A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.
Christian sits on driftwood bench wearing a pink sweatshirt and yellow pants.

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Christian Ortiz

Lecturer

Contact

Bio

Christian Ortiz was born in Mexico but has lived in Chicago most of his life, where he works as an artist and educator. Christian received his BFA in fiber studies and BSED in art education from Northern Illinois University, and his MFA in fiber and material studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. There he was the first recipient of the Wilson/Livingstone Graduate Fellowship and received the World Less Travelled Grant, through which he researched weaving traditions of Oaxaca. In his practice, Christian uses fiber processes to explore themes around immigrant labor, migration, and displacement by connecting it to the immigrant labor experiences of his family and his own labor as an artist.

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

This course explores various approaches to altering, enriching, and transforming the surface of pliable materials and forms. Emphasis is on the surface treatment and its relationship to structure while using conventional and non-conventional materials. Students work with a broad range of hand and machine stitching techniques that can include embroidery, embellishment, piecing, quilting, applique, and working with treatments like paints, dyes, adhesives, and collage. Special attention is paid to the histories of these techniques and how they are being utilized in contemporary art. Technical demonstrations, assigned readings, group discussions, lectures and field trips will augment student learning. The course is structured to support students in the development of their studio arts practice by equipping them with a variety of technical skills and encouraging them to pursue projects driven by their own formal, material, and conceptual concerns. Individual and group critiques are integral to the course. Course work will vary but typically includes the creation of samples, critique projects, and reading responses.

Class Number

1199

Credits

3

Description

Students learn how to translate colors from the natural world into textiles, by using natural dyes foraged from plants, as well as dye concentrates and indigo, for immersion and direct dye applications. Complex surface design patterns are created through the Japanese resist process of shibori. Chemistry, color theory, material manipulations, and research provide a technical foundation for the creation of projects within the expanded field of textiles.

Class Number

2452

Credits

3

Description

Students learn how to translate colors from the natural world into textiles, by using natural dyes foraged from plants, as well as dye concentrates and indigo, for immersion and direct dye applications. Complex surface design patterns are created through the Japanese resist process of shibori. Chemistry, color theory, material manipulations, and research provide a technical foundation for the creation of projects within the expanded field of textiles.

Class Number

1566

Credits

3