Visual Arts Courses

Visual Arts

Introduction to Art Making

LCA 101 · Spring 2017

C01 · Mondays & Wednesdays, 11:00 am - 12:20 pm

Instructors: Aynsley Vandenbroucke · Boris Fishman · Daniel Heyman · Jane Cox · Ruth Ochs · Stacy Wolf · Susan Wheeler

How do artists make art? How do we evaluate it? In this course, students of all levels get to experience firsthand the particular challenges and rewards of art making through practical engagement with five fields — creative writing, visual art, theater, dance, and music — under the guidance of professionals.

Drawing I

VIS 202 / ARC 202 · Spring 2017

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Eve Aschheim · Kurt Kauper

This course approaches drawing as a way of thinking and seeing. Students will be introduced to a range of drawing issues, as well as a variety of media, including charcoal, graphite, ink, oil stick, collage, string, wire and clay.

Painting I

VIS 204 / ARC 328 · Spring 2017

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Eve Aschheim · Pam Lins

An introduction to the materials and methods of painting. The areas to be covered are color and its interaction, the use of form and scale, painting from a model, painting objects with a concern for their mass and interaction with light.

Analog Photography

VIS 211 · Spring 2017

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Jeff Whetstone · James Welling

An introduction to the processes of analog photography through a series of problems directed toward the handling of film-based cameras, light-sensitive paper, darkroom chemistry, and printing.

Digital Photography

VIS 213 · Spring 2017

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Deana Lawson · Jeff Whetstone · Fia Backström

This studio course introduces students to aesthetic and theoretical implications of digital photography, with an emphasis on mastering digital equipment and techniques, managing print quality, and generally becoming familiar with all aspects of the digital workspace.

Graphic Design

VIS 214 / ARC 214 / CWR 214 · Spring 2017

U01 - Alice Chung · Wednesdays, 12:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Alice Chung

This studio course will introduce students to the essential aspects and skills of graphic design, and will analyze and discuss the increasingly vital role that non-verbal, graphic information plays in all areas of professional life, from fine art and book design to social networking and the Internet.

Graphic Design: Typography

VIS 215 / CWR 215 · Spring 2017

U01 - Francesca Grassi · Tuesdays 1:30 - 4:20 pm and 7:30 - 9:40 pm

Instructors: Francesca Grassi

This studio course introduces students to graphic design with a particular emphasis on typography. Students learn typographic history through lectures that highlight major shifts in print technologies and through their engagement in studio design projects.

Introductory Sculpture

VIS 222 · Spring 2017

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Martha Friedman · Nathan Carter

A studio introduction to sculpture, particularly the study of form, concept, fabrication and the influence of a wide variety of materials and processes on sculpture and its consequences.

How to Make a Film

VIS 262 · Spring 2017

C01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm and 7:30 - 10:20 pm

Instructors: Yaara Sumeruk

Through hands-on studio work, screenings, critical readings and group critiques, this course teaches the basic tools and approaches for film production with digital media including writing, camerawork, sound, editing, and postproduction.

Documentary Filmmaking

VIS 263 · Spring 2017

S01 - Su Friedrich · Wednesdays 7:30 - 9:40 pm and Thursdays 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Su Friedrich

This course introduces students to documentary film production using digital video, with an emphasis on the practical challenges of working in the real world.

Introductory Printmaking

VIS 309 · Spring 2017

C01 · Tuesdays 1:30 - 4:20 pm and 7:30 - 9:40 pm

Instructors: Daniel Heyman

This course introduces techniques of copper plate etching, and relief printing. Assignments focus on applications of various printmaking techniques, while encouraging independent development of subject matter.

The Photographic Apparatus

VIS 311 · Spring 2017

S01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Fia Backström

Since it’s inception, the technical development of photography has arisen out of specific historical and political circumstances that have “naturalized” its practice and ideologically coded its apparatus. Through critical discussions, material examinations, and studio projects, this seminar will take a reflexive approach to photographic technology past, present, and future.

Lighting Design

THR 318 / VIS 318 · Spring 2017

C01 · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Jane Cox

An introduction to the art and craft of lighting design for the stage and an exploration of light as a medium for expression.

Topics in Cinema and Culture – White Men Gone Wild in Colonial Latin America

LAS 334 / VIS 323 / SPA 319 · Spring 2017

S01 · Tuesday and Thursday, 1:30 - 2:50 pm

Instructors: Nicole Legnani

An exploration of films made in the last fifty years featuring "descents into savagery" and the colonial, alphabetic texts that inspired them. Topics to be discussed, among others: primitivism and progress; coloniality; media and mediation; race and gender; intercultural dialogues; healing practices; community-based performances.

Women / Writing / Cinema

VIS 335 / CWR 335 / GSS 386 · Spring 2017

S01 · Thursdays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Rebekah Rutkoff

This course will be structured around female artists, both contemporary and historical, whose work exists at the crossroads of writing and moving images.

Sonic Cinema: Music, Noise, and the Moving Image

VIS 336 / MUS 302 · Spring 2017

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Amy Herzog

This course will explore the use of sound in relation to moving images, including film scoring, musicals, soundtracks, music videos, and experimental sound and video art.

Intermediate Video and Film Production

VIS 362 · Spring 2017

C01 · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Su Friedrich

For those who have taken a 200 level film production course and want to pursue their interest in writing, shooting and editing digital media, whether through documentary, narrative or experimental films.

Special Topics in Screenwriting: Intermediate Screenwriting: Writing the Feature Film

CWR 403 / VIS 406 · Spring 2017

C01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 3:50 pm

Instructors: Afia Serena Nathaniel

How does a screenwriter, organize and develop the ideas that will form a feature narrative script? In this class, students will become familiar with feature film structure, plot evolution, character development, scene shaping and dialogue, and effective techniques for achieving the complex visual and emotional rhythm required by compelling narrative scripts.

Painting II

VIS 404 · Spring 2017

U01 · Wednesdays, 12:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Pam Lins

This class will focus on how current painting considers the human figure.

Advanced Questions in Photography

VIS 411 · Spring 2017

C01 - Deana Lawson · Wednesdays 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Deana Lawson

This class will investigate the idea of "manipulation" in photography and examine different approaches to controlling form and content. Class lectures will look at the work of such artists as James Welling, Collier Schorr, Arthur Jaffa, and Boris Mikhailov, among others.

Advanced Sculpture

VIS 421 · Spring 2017

U01 · Wednesdays, 12:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Martha Friedman

This class will engage contemporary approaches to the figure and the various ways that artists contest, assimilate, and reckon with the human body in sculpture.