Creative Expression and Interpretation

Courses that engage students in both creating and understanding expressive works of art. Courses may represent a variety of arts disciplines, including: visual art, music, drama, creative writing, etc.

Essential goals include: develop skills in creative thinking and expression; have direct experience in the process of creating original works of art in some genre; learn to articulate a vision through art and seek to share that vision with others; learn and be able to apply basic artistic techniques and aesthetic principles relevant to the art form; incorporate understanding of social, political, economic, and historical context of artistic movements into creative expression; learn and be able to apply simple principles to evaluate and interpret works of art; study important and relevant works of art and examples of the form of art on which the class is focused; reflect on and analyze the creative process and works of art, orally and in writing.

Sample Sections

Beginning Digital Photography

Faculty: Claire Garoutte

An introduction to digital photography designed to teach camera operations, exposure techniques, output and printing, elements of composition and theory.  Critical and creative thinking will be demonstrated through the exercise of aesthetic judgment, assignments and class discussion.  Classes will consist of lectures, demonstrations, critique, class discussions and weekly slide presentations of noted photographers.  Students will be given weekly photography assignments designed around the technical and theoretical information presented in class.  Photography will be further contextualized within the larger social, political and historic environment.  Students will learn to see photographic works as reflections of the societies in which they are created. 

Creating with Sound

Faculty: Dominic Cody Kramers

Put your headphones on and delve deeply into the power of sound in and as art! Experience installations and performances on the cutting edge of music and aural creativity.  Learn the basic skills and techniques of generating and manipulating sound to touch the senses and impart emotion, ideas, and meaning.  Then integrate what you've learned and experienced by expressing your own ideas through a unique piece of multi-media, sound-focused art. 

The Travel Narrative

Faculty: Jennifer Schulz

Marcel Proust writes: "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." The primary goal of this course is to "have new eyes," to discover and create our own journeys and narratives while we read about others' (and each others') discoveries.  This course is a creative writing course: we will create and workshop our own travel narratives to understand how the process of writing can uncover and draw connections between our internal and external landscapes; and this course is also a cultural studies course: we will interrogate cultural "investments" in travel (particularly adventure travel, political travel, and travel through everyday landscapes).