51��������

Clay responds directly to touch, retains memory and is forced through the dynamic process of firing to fix a point in time. This class will introduce students to a variety of hand-building techniques to construct sculptural and/or utilitarian forms. Students will develop their skills by practicing techniques demonstrated in class. Through making, students’ skills will increase, granting more confidence, and allowing more control over the objects they wish to realize.

This course will look into the use of the kiln as an integral tool and part of the creative process in ceramic art. We will explore various different kilns and firing techniques, learning the roles of fire and atmosphere in transforming glaze components into desired surfaces. We will also discuss the history of kiln technology and how it has influenced the development of wares, kiln building, and the theoretical basis for kiln design and firing. Students will be expected to develop and produce work independently outside of class time for use in the firings.

Sculpture and vessels are realized through an exchange between the medium and the self. The class will begin with the question:

What is Sculpture?

What is a Vessel?

This is an introductory course of basic mold making and slip casting techniques for producing components to create a series of functional ware. This course focuses on the development of design concepts through exploration of slip casting methods, application of alteration and assemblage techniques and experimentation of prototype makings to produce ceramic multiples (cups).

A “rigorous study of art” became the goal of Philosopher and Cultural Critic Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) when his growing distaste for the outlook and methods of his art history professor—the famous and foundational Heinrich Wölfflin—caused him to consider publishing an account of “the most disastrous activity I have ever encountered at a German university.”

Westworld (Season 2) HBO’s “science fiction western thriller” television series, drives a broadly-conceived visual culture/cultural studies course in which we identify and analyze various aesthetics and genres, histories and visions, typologies, theologies, and allegories on screen and off—both inside and outside the show’s narrative.

This lab class is structured for students who are registered for CER2208 CUPS: Slip Casting and Mold Making to achieve production goals. The two-hour mandatory lab will be guided by the faculty so that students can receive technical guidance and adequate support to establish their studio production practices and expand their knowledge and creative capacities. 

This lab class is structured for students who have completed CER2208 CUPS: Slip Casting and Mold Making (or equivalent introductory mold making and slip casting courses) to achieve independent production goals to create a series of  ceramic functional ware (cups). The two-hour weekly lab will be guided by the faculty so that students can receive technical guidance and adequate support to establish their studio production practices and expand their knowledge and creative capacities. 

Understanding the form of a container is an integral part of the aesthetic reconfiguration of nature in Ikebana. The concept of activating an interior architectural space with collected cut plants and their arrangement stems from ancient Japanese animism. The container is considered a mysterious receptacle for the sustainability of life and acts as a symbolic focal point in its spatial context.

In this course, we will be uncovering, re-positioning, and affirming historical legacies and traditions that stand the risk of being lost forever, and explore how to use them to fight discrimination, racism and hate today.

Students with little or no Spanish will learn the language through an immersion in Latin American painting. While there will be some discussion of standard tactics such as stylistic nuances and artists’ biographies, it is expected that we will rapidly develop sufficient linguistic ability to focus on movements, ranging from the republican art of nation-building in the 19th century to modernism, magical realism, and the postmodern, thus treating the works as ideologemes, representations of political and social import.

In lieu of more conventional advanced Spanish classes, paralleling a series of often disparate tutorials, with tutees working in relative isolation, the proposal is to allow students free reign over an idea for a final, term-long project, while concurrently offering them an educated, exoteric audience to assist in fleshing out their work. Faculty will provide key secondary and tertiary reading, common to all, some with immediate relevance to the projects in question, some deemed necessary for any culminating work, but the primary content of these sessions will be student-driven.

Low-intermediate level. More details to be announced soon. 

High-intermediate level. More details to come soon.