Arts Faculty Spotlight Series: Hilary Hutchison

Kathleen Mark ‘21

 Hilary Hutchison, 3D design teacher, is a very passionate and practicing artist alongside her teaching at Episcopal. Hutchison is involved in art at EA through many clubs, including Install-it, which helps to brighten up the school’s hallways with work displayed by students. In addition to all she does at EA, her passion for art is also extended to outside of EA.

  Hutchison’s passion for art started at a young age. “ I had a really good elementary school art teacher who recognized that I had an affinity and an interest in it, and my parents supported that.” She states, “I think I have always wanted to be an artist.” But this notion was confirmed the summer between her junior and senior year, when she was, “selected to go to the New Jersey Governor’s School for the Arts, which was a merit-based program. The whole thing was that you lived on a college campus for a month and you took studio classes with the same professors that would teach you in college. It was held at Trenton state college, which is now the College of New Jersey. There were dance students, creative writing students, musicians, and visual artists. You’re in this environment with all these creative people that have the same interest and are the same age.” 

 After finding a love for the arts, Hutchison went to Boston University to get her Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture. From there, she went and got her Master’s Degree there as well. Before coming to the EA community, Hutchison had some prior teaching experience. After receiving her Masters’ degree, she lived just outside of Boston. She spent her time “sitting at community art centers and running summer programs with David Sigel, Chair of the Visual Arts Department and US art teacher. Then I spent my time teaching at Boston University and as a visiting lecturer at Amherst College.  I also taught at Lesley University. My experience teaching before EA was mostly with adults or college-level students.” After moving from Boston, Hutchison began teaching at EA in 2008.

After finishing graduate school, Hutchison “got a studio right away.” At the time, and still today, she is “just trying to create the discipline of getting into the studio on a regular basis to just work for the sake of working. It’s all about being creative and exploring new material and subject matter.” Over time, she has created a collection of pieces that have been and are currently being displayed. Hutchison recently visited some of the sites nearby the area where her work is displayed, “after moving back to New Jersey, I visited the church that features a bronze sculpture that I created for them. There was also a drawing hanging in the rectory there that I made for them.”

 Hutchison has many other works as well. “I have a life-size figure in the library at Tufts University… I have the fish sculpture at the Kahun Museum of American Art, and I had a gallery in Boston and sold a lot of work there and I continue to sell a lot of work on Cape Cod over the summers.” Hutchison has also done many commission pieces. “It’s always nice when that [commission] happens. I think that’s just what it’s like to be an artist, there’s always that innate need to be working and creating.”

Hutchison’s favorite group of pieces that she has done is “the series of dogs which are on my [her] website. They are plastered with natural materials. I enjoy any sculpture that deals with nature and animals and organic form. I think that comes from what I was exposed to growing up.” Another dog relate project done by Hutchison is scultpure of a dog in the Honor Hall. One of the reasons this project has a special place in Hutchison’s heart is because the labrador dog is for the class of 2019 and their form dean, Cheryl McLauchlan. 

 Currently, Hutchison’s love for art is very active, even outside of her teaching in the EA community. As Hutchison states, “There’s actually going to be a show for faculty at the Art Center I work at in the summer; that is coming up this March.” The show is in Massachusetts, where Sigel and Hutchison spend their summers teaching and continuing their art careers professionally. As Hutchison describes, “There are two venues in summer. One is the Katua center for the arts and we teach there for four weeks. It is two, two week programs for children ages 11 to 16. We are also running workshops at the Kahun Museum of American Art. We try to have the students’ work complement the exhibitions. This summer their work is on scrimshaw. Following the Cape Cod style, they will do their carving with whale bones. In the show, there will also be the inclusion of contemporary artists who are still working within the genre. In preparation, we must generate programs that will collaborate with the shows. It is fun because it changes every summer. It is something I look foward to each summer. ”