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Art and Religious Practice, Student work from 2007-08

This full-time freshman program was based in two visual art studios:  printmaking and fine metalworking.  Working back and forth between 2-D and 3-D, between image making and object making, the students studied basic design, studio skills, and art history.  The study of art provided a lens through which the students examined world religions, focusing on Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Throughout the program the students learned techniques and skills that they used to respond to a final project:  A Book of Blessings.  Each student developed a concept of a blessing and created thirty prints in the printmaking studio using either etching or engraving.  The students then exchanged prints with one another and collated and bound them into codices.  Meanwhile, the students also made sketches and models for copper book covers applying their skills in a variety of fine metal techniques such as enameling and stone setting.  When the metal covers were complete, the students attached them to the codices for a complete book reflecting studies in printmaking, fine metalworking, and religious studies.  Each student left the program with a unique metal-covered book containing a print by every student in the class.

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Working Small, Student work from 2001, 2004, and 2007

The assignments in this upper division program address issues such as the cultural values associated with scale, miniaturization, portability, the intensification and exaggeration of form, and virtuosity.  One particularly challenging early assignment is pictured here:  The Bottle Project. After a number of technical samples and experiments, each student is given a 3″ H. glass pharmacy bottle and asked to construct a (primarily) metal form made to fit inside the bottle.  Each student confronts the technical challenge of working on such a small scale, the strict deadline for completion, and the expectation of exhibiting their completed work at the end of the quarter.


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Office: Lab II, Room 3263

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Lab II 3263
The Evergreen State College
Olympia, Washington 98505