CER 603 001
The Wheel Thrown Object
June 6-June 19, 2010
3 credit hours
Instructor: Ian McDonald
Visiting Faculty: Israel Davis
$150 Lab Fee
This course will address the use of the potter’s wheel as a vehicle for exploration in form and concept. Students will use both alternative and traditional wheel thrown techniques as a means to fabricate elements that they can then alter or form in relationship to their ideas. Students will also have the opportunity to finish their work using a post reduction firing known as raku and other options of gas, high fire reduction glaze and wood firing.
CER 624 001
Free Clay: Handbuilt Clay Sculpture
June 20-July 3, 2010
3 credit hours
Instructor: Jessica Hutchins
Visiting Faculty: Sterling Ruby (week 2)
$150 Lab Fee
In this class we will make sculptures using basic clay manipulating techniques (slabs, coiling, pinching, carving, etc...) as well as a variety of alternative approaches (paper-clay, unfired clay, combustible supports) and proceed to experiment and discover our own alternative approaches. You will be encouraged to consider it in relation to other materials, both through incorporating alternative materials into clay bodies, as well as by challenging (or exploiting) conventional forms, practices, and the perceived boundaries of clay as a material. This class is intended to move beyond traditional technical instruction, and open up the dialogue on how we can use clay to convey and expand new meanings generally expressed with more conventional sculptural tools. This course will be open to beginning as well as advanced ceramic students; it will consist of demonstrations, critiques, slide presentations, and mostly, personal hands-on work. We will look at work from celebrated ceramicists like Cal Funk and Ken Price and artists like Johan Tahon and Salto Alto, to the sculpture of more historic artists like Matisse, Lucio Fontana, Niki de St. Phalle and contemporary makers like Vincent Fecteau, Rachel Harrison, Charles Long, Mark Manders, and Rebecca Warren.
CER 625 001
Ways of Making: Form/Surface Relationships
July 4-July 17, 2010
3 credit hours
Instructor: Andrea and John Gill
$150 Lab Fee
The course will address the particular advantages that ceramic materials and processes offer in exploring the relationships between form and surface on objects, whether functional or sculptural. The goal is to gain new insight about what to make and the processes needed to make them. We will explore handbuilding, particularly slab constructed pottery and press molds, as well as glazing and surface variations. Demos and discussions will lead to a flurry of work based on the individual goals and skills students bring to the class. This is not a specific project class; but more of a think tank where ideas are shared, a community of makers is established, and faculty and students work together to grow as artists.
CER 626 001
Individuation Genetics: Issues and Practices in Ceramic Art
July 18-July 31, 2010
3 credit hours
Instructor: Brian Gillis
$150 Lab Fee
This course for advanced BFA and MFA students is a hybridized studio colloquium that focuses on a rigorous examination of the theoretical composition of one's art practice and how it lives within a larger context. Driven by studio practice, the course will examine work within the context of traditional issues and practices in ceramic art, contemporary approaches that challenge and affirm traditions, as well as the underpinnings of one's own work and the ability to site it within contemporary art discourse at large. A compilation of readings will serve as the primary text for the course, and be accompanied by group discussion, assignments geared toward individual research interests, influences, and questions, writing workshops, individual studio visits, group critiques, and the public presentations of one's work. The overarching objective is that a dedicated time for inquiry and individuation will allow for the things that are found, sifted through, and synthesized to contribute to the development of one's work, and the discovery of its unique genetic code.