Major in Studio Art (B.A.)

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Major in Studio Art (B.A.)

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Artists are agents of change.

Engaging your eyes, mind, and hands in the studio art major is about developing your creative skills by working closely with our experienced practitioner-faculty. You’ll express your individual perspective on the world around you through drawing, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, video, and graphic design.

With every work you produce, you’ll place another marker on your path to a creative career. The portfolio you’ll assemble at Clark will enable you to pursue an advanced degree at leading arts and design schools, or begin your career as an artist for diverse industries and institutions, including arts organizations and print, digital, and broadcast media.

Catalog Requirements for:

Major

Minor

Why Major in Studio Art at Clark?

Make art in a supportive liberal arts environment that not only provides options for double-majoring, but also offers a variety of perspectives to fuel your creativity.
Create and collaborate in the wider context of Clark’s Visual and Performing Arts Department (V&PA), a tight-knit community that includes students majoring in art history; media, culture, and the arts; music; screen studies; studio art; and theatre arts.
Immerse yourself in the Worcester arts scene, connect with local artists, and show your work in a professional gallery setting at the annual ArtsWorcester show.
Gain inspiration — and/or intern — at museums such as the Worcester Art Museum; Boston’s world-renowned Museum of Fine Arts, Institute of Contemporary Art, and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in nearby Lincoln; and the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton.

Studio Art

Featured Courses

ARTS 124

PLS

Introduction to Graphic Design

Through exercises and applied problems, you’ll explore the language, process, and potential of graphic design as a powerful form of communication, while you make use of both analog and digital technologies.

ARTS 136

PLS

3D Form and Sculpture

Through a learning-by-doing approach, and emphasizing process (the acts of making, looking, evaluating, and remaking) over product, experiment with the fundamental elements common to all three-dimensional artwork.

ARTS 296

POP

Special Topics: Gallery Culture and Practice

See what it takes to curate an exhibit. You’ll work on all aspects of planning and preparing for on-campus shows and related programming, while considering how the decisions you make impact the way art is perceived.

View All Courses

The Studio Art Path

Clark studio art majors greatly appreciate anchoring their art studies in a broad liberal arts curriculum, recognizing that a good artist is a good thinker and an engaged citizen. Here you can make connections across disciplines and learn how to use “visual language” to express your ideas, make social commentary, effect change, or celebrate beauty. Students also enthusiastically participate in the cultural life of the campus, city, and region.

Courses in the studio art major offer you an opportunity to engage in the study and practice of visual language. Since art is a way of communicating human experience, you learn both to read this language and to visually represent your own ideas. Training in artistic methods and media is provided in the context of intellectual inquiry and critical analysis.

If your only major will be studio art, you will take 11 studio art courses and three art history courses. If you decide to double-major, eight studio art courses and two art history courses are required.

You begin the major by taking Visual Studies: 2D Design and Color and/or Drawing: Eye, Mind, Hand. These foundation courses introduce you to the nature of visual language and the creative process while encouraging the development of visual expression. After exploring various media, you may concentrate in one area and seek out particular faculty members for personal mentoring. Areas of specialization within studio art include drawing, painting, graphic design, photography, printmaking, and sculpture. You also can study video production, set design, and lighting through related courses in screen studies and theatre arts.

The capstone course for the major, Studio Topics, oﬀers you the opportunity to demonstrate your expertise with an independent project, guided by a faculty member.

Skills You Learn

Academic Achievement Award

Patricia M. Plamondon Undergraduate Award in Visual and Performing Arts
The Patricia M. Plamondon Award is given to juniors and seniors who have demonstrated their talent in and commitment to the arts and for whom the award will serve to enhance their studies, research, or project-related travel. The award is made annually by a vote of the full-time faculty of the Department of Visual and Performing Arts.

Facilities

The campus home for studio art majors is Clark’s Traina Center for the Arts, a renovated 19th-century Romanesque Revival building that contains studios for design, painting, drawing, and printmaking; darkrooms for analog photography; and a digital photography lab, equipped with state-of-the-art software and fine-art pigment-based color printers that can accommodate large format images. On-campus opportunities for additional involvement in artistic activity, including ceramics, are available at the University Center’s Craft Studio. Just over a mile from campus is C. C. Lowell, which has been providing art supplies to local artists since 1852.

Honors Program

Students with a strong commitment to intensive study, and who receive departmental approval, can elect to undertake a senior honors thesis project, which culminates in an exhibition of work in the Schiltkamp Gallery — along with honors consideration — in the final semester. The honors thesis in studio art requires the creation of an original project, with a supporting paper, under the mentorship of a faculty member. Examples of supporting papers include:

An Exploration of Art History, Memory, and Contextualization (a discussion of how to read an artwork and its formal presentation as a primary text)
Reflections on Dreaming (a meditation of the translation of an abstract idea into a tangible work of art)
Stand Still, Close Your Eyes. (an exploration of the conventions of photographic portraiture across time)

Related Programs

Building your foundation

The Clark Experience

The Clark Core allows students to take courses across diverse disciplines, helping them develop critical thinking skills and respect for other cultures and perspectives. You’ll connect classroom learning with action through world and workplace experiences.

Learn More

At Clark, your education extends beyond the classroom. Visit the Career Connections Center to learn more about internship opportunities that complement your coursework and put your studio art knowledge into practice.

The studio art major is designed to help you learn outside the classroom. Many students take advantage of internship opportunities during the academic year or over the summer to connect what they’re learning with their professional development.

Other opportunities include:

Study Abroad and Away

Participation in a Study Abroad and Away program is an opportunity to gain world and workplace experience to complement your on-campus work. Clark approves semester, yearlong, and summer opportunities to earn credit through academic coursework, internships, community-based learning, or research. Explore our Study Abroad and Away page, where you can search programs by academic interest, location, and language; after you’ve identified some appropriate programs, ensure they fit into your four-year plan by talking with your faculty adviser as early as possible.

Student Clubs and Organizations

Internships

Worcester Art Museum
Worcester, Mass.
ArtsWorcester
Worcester, Mass.
Fitchburg Art Museum
Fitchburg, Mass.
Museum of Fine Arts
Boston, Mass.
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
Hartford, Conn.

Clark is committed to action-based learning, which means as an undergraduate you can join faculty and graduate students in their creative work. Our faculty have expertise in the following studio art subfields: drawing, painting, graphic design, photography, printmaking, sculpture, web design, typography, and video production.

You also can apply for funding to support your own research on a project of your choice during the academic year or during the summer.

Collaborate with Faculty and Present Your Work

Collaborate with faculty
Some students co-produce creative work with a faculty mentor. Some examples include:

Working with Professor Elli Crocker, a student secured a summer studio in Boston, developed a new body of paintings that informed his senior thesis project, and created a public mural for the Newton Free Library.
Working with Professor Stephen DiRado, a student visited New Orleans to create a photographic essay documenting the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
Working with Professor Toby Sisson, a student worked with low-income and disabled individuals in Maine to make artists’ books, a project that furthered her interest in expressive art therapy.

Present your work

Clark’s annual ClarkFEST is an opportunity to share your research or creative work with the Clark community. The Studio Art program celebrates ClarkFEST with an opening reception for its annual Senior Thesis Exhibition in the Schiltkamp Gallery. The exhibition hosts hundreds of visitors while showcasing the creative work of graduating seniors majoring in studio art. Works on view can include video shorts, oil paintings, artists’ books, photographic series, sculptures, and graphic designs.

At the culmination of each fall semester, the studio art program holds an open house to highlight the work of current students. The Traina Center for the Arts becomes a hub of activity as the workshop classrooms display the students’ semester projects.

Off campus, you can explore opportunities to show your artwork in a professional gallery setting at the annual ArtsWorcester College Show.

At Clark you’ll get more than a great education; you’ll also be prepared for a long, productive career and life of consequence. And once you’ve completed your degree, you can join other Clark alumni who have gone on to work for great organizations and attend some of the best graduate schools in the world.

Graduate School Placement
Graduate schools attended by studio art graduates from Clark include:

Harvard University, Graduate School of Design; MLA (landscape architecture)
Rhode Island School of Design; MFA in graphic design
Savannah College of Art and Design; MFA in photography
Maryland Institute College of Art; M.A. in art education
Otis College of Art and Design; MFA in new media

Career Outcomes

Boston University
Adjunct Professor of Photography; Regional coordinator for the Flash Forward Festival
Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (grants to organizations), Providence, R.I.
Program director and grants manager
City Arts For Youth, Providence, R.I.
Teaching artist
Self-employed
Photographer
College of the Holy Cross
Designer and art director

Faculty and Programs in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts

Learn More

Major in Studio Art (B.A.)

Why Major in Studio Art at Clark?

Featured Courses

Introduction to Graphic Design

3D Form and Sculpture

Special Topics: Gallery Culture and Practice

Exploring the Natural World

Sculptural Dynamics

The Studio Art Path

Skills You Learn

Academic Achievement Award

Facilities

Honors Program

Related Programs

The Clark Experience

Study Abroad and Away

Student Clubs and Organizations

Collaborate with Faculty and Present Your Work