A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.

AJ McClenon

Lecturer

Personal Statement

Originally from Washington D.C, AJ grew up in "D.C. proper," Baltimore and New York during the Reagan, Clinton and the Bush administrations. A.J's work sets personal narratives alongside empirical data, leveling the hierarchies of truth. AJ holds a Masters in Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and received a Bachelor of Arts with a minor in creative writing from the University of Maryland College Park. AJ has also studied at Eugene Lang College. AJ has performed and shown work throughout the US, at locations like Steppenwolf, The Promontory, Woman Made Gallery, Echo Park Film Center, Chicago Filmmakers, Terrain Exhibitions, Gallery 400, Compliance Divisions, Fine Art Complex 1101 and Longwood Arts Center. AJ is currently the co-director of Beauty Breaks, an intergenerational beauty and wellness workshop series for black people along the spectrum of femininity. AJ is also a co-founder of F4F, a domestic venue that cultivates a femme community, centers blackness, and expands upon understandings of what domestic space can be.

 

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

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.

Class Number

1296

Credits

3

Description

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.

Class Number

1703

Credits

3

Description

As humans what is our relationship to objects and the planet that we reside on? As artists is it our responsibility to have a sustainable practice and should we be actively aware of our material footprints? After breaking down the life and journey of objects and their material footprints and looking to nature and the city as ephemeral material we will intentionally approach materials, objects and our environments; engaging in recycling, exchanging and repurposing practices. We will get to know sustainable practices such as bio art, closed loop fashion, eco design, ecological art, land art, renewable energy sculpture and upcycling; looking at artists such as Chakaia Booker, Brian Jungen, Choi Jeong Hwa, Suzanne Anker, Patricia Johanson and many more. Students will read through the catalogue book for the 2005 exhibition : ''Beyond Green: toward a sustainable art,'' that was shown at the Smart Museum of Art. We will also visit relatable shows in the Chicago area. To seek more affordable and sustainable ways to art shop and find previously used materials we will be visiting Chicago locations such as The Wasteshed and Creative Chicago Reuse Exchange. Students will engage in a material/object study where they choose one material or one object to research and then create a final piece that represents this material or object: sculpture/installation, short film, fashion line, or another proposed medium approach.

Class Number

1665

Credits

3

Description

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

Class Number

1321

Credits

3 - 6