This undergraduate degree prepares students for entrance into professional visual art fields. Once students meet the freshman foundations requirements, they are designated art students. In addition to satisfying the core curriculum, art students select studio courses from both 2D and 3D disciplines, take required art history courses, choose studio electives, and begin satisfying the requirements of their declared concentration.

Beginning in the fall 2005 semester, upper level students within specific program areas in the Department of Visual Art (Art Education, Graphic Design, Photography, Printmaking) will be required to have an Apple PowerBook laptop computer for their course work by the first day of class. Click here for more information.

For further information:
Allison B. Cooke, Visual Art Advisor
414-229-6755
abcooke@uwm.edu
Mitchell Hall 323

Choose from the following submajors:
Ceramics
Fiber
Graphic Design
Jewelry and Metalsmithing
Painting and Drawing
Photography
Printmaking
Sculpture

Ceramics top
The ceramics sub-major is structured to provide a broad technical and aesthetic background for undergraduate students. Beginning and intermediate level courses introduce students to a variety of ceramic processes and concerns including hand building, wheel construction, glaze technology and ceramics in world cultures.
Intensive 1 and 2 credit workshops focus on specific topics such as mold making, kiln firing, specialized ceramic construction and the history of ceramics. Advanced level courses emphasize the development of a personal aesthetic in ceramics, and encourage relationships of ideas and concepts with other studio disciplines of the students' interest.


Fiber top
The Fiber program provides students with an opportunity to develop technical skills and conceptual knowledge of weaving, fiber construction, and surface design process.
Courses unique to the fiber area include weaving, sculptural fiber construction, surface techniques including tie-dye, batik, and hand printing and screen printing on fabric). The fiber curriculum includes a study of the multi-cultural history of textiles, contemporary fiber artists, and the integration of traditional techniques with digital media (such as computer-designed weaving and image generation). Cross-disciplinary work within other studio areas and media is encouraged, while students develop individual creative direction focused on the qualities inherent in the history and materiality of fiber.


Graphic Design top
The Graphic Design program prepares students to enter the expanding arena of traditional and digital design. The curriculum balances design theory with commercial practice, where students learn basic design principles, digital and traditional design skills, typography, communication theories, social and cultural issues, and the history of graphic design. The curriculum includes an internship program that places advanced students, in local design studios and agencies for semester-long, real life experience.


Jewelry and Metalsmithing top
The Metals area offers undergraduate students courses that balance the functional and expressive aspects of this artform. An environment for learning has been established which combines excellent facilities with a diversity of technical and aesthetic viewpoints. The Metals program has had substantial success in training students for professional work in the community, or preparation for graduate work.


Painting and Drawing top
The Painting and Drawing program provides students with an intensive opportunity for developing their skills and interests within painting's traditions and possibilities. The program is a balance of studio investigations. Students can concentrate on the disciplines of painting and drawing, or pursue a curriculum integrating other disciplines and media. The painting and drawing faculty represent in their studio work and philosophies a spectrum of contemporary techniques and concepts. As working artists of varied interests they celebrate variety within the teaching studios.


Photography top
The Photography area offers students an intensive environment in which they can develop the aesthetic, conceptual and technical skills needed to pursue careers as professional studio artists who use photography as their medium. Courses focus on black-and-white and color photography, aesthetics, critical thought, digital and alternative photographic processes. The photography area's teaching specialties include black-and-white, color, digital imaging, alternative processes, book making, history of photography, theory and criticism.


Printmaking top
Students are introduced to traditional printmaking techniques in the media of intaglio, lithography, screen printing, and relief printing, as well as experimental processes in photo printmaking, monoprint and digital print media. The program includes experimental courses that encourage interdisciplinary work, community projects and collaborative research.


Sculpture top
The Sculpture area offers students experience in traditional and conceptual sculpture. The sculpture curriculum includes courses in welding, foundry, wood carving/construction, stone carving, clay modeling, casting and mold making, and mixed-media assemblage.