Arts & Design The Reality Effect: Art and Truth in the 19th Century
Catherine Clinger
Lab Fee: $30 There are myriad realities described by artists and authors. This course concerns itself specifically with the development of visual Realism from 1800–1945 in Europe and America. We will examine the origin of artist methodologies of production as they relate to modernity. Our concerns will include the relation of art to significant political, sociological, and psychological programs of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The new realities created through revolutions in political and social structures, and in our understanding of the physical composition of the world itself are made evident in art that pictures social class, large historical moments, and a specific instant of time in a way that changes how we visualize reality and challenges our understanding of actuality. Students will be evaluated based on class participation, class discussion leadership, reading notes, and written papers.
Representing Nature, Envisioning Science
Steve Ressel
Dru Colbert In this studio-based course students will create visual projects that represent and interpret topics related to the natural world and to the life sciences. In part, this Class limit: 15 course responds to the ever increasing need to explain to general audiences Lab fee: $85 complex or conflicting scientific information such as the evidence for global warming or evolution, or the controversies around stem cell research or genetic engineering. Students will engage in hands-on activities in scientific illustration, natural history sketching, interpretive design, and information architecture, i.e. making the complex clear through diagrammatic representation. These projects provide opportunities to investigate techniques and develop skills in illustration, digital design, and activity-based “experience” design. Course content will include a survey of works by artists and designers that depict, interpret, or focus on the natural world and scientific issues of societal importance. Topic areas include the early depictions of the natural world, the enlightenment, art nouveau and its influence, contemporary fine arts, the museum and nature center, and medical and scientific illustration. Students will be evaluated on the quality and timely completion of projects along with participation in class activities and discussions.
Techniques, Skills, and Vision: Problems in Painting
Ernie McMullen
This course deals with the problems encountered in the development of the student’s personal voice in painting. Emphasis is placed on encouraging students to develop the techniques, compositional and color sense, and thematic consistency necessary to the development of self-assured artistic sensibility. Evaluations are based on the student’s artistic output as well as his or her devotion to the learning process. Prerequisites: 2d Design I or other drawing course or portfolio review. Offered every other year.
Class limit: 12
Theater
Staff
Lab fee: $160
A theater course at College of the Atlantic involves the full production of a play. Class time is spent on readings, performance skills, and rehearsals. The piece that will be performed is chosen by the instructor or with student input from information provided by the instructor. Students are evaluated on their attendance, participation and their involvement in group dynamics. There is ample opportunity for production work though not necessarily within the framework of the course.
Three-Dimensional Studio: Introduction to Three-Dimensional Art & Design
Dru Colbert
Class limit: 15 This course is an introduction to three-dimensional design and sculpture. Through a variety of projects students will analyze and apply the classic organizing principles Lab fee $75 of three-dimensional design work. Elements of form, space, line, texture, light, color, scale, and time (including sound, sensory perceptions, movement, and natural processes) will be explored — with attention paid to how a work functions, involves