Course descriptions for Visual Public Art

Studies a particular topic in the visual and public art major. May be repeated for credit when topics vary. (Offered only as interest warrants.)

Field Studies opportunities. Topics of study, as well as number of credits, arranged between student and faculty member. (Offered only as interest warrants.)

Independent study opportunities. Topics of study, as well as number of credits, arranged between student and faculty member. (Offered only as interest warrants.)

Students will learn about graffiti art, murals, stencil art, political art and random posters. Students will do independent and small group "archeological" explorations into the surrounding Tri-County area as well as research the internet and if possible their home cities.

Students will learn about the artists and communities involved in Urban Art and Environmental Art. The class activities will include a critical examination of issues related to race, class, culture heritage, gender, physical mobility and ability, ethnic heritage, regional and national origins.

This class is designed to provide a critical exploration of contemporary ethics within the field of visual, media, and public arts. Students will be actively engaged in learning skills of visual literacy and media analysis applied to both public arts and popular media.

This ceremony is a community building practice that helps integrate the past histories with the present memories of the students and faculty involving student-made altars, Aztec dancers, musicians, and a candle light procession. (Offered fall semester.)

Examines the artist as a catalyst for social change throughout history and across diverse cultures. Designed particularly for freshmen and sophomores. Introduces students to an understanding of art and artists through the ages. Learning takes place through slide discussion, vigorous classroom dialogue, fieldtrips, and selected readings and videos. (Offered fall semester.)

Introduces entering students to the fundamentals of drawing, including line, perspective, composition, and beginning drawing skills. (Offered fall and spring semester.)

Through a service-learning approach, introduces the museum's potential and ethical responsibility for representing history and culture in a way that shapes the public's concept of its values. Divides class time between university setting and internships in local museums where students learn basic operation skills, conservation application, exhibit content, design, and interpretation. Students can begin resumé development for the museum field. (Offered fall and spring semesters.)

Introduces the use of photography as a tool in reporting and interpreting news for print and digital media. Students will gain an understanding of the history of photojournalism and the impact of photographic imagery in communication ideas and narratives. (Offered spring semester.)

Introduction to the theories and models of the Visual and Public Art program and its Major Learning Outcomes. Through readings, lecture/discussions, history and research assignments, community arts projects, portfolio development, public art design, review and exhibition projects, introduces students to the field of public art. Provides insight and practices for careers in visual art, arts education, and museum management. (Offered fall semester.)

Students learn the fundamentals of drawing and painting including line, perspective, color theory, and beginning drawing skills. Students work individually and collaboratively, and participate in class critiques. (Offered fall and spring semesters.)

Students have opportunities to meet with visiting artists. Requires attending a minimum of three evening artist lectures, and developing artists' profiles and written summary essays. (Offered fall and spring semesters.)

Presents the fundamentals of construction using basic sculpture methods and materials. Introduces the concepts of installation. Students work individually toward a class-developed collaboration on a specific campus project. (Offered fall and spring semesters.)

Students study painting to develop individual portfolios, and team and large-scale collaborative class projects. Students work in a variety of materials and learn techniques for studio painting, murals, and other public art works. Contemporary issues in painting and site-specific art are discussed, and all students participate in the class critique process. (Offered fall and spring semesters.)

Students develop skills of media analysis. Emphasis placed on the analysis of media representations and ethical approaches to socio-media. Forms of media include digital advertising, Internet, music videos, and popular culture materials influencing perception and identity. Provides theoretical approaches to a hands-on model of analysis and media intervention. (Offered fall semester.)

Students work with a digital approach to public art project development including analysis of sites, conceptualization, and collaboration using current imaging and video software. Students work in collaboration with specific communities to develop digital images and/or short videos. (Offered fall and spring semesters.)

Provides examples of contemporary and historical art movements reflective of diverse world communities and cultures. Emphasizes the examination of race, ethnicity, culture, gender, and sexuality in contemporary art. Students learn new skills of "seeing," analyzing, and writing as they develop transferable knowledge, skills, and abilities that can be used in the understanding of their own ethnic or social culture, and the formation of cross-culture alliances. (Offered fall semester.)

Surveys the field of contemporary ethical theory in visual and public arts. Students follow controversial cases in public art. Uses guest artists, slide lectures, videos, and field trips as resources to understand and analyze cases. (Offered fall and spring semesters.)

Offers students a chance to learn skills in a variety of media that lead to the creation of final public art projects and capstone installations. Guest artists give demonstrations as well. (Offered spring semester.)

Provides beginning and intermediate drawing skills using media. Students work from models, still life, landscape/outdoor fieldwork, photographs, and mixed media collage. Students study techniques, proportion, composition, light/shadow, perspective, color, and scale, and do collaborative drawing projects. (Offered spring semester.)

Helps prepare teachers and others in the visual arts education field with lesson plans developed in conjunction with VPA projects, visiting artists, and museum arts education models. (Offered fall and spring semesters.)

Traces the arts and culture development of the Monterey Bay region. Emphasizes cultural groups, artists, and arts groups as well as popular cultures that are unique to the natural and human landscape of the region. Hands-on research, guest lectures, films, fieldtrips, and guest artists. (Offered fall and spring semesters.)

Examines visual culture and its manifestations in art, architecture, media, and popular culture. Students work with text and visual materials applying theories of race and post-colonialism, semiotics, anthropology, gender construction, and feminism identity politics and cultural hybridity. Topics include histories of urban development, industrialization, world fairs and expositions, cultural appropriation, neo-colonialism and mass media spectacle. (Offered fall semester.)

Provides beginning and intermediate drawing skill development using media that focuses on the human figure. Students work from models to explore a range of techniques studying proportion, composition, light/shadow, anatomy, and use of color. Includes class critiques and student presentations. (Offered fall semester.)

Emphasizes photography as a means of artistic expression with a primary focus on photography as a means of image making much like other artistic mediums, e.g. painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation. Students study the technical, compositional, and conceptual elements of photography as a visual language as well as gain an understanding of the history and uses of photography from the mid-19th century to contemporary photographic practice. (Offered fall and spring semesters.)

Students gain hands-on darkroom technique and practice through demonstrations and exercises on a weekly basis. Subject to applied lab fees for chemical and darkroom supply usage. (Offered fall and spring semesters.)

Students employ a combination of community organizing and art strategies to analyze and understand the value of local community assets as they develop their own cross-cultural competencies. Using local media as resources and observations from field experiences, students work in teams to research, evaluate, and produce cultural maps of existing resources. Opportunities provide students to work off site with local organizations on art activities. (Offered spring semester.)

Through a service-learning approach, introduces the museum's potential and ethical reponsibility for representing history and culture in a way that shapes the public's concept of its values. Divides class time between university setting and internships in local museums where students learn basic operation skills, conservation application, exhibit content, design, and interpretation. Students can being resume development for the museum field. (Offered fall and spring semesters.)

Combines theory with praxis to engage students in the handling of museum collections and four areas of gallery practice: 1) registration and cataloguing, 2) conservation, including handling, cleaning, restoration, and repair, 3) exhibition design and 4) exhibition fabrication. Includes guest lecturers from the field and hands-on activities.

Provides students a hands on opportunity to work with museum conservation experts. Visiting scholars in a project developing the Ft. Ord Museum and archive collection. Students will work in the field, create exhibition displays and gain skills in handling artifacts and memorabilia as well as technical conservation experience.

Dedicated entirely to unconventional photographic processes, explores the photographic medium as a means for artistic expression. Includes non-silver printing techniques, polaroid manipulation, digital negatives, pinhole cameras, and liquid emulsions in the communication of ideas through visual imagery. (Offered fall and spring semesters.)

Students gain hands-on techniques and practice through demonstrations and exercises on a weekly basis. Subject to applied lab fees for chemical and darkroom supply usage. (Offered fall and spring semesters.)

Develops the ability to explore ceramic tile and mosaic for both individual works and collaborative projects. Students work with the medium through all the stages of the process: historical views, contemporary concepts, planning, experimentation, techniques of creation, proper studio practices and firing, use of equipment, mounting, and installation. (Offered spring semester.)

Examines feminisms across visual culture in art and popular media. Students work with text and visual materials, applying theories of feminism, gender construction, race, post-colonialism, anthropology, identity politics, and cultural hybridity. Topics include body and sexuality, community and activism, media representations, and domestic forms in the arts. Includes hands-on research, group and public presentations, and text-based activities. (Offered fall semester.)

Examines Chicana/Chicano and Black artists, art movements, and social histories. Students work with images and text, applying theories of multiculturalism, feminism, colonialism, and hybridity. Topics include familial and cultural legacies, aesthetics, media, and cultural nationalism. In this hands-on and theory course, students explore issues of self-identification, race, and cross-cultural solidarity. (Offered fall semester.)

Provides students with an opportunity to propose and implement individualized interdisciplinary learning activities. (Offered only as interests warrants.)

Provides students opportunities for independent work in the field with professional artists and includes visiting artist projects. (Offered only as interest warrants.)

Students pursue work in forms of public art including murals, installations, and performances, under the tutelage of practitioners in the field. Offers longterm project advisement and offsite project involvement. Note: students may enroll by faculty arrangement for critique or consultation on specified projects. (Offered only as interest warrants.)

An interdisciplinary course (art, theater, and music) that focuses on the use of site-specific and time-based work, light as art, interactive outdoor public art installations, and contemporary performance both on and off the CSUMB campus. Each semester brings new and exciting projects that utilize both individual and collaborative working methodologies. (Offered fall semester.)

Individual and team projects using wood, metal, light, and "found" materials. Examples from public art projects explore the relationship between materials, site, content, and audience. Refining technical skills and building portfolios, students explore the role of cultural heritage, social positioning, and autobiographical narrative in their work. Cross-disciplinary projects include functional art, solar design, lighting design, and interactive sculpture. (Offered fall or spring semester.)

Allows students to design, curate, and present their own senior exhibition/project as a display of their cumulative learning in the major. Exhibitions may take place in a community setting within their public art focus; two semester's required in major. (Offered fall and spring semesters.)

Specialized study for a particular topic in visual and public art. May be repeated for credit when topics vary. (Offered only as interest warrants.)

Assessment study for student portfolio review, please contact the academic program office for further information. (Offered only as interest warrants.)

Independent study in service learning to be determined by student in collaboration with the Institute of Visual and Public Art. Contact the academic program office for further information. (Offered only as interest warrants.)

Independent studies in upper division level. Focus determined by student in collaboration with the Institute of Visual and Public Art. Contact the academic program office for further information. (Offered only as interest warrants.)

Student and faculty member select advanced topic of field study and number of credits. Contact the academic program office for instructor signature, registration code, and schedule number. (Offered only as interest warrants.)

Students pursue work in forms of public art including murals, installations, and performances, under the tutelage of practitioners in the field. Offers longterm project advisement and offsite project involvement. Note: students may enroll by faculty arrangement for critique or consultation on specific projects. (Offered only as interest warrants.)