“Experimental Studio: Sculpture”
Taught by Visiting Assistant Professor of Fine Arts Zachary Hill
In this advanced studio course, students with established sculpture practices take the lead. “Experimental Studio: Sculpture” is designed for makers ready to move beyond assignment-driven prompts and into sustained, self-directed work as they refine their technical range and their artistic voice.
Here’s what Hill has to say about his course:
This is an advanced course for students who have developed a self-directed, individual sculpture practice. We mainly work with wood, metal, and casting, but also incorporate a variety of other materials into this course, including lens-based media such as performance or video. The takeaway for students is to further refine their artistic voice and also develop a project that is not assignment-driven but sparked by their own research and interests as makers.
This class is absolutely one of my favorite to teach. It is a moment where I get to see students I’ve been working with since “Arts Foundations – Sculpture” fully take the lead with their work. I enjoy shifting things around each year to push critical thinking and research: writing manifestos and then making work that defies them, disassembling and bartering materials to launch new projects, and even mapping a “family tree” of artistic influences to better situate their work within art history.
This is a hands-on learning environment where failure is as welcome an outcome as success. Students build skills like woodworking and welding, and they even work with rough lumber provided by the Arboretum, milling it into usable pieces. The semester culminates with an exhibition in the foundry building’s project space, where the class collaborates to title, install, and connect individual projects into a shared, thematic show.