Studio Art
Note: This page contains all of the regular courses taught by this department. Not all courses are offered every year. Check the searchable schedule to see which courses are being offered in the upcoming semester.
ARTS 101 Color/Design
Credit: 0.5
Students in this course will be introduced to the use of color and two-dimensional design. The perceptual and psychological qualities of color will be explored through color exercises and mixed-media projects. Conceptual and formal growth will be stressed. Media used may include pigmented paper, paint, and found objects. No prerequisites.
ARTS 102 Drawing I
Credit: 0.5
This course introduces the medium of drawing as an essential means of visual communication. A variety of methods and materials are used for both in-class studies as well as for larger and more comprehensive projects. Challenging and complex drawings will be produced with a sharp focus on both formal and conceptual issues. Technical aspects of drawing will be balanced with imaginative and experimental approaches throughout the semester. Presentations and class discussions will supplement assignments to aid in expansion of the understanding of project goals. No prerequisites. This course will be offered each semester.
Instructor: Baldwin, Snouffer
ARTS 103 Sculpture I
Credit: 0.5
This course presents an introduction to three-dimensional art through exploration of its basic elements (line, plane, mass, and color) and its basic ordering principles (unity, balance, rhythm, and dominance). Individual projects will be of two types: one-day projects allowing quick, spontaneous explorations; and longer, more elaborate projects allowing careful execution of individual ideas. This course assumes little or no previous sculptural experience. However, for those who wish to move on to more elaborate materials and techniques, instruction and encouragement will be given. The course format will include slide lectures, group critiques, and individual instruction. Material purchases are the responsibility of each student. No prerequisites. This course will be offered each semester.
Instructor: Gunderson
ARTS 104 Book Arts
Credit: 0.5
This course is an introduction to the artistic practice of book arts, also called artists' books. Through a progression of exercises, demonstrations and projects, the conceptual thinking and artistic skills that go into the planning and making of artists' books are explored. Projects may incorporate various procedures of Eastern and Western book forms, adhesive and non-adhesive bindings and experimental book forms. Students will explore the intersection of text and image, and the effect of technological innovations, such as digital publishing, on the the codex book form. Readings, presentations and discussions on the development of the book art genre will place book arts within the context of contemporary cultural expressions such as socio-political commentary, poetic association, explorations of the nature of language and carriers of the narrative tradition.
Instructor: Sheffield
ARTS 106 Photography I
Credit: 0.5
This course is an introduction to the fundamental technical and aesthetic issues of black-and-white photography, with emphasis on using the medium for personal expression. Students will work through a series of problems designed to increase understanding of basic camera operation, black-and-white darkroom techniques, and art-making strategies. Regular critiques are scheduled to increase understanding of communicating with an audience and sharpen the ability to analyze and discuss works of art. No prior photographic experience is needed, but a personal manual film camera is required. No prerequisites. This course will be offered each semester.
Instructor: Hackbardt, Spaid
ARTS 107 Digital Imaging I
Credit: 0.5
This introductory course will enable students to explore digital media while engaging in aesthetic and conceptual practices in contemporary art. They will come to understand the fundamentals of composition and to develop technical skills with a variety of camera and computer tools, including still-image and video editing programs. Personal studio projects will cover a variety of subjects, such as the relationship of the arts to popular culture and the liberal arts, the historic role of technology in the arts, and the role of gender, class, and race in the creation and interpretation of artwork. Through theory and practice, students will enhance their art-criticism skills, allowing for creative group interactions and the defining of personal aesthetic vision. Presentations and demonstrations by the professor will be supplemented by student research and response to contemporary artists and issues. This course requires at least twelve hours of work per week outside of class. No prerequisites. This course will be offered each semester.
Instructor: Esslinger
ARTS 210 Human Figure in Sculpture
Credit: 0.5
This course will teach students how to depict the human form using a variety of sculptural materials and techniques. The course will allow students to explore the figure representatively, with clay modeling and body casting, and abstractly, with wood construction and welding. The first portion of the course will be devoted to learning to manipulate the materials while working on many small-scale projects. The second portion of the course will allow students to choose a process or combination of processes that allow them to develop personally meaningful themes using the human form as subject matter. Project materials are the responsibility of each student. Slide lectures, group critiques, and individual instruction will be used.
Instructor: Gunderson
ARTS 211 Art with a Function
Credit: 0.5
Throughout the history of art, creative people have been making functional objects that they believe are necessary to improve life--their own lives or those of individuals who purchase the objects from the maker. These functional objects have been as simple as a decorative hinge for a kitchen cupboard or as complex as a subway station. While making a subway station is not in the course plan, making chairs, lamps, tables, and other functional objects that reflect the maker's individuality is what the course is about. As this is a sculpture course, projects are limited only by the capabilities of the sculpture shop. Therefore, working with woods and metals will be emphasized. Project materials are the responsibility of each student. The course will make use of slide lectures, group critiques, and individual instruction.
Instructor: Gunderson
ARTS 212 Art with Four Legs
Credit: 0.5
The animal world has long supplied artists with source material. This course explores that tradition and teaches students how to create personally meaningful animal forms using a variety of sculptural materials and techniques. Students will explore the topic realistically and abstractly, using life-size scale and exaggeration (larger or smaller). Actual subject matter may vary from capturing the family pet to spiritual alter egos. Projects will use clay, plaster, wood, or metal construction. Project materials are the responsibility of each student. Slide lectures, group critiques, and individual instruction will be used.
Instructor: Gunderson
ARTS 214 Faces, Places, Trees, and Apples: Sculptural Topics
Credit: 0.5
Have you noticed that certain subject matters in the art world are more extensively explored in two dimensions than they are in three dimensions? When was the last time you saw a sculptural landscape? Or a sculptural still life? This course will explore those topics as well as other themes which are less frequently explored--the sculptural portrait and site-specific sculpture. While exploring these themes of art-making in general, students will further their understanding and development in handling the tools, techniques, and materials of the third dimension. Projects will use wood, metal, clay, or plaster. Project materials are the responsibility of each student. The course will make use of slide lectures, group critiques, and individual instruction.
Instructor: Gunderson
ARTS 226 Photography of Invention
Credit: 0.5
The focus of this intermediate-level course is on using the medium of photography in ways that promote creativity, innovation, experimentation, and continuing growth in both technical and aesthetic accomplishment. Students will be introduced to non-silver photography and to experimental methods such as digital negatives, photographic exercises in color and montage, and the use of text. Students will be encouraged to pursue their own personal interests and directions that surface through their assignments.
Instructor: Hackbardt, Spaid
ARTS 228 Photography II
Credit: 0.5
This class will extend the student's experience beyond the fundamentals of black-and-white photography, with projects in large-format photography and artificial lighting. Readings, lectures, and critiques will help to expose students to significant issues in the history and current practice of photography.
Instructor: Hackbardt, Spaid
ARTS 229 Documentary Photography
Credit: 0.5
This course engages students in the art of documentary photography, a genre traditionally associated with the social landscape, picturing a wide range of subjects from conflict and crisis to meaningful stories of everyday experience. Photographs that document have been understood to offer evidence pertinent to issues and ideas, therefore educating viewers, heightening awareness and inspiring response. Students will develop their projects with attention to research, discovery, editing, technical artistry and personal vision.
Instructor: Hackbardt, Spaid
ARTS 230 Figure Drawing
Credit: 0.5
This course engages students in a rigorous and thorough exploration of two-dimensional representation of the human figure in drawing. Aesthetic and anatomical study of the human figure is the primary exercise throughout the semester. Assignments include the investigation of the use of figures in formal compositions, narrative constructs, and psychologically complex environments, culminating in a larger-than-life-size, full-figure self-portrait project at the end of the semester. Students utilize a variety of drawing methods and materials, including graphite, charcoal, ink, spray-paint, and collage. Each student will give a presentation on several artists during the semester.
Instructor: Baldwin
ARTS 245 Printmaking
Credit: 0.5
This class provides an overview of some of the most direct and fundamental forms of mechanical reproduction. A balance between technical mastery and imaginative visual exploration is the goal throughout this intermediate-level course. The processes employed during the semester combine aspects of drawing, painting, photographic reproduction, and a sculptural physicality, giving students an opportunity to explore and experiment with various combinations of visual processes. They will be challenged to synthesize and internalize diverse aesthetic approaches, while working to formulate a personal vision. Presentations on modern and contemporary artists are given by all students. Techniques include monotype, woodcut, linoleum print, dry point, intaglio, and photo etching.
Instructor: Baldwin
ARTS 250 Fundamentals of Painting
Credit: 0.5
This course is an introduction to the fundamental principles of painting. The course will begin with an investigation into painting materials and how they influence ideas. Students will explore the color, composition, and surface development using oil paint on board, panel, and canvas. The focus of this class will be to introduce the student to a wide range of basic approaches to painting. We will utilize traditional and nontraditional methods to address the genres of still life, landscape, and portraiture. The course will stress visual literacy and conceptual growth. Teacher presentations, group critiques, student reports, and readings along with individual instruction will help the student to develop ideas.
Instructor: Snouffer
ARTS 320 Color Photography
Credit: 0.5
This course is intended to develop an understanding of color photography as a medium for contemporary art, and as a ubiquitous messaging system doubly bound to veracity and deception. Students will take their own traditional or digital photographs and then utilize various digital photography techniques, including image scanning and color digital printing. Color theory, correct exposure of color slide and negative films, color balance management, use of color as an element in photographic design, and the psychology of color will be covered. Prerequisite: ARTS 106, 107 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hackbardt
ARTS 321 Digital Photography
Credit: 0.5
Students acquire fundamental digital photography skills, including image editing, creative camera-work, and color digital printing. The course emphasizes the connection between film and digital formats, while interrogating the shifting signs and significance of photographic meaning and digitization.
Instructor: Hackbardt
ARTS 351 Contemporary Painting Practices
Credit: 0.5
This class is an intensive studio course that explores painting as a means of investigating and developing personally meaningful imagery. As an introduction, we will examine the parallel ideas of art for art's sake and art for the people, as well as the evolution of American painting from the early twentieth century to the present. Throughout the semester, we will continue to study the work of contemporary painters. Teacher-generated assignments will include processes such as abstraction, mixed-media, appropriation, synesthesia and various non- traditional, postmodern approaches. During the first half of the semester, students will work with acrylic mediums, refining techniques of surface development and support construction. During the second half of the semester, the student may choose to work in another medium such as oil-based paints. They may also begin to work on self-generated projects, while receiving feedback from the instructor and class members. Group and one-on-one critiques will help develop critical thinking and the ability to articulate ideas about art.
Instructor: Snouffer
ARTS 352 Painting Redfined
Credit: 0.5
Beginning with Lucio Fontana's slashed canvases in 1958, numerous interpretations of the process known as "painting" have evolved, moving in simultaneous yet disparate directions. No longer depending on the flat canvas hanging on an interior wall as a support system or pigment as
the singular material of expression, students in this class will take the act of painting to
challenging, non-traditional levels. Energized by space and materiality, we will explode the
classical definitions if painting by exploring the painted object's relationship to its substance and
its support. Artists such as Elizabeth Murray, Frank Stella, Jessica Stockholder, Matthew
Ritchie, Judy Pfaff and Polly Apfelbaum are but a few we will examine as those who have
crossed the conventional boundaries of painting to merge it with other disciplines. With a nod to
multi-media, architecture and performance we will develop projects within the contexts of
collage, relief, installation and costume. Pre-requisites: ARTS 102, 103, 250, 351 or 360.
ARTS 360 Installation Art
Credit: 0.5
This course allows students to explore art that is based on a merger of space and time and on a relationship between the artist and the visitor. Perhaps the most inclusive and pervasive art form in the last forty years, installation art has roots in cinema, performance art, set design, architecture, graphic design, land art, public art, curating, art criticism and history in addition to the more traditional visual arts. In this class, students will create environments that immerse the viewer in a sensory/intellectual/emotional experience by using their interests and abilities in a variety of subjects and media. The material and methods range from everyday objects to highly personalized forms, from sampled sounds to surveillance video, from large wall drawings to interactive switches for the participant to manipulate. The class will consist of demonstrations of art skills particularly useful in installation (sculptural, video, audio, graphic presentation, etc.), presentations by the professor, research, reports and journal entries by students, weekly critiques, and cumulative projects. Varied experience in any of the fine arts is helpful.
Instructor: Esslinger
ARTS 361 Alternative Narratives: The Role of Storytelling in Video Art
Credit: 0.5
This course will enable the student to create narratives that challenge traditional forms by interfacing video art with ideas from other art forms and by exploring the short history of video art. What do narrative methods in music, dance, film, literature, painting, and so on have to offer the video artist? The class will investigate a variety of structures such as: diaristic, nonsequential, pseudo-documentary, collaborative, multiple channel, and associative narratives. Readings will supplement studio projects. Varied experience in any of the fine arts is helpful.
Instructor: Esslinger
ARTS 362 Poetics of the Moving Image
Credit: 0.5
In this course, students will be encouraged to experiment playfully with creation, capture, and editing of various visual and sonic sources and to collaborate to produce work that has an emphasis on an open lyrical style of artistic production. Methods will be chosen from demonstrated examples in montage, stop-motion/animation, appropriation/quotes from cultural sources, and other techniques. There will be demonstrations of a wide range of equipment and software, from low-tech to high-tech. Broad-based readings and research on historical/cultural forms, early experimental film, and contemporary video art will offer a context for our work. Student presentations of research will be expected. Frequent critiques will offer important feedback. Experience from other disciplines is helpful.
Instructor: Esslinger
ARTS 480 Advanced Studio
Credit: 0.5
This course is required for art majors and is designed to enable students to develop their personal artistic vision based on the foundation of intermediate studio courses. Students will be expected to produce a self-generated body of creative work based on a concentrated investigation of materials, methods, and ideas. Critiques, discussions, presentations, and field trips will provide context and feedback for this process. There will be a focus on developing the elements necessary for professional exhibition of a cohesive body of work, including: developing ideas, writing an artist's statement and resume, and perfecting presentation skills. Majors are expected to take this class and the sequel, Arts 481, with two different faculty members.
ARTS 481 Advanced Studio
Credit: 0.5
This course is required for art majors and is designed to enable students to further develop their personal artistic vision based on the foundation of intermediate studio courses and the first-semester Advanced Studio course. Well into their senior projects at the start of the semester, students will continue to refine their concepts and skills into a cohesive body of work for exhibition at the end of the semester. Critiques, discussions, and presentations will continue to amplify the studio experience. Professional presentation, writing artistic statements, and visual documentation skills will be part of the course. As part of the Senior Exercise, the culminating erxhibition will consist of work made during the course.
ARTS 493 Individual Study
Credit: 0.25-0.5
The studio art faculty do not recommend individual studies because we feel it is important for students to work in the context of other artists. We know, however, that occasionally an individual study might be appropriate. Individual studies must be approved by the department according to the following guidelines: Individual study should be undertaken only when a student has exhausted all the options for that medium in the regular curriculum. The subject for an individual study must be in a discipline in which the faculty member has expertise. An individual study does not count toward the requirements of the major; it is considered an extra course. When possible, the student should connect with a class doing a similar medium in the faculty member's field for feedback from other students (critiques). The student is responsible for writing up a contract and maintaining a schedule. Prerequisite: appropriate introductory and intermediate level courses.