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This course provides an introduction to clay as a material. Participants will be introduced to a wide variety of methods and techniques to build, decorate, and glaze ceramic. Demonstrations in Hand-building, coiling, slap-building and surface application including glaze development and application, slip decoration and firing methods, will give students a proficiency in working with clay and in the ceramic department. Introductions to the rich and complex history of ceramic through readings, lectures and museum visits, will provide students with exposures to the critical discourse of contemporary ceramic. This is primarily a beginner's course but open to all levels of students.

Readings will vary but typically include, Hands in Clay by Charlotte Speight and John Toki. Vitamin C: Clay and Ceramic in Contemporary Art by Clare Lilley. Ten thousand years of pottery by Emmanuel Cooper. 20th Century Ceramics By Edmund de Waal. Live Form: Women, Ceramics, and Community by Jenni Sorkin. The course will look at artist like Magdalene Odundo, George E. Ohr, Shoji Hamada, Roberto Lugo and Nicole Cherubini as well as historic ceramic from the Art Institutes of Chicago?s collection.

Students are expected to complete 3 projects by the end of the semester, Biweekly readings will be part of the course.

Art has been many things to many people. This class introduces students to the history of art and art-like things on Earth from prehistory to ca. 1800 CE. It covers canonical examples from older scholarship alongside works and contexts emerging in recent art histories. Students will learn to perform basic art historical analysis and research, and the course will prepare them to form personal art histories, applying such art histories to their own work.

The course surveys historical art in a global scope, from the beginnings of known culture to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. It introduces students to a range of interdisciplinary frameworks for parsing the production, reception, and conceptualization of art. And it challenges students to think about the relationships between past and present, highlighting how later artists and cultures have engaged earlier art and history.

There is a small amount of required reading each week-on average about 20 pages. Written work includes weekly reading responses, two in-class quizzes, an annotated bibliography project, and a take-home final exam.

This research, discussion, and critique course develops a visual and verbal vocabulary by examining relationships between form and content, word and image. Study includes symbolic association and the problem of effective communication in a highly complex culture.

An attempt, a venture, an experiment, a weighing - the essayist discovers new insight into the common, the peculiar, the sacred, the profane - drawing lines between the trivial and profound, the essayist tries: while difficult to define, this genre instructs, entertains, questions and refines. Students of this course will examine this genre of literature and will practice it, too: being introduced to a wide range of authors, writing on topics familiar and foreign, from the personal to the argumentative, from the art historical to the humorous, students will practice this craft by critically analyzing the work of others and writing different types of essays in a workshop environment that emphasizes the writing process, from generating ideas, to oral presentations, to drafting and peer review, to re-seeing and revising. FYS I develops college-level writing skills, prepares one for FYS II and upper-level Liberal Arts courses, and allows one to improve expressing their ideas in writing.

This course surveys developments in nineteenth and twentieth century art and architecture. Particular emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues, as well as the historical, intellectual, and socioeconomic changes that are reflected or addressed in the works of artists and architects. Note: ARTHI 1001 (or its equivalent) is recommended as a prerequisite for ARTHI 1002.

Digital visualization is essential to all contemporary creative communication. This class will familiarize students with the syntax, tools and methods of vector-based drawing and reinforce analogies to traditional methods of image-making covered in the First Year Program.

Students will begin with an introduction to the computer as a graphic design tool: the relationship of vector to raster graphics and the peripherals. The focus on building proficiency with industry-standard Adobe Illustrator software will be reinforced via tutorials and short design exercises which target specific topics and techniques covered during lectures.

Students apply technical competencies to formal design problems during the second half of this course and in Beginning Graphic Design class.

This course surveys developments in nineteenth and twentieth century art and architecture. Particular emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues, as well as the historical, intellectual, and socioeconomic changes that are reflected or addressed in the works of artists and architects. Note: ARTHI 1001 (or its equivalent) is recommended as a prerequisite for ARTHI 1002.

All FYS 2 students will learn to embrace the writing process and establish writerly habits, while developing guided critical reading, thinking, and writing skills necessary for their success in upper-level course work. Students learn to collaborate and to take their work, and the work of their peers seriously, thereby establishing best practices of critique. This FYS 2 course will explore the interconnected meanings of race, horror, and monstrosity. In particular, we will focus on the presentations and representations of racial difference in the Americas. From Birth of a Nation (1915) to Get Out (2017), and from the transatlantic slave trade to contemporary #BlackLivesMatter movements, African-American struggles for dignity and inclusion have produced ¿philosophies born of struggle,¿ i.e. avenues of critical thought and activism with an eye toward social liberation and freedom from daily fear.

This is the first of two English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students improve their academic English skills by reading and responding to art appreciation and art history texts. Texts are analyzed for formal as well as contextual information. Students learn how to integrate their own observations and knowledge with information gained from reading and lecture. Students also build competence and confidence in college-level writing. Topics include formal analyses and/or critical responses to works of art. Presentations and class discussions also give students practice communicating their knowledge through speaking.

This critique course is offered for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students build competence in giving critiques, participating in class discussions, and giving presentations. Students make artwork to present to the class. They learn and practice the vocabulary of visual and design elements and use these to analyze and critique their own and their classmates' works. Students practice a variety of critique formats by using formal, social-cultural, and expressive theories of art criticism. They discuss and critique works both verbally and in writing.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

In this course students explore the principles of visual communication by creating two-dimensional printed comprehensive layouts, and three-dimensional mock-ups. Stress is placed on process and development of solutions to problems; idea and form exploration; research; image and text development; compositional structure and hierarchy; verbal, technical, and hand skills. The course also covers the technical aspects of graphic design such as printing methods, papers, and binding.

Students will produce 3?4 finished pieces exploring the use of image and type in both single page format, multi-page format, and possibly three-dimensional format. These projects are to be included in the VCD department's obligatory portfolio review for advancement into the VCD intermediate courses.

The Department of Painting and Drawing offers a wide variety of comics courses, ranging from traditional to experimental methods and techniques. Each course is designed to focus on a specific area of comics production. To learn more about the topic of a specific comics course in which you are interested, please review the course description for that particular class.

Image Studio is a course that challenges students to interpret, critically read text, conceptualize, and assess project parameters to implement design solutions. The creative process is a core focus throughout the assignments. The goal of this course is to explore the process of creating original imagery and visual information.

We utilize digital and analog means to create design solutions to projects that also require fundamental explorations with typography. We explore a diverse means of image construction from paper collage to photography and Photoshop manipulation.

Form studies examine design basics such as juxtaposition, repetition, and progression as well as the use of metaphor, analogy, and semiotics. The introduction of design context, audience awareness, and sequential narrative is also addressed.

This team-taught class is an intensive, three-week immersion in comics. The faculty consists of two SAIC faculty members and one visiting-artist-in-residence, working in a studio alongside students. Students work with faculty one-on-one, participate in group critiques, and attend lectures prepared by the faculty members.

This team-taught class is an intensive, three-week immersion in comics. The faculty consists of two SAIC faculty members and one visiting-artist-in-residence, working in a studio alongside students. Students work with faculty one-on-one, participate in group critiques, and attend lectures prepared by the faculty members.

This multilevel class is for students with or without experience in wheel throwing. Beginning students are introduced to ideas, materials and techniques for throwing vessels. They acquire the necessary skills to construct and analyze a wide range of vessel forms. Intermediate and advanced students continue their individual development of throwing, glazing and firing kilns. Course discussions focus on issues around the vessel to acquire critical understanding of containers and their functions, as well as using the wheel as a means for constructing sculptural forms.

This multilevel class is for students with or without experience in wheel throwing. Beginning students are introduced to ideas, materials and techniques for throwing vessels. They acquire the necessary skills to construct and analyze a wide range of vessel forms. Intermediate and advanced students continue their individual development of throwing, glazing and firing kilns. Course discussions focus on issues around the vessel to acquire critical understanding of containers and their functions, as well as using the wheel as a means for constructing sculptural forms.

This course develops drawing skills with an emphasis on figure gesture and proportion along with a wide range of media. Students are taught to sketch from a live model while communicating design concepts in clothing with style and expression.

For the beginning student this course offers a concentrated introduction to the entire stencil making and printing process. The advanced student may explore the more sophisticated techniques of digital and photographic stencil-making, photo-mechanical darkroom and printing work.

This course offers instruction in various methods of casting, including simple plaster molds, hydrocal-cement casts, simple body casts, thermal-setting rubber molds, wax, terra cotta, and paper casting. Students are advised to bring objects they desire to cast. (No hot metal casting in this course.)

This is an entry-level experiential class which explores and implements concepts from art therapy and related fields. The course presents a blend of approaches including Eastern traditions, Jungian psychology, and other sources. Studio work and writing will be used as tools to understand and cultivate the discipline of self-awareness. The class will be structured as a community of participants engaging in and studying the phenomenon of the creative process. Each class meeting will involve art making and writing as well as discussion of ideas based on readings and experiences. This course is for anyone wanting to explore the relationship between art and life, self, other, and community in experiential and theoretical ways within an art therapy framework. It will be of value to those considering working with others using art, such as teachers or art therapists, as well as for those who may wish to establish art and/or writing as a form of practice and discipline in their lives. Open to all students.

This studio course explores typography's impact on language to create meaning, organization and tone. Students experiment in typographic composition and page structure with special regard to the flow and rupture of different text types and reading scenarios. Students learn the technical aspects of typography (specification and copyfitting), methods for composing dynamic multipage formats (combining digital and analog), and contexts (both historical and structural) for understanding the vast repository of typefaces. This course is a core requirement for the Visual Communication Design portfolio review.

The framing text for this class is Ellen Lupton's Thinking with Type. But students will be introduced to numerous examples from the history of (predominantly Western) letterforms and concretized language. Understanding these historical forms in their contexts will reveal the logic behind the modern classification of digital type.

Students produce weekly type projects which are critiqued and handed in as three project sets. The first set analyses letterforms, structurally and then programmatically. The next project set covers text setting and typographic compositions of increasing semantic and syntactic complexity. The last project is a multilingual, illustrated book layout where students engage the fundamental concept of 'structured variety' over a series of pages.

This class is a co-requisite with Beginning Typography and closely couples with the activities of this particular studio course. The lab components will introduce students to page layout software (namely Adobe InDesign), its terminology and its specific functions, its relationship to other software packages, techniques for composing and outputting digitally, and the technical aspects of digital typography. This information will be reinforced via tutorials and short design exercises which target specific topics and techniques covered during lectures. As the semester progresses, this class also functions as a working lab for the Beginning Typography studio class, allowing students to work on the same project across both classes and receive technology assistance from the instructor. This crossover reinforces the links between digital and non-digital composing and terminologies.

Beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels are given technical guidance for exploration of the formal and expressive properties of woven structures. Introductions to the preparation of the loom and basic weaves are presented to beginners. Intermediate and advanced students are introduced to a conceptual focus and a technical vocabulary and encouraged to develop individual direction. Group as well as individual critiques are an important part of this course.

Beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels are given technical guidance in the use of dyes and pigments on fabrics. Both hand-painting and -printing processes are explored. The technical vocabulary may include: silkscreen, photographic techniques, stencil and stamp printing, and direct painting. Intermediate and advanced students are introduced to a conceptual focus and a technical vocabulary and are encouraged to develop individual direction. Exploration of ideas will be augmented through research, discussions, group and individual critiques, slide presentations, and field trips.

In this studio course, students will explore relief printmaking techniques using woodblocks, linoleum, found-objects, foam, monoprints and digital processes. Students will learn how to properly carve, ink, and print blocks in order to create editions as well as experiment with non-traditional formats. Students will be exposed to the rich history of relief printmaking through traditional and contemporary examples, specifically works from AIC and SAIC collections. Returning students will expand upon previous projects and develop new approaches to exploring content and understanding relief techniques.

Students will be exposed to a wide variety of artists from the long and rich history of relief printmaking. We will examine artists who work traditionally within the medium, as well as artists who depend upon contemporary technology to create prints. Some of the artists we will explore in this course include Durer, Hokusai, Masereel, Mendez, Zarina and Baumgartner.

Over the course of the semester, students will create 10-20 prints that show an understanding of the various relief techniques demonstrated by the instructor. Students will also participate in a print exchange folio at the end of the course. Projects will be critiqued throughout the semester.

This class is inspired by Johannes Itten?s radical early twentieth-century basic art course developed for the Weimar Bauhaus School of Art, but here using the Maya 3D software, typically used for commercial productions by the entertainment industry. Students will solve a series of formal problems, introduced in increasing levels of complexity. Moving from the 2-dimensional to the 3-dimensional and ultimately to the four-dimensional or time-based, students will evolve their abilities to utilize aspects of light and dark, form, rhythm, color, proportion and volume but in terms of a post photographic discourse, with the intention of advancing a new virtual cinema.

Artists' Books is a beginning/intermediate level course that focuses on the fundamental techniques of bookbinding so as to be able to design and produce one or an edition of artists' books and boxes. The class begins by learning a range of traditional binding techniques, discussing material choices, and learning about the history of artists' books. Later on breaking out of the box to take risks, explore concepts and unconventional materials will be strongly encouraged for individual projects. In addition, the intention of this class is to meld your own studio work and personal expression with the form of artists' books.

This course explores the interpretation of the landscape using both drawing and painting mediums. The class works both inside and outside of the studio, taking advantage of the natural and architectural sites of Chicago adjacent to the School.

This course explores the flexibility of cut & sew knitwear. From the comfort of the ubiquitous T-shirt to high performance athletic wear, fashion made with pliant knitted fabrics is everywhere. In its brief history since the invention of the button-less shirt in jersey fabric, sewn knitwear has ushered in radically modern dress through sportswear, dancewear, and athletic wear. Designers, stylistic innovation and technological processes are further examined through lectures and case studies. Students will explore the variations and design potential of flexible knitted fabrics, and the considerations, methods, and equipment to assemble and finish designs cut from knit fabric.

Designers, stylistic innovation and technological processes are further examined through lectures and case studies. These include fashion designers Stephen Burrows, Rudi Gernreich, Xuly Bet, Coco Chanel, or Donna Karans 5 easy pieces, as well as in iconographic performances such as by Nicolais Louis Dance, or Martha Grahams ¿Lament¿, or contemporary artists such as Erneste Neto or Malin Bulow.

Students will explore the variations and design potential of flexible knitted fabrics, and the considerations, methods, and equipment to assemble and finish designs cut from knit fabric. They will drape, make patterns and block, and stitch finished garments from their design and research; first in a test fabric with similar properties, and then in a material, color and detail (optional) of their choice.

Through the design, planning, and production of a single large-scale ceramic sculpture, students will gain both significant material knowledge and technical proficiency in numerous important hand-building principles and methods. Although for the purposes of the class these techniques will be specifically directed towards building big, they are broadly applicable to all-ceramic processes and will serve students well however they choose to work in the future.
Week one will focus on material considerations for large-scale building, clay mixing, stock preparation, and planning through sketches and small-scale clay or digital models. Weeks two through four will focus on construction, preliminary shaping, and sculpting techniques, such as darting and gusseting, stretching, splitting and patching, paddling, carving, compression, and skim coating. Weeks five and six will cover detailing and finishing techniques such as abrasion and brushing and firing and surfacing.
Some prior experience with clay and hand-building is beneficial, but not required.

In this course, students will gain exposure to 'real-world' design practice, while developing a range of wood-shop skills. Working closely with a local furniture and home-goods company Offcut, students will design and prototype tabletop objects to be exhibited at the Offcut showroom in Chicago. Through a series of informative presentations, lectures, field trips and skill-building exercises, students will explore many of the challenges facing designers today; financial, social and environmental.

Course readings and discussions will vary, but typically address topics that will help students contextualize different approaches to designing objects while engaging in contemporary cultural concerns of material life cycles and sustainability. Some of the designers and texts we will examine throughout the semester include, but not limited to: Bruno Munari ¿ Art as Design, Junichiro Tanizaki ¿ In Praise of Shadows, Soetsu Yanagi ¿ The Beauty of Everyday Things, Seetal Solanki ¿ Why Materials Matter, Monica Khemsurov & Jill Singer ¿ How to Live with Objects.
The course will consist of introductory skill-building exercises followed by a main project to design an accessory or furniture piece from offcuts of wood provided by Offcut.

This course examines neon techniques used in both traditional and current sign making and their application in creating artworks. Contemporary technical developments are explored.

This course examines neon techniques used in both traditional and current sign making and their application in creating artworks. Contemporary technical developments are explored.

This course examines neon techniques used in both traditional and current sign making and their application in creating artworks. Contemporary technical developments are explored.

This class introduces the traditional animation techniques of creating movement through successive drawings. Techniques include metamorphosis, walking cycles, holds, squash and stretch, blur and resistance. Students use the pencil test Lunch-Box to view their work . Students complete a series of exercises encouraging a full range of animation skills and a final project. Films illustrating drawn-animation techniques are screened regularly.

This course is a comprehensive survey of the history of furniture, including relevant information on residential architecture, the decorative arts and interior design, from the Neolithic Era until the Twenty-First Century. Special attention is given to the developments that have remained most influential within furniture design today, with particular emphasis on the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassical eras, revivalism in the Nineteenth Century, early Modernism in the Arts & Crafts and Art Nouveau movements, Art Deco, the Bauhaus and the International Style, Mid-Century Modernism, Late Modernism and Postmodernism.

Through extensive lectures and readings, special focus in this class is devoted to the relationships between furniture and societal customs throughout history, the rise of furniture?s status as a fine art during the Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassical periods, the influence of industrialization, mass production and new technologies and materials on furniture manufacturing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, furniture?s role in helping to create and define architectural space within interiors of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and the role of individual narratives in developing unique identities and meanings for furniture throughout history.

Students will complete a series of in-class exams along with a final research assignment analyzing a single object chosen from the Art Institute?s furniture collection.

This course offers an historical survey of music as a sonic art form from the Futurists to the present day. Emphasis is placed on works that tune the performance environment, explore sound as sculpture, interact with the listener/viewer, and employ intermedia. Class discussions include topics such as basic psycho-acoustics, sound manipulation, conceptual art, installation techniques, and constructivist aesthetics.

This course takes a hemispheric approach that unites the Ancient Americas by following the trade routes that moved materials and goods including corn, turquoise, and gold, from the Arctic to Patagonia and connected this vast expanse of land. We start in 12000 BC with the migration of people to different parts of North, South, and Central America and end in 1492 with the arrival of Europeans. Along the way, we consider a diverse range of media, including architecture, basketry, ceramics, textiles, jewelry, painting, sculpture, architecture, and earthworks from across the ancient Americas. Underscoring modes of both continuity and change, we will also survey responses from contemporary artists whose work continues through lines to ancient art made before Conquest.