A season of student and community activity

By Patricia Platt

For over 80 years, the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Trust has endowed Yale University’s summer music and art programs in Norfolk. The renowned Yale Norfolk School of Art opens the 2026 summer season on May 23, before the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival begins, and shares its final week with Yale’s new music workshop. The art school is held in the historic Alfredo Taylor-designed Art Barn, located on a trail behind the 70-acre estate’s magnificent Whitehouse on the village green.

“Yale Norfolk brings together a diverse group of students who have demonstrated passion in artmaking and are exemplary community members,” explains the program’s co-director, Lisa Sigal. The student body is composed of 26 rising college seniors, selected from over 200 applicants. Participants come from across the country and, increasingly, from international backgrounds. Students live in dormitories on the estate alongside faculty and staff.

The faculty includes co-directors Sigal and Byron Kim, who will lead seminars with Yale professor Ayham Ghraowi and four teaching fellows. “We cultivate the next generation of artists by providing immersive, community-driven residencies. It ends up being six transformative weeks,” says Sigal. “Students leave with a deepened creative practice and lifelong friendships. Teaching fellows leave knowing how to structure a class and inspire young artists. And everyone leaves the estate in tears.” The public is invited to view student work during Open Studios at the Art Barn on June 28, from 1 to 6 p.m.

Each summer, students create a series of community art installations around Norfolk. Six to eight proposals are selected and then presented to the town’s selectmen for approval. Some projects are installed during the last weekend of June, others remain for weeks and a few have earned permanent places in the Norfolk landscape.

This summer’s theme, “Seeing Through,” draws inspiration from the French philosopher Édouard Glissant, who wrote about opacity and its inverse, transparency, observing that “The opaque is not the obscure; rather, it is that which cannot be reduced.” Other artists extend this idea, treating transparency and opacity as processes of seeing and knowing—of seeing through something.

Visiting fellows and faculty will present free lectures exploring the theme over five Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. in the Art Barn:

May 28: Shadi Harouni, an internationally acclaimed artist, explores resistance and hidden histories.
June 4: Glenn Ligon discusses his work confronting race, identity and language.
June 11: Mel Chin, a MacArthur Fellow and visionary artist, presents projects that scale from gallery walls to large-scale public transformation.
June 18: Gordon Hall, a sculptor and scholar, reveals the surprising politics hidden in everyday objects, including their furniture-like sculptures.
June 25: Lisa Darms discusses her work as an archivist preserving the voices of artists, activists and cultural movements.

The art program also offers free community drawing classes throughout the summer. These begin on Saturday, May 30, and continue through the end of the music program on Aug. 23. The classes focus on life drawing with a live model. Drawing materials and paper are provided, and participants of all experience levels are welcome. Classes meet on the second floor of the Art Barn on Tuesdays, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m., and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon.

In addition to the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Trust, the Yale Norfolk School of Art is made possible with support from the Yale School of Art, the Norfolk Hub, the Battell Arts Foundation and the Low Road Foundation. For more information, visit the program’s website at https://norfolkart.yale.edu.