CORNISH. ART & DESIGN
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BFA Show Installation (detail), 2011 Photo: Winifred Westergard
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EQUAL OPPORTUNITY Cornish College of the Arts does not discriminate in education or employ足ment on the basis of: gender, race, national origin, religion, age, marital status, sexual orientation, disability or veteran status. This policy is consistent with relevant federal regulations and statutes, including those pursuant to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Questions regarding the application of this policy and information on services for disabled persons may be referred to the Dean of Student Affairs or the Director of Human Resources.
ART & DESIGN AT CORNISH
Before college, most visual artists investigate a broad range of media in identifying a creative direction. The Art and Design departments have developed distinct curricula, enabling you to deepen your ability to read visual language and expand the diverse skills required, both practically and intellectually, to be artists and designers in the 21st century.
At Cornish you have a range of opportunities and choices in the visual arts. In the next few pages you will get a snapshot of the differing identities and commitments of the Art and Design departments.
Shane Long (2005), Book Design
Cornish College of the Arts is a dynamic creative community where you will begin the journey of finding your voice as an artist or designer. This is an ongoing process, and your study over four years will enable you to explore and define your individual path.
ART & DESIGN AT CORNISH
Juan Franco, Products of Material Bodies (2013), work in progress documentation, (photo by Haley Bates)
“MY DEVELOPMENT AS AN ARTIST AT CORNISH CONSTANTLY PUSHES ME TO THINK AND ENGAGE CRITICALLY WITH THE WORLD AROUND ME. WITH THE RIGHT BALANCE OF TECHNIQUE AND CONCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT, I HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO EXPLORE MY INTERESTS IN A BREADTH OF DISCIPLINES AND IN A DEPTH OF CRITICAL METHODOLOGIES. CORNISH TEACHES ME TO VALUE THE EXPERIENCE OF ARTISTS AND THEIR ABILITY TO REDEFINE WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN.” — JUAN FRANCO, ART ’14
In each department, you start with a strong foundation year that gives you the tools and skills upon which to build your creative practice. This first year experience will help guide you to define your chosen route of study. In both departments, you will meet visiting artists and designers that open up new and exciting perspectives and offer important insights about career options and possibilities. Through internships and external projects, you will have the chance to apply what you have learned in a community context.
You will experience all of this in Seattle, a global center of creativity. Providing you with a range of museums, galleries, art spaces, collectives, award winning design firms and some of the most innovative companies in the world – combined with a lively arts community in both the performing and visual arts – you will be inspired and challenged in and outside of the College.
New Media Hybrids (2011), Art Direction: Reilly Sinanan, Sound Design: Danie Allinice, Performers: Camryn Kelly, Deborah Corrales, Nicole Daigle
ART & DESIGN AT CORNISH “CORNISH SET A HIGH BAR IN THE VISUAL ARTS MANY DECADES AGO WITH FACULTY LIKE MORRIS GRAVES, MARK TOBEY, GUY ANDERSON, AND IMOGEN CUNNINGHAM. CORNISH CONTINUES THAT STREAK OF EXCELLENCE NOW WITH INSTRUCTORS WHO ARE SOME OF THE FINEST ARTISTS WORKING IN OUR COMMUNITY. OVER THE YEARS, MANY GENERATIONS OF STUDENTS HAVE ENJOYED SUCH GROUND-BREAKING FACULTY AND MADE THE MOST OF THEIR EXPERIENCES ON THEIR WAY TO BECOMING PRACTICING ARTISTS. AMONG MY GALLERY’S CURRENT STABLE OF REPRESENTED ARTISTS ARE THE TRIO SUTTON/BERES/CULLER WHO BEGAN AT CORNISH AS STUDENTS AND HAVE RETURNED RECENTLY AS FACULTY MEMBERS. NOW THAT’S AN EXCELLENT TRACK RECORD.” — GREG KUCERA, (SEATTLE GALLERIST)
At Cornish you have the opportunity to explore other disciplines across the College, expanding your practice. You can work with students from other departments (Music, Dance, Theater, and Performance Production) via electives both in the studio disciplines, Humanities & Sciences, and independent study/project design.
IMAGINE: working on a motion piece with original music scored and performed by fellow students; collaborating with theater students whose voices bring your animation to life; partnering with lighting design students to illuminate a special installation; designing a poster to promote colleagues’ performances and exhibitions.
Karina Nyquist, Conversation Piece: The Secret to a Successful Dinner Conversation (2013), 36 x 36 x 36 inches, BFA Exhibition (photo by Winifred Westergard)
ART & DESIGN AT CORNISH “AS A PERFORMANCE ARTIST INTERESTED IN CROSSING BORDERS AND BLURRING LINES, I TREASURE THE OPPORTUNITY TO STUDY ALONGSIDE INDIVIDUALS OF ALL CULTURES AND ARTISTIC DISCIPLINES. CORNISH HAS PROVIDED A SPACE IN WHICH THIS CROSS CONTAMINATION OF FIELDS CAN OCCUR — AN AESTHETIC AND PERFORMATIVE POLLUTION CREATING A NEW UNDERSTANDING OF BEAUTY. CORNISH HAS, TIME AND AGAIN, REWARDED THIS SPIRIT OF EXPERIMENTATION AND RISK TAKING.” — REILLY SINANAN, ART ’14
JD Banke, The beauty of it all is that you create your own beauty out of it all. (2013), BFA Installation (photo by Bellevue Fine Art)
FINE ART AT CORNISH
The Fine Art community at Cornish actively promotes the creative environment and the intellectual context for artistic experimentation and risk taking. Aimed at aspiring artists from a broad range of backgrounds, this program offers a unique cross-disciplinary environment where the margins between drawing, video & digital media, print, painting, sculpture, sound, photography, performance, and writing are dissolved in favor of inventive alliances.
Fine Art offers an exciting opportunity for students to work from the depth of their chosen discipline(s), while investigating the interfaces between material, digital, spatial, temporal, and textual media. The spectrum of making through thinking, and thinking through making, is enhanced by this exciting and challenging exchange.
The Main Gallery has been a significant feature and resource at Cornish for many years, and has hosted the work of many renowned artists. Alongside the main space, students are invited to submit proposals to create work for The Collaboratory, a project space located in the gallery that is dedicated to interdisciplinary explorations across the College. This represents the very best of Cornish’s unique identity as one of only three colleges in North America that offers both the visual and performing arts.
External and community engagement is a priority and embedded in the program. We support study abroad, residencies, collaborative projects, commissions, exhibitions, internships and competitions. One notable example is the Loan Exhibition Partnership established in 2005 between the Art Department and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Numerous resources are open to Cornish students such as the Mary Alice Cooley Print Collection, and the Henry Art Gallery Collections at the University of Washington.
Natalie Friedman, Altitude 1-3 (2013), photographs 64 x 43 inches, projection variable dimensions, BFA Installation (photo by Bellevue Fine Art)
FINE ART AT CORNISH
“IT HAS BEEN A PLEASURE TO WATCH MY DAUGHTER DEVELOP AS AN ARTIST DURING HER TIME AT CORNISH. SHE CHOSE TO MOVE FROM HER NATIVE NEW YORK CITY TO ATTEND A SCHOOL THAT OFFERED A STRONG FOUNDATIONS YEAR WHERE SHE COULD EXPLORE ALL MEDIUMS AND VENUES. AS SO MUCH WORK IN THE CONTEMPORARY ART FIELD TODAY IS INTERDISCIPLINARY, CORNISH PROVIDES ITS STUDENTS THE TOOLS TO EXCEL IN MULTIPLE ARENAS. IN ADDITION, STUDYING WITH STUDENTS IN THE PERFORMING ARTS OFFERS OPPORTUNITIES FOR FINE ARTS MAJORS TO EXPAND THEIR FOCUS INTO THE WIDE BREADTH OF WHAT CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS ADDRESS TODAY.” — BARRY FRIEDMAN, (NYC GALLERIST)
Cameron Bowers, Focus (2012), 3-channel video, 3:42 min
FINE ART FOUR YEARS AT A GLANCE
YEAR 1
YEAR 2
EXPOSURE, EXPLORATION, PROCESS
EXPERIMENTATION – SHIFTING DESTINATIONS
As a freshman in the Art Department, you engage in learning to read visual languages and explore art practices through contextual, historical, and critical studies. In this year you will rotate through and explore media studios, learning to situate work “within process” and learning to value process itself as “the work.”
In the sophomore year, you will build on your exploratory first year and continue to identify key areas of interest. This is the time when you start to develop agency and ownership of your own artistic choices: media, methodologies, processes, materials, etc.
The focus is on building technical, practical, rhetorical, and conceptual skills so that you can broaden your experience, challenge yourself and work outside your comfort zone. Year 1 is a time in which you will expand your awareness, develop experiential knowledge, and start to identify where your interests lie.
The acquisition of skills continues within the context of your experimentation. Many students prefer to specialize while others embrace cross-disciplinary approaches. The program enables and supports this diversity. The contextual, historical, and critical studies component of your education continues throughout the four years, in the recognition that the line between making and thinking is always permeable.
CRITIQUE IS AN EXPLORATORY AND SPECULATIVE APPROACH, AND IS USED TO ENCOURAGE ACTIVE PARTICIPATION AND EXCHANGE OF IDEAS.
YEAR 3
YEAR 4
DEVELOPMENT – ESTABLISHING PRACTICE
CONSOLIDATION, REALIZATION, DISSEMINATION
The junior year defines and establishes your emergent practice. You will extend and develop your work through an informed relationship between content, context, and audience. The spectrum of technique, practical application and research is fluid, and you will identify your place within this exchange. This is a time of self-directed practice and further developing your critical skills.
As a senior you will consolidate your learning and experience towards an authored practice, concluding with a public outcome at the end of the year. This is the time when you will propose, develop, and realize a body of work, accompanied by critical writing.
This is normally the year that students choose to study abroad, compete for participation in the New York Studio Residency Program, or take part in the AICAD Mobility Program.
You will participate in cross-disciplinary critiques and reviews. Professional practice will be embedded in your studies and you will apply these skills throughout the year, via networking, commissions, self-promotion and related writing. Your time at Cornish culminates in the BFA exhibition, a widely attended event for the Seattle community. This is both a point of departure and commencement.
Students viewing Work in Progress by SuttonBeresCuller (2011), Cornish Main Gallery
FINE ART AT CORNISH
The faculty’s knowledge and expertise is wide ranging and supports our commitment to cross-disciplinary methodologies and practice. 2012-13 was an active year for faculty exhibitions and screenings, including: Robert Campbell’s experimental feature film, Pulchrior in Luce premiered at the International New Media Festival, Santa Fe Center for Contemporary Art; Cable Griffith’s painting installation Natives at SeaTac International Airport; Kathleen Rabel’s work included in the exhibition Black and White Color Study from the Permanent Collection at the Museum of Northwest Art, Washington; Bonnie Biggs, Campbell and Griffith in the exhibition Chamber Music at the Frye Art Museum; Ruth Tomlinson’s recent residency and installation entitled Lost Long: a landscape at Jack Straw New Media Gallery, Seattle; Tina Aufiero’s installation Distillations and Eruptions at the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery in Ontario; and Eirik Johnson’s (2012 Neddy at Cornish recipient in Open Medium) exhibition Barrow Cabins at the Rena Bransten Gallery in San Francisco.
Students have been equally successful, for example: Sierra Kohler was awarded a placement at the New York Studio Residency Program in Brooklyn, NYC; Syd Brown and Danielle Allinice awarded scholarships from the Puget Sound Group of Northwest Painters; and Reilly Sinanan, who is currently a company member for the performance troupe Degenerate Art Ensemble, being selected as one of twenty artists to study with legendary performance artist Guillermo Gomez Peña in Tucson, Arizona; and recent graduate Emily Joseph has been awarded a public art commission by InCity Properties to create a site-specific work in the summer of 2013 in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle.
OUR ALUMNI SPAN THE GLOBE AND OFFER YOU A LIFELONG PROFESSIONAL NETWORK.
The College has established exciting external partnerships to enable you to expand your study experience and extend your practice. Pilchuck Glass School TheFilmSchool, Seattle AICAD Mobility Program New York Studio Residency Program
Being educated as a contemporary artist, your career options are non-linear, wide and far-reaching. It is our aim to give you the diverse and flexible skills necessary to open up potential directions for your future professional life, which could include: research at the postgraduate level (MFA); or becoming a professional artist, filmmaker, project manager, studio manager, fabricator, animator, curator, writer, printer, photographer, arts administrator, publisher, educator, technical instructor, preparator, producer, picture/archive researcher; working in public art contexts, museums, or working in the areas of digital imaging, production and post-production, web authoring, new media production ...just to name a few.
John Radtke, (left) Sticks and Stones (2013), plywood, gesso and mixed media on paper; The Cut Was Too Deep (2013), found objects, BFA Exhibition (photo by Betsy Mobbs)
FINE ART AT CORNISH
“WE ARE COMMITTED TO AN INTEGRATION OF PRACTICAL EXCELLENCE, ACADEMIC RIGOR, AND TECHNICAL FLEXIBILITY, GIVING YOU THE SKILLS REQUIRED TO SUCCEED IN A TIME OF COMPLEXITY AND CONVERGENCE. THIS VALUABLE AND MEMORABLE TIME OF STUDY WILL PROVIDE THE SPRINGBOARD FROM WHICH YOU WILL LAUNCH AN EXCITING CAREER WITH CONFIDENCE AND REFLECTIVE AWARENESS.” — CHRISTY JOHNSON, ART DEPARTMENT CHAIR
DESIGN AT CORNISH
Design studio, 2011
Media, information systems and created environments mold the ways we live and work today. At Cornish, we believe that designers are people who use their talents to shape our world for the better—creating spaces and experiences that promote innovation, environmental and economic sustenance, and that contribute to the health, well-being, and dignity of all people.
Cornish Design offers a student-centered education. Our department is small enough to work with every student personally, and we support each student’s particular range of talents. First, students develop the timehonored foundational skills: drawing, painting and 3D fabrication. Then, while using the most current in digital tools, they incorporate design history, visual intelligence, creativity and design thinking into their skill-sets.
Ross McCampbell, Design BFA Exhibition, 2012. Photo: Winifred Westergard
DESIGN AT CORNISH
The Cornish Design foundation year gives our students the basic skills they need to excel in our three concentrations of Visual Communications (Graphic Design and Illustration), Motion Design (Motion Graphics, 2D Animation, 3D Animation, and Interactive Design) and Interior Design. This first year— a year of project-based learning—hones the student’s skills with work that deals with topics ranging from designing for social change to conceptualizing futuristic worlds.
Through their four years as a part of Cornish Design, guided and mentored by a faculty made up of award-winning, practicing designers, students master the tools and skills needed to become working designers. Perhaps just as importantly, they understand design’s role in the world and their responsibility to that world and to their own talent and well-being.
Design BFA show, 2011
DESIGN AT CORNISH
Ours is an important time to be a designer. Design thinking is being recognized by many different fields as a valuable way of thinking about and solving the problems of a complex and interconnected world. In order to adapt to society’s increased demand for innovation, today’s creative practices are becoming more and more hybrid. Motion and VisCom designers find themselves working on User Experience and User Interface design; Interiors firms are growing their VisCom capabilities and Interior designers find themselves working with exhibitions design teams.
Cornish Design prepares students for this hybrid way of working by encouraging them to think innovatively, to break barriers, collaborate and create new definitions for their activities. It’s part of our school’s mission statement: we have pledged to develop designers, citizens and innovators. Unlike more traditional schools that are bound by the old belief that designers design in a vacuum, we emphasize collaboration, team projects and team solution-finding. These are the values that today’s industry leaders are seeking.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Animation still: Jethro Paler, 2009, Nina Malevitsis, 2011, Morgan Conley, Design BFA Exhibition, 2012
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Johanna Fitzgibbon, Design BFA Expo, 2013, Tim Sircoloumb, Design BFA Expo, 2013 BACKGROUND: Design Studio
DESIGN AT CORNISH
Our Design Internship Program is one of the most attractive reasons to study design at Cornish. Internships give students professional design experience with the most important studios in our region. Our internship program brings professional engagement and community involvement into our students’ education, dissolving the boundaries between student and professional life.
Throughout the year, Cornish Design students have access to a variety of events and activities, including our Visiting Designers program, public lectures, extra-curricular group projects, inter-departmental events, student interest groups and very active student chapters of the professional associations AIGA, IIDA and ASID.
Our graduates work in large design firms, small studios, large and small corporations, large and small nonprofits committed to positive social change, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and, of course, private practice. Many of our students go on to full-time employment at the organizations for which they interned, such as Digital Kitchen, Superfad, Hornell Anderson, Turnstyle, Modern Dog, Amazon, Starbucks, Callison Architects, Interior Architects, NBBJ Architects, and Microsoft. Other graduates decide to further their education at schools like Rhode Island School of Design, Yale University, School of Visual Arts, and California College of the Arts
Shane Long, 2008
“OUR CONNECTED WORLD DEMANDS SMART, CREATIVE INDIVIDUALS TO ENVISION NEW POSSIBILITIES. COME VISIT OUR CAMPUS AND MEET OUR COMMUNITY OF INSPIRED STUDENTS AND FACULTY EXPLORING TODAY’S COMMUNICATION CHALLENGES.” — JEFF BRICE, DESIGN DEPARTMENT INTERIM CHAIR
HUMANITIES & SCIENCES LIBERAL STUDIES LEARNING AND THE BFA DEGREE
An essential component of your BFA degree includes the courses you will take outside of your major in the Humanities and Sciences Department. As the general education division of the College, we provide a liberal studies curriculum that engages Cornish students in an exploration of the social, environmental and cultural contexts in which artistic production takes place, while developing critical thinking, problem-solving and communication skills. The curriculum helps you consider multiple perspectives when looking at complex problems and issues, drawing on a variety of ways to understand the world and our human experience. Our curriculum is constantly changing and inquiry based. It is intended to engage you in active analysis and problem-solving in relation to thematic issues that may have a long-
standing history, but that continue to challenge contemporary societies and individuals, both locally and globally. Classes are limited in size and conducted “seminar style.� Students at Cornish are not passive learners; they contribute to and help shape the experience in their classes. Many classes go into the community, exploring the urban and natural environment, doing field observations and visiting local organizations and the people involved in them. Both in and out of the classroom, instructors in Humanities and Sciences help you acquire the kind of confidence and competence that will serve you well both during and after college, in your personal and professional lives. In the end, our aim in Humanities and Sciences is to inspire the curiosity and habits necessary for life-long learning and development.