AMST 304 - Sculpture II

1 unit(s)

(Same as ART 304) Topic for 2024/25a: Thinking Doing: Research and Creative Practice is a multidisciplinary laboratory for research-based creative production. Crosslisted between Studio Art and American Studies, this course welcomes advanced studio-art students and upper-level students from across the disciplines at Vassar who are engaged in creative work as a major component of their studies. The course fosters the creation of research-based work in forms other than academic writing. We ask ourselves the following questions: How can research be embodied and materialized? What is the full range of diverse forms that knowledge production can take? How does research fuel creative practice? How can we acknowledge our influences and nurture our creativity through engagement with those who came before us? Students in this course are challenged to expand your making practice, producing several ambitious creative projects over the course of the semester. Weekly course materials are determined in relation to each student’s interests, and each class-member is responsible for engaging your peers in discussion about the questions, themes, and histories relevant to your individual work. As a class, we look to writing by artists to better understand the ways that artists articulate the questions motivating their creative process and the artworks that result from it. The course is punctuated by rigorous group critique, with the aim of strengthening your work and gaining fluency in the skill of giving and receiving critical feedback within a diverse community. The heart of this class is to support each participant in developing as a creative practitioner and a scholar by identifying and exploring your unique guiding questions through research, conversation, and hands-on making. This course is ideal for seniors from Studio Art, American Studies, and other departments and multidisciplinary programs, though juniors can also enroll with permission.

Prerequisite(s): ART 102-ART 103 and any two 200-level studio art courses, or permission of the instructor.

Two 2-hour periods.

Not offered in 2024/25.

Course Format: CLS