow is a place, it is also an experience. Through its affiliation with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Ox-Bow offers one and two-week courses for credit and non-credit for beginning, intermediate, and advanced students. Ox-Bow’s courses are diverse, ranging in focus from the functional to the sculptural; from traditional to contemporary; and from representational to conceptual. It is the synthesis of this diverse range of studio practices, and the artists who come to engage with them, that offers the diversity of opinion, viewpoint, and discussion that makes the Ox-Bow experience so rich.

There are a variety of ways to engage in the program, from being a student, artist in residence, faculty member, visiting artist, or fellowship student. Whether you are there to learn, teach, or work in the studio, artists find that Ox-Bow invigorates them with fresh ideas to bring back to the studio.

As an arts-based nonprofit with a rich legacy of empowering and investing in artists, we value the freedom to explore challenging ideas in art. When visiting our campus there maybe artwork or objects made by participants that may not align with one’s own personal values or beliefs.

Our Story

After a century in operation, Ox-Bow's mission has remained consistent—to serve as a haven for the creative process through instruction, immersion, and community.

The beginning

Founded by Frederick Fursman and Walter Marshall Clute, artists from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Ox-Bow was to serve as a respite for artists from the industrializing havoc of Chicago. Today, Ox-Bow's longevity is due to the strength of this mission and the artists who have held true to it.

Fursman and Clute began this tradition after visiting the Saugatuck area one summer. They became enamored with the natural beauty of the area, as well as its rural isolation. They began teaching summer painting classes at the Bandle Farm on the east bank of the Kalamazoo River approximately one mile upstream from Ox-Bow's present location. In 1912 and 1913, classes were held at the Park House, down river and at the Riverside Hotel. In 1914, the School moved its entire operation to the Riverside Hotel - which soon became known as the Ox-Bow Inn.

TURN OF THE CENTURY

At the turn of the last century, the Saugatuck's major industries began to decline. In 1907, the Kalamazoo River channel was straightened to flow directly into Lake Michigan, effectively cutting off the Riverside Hotel from its patrons. Due to a lack of guests, the Shrivers then leased the hotel to a group of artists for the entire summer. The industry of art and leisure was taking over as the area began to reinvent itself as a Midwestern resort community. The Riverside Hotel persisted as lodging for its clients even though the clientele had changed from traders to artists.