Clarke College

Art and Art History

The arts have a long and valued tradition at Clarke College. Art is central to the life and spirit of Clarke College. That’s evident from the moment you enter our campus where Quigley Gallery occupies a prominent site in the Wahlert Atrium, and faculty and student artwork is on display campus-wide.

The art program has a strong regional reputation for excellence. We’ve grown extensively in last five years and now number more than 75 art students from across the United States. This means you’ll have the best of two worlds, a small college but a large peer group in your major.

The Clarke College art faculty work as a team and respect each others’ diverse teaching approaches and expertise. They exhibit at the local, state, national and international venues and bring real-world experience as practicing artists into their classrooms. Process-oriented, studio-based classes give students a true feeling for working in the art world.


Mission

The art department offers majors in studio art leading to a bachelor of arts and a bachelor of fine arts degree, and a major in art history leading to a bachelor of arts degree. The department guides students for life-long involvement in the fine and applied arts through preparation for graduate study, teaching, museum and gallery work, graphic design and studio art. The primary goal of the art department is to encourage and develop the creative potential of each student. This is dependent upon a broad liberal and fine arts background in order to develop technical expertise, aesthetic sensitivity, critical artistic judgment and the ability to question and experiment with creative ideas. One of the major objectives of the art department is to create an atmosphere where diversity can flourish. Flexibility creates an attitude of openness and receptivity to new and innovative ideas. Students concentrate their course work in the areas of ceramics, drawing, graphic design, painting, printmaking or sculpture in order to develop expertise. A professional and critical atmosphere encourages them to extend their artistic involvement beyond studio exercises into juried exhibitions, internships, independent study and travel.

The art department prepares students to be competent, creative artists, equips them with technical knowledge in their field and, through the study of art history, gives them an appreciation of their heritage and the relationship of art to understanding the past, themselves and contemporary culture.

Clarke’s Quigley Gallery 1550 hosts frequent exhibits of student, faculty and visiting artists’ works. This exposure to new ideas and techniques develops and strengthens professional and critical sensibilities. Undergraduate study in studio art and art history prepares students to be professional artists working in a variety of settings, to enter advanced degree programs in studio art, art history, graphic design, or museum training, and to be teachers at the elementary and/or secondary levels. Recent graduates are practicing artists, employed in advertising and computer assisted design, art illustration, museums and slide libraries, interior decorating, graphic design and teaching at all levels.


Majors and Areas of Study

* Art History
* Art (studio, graphic design, art education K-12)


Art (studio, graphic design, art education K-12)

Clarke offers a bachelors of arts (BA) and bachelor of fine arts (BFA) studio degrees. What is the difference in the studio degrees? The bachelor of arts degree requires 48 credits in art or about one-third of your course credits while at Clarke. With this option, students can double major or minor in a complementary area like communication or business, or complete K-12 art education certification. The bachelor of fine arts studio degree is a professional degree with over 60 credits in art. These programs, whether with fine arts or graphic design emphasis, prepare you to enter the professional workplace or graduate school.

Areas of Studio Emphasis

* Graphic Design
* Painting
* Drawing
* Printmaking
* Sculpture
* Ceramics

You do not need to commit to a career path when you walk in the door. All art students take the same foundation or core classes in the first year. This gives you the opportunity to explore diverse media and art concepts. Exposure to these new ideas may open new doors or career paths. Your college art experience will be very different than high school. Imagine being surrounded by art students who all want to pursue a life in the arts – what a great community! A professional and critical atmosphere encourages students to extend their artistic involvement beyond studio exercises into juried exhibitions, internships, independent study and travel.


Graphic Design Emphasis

Today’s world is overloaded with more communication that ever. Everywhere you turn, there are print ads, billboards, Web graphics, and display advertising. That’s why now, more than ever, it’s important that visual elements of business and advertising be as strong as possible.

Clarke College’s graphic design program, which leads students to a BFA degree in art with an emphasis in graphic design, prepares students to produce cutting-edge, industry leading design work. Students will graduate ready to embrace the exciting and challenging profession of creating innovative print, Web, and multimedia design solutions for promotional, advertising, and marketing business needs.

The foundation of the graphic design curriculum is creative problem-solving. This problem-solving goes hand-in-hand with learning the elements of design and creativity, developing of a solid design process and enhancing fine arts hand skills. Using the latest computer technology in the design industry, coursework incorporates the creation of digital images; photo usage and manipulation; typographic layout and production; and Web site development.

At Clarke students can earn a bachelor of fine arts degree (BFA) in art with an emphasis in graphic design. The BFA degree is seen as a professional degree, compared to a bachelor of arts degree (BA), which is a liberal arts degree. The BFA degree provides student designers the opportunity to focus more coursework in his or her area of concentration, thus developing greater skill and expertise.

The graphic design emphasis is enhanced by variety rarely found in small liberal arts colleges. A rich art environment exists at Clarke that provides student designers with the opportunity to explore, broaden, and nurture their creative potential and visual vocabulary. Through a wide variety of art history courses and fine art studio, which include both two- and three-dimensional choices, the opportunities are many. Two-dimensional drawing, painting and printmaking are available as well as three-dimensional ceramics and sculpture.

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Clarke College Art School Location

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