Art

Art as Experience

Course
Academic director
A typical day
Required materials

Junior/Senior · 3 weeks (June 21 - July 12) · 3 credits

Take a long look out of the expansive windows of Cornell's John Cooper Painting Studio—you can see the cool blue waters of Cayuga Lake to the north. Then, turn around and paint the inspiration of nature onto the canvas in front of you . . .

Art is more than the techniques of its making. To be an artist is to think about ways of communicating meaning through images and mediums, and "Art as Experience" will help you better understand these connections.

This three-week program, led by a professor in Cornell's Department of Art, who is also a well-known artist and critical writer, combines studio work in a variety of mediums, including painting, drawing, sculpture, installation art, and collage, and book binding with readings, discussions, and field trips.

You'll meet with artists and art administrators to learn about their studio and career experiences. You'll find out how they began, where they are now, and how they developed their unique styles of image or object-making. Through their comments and your questions, you'll explore visual concepts including:

Seeing and perception
Process and making
Metaphor and symbol
Color and light
Materials and meaning
Order and chance

You'll also tour Cornell's extraordinary Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, and visit art galleries and artists' studios to observe works in progress. You'll even go behind the scenes at a major art museum, check out a computer animation studio, and learn how to put on your own art exhibit.

In addition, you'll have access to the extensive collections of the Fine Arts Library, the nightly offerings of Cornell Cinema, and Ithaca's first-rate local art scene, all of which are excellent resources for researching assignments and for general study.

To be eligible for this program, you must have completed your junior or senior year of high school by June 2008.

Course

You'll be enrolled in Art as Experience (ART 1101). This course meets Mondays through Fridays, 9-4

Academic director

"I encourage students to do their work aware of what is happening in front of them. I place considerable value on the learning of studio techniques, but also on encouraging students to look at accomplished works of art, read up on their history, and talk—with teachers and with peers—about the issues and ideas with which artworks are engaged. The great task in becoming an artist is to learn how to look at your work and see what you've made, not just what you intended."

Buzz Spector is professor and former chair of the Department of Art at Cornell as well as a well-known artist and critical writer. His artwork has been shown in many museums and galleries, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, PA. His art makes frequent use of the book, both as subject and object, and is concerned with relationships between public history, individual memory, and perception.

Professor Spector earned his B.A. in Art from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in 1972, and his M.F.A. with the Committee on Art and Design at the University of Chicago in 1978. He is a 2005 recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Artist Fellowship. In 1991, Professor Spector was awarded a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Fellowship, and in 1982, 1985, and 1991, he received National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Awards.

A typical day in the Art as Experience program

7:00 - 8:30 a.m. — Breakfast
9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. — Monday - Friday morning session
Each morning we meet in the art studio on the fourth floor of Tjaden Hall where we begin class with a brief conversation about the previous day's activities in the studio and classroom. Some days we'll gather in the third floor seminar room for a slide lecture or discussion of an assigned reading about an important issue in contemporary art. Other days we'll walk across the street to the Johnson Museum of Art, to view one of their exhibits or to meet with a curator to look at examples from the Museum's superb collection of prints, drawings, and photographs. Afterwards we return to the studio, to begin work on a project designed to help our understanding of the ideas motivating the artists whose work we've just examined.
12:00 - 1:00 p.m. — Lunch and Break at North Star Dining in Appel Commons
(Often we continue the conversation about art and ideas over lunch.)
1:30 - 4:00 p.m. — Monday - Friday afternoon session
Afternoons are for the studio, although sometimes the artmaking takes place outdoors. We may experiment with different ways of picturing the landscape by exploring one of the gorges that cut through the campus, or we may visit the studio of a local artist to see how a professional studio career is maintained. Every day will include both artmaking and thoughtful consideration of its meaning and cultural value.
6:00 - 7:30 p.m. — Dinner - will be served at North Star Dining
11:00 p.m. — Nightly Check-In: Sunday - Thursday
12:00 a.m. — Nightly Check-In: Friday and Saturday

Required materials

drawing pad (18 x 24 inch);
sketchbook or journal;
three prestretched canvases (minimum size 16 x 20 inches, no canvas boards, please);
pencils in varying degrees of hardness (B = soft / H = hard);
conte crayons, acrylic paints (red, yellow, blue, black, and white are required, other colors optional);
drawing ink, pens, and brushes;
erasers (kneaded and Art Gum);
PVA glue; and one X-Acto knife with #11 blades.

A portfolio large enough to hold completed class projects is also recommended.

Don't miss it...

Friday, July 4 — In observance of Independence Day, we will not have class.
Friday, July 11 — College Fair 3:00 - 5:00 p.m.
Monday, July 7 — College Admissions Workshop 2:30 - 3:45 p.m.