Cheryl Virginia Pope

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.

This studio course focuses on themes, practices, contexts, and questions undertaken by contemporary artists and designers. Research Studio I is a course that asks students to begin to develop and connect their own work and ideas with a diverse range of artists, designers, and communities. This course engages with cultural institutions including: museums, galleries, libraries and archives as resources of critical engagement.

Students will undertake various types of research activities: a) collecting and classification, b) mapping and diagramming, c) systems of measurement, d) social interaction, e) information search systems, f) recording and representation, and g) drawing and other notational systems.


Assignments in this course are faculty directed, open-media, interdisciplinary and idea based. The projects are designed to help students recognize their work habits, biases, strengths, and weaknesses. Students will experience a wide range of research methods and making strategies. Critique as an evaluative process used in art and design schools, is a focus in this course. Various methods and models of critique are used in order to give students the tools to discuss their own work and the work of others.

Students who enroll in Capstone: Senior Exhibition (Fall) will participate in the fall exhibition at SAIC Galleries and will be ineligible to participate in the spring exhibition. Students enrolling in this course must have senior status--90 credits or more completed--when the Fall semester begins.

This interdisciplinary capstone class is designed to help students recognize patterns of inquiry within their practice and to help contextualize their work in preparation for their Senior Exhibition. An assessment of previous work will be the starting point for ongoing critical inquiry into your creative professional practice, and how you might position and locate your own work in the art-worlds of the 21st Century.

Readings, screenings, and field trips will vary. Class visits by local artists will provide the opportunity to have a conversation about their lived experience sustaining a creative practice.

With an emphasis on faculty mentorship, class meetings will support the development of a body of work or project for the Senior Exhibition, building a strong portfolio, and planning for post-SAIC life.