Parents, faculty, staff and friends of FVS are invited to attend an opening reception in the William Thayer Tutt Visual Arts Center on Friday, Sept. 1, from 6-8pm as we kick off the faculty art exhibition, “This Way,” featuring photography, painting, sculpture and installation from our very own Visual Arts Faculty Curtis Singmaster, Chris Hutchinson, and Samantha Howell. Meet the artists behind our art teachers and enjoy recent works aimed at highlighting and exploring the use of direction and misdirection, and shifts in context as well as material language.

About the Artists

Curtis Singmaster
FVS’s Fine Arts Department chair and ceramics and metalsmithing faculty, Curtis Singmaster is a mixed media artist and freelance designer who has been making art for over two decades. Singmaster earned a BFA from the University of Denver as well as from the Instituto Allende in Mexico, and an MFA in Sculpture from The Rhode Island School of Design with a teaching certificate from Brown University. His work, which has been exhibited throughout the U.S. and internationally, evolves from energy, wit, curiosity, and humor. In 2010, he received the Boston Young Contemporaries Award, and was one of three New England graduate students selected to participate in the Agriculture Encounters Sculpture Show. In addition to the latter, Singmaster has been recognized by the media for his work in the Black Sheep Show and Art In The Park. His experience with exhibiting at solo shows ranges from the Booklyn Artist Alliance to the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, Mich. Singmaster’s approach to objects and material is restless and unconventional, ultimately creating things with the ability of changing one’s perception, and helping people discover unforeseen potential. He strives to keep things physically simple and stripped down, but conceptually charged, and is currently exhibiting in several private collections, including The Rhode Island School of Design and The Urban Institute of Contemporary Art.

Chris Hutchinson
C M Hutchinson has been pursuing photography since 2001, when he began working in a photo lab and learning darkroom processes as a young teenager. He continued his studies as a photography major at Bard College, where he learned from masters such as Stephen Shore. Hutchinson has since put his skills to use professionally as an art educator at independent boarding schools across the United States, and continues his passion for sharing the medium at the Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs. In his art practice, he has pursued projects across a range of mediums that include: documenting the complex landscape along the length of the U.S. Mexico border; exploratory uses of cell phone and digital imaging methods; and playing with ideas around American identity and politics. His work has been featured across numerous art and photography organization’s Instagram accounts, digital publications, zines, and galleries.


Samantha Howell
Samantha Howell aims to create a space for people to engage and spend time with art. Studio art faculty at FVS since 2022, she teaches 2D and multi-medium installation while pursuing her own passions for drawing, painting, printmaking, digital media, and installation outside of the classroom. Howell, who holds a BA in Visual Art from the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS), exhibited her very first installation work in Array–a group exhibition at UCCS’s Galleries of Contemporary Art–in 2019. She enjoys experimenting across a variety of media and is known for heavily exploring the use of color and value in her 2D works as well as in her installation pieces. She also uses her installation pieces to define and dissect space, utilizing three-dimensional line and color to create a stimulating physical experience for viewers that generates an awareness of the viewer’s physical body and its relationship to the art. Howell’s string installations, which use brightly colored yarn to form disorienting optical effects and illusions, are abstractly designed to evoke emotion and feelings of wonder.