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Beyond its use in commercial and fine art photography, image compositing is a useful tool for artists and designers more broadly. This course will cover processing, combining, and editing images in Adobe Photoshop to an intermediate level. Students will learn about the Photoshop interface, and how to work with images using filters, masks, levels, color and saturation controls, and a variety of selection and editing tools to create digital collages and composites. Student work will culminate in a large-format printed project.

In this course, we will explore the visual and spatial potential of cut paper models. The course will begin with a number of directed drawing and model-making exercises, and end with original work made with paper, knives, and glue. Students will study and do research on paper models by a variety of contemporary artists and architects–Zarina’s paper houses, Siah Armajani’s bridges, James Casebere’s abandoned tabletop constructions, Bodys Isek Kingelez’s dazzling utopian propositions, and many others.

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).

This course introduces a variety of materials, techniques and approaches to working with oil paint. Emphasis is placed on developing and understanding of color, form and space as well as individual research and conceptual concerns. The daily experience of seeing, along with examples from art history and contemporary art, provide a base from which investigations are made. Formal, poetic, and social implications within paintings both from class and from a wide-ranging selection of practicing artists are examined and discussed. Students complete work weekly.

Chromophilia, refers to intense passion and love for color. What is it about color that has the power to induce reverie, and conversely to manipulate, or disgust? How does color work? What is the role of color in visual art? In language? How do we understand and respond to color from phenomenological, poetic, philosophical, and societal vantage points? How as artists can we become effective stewards of our passionately-loved and yet ever-shifting chroma?

This intermediate level painting course will take as its platform the investigation of writing by artists about art and artists. While developing their own self-defined studio practices, students will engage with primary documents of art history - artists' essays, letters and sketchbooks.

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. 

Chemistry 3 focuses on the nature and pathways of organic reactions: what the steps are, how we experimentally determine them, and how we can use them to solve practical problems, such as the synthesis of a drug, or understanding the action of an enzyme. Emphasis will be using the general principles of nucleo- and and electrophilicity to provide a logical framework for understanding substitution, addition, elimination and reactions involving carbonyl groups. Chemical kinetics will also be a topic of study because of the insights it provides for reaction mechanisms.

This course is the first of a four-course chemistry sequence covering general, organic and biochemistry. Students do not need to take the entire sequence. We will focus on introductory chemical principles, including atomic theory, classical and quantum bonding concepts, molecular structure, organic functional groups, and the relationship between structure and properties. The class will have lecture/discussion meetings at which we will critically examine the major concepts of reading assignments, discuss articles, and review some of the current developments of the field.

In this class we will explore the art and practice of scientific communication. This course is inspired by the work of Edward Tufte as well as a lifetime of experience in scientific research and presentation. Our aim is to learn how to create elegant explanations of complex ideas using pictures, charts, numbers and words. We will analyze and produce displays for use in journalism, research publications and scientific presentations, as well as other art forms that inspire multifaceted understanding.

This course is an introductory level print media and drawing class. Students will learn about relief printmaking through demonstrations of techniques, hands-on experience, and critiques. Techniques include but are not limited to wood cut and linoleum cut. With this simple process, we will be able to explore color printing in depth. This course is also an introduction to making 2D images and the study of visual language. Students who have experience beyond the introductory level are welcome.

Historical Dress: The Park-McCullough Project Fall ‘25

Working in collaboration with the local Park-McCullough Historic Governor’s Mansion, students will create a new archive of the historic dress collection.

Every fictional universe has its own history, culture, geography, and ecology that act as a backdrop to the narratives that inhabit it.  This course will investigate the relationship between such a fantastical place and its characters – with a particular emphasis on the philosophy and symbology of the characters and their clothes.

A sustainable design process with found clothing 

Every year, roughly 92 million tons of clothing end up in landfills. This course seeks to support students rescuing our cast-offs by upcycling fast fashion. Students will explore how to deconstruct garments, rethink their intention, and reconstruct them anew. 

research to design to construction

“Clothes aren't going to change the world. The women who wear them will.” – Anne Klein

Scanning electron microscopes are a fundamental tool in the physical and life sciences. When equipped with an X-Ray spectrometer, a SEM can provide rapid physical and chemical data of specimens on extremely small scales. This class with cover the theory and practical applications of SEM imaging and analysis for advanced science students who have their own research interests. Students will be expected to develop and conduct an independent research project through this class.

Fake news, reality television, “IRL” – asserting the veracity of our perceptions is a constant preoccupation in contemporary culture. What is real? Realism is a widely used term with multiple connotations: verisimilitude, authenticity, objectivity, truth, fact.

This course is for experienced student artists with a firm commitment to serious work in the studio. Students will work primarily on self-directed projects in an effort to refine individual concerns and subject matter. Students will present work regularly for critique in class as well as for individual studio meetings with the instructor. Development of a strong work ethic will be crucial.

Modeling and Thinking in Rhino 8 is an introductory course to Computer-Aided Design (CAD) Modeling and how those models can be used in real-world applications. This course will explore the use of Rhino to create interactive models that represent imagined designs for manufacturing, architecture, and spatial sketching. Particular attention will be paid to how computer models relate to specific measurements, spaces, context, and future outputs. This course aims to build technical skills but will also consider aesthetics, functionality, and design concepts.

“Not long ago, a near prerequisite for vanguard architecture was an engagement with theory; lately it has become an acquaintance with art” or so observed Hal Foster in his 2011 book ‘The Art Architecture Complex.’ While ideas about what constitutes cutting edge architecture may have transformed in the decade since, entanglements between art and architecture and the reciprocal effects that they have on each other remain central to architectural discourse.

“Not long ago, a near prerequisite for vanguard architecture was an engagement with theory; lately it has become an acquaintance with art” or so observed Hal Foster in his 2011 book ‘The Art Architecture Complex.’ While ideas about what constitutes cutting edge architecture may have transformed in the decade since, entanglements between art and architecture and the reciprocal effects that they have on each other remain central to architectural discourse.

Can architecture be understood in the same terms as a photograph? A piece of writing? A painting? A film? Or does it require its own vocabulary, rules, precedents, and sensibilities?

In this intermediate level course, we will focus on learning letterpress printing within a framework of making visual art. This can be a precision process and it affords a huge range of possibilities for artists who wish to work with multiples and/or use text in their work. It is a rigorous course and each student will develop and design print projects that develop both their technical and conceptual skills. Reading will be assigned each week to expand on knowledge and give context for projects.