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

Undergraduate Overview

Ceramics Undergraduate Overview

Fall 2027 Early Action and Priority Merit Scholarship Deadline: November 15

As a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) student studying in the Ceramics department, you will develop close relationships with the department faculty who will guide your explorations and offer insight and inspiration to your artistic practice. Faculty are themselves working artists whose work appears in exhibitions, galleries, and museums around the world.

The undergraduate offerings provide unique conceptual and technical courses in the following areas:

  • Beginning pottery courses: students develop skills in throwing, learn the complexities of glazing and firing, and develop a vocabulary in vessel aesthetics.
  • Sculpture courses: students explore clay's potential in its many forms—fired, unfired, ready-made, plastic, or powder.
  • Multilevel courses: offered in vessels, sculpture, and theory. These courses vary in content each semester as the faculty changes.

Students are encouraged to explore the full range of ceramics as a contemporary art medium, creating vessels, installations, and work that crosses boundaries and incorporates sculpture, fashion, architecture, technology, and more. In addition to wheel throwing and technical studies, selected course topics include Potting for Pleasure and Protest, Clay as Chameleon, Clay Ecology, Musical Clay, and courses that focus on the 3D ceramic printer, moldmaking, and the human figure.

As students enrolled in ceramics courses, you will have access to:

  • Senior studios (application required)
  • Fully equipped mold-making and casting facility
  • Free bulk materials—clay, glazes, and kiln firing

Additionally, the city of Chicago is a major resource for ceramics students, with its rich terra cotta architectural heritage, the Art Institute of Chicago ceramics and glass collections, as well as galleries that show ceramic sculpture and pottery exclusively.

Undergraduate Admissions Requirements & Curriculum Overview

  • To apply to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), you will need to fill out an application and submit your transcripts, artist's statement, and letters of recommendation. And most importantly, we require a portfolio of your best and most recent work—work that will give us a sense of you, your interests, and your willingness to explore, experiment, and think beyond technical art, design, and writing skills.

    In order to apply, please submit the following items:  

    Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Portfolio:

    Submit 10–15 pieces of your best and most recent work. We will review your portfolio and application materials for merit scholarship once you have been admitted to SAIC.

    When compiling a portfolio, you may concentrate your work in a single discipline or show work in a breadth of media. The portfolio may include drawings, prints, photographs, paintings, film, video, audio recordings, sculpture, ceramics, fashion designs, graphic design, furniture, objects, architectural designs, websites, video games, sketchbooks, scripts, storyboards, screenplays, zines, or any combination of the above.

    Learn more about applying to SAIC's Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio, or view our portfolio preparation guide for more information.

  • Review the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio curriculum and degree requirements. Note: This is information for the current academic year. Any future curricular changes will be made when the new catalog is published.

Course Listing

Title Catalog Instructor Schedule

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.

Class Number

1159

Credits

3

Department

Ceramics

Location

280 Building Rm M153

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.

Class Number

1271

Credits

3

Department

Ceramics

Location

280 Building Rm M152

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.

Class Number

1162

Credits

3

Department

Ceramics

Location

280 Building Rm M153

Description

This course introduces students to sculptural ideas executed in various ceramic hand construction techniques including slab, coil, press mold, etc. Students will explore how the unique physical characteristics of clay can contribute to the content of the work. Construction strategies will be examined in a conceptual context, investigating issues of space, technology, and architectural implication to build a dimensional perspective of personal and societal relevance. Emphasis will be on process, exploration, and discussion.

We will examine artists who've instrumentalized clay in inventive and boundary-pushing ways. Some of the artists we'll look at are Arlene Schechet, Annabeth Rosen, Ron Nagel, Huma Bhabha, Genesis Belanger and more. Readings and screenings will vary but typically include interviews with contemporary artists and critical essays by Eva Respini, Clare Lilley, Rosalind Krauss and more.

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.

Class Number

1272

Credits

3

Department

Ceramics

Location

280 Building Rm M152

Upcoming Admissions Events

Meet with us, learn more about SAIC and our curriculum, and get feedback on your work. LEARN MORE.

SAIC Campus Tour
Nov11

Meet SAIC Day: November 11

Learn more about our undergraduate curriculum, tour our facilities & residence halls, see what we look for in an admission and merit scholarship portfolio, and learn more about financial aid. Bring your portfolio for a one-on-one conversation about your work with one of our admissions representatives!

Wednesday, November 11 9:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. CST at SAIC MacLean Ballroom 112 S. Michigan Chicago, IL 60603

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