Visual and Design Arts

Through our visual and design arts curricula, our teachers examine challenging concepts through a variety of media and materials, making them more seamless to master. Student choice is a program hallmark as learners can explore sculpture, printmaking, artistic drawing, painting, and ceramic arts from entry level up to full portfolio development and creation, including year-long independent study.

Perhaps your interest is etching, linocut, mixed media, or even the larger-medium and distinctive techniques of printmaking. Maybe you’d like to develop technical fluency and a personal style working with artistic drawing media like pencil, ink, charcoal, and pastels. Or, delve deeper by advancing into structural drawing, landscape, portraiture, and abstraction.

In painting classes, students learn the techniques of using color, design, and the compositional elements of art while the study of advanced technical media comes in upper-level coursework. Offerings in sculpture introduce students to using and developing various techniques when working with wood, metals, clay, and found objects—all with an emphasis on design skills, critical-thinking, and personal expression. Larger sculpture materials and projects are tackled at the advanced level.

Our course of study in the ceramic arts teaches students the fundamentals of handbuilding with clay using pinch pot, coil, and slab methods, in addition to introducing the potter’s wheel as a tool for making forms. Higher-level study explores kiln-firing, glaze chemistry, complex surface treatments, and some collaborative work, concluding with an end-of-term exhibition.

Cross-disciplinary opportunities exist in the Computer Science Department with courses focusing on 3D Graphic and CAD, Digital Video Production, and engineering-design in Robotics.