What do these words mean and what is their relationship to each other in the architectural design disciplines? Each word is packed with complex and evolving meanings that reflect the state of human knowledge about the environments in which we live and in which we intervene. Each word reflects our understanding of systems, physical, cultural and social, biotic and abiotic, as well as our aspirations to conserve, restore, or reshape those systems. Each word is ubiquitous in the contemporary quest to construct a sustainable, resilient future. But do we really understand what they mean? Are they critically interdependent or can they be considered separately? This studio will examine these questions with the twin objectives of establishing an evolving and dynamic understanding of the terms and generating working methods that respond to the complexities of scale encountered in the landscape.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $250.00

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I, MLA-II Landscape Architecture

What do these words mean and what is their relationship to each other in the architectural design disciplines? Each word is packed with complex and evolving meanings that reflect the state of human knowledge about the environments in which we live and in which we intervene. Each word reflects our understanding of systems, physical, cultural and social, biotic and abiotic, as well as our aspirations to conserve, restore, or reshape those systems. Each word is ubiquitous in the contemporary quest to construct a sustainable, resilient future. But do we really understand what they mean? Are they critically interdependent or can they be considered separately? This studio will examine these questions with the twin objectives of establishing an evolving and dynamic understanding of the terms and generating working methods that respond to the complexities of scale encountered in the landscape.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $250.00

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I, MLA-II Landscape Architecture

The second semester continues the development of typographic practice by exploring the conditions in which type operates: the systems needed to work with varying scales and narrative structures. Students will design large-scale and small-scale work simultaneously; understanding the trade-offs of various formats and contexts. The course also extends basic typesetting into more extended reading experiences. Students will learn to set the conditions for readability by creating order, expressing emotion and making meaning. Students will design and bind a book while understanding how the traditions of the codex relate to onscreen reading. Within the durable form of the book, lies centuries of conventions like indexical systems, footnotes, page matter and more. Students also will become better readers, by engaging with contemporary issues in the field of typography and type design. This is a studio course, so some class time will be used for discussions, most of the time we will be working in class, often on a computer. There is an expectation that students work both individually and in groups and be prepared to speak about their own work and the work of their peers in supportive and respectful ways. A laptop and relevant software are required.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Graphic Design Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Graphic Design (3yr)

This combined studio and seminar forum supports Digital + Media first-year graduate students during their second semester as they research and develop the theoretical, social, material, technical, and contextual aspects of their emergent arts practices. Students are encouraged to break comfort zones and practice through experimentation. Students pursue and refine individual interests, as well as collaborative projects within the department. Students conceptualize and discuss their work and their ongoing practice. Readings in critical cultural theory, media art theory, philosophy, semiotics and other areas further support the contextualization and grounding of the innovative practical and conceptual approaches of students. Each student is responsible to select readings and works important as references in individual research and to co-lead a discussion on a set of self-chosen readings and artists' works during the semester. The course is a mix of group discussions, group critiques, and individual meetings. Guest lecturers and visiting critics may also become involved with this class in terms of critical/research aspects. Each student will practice articulating their art process and work towards their thesis, and will contribute to the dialogue concerning the research and work of their classmates.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00 - $300.00

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Digital + Media Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Digital + Media

Graduate Glass II continues with the objectives of the preceding semester. It is expected that students continue artistic experimentation and individual growth at an increasingly professional level.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $500.00

Major Requirement | MFA Glass

This course concludes the Graduate Thesis through iterative prototyping, application and verification that positions and delivers a human-centered, discipline-engaging proposal that will be communicated through an exhibition format, product, product prototype and a final Graduate Thesis document.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | MID Industrial Design

This course concludes the Graduate Thesis through iterative prototyping, application and verification that positions and delivers a human-centered, discipline-engaging proposal that will be communicated through an exhibition format, product, product prototype and a final Graduate Thesis document.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | MID Industrial Design

This period is designed for development and presentation of a body of work supported by a written thesis in consultation with resident faculty, visiting artists and critics during the semester. A final exhibition of work will be evaluated by a jury of Painting Faculty Members.

Open to Graduate Painting Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Painting

This course builds on the themes covered in the prerequisite Core Studio 1, introducing more advanced digital production methods and themes. Students are encouraged to explore and develop personal working methods and interests through studio projects, fostering a self-directed practice that culminates in a final end-of-year critique.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $150.00

Major Requirement | BFA Art + Computation, BFA Sound

This course builds on the themes covered in the prerequisite Core Studio 1, introducing more advanced digital production methods and themes. Students are encouraged to explore and develop personal working methods and interests through studio projects, fostering a self-directed practice that culminates in a final end-of-year critique.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $150.00

Major Requirement | BFA Art + Computation, BFA Sound

This period is designed for the student to evaluate and analyze and pursue the directions he/she established in Grad Paint Studio Critique I. Group and individual critiques will occur by resident faculty and visiting artists and critics during the semester.

Open to Graduate Painting Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Painting

Manufacture: from Latin manu factus, literally, made by hand (Merriam Webster online)

This studio explores the objects and possibilities that arise from using additive manufacturing as a method for serial production. Working intensively with FDM, both as a medium and a method, and learning about other forms of additive manufacturing, the studio asks some of the most quintessential questions of Industrial Design: What does it mean to design for a particular method of fabrication? What kind of potentials do these technologies offer? How can they be employed to make objects different than the ones possible in traditional manufacturing? How can they be combined with other materials and methods of making to expand the range of object potentials?

This is an intense making studio, one would even say an ultra-making studio, which includes experimenting with the mediums, modeling forms for production and culminates with actually producing them. In order to do this, we will be testing materials, learning about AM technologies, speculating about the future of these technologies, learning to use slicers and printers, and learning to write our own gcode. Results of this studio are first and foremost enticing material objects, which might be looking at the present, near-future or far future of these technologies as object-making means. Outcomes could include full-scale furniture pieces, consumer products, Grasshopper scripts, printer prototypes, business models and more.

Note: This is a CAD intensive course however it is not a CAD class, and there will be few software demos. Fluency in 3d modeling software (Solidworks, Rhino or the like) is necessary to succeed in this course. Advanced CAD is preferable, but not required.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design, MID (2.5yr): Industrial Design

In today’s competitive higher education landscape, MFA graduates must go beyond artistic excellence to secure a full-time teaching appointment. MFA Forward: From Studio to Professorship equips emerging art professionals with the essential tools for thriving in academia. Through a focused blend of workshops and practical exercises, students will learn how to build compelling cover letters, refine portfolios of both personal and student work, write impactful teaching philosophies and diversity statements, and secure powerful references to support their candidacy.

Students will also receive in-depth guidance on crafting a polished curriculum vitae that highlights their unique blend of creative and pedagogical strengths. Interactive sessions on acing the job talk and navigating the campus interview process prepare students to present confidently to search committees. Finally, the course addresses how to sidestep the “adjunct trap” and plan a more sustainable, long-term career trajectory. By synthesizing these professional development strategies with each student’s creative vision, MFA Forward cultivates artists who can seamlessly transition from the studio to the classroom—and ultimately, into full-time professorships that recognize and reward their investment in artistic and academic excellence.

Elective

As a culmination of the MFA program, this intensive studio challenges students to design and craft a significant, topically-focused body of work. Although students may choose creative formats and media according to their own interests, they must publish thesis work produced in class. Publication through digital platforms (podcasts, websites, apps, etc.) will be coordinated with analog forms when possible and appropriate to the project. Together with the research and writing produced in ILLUS 606G Paradigms and Contexts: Publishing the Thesis and Beyond, a comprehensive body of work and a written thesis document will be produced.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00 - $1,500.00

Major Requirement | MFA Illustration

The second semester is a development of the ideas and work begun in the first. Students are available and pursue active contact with the faculty. Students also attend supplemental department presentations.

Major Requirement | MFA Ceramics

Creative directors are often artists in disguise, with roles as fluid as myths. They could helm a magazine, a fashion house, or an art exhibition, devise strategies to link brands with people, or they could lead a media platform masquerading as a tech company, or vice versa. Bound by a scope of work, a creative director's work is a collective effort, not a standalone piece. They orchestrate behind the scenes, curating concepts and crafting communication strategies. Their role is essentially non-material—focused more on process than product—and is precise and covert, with the client seen as the 'author' of the work.

This studio course operates at the intersection of creative direction and artificial intelligence, investigating the evolving relationship between AI systems and creative practice. As AI systems evolve from tools into collaborators and potential competitors,  we must reconsider how human creative direction can evolve alongside—or in resistance to—artificial intelligence.

Through hands-on workshops, students will design and train AI models for creative tasks. Weekly projects focus on implementing machine learning models for specific creative direction tasks.  We will explore the possibility of training personalized AI agents that embody and extend individual creative methodologies. Students will develop their own AI creative director agent while critically examining the implications of delegating creative decisions to artificial systems. The course combines applied studio work with critical discussions about the future of creative direction and the ethical implications of automated creativity.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective

This course is structured according the notion that artists can use what is on hand to research and craft simple solutions to the complex physical, mechanical, and technical problems that must be routinely addressed in their making practices. This material and process based, hands-on, research studio will be structured in response to the issues that the advanced fine arts student is grappling with on a regular basis. Many of the issues that arise in the process of making provide the opportunity to transcend perceived material-based boundaries and thinking. Some of the questions this course attends to include: How do you defy gravity? How do you generate the hidden components required to physicalize the thing we can see in our mind's eye? How is the magic we need to create our work scalable to the resources we have readily available? Example working processes include: mig welding, tig welding, casting for prototyping, woodworking, and mold making. This course is open to juniors, seniors and graduate-level students. Please contact the instructor directly for permission to register.

Elective

A defining aspect of human consciousness is creation of meaning through the construction of narrative- a particularly potent mode of communication because it conveys information in a way that allows us to empathetically imagine the lives of others. Beyond the limitations of facts, polemic or data narrative entrances, narrative entertains and enriches us. As such, it is a basic element of Illustration. This class seeks to examine why and how stories matter in the context of traditional and contemporary world culture. We will explore how story construction, narrative voice, imagery, and choice of media intersect to create meaning and reach various audiences. We will look a broad scope of narrative strategies (linear, symbolic, interactive, etc.) from the revelations of the handmade artist's book to cutting-edge technology that is shaping narrative and its reception.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $25.00 - $150.00

Open to Graduate Illustration Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Illustration

Building upon practices, techniques, and discourses covered in the first semester of the sculpture curriculum, Sophomore Sculpture Studio II will deepen existing fabrication skills while expanding knowledge into the realm of time-based and movement-based technologies and practices. This course encourages students to explore what matters to them and how to express those ideas while they experiment with hybrid and transdisciplinary working methodologies. 

As the semester progresses, assignments will guide students towards independent inquiries, focusing on both refining and expanding the context for their evolving artistic exploration. Readings, discussions, artist lectures, and research will elicit connections between ideas, narratives, histories, and personal work. Emphasis will be placed on material competency in plaster and casting, digital fabrication, and performance, providing a foundation for further research-based exploration. This will be augmented by Sculpture electives where students self-select into the areas they determine are most relevant to their artistic practices. 

This course is an opportunity to ask meaningful questions about the world—without always needing definitive answers. Throughout, students will be encouraged to take risks, make connections, and actively shape their educational path and burgeoning artistic practices with a focus on developing their individual voice.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Sculpture Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Sculpture

Building upon practices, techniques, and discourses covered in the first semester of the sculpture curriculum, Sophomore Sculpture Studio II will deepen existing fabrication skills while expanding knowledge into the realm of time-based and movement-based technologies and practices. This course encourages students to explore what matters to them and how to express those ideas while they experiment with hybrid and transdisciplinary working methodologies. 

As the semester progresses, assignments will guide students towards independent inquiries, focusing on both refining and expanding the context for their evolving artistic exploration. Readings, discussions, artist lectures, and research will elicit connections between ideas, narratives, histories, and personal work. Emphasis will be placed on material competency in plaster and casting, digital fabrication, and performance, providing a foundation for further research-based exploration. This will be augmented by Sculpture electives where students self-select into the areas they determine are most relevant to their artistic practices. 

This course is an opportunity to ask meaningful questions about the world—without always needing definitive answers. Throughout, students will be encouraged to take risks, make connections, and actively shape their educational path and burgeoning artistic practices with a focus on developing their individual voice.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Sculpture Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Sculpture