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2012 Courses

Courses for January Term 2012

ARTS 2580: Special Topics in Sculpture: Ceramic Figure: The Warrior [3]

William H. Bennett, Associate Professor

This course is a hands on studio course that will deal with the practice and history of Ceramic Sculpture focusing on the Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses dating from 210 BC, discovered in 1974 and depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor ofChina. These sculptures will act as a starting point for the creation of contemporary terra cotta sculptures. Students will work individually to make small terra cotta figures and collectively to make a life-size Terracotta Figure Sculpture using modem and ancient methods and materials. An Exhibition of the works will be held in the Ruffstuff Gallery of Ruffm Hall at the end of January 2012.

 

ARTS 2620: Introduction to Drawing II [3]

Dean Dass, Professor

Prerequisite: ARTS 1610

Drawing activity will be very broadly defined and the studio practice may include the use of cardboard, old envelopes, how-to manuals, old magazines, the photograph, bookbinding, xerography, and staining, and tracing, decalcomania, the typewriter, glue. The term will be divided into a very few sustained projects, each generating its own group of works.

Thematic drawings are a sustained series of drawings that have an idea or cluster of related ideas in common. Development of these drawings inform and content go hand in hand. The symbolic elaboration of a theme is the very essence of art. Working thematically, we will consider carefully a very short list of topics and explore each in great depth. We will look into the history of art for previous instances of these themes; in this way we will better inform our contemporary approaches. We will work imaginatively. We will visualize a course of action rather than visualize a result; in this way we will realize drawings that we must made in order to see what they look like. I hope that this is not a trivial point but points out the importance ofprocess. A work of art is no mere mental projection, like the way a slide is projected; a work of art is a construction.