Art + Design Education Leaders
We're known for providing unique and flexible programs taught by professionals who have shaped art, craft, design, media and heritage studies in Canada. No other college offers students this breadth of creative programming.
Learn at campuses in Haliburton and Peterborough that provide a one-of-a kind, hands-on studio experience. Our certificate, diploma and post-graduate programs will help you build a solid portfolio to take you to the next step - whether that's continuing education, embarking on a career, or starting your own practice.
Featured Program
Build Your Foundation, Then Ignite Your Creativity
Earn a Visual and Creative Arts diploma in just three semesters with foundation courses and hands-on studio experience!
Apply Now-
Visual and Creative Arts
Train like an artist and build a powerful foundation in visual art. No matter your medium, this diploma helps you grow your skills and perspective with hands-on studio learning.
Visual and Creative Arts -
March Break Creative Adventure Starts Soon!
Courses for kids and teens in ceramics, printmaking, digital art and more. Learn new skills and make something amazing.
March Break Creative Adventure Starts Soon! -
Create, learn, and live where inspiration surrounds you.
We’re happy to share that for the first time ever, HSAD students can enjoy the convenience of on-campus housing. Learn more about your future accommodations in Haliburton.
Coming this Fall 2025. Learn more.
Art Certificates
Diploma Programs
Continuing Education
Centre for Making
Haliburton Accommodations
Diploma Program
Post Graduate Programs
Meet our Faculty
Tanya Lyons
Tanya Lyons graduated with honours from the Sheridan College glass program. She also studied at the University of Art and Design Helsinki, Finland, The Atlin Art Centre in BC, and the Toyama Institute of Glass Art in Japan. She taught glass at Sheridan College for four years, was a resident at the Harbourfront Centre as well as volunteering on the Board of Directors for the Glass Art Association of Canada. After 14 years in Quebec, Tanya has moved back to her hometown community to raise her daughter and continue her sculptural work with glass. Reflecting her passion for helping people find their way, she continues to teach in the glass program at the Haliburton School of Art + Design. She is the Co-Coordinator of the Madawaska Valley Studio Tour and a collaborating artist with the Ottawa Valley Community Arts organization. Tanya has always been a gatherer, collecting and taking in, objects, moments and memories. She uses glass in combination with natural and found objects to express and reflect her experiences, thoughts and questions about the world we live in and who we are. Her work has been exhibited throughout North America, Europe and Japan and is in many private and public collections including the Musee National des Beau-arts du Quebec. www.tanyalyons.ca
Melanie Matthews
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Melanie Matthews followed her painting and drawing studies at Dawson College with the achievement of a BFA with distinction in Studio Art from Concordia University. She shares her time between her prolific personal art practice and an ever-expanding teaching schedule. Melanie is Golden Artist Colors Working Artist for Ontario and has been the Working Artist for Quebec since 2002. She is invited to lecture, offer workshops, and teach classes for many venues and art organizations, including the Visual Arts Centre, Dawson College, Concordia University, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and the Canadian Society of Artists. She instructs on a broad spectrum of topics, including methods and materials of acrylic painting, acrylic encaustic techniques, monoprinting, bigger is better (large scale image-making), painting on Plexi, essential acrylics, mixed media, digital mixed media, contemporary water media, creative colour mixing, image transfer, and more. For More Information: melaniematthews.ca
Jan Anderson
Jan Anderson became a committed fabric artist-quilter after taking her first course at the Haliburton School of Art + Design. After experimenting and creating with glass, wood, stone, paper and wire, she is addicted to the texture, diversity and colour of textiles. Jan manipulates wax, wool rovings, rust, paint, dye, pigment, canvas, cotton, origami, embellishments, and more to produce unique wall hangings. She has over seventeen years of teaching experience at colleges and universities in Ontario and is recognized for her passion, creativity and innovation, touched by humour and motivation. For More Information: bytheriverstudio.com
Kirei Samuel
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Kirei Samuel's fascination with glass started purely by accident 25 years ago, when a friend gave her some scrap glass. For many years she travelled the Ontario art and craft show circuit and then, in 2009 she opened her studio/gallery which houses her one-of-a-kind pieces in jewellery, plates, bowls and artwork. In 2019 Kirei designed 550 pendants for the Women's Half Marathon in Wellington, ON. She also designed and built the bases for the pewter sculptures for the Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Toronto's annual theatre, dance and opera. She is happy to continue the Dora Award bases commission in 2023. Kirei has been a member of the PEC Studio Tour for the last 14 years.
Hope Thompson
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Hope Thompson is an award-winning filmmaker and screenwriter, most recently picking up best feature screenplay at Toronto's Female Eye Film Festival, with co-writer Patricia Chica. As a writer, Hope is passionate about crime and true crime genres. She has written extensively for the top-rated podcasts Crime Hub and Whereabouts Unknown. Her crime fiction has been published in anthologies, including in the Crime Writers of Canada's 2022 collection, Cold Canadian Crime. Her television credits include Iceland's Tulipop (Serious Kids) and The Fabulous Show with Faye and Fluffy (Wild Brain). She also wrote on two seasons of CBC's Baroness Von Sketch Show. Hope has two series projects in development. For More Information: @hopethompson70 | hopethompson.net
Michael Flaherty
Micheal Flaherty was born in St. John's and continues to call Newfoundland his home, while his work, research and studies in ceramics have taken him across Canada and beyond. He earned a diploma in Visual Arts from College of the North Atlantic, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from NSCAD University, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Regina. Michael has previously taught sculpture and ceramics at NSCAD, University of Regina and Memorial University of Newfoundland, and worked as ceramics technician at Red Deer College. Spanning the past fifteen years, Michael's studio practice has explored diverse themes including politics in art, interdisciplinary craft, and human and natural geography. In 2011 Flaherty's work was recognized when he was a semi-finalist for the prestigious Sobey Art Award. Flaherty was a finalist for the RBC Peoples' Choice award and won the Large Year Award from Visual Artists Newfoundland and Labrador in 2013.
Toni Caldarone
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Toni Caldarone has been a 'maker' throughout her life, inspired by natural found and recycled objects. Having had a career in the corporate world, she stayed in touch with art through classes at Toronto School of Art, AGO, HSAD and Learn4Life. Downsizing brought Toni back to the creative world where she describes herself as a self-taught, mixed-media expressive artist. Her life's journey, her enthusiasm and her artistic vision have provided the opportunity to translate her skills into hands-on experiences with her students for nearly twenty years. Toni has shown work through exhibitions as well as private and event sales. She loves to encourage creativity through positive experiences in a supportive atmosphere.
Rose Pearson
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Rose Pearson earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from York University, majoring in painting and drawing. She went on to receive her education degree and has over 30 years of experience teaching art in both the public school system in Alberta and Ontario, privately from her studio in Haliburton County and for the Haliburton School of Art + Design. Rose is the coordinator of the Visual and Creative Arts diploma at Fleming College. In addition to creating bodies of work for public gallery exhibitions, she is a member of the Haliburton Highlands Studio Tour. For More Information: rosepearson.com
Fly Freeman
Fly Freeman trained as a sculptor in Scotland, where she started her career as a stone carver, carving everything from gargoyles to gravestones and large-scale public commissions in granite. A mid-career move to Canada led to a radical shift in her sculptural practice: carving has been joined by construction as a sculptural method, and wood and other media are now worked alongside the stone. www.flyfreeman.com
Victoria Wallace
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Victoria Wallace is an artist-educator, born and raised in Toronto. For over 25 years she operated a successful mural and specialty paint finish company in Toronto which included work for film, television, commercials, schools, businesses and countless private residences. She has shown her paintings in galleries, art festivals and group and solo exhibitions across Ontario for over 4 decades. Her work is held in private collections across Canada, the US, and Europe. Victoria is an elected member of the Ontario Society of Artists, the Society of Canadian Artists, an active member of the Federation of Canadian Artists and a regular on the Kawartha Autumn Studio Tour. She is a Golden Artist Educator for Golden Artist Colors and an R&F Certified Encaustic Instructor with R&F Handmade Paints. In addition to the Haliburton School of Art and Design, Victoria has taught at Sir Sandford Fleming College (Peterborough), Lakefield College, Station Gallery (Whitby), the York Artists' Guild (Toronto), Humber College Assembly Hall (Toronto), the Art Gallery of Peterborough, the Art School of Peterborough, with GoBoomerang (online) and many other public and private arts and educational institutions. For More Information: victoria-wallace.com
Elise Muller
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Elise Muller has been sculpting stone since 2001 and her large public sculptures can be found in Dorset, Fergus, and Kingsbrae Garden. Elise's granite sculpture 'Attunement' won the 2018/9 Canadian Sculpture Competition at Kingsbrae Garden in St. Andrews, NB. Elise has been teaching stone carving to both adults and children for 19 years, and enjoys nurturing her students' individual creativity. Elise lives and works at Stone Tree Studio in Muskoka with her partner, furniture maker Cirvan Hamilton. For More Information: @elisemuller_art | stonetreestudio.ca