Fine Arts Symposium Integrates the beginning Fine Arts graduate student into the studio program, deepens and enriches the student's awareness of personal direction, and introduces the student to the greater art community and issues of the professional artist. Students periodically present and discuss their work among each other, guest critics discuss and evaluate their work, and professional artists make presentations in their studios. The course also presents professional topics such as grant writing, studio space, business, and bookkeeping. The preparation of a body of conceptually focused, original, and innovative visual work for exhibition or presentation. Graded A-F. ART 515 three credits Writing Seminar Organizational tools for thesis preparation are suggested, and theses of recent graduates and other writings are analyzed in terms of content and style.
Writing begins with a revision of the thesis proposal as the introduction to the thesis.
A preliminary draft of the thesis is prepared by the end of the semester. Significant class time is devoted to group critiques of student writing. The completion of the written thesis, a verbal explanation of the visual thesis which includes research of sources and a discussion of pertinent aesthetic issues, materials, and processes. Graded A-F. ART 520 three credits Philosophy of Art Themes to be discussed include the nature of form and expression in art, the similarities and differences between the artist s relation to the work of art and the spectator s, the difference between linguistic and visual arts, and the social function of art. The works of a few major philosophers will be compared to demonstrate alternative points of view.