| Introduction to Clay |
1000 (001) |
Javier Jasso |
Mon/Wed
6:45 PM - 9:15 PM
In Person
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Description
This course provides an introduction to clay as a material. Participants will be introduced to a wide variety of methods and techniques to build, decorate, and glaze ceramic. Demonstrations in Hand-building, coiling, slap-building and surface application including glaze development and application, slip decoration and firing methods, will give students a proficiency in working with clay and in the ceramic department. Introductions to the rich and complex history of ceramic through readings, lectures and museum visits, will provide students with exposures to the critical discourse of contemporary ceramic. This is primarily a beginner's course but open to all levels of students.
Readings will vary but typically include, Hands in Clay by Charlotte Speight and John Toki. Vitamin C: Clay and Ceramic in Contemporary Art by Clare Lilley. Ten thousand years of pottery by Emmanuel Cooper. 20th Century Ceramics By Edmund de Waal. Live Form: Women, Ceramics, and Community by Jenni Sorkin. The course will look at artist like Magdalene Odundo, George E. Ohr, Shoji Hamada, Roberto Lugo and Nicole Cherubini as well as historic ceramic from the Art Institutes of Chicago?s collection.
Students are expected to complete 3 projects by the end of the semester, Biweekly readings will be part of the course.
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Class Number
1175
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Credits
3
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Department
Ceramics
Location
280 Building Rm M152
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| Ceramics: Wheel Throwing Fundamentals |
1001 (001) |
Cassandra Scanlon |
Mon/Wed
6:45 PM - 9:15 PM
In Person
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Description
This course will focus on developing beginning and continuing skills on the wheel. Students will be introduced to fundamental methods for using the wheel as a tool to create vessels with consideration of their meaning and consequence and stretch the boundaries of utility. In addition to the design and structure of functional objects, this course will familiarize students with the working properties of ceramic material, firing methods, and glazes.
We will look at artists working both in traditional and non-traditional methods. Artists will vary, but some we will look at include: Edmund de Waal, Alleghany Meadows, Gerrit Grimm, Mike Helke, Steve Lee, and more. Readings will include articles covering topics about the convergence of fine art and craft, how objects affect our daily life and rituals, the place of craft within contemporary society. Specific authors may be : Chris Staley, Glenn Adamson, Jenni Sorkin, Okakura Kakuzo and Edmund de Waal
Projects vary, but typically there are 5-6 assignments in the course with each assignment consisting of 3-20 pieces of finished work with additional research in glaze and firing processes. Students will also have readings and responsibilities with firing work.
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Class Number
1178
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Credits
3
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Department
Ceramics
Location
280 Building Rm M153
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| Potting for Pleasure and Protest |
1005 (001) |
Liz McCarthy |
Thurs
3:30 PM - 9:15 PM
In Person
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Description
This intro course will allow students to build upon and deconstruct our preconceived notions of what a 'pot' is. Can a pot be a subversive act of defiance? Can it express pleasure, grief or discomfort? We will explore what a pot can say and do beyond mere function. Investigating materiality, process, and conceptual frameworks the pot will serve as a form through which we?ll unpack issues ranging from the primordial to the celestial. Students will learn technical ceramic processes while examining the histories, practices, and conceptual potentialities of the vessel.
We will look at artists who employ the vessel in their practice in a critical, subversive, personal and humorous ways. Some of the artists include Rubi Neri, Betty Woodman, Kathy Butterly, Theaster Gates, Sahar Khouri, Bari Ziperstein and more. Readings will include excerpts from ?Documents of Contemporary Art: CRAFT? and authors such as Glen Adamson, Edmund de Waal and Tanya Harrod.
Students should expect to produce a body of work consisting of assigned and self directed projects to be presented in a culminating midterm and final critique.
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Class Number
1179
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Credits
3
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Department
Ceramics
Area of Study
Community & Social Engagement, Art/Design and Politics
Location
280 Building Rm M153
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| Throwing: Multilevel |
2005 (001) |
Cassandra Scanlon |
Tues
3:30 PM - 9:15 PM
In Person
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Description
This multilevel class is for students with or without experience in wheel throwing. Beginning students are introduced to ideas, materials and techniques for throwing vessels. They acquire the necessary skills to construct and analyze a wide range of vessel forms. Intermediate and advanced students continue their individual development of throwing, glazing and firing kilns. Course discussions focus on issues around the vessel to acquire critical understanding of containers and their functions, as well as using the wheel as a means for constructing sculptural forms.
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Class Number
1172
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Credits
3
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Department
Ceramics
Location
280 Building Rm M153
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| The Human Figure in 3D |
2007 (001) |
Mark N. Stafford |
Mon
9:00 AM - 3:00 PM
In Person
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Description
A study of human anatomy for artists and representational figurative sculpting in clay, covering important and widely transferable formal principles and technical methods. In addition to traditional on-armature and handbuilding techniques, interested students will have access to ZBrush and may use it to produce maquettes and custom armatures through 3d printing and laser cutting. Qualified students may also have access to the Potterbot ceramic 3D printer for experimental use.
Readings, guides, and other reference materials will include excerpts from: Edouard Lanteri?s Modelling and Sculpting the Human Figure, Stephen Rogers Peck?s Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist, and Uldis Zarins? Anatomy for Sculptors: Understanding the Human Figure.
The course will be divided into three sections, the first two of which will involve the study of anatomy and sculptural technique. We will start with the bust (portraiture is optional), then move to the figure with scale studies of the torso, arms, and legs. Finally, students will have the opportunity to pursue a figurative project of their own design. Options for this project may include, but are not limited to: life-size or larger figures built in parts, figure groupings, formal and/or expressive figurative stylizations, and experimentation with the Potterbot ceramic 3D printer.
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Class Number
1180
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Credits
3
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Department
Ceramics
Area of Study
Class, Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality
Location
280 Building Rm M152
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| Digital Methods for Ceramic Production |
2011 (001) |
Mark N. Stafford |
Fri, Fri
9:00 AM - 3:00 PM, 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM
In Person
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Description
A survey of digital design, prototyping, and production methods, this course will familiarize students with the many ways artists and designers use digital technologies to facilitate traditional ceramic practices. Students will be introduced to basic CAD and modeling techniques using Rhino, Grasshopper, Blender, and ZBrush, and to both direct and indirect ceramic production methods using the PotterBot ceramic 3-D printer, AOC 3D scanners, and CDFS laser cutters & 3D printers. The emphasis is not on mastery of any particular program or process, but on introducing students to a wide range of techniques and concepts that they may fruitfully pursue in future work.
In addition, students will gain familiarity with the contemporary field of digital production, including current design and manufacturing technologies and the technical, formal, and conceptual uses to which they are put. Artists covered include Matthew Angelo Harrison, Jenny Sabin, Geoffrey Mann, Michael Eden, and Anya Gallaccio.
The course will be divided into three sections and will include four preliminary exercises and two projects. The first project focuses on direct digital production and will illustrate the mechanical and operational use of the Potterbot ceramic 3D printer. The second project will transition from direct to indirect production methods, from the acquisition of digital methods to their application, and on the incorporation of digital methods into students? established or developing practice.
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Class Number
1171
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Credits
3
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Department
Ceramics
Area of Study
Digital Imaging
Location
280 Building Rm M152, 280 Building Rm 127A
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| Beyond the Utilitarian Vessel |
2013 (001) |
Nancy Fleischman |
Sat
10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
In Person
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Description
An exploration of 20th and 21st century conceptual ceramic vessels focusing on the ways in which artists harness the rich history of ceramic production for contemporary purposes. The course will cover ideas of utility, domesticity, decorativeness, and ritual; it will explore relationships between industrial and digital mass production and handcraft; it will examine vessels as metaphors for the body, as carriers of culturally specific meaning, and as expressions of personal and political identity.
We will begin our examination of the conceptual vessel with an overview of ceramic history from the Arts and Crafts Movement through to the advent of what Anne Wilson dubbed ?Sloppy Craft.? We will consider famous 20th century works such as Duchamp?s Fountain, Meret Oppenheim's Object, and Judy Chicago?s Dinner Party, as well as canonical ceramics figures such as George Ohr, Peter Voulkos, Robert Arneson, Kathy Butterly, Betty Woodman, Viola Frey, and Beatrice Wood. Other artists will include: Ai Weiwei, Roberto Lugo, Grayson Perry, Diego Romero, Arlene Shechet, Francesca Dimattio, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Kukuli Velarde, Ann Agee, Liu Jianhua, Milena Muzquiz, Laurent Craste, Ehren Tool, Julie Green, and many others.
Readings will include excerpts from Glenn Adamson?s Thinking Through Craft and The Craft Reader, Elaine Cheasley Paterson and Susan Surette?s Sloppy Craft: Postdisciplinarity and the Crafts, and Moira Vincentelli?s Women and Ceramics: Gendered Vessels.
With a research intensive focus on the development of concepts, students will produce two vessel-based projects by any combination of hand building, wheel throwing, slip casting, 3d printing, and/or found object manipulation. In addition, students will prepare one 10-15 minute presentation on either a specific culture?s ceramic production or on a contemporary artist producing conceptual ceramic vessels.
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Class Number
1176
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Credits
3
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Department
Ceramics
Area of Study
Community & Social Engagement
Location
280 Building Rm M152
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| The Figure In Ceramics |
2021 (001) |
Pei-Hsuan Wang |
Tues
9:00 AM - 3:00 PM
In Person
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Description
Poetics of the figure. Shaping the boundaries between external reality and the inner self. Students explore and develop their interest in the figure, as character, poetics, fragment, representation, memory and narrative in their art practice. Historical and contemporary examples will be examined in lectures and discussions. The incorporation of found objects in the work as well as installation strategies will be encouraged. Demonstrations involving methods of construction, surface treatments and firing choices are available. Advanced students are invited to shape their own research.
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Class Number
2470
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Credits
3
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Department
Ceramics
Location
280 Building Rm M152
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| Top: Clay and Culture |
2035 (001) |
Emily Schroeder Willis |
Tues
9:00 AM - 3:00 PM
In Person
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Description
This course examines a variety of cultures (African, North, Central and South American, European, Asian) through the lens of their ceramic histories. Students will develop vessels based on a response to this cultural information. Each projects will be rooted in a discussion and a tour with a different curator at AIC. Topics addressed will be: gender and sexuality, domestic and ritual vessels, architecture and environment, politics and culture and class and industry.
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Class Number
1173
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Credits
3
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Department
Ceramics
Location
280 Building Rm M153
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| Top:Getting Weird & Hilarious |
2035 (002) |
William John O'Brien |
Thurs
9:00 AM - 3:00 PM
In Person
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Description
This class will explore both traditional and non-traditional approaches to firing and using clay to explore the topics of humor, exaggeration and perception. Historical references such as 1960s California Funk Ceramics, High Victorian Rococo, as well as more contemporary approaches to clay will serve as starting points for sculptural, installation and performative projects.
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Class Number
1183
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Credits
3
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Department
Ceramics
Location
280 Building Rm M152
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| Sophomore Seminar: Interdisciplinary |
2900 (021) |
Emily Schroeder Willis |
Thurs
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM
In Person
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Description
What are the concerns that drive one's creative practice? How does one set the terms for its future development? Sophomore Seminar offers strategies for students to explore, reflect upon, and connect common themes and interests in the development of an emerging creative practice that will serve as the basis of their ongoing studies at SAIC and beyond. Students will examine historical and contemporary influences and contextualize their work in relation to the diverse art-worlds of the 21st Century. Readings, screenings, and field trips will vary each semester. Presentations by visiting artists and guest speakers will provide the opportunity for students to hear unique perspectives on sustaining a creative practice. One-on-one meetings with faculty will provide students with individualized mentorship throughout the semester. During interdisciplinary critiques, students will explore a variety of formats and tools to analyze work and provide peer feedback. The class mid-term project asks students to imagine a plan for their creative life and devise a self-directed course of study for their time at school. The course concludes with an assignment asking students to develop and document a project or body of work demonstrating how the interplay of ideas, technical skills, and formal concerns evolve through iteration, experimentation and revision.
Prerequisite: Must be a sophomore to enroll.
Prerequisites
Prerequisite: Must be a sophomore to enroll.
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Class Number
1782
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Credits
3
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Department
Ceramics
Location
Lakeview - 1427
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| Deconstructing the Domestic and Infiltrating the Industrial |
3023 (001) |
Marie Herwald Hermann, Alex Chitty |
Wed
9:00 AM - 3:00 PM
In Person
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Description
This course deconstructs and reconstructs ceramic processes and materials to discover crossovers between handmade and industrially produced ceramic objects. We investigate how ceramic objects infiltrate other artistic disciplines by exploring the methodologies and historical use of ceramics as raw material in sculptures, or as props in paintings, cinema, photography, and performance. This course takes account of the ways that ceramics exists beyond the arts, within in our everyday lives, as a way to bridge those histories into the work we make together in this course.
Readings will vary but typically include Postproduction by Nicolas Bourriaud, Schizogenesis: The Art of Rosemarie Trockel, and look at a selection of works from artists such as: Mark Manders, Theaster Gates, Robert Gober, Ladi Kwali, Rachel Harrison, Nicholas Cage, Heather Cassils, and Rosemarie Trockel, Julia Philipps, Sterling Ruby, Eva Zeisel, Ai Weiwei, Betty Woodman, Arlene Shechet, and Rebecca Warren.
Students will practice traditional and nontraditional methods of working with ceramics. Students can expect to work alone and in groups to create, destroy, mend, reconstruct, and reformulate all manner of ceramic objects.
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Class Number
2143
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Credits
3
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Department
Ceramics
Area of Study
Public Space, Site, Landscape, Digital Imaging, Art and Science
Location
280 Building Rm M153
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| Deconstructing the Domestic and Infiltrating the Industrial |
3023 (001) |
Marie Herwald Hermann, Alex Chitty |
Wed
9:00 AM - 3:00 PM
In Person
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Description
This course deconstructs and reconstructs ceramic processes and materials to discover crossovers between handmade and industrially produced ceramic objects. We investigate how ceramic objects infiltrate other artistic disciplines by exploring the methodologies and historical use of ceramics as raw material in sculptures, or as props in paintings, cinema, photography, and performance. This course takes account of the ways that ceramics exists beyond the arts, within in our everyday lives, as a way to bridge those histories into the work we make together in this course.
Readings will vary but typically include Postproduction by Nicolas Bourriaud, Schizogenesis: The Art of Rosemarie Trockel, and look at a selection of works from artists such as: Mark Manders, Theaster Gates, Robert Gober, Ladi Kwali, Rachel Harrison, Nicholas Cage, Heather Cassils, and Rosemarie Trockel, Julia Philipps, Sterling Ruby, Eva Zeisel, Ai Weiwei, Betty Woodman, Arlene Shechet, and Rebecca Warren.
Students will practice traditional and nontraditional methods of working with ceramics. Students can expect to work alone and in groups to create, destroy, mend, reconstruct, and reformulate all manner of ceramic objects.
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Class Number
2143
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Credits
3
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Department
Ceramics
Area of Study
Public Space, Site, Landscape, Digital Imaging, Art and Science
Location
280 Building Rm M153
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| Top: Mystical Ceramics |
3035 (002) |
Sonya Bogdanova |
Wed
9:00 AM - 3:00 PM
In Person
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Description
Historically understood as the ecstatic experience of religious consciousness, mysticism has grown to encompass all visionary human experience and the pursuit of ¿ultimate truth¿. We will travel down several veins of this rhizomatic structure in the hopes of understanding its complex form. This course combines two modalities: extensive studio time and reading/discussion of mystical, esoteric, and occult texts. Emphasis will be on ceramic hand building, process, and conceptual exploration. Some of the topics and figures discussed will be mystery, magic, paganism, surrealism and dreams, folk horror, denkbild, parapolitics, pre-Columbian relics, Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, Louise Bourgeois, Rene Magritte, Huma Bhabha, Arlene Shechet and others. You can expect to produce a body of work consisting of assigned and self-directed projects to be presented in a culminating midterm and final critique.
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Class Number
1181
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Credits
3
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Department
Ceramics
Location
280 Building Rm M152
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| Technical Studies:Glaze |
3061 (001) |
Mie Kongo |
Fri
9:00 AM - 3:00 PM
In Person
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Description
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.
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Class Number
1169
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Credits
3
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Department
Ceramics
Area of Study
Art and Science
Location
280 Building Rm M153
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| Advanced Throwing |
4005 (001) |
Javier Jasso |
Sat
10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
In Person
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Description
This course will serve to illuminate and complicate the opportunities and challenges associated with making ceramics on the throwing wheel. Invented in Mesopotamia roughly 5000 years ago, the potter's wheel was a tool intended to speed up and increase consistency in the production of utilitarian ceramic vessels. The spectrum of practitioners using the potters wheel today spans the world and ranges from traditional artisans, design and crafts people to contemporary artists. Working with regard to this dynamic reality, this course will work to address and accommodate all manner of interests with the goal to enable students to make diligent use of the potter?s wheel, both in consideration of historical and contemporary methods and dialogs.
Advanced Throwing is for students already proficient in throwing techniques Pre rec. Wheel Throwing Fundamentals and Intermediate Throwing CER
We will look at artists working both in traditional and non-traditional methods. Artists will vary, but some we will look at include: Yuta Segawa, Dove Drury, Adam Silverman, Donte K. Hayes, Carl-Harry St?lhane, Gerrit Grimm, Steve Lee, and more. Readings will include articles covering topics about the convergence of fine art and craft, how objects affect our daily life and rituals, the place of craft within contemporary society. Specific authors may be : Jenni Sorkin, Okakura Kakuzo and Edmund de Waal
Students should expect to produce two bodies of work consisting of 20-30 finished pieces during the semester, to be presented in mid-term and final critiques.
Prerequisites
Must have completed one of CER 1001, CER 1012, CER 2005, CER 3000, CER or 3010
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Class Number
1174
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Credits
3
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Department
Ceramics
Location
280 Building Rm M153
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| CER: Ceramics Senior Critique Studio |
4905 (001) |
Pei-Hsuan Wang |
Thurs
9:00 AM - 3:00 PM
In Person
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Description
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 ART/WORK: Everything You Need to Know (and Do) As You Pursue Your Art Career. Additionally, students will present to the class about an artist/thinker and/or participate in a skill sharing workshop. 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 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. This course requires instructor consent. Fill out the form found at this link, https://tinyurl.com/35b26s78, to submit your portfolio and list of ceramics classes taken in the ceramics department.
Prerequisites
Prerequisite: Professional practice course
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Class Number
1152
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Credits
3
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Department
Ceramics
Location
280 Building Rm 109
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| Direct Access |
5002 (001) |
Marie Herwald Hermann |
Thurs
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM
In Person
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Description
This interdisciplinary studio seminar based in the ceramics department is designed for grad students interested in exploring the endless possibilities that clay offers as a material adapted into individual studio and research practices. The first portion of this class will be technically based to learn different modes of construction, mold making, as well as different glazing and firing techniques in ceramics. The second portion will be focused on independent projects, advising and critical discussions.
Readings will be a combination of history of ceramics, contemporary artist, and technical information. Some of the contemporary artists using clay within contemporary art practice we will study in this course include Cannupa Hanska Luger, Elizabeth Jaeger, Woody De Othello, and more. There will be discussions on the history of ceramics and how contemporary artists use clay in performance, sculpture, design, architecture, and print media.
Students should expect to produce a consistent body of work to be presented in a culminating course critique at the end of the session. Junior and Senior-level undergraduate students are welcome to enroll in this course and should email the instructor to seek authorization to register.
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Class Number
1963
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Credits
3
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Department
Ceramics
Area of Study
Class, Race, Ethnicity, Art/Design and Politics, Gender and Sexuality
Location
280 Building Rm M153
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| Grad Projects:Ceramics |
6009 (001) |
Marie Herwald Hermann |
TBD - TBD
In Person
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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.
Prerequisites
Open to MFA, MFAW and MAVCS students only
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Class Number
2276
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Credits
3 - 6
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Department
Ceramics
Location
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| Grad Projects:Ceramics |
6009 (002) |
William John O'Brien |
TBD - TBD
In Person
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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.
Prerequisites
Open to MFA, MFAW and MAVCS students only
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Class Number
2277
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Credits
3 - 6
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Department
Ceramics
Location
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