Drive up onto the 36 pastoral acres that make up the campus of the Northwest College of Art in Poulsbo, and you may suddenly have the desire to apply for a creative license to go along with your driver’s license. There’s the urge to pull out an easel and paint scenic Liberty Bay as it stretches out before you, or mold a clay sculpture of one of the horses grazing in a nearby field. Or you could paint the red brick mansion that is the main building on campus, an edifice that was once the first million-dollar mansion built in Kitsap County.

Indeed, the school is meant to foster the creative spirit of it students, roughly half of whom come from out-of-state. A fully-accredited institution, the NCA offers a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts (BFA), which can be completed in 2 years and 8 months, although most students pair a fine arts major like drawing or painting with one of the commercial art programs, such as photography, multimedia or animation. The double major takes 36 months, or one additional semester.

Amidst the college’s aesthetic surroundings, there is, in fact, a pronounced concentration on “art as business.” With a practical emphasis on job placement, the school works to groom commercial artists, most of whom can command top salaries for their skills. Is it working? NCA claims a rate of 93 percent job placement. In addition, every student in their senior year goes to work for a company before they graduate. About half of those externships turn into a direct hire.

“Seventy-five percent of the program is art. But twenty-five percent of the program is “art business” and communication skills that help out in the business world, public speaking, creative writing, philosophy, or psychology,” explains school founder and director Craig Freeman, who founded the school back in 1982 by following his bliss to the Northwest. “We teach skills that are really necessary in this day and age within the professional arena.”

The school has a student body of approximately 145 students and faculty and staff fluctuate between 20 and 30. Eighty percent of the freshman are right out of high school. The college does not have part-time students, offering a complete program only, although one of the targets is increasing the adult presence, including those adults who are interested in re-tooling for a second or third career.

“This is a tough school,” says Freeman. “The target is job placement in the top companies. We have students working from The New York Times to some of the region’s top design firms, to Channel 5, Boeing, Eddie Bauer, Art Wolff, Sierra and at Wizards of the Coast. A full-time student is in class 20 hours a week but only 2-1/2 days out of the week.

The NCA faculty are all practicing professionals. “This was really an important feature for me,” tells Freeman. “Growing up I had a lot of good teachers who were nice people but not in the professional arena. I feel education at its best really demands a teacher that has not only the education but the experience about what’s going on.”

In February, the school will assemble an advisory board for a new film program. “There’s some great talent in this area,” remarked Freeman. “I’ve been meeting with directors, and cinematographers. On Bainbridge Island I met with [cinematographer] Peter Levy (“Under Suspicion,” “Lost in Space”), along with writers, videographers and photographers. The debate will be, “What do we need for the infrastructure of the new program, what is the climate like in the market, what do other schools offer and what aren’t they offering, so that we can offer something unique.”

“I’m excited to see us develop new programs,” Freeman says. “We’re bringing in new federal money [financial aid] which affects this area. Every time we open up another section of twenty students, we have to go out and hire six more teachers. We’re a small entity, but everything adds up.”.