The Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), a professional degree program, creates a foundation for students who wish to have a career in the arts. BFA students specialize for four months in advanced studio courses in one of these areas: painting and drawing, ceramics, sculpture, photography, or digital media, and complete personal projects under the guidance of faculty who are experts in the area of specialization. During this time, students find their own voice within the visual language of their chosen field. Students develop a fine arts portfolio or undertake commercial art projects that may offer income or lead to employment after graduation.
Students who have a BA from Maharishi University of Management or another university may take a special BFA program that allows the holder of a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art to receive the BFA degree in as little as one year. The Art Department also offers a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate program, which is intended to provide an intensive fine arts studio experience to BFA graduates who may need more studio time in order to prepare a portfolio for application to an MFA program, or who need more experience working in their own studio to develop a body of work.
Every year a Visiting Evaluator assesses our students’ performance on the objectives listed below. The Evaluator, an experienced art professor at another university or art school, compares MUM students with the students he or she has taught. MUM art students often rate in the top 20% of all students the Evaluator has worked with, and some students rate in the top 10%.
Here are some comments from Evaluators:
The BFA program develops proficiency in the following areas, as shown by a preliminary but cohesive body of work of sufficient quality and quantity to launch the beginning of a career in art or an art-related field, or acceptance to a graduate school in art.
These outcomes are cultivated throughout the art curriculum and are strongly developed in the courses listed under each section.
Students can discriminate aspects of the formal language of art and make successful aesthetic choices.
BFA Senior Semester
Students can understand and apply principles of art and actualize ideas.
BFA Senior Semester
Students understand their strengths and how to utilize them in organizing the conditions for successful studio practice.
BFA Senior Semester
Students have a general vocabulary of materials and understand how chosen materials behave, and therefore what to use to achieve the desired results.
BFA Senior Semester
Students are versed in using art materials and tools: they are grounded in the technology of their area of focus.
BFA Senior Semester
Students can intelligently describe, interpret, and evaluate contemporary and traditional works of art.
BFA Senior Semester, Traditions of World Art, Prehistoric to Medieval Art, Renaissance to Contemporary Art, 19th and 20th Century Art, Contemporary Art and Criticism, Artist as Philosopher–Critical Theory
Students know how to access past artists and art works as sources of inspiration, and can articulate in a general way how the students’ work connects to the historical and contemporary context.
BFA Senior Semester, Understanding Art, Traditions of World Art, Prehistoric to Medieval Art, Renaissance to Contemporary Art, 19th and 20th Century Art, Contemporary Art and Criticism, Artist as Philosopher–Critical Theory
Students develop intuition and sensibility, allowing them to determine— through the repeated practice of creation, observation, and feedback—what is needed to successfully express their artistic aims.
BFA Senior Semester
Students develop the proficiency, confidence, and exposure that allow them to pursue a career in the arts.
BFA Senior Semester
Students interested in the BFA program apply to the Department after completing a minor in Art (20 credits including Art in Nature, Understanding Art and Media or an art history course, and 3 studio courses), or the equivalent experience based on approval of the Department. Students entering the program may be asked to submit a portfolio documenting examples of previous course work. Admission to the BFA program is based on portfolio and GPA. Continued participation in the program requires a 3.0 GPA or higher.
To graduate with a BA in Art, students must successfully complete all requirements for the bachelor’s degree. Therequirements for the BFA Graduate School Preparation Track are 96 credits (24 one-month courses):
Principles of Design: The Quest for Balance and Unity in Art and Life
This course provides the knowledge and practical experience of how visual elements are organized by principles universal to the fine and applied arts. Topics include examining and applying design principles and vocabulary such as figure/ground, interdependence, symmetry, rhythm, shape, and texture; understanding how these principles and their components apply to the scope of the visual arts, including drawing, sculpture, ceramics, photography, graphic design, architecture, fabric design, and landscaping; and understanding and expressing how design principles can be correlated to the balance and order of the universe and to individual life and living. (4 credits) Prerequisite: STC 108/109
Engaging the Principles of Observation through the Action of Drawing
In this course, students develop powers of observation and imagination, abilities that are vital for all the arts. Students focus on establishing the use of principles of drawing through observational methods. Topics include still life, figure drawing, interior and landscape. Art and design majors take drawing courses as they advance through the curriculum. Can be repeated for credit with permission of the instructor.
Materials fee: $35.
Prerequisite: STC 108/109
Culturing Aesthetic Sensibility by Appreciating the Arts as Expressions of the Heart, Mind, and Universal Self
Art and media are crystallizations of consciousness. This course cultures a deep appreciation for the arts through intellectual knowledge and direct experience. Slide lectures, discussions, readings, and workshops reveal that art is structured in the multilayered consciousness of the artist and the audience, and in the collective consciousness of the culture. The greatest art works give glimpses of the goal of all creativity — the universal Self in higher states of consciousness — and thus continue to inspire people throughout time. Topics include: the fundamentals of art — creativity, form, function, and symbolism; the great achievements of sacred art; archetypes of 2015/16 44 consciousness in the arts; and traditional and contemporary approaches to evaluating and interpreting art. Course includes field trips to art museums and an artist’s gallery.
Field trip fee: $50.
Deepening Artistic Experience and Intellectual Understanding for Creative Growth
Students examine the vocation, role, and responsibility of the contemporary artist and art critic in the light of their own artistic aspirations. This seminar focuses primarily on contemporary art and art criticism to develop the integration of intellectual understanding and studio practice. The concentrated experience of reading and writing about art cultures the habit of going more deeply into the substance of works of art, which nurtures the ability to more clearly apply and realize the highest values of visual expression. A highlight of the course is a field trip to a major art center, such as Chicago.
Field trip fee: $250–300 or more.
Prerequisite: BFA student or consent of the instructor
Students explore the great achievements of art and architecture in prehistoric cultures and in the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, Rome, Byzantium, and the European Middle Ages. In each of these cultures, the quest for immortality created art that continues to inspire human consciousness. Students examine how contemporary artists have been influenced by art from these periods. Topics include sacred sites that connected humanity with the cosmos, the Mother Goddess in art and culture, the development of styles in Egyptian and Greek art and how they mirror stages in the unfoldment of consciousness, and the creation of a heavenly kingdom on Earth in Christian art and architecture. A highlight of the course is a 4-day field trip to a major art center such as New York, St. Louis or Kansas City. Field trip fee: $175-$225 (or more). (4 credits) Prerequisite: STC 108/109
Renaissance to Contemporary Art: The Search for Fulfillment in Art and Life from the Renaissance to Modernism, Post-Modernism, and an Emerging Art of Expanded Awareness
Students focus on the most inspiring creations of Western art and architecture from the 1400s to the twenty-first century. They discover how artists have expressed both sacred and secular values in their quest for perfection in art and fulfillment in life. This epoch’s vast amount of art is comprehended in terms of cultural paradigms – a paradigm is both an era’s ideal of art and a world-view. The four major paradigms covered are: Renaissance, Modernism, Post-Modernism, and an emerging contemporary paradigm – an art of expanded awareness. Topics include the transformation of art and consciousness in each paradigm; the integration of spirit and matter in Renaissance art; how the art of the past has influenced modern artists; and the artists, styles, symbols cultural values, and aspects of consciousness expressed in the major paradigms. A highlight of the course is a 4-day field trip to a major art center such as Chicago. Field trip fee: $175-$225. (4 credits) Prerequisite: STC 108/109
Traditions of World Art: Exploring Ancient Art that Transcends Time and Place by Embodying the Wholeness of Life
Students journey through the glorious traditions of world art, including Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Islamic, African, and Native American art. All traditions reflect both unique cultural values and universal values, such as the aspiration to embody the wholeness of life in higher states of consciousness. Students also explore how the arts of these cultures continue to inspire modern artists. Topics include the world views of traditional cultures compared to the world view of the modern West; the nature and functions of sacred art; the embodiment of forces of nature in Indian art, Taoist and Buddhist painting and sculpture, Islamic design and architecture, African masks and ritual objects, and Native American art and artifacts. A highlight of the course is a 3-4 day field trip to a major art center such as Chicago, St. Louis or Kansas City. Field trip fee: $175-$225. (4 credits) Prerequisite: STC 108/109
The Search for Transcending in Art, Culture, and Consciousness
This class is about fascinating stories, key works, and iconic figures of modern art, from its origins in Post-Impressionism to the beginnings of the New York School. Moving chronologically students will explore an array of renowned and provocative objects — from paintings that challenged the official Academy and revolutionized the conventions of representation to works that are completely abstract—by such artists as Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Constantin Brancusi, Marcel Duchamp, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso, among others. Each style is related to the consciousness of the artist and the audience, and the collective consciousness of the culture.
Course fee: $160.
Field trip fee: $25.
Prerequisite: BFA student or consent of the instructor
Exploring Possibilities for Art and Consciousness in Modern Culture
This course is a guided experience examining major artists, artworks, and movementsin Western art after World War II. Students explore the emergence of the New York School and its links to a new global economy centered in New York, Dada’s revival, Pop art’s flowering in mass consumer society, and Minimalism’s formal refinement and emphasis on spatial context. The course then considers Conceptual art’s fundamental questioning of art, the development of multimedia artistic practices and performance art, and the influence of identity politics on art. Each phase of art is connected to the consciousness of the artist and the audience, and the collective consciousness of the culture.
Course fee: $160.
Field trip fee: $25.
Prerequisite: BFA student or consent of the instructor
Shaping the Unmanifest: Clay Forming, Glazing and Firing through Handbuilding Methods
Students learn the entire process of ceramics from making clay to firing pottery, providing them with the basic skills necessary to express consciousness in matter in this medium. Topics include: addressing the vessel with handbuilding methods such as pinch, coil and slab construction; basic glazing methods; earthenware, stoneware, and raku firing methods; examples from the history of ceramics.
Lab fee: $45.
Breathing Life into Matter
By exploring organic forms and creating designs from imagination, students make original sculptural surfaces that emerge from a two-dimensional plane. Exercises that expand the capacity to envision and create give students a deeper appreciation of the nature, creation, and function of sculpture, and thus the opportunity to express the fundamental laws that structure form in the natural world. Topics include: low, middle and high relief; organizing principles of two and three-dimensional design (balance, rhythm, economy, etc.); light and shadow; transforming clay reliefs into plaster reliefs; the history of relief sculpture. Materials: paper/cardboard, clay and plaster.
Materials fee: $40.
Drawing 2, Drawing from Within: Exploring New Materials and Possibilities for Self-Expression
Students learn to use the power of drawing to convey a story, thus revealing in a visual narrative the sequential unfoldment of consciousness. Students engage the fundamental principles of drawing while introducing a variety of methods and materials; this sustains aesthetic unity while encouraging diversity in the discovery process and the resulting image. Taught in an open studio situation, the course allows the teacher to address both the general needs of the group and the specific needs of the individual student to advance in the experience of drawing as a means of self-expression. Materials fee: $35. (1- 4 credits) Prerequisite: STC 108/109
Drawing Studio: Exploring Alternate Viewpoints
Students explore drawing with an emphasis on process, and its result, as a response to nature and the environment. Different applied viewpoints may include: illustration, graphics, animation, architecture, site-specific sculpture, industrial design, painting, sculpture. The theme of the course depends on the instructor. Materials fee: approximately $75, which includes field trips. Prerequisites: FA 301 or FA 201 or FA351 or FA 532 or FA 205
Critically Reading Visual Experience: Approaching an Integrated Whole
BFA students critically analyze, interpret, and contextualize art in terms of the history of art, art theory, and culture. They study some of the most significant writings by modern art critics, theorists, and artists. They then write a research essay contextualizing modern 2015/16 53 artists or a contemporary issue and relating the art and ideas to the larger context of consciousness.
Textbook fee: $75
Prerequisite: BFA student
Art and the Self: Awakening the Transcendental Basis of Artistic Genius by Expressing the Full Range of Life in a Self-Portrait
Students delve into the creative process with focus on the self-portrait. To learn about the history of the self-portrait, they view some of the most famous self-portraits in Western art by Rembrandt, van Gogh, Anguissola, Vigee-Lebrun, Kollwitz, Escher, and others. Then they create their own. Through lectures and readings on art by Maharishi, students come to appreciate art from the deepest perspective – that all art originates within the Self of the artist, and they verify this from their own experience as artists. Topics include principles of design and drawing. Students learn to use and combine the simple elements of line, shape, tone, and change of direction to foster self-expression. (4 credits) Prerequisite: STC 108/109
FA 308 Screenprinting: Exploring the Multiple Image
Students explore images through silkscreen printing. The emphasis is on learning the process and developing possibilities with a multiple image derived from drawn, painted, collaged, printed and photographed images. Different applied viewpoints may include illustration, graphic design, painting, sculpture, and ceramics. Materials fee: approximately $50. (4 credits) Prerequisites: one of these courses: FA 205, 301, 304, 311, 331, or 361.
Painting 1: Growth of the Artist through Refinement of Perception and Enhancement of the Ability to Discriminate and Integrate
Painting expresses the artist’s connection with the deep laws fundamental to seeing and creating visual images. Students are immersed in the fundamentals of drawing and painting from nature and a variety of other subject matter. The curriculum addresses the students’ development of formal and technical skills along with a conceptual and critical understanding of the language of painting as preparation for independent studio work. Can be repeated for credit with permission of the instructor.
Painting 2: Growth of the Artist through Refinement of Perception and the Expansion of Flexibility, Subtlety, Expression, Spontaneity, and Evenness by Means of the Brush
Painting expresses the artist’s connection with the deep laws fundamental to seeing and creating visual images. Students are immersed in the fundamentals of drawing and painting from nature and a variety of other subject matter. The curriculum addresses the students’ development of formal and technical skills along with a conceptual and critical understanding of the language of painting as preparation for independent studio work. Can be repeated for credit with permission of the instructor. (1-4 credits) Prerequisite: FA 311
Painting 3: Growth of the Artist through Refinement of Perception and the Expansion of the Methods and Materials of Painting
Painting expresses the artist’s connection with the deep laws fundamental to seeing and creating visual images. Students are immersed in the fundamentals of drawing and painting from nature and a variety of other subject matter. The curriculum addresses the students’ development of formal and technical skills along with a conceptual and critical understanding of the language of painting as preparation for independent studio work. Can be repeated for credit with permission of the instructor. (1-4 credits) Prerequisite: FA 311, 312 or consent of instructor
Photography 1, Capturing Moments of Light: Learning the Essentials of the Darkroom and Appreciating Photography as a Tool for Refined Artistic Expression
Students learn to use the photographic medium as a tool for exploring and expressing the finest values of awareness. Students develop their work by learning basic camera techniques and darkroom procedures, while they are also introduced to a broad range of fine art photography. Students must have access to a 35mm camera. Can be repeated for credit (with more advanced projects) with permission of the instructor. Lab fee: $150-$200 per course. (1 – 4 credits) Prerequisite: STC 108/109
Photography 2, Capturing Moments of Light: Developing Photography as a Tool for Refined Artistic Expression
Students learn to use the photographic medium as a tool for exploring and expressing the finest values of awareness. Students develop their work by learning basic camera techniques and darkroom procedures, while they are also introduced to a broad range of fine art photography. Students must have access to a 35mm camera. Can be repeated for credit (with more advanced projects) with permission of the instructor. Lab fee: $150-$200 per course. (1-4 credits) Prerequisite: FA 331 or consent of instructor
FA 338 Photography and New Media 1: Exploring the Boundaries of Photography, Technology and Consciousness
Students explore the basics of digital image-making through traditional photographic methods (aperture, shutter speed, focus, film speed) while being introduced to a variety of techniques to manipulate and alter the digital image. The use of scanners, digital cameras, tablets and software programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator present a powerful capacity for the artist to create an integrated language of self-expression that starts with the photograph. One of the main goals for the course is for the student to become comfortable moving back and forth between digital and real-world, hand-made methods of image-making. Learning to integrate digital techniques with the richness of texture and layers available from real-world materials allows the student to add a level of depth that cannot be achieved with digital techniques alone. The course is structured through a series of short exercises to introduce photography, digital software and digital manipulation techniques. Students then explore a series of work that shows a clear progression and development of techniques and themes. Topics include digital vs. physical methods of image-making, how the integration of digital and physical methods affect image-making and meaning, image transfer techniques, photo-manipulation techniques. Lab fee: $30. (4 credits)
FA 339 Photography and New Media 2: Integrating Photography, Technology and Consciousness
This course explores the outer boundaries of photography by integrating traditional photography methods (aperture, shutter speed, focus, film speed) with new possibilities presented by using the computer to explore layering, adding text, hand drawing, or other digital manipulation. The use of scanners, digital cameras, tablets and software programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator present a powerful capacity for the artist to create an integrated language of self-expression that starts with the photograph. Students will harness the power of both digital tools and physical methods of making to create works that satisfy their artistic aspirations. For example, work could be done mostly in the digital realm while being supplemented and enriched by hand-drawing, scanned items/textures, etc., or the computer could be used just as a way to research and test images that then are created in the physical world. Students explore and refine their creative process in a series of work that shows a clear progression and development of techniques and themes. Topics include appropriate use of digital techniques, the photograph vs. reality, how meaning relates to methods of image-making, how photomanipulation affects meaning, presentation of work to the public. Lab fee: $50 for materials. (4 credits) Prerequisites: FA 338 or consent of the instructor.
Ceramics 1, Shaping the Unmanifest: Clay Forming, Glazing and Firing through Handbuilding Methods
Students learn the entire process of ceramics from making clay to firing pottery, providing them with the basic skills necessary to express consciousness in matter in this medium. Topics include addressing the vessel with handbuilding methods such as pinch, coil and slab construction; basic glazing methods; earthenware, stoneware, and raku firing methods. Lab fee: $45. (4 credits) Prerequisite: STC 108/109
Ceramics 2, Shaping the Unmanifest: Throwing Pottery Forms on the Wheel
Wheelthrowing opens a new dimension of experience for the student potter. The challenge to center and form a pot while the clay is spinning through the hands leads to a synchronicity that powerfully connects potter and pot, consciousness and matter, in the process of creation. This intensive course focuses on establishing the student’s basic wheelthrowing skills with simple forms. Topics include addressing form, glazing and function in wheel work. Lab fee: $45. (4 credits) Prerequisite: FA341 or consent of instructor
Ceramics 3, Shaping the Unmanifest: Integration of Surface and Form through Enlivening Color and Pattern
The integration of surface and form is a further development of the connection of inner and outer aspects of the ceramic form. Students continue to develop and integrate handbuilding and wheelthrowing methods of forming. Topics include specific focus on exploring glaze, and surface possibilities such as drawing, color, texture, and their relation to the aesthetic and functional components of ceramics. Lab fee: $45. (4 credits) Prerequisite: FA341 and 342 or consent of instructor
Ceramics 4, Shaping the Unmanifest: Developing Sculptural Possibilities in Ceramic Form
Sculpture has a natural relationship with the development of ceramics in that it extends the 3-dimensional play and enriches the possibilities of storytelling – consciousness revealing its process of unfoldment – in clay forms. Topics include focusing on the various visual, functional and conceptual considerations (including tile, bas relief, freestanding form, and installation) that take ceramics in a sculptural direction. Lab fee: $45. (4 credits) Prerequisites: FA 341 and FA 342 or consent of instructor
Sculpture 1, Bas Relief: Breathing Life into Matter
By exploring organic forms and creating designs from imagination, students make original sculptural surfaces that emerge from a two-dimensional plane. Exercises that expand the capacity to envision and create give students a deeper appreciation of the nature, creation, and function of sculpture, and thus the opportunity to express the fundamental laws that structure form in the natural world. Topics include low, middle and high relief; organizing principles of two and three-dimensional design (balance, rhythm, economy, etc.); light and shadow; transforming clay reliefs into plaster reliefs; the history of relief sculpture. Materials: paper/cardboard, clay and plaster. Materials fee: $40. (4 credits) Prerequisite: STC 108/109
Sculpture 2, The Portrait: Mirroring the Self
Students continue the exploration and expression of form on a more personal level – they have the opportunity to mirror the different layers of their own consciousness in lifelike self-portraits. Students experience the controlled creation and evolution of their portrait as they sculpt in clay, transform the portrait into plaster, and cast the finished work in porcelain. Topics include drawing the portrait (contour and tonal); sculpting the portrait; working from observation; organizing principles of three-dimensional design; proportion; form relationships; making plaster molds; slip casting; photographing sculpture; and the history of portrait sculpture. Materials: clay, plaster, and porcelain slip (liquid clay). Materials fee: $40. Prerequisite: FA 351 (4 credits)
Sculpture 3, The Figure: Embodying the Fullness of Consciousness
This course emphasizes sculpting the human figure, which has the potential to embody the fullness of consciousness within the cosmos. Students continue to explore the principles that structure form. In addition, they develop skills and gain the technological know-how for sculpting, mold-making, casting, making limited editions, and mass production. Topics include drawing the figure (contour and tonal); principles of three-dimensional design; making an armature; sculpting the figure in clay; working from observation; form/space relationship; proportion; anatomy (skeletal and musculature); mold-making, casting slip (liquid clay); the history of figure sculpture. Materials: clay, plaster and slip. Materials fee: $40. Prerequisites: FA 351, FA 352 (4 credits)
FA 355 Environmental Art: Harmoniously Enriching and Giving Meaning to the Environment
In this studio course students gain knowledge of earthworks and land art from prehistoric civilizations to today’s contemporary artists, including Stonehenge, the Adena Serpent Mound, Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, Maya Lin’s Wave Field and Viet Nam Memorial, Christo’s Running Fence, etc. Working individually and as a group, students explore a number of assignments/projects and create environmental art that considers the delicate balance between form, function and place. Course Fee: $25. (4 credits)
Engaging Infinite Correlation
This course will allow students to explore possibilities of alternative conditions for making sculpture. Through the use of event-based and performative processes, students will ask questions and experiment with the balance of control and freedom in the creative process as well as the occurrence of art forms that seem to happen spontaneously and seemingly in the absence of any obvious design. Consideration of form, process, and idea will play an important role in structuring each student’s creative method. Art historical references include: John Cage’s experimental processes, fluxus events, collage, readymade, performance and participatory artwork. Class hours will be split between hands-on fabrication, group discussion, and critique. Materials fee: $50. (4 credits)
Visiting Artist Studio: Exploring the Relationship of Parts to Whole in the Work of Art
This is an opportunity to study with visiting faculty who present topics in two-dimensional, three-dimensional, time-based and/or new media disciplines. The course is tailored to all levels – beginning through advanced. Topics include formal and conceptual approaches, contrasting contemporary with historical viewpoints, exploring materials, tools, and methods, and developing the creative process. This course will emphasize the development of a broad comprehension and the ability to focus – the relationship of parts to whole in the work of art. (1-4 credits) Prerequisite: STC 108/109
Fieldwork: Applying Studio Knowledge in Practical Situations to Strengthen Action, Achievement, and Fulfillment
Students study or apprentice with an artist or art-related professional or facility, with the approval of their major advisor. Students document their experiences in sketchbooks and journals, and connect what they are learning to their knowledge and experience of consciousness. Fieldwork must be completed at least two months before graduation.
Prerequisite: consent of the Art faculty. (1-4 credits)
Video Production: Understanding and Applying the Aesthetics of Motion Pictures and the Technologies of Digital Video to Transform the World with a Vision of Unbounded Possibilities
Students learn the basic skills of video production by participating in the production of a variety of different scenes and subjects. Students will learn to handle and care for production apparatus including lights, cameras, and sound equipment, and will learn the different roles to be played in the process of shooting a video, including director, director of photography, gaffer, grip, electrician, art department, assistant directors, and production assistants. Lab fee: $150. (4 credits) Prerequisite: STC 108/109
Video Editing: Utilizing Digital Tools for Capturing, Cutting, Sequencing, and Compositing Sound and Image to Create Artistic Wholeness
Video editing requires the students to be able to synthesize all the different elements of their video into a greater whole. Students produce and direct video productions, and then complete them in the Department’s nonlinear digital video editing lab with a particular emphasis on creative approaches to editing. For inspiration, students analyze examples of great camera work, lighting, mise-en-scene, and montage. Topics include the language of the moving image, the 180 degree system, Murch’s Rule of Six, and principles of dramatic unity; shot selection, cutting techniques, sound mixing, and color correction; special effects, filters, keys, and key frames. Lab fee: $150. (4 credits) Prerequisite: MC 282
Unifying and Unfolding the Full Range of Human Experience
This course examines the essential role of narrative in the creation of all forms of media. From the very beginnings of human records, whether it is mythology, scripture, literature, or the earliest cave paintings, the creators of these works have always told their audience a story or imparted a message by the use of narrative. In order to work in any creative medium, understanding the various ways in which narrative is used is a great advantage. This course will examine the range of narrative forms and narrative devices that have been used since the dawn of time right up until the modern day. We will discover that although the forms and types of media used might have changed as technology has advanced, in fact, most of the essential forms of narrative used in creative works have been with us for ages. Understanding why will reveal how narrative reflects both the universal and unique aspects of the experience of human life. As part of the course students will be required to undertake projects that aid the development of their own narrative skills. Lab fee: $40. (4 credits)
MC 316 Creative Filmmaking: Connecting to Deeper Values of Life through the Power of Integrated Images, Sound, and Composition
This course explores a more intuitive and experimental approach to filmmaking. In MC 300 Narrative 1 and MC 313 Documentary Filmmaking, a more structured narrative-based approach to filmmaking is the emphasis. But all forms of media rely to a greater or lesser degree on purely aesthetic or artistic elements in order to give the final product a certain feel, look, or style. For this reason, regardless of the type of filmmaking one wants to ultimately focus on, it is a good idea to explore the power of images, sound and composition. A feature of the course is looking at the work of various video artists and film directors. By seeing examples of their work we can grow in our appreciation of how images and sound can be put together in a way that induces powerful responses in an audience. Most artists and filmmakers find important sources of inspiration for their own work by examining the work of the masters in the field. We will also examine creative forms of film, animation and other media that are narrative and non-narrative based. Students will also work on their own creative filmmaking project. Various media can be incorporated into this project, such as video, still images, animation and music. It is through experimenting with various media that a director of films or other media finds a method of working or an aesthetic that will enhance their future work. Lab fee: $80. (8 credits) Prerequisites: MC 300, MC 282, and MC 284
Web Design and Web Animation 1: Creating Digital Art in a Self-Interactive Universe
Students undertake study of XHTML, Cascading Style Sheets, and principles of design for dynamic media, which they apply in the creation of a portfolio of beautiful, highly functional, standards-compliant, and highly usable Web pages. Topics include creative approaches to Web design; XHTML syntax, tags, attributes, entities, DTDs and validation; CSS; creating hierarchies with color, type, and imagery; principles of usability for interactive media; using a visual lexicon for designer-client communication; examples of outstanding Web design studios; homesteading the noosphere. Lab fee: $150. Prerequisite: MC 260, FA 361 or equivalent experience. (4 credits)
Students learn to use advanced tools for Web design and interactive animation, 3-D, and video, to build richly interactive Web sites that inspire the viewer. Topics include Web 2.0; conceptualizing the user experience; creating innovative and elegant user interfaces; interactive vector graphics animation; content management systems; 3-D animation for the Web; streaming video; creating cinematic user interfaces. Lab fee: $150. Prerequisites: MC 363 or equivalent experience. (4 credits)
MC 368 Graphic Design for the Web: Fast Path to Instantaneous Global Communication
Students learn a process that allows graphic designers to create Web sites without writing HTML code. This course focuses on understanding the graphic design process of converting Photoshop files into working Web pages. Students learn how to create graphic design web templates and easily turn them into highly functional Web pages using Adobe Muse software. Topics include: layering imagery; the ingredients of interaction; creating elegant, highly interactive Web site content without writing code; video and audio for the Web; defining features; budgets, pricing and the Web design marketplace; how to hire a programmer to add additional features to your Web site; communicating with clients and programmers; competitions, awards, promotion, and findability. Lab fee: $40. (4 credits) Prerequisite: basic computer skills
MC 366 Graphic Design for Media and Communications: Integrating Medium and Message
This course provides students with the basic practical knowledge and skills needed to create effective visual design using current and critical tools and techniques. Students focus on developing their graphic design skills for personal and professional usage using Photoshop and InDesign. Topics include digital imaging and page layout tools; principles and elements of visual design; color theory, layout design; basic principles and 281; history of typography; brand design; use of digital photography; and copyright law. Lab fee: $40. (4 credits) Prerequisite: basic computer skills
(To enrich their BFA experience, students may take a course in Creative Musical Arts as an elective.)
Plus 16 credits in one of these specialized areas to be taken during the spring semester of senior year:
All majors will have the opportunity to take a 3–5 day field trip or longer each semester to a major metropolitan area to visit museums and galleries as part of their degree requirements. The cost of the field trips is approximately $200–300, or more, per semester.
Students meet during the year with visiting artists who come to campus at the invitation of the Department. These meetings may fall outside regular class times, including Sundays or weekends between courses, but attendance is a degree requirement.
In this program you will participate in the creation of an original Web-TV Series, working alongside fellow students and industry professionals. This unique opportunity is being made available to a select number of students who will work together to write, produce, edit, and distribute the series. Every student will work in different capacities throughout the course of the production.
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