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Peter DePasquale 
pdepasqu@andrew.cmu.edu

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Spring 2025 Elective Courses

Please find below a list of all intermediate, advanced and critical studies art electives for Spring 2025. For additional information, refer to Student Information Online (SIO).

INTERMEDIATE STUDIOS

Enrollment in intermediate studios is prioritized for sophomores in the BFA and BXA-Art programs. BFA and BXA-Art juniors and seniors can enroll in these courses on a space-available basis if space is available and use them to fulfill advanced studio requirements.

Digital Animation – 60222
T/R 10am-12:50pm (Fully Remote) | Prof Alexa Lim Haas
This is an open animation studio for students who want to improve existing animation skills and develop a personal animated short. The class will introduce a variety of techniques and concepts for animation production. Using both 2D and 3D tools, animation will be explored through short assignments designed to develop diverse skills and ideas. Each student will complete a short animated film integrating tactile, handmade elements into a digital animation workflow while pursuing a story with an investigative research process (on-location research, sound recording, or an interview-based process). The class will engage in discussion and critique of each other’s work, along with examples of historic and contemporary animation.

Constructing Cinema – 60226 
M/W 7pm-9:50pm | Professor Rebecca Shapass
This course will explore the tools implemented in crafting cinematic works that use the camera lens as their primary imaging device. Equally served by the title “de-constructing cinema,” we will view works of various genres and contexts and discuss their formal properties and conceptual frameworks. Analysis paired with hands-on workshops will serve as the fodder for defining and expressing our perspectives as filmic storytellers. We will consider the venues and contexts for the cinematic arts and discuss how place, space, and materials can be used to create viewing experiences for audiences. As a studio course, participants will hone their unique screen-based voices by producing cinematic works throughout the semester. 

Performance Art – 60227
F 10am-12:50pm & 2-4:50pm | Prof Scott Andrew
This intermediate studio course is designed to introduce students to performance art, including various related techniques, processes, forms, and artists. Performance projects will be created for live performance at the end of the term in collaboration with Pitt Studio Arts Sound and Media Design students. (Date and Location TBD) An introductory survey of various performance art practices, histories, and methods will be presented, resulting in a live staged group variety show. Throughout the semester students will research, explore, and present both short-form and durational solo and group performances that span poetic monologue, comedy, movement, sound, costuming and character creation, lip-synch, participatory, and performance for video projects. Themes may include: Camp, Lo-Fi Glamour, Post-Minimalism, Neo-Burlesque, Spectacles of Failure, Political Horror, Stand-Up Comedy and Tragedy, Exotic Masquerade, and Drag. Students will view and discuss examples from the birthplace of performance art through contemporary practices, including Futurist Productions, Cabaret, Dada Poetry, Gutai, Happenings, Land art, Action Painting, Video Performance, Fluxus Movement, Body Art, Endurance Art, Conceptual Art, the Avant-Garde and more.

Art and Generative AI – 60228
T/R 7–9:50pm | Prof Golan Levin
This course introduces students to the creative potential of generative AI in the arts, offering hands-on experience with workflows for producing images, video, music, voice, stories, and other media. Students will explore the creation of custom AI systems using open-source platforms like ComfyUI and HuggingFace, as well as the use of commercial AI tools like Firefly, Midjourney, Runway.ML, and ElevenLabs. The course includes critical readings and discussions on the historical development of AI in the arts; ethical challenges related to bias, representation, deepfakes, and intellectual property; and the broader impact of AI technologies on creative economies, the environment, and cultural heritage. No programming experience is required.

Soft Sculpture – 60233
M/W 10am–12:50pm | Prof Isla Hansen
Soft Sculpture is an intermediate studio course that explores the concepts, fabrication techniques, and history behind the creation of sculptural works of art made with fabric, fibers, and soft materials. In this class, we will discuss and demonstrate intermediate sewing and seaming techniques; pattern-making and pattern-following techniques for shapes, experimental forms, and garments; needle-felting and wet felting for wool; loop and cut pile tufting; inkjet printing on fabric; and some basics of weaving, and / or knitting / crochet, as well as embroidery, all with special attention to combining both hand-making and digital techniques when applicable. Projects in this class may include, but not be limited to: fabric forms with armatures; inflatables; stuffed forms; puppets and kinetic soft sculpture; wearables / garments / costumes; woven, tufted, or embroidered tapestries and quilts; and a variety of other experimental soft sculptures. As a class, we will discuss and share relevant art historical and contemporary examples of artists and artworks making use of fabric and fibers, as well as relevant texts and theory. Concepts explored as a group include the transformation of 2d pattern to 3D form; relationship of wearable works to the body and performance; the history of fabric and fiber craft in relationship to gender studies and underrecognized craftspeople; and ideas surrounding transformation and the relationship between craft and technology.

Digital Fabrication – 60237
T/R 2-4:50pm | Prof Ling-Lin Ku
Digital fabrication is an intermediate studio course that explores the applied use of 3D scanning, 3D modeling, and CAD/CAM processes that are used in sculpture and installation based studio practices. In this class students will explore 3D scanning, 3D modeling, and various digital drafting softwares to generate files and objects for physical output using digital fabrication tools. Students will be able to produce computer generated objects and physically realize them through hands-on experience and experimentation with 3D printing, laser cutting/engraving, and CNC machining. As a class, we explore the iterative nature of digital fabrication techniques and processes while developing projects and concepts that respond to the nature of introducing these machines into a studio practice. Experimentation will be emphasized through the creation of multiples, techniques for assembly, and building beyond the build footprint of the machine. This course will focus on technical skill based projects that are linked to studio based ideas and concepts that build on one another throughout the semester. Students will utilize additive and subtractive processes to develop a base knowledge for fabrication with these tools with the aim to move beyond and push their initial output possibilities. As a class we will discuss the history of artists using and engaging with these tools as a regular part of their creative processes. It is recommended that a foundations sculpture course be completed as a prerequisite for this class.

Mold Making – 60238
M/W 2pm-4:50pm | Prof Britt Ransom
This intermediate course will expose students to basic mold making and casting techniques using a variety of materials and processes. This course will cover one-part, two-part, brush on, body casting, and 3D printed molds wile working with materials like alginate, resins, silicones, and plaster. Students will learn casting material properties, inhibitions, and material characteristics, the advantages and disadvantages of each casting method, and when they should be employed. Students will experiment with casting in a variety of traditional and non traditional materials while understanding safety protocols and best practices to create reproductions and multiples. Students will be introduced to contemporary artists who have used a wide range of mold making processes in their studio practices and will be asked to consider the formal and conceptual implications of working in material transformation and multiples. The majority of this studio course will be spent working through in-class demonstrations to create molds with pre-set material, scale, and casting parameters. Group critiques will challenge students to engage and participate in critical readings of sculptural works created through various casting processes learned in class.

Color – 60252
T/R 8–10:50am | Prof Clayton Merrell
In this course, students will learn to employ a wide range of color theories and color systems through hands-on exercises and studies. Studies will be done in paint, collage and/or digital media. These exercises will be aimed at mastering a variety of color approaches that will be applicable to each student’s own artistic practice. Students will develop, based on their own interests, a cohesive body of work in which to practice and expand on the skills learned through the directed exercises. Studio work will be augmented by lectures, demonstrations, critiques, readings and critical discussion of writings about color.

Lithography – 60256
M/W 2-4:50pm | Prof Kellie Hames
Have you ever wanted to draw on a rock? Or throw acid onto one? With lithography you can do both! This course is a comprehensive and intensive study of the lithographic medium — a form of printmaking that utilizes limestone or plates to create multiples. Students will explore various methods of image making using these methods while supplementing additional layers with screen printing or additional techniques. The goal of this course is for students to create expressive, original works on paper with the proper understanding of the materials and process. Additionally, students will learn about the rich history of the lithograph and its approach in contemporary printmaking while exploring the unique aesthetics to create a body of work that expands their individual voice.

Screenprinting – 60258
T/R 2pm-4:50pm | Prof Erin Zona
This course is a comprehensive and intensive study of Serigraphy (screenprinting), one of the most versatile and contemporary of printmaking techniques. The course is focused upon the mastery of this process. Students will explore multiple methods of image making (from hand-drawn to digital imaging) and will be introduced to CMYK printing. The emphasis of this course is on artistic work on paper, but will also be exposed to the ways that screenprint can work across a wide range of different media: from 2D (paper, canvas, cloth) to 3D (book forms, sculpture, installations) and utilizing printed multiples in participatory and exchange based artworks.

Painting Image and Form – 60259
M/W 10am-12:50pm | Prof Paul Mullins
This course serves as a bridge between introductory and advanced study in painting. Further explorations of technical problems are expected, with contemporary and conceptual concerns incrementally added. Students will enjoy examining color, the material itself, forays into abstraction, and learning to work in series. These inquiries are in preparation for the autonomous work that lies ahead, and seek to equip young artists with understanding of practices that will be utilized there forward. Development of one’s own ideas and working in concert with the professor and advancing critique skills will also be emphasized.

Water, Color and Paper – 60267
M/W 7pm-9:50pm | Prof John Guy Petruzzi
This course provides an introduction to working technically and conceptually with water-based media including watercolor, gouache, and ink. The relationship between pigment, vehicle, and substrate will be explored across a variety of paper surfaces. Students will expand their skill-base while interpreting painting exercises that present opportunities to involve figurative, narrative, and scientific illustration strategies. Classes will consist of demonstrations, visual presentations, individual consultations and group critiques designed to promote successful creative outcomes and advance students toward unique processes and personal style discovery.

CRITICAL STUDIES

Critical studies elective are open to sophomore, junior, and senior BFA and BXA-Art students.

Painting in the Expanded Field: Theory and History – 60360
W 7-9:20pm | Prof Cash (Melissa) Ragona
Painting has always been secretly (and not so secretly) unruly—sometimes unable to fit—morally, scale-wise, discipline-specific—into conventional salons, galleries, or museums. This seminar will follow the vast, stormy line from Courbet’s 22 ft. long, audacious, Burial at Ornans (1849-50) to Torkwase Dyson’s Indeterminacy #1 (Black Compositional Thought) (2022) which looms at architectural scale (crossing the divides between architecture, sculpture, painting) to the abject painting treatments (2010-present) of Leidy Churchman in which live human bodies lie under unhinged canvases upon which paint, syrup, powder, potato chips, and a whip (and other substitutes for paint/brushes) are wielded with equal force. We will excavate history, theory, and practice equally, but our focus will mainly be on artists working today. Other expanded painters (& possible guest speakers), just to name a few, include: Suki Seokyeong Kang, Wangechi Mutu, Tschabalala Self, Laurie Shapiro, Carrie Yamaoka, Amy Sillman, Tomashi Jackson, Genesis Tramaine, Kehinde Wiley, Maxwell Alexandre, Cy Gavin, Kerry James Marshall, Faith Ringgold, Glenn Lignon, Gelitin, Laura Owens, Kai Althoff, Rachel Rossin, Maxwell Alexandreand and Mickalene Thomas.

Above Image Credit: If you could die and come back to life, up for air from the swimming pool (2020) Maxwell Alexandre (Photo by Jack Hems) [detail of a larger installation]

Art Writer: Writing as Object, Criticism, and Experiment – 60362
R 7-9:20pm | Prof Cash (Melissa) Ragona
ART WRITER will strive to bring together the intersecting discourses of artists’ use of writing as an object, exploring experiments by artists, poets, novelists and critics who use language and theory as invention. The idea of experiment implied here emphasizes the urgency that art writing move beyond its own history, beyond the received understanding of its proper practices in order to propose new modes of critical reflection. The form and material force of language will be explored through the conceptual and critical work of Ocean Vuong, Harryette Mullen, Fatimah Asghar, Jamaica Kincaid, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Frances Stark, Kathy Acker, Samuel Delaney, Glenn Ligon, Brian Kim Stefans, Pajtim Statovci, Trisha Low, Tan Lin, Adam Pendleton, just to name a few. International projects of Art and Language, Fluxus, the Dark Room Collective, Los Contemporáneos, as well as more recent iterations will be investigated/researched. This is a writing intensive seminar with experimentation at its core. Members will workshop their writing: revise, rethink, perform, and publish.

Above Image Credit: The Dreamlife of Letters (2001) Brian Kim Stefans [GIF-STILL from a longer Animation]

Wanderlust: Art and Nature – 60367
R 10am-12:50pm | Prof Kim Beck
How do artists respond to nature and their place in local and global ecologies? Drawing together many histories- walking as an art practice, landscape photography and painting, site-specific installation, earthworks, color and natural dyeing, spiritualism, among others-this course will explore a range of possibilities that inform our own practices as artists. We will consider the ways artists create poetic responses to cultural, ecological, and economic conditions, reflect the tensions between the natural landscape and its transformation, and use their practice to agitate for the protection of biocultural diversity. Framed by our own wanderings, reading, writing, discussion, and presentations, we will deepen our understanding of the relationship between artists and nature.

Visual Pleasure: Patterning & Ornamentation in Contemporary Art – 60385
T 7–9:50pm | Prof Sharmistha Ray
In his influential essay, “Ornament and Crime,” Adolf Loos questioned the use of ornaments based on a notion of progressive history, in which the past is subordinated to the future. Modernism universalism coated as purity and functionalism relegated notions of excess to the past, along with it, visual pleasure, ornamentation, patterning, and the use of saturated color in art, architecture, and design. This course focuses on the recovery of color, patterning, and ornamentation in contemporary art led by non-western, women, queer, and/or BIPOC artists as a resistance to western ‘order’ which deems these aesthetics ‘primitive,’ ‘feminine,’ and ‘irrational.’ We will use contemporary art, artistic movements, and artists as case studies to study how ornamentation and patterning can form networks of resistance by foregrounding visual pleasure and by underscoring healing and joy as ways to be in the world. There will be 2 guest lectures from artists, curators, and/or art historians and weekly readings. Artists to be discussed include Chris Ofili, Raqib Shaw, Guadalupe Maravilla, Mickalene Thomas, Saya Woolfalk, Devan Shimoyama, Nick Cave, Xenobia Bailey, Joyce Kozloff, Judy Chicago, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Valerie Jaudon, Miriam Schapiro, El Anatsui, Monir, and many others.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Enrollment in professional development courses is prioritized for juniors and seniors in the BFA and BXA-Art programs. Sophomore BFA and BXA-Art students can enroll with faculty permission if and when space is available.

Working for Yourself in the Creative Marketplace – 60348
R 7–9:50pm | Peter DePasquale
Students leaving fine art programs face unique obstacles in securing and maintaining financially sustainable work. Many find themselves working multiple jobs while searching for an opportunity that aligns with their education. Because of this, many find self-employment as a viable option, as it’s immediately accessible, generates a quicker cash flow, and is generally relevant in regards to their intended career paths. In a recent career trend survey from the platform Handshake, nearly 75% of 2024 graduates planned on pursuing entrepreneurship at some point in their career. Now more than ever, a variety of tools are available to help individuals kick off self-employment — however the learning curve for finding, curating, and using these resources can be steep. The goal of this course is to expedite this learning process by providing direct insight into the world of the micro-business creative industry, and create a space where students can feel supported and individually guided within catered interests. Coursework will include topics such as building an audience, creating products, navigating digital and in-person marketplaces, professional development and best business practices, understanding legal requirements, and general financial strategies. Gaining a comprehensive overview of what it means to work for yourself is a great way of investing in longer term career goals. 

ADVANCED STUDIOS

Enrollment in advanced studios is prioritized for juniors and seniors in the BFA and BXA-Art programs. Sophomore BFA and BXA-Art students can enroll with faculty permission if and when space is available.

Open Animation – 60405
M/W 2-4:50pm | Prof Scott Andrew
This is an advanced studio course focused on animation production within an artistic practice. Open Animation is a mentoring course in which students work on independent animation projects with instructor guidance. Regardless of technique and approach, this course is designed so that students may receive mentorship, critique, and technical advisement as they develop, expand, or complete projects. Students will propose and create a self-guided animation project(s) as well as a one-minute animation reel that highlights their accomplishments in animation to this point, and as a tool for applying to careers in the field. Through group critiques, special topics presentations, surveys and skill sharing, students will gain a better grasp of technical, conceptual, and aesthetic approaches and practices in the field of animation.  These topics will be presented by the instructor, students in the class, and virtual guest independent and industry professional animators.

Music Video Lab – 60411
F 10am-12:50pm & 2-4:50pm | Prof Suzie Silver
This course explores the art and craft of music video production, combining theoretical analysis with hands-on practical experience. Students will examine the historical development, cultural impact, and aesthetic principles of music video while developing the technical skills to create their own. The course begins with a comprehensive overview of audiovisual experimentation, tracing its roots from early visual music pioneers through movie musicals, the MTV revolution of the 1980s, and into today’s digital landscape. We’ll analyze how music video has evolved as a unique art form, influencing art and popular culture, shaping artist personas, and pushing the boundaries of visual storytelling. Students will study landmark videos and directors, examining their cultural context and lasting influence on the medium. Throughout the semester, students will learn the entire music video production process, including concept development, pre-production planning, cinematography, lighting, post-production editing and VFX. By the end of the course, students will have worked on their own and collaboratively to produce experimental music video projects, demonstrating their creative vision and technical proficiency. They will leave with a deeper understanding of music video as an art form and the skills to contribute to this dynamic field.

Experimental Game Design – 60418
T/R 8-10:50am | Prof Paolo Pedercini
This installment of Experimental Game Design focuses on innovative and expressive forms of gameplay. We will explore foundational game design principles, as well as common programming patterns used in video games and interactive media. Together, we will develop a deeper understanding of works that push the boundaries of gaming, while acquiring skills that can enrich creative practices beyond game development. The course is structured around three playable projects, which can be created individually or in teams. While some coding experience is recommended, the course provides extensive templates and is designed to be accessible to beginners and visual artists.

Mediated Realities – 60420
T/R 9:30-11:50am | Prof Johannes DeYoung & Prof Lawrence Shea
Mediated Realities is an advanced studio course that investigates the potential applications of mediated-reality technologies and location-based interactivity for storytelling, site-specific art-making, installation, and live performance (broadly defined). Converging trends in cultural production, mobile computation, and media technologies present new affordances for artists and designers to shape location-based experiences. Studio work engages a breadth of strategies in post-media aesthetics, as related to one’s experience and understanding of place. Trans-media storytelling, real-time graphics, machine learning, gamification, locative artworks, augmented reality and powerful portable media devices present opportunities for artists and designers to create experiences that heighten multisensory experience by merging live performance and participant interaction with systems for digital information, imagery, and 3D visualization – all ubiquitously available in low-cost and widely distributable formats (e.g. apps, mobile web sites). The course frames technological experimentation in the context of modern and contemporary arts practices, such as: 1970’s Land Art, Happenings, Fluxus games, Performance Art, Expanded Cinema, and the unresolved theoretical issues emerging from this rich period in American history – site specificity, competing definitions of “community,” the effects of media and representation, audience/performer dynamics, and the nature and limits of the art work. Reading discussions, site visits, and presentations from outside experts (CMU faculty, visiting artists) will expose a range of relevant topics, disciplinary and creative perspectives, and potential avenues for investigation. Specific areas of focus will include local histories and ecological dynamics, and the effects of technology on the landscape and lives of Pittsburgh’s population.

Open Sculpture: Installation + Site – 60430
M/W 10am-12:50pm | Prof Marvin Touré
Natural and human made sites possess a range of intrinsic properties that make them unique settings for spatial intervention. When we create in these spaces, we add another line to an ongoing narrative. In this advanced project-based studio you will be developing works in sculpture and 3D media through the lens of installation and site-specific work. The course fosters an inclusive and experimental definition of sculpture and installation that encourages students to explore interdisciplinary approaches to making as well as build on skills and concepts learned in foundations and intermediate sculpture courses. With a specific focus on installation, this class will delve deeper into issues surrounding architectural intervention, site-specificity, material decisions, and the relationship of objects to audiences when installed in space. Through hands-on-making, installation workshops, in class work time, and group critiques and discussions, students will develop their abilities to turn ideas for three dimensional works into plans, prototypes, and finished projects and installations. Artists will build 3 projects from start to finish and hone their individual sense of creative identity through the development of personal research interests, aesthetic sensibilities, and their own critical language surrounding common themes through their projects.

Ceramics – 60433
T/R 10am-12:50pm | Prof Yoko Sekino-Bové
In this course, advanced ceramic students will explore clay as a medium for personal expression. They will enhance their technical skills using materials and processes aligned with their concepts, while developing aesthetic sensibilities through historic and contemporary references in ceramics and other arts. Students will learn to organize their projects and manage their time effectively to complete projects within the given timeframe. Coursework supports the creation of a professional portfolio. Students will engage in technical projects to broaden their experience with clay, such as mold making, slip casting, and glaze mixing. Advanced students will gain deeper knowledge and mastery of the medium through these complex processes. Participation in critiques is required, where students will analyze their own work and that of peers to identify strengths and weaknesses, fostering the growth and exchange of ideas. The class includes demonstrations, lectures, research/writing assignments, and work time. Students must develop a body of work within the project context to express their individual voice. Prerequisite: 60-136, 60-234, or 60-433.

Museum as Medium – 60449
M/W 2-4:50pm | Prof Jon Rubin
In this Social Practice studio class, held at the Carnegie Museum of Art (CMoA), students will critically and creatively engage with the museum as a malleable medium — a space where an imagined set of social agreements, stories of the past, and visions of the future are constructed in and with the public. The class will start with meetings with CMoA curators, education staff, docents, and conservators to understand how the museum produces, rather than merely preserves culture, and then will move to the production of student-designed projects that engage directly with the museum and its publics. While nominally open to everyone, it’s important to recognize that museums are also delimited by boundaries that limit them to certain uses by certain publics. This class will look at how artists, curators and educators have been working to reimagine the social role, politics, and pedagogy of the museum, questioning the very notion of who a museum is for and what a museum could become in the future. Students will be expected to work collaboratively with each other, museum staff, and the museum’s audience to produce projects such as alternative tours, performances, classes, publications, events and more that seek to make new meanings out of the medium that is the museum.

Open Painting – 60453
M/W 2-4:50pm | Prof Ranee Henderson
This course is designed to help promote a painter’s development conceptually and technically. It encourages students to evolve their own ideas through a proposed series of carefully conceived paintings. Through research and studio experimentation, students will explore issues of scale, surface, materiality, process and storytelling with the goal of discovering a combination that exemplifies their intended meaning. Lectures and assignments are designed to enrich the painter’s conceptual and technical base and to promote creative growth. Enthusiasm and varied perspectives will be applauded.

Advanced Comics Workshop – 60464
T/R 7-9:50pm | Prof John Peña
In this course, students will develop, storyboard, and revise a long-form comic or sequential narrative. Each student will create a detailed production schedule to which they will adhere over the course of the semester. To strengthen and refine students’ visual storytelling skills, the course will also include workshops focusing on storyboarding/layout, character design, creating custom digital fonts and book design. Additionally, there will be ongoing critiques and peer editing sessions designed to provide valuable feedback on each student’s work. Finally, the class will work in small groups to design, curate, print and publish a collaborative book highlighting each student’s work.

Mutable Landscape – 60472
F 10am-12:50pm & 2-4:50pm | Prof Kim Beck
With camera in hand, students will explore, document and invent a sense of place in Pittsburgh. Informed by photographic history and landscape studies, students will develop their own portfolios of digital prints. As a CFA Interdisciplinary photography course, students will be encouraged to consider their photographs in the medium of their home department, and in some cases as a starting point for projects in other materials. No prerequisites.

Open Print – 60475
T/R 10am-12:50pm | Prof Erin Zona
This advanced Print Media course focuses on student-driven development of a studio practice focused on contemporary print, multiples and distributed art. In this class, individuals will continue to build on technical skills and concepts, and the interdisciplinary applications of both, through self-directed, individual approaches. This course is for advanced students of art, ready to focus on larger-scaled, conceptually and formally ambitious projects that are formed from long-term investigations.

Art & Science Studio – 60490
T/R 7–9:50pm | Prof Rich Pell
This course is an experiential dive into artmaking that utilizes the tools and methods of science. Students will become proficient in microscopic photography and video, the culturing and care of several microorganisms, and the discussion of the philosophical and ethical aspects of this work. The course is extremely relevant to BSA, BCSA, or any interdisciplinary pursuit that crosses between the arts (in general) and the sciences (in general). Students should come fully prepared to look up unfamiliar terms, to learn concepts that do not come easily, and to pursue research questions with passion and curiosity. Prior experience with sculpture, electronic media, or lab-based science courses is encouraged.

CFA PHOTOGRAPHY

CFA Photography courses are available to students of all disciplines across CMU’s campus.

Photography Can Be Fun! – 60143
M/W 2–4:50pm | Prof Ross Mantle
This studio course utilizes the universality of photography to explore humor, frivolity, curiosity, and playfulness in images. Students will use digital and analog techniques across a series of conceptual, technical, and exploratory assignments to delve into these themes. You will learn about the roles that lighting, color and form have in evoking intangible qualities in photographs. Through explorations of printing and presentation, you will gain an understanding of the ways design, context and sequencing add clarity to your creative intentions. Regular lectures, readings, videos, demonstrations, guest artists, and gallery visits will support class assignments.

Black and White Photography II – 60241
T/R 2–4:50pm | Prof Jamie Gruzska
This course allows you to gain experience with medium and large format film cameras while emphasizing aesthetic development and personal artistic growth. As an advanced student, you have access to an unusual assortment of panoramic and pinhole cameras that will change the way you make photographs, revealing unknown perspectives. Additional topics include digital process though negative scanning and inkjet printing, advanced monotone printing methods, and a focus on exhibition and folio presentation. Cameras will be supplied for this course.

Intermediate Digital Photography – 60281
T/R 2–4:50pm | Prof Aaron Blum
Formed around a series of workshops, this course will explore digital and analog image-making processes, using both old and new methodologies, at times combined, yielding a unique experience. Basic techniques will be reviewed but the course quickly progresses to subjects of image and exposure optimization and workflow refinement in post-production. Software highlights include, but aren’t limited to: object removal, advanced masking methods artificial light creation, and utilizing the latest Adobe AI tools. Using newly found skills, students will produce complex, fine art imagery anchored in personal aesthetics. Basic Photoshop experience and/or completion of Digital Photography I (60/62-142) is recommended.

Art Electives for Non-Majors

These courses to make and learn about art are open to all students across campus. No previous art experience is required or expected!

Cultural History of the Visual Arts: The Modern Period – 60106
M/W 7–9:20pm | Prof Maria Elena Versari
Have you ever felt that you liked an artwork but couldn’t explain why? Do you have questions about art that you were always afraid to ask? This course is conceived to give students the tools to feel at home when visiting a museum and talk about art in social, business and academic settings. It is organized over two semesters, but students can take only one of the two courses. Cultural History of the Visual Arts I (in the fall) covers the period from the 1500s to the 1800s and features masterpieces and lesser known works in Western and Non-Western art, organized chronologically and by theme. Some of the topics we will study include the controversy surrounding Leonardo’s and Michelangelo’s works, the role of censorship in the arts, the development of perspective experiments and visual theories from Antiquity onward, the concept of landscape and the status of the artist in the Ming dynasty, the impact of colonialism and post-colonial identity in South American Art, the rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum and the Egyptian craze in the 1800s, the world of Opera and ballet, and the Impressionists’ ideas of what an artwork should be. The course also includes museum visits that will be organized taking in consideration the students’ schedule. No prerequisite required and open to students from all disciplines.

Ceramics for Non-Majors – 60136
M/W 10am–12:50pm & 2-4:50pm | Prof Yoko Sekino-Bové
Get your hands dirty in this comprehensive introduction to ceramics! In this class, you’ll try out various hand-building techniques, as well as wheel-throwing. In addition, you’ll learn about clay and glaze compositions and formulations, as well as techniques to finish the surface of your works, including texturing and underglaze painting. By the time you finish the class, you’ll have a portfolio of finished pieces to take home!

Drawing for Non-Majors – 60157
M/W 10am–12:50pm & 2-4:50pm | Prof Kristen Letts Kovak, Prof Paul Mullins & Prof Alli Lemon
Drawing is the foundation of all the visual arts. In this class, you’ll learn perceptual, analytical, and structural drawing skills that allow you to both more accurately and more expressively create an image on paper. You’ll try various methods of creating pictorial and illusionistic space; recording the external world of light and form; and making visible the internal world of the heart, the mind, the soul.

Painting in the Expanded Field: Theory and History – 60360
W 7-9:20pm | Prof Cash (Melissa) Ragona
Painting has always been secretly (and not so secretly) unruly—sometimes unable to fit—morally, scale-wise, discipline-specific—into conventional salons, galleries, or museums. This seminar will follow the vast, stormy line from Courbet’s 22 ft. long, audacious, Burial at Ornans (1849-50) to Torkwase Dyson’s Indeterminacy #1 (Black Compositional Thought) (2022) which looms at architectural scale (crossing the divides between architecture, sculpture, painting) to the abject painting treatments (2010-present) of Leidy Churchman in which live human bodies lie under unhinged canvases upon which paint, syrup, powder, potato chips, and a whip (and other substitutes for paint/brushes) are wielded with equal force. We will excavate history, theory, and practice equally, but our focus will mainly be on artists working today. Other expanded painters (& possible guest speakers), just to name a few, include: Suki Seokyeong Kang, Wangechi Mutu, Tschabalala Self, Laurie Shapiro, Carrie Yamaoka, Amy Sillman, Tomashi Jackson, Genesis Tramaine, Kehinde Wiley, Maxwell Alexandre, Cy Gavin, Kerry James Marshall, Faith Ringgold, Glenn Lignon, Gelitin, Laura Owens, Kai Althoff, Rachel Rossin, Maxwell Alexandreand and Mickalene Thomas.

Above Image Credit: If you could die and come back to life, up for air from the swimming pool (2020) Maxwell Alexandre (Photo by Jack Hems) [detail of a larger installation]

Art Writer: Writing as Object, Criticism, and Experiment – 60362
R 7-9:20pm | Prof Cash (Melissa) Ragona
ART WRITER will strive to bring together the intersecting discourses of artists’ use of writing as an object, exploring experiments by artists, poets, novelists and critics who use language and theory as invention. The idea of experiment implied here emphasizes the urgency that art writing move beyond its own history, beyond the received understanding of its proper practices in order to propose new modes of critical reflection. The form and material force of language will be explored through the conceptual and critical work of Ocean Vuong, Harryette Mullen, Fatimah Asghar, Jamaica Kincaid, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Frances Stark, Kathy Acker, Samuel Delaney, Glenn Ligon, Brian Kim Stefans, Pajtim Statovci, Trisha Low, Tan Lin, Adam Pendleton, just to name a few. International projects of Art and Language, Fluxus, the Dark Room Collective, Los Contemporáneos, as well as more recent iterations will be investigated/researched. This is a writing intensive seminar with experimentation at its core. Members will workshop their writing: revise, rethink, perform, and publish.

Above Image Credit: The Dreamlife of Letters (2001) Brian Kim Stefans [GIF-STILL from a longer Animation]