| Material Manipulation: Introduction to Fibers |
Early College Program Summer Institute |
403 (001) |
Summer 2025 |
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Description
In this fiber-focused course, students will turn secondhand materials into bold, original artworks. Beginning with a trip to a local thrift store, students will collect discarded materials and deconstruct them using scissors, seam rippers, rotary cutters, and their hands¿creating a personal palette of raw materials. These elements become the foundation for creative projects using techniques such as soft sculpture, hand and machine stitching, dyeing, wrapping, appliqué, tapestry weaving, and collage. Photography and video will be used to document any wearable, performative, or temporary work. Inspired by artists like Nick Cave, Tara Donovan, Isa Genzken, and Samantha Bittman, students will explore reuse, transformation, and storytelling through materials. Trips to the Art Institute of Chicago, local galleries, artist studios, artist presentations, and group critiques supplement the studio experience.
NOTE: Students do not need prior experience for this course, but basic hand sewing skills are helpful. Students are encouraged to bring a digital camera, tablet, and/or laptop for homework/research and after-studio hours projects.
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Class Number
1060
Credits
2
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| Introduction To Fiber/Material Studies |
Fiber and Material Studies |
2000 (002) |
Fall 2025 |
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Description
This course introduces students to a diverse range of textile materials, processes, histories, politics, traditions, and cultures of fiber and their relationships to contemporary art practice. Historical and contemporary approaches to process and materials are explored as students are introduced to a variety of fiber techniques in construction and surface application. Taught technique can include printing, tapestry weaving, immersion and resist dyeing, knitting, crochet, felting, coiling, hand embroidery, machine sewing, piecework, and embellishment. Textiles have rich and complex histories in all cultures. Examples from across time and place will be explored and discussed through visual presentations, assigned readings, in-class discussions, visiting artist lectures, and field trips.
By the end of this course, students will become familiar with the formal, conceptual, expressive, and political potential of fiber as an expressive medium with limitless possibilities.
Course work will vary but typically includes the creation of technical samples, critique projects, and reading responses.
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Class Number
1443
Credits
3
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| Craft and Object in Contemporary Art |
Fiber and Material Studies |
2900 (036) |
Spring 2026 |
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Description
The word 'craft' has been used both as a badge of honor and as a dismissive slur. This seminar will explore the stereotypes, the history and the changing status of craft in relation to contemporary art in America.
We will read essays by craft theorists and makers including Marie Lo, M. Anna Fariello, Bruce Metcalf, L.J. Roberts and Namita Gupta Wiggers and watch the PBS Docuseries 'Craft in America' to help us triangulate an ever-shifting definition of craft. Students will bring previously-critiqued, in-process and revised work to 3 critiques, where an emphasis will be placed not just on WHAT objects mean but also HOW they mean.
Course work includes weekly free-writing, reading discussions, and several assignments designed to help students articulate their artistic concerns and contextualize their work.
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Class Number
1783
Credits
3
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| Time, Material, and the Everyday |
Fiber and Material Studies |
3030 (001) |
Fall 2025 |
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Description
Diverse aspects of material studies (personal, social, political, economic, visual and formal) will be considered in this course, working from forms and structures that are hand-constructed, as well as everyday found objects. The class will begin with a series of exercises exploring the visual possibilities of recording time and movement in repetitive everyday actions. Hand processes of netting, crochet and other intertwining techniques will be introduced through the language and systems of both textiles and the digital. Readings and visiting artists will present a range of ideas about art and the everyday, opening up dialogue about forms and formats of installation and documentation.
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Class Number
2150
Credits
3
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| FIBER: Sustainable Practice/Sustainable Life |
Fiber and Material Studies |
3918 (001) |
Spring 2026 |
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Description
This professional practice seminar emphasizes sustainability (emotional, economic, and environmental) as key for living artists. Each student will develop a sustainable work flow for organizing opportunities, documenting expenses, and applying for exhibitions, grants and residencies. Emphasis will be placed on sustainable material sourcing, both for environmental concerns and our own economic needs. Discussions and readings will revolve around how to keep making art, even when life gets in the way. Students will learn practical skills that serve their work (tweaking artist statements for various opportunities, developing and maintaining a website, ongoing research ) along with stress-management techniques (organized work flow, time-management, knowing when to take a break and how to rest more effectively, peer-to-peer support, dealing with rejection). This course will address the myriad ways studio artists get paid outside the commercial gallery system via recorded interviews with living artists. Readings include 'Art and Fear' (David Bayles and Ted Orlando) and 'Artists Gotta Eat and Other Things We Forget to Remember' by Tempesst Hazel. Past Visiting Artists have included Selina Trepp, who uses and reuses the material in her studio, and Sadie Woods, who is an artist, curator and DJ. Similar Visiting Artists will be chosen in future semesters. Each student will create a personal opportunities database, create a submission for the opportunity of their choice, write an artist statement, bio and CV, build a portfolio website, give an artist talk and develop a sustainable plan for sourcing materials and managing stress.
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Class Number
1586
Credits
3
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| UGRD: Senior Exhibition (Spring) |
Undergraduate Studies |
4922 (004) |
Spring 2026 |
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Description
Students who enroll in Capstone: Senior Exhibition must have been assigned the Spring exhibition at SAIC Galleries. The Spring exhibition assignment takes place in the preceding term (Fall). Enrollment in this course will only be permitted for students eligible for the Spring exhibition. Students who fail to subsequently complete the Spring exhibition registration process may not ultimately participate in this exhibition-focused course.
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. The class will collaboratively organize a group curated section of the exhibition. Students will tackle both critical and practical aspects of exhibition planning from writing conceptual supporting texts to the nuts-and-bolts methods of installation and preparator work. 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.
Prerequisite: To enroll, students must be assigned to the Spring exhibition at SAIC Galleries. Assignments take place in the preceding term (Fall). Students who fail to complete the registration process may not ultimately take this course.
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Class Number
1149
Credits
3
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