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The BFA Metal program offers students the opportunity to work in a state-of-the-art facility with faculty who are actively engaged artists who exhibit and lecture internationally. The rigorous curriculum explores the technical, aesthetic, and conceptual aspects of contemporary jewelry and metalsmithing. Coursework is supplemented by field trips and participation in professional conferences.
The metal program is directed by Professor Myra Mimlitsch-Gray and includes Lynn Batchelder and Amelia Toelke as prominent faculty.
The rigorous curriculum explores the technical, aesthetic, and conceptual aspects of contemporary jewelry and metalsmithing. Coursework is supplemented by field trips and participation in professional conferences. Given the college's proximity to major cultural centers, students benefit from frequent visits to museums and expositions. Metal sustains a comprehensive visiting artist schedule. Past participants include Lisa Walker, Peter Bauhuis, Melanie Bilenker, Lola Brooks, Simon Cottrell, Gabriel Craig, Iris Eichenberg, Lisa Gralnick, Barbara Seidenath, Tracy Steepy, Andrea Wagner, and Helen Britton.
In addition, we often invite prominent writers, critics, and curators to campus to speak and critique student work, including Glenn Adamson, Damian Skinner, Ken Ames, Mary Douglas, John Stuart Gordon, Dave Hickey, Sienna Patti, David Levi Strauss, and Ken Trapp.
Undergraduate Curriculum
The Metal BFA program emphasizes technically based coursework at the onset. Early assignments introduce fundamental craft skills, explore materials and processes, and address content and form while encouraging personal expression. In upper-level classes, Metal majors deepen their experience with more sophisticated techniques and technologies that enhance their work formally and conceptually. Students research important influences and movements in the field, prepare professional portfolios, and produce bodies of work to be exhibited in the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art; this work comprises the capstone experience for the Metal major.
Metal's comprehensive technical curriculum offers instruction in the following courses: Basic Metal, Construction and Fabrication, Enameling, Metal Forming, Processes and Experimental Techniques I and II, and Selected Topics courses as offered. Demonstrated techniques include: fabricating mechanisms such as hinges, clasps, stone settings, jewelry findings; specific soldering methods and torchwork; metalsmithing, such as anticlastic raising, and hot-forging with non-ferrous metal and steel; processing metal alloys; wax work and lost wax casting; electro-forming and electro-etching; vitreous enameling.
Beyond metal-specific studio courses, Metal Majors take Computer-Aided Design, and they choose other Art Studio courses and Digital Design/Fabrication as electives on the Metal plan of study. The seminar course, Contemporary Ideas in Metal provides an overview of the field’s history and current perspectives in relation to Art, Craft and Design, stimulating critical discourse and deeper understanding.
Please refer to the undergraduate catalog for specific information about the plan of study, course descriptions, and admissions requirements.
