35 courses with the subject ARS, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
ARS 162Introduction to Digital Media4
An introduction to the use of digital media in the context of contemporary art practice. Students explore content development and design principles through a series of projects involving text, still image and moving image. This class involves critical discussions of studio projects in relation to contemporary art and theory. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Enrollment limited to 14. Instructor permission required. {A}
An introduction to visual experience through a study of the basic elements of drawing. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Enrollment limited to 18. Instructor permission required. {A}
This cross-disciplinary studio course involves two-dimensional, three-dimensional and time-based approaches. Students are introduced to a range of conceptual and practical frameworks for making and thinking about art. This course is strongly recommended for students considering the art major. By emphasizing visual thinking, risk-taking and critical reflection, this course also has relevance for other disciplines. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Enrollment limited to 15. Priority given to first years. Instructor permission required. {A}
ARS 205DCTopics: Studio Art Workshops: Decolonizing the Camera2
Throughout this 7-week course, students work towards developing an understanding of decolonization as it pertains to the camera and photographic processes. They spend time with texts that engage the camera and its role in the creation and upholding of systems pertaining to race and power. The readings are supplemented by rigorous experimentation with alternative photographic processes, including, but not limited to cameraless processes such as cyanotypes, solar prints, and anthotypes. This course approaches decolonization through experimentation thus revealing the expansive possibilities held within the image-making process when experimentation and abstraction are centered. When multiple workshops are offered, students may take different topics during the first and second half of the semester for a total of 4 credits. Up to 4 credits of workshops may count toward the Studio Art Major. No prerequisites. S/U only. Enrollment limited to 12. {A}
ARS 205SJTopics: Studio Art Workshops: Drawing Social Justice2
This 7-week studio intensive engages topics of social justice as central to the discussion and visual inquiry. Through studio work, artist research, class excursions, and short readings, students use drawing as an expansive medium to conceptualize and relate their ideas. This course is experimental in nature and has no defined emphasis on traditional drawing techniques, instead the course takes an expanded/interdisciplinary media approach to drawing, to explore how critical questions of social justice can be developed into impactful artworks. Studio Art Workshops allow students with any level of experience to explore a thematic, expanded approach to art practice. When multiple workshops are offered, students may take different topics during the first and second half of the semester for a total of 4 credits. Up to 4 credits of workshops may count toward the Studio Art Major. No prerequisites. Majors and non-majors welcome. S/U only. Enrollment limited to 12. {A}
This course builds working knowledge of multimedia digital artwork through experience with a variety of software, focusing on video and time-based media. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Enrollment limited to 14. No prerequisites. Instructor permission required. {A}
An introduction to more advanced theories and techniques of drawing, including the role of drawing in contemporary art. The emphasis of the class is on both studio work and class discussion. A major topic is the development of independent projects and practice. Students may require additional supplies and are responsible for purchasing them directly. Enrollment limited to 15. Prerequisite: ARS 163 or ARS 172 or equivalent. Instructor permission required. {A}
Various spatial and pictorial concepts are investigated through the oil medium. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Prerequisite: ARS 163 or equivalent. Enrollment limited to 18. Instructor permission required. {A}
ARS 267Painting Ideas: Experiments, Colors, Materials4
In this course, students take a materialist approach to painting. With a focus on oil and water-based pigments, students explore mixed-media and experimental painting methods, and learn varied traditions of color theory and surface techniques through prompt-based assignments. This class includes working with sites and collections on campus--like the Botanic Garden, Smith Archives, or Design Thinking--to practice idea generation and consider ways to incorporate different themes and visual resources into our studio practice. Prerequisite: ARS 163. Enrollment limited to 18. Instructor permission required. {A}
This course is an in-depth introduction to the expressive potential of the printed image and the distinct visual and tactile qualities of etching and drypoint. The class explores how prints can function as social devices, manifestations of texture and opportunities for collaboration. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Prerequisite: ARS 163 or ARS 172, or equivalent. Enrollment limited to 12. Instructor permission required. {A}
The human figure and other natural forms. Work in modeling and plaster casting. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Enrollment limited to 15. Prerequisite: ARS 163, ARS 172 or equivalent. Instructor permission required. {A}
This course introduces students to different installation strategies (e.g., working with multiples, found objects, light and site-specificity, among others). Coursework includes a series of projects, critiques, readings and short writing assignments. Students may require additional supplies and are responsible for purchasing them directly. Enrollment limited to 12. Prerequisite: ARS 172 or equivalent. Instructor permission required. {A}
Investigates the structure of the book as a form and examines the formal, symbolic, and linguistic nature of the Latin alphabet. The course explores traditional and non-traditional typography using manual typesetting and letterpress printing, including some digital applications. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Enrollment limited to 12. Instructor permission required. {A}
Relief printing from carved woodblocks can create images that range from precise and delicate to raw and expressionistic. It is a direct and flexible process that allows for printing on a variety of materials at large and small scales. Students use both ancient and contemporary technologies to produce black and white and color prints from single and multiple blocks. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Prerequisite: ARS 163 or ARS 172, or equivalent. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission required. {A}
ARS 280Introduction to Architectural Design Studio: Analog Processes - Ground4
In nurturing architecture’s foundational principles of visual, material, and conceptual experimentation, this course lays the foundation for subsequent studios, lifelong learning, and curiosity for architectural design processes. It probes the material, organizational, and spatial qualities of the ground, a shared horizontal territory inhabited by plants, people, and buildings--one that is as much cultural as it is natural. Through iterative and analog processes, students integrate drawing and making to construct and reconstruct lines in the ground. Probing the physical and conceptual ground for natural or constructed patterns, students develop foundation-level design skills within the context of larger environmental and cultural discourses. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Restrictions: Not open to students who have taken ARS 283. Enrollment limited to 15. Prerequisite: ARH 110 or equivalent. Instructor permission required. {A}
ARS 281Architectural Drawing and Accessory Dwellings4
Like the Pre-Approved Standard Plans for Accessory Dwelling Units in Los Angeles, California, students in this intermediate design studio develop standard designs for Accessory Dwelling Units in Northampton, Massachusetts. Through weekly drawing assignments, each student designs one ground up, accessory dwelling unit (roughly 400 – 700 SF). Students explore a variety of drawing and representational types, including, but not limited to, plan, plan oblique, section, unrolled elevation, exterior perspective, interior perspective, conceptual collage, and analytique drawing. Students are asked to use analog sketch modeling and computer aided three-dimensional modeling to design their projects. Prerequisite: ARS 280 or equivalent. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission required. (E)
An introduction to visual experience through a study of the basic elements of photography as an expressive medium. Each section involves either black and white or a combination of darkroom and digital processes. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Enrollment limited to 15. Prerequisite: ARS 162 or ARS 172 or equivalent. Instructor permission required. {A}
This course emphasizes individual and collaborative projects in computer-based interactive multimedia production. Participants extend their individual experimentation with time-based processes and development of media production skills (3D animation, video and audio production) developed in the context of interactive multimedia production for performance, installation or internet. Critical examination and discussion of contemporary examples of new media art augment this studio course. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Prerequisite: ARS 162. Enrollment limited to 14. Instructor permission required. {A}{M}
Painting from models, still life and landscape using varied techniques and conceptual frameworks. Core studio materials are provided. Students may require additional supplies and are responsible for purchasing them directly. Prerequisite: ARS 266. Instructor permission required. {A}
Advanced problems in painting. Emphasis on thematic self-direction and group critical analysis. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Enrollment limited to 12. Prerequisite: ARS 362. Instructor permission required. {A}
Advanced problems in drawing, including emphasis on technique and conceptualization. The focus of this course shifts annually to reflect the technical and ideational perspective of the faculty member teaching it. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Prerequisite: ARS 163 and ARS 264. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission required. {A}
Looking at an array of contemporary artists in global and historical contexts, students create works that explore the comedic modes of irony, wit, melodrama, slapstick and other visual deliveries of humor. The class involves short experimental assignments, iterative works and independent projects produced in varied painting media. Students use workshop based studio practices to explore the personal and cultural idiosyncrasies and conventions through which humor operates as a visual tension that can tell stories about self, society, politics and power. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Prerequisite: ARS 266. Enrollment limited to 12. Instructor permission required. {A}
ARS 370SETopics in Installation Art-Unforgotten: Memory and Socially Engaged Art4
In this course, the class creates and critically interrogates socially engaged art. The focus is the subset of those practices that originate and gain power from remembering events of the past. Formats include site interventions, community collaborations, performance, traditional studio practices or intersections of these. The processes and physical forms of the (art) works complicate boundaries between art and education, art and sociology, and art and activism. The course is organized as a laboratory/workshop to experiment with ideas and forms of socially engaged art. At the same time, students discuss (aesthetic and participant impact) rubrics for these projects and analyze their efficacy. Students may require additional materials and are responsible for purchasing them directly. Prerequisite: One 4-credit studio art course. Enrollment limited to 12. Instructor permission required. {A}
ARS 372Printmaking, Mark-Making, Image-Making, World-Making4
This course is an opportunity for students to expand upon their existing printmaking knowledge and learn how to combine multiple processes such as intaglio, relief, monotype and lithography. The class pays attention to the unique marks made by each process; considers the relationship between drawn, digital and photographic images in print; and uses the capacity to print multiples as a means to construct physical, social or narrative forms. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Prerequisite: One 4-credit 200-level printmaking course, or equivalent. Enrollment limited to 12. Instructor permission required. {A}
Advanced problems in sculpture using bronze casting, welding and various media. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Prerequisites: ARS 273. Enrollment limited to 12. Instructor permission required. {A}
This course is an opportunity for students to expand upon their existing printmaking knowledge and learn how to combine multiple processes such as intaglio, relief, monotype and lithography. The class explores printmaking as a transformative process that creates rich, layered color relationships, builds and responds to texture and converts information into multiples. Students have the chance to work at ambitious scales, including using print media to create installations, three-dimensional forms or distributable public projects. Hand-drawn, digital and photographic approaches are available. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Prerequisite: One 4-credit 200-level printmaking course. Enrollment limited to 12. Instructor permission required. {A}
This research-based architectural design studio utilizes digital processes to analyze and reinterpret canonical architectural precedents, linking the digital to fluid conceptual ideas which are both historic and contemporary. In particular, the studio probes the spatial qualities of the moving body—as a site of both deep interiority and hyper-connectivity. In a return to the territory of the ground (see ARS 280), and within the larger context of ecologically and geopolitically induced migration and displacement, this studio investigates themes related to mobility and transience and the ways in which the body traverses territories of ground. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Prerequisites: ARS 280 and ARS 281 or equivalent. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission required. {A}
ARS 381Speculative and Staged: Paper Architecture and the Show Bible4
Like an architectural drawing set, a “Show Bible” is a detailed, reference document. However, instead of plans, specs, and schedules for owners and contractors, a show bible outlines the plot, characters, settings, and themes for a television series for potential writers and producers. For this advanced studio, students co-opt the format of the show bible to create a compilation of reference material for an architecture that cannot otherwise exist. Students are tasked with defining and illustrating an imagined world or alternate reality through maps, plans, perspectives. Foundational architectural paper projects in addition to contemporary production designs are used as precedents for this studio. Prerequisites: ARS 280 and ARS 281. Restrictions: ARU majors only. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission required. (E) {A}
Advanced exploration of contemporary photographic techniques and concepts. Students work on assigned and self-directed projects using various analog and digital techniques, studio lighting, large-format printing, and interdisciplinary approaches. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Prerequisites: ARS 282. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission required. {A}
This upper-level studio course challenges traditional boundaries of photography, encouraging students to think expansively about image-making as a conceptual, material, and performative practice. Students work across analog, digital, and mixed media processes, exploring photography in relation to time, space, the body, text, and installation. Readings and discussions frame photography not only as a visual tool but also as a theoretical and political one. Critical engagement with historical and contemporary texts guide the exploration of photography’s evolving role in art and society. Cannot be taken S/U. Prerequisite: ARS 282, ARS 382 and (ARS 162, ARS 163, or ARS 172). Restrictions: ARS 384 may be repeated once with a different topic. Enrollment limited to 12. (E)
This capstone course is required for all senior ARS majors. Students use the framework of the course to focus, challenge and re-conceptualize their studio work in media of their choice. Critiques, readings, written assignments, presentations and discussions support the development of an inventive and rigorous independent art practice. The semester culminates in a group exhibition. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Restrictions: Seniors only; Smith College ARS majors only. {A}
This course is limited to junior and senior art majors from the five colleges. Particular emphasis is placed on thematic development within student work. Sketch book, written self-analysis, and participation in critique sessions is expected. Students may require additional materials and are responsible for purchasing them directly. Offered in rotation within the five colleges. Normally offered at Smith every fifth fall. Three students admitted from each of the five colleges. Prerequisites: Selection by faculty; advanced-level ability. Restrictions: Juniors and seniors only; ARS majors only. Enrollment limited to 15. {A}
This one-semester capstone course is required of senior and junior (completing in fall semester) Plan B majors. Students create work in media of their choice and develop the skills necessary for presenting a cohesive exhibition of their work at the end of their final semester, as required by the Plan B major. Course material includes installation or distribution techniques for different media, curation of small exhibitions of each others’ work, and development of critical discourse skills through reading, writing and speaking assignments. In addition to studio faculty, Smith museum staff may occasionally present topics of conceptual and/or practical interest. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Restrictions: Seniors only; ARS majors only. {A}
Normally for junior and senior majors. Written project description required. Students may require additional materials and are responsible for purchasing them directly. Instructor permission required.
