Jennifer Hughes, Visual Arts

Jennifer Hughes, a faculty member of Milton’s visual arts department, introduces printmaking techniques to students in her art classes. In Studio Art, students work on relief printing—carving images into woodblocks and rolling the ink across the flat surfaces. In Advanced Drawing, there is a unit on intaglio printing, where students carve lines into the surface of plexiglass and then put the ink into the lines—the opposite of relief printing.

“With these techniques, students learn about drawing in a way that is different from pencil on paper. It’s very challenging, but the students were really into it. Milton students are wonderful—very engaged, and they come up with great ideas,” says Jennifer.

Jennifer was born in the Bronx and went to boarding school at the St. Andrews School in Delaware. She had her first taste of printmaking there when her art teacher found an old printing press and installed it in the school. Jennifer’s intro print professor at Wellesley College became her close advisor and mentor. In graduate school at the University of Iowa, Jennifer focused more intently on lithography and broadened her technical skills in woodcut, letterpress and book arts.

“My advisor at Wellesley noticed how much I loved bringing people into the studio and showing them the art. It seemed natural to me to want to share what art is about with other people, and that translated into my desire to teach,” says Jennifer.

Before coming to Milton, Jennifer taught at several institutions: School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Framingham State, Boston Architectural College, the deCordova, and the Eliot School. Jennifer’s work has been exhibited around the United States, including at Muskat Studios, Cole Art Center, Danforth Museum of Art, Bunker Hill Community College, and the Mills Gallery.