This intermediate to advanced-level course is for students interested in continuing their studies in ceramics with a focus on the vessel. Students who are on campus may work in the ceramics studio and can choose any ceramic building technique they would like to continue exploring: hand-building, slip casting, throwing, digital printing. Students who are studying remotely will work with paper-based processes like sketching, collaging, and making three-dimensional models of projects. Assignments will investigate various forms; some examples of these might include lidded jars, vases, and platters. Considerations will be: What space does a vessel occupy and contain? What is the vessel’s relationship to utility? Discussions will address formal and conceptual issues, including scale, audience, and use. Students will be encouraged to identify and to pursue personal directions within their work.
Paralleling and informing these construction projects, we will be expanding our research to include ceramic artists whose work, though critical and influential, may not have been regularly represented in the American academic delineation of the field. Working groups made up of remote and on-campus students will work together to gather our research into a document or database for our (and future classes) reference.
To reduce student density in the studio the class will be divided into two sections. Each group will meet in-person for one of two weekly classes. These classes will be streamed or recorded for remote students. The second weekly class will be asynchronous and will include lectures, readings, and research that connect and expand on the hands-on assignments.
If the College deems it necessary to go to all-remote instruction on-campus, students will switch to remote learning and will utilize home-based materials. Projects will shift to focusing primarily on expanding our research; the clay making portion of this class would then become sketching, collaging, and paper-based 3-d modeling.
Please note that this course may require additional materials to be purchased by the student.
Two classes per week: some portions of this class will be synchronous, some asynchronous.
Learning Outcomes:
Delivery Method: Hybrid in-person and remote, with faculty in-person
Prerequisites:This course is open to all students who have taken one college-level ceramics class or with the permission of the instructor (please email apeltz@bennington.edu to discuss).
Course Level: 4000-level
Credits: 4
M/Th 1:40PM - 3:30PM (Full-term)
Maximum Enrollment: 14
Course Frequency: Every 2-3 years
Categories: All courses , Ceramics , Hybrid In-Person and Remote
Tags: ceramics , clay , Collaboration , Create , pottery , Research , VA , Vessels