ONLINE COURSES

WANDERING SPIRITS

with Joseph & Sarah Belknap

PHOTO | 615 001 | 3 CREDITS JUNE 5 - 17 | 10:00 AM - 12:30 PM CST

What does it mean to make an image? In this course we will make images and photographs using the Earth’s Sun in collaboration with photographic techniques that emerged in the 1800s and continue to be used in contemporary art. We will play with digital photography, anthotypes, cyanotypes, chlorophyll prints, and other alternative photographic techniques. We will utilize photography, drawing, painting, and collage to make images with depth, vibrancy, and wildness. Our images will be experienced through virtual worlds and platforms as well as physical spaces of the home, communities and other locations through posting, installing, inserting, publishing and other possible ways where images can be transmitted. The acceleration of image production has transformed our understanding of ourselves by folding the horizon in on itself. We will look into phenomenological studies of being while making images that examine our contemporary conditions of the power within our lives that these images can serve, deconstruct and reinvent. From social justice, deep fakes, intimacy, ecology - the political impact of images shape our existence. While we look at contemporary and historical image making we will look at ways of seeing. Artists will include Anna Atkins, Kiki Smith, Candice Lin, Zadie Xa, and Dario Robleto. Readings and screenings for this course will include Rebecca Solnit, Susan Sontag, Jean Painlevé, Sara Ahmed, and Hito Steyerl. Assignments will invite students to respond to the reading and viewing of Hito Steryerl’s work on How not to Seen and create a series of images using the Cyanotype Process. We will also consider the perspective points of the viewer and the processes of concealment that make this object or subject hidden in plain sight.

MATERIAL CODE

with Samantha Bittman

FIBER 626 / PAINTING 603 001 | 3 CREDITS JUNE 8 - 21 | 10 AM - 12:30 PM CST by weavers for the loom, can generate patterned binary code which can then be translated into textile, painting, sound, and many other media. Focusing on the communicative capabilities of their chosen material, students will draft and manipulate algorithmic pattern generators to produce endless patterns of 1’s and 0’s. Works made by artists including Anni Albers, Xylor Jane, Beryl Korot, and kg will lead us into conversations around the origins of weaving, the loom, computers, and algorithmic art making. Discussion will be supplemented by Bhakti Ziek’s “The Woven Pixel”, Beverly Gordon’s “Cloth as Communication”, and “Chris Ofili: Weaving Magic”. Assignments will include drafting a “Sample Blanket” with graph paper, colored pencil, and other flat materials and, while contemplating how material choice makes meaning, final pieces of any media that utilize the code will be shared amongst the group.

NATURAL PIGMENTS: PROCESS, MATERIAL, & HISTORY

with Gunjan Kumar

PAINTING | 676 001 | 3 CREDITS $150 LAB FEE | JUNE 22 - JULY 5 10AM - 12:30PM CST

Taking inspiration from ancient methods of image making this course will introduce students to the process of working with organic and inorganic natural pigments. These pigments have a distinct aura that when mixed with organic binders, in varying densities, can be used to achieve ethereal surfaces. Students will receive a kit to be able to mix their own media and will learn to work with pigments including calcium carbonate, powdered clays, oxides, ochers, and pine soot. The course will include on important sites of prehistoric cave painting around the world and derivative processes and materials in related schools of art. In addition to media mixing, color theory discussion, and the completion of two-dimensional self-directed artworks, assignments will guide students through various experiments in paper sizing and mounting. Students will be introduced to techniques of foraging and harvesting earth pigments from natural surroundings and this course will culminate in a presentation of completed work. 1. Sarah and Joseph Belknap, Yikes, 2020, 10 x 10 in.; 2. Samantha Bittman, Untitled, 2020, acrylic on hand-woven textile, 30 x 20 in.; 3. Gunjan Kumar, What Remains 1 (Detail), 2021, clay on handwoven raw (kala) cotton