Upper Division Undergraduate Courses

Upper Division Courses

Upper division courses are reserved for Art Practice majors. Non-majors will be considered only after major enrollment fills.

ART 100: Big Ideas: Collaborative Innovation

In this hands-on, project-based class, students will experience group creativity and team-based design by using techniques from across the disciplines of business, theatre, design, and art practice. They will leverage problem framing and solving techniques derived from critical thinking, systems thinking, and creative problem solving (popularly known today as design thinking). The course is grounded in a brief weekly lecture that sets out the theoretical, historical, and cultural contexts for particular innovation practices, but the majority of the class involves hands-on studio-based learning guided by an interdisciplinary team of teachers leading small group collaborative projects.

ART 100C: Big Ideas: Art, Ecology, and Other Earthly Matters

In this hands-on, project-based class, students will experience group creativity and team-based design by using techniques from across the disciplines of business, theatre, design, and art practice. They will leverage problem framing and solving techniques derived from critical thinking, systems thinking, and creative problem solving (popularly known today as design thinking). The course is grounded in a brief weekly lecture that sets out the theoretical, historical, and cultural contexts for particular innovation practices, but the majority of the class involves hands-on studio-based learning guided by an interdisciplinary team of teachers leading small group collaborative projects.

ART 102: Advanced Painting: Research and Methods

This studio class for art majors will help advance their practice through practical and experimental research into the varied processes, skills, materials, and methods of historical and contemporary painting. Emphasis on creating unconventional drawing/painting tools, making pigments for painting, and examining unofficial and official archives as source materials will be an integral part of the course. Students will expand their technical, conceptual, and professional skills, and will develop self-generated projects and critical engagement through critiques and open discussion. Students will attend library tours, field trips and will also learn how to explore mediums and concepts to generate ongoing research for long-term investigation.

Prerequisites: ART 13: Painting: Foundations or its equivalent

ART 103: Advanced Painting: Reconsidering the Portrait & Figure

This studio course investigates histories of portraiture, including how dominant signifiers of race, gender, class, religion, and their various intersections determine which and how individuals are depicted. The course includes working from live models, creating self-portraits that challenge conventional expectations, lectures, student lead discussions, in-class prompts, field trips, and visiting artists. The course will examine the politics of representation through different collusions of art and history. We will reconsider how conventional portraiture has impacted relationships within the past and present, and consider future possibilities.

Prerequisites: ART 13: Painting: Foundations or its equivalent

ART 116: Ancient Pigments & Contemporary Drawing Practices

This is an advanced studio drawing course that compares and contrasts traditional Asian and European pigments, surfaces, and images with contemporary strategies, sources, and methods. Students will use various traditional hand-made pigments, binders, papers, and drawing materials to explore cultural developments and representations of space, time, and objects. A major course outcome is to create hybrid, diverse content that combines contemporary images and narratives with traditional historic sources. The course provides lectures, demonstrations and studio research methodologies.

Prerequisites: ART 12: Drawing: Foundations or its equivalent

ART 117: Advanced Drawing: Research and Methods

This advanced studio class extends drawing through its varied contemporary processes and methods. Students will enhance their skills and explore materials through self-generated projects and critical engagement with the instructor and peers. In-class critiques and open discussion will reinforce and challenge the students as a vital part of their technical, conceptual, and professional development. Students will attend library tours, field trips and learn how professional artists use research in support of artistic investigations. Students will also learn how to explore media and materials to generate research for later investigations and interrogations of mark-making.

Prerequisites: ART 12: Drawing: Foundations or its equivalent

ART 118: Advanced Drawing: Remixing the Figure

This studio course investigates representations of the human body across different periods and locations to further what it means to depict the body in the 21st Century. How do dominant signifiers and various intersections of race, gender, class, religion, sexuality, and disability influence the rendering and image reception of human bodies? The studio component of the course will work from live models as well as creating full body self-portraits that challenge the parameters of the canon and conventional expectations. We will explore drawing across all mediums through art history lectures, student led discussions, in-class prompts, field trips, and visiting artists.

Prerequisites: ART 12: Drawing: Foundations or its equivalent

ART 119: Global Perspectives in Contemporary Art

This course is designed to explore a range of contemporary art movements around the globe, through a closer look at their central ideas, artists, and artworks, as well as the preconditions and broader social context in which the work is being produced. Topics covered will range from the emergence of localized avant-garde movements in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America to the implicit globalism of the international biennial circuit.

This course fulfills an Art Practice major requirement and is only open to majors. Students should take this course by junior year.

ART 120: Advanced Printmaking: Intaglio

This class teaches the fundamentals of etching, including line etching, aquatint and softground techniques. By learning to incise elements of line, tone and texture into the surface of a metal etching plate and to print them onto paper, all artists, from the beginning student to the most advanced, can discover new avenues of self-expression that are particular to a printmaking vocabulary. Intaglio uses acids and solvents, tools and machinery; students will therefore learn and adhere to proper safety and shop procedures. Students’ progress is assessed by individual and group critiques.

Prerequisites: ART 16: Printmaking (Relief & Intaglio): Foundations or its equivalent

ART 122: Advanced Printmaking: Lithography

This class teaches the fundamentals of lithography, which comprise the bulk of what is called planeographic printmaking. Students explore drawing and otherwise establishing images through line, tone and texture onto limestone and metal plates. Subsequently printing onto paper, students at all levels can discover new avenues of self-expression that are particular to lithography. Lithography uses acids and solvents, tools and machinery; students will therefore learn and adhere to proper safety and shop procedures. Students’ progress is assessed by individual and group critiques.

Prerequisites:
ART 16: Printmaking (Relief & Intaglio): Foundations, or
ART 17: Printmaking (Lithography & Screenprinting): Foundations,
or their equivalents.

ART 123: Advanced Printmaking: Screen Print

This class teaches the fundamentals of screen printing, which requires images to be converted into stencils and secured to a matrix through which ink can be transferred. Hand drawn, photographic and digitally manipulated images are explored. Image content and development is examined through primary research drawings and studies. Screen printing requires the use of specialized tools and equipment; students will therefore learn and adhere to proper safety and shop procedures. Students’ progress is assessed by individual and group critiques.

Prerequisites:
ART 17: Printmaking (Lithography & Screenprinting): Foundations, or its equivalent

ART 124: Advanced Projects in Printmaking

Non-traditional projects in printmaking. Lectures and demonstrations introduce students to techniques and varied applications.

Prerequisites: ART 17: Printmaking (Lithography & Screenprinting): Foundations, or its equivalent.

ART 130: Advanced Sculpture: Concept and Construction

This advanced studio class will explore expanded ideas of fabrication, instruction, and process in sculpture. An integral component of this course will be to examine the relationships between the artist’s intentions, the act of building, and the viewer’s perceptions and engagement. Site/architectural concerns, physical experience of space, and innovative sculptural practices will be considered. Students will expand their technical, conceptual, and professional skills, and will develop self-generated projects and critical engagement through in-class critiques. Lectures and demonstrations introduce students to varied techniques and applications.

Prerequisite: ART 14: Sculpture Foundations or its equivalent

ART 132: Advanced Ceramics: Research and Methods

This course builds on the foundations of ART 15 to introduce students to more advanced techniques, concepts, and technologies. From traditional forms to experimental structures, students will connect ceramic processes to larger fields of contemporary art and related research. Although based in the medium of clay, this course encourages interdisciplinary thinking and pushes students to think of material as metaphor. Methods may include: casting and mold-making, wheel throwing, handbuilding, mixed media assemblage, collaboration, ceramic 3-D printing/modeling, and more. Demonstrations, field trips, artist lectures, and readings/discussion will accompany dedicated studio time and instruction.

Prerequisite: ART 14: Sculpture Foundations or its equivalent

ART 133: Advanced Sculpture: Meaning in Material

This advanced studio class will investigate the physical and conceptual potential of materiality in sculpture, while exploring what methods and materials may be considered non-traditional. Combining hands-on demonstrations with group critiques and studio practice, students will focus on building a strong conceptual foundation while developing and expanding practical studio skills. Students will explore topics through self-generated projects, lectures, readings, and field trips.

Prerequisite: ART 14: Sculpture Foundations or its equivalent

ART 136: Advanced Sculpture: Radical Wearables

How have contemporary artists used textiles, garments, and "fashion- like" sculptures to create artworks that challenge issues of gender, identity, and use? Far from being neutral territory, artist-produced props and wearables often incorporate aesthetic experimentation in order to critique existing power structures and highlight alternatives. This hands-on studio course will focus on the production of experimental costumes, garments, and fashion in the context of contemporary art and critical ideas.

Strongly suggested: ART 14: Sculpture Foundations or its equivalent

ART 137: Advanced Projects in Ceramic Sculpture

This advanced course encourages students to stretch the technical limits of ceramic materials and processes. Project assignments will challenge students to develop strong conceptual and material practices, linking their work to larger issues in contemporary art. Topics may include: the intimately handmade, multiples and mass production, conceptual craft, public art, community engagement, interdisciplinary practices, performance, ceramic 3-D printing/modeling, and more. Hands-on demonstrations, field trips, artist lectures, and readings/discussion will accompany dedicated studio time and instruction. Prior experience in clay is expected.

Prerequisite: ART 15: Ceramics Foundations or its equivalent

ART 138: Advanced Sculpture: Installation

This class will focus on the development of artwork in relationship to a specific space. A wide variety of approaches will be explored, from the use of traditional sculptural materials to ephemeral and non-traditional media. Considerations of space will go beyond the traditional gallery setting. Specifically, students will be encouraged to consider current social distancing, work-from-home, and limited group contexts as part of their projects. Beyond this, this course will emphasize the role of architecture, history, ecology, social justice, and other concerns inform how and why installation artwork is made. Students will explore topics through site-based projects, lectures, readings, critique, and guest artists.

Prerequisite: ART 14: Sculpture Foundations or its equivalent

ART 138: Temporal Structures: Video and Performance Art

Projects are aimed at understanding and inventing ways in which time and change can become key elements in an artwork. Regular screenings of professional tapes will illustrate uses of the mediums and provide a historical context. Lectures and demonstrations introduce students to techniques and varied applications.

ART 142: New Genres

A survey intended to expose you to the nature and potential of such non-traditional tools for artmaking as performance, video, and audiotape. Lectures and demonstrations introduce students to techniques and varied applications.

ART 145: Contemporary Rituals: New Forms in Performance and Video Art

This practice and theory course provides interdisciplinary perspectives from new media, anthropology, religious studies, and sociology to read cultural expressions--from religious behavior and rituals, to speech acts, and political action. We will read theoretical texts, look at art, and produce performances and videos. We will create installation environments for live performances, generate 360º video, and build VR platforms to explore the boundaries between the virtual and real worlds. The class goal is to develop critical and self-reflexive approaches to video and performance art production as a laboratory to reimagine community, citizenship, power and responsibility, and to produce new ontologies and new modes of being in this world.

ART 160: Special Topics in Visual Studies

Special Topics courses offer students opportunities for more concentrated focus beyond general curriculum offerings. Courses may align with an instructor’s own research, they may propose topics responding to contemporary events and issues, or they may offer a specialized skill. Primarily intended for advanced undergraduates and graduates in Art Practice but open to others.

Past Special Topics Courses include:
Projects in Experimental Printmaking (Spring 2022, Emily Gui)
Art Criticism for a Changing World (Spring 2022, Al-An deSouza)
Intermediate to Advanced Comic Art (Spring 2022, Gaia WXYZ)
Making and Exhibiting Art in Pandemic Times (Spring 2021, Jill Miller)
Ghosts and Visions: Using physical installations and augmented reality to tell history and envision futures (Spring 2021, Susan Moffatt)
Advanced Interdisciplinary Projects (Spring 2021, Stephanie Syjuco)
Lights That See Us (Fall 2020, Carrie Hott)
Designing and Activating Public Space (Spring 2020, Jill Miller)
Special Projects at Platform Art Space (Fall 2019, Jill Miller)
Radical Wearables and Avant-Garde Garments (Spring 2019, Stephanie Syjuco)

ART 163: Social Practice: Critical Site and Context

Social Practice broadly refers to work produced through various forms of direct engagement with a site, social system or collaborator. Interdisciplinary in nature, such work often takes the form of guerilla interventions, performance, institutional critique, community based public art and political activity, all sharing the premise that art created in the public sphere can help alter public perception and work toward social transformation.

ART C166 / NWMEDIA C166: Critical Practices: People, Places, Participation

This class is by application only.

ART 171: Video Projects

This course develops more advanced technical and conceptual skills, with focused attention on the pre- and post-production practices of writing and production design as well as image and sound editing. Class meetings include technical workshops, studio work, individual and class critique, and discussion of readings and screened course materials. Course projects vary in focus depending upon instructor; areas of emphasis may include: video in performance practices; video for sculptural installation; and social activist video.

Prerequisites: ART 26: Moving Image: Foundations or ART 23AC: Digital Media: Foundations

ART 172: Advanced Digital Media: Computer Graphics Studio

Computer Graphics constitute a default method of image synthesis, from fine art to game design, cinema, and advertising. This production-intensive studio course introduces students to professional CG tools (Blender, Python) as well as an overview of CG aesthetics. Weekly project assignments based on tutorials cover modeling, texturing, lighting, animation, rendering, physics simulations and data-driven image synthesis. Final projects focus on portfolio work with scenes and characters to be exported into VR, AR, and game design.

ART 173: Electro-Crafting

This studio class aims to provide students with the digital tools for expanding and augmenting their work in traditional media such as photography and sculpture, and also to encourage the exploration of new hybrid forms of art-making. If you are interested in exploring sound, sensors, immersive experience, interactivity, bots, wearable computing, gamification, AI, feedback systems, process-oriented artwork or data-driven artworks in any media--then this may be the class for you. Students will learn to use basic software and hardware for the manipulation of sound, image and video that were designed by artists for artists, like: pf5.js, sonic pi, makey-make, arduino and others.

Only offered in Fall semesters

ART 174: Advanced Digital Video

This advanced studio course is designed for students who have mastered basic skills and concepts involved in digital video production, and are interested in further investigating critical, theoretical, and creative research topics in digital video production. Each week will include relevant readings, class discussions, guest speakers, demonstrat ion of examples, and studio time for training and working on student assignments.

Prerequisites: ART 26: Moving Image: Foundations

ART 178: Game Design Methods

This course offers an introduction to game design and game studies. Game studies has five core elements: the study of games as transmitters of culture, the study of play and interactivity, the study of games as symbolic systems; the study of games as artifacts; and methods for creating games. We will study these core elements through play, play tests, play analysis, and comparative studies. Our reading list includes classic game studies theory and texts which support game design methods. After weekly writing and design exercises, our coursework will culminate in the design and evaluation of an original code-based game with a tangible interface.

ART 180: Advanced Digital Photography

This course will cover a range of digital media and practices, with a view towards exploring current and future possibilities for photography. Inclusive of multiple approaches to scale, execution, and technique, the course enables students to examine and push the limits of photographic practices. This course will help students advance their digital shooting and Photoshop skills from a beginning to a more advanced level, and will cover the workflow of digital photography: camera usage, scanning, image editing, management, and printing.

Prerequisite: ART 21: Digital Photography Foundations or its equivalent

ART 182: Creative Writing for Artists

This reading and writing workshop is open to Art Practice Majors and other Upper Division students by permission of instructor. We will read published statements, essays, poetry, manifestos, commentary, criticism, scripts, ‘public’ speech acts, and biographical texts by artists and theorists, with our purpose being to expand and challenge our understanding of the relationship of visual art and the written word. Reading assignments and writing experiments will help students build the language tools to establish a consistent writing practice. Students are required to write critical responses to assigned readings, keep a reading journal, comment on each other’s writing, attend readings, and memorize texts for recitation.

Art 184: Junior Seminar: Meaning and Making

This immersive studio/seminar class focuses on contemporary models of art making, exposing students to current issues in the art world, and fostering interdisciplinary models of thinking and making. Through field trips to museums, galleries, and alternative art spaces, as well as studio visits with local contemporary artists, students will be able to situate their own projects within the larger sphere of contemporary art. Language and writing skills around artist statements, critical readings, and the critique process will be emphasized to understand how research methods give meaning in a studio practice. Presentation of a final studio project asks students to examine their place within a contemporary art dialogue.

Prerequisites: Art Practice Majors only.

ART 185: Senior Projects / Professional Practices

This course helps students understand their work within critical and professional cross-disciplinary contexts, and prepares students for graduate school and life beyond. Through class and individual critiques, readings, guest artists, and field trips, students explore practical and conceptual components of their own media and practice within broader discussions of artistic production. The class will help develop tools for supporting one's work within a community of artists, arts professionals, and arts organizations, including developing an online presence, producing and sustaining exhibition-ready work, completed portfolios, documentation, presentation, written artist statements, etc.

Prerequisites: Senior level Art Practice Majors only. This course fulfills an Art Practice major requirement.