studio art

Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Studio Art: Connecting Art to other worlds

The Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Art with a concentration in Studio Art offers a comprehensive study in the visual arts, offering students a customized learning experience with a liberal arts degree. The B.A. program assists students in becoming independent, critical thinkers and artists—in whatever tangible form or art discipline they choose. In this emphasis, skills are taught as necessary to make ideas manifest.  
   
Contemporary art is expansive enough that artists can work across any discipline—including biology, urban studies, ethnobotany, permaculture, women's studies, computer science, law, anthropology, and more. The B.A. in art with a studio art emphasis rooted in the philosophy of "Art And..." Throughout the degree, students will experiment with interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge production—working to integrate forms of art thinking/making with disciplines outside the School of Art. Students work with department faculty to customize their Studio Art curriculum to fit their education and career goals with the B.A. Studio Art concentration, all courses taken, culminate in a final capstone project, a paper, a project, or an exhibition. The capstone offers students an opportunity to synthesize their learning in a way that can provide a greater understanding of the relationships between disciplines and offers a multi-disciplinary portfolio.   

Art, Environment and Sustainability

Our featured BA pathway will track a student through art courses that look at the local ecosystem and prompt visual responses in a variety of media and experiences. Students might help rethink a landscape, make art in reaction to local water concerns, or work on a project with other students to examine life in a local park. This work could be supplemented by study in biology or landscape architecture, and there is an internship with a local non-profit that is connected to this track. The final capstone can take the form of a project in the environment, a performance, a book, an exhibition, or any other format that the student can devise.

Some of the courses for the Art, Environment, and Sustainability track include:

• Art 4325 Art and Ecology with Aaron Hegert
• Art 4340 Art, Environment, and Sustainability with Carol Flueckiger
• Art 4301 Studio Art Internship Variable
• Several new courses are in development on the 2000 and 3000 levels that will be applicable.  

There are more possibilities

Perhaps after some courses in Biology, you want to build an entirely new world using your painting and sculpture skills. Or a study of French history leads you to want to draw the fashions of Marie Antoinette. Maybe courses in Criminology inspires you to make portraits of famous figures in criminal history. Or classes in Women's Studies spurs you to want to do a community project. The BA degree is flexible and designed to be tailored precisely to your needs and interests. 

The structure

For the degree, students select five classes from our studio course offerings. Students can choose to pursue depth or breadth. You will choose a minor in an entirely different discipline, such as Biology, History, English, or Women's Studies. Art History is interwoven to provide context to your studies. And several courses in the School of Music or School of Theatre & Dance will help you expand your ideas about art and approaching the capstone.

The capstone is a series of three one hour courses, developed over three semesters with the guidance of the BA Coordinator, Professor Robin Germany. Students work with Germany to form a project, performance, paper, or exhibition that synthesizes the knowledge they have gathered. The final product will showcase how art and other disciplines can come together with innovative and surprising results. Below are some examples of previous capstone presentations.

admissions

Curriculum