Chair’s Letter
Students come to the Art Department at Cornish College with passion, dedication and talent. Cornish gives you the technical and intellectual development that supports the development of your work and helps you successfully navigate the professional world. In our small classes, faculty members foster artistic play and risk. They oversee your weekly progress, offering ongoing feedback in order to guide you toward your fullest potential. In these small settings, you engage with your peers in rich, critical dialogue — working together with the self motivation, discipline and mutual support that are the keys to living a creative life and making a difference in the world beyond college.
We emphasize proficiency in technical processes, conceptual innovation, and the development of each student's artistic voice. You will focus on two of five areas as you earn your BFA: painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture and digital/video art. Cornish also challenges you to broaden your artistic perspectives and engage in creative collaboration, by encouraging you to select from a wide range of elective studio courses outside your major.
Courses in art history and theory, as well as coursework in the Humanities and Sciences, augment studio classes, and give you the opportunity to explore the philosophical, literary, political, scientific, and historical contexts in which all art takes place. Through these studies you develop a strong foundation in the skills of research and writing - vital components in the education of an artist.
Overall, you become adept at both traditional and contemporary technical approaches to art-making, develop fluency in various visual languages, and learn to understand your work in the context of history and culture and within the larger world of contemporary artistic endeavor.
David Ulrich,
Art Department Chair