B.A. in Studio Art

Program Overview

The studio art program emphasizes art making as a form of creative inquiry taking place within a broad historical and cultural context. With a curriculum aimed at the development of visual skills, creative and critical reasoning, and comprehension of historical and contemporary contexts, the program prepares its students for a diversity of careers and graduate study in art. Students may take courses in drawing, ceramics, painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, graphic design, digital art, and motion picture media. While classes are generally taught within these media studio areas, the overall curricular framework supports interdisciplinary understandings and approaches. With small classes taught by a dedicated and distinguished faculty, the studio art program offers dynamic and meaningful learning opportunities within the context of a broad liberal education at UVM.

As a studio art major, you will have many opportunities available to you including gallery exhibitions in the department's Colburn Gallery or in galleries situated throughout the university's many public spaces. The department supports a variety of faculty-sponsored and independent internship opportunities, including partial funding support for select student internships at national and international sites. Through the Mollie Ruprecht Fund for Visual Arts, the Department hosts visiting artists who lecture and exhibit their artwork while interacting directly with students in roundtable and individual critique activities.

The studio areas that support students taking courses in studio art are largely available 24 hours a day. The studios include:

• A drawing studio.
• A ceramics studio for wheel-throwing and hand-building.
• A painting studio.
• A printmaking studio for etching, silkscreen, risograph, and relief processes.
• A sculpture studio.
• A fully equipped wood and metal shop.
• A photography studio with silver-based darkrooms and a lighting studio.
• Digital labs to support motion pictures, photographic printing, printmaking, and graphic design.

Curriculum

Popular Courses

• Perspectives on Art Making
• Drawing
• Clay: Wheel Throwing
• Painting: Observation & Image
• Printmaking: Silkscreen
• Photography
• Sculpture
• Graphic Design
• Digital Art
• Intro to Video Art

B.A. with major in Studio Art Requirements

Outcomes

Upon completing the Studio Art major, students will demonstrate competence in studio art as evidenced by:

Technical proficiency in a studio discipline at the 3000-level (capstone class). Such proficiency is the result of having successfully completed a sequence of foundation, 2000-level, and 3000-level Studio Art classes as well as three Art history courses.

Upon completion of the B.A. in Studio Art, students will be able to:

1. Construct/Create and select an exhibition-ready body of work that demonstrates thematic, theoretical, and/or formal continuity.
2. Write a short thesis paper/artist statement that positions their work within historical or contemporary art-making practices or other modes of cultural production.
3. Document and assemble work for digital presentation and distribution.
4. Submit work to the prize competition or other professional organization for review.

Careers

• Digital content creator
• Media assets manager
• Publications editor
• Photojournalist
• Draftsperson
• Muralist

Where Alumni Work

• Burton Snowboards
• Milk Studios
• Paddle8
• School of the Art Institute, Chicago

Graduate Schools

• Rhode Island School of Design
• Massachusetts College of Art and Design
• School of the Visual Arts
• Maryland Institute College of Art

More

Beyond the Classroom

The Program in Art and Art History provides opportunities provides opportunities for students to apply classroom theory to real world experience through internships, with a select number of awards to support internships that involve exceptional cost for the student. Additionally, junior and senior prizes reward and honor excellent creative work by students in their third and fourth years of study.

Internship Support Awards

We offer a limited number of internship support awards, each of which may provide up to $1,000 of support for a student wishing to pursue an extracurricular internship that involves travel or higher living costs. 

Senior Awards and Exhibition

The Senior Exhibition is a celebration and showcase of work created by graduating Studio Art and Art Education majors and Art minors. Every student who enters work for the Senior Award competition will have one work chosen for the Senior Exhibition. The exhibition opens in early May and continues through Commencement Day. 

Junior Awards and Exhibition

Every year in the spring term, the Studio Art faculty jury the creative work of junior-level Studio Art and Art Education majors and Art minors. The four students receiving an award also exhibit their work the following Fall term in the Colburn Gallery, Williams Hall. 

Mollie Ruprecht Fund for Visual Arts Brings Fresh Perspectives

Besides first class instruction from UVM scholar/teachers, students are constantly exposed to new art created by regional artists and critics who hold public talks, display their work, and discuss their creative interests. The Ruprecht Fund was established in 2011 by Bill Ruprecht, an alumnus of the department to honor his daughter, Mollie Ruprecht, who was also an art and art history major. Ruprecht visitors' creative work has often been integrated into the curriculum of our courses, and many of the visiting artists have exhibited their work in conjunction with their visits.