Mie Kongo

This course will explore potential interactions and integrations of ceramics/clay with other materials to create sculpture, installation, performance, and beyond. Students will consider the history and tradition of materials as well as their contemporary social, cultural, political, and ecological associations. The project’s focus will be on how those material implications and properties are taken into consideration and how they contribute conceptually and aesthetically to the project.

This technical studies course will explore glaze materials, the geology of ceramic materials, ceramic chemistry, glaze and clay body formulation, glaze colors, the function of heat, firing atmosphere, and glaze characteristics, behaviors and defects. The spectrum of raw ceramic materials become familiar to students through weekly lectures and discussions, numerous experimental glaze material tests and data recording and analysis. Students will learn how to safely use and exploit a wide variety of ceramic materials in order to develop a broader understanding of applications for personal expression. We will explore a wide range of glaze formulations while building a comprehensive foundation for understanding how materials can be used and formulated to yield specific and reproducible results. At the conclusion of this course, each individual will have the tools to precisely test and produce glaze formulations, understand how to use the various tools present in the glaze lab, and the ability to interpret written and fired formulae results. This class is designed as a half lecture and half lab course. Course work includes weekly reading, 10 glaze test assignments, mid-term and final quizzes and final critique.

This course is a forum for in-depth critiques, technical, conceptual, and professional practice discussions based on the student?s practice and research. The goal of this class is to provide students information and guidance on how they can continue with their art practice after school. Each student enrolled in the course will be assigned a studio space within the department. The course is open to Seniors only who have previously taken 9 credit hours of Ceramics classes, 2000-level and above. Students signing up for this class must also be enrolled in any 3 credit hour Ceramics class, 2000-level and above. Seniors may enroll in this course for two consecutive semesters only. Some of the books we will use as a reference for this class may be Living and Sustaining a Creative Life: Essays by 40 by Sharon Louden and 33 Artists in 3 Acts by Sarah Thornton. Additionally, students will present to the class about an artist or thinker. The format for this course is primary individual and group meetings, readings, presentations, field trips, exhibitions, and group critiques. Additionally, we will have a discussion with guest artists speaking and about their work and the technicalities of how to continue with their art practice. Students will learn how to document, install, and promote their work. It is expected of the students to self direct their own project culminating with a final exhibition project as part of their BFA or Gallery 1922.