Stevie Thomas Hanley

Students in this course will spend two weeks immersed in the Art Institute of Chicago, one of the world's major museums, examining the history of art from the 1870s to the twentieth centuries. Class time will be divided between lectures, discussions, museum visits, and a studio art component. Students will learn firsthand from an art historian how to analyze artwork within its historical context, deepening their understanding of how artists innovate and create highly impactful work. In the studio, students will work with a teaching artist/SAIC faculty member on creative responses to the course content. Depending on student interest, individualized projects could include painting and drawing, sculpture, installation, writing, performance, or other media. *Note: Students do not need prior art-making experience for this course. Students are encouraged to bring their own digital camera, tablet, and/or laptop for homework/research and after-studio hours projects.

This course is designed for students with previous drawing experience who want to explore a wide range of materials and processes to expand their work in new directions, and improve the work in their portfolios. While building on technical abilities, students also investigate the creative process and ways to use drawing as a language and a tool for organizing thoughts and ideas. Students experiment with media (black/white, color, wet/dry, found materials), scale, arrangement, and presentation/installation and consider aesthetic design decisions, materials selections, and cultural concerns during the creative process. Field trips to the Art Institute of Chicago, artist presentations, and discussions focusing on the work of significant historic and contemporary artists such as Sol LeWitt, Julie Mehretu, Wangechi Mutu, William Kentridge, and others supplement the studio experience. * Note: Previous drawing experience required.

This course is designed for students with previous drawing experience who want to explore a wide range of materials and processes to expand their work in new directions, and improve the work in their portfolios. While building on technical abilities, students also investigate the creative process and ways to use drawing as a language and a tool for organizing thoughts and ideas. Students experiment with media (black/white, color, wet/dry, found materials), scale, arrangement, and presentation/installation and consider aesthetic design decisions, materials selections, and cultural concerns during the creative process. Field trips to the Art Institute of Chicago, artist presentations, and discussions focusing on the work of significant historic and contemporary artists such as Sol LeWitt, Julie Mehretu, Wangechi Mutu, William Kentridge, and others supplement the studio experience. * Note: Previous drawing experience required.

In this course we will focus on disciplinary and interdisciplinary art and design practices of contemporary art production. This team-taught, year-long class explores the materials and techniques of surface, space, and time (2D, 3D, and 4D), as well as the connections and interplay of these areas. Core Studio integrates the formal with the conceptual, traditional with the contemporary, and makes visible a variety of approaches in current cultural production in order to foster the development of students? emerging practices as makers and thinkers. In this interdisciplinary studio course students will be authorized to use a variety of school shops, materials and equipment; including the woodshop, plaster studio, digital lab, sewing machine, hand tools, sound and video production, digital workflows and principles of visual fundamentals. This is a hands-on making class, faculty present artists and content related to a particular toolkit and, or project theme. Every section of Core Studio has shared learning outcomes which are uniquely realized by each Core faculty partnership. Students should expect a fast-paced studio environment. In Core Studio students will complete short assignments as well as longer multi-week projects. Assignments are designed to help students develop their own ideas in relation to the materials, processes, and themes presented by faculty.

In this course we will focus on disciplinary and interdisciplinary art and design practices of contemporary art production. This team-taught, year-long class explores the materials and techniques of surface, space, and time (2D, 3D, and 4D), as well as the connections and interplay of these areas. Core Studio integrates the formal with the conceptual, traditional with the contemporary, and makes visible a variety of approaches in current cultural production in order to foster the development of students? emerging practices as makers and thinkers. In this interdisciplinary studio course students will be authorized to use a variety of school shops, materials and equipment; including the woodshop, plaster studio, digital lab, sewing machine, hand tools, sound and video production, digital workflows and principles of visual fundamentals. This is a hands-on making class, faculty present artists and content related to a particular toolkit and, or project theme. Every section of Core Studio has shared learning outcomes which are uniquely realized by each Core faculty partnership. Students should expect a fast-paced studio environment. In Core Studio students will complete short assignments as well as longer multi-week projects. Assignments are designed to help students develop their own ideas in relation to the materials, processes, and themes presented by faculty.

The course Research Studio II builds on the learning outcomes from Research Studio I, asking students to continue to develop and connect their own work and ideas with a diverse range of artists, designers, and communities. This spring the entire Contemporary Practice department will have a shared umbrella topic for our RSII courses: Contemporary Now. All RSII classes will engage with the present and what is happening right now. With the world moving so fast - a pandemic, fires burning across the US west, people marching in the streets across the globe, and the storms that seem to keep coming, it is critical we ask questions of ourselves as artists, designers, educators and cultural producers: What responsibility do we have at any moment in history? How can the diversity of our practices: research, study, making and actions, address the present and design the future we want to see? In RSII courses students will investigate this shared departmental thematic through the intersection of their own practice and the pedagogical practices of their faculty. All RSII classes are interdisciplinary, faculty have provided a subtitle, and a short description to describe the lens through which their class will explore the theme of Contemporary Now.

This class engages with feminist and queer theory to explore non-traditional methods of engaging with clay. Students will cultivate strategies for producing artwork in dialogue with conversations on the body as a medium, gender, and sexuality. Throughout the course, students will draw from assigned text, research, and art historical references as a source for contextualizing their own practice. Projects will explore the use of form, formlessness, and performance as processes for manipulating ceramic material.

This class engages with feminist and queer theory to explore non-traditional methods of engaging with clay. Students will cultivate strategies for producing artwork in dialogue with conversations on the body as a medium, gender, and sexuality. Throughout the course, students will draw from assigned text, research, and art historical references as a source for contextualizing their own practice. Projects will explore the use of form, formlessness, and performance as processes for manipulating ceramic material.