Chris Salas

This class is an introduction to clay and technology unique to ceramics. This class is recommended for first year students. In this class we will begin to bring technology and clay together. This class will give you the fundamentals to continue your investigations into printing with clay. There is no required experience in 3d modeling to take this course. In this class objects will be created using Rhino from its commands such as Repeat, Rotation, Spin, Revolve, Round, Unroll, Unfold, Open, Line.. These pieces created virtually will be translated to reality via the Potterbot at SAIC in the Ceramics department. We will also look at rudimentary ways that we can be inventive and mimic the 3d printer at home with basic materials to create objects. We will look at artists working both in traditional and non-traditional methods. Discussion about the virtual and physical space will be a topic that will be discussed and how to negotiate that space as an artist. Artists will include but are not limited to: Tom Lauerman, Michael Eden, Stacy Jo Scott, Brian Boldon, Oliver Van Herpt, Slip Rabbit Studio, UNFOLD, Jonathan Keep. We will have weekly reading and articles covering topics related to ceramics and the digital, the history of the vessel and how the digital is seen in the contemporary art and design arena. Specific authors may be Jenni Sorkin, Okakura Kakuzo and Edmund de Waal.

This course takes students on a journey through the changing landscape of ceramic art, design, and production. Recent advances in rapid prototyping technologies provide designers and artists with more direct means for transforming concepts into physical form. In this course, students explore various ways to apply advanced technologies to ceramic design and production. Students will acquire basic skills in clay modeling methods, plaster mold making, slip casting, 3D Scanning, digital modeling, and digital output methods including 3D Printing and Laser Cutting. Basic knowledge for Rhino and/or other 3D modeling software is required. The technologies and methods for ceramic production have been developing over the course of thousands of years, often linked to specific material/cultural histories. Digital tools afford makers the ability to create, manipulate, distort, and ideate without the constraints of the ceramic process. Through slide lecture, readings, group discussions, demonstrations, and self directed projects, we will consider ceramic production methods of the past and how they influence contemporary art and design practices. In this course we will ask the questions: What are the benefits and the challenges of using ceramic materials? How can we use digital tools to assist in the ideation, prototyping, and the production of ceramic objects? How can we use ceramic materials to assist in the ideation, prototyping, and production of digital objects? What is the interplay between the digital object and the ceramic object?

This course takes students on a journey through the changing landscape of ceramic art, design, and production. Recent advances in rapid prototyping technologies provide designers and artists with more direct means for transforming concepts into physical form. In this course, students explore various ways to apply advanced technologies to ceramic design and production. Students will acquire basic skills in clay modeling methods, plaster mold making, slip casting, 3D Scanning, digital modeling, and digital output methods including 3D Printing and Laser Cutting. Basic knowledge for Rhino and/or other 3D modeling software is required. The technologies and methods for ceramic production have been developing over the course of thousands of years, often linked to specific material/cultural histories. Digital tools afford makers the ability to create, manipulate, distort, and ideate without the constraints of the ceramic process. Through slide lecture, readings, group discussions, demonstrations, and self directed projects, we will consider ceramic production methods of the past and how they influence contemporary art and design practices. In this course we will ask the questions: What are the benefits and the challenges of using ceramic materials? How can we use digital tools to assist in the ideation, prototyping, and the production of ceramic objects? How can we use ceramic materials to assist in the ideation, prototyping, and production of digital objects? What is the interplay between the digital object and the ceramic object?

In this studio and theory based class, we will explore the possibilities of low-fire ceramics and will consider how a ceramic studio is positioned within a local, regional, national, and global material culture. We will seek to understand and build relationships with common ceramics materials with the intention to gain an intuitive understanding how to best use them to create clay bodies and dynamic surfaces at a low-fire range. Students will work together to create and organize a communal database of materials and their properties, with the information gathered culminating into a research book published at the end of the course. We will consider firings in both oxidation and reduction, as well as alternative firing methods such as saggar and pit-firing.

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.