The School of Art and Design offers a four-year professional program leading to the Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree and a two-year Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree. We are a vibrant community of artists, designers, and scholars who create new knowledge in, through, and about the arts and design every day.
School/Division
School of Art and Design
NYS College of Ceramics
Campus Locations
Main Campus - Alfred, NY
Major
Art and Design (BFA)
Minor
Art and Design
The BFA degree provides opportunities for undergraduate students to study ceramic art, drawing, painting, photography, interactive graphic design, print media, video, sonic art, interactive media or glass and sculpture within an open curriculum.
In the Ceramic Art area, you'll learn everything from clay making, glaze formation, throwing, hand-building, slip-casting, and kiln work. You'll advance to skills ranging from utilitarian pottery to sculpture and the making of ceramic tile. You can also take courses to learn about 3D digital printing and fabrication of ceramic materials.
You'll explore topics integral to each field, with respect toward both traditional & experimental practices. These courses, chosen with close faculty advisement, allow investigations that span and expand the range of what is possible in both thought and process. While you may choose to concentrate wholly in either painting or drawing, cross-disciplinary work is also encouraged & valued. In conjunction with the Santa Reparata International School of Art, the Division of Drawing & Painting also offers a semester abroad in Florence, Italy.
In the Division of Expanded Media, you'll explore the cross-pollination of film, video, sound, digital imaging, interactive graphic design & printmaking converged into a wonderfully complex set of possibilities. Each area within the division strives to offer you the experience, knowledge, skills, and understanding of the tradition of each discipline combined with the creative vision necessary to expand the potential inherent to each medium.
From glass sculpture to neon work to paper, wood, metal and more, the Division of Sculpture-Dimensional Studies provides students a creative experience inclusive of their preferred media. Whatever you choose to work with, you can access extensive facilities like our National Casting Center and a dynamic curricula of courses that represent the breadth and depth of contemporary sculptural expression.
As a BFA major, you can take elective and academic credit from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the College of Business. There are numerous options for art students who want to pursue academic minors such as arts management, art education with teacher certification, environmental studies, performing arts, philosophy, and business, to name a few.
Each year, candidates of the Bachelor of Fine Art (BFA) degrees showcase their work in a series of culminating senior show exhibitions.
Courses for the Art & Design BFA are listed in our digital Undergraduate Catalog.
Courses for the Art & Design BFA with Visual Arts Education are listed in our digital Undergraduate Catalog.
Courses for the Art Minor are listed in our digital Undergraduate Catalog.
Foundations is a first-year course predicated on generating a rigorous studio practice through comprehensive teaching philosophy that engages a broad range of questions, extending across and beyond artistic disciplines. Individual students bring their own experiences and skills into a community of peers. Drawing is a key component of the Foundations curriculum.
In addition to the Foundations studio courses in the first year, students complete 6 credits of art history by taking three 2-credit courses in non-western art, ancient to baroque art, and modern to contemporary art. First-year students also fulfill academic requirements in writing and humanities.
The sophomore curriculum is designed to enhance and further develop the studio experience of the Foundations year with the introduction to specific studio areas, all of which support the "high tech, high touch" vision of the School. The curriculum encourages study of studio disciplines represented across each of four Divisions - Ceramic Art; Expanded Media; Painting, Drawing and Photography; and Sculpture/Dimensional Studies. Drawing is a key component of the sophomore and junior year curriculum.
Sophomore students learn fundamental skills necessary in the development of an artistic practice. These include an awareness and ability to understand, use and integrate processes, tools, materials, and vocabularies. During this year students choose four studios, one from each division, or opt to take four studios in three divisions. This allows those who want to focus in a specific medium to do so, while allowing others a more varied studio experience. Both options are meant to prepare students for the challenges of the junior and senior curriculum.
The sophomore art history requirement, Issues and Debates in Contemporary Art, provides a stimulating and integrated context to the studio experience. Students also extend the breath of their academic experience by choosing elective courses from other schools and colleges at Alfred University.
Students entering the junior year have the latitude to define their interests and creative goals. Students naturally become more focused, integrating conceptual and technical skills while developing a personal vision in their art making. At the junior level, academic and elective course work fosters interest in cross-disciplinary practice and undergraduate research possibilities.
The junior year is also the time for students to take advantage of study abroad opportunities. The School of Art and Design has several exchange programs including agreements with the University for the Creative Arts at Farnham, England, Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland, Fachhochschule Koblenz University of Applied Sciences in Germany, the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing, China, and Sydney College of the Arts and the University of New South Wales in Australia. The Drawing, Painting and Photography Division offers a summer program through the Santa Reparata International School of Art in Florence, Italy.
Seniors work semi-independently in their own studio spaces and are required to meet weekly with two faculty advisors (instructors) to discuss their work, research and process. Additionally, seniors participate in seminars, visiting artists programs, group critiques, discussions and exhibitions. Defining their own direction, seniors develop and produce a consistent body of work which draws on their individual experiences, acquired skills and personal vision. The culmination of the BFA degree is the senior thesis exhibition.
During the final two weeks of the academic year, the School of Art and Design is transformed into quality exhibition space where graduating seniors display their thesis work. The opening celebration of Senior Shows includes families and numerous guests from throughout Western New York State. Following the openings, students come back into their exhibition spaces for final reviews and faculty critiques. The momentum gained during the senior year prepares graduates to enter the work force as highly accomplished and motivated artists and designers.
Our BFA degree programs have two main objectives: to help students develop the commitment and skills necessary to pursue a career in art; and to prepare students for graduate work. Outcomes for artists are very different than for other majors – “career success” can be defined as selling work, exhibiting at shows and galleries, freelancing and many other activities.
Recent examples include:
The Ceramic Art focus offers you extensive indoor and outdoor kiln facilities, backed by the expertise of an artist-master technician, supporting both faculty and students. There is access to large, separate studio areas for throwing, hand-building and plaster mold work, as well as a completely stocked undergraduate glaze room and labs for clay and glaze formulation. In addition, our program features a comprehensive material supply facility managed by a ceramic artist-technician.
The new 3D Digital Fabrication Lab, collaboratively developed between the School of Art and Design and the Inamori School of Engineering, offers cutting-edge exploration of new technologies in ceramics.
Clean, flexible spaces used for:
Our facility currently has a two thousand pound capacity continuous melt furnace for clear glass, a 1200 pound capacity furnace for colored glass, three large glory holes and twenty annealing ovens, all computer controlled. This space is part of the National Casting Center which also provides space for metal casting at a facility located just off campus.
The neon studio is well equipped and enables 3 students to bend glass simultaneously. All equipment is consistent with industry standards. The curriculum focuses on sculptural, architectural and experimental applications; however, interest in the fundamentals of lettering and signage is accommodated.
The foundry is fully equipped for large-scale aluminum, bronze and iron casting. An induction furnace will provide iron and stainless steel casting opportunities. The mold-making systems used in the foundry are: traditional plaster investment, resin bonded sand and ceramic shell.
The foundry facility is a newly renovated stand-alone-building devoted to cast metals. This building houses two gas fired 200 lb bronze and aluminum furnaces and one VIP Inducto-Therm High Temp. Tilt Furnace for casting iron and stainless steel. This area is the metal half of the National Casting Center with the other half being developed in cast glass. This new facility also has a full stone working facility with cutting, carving, fabricating and polishing options possible for marble and granite stone sculpture. Also, combinations of metal, stone and glass sculpture are encouraged.
The Metal fabrication studio is well equipped with all processes in welding technology (TIG, MIG, brazing, oxy-acetylene and plasma cutting), metal forging and large blasting room.
The wood shop provides an open supervised studio space for all School of Art and Design students to work in wood. All students must complete safety training at the beginning of each academic year to have access to the facility, which has open shop hours, approximately 55 hours a week.
The Wood Shop is a fully equipped wood working facility with two rooms, one housing most of the large stationary equipment including: chop saws, band saws, professional Saw Stop cabinet table saws, drill press, wood lathes, belt, disc, and spindle sanders, a panel saw, 18” capacity planer, and 14” x 8’ joiner. The second room of the wood shop is the general workroom equipped with a dozen large woodworking tables with built in vises, and a large assortment of hand tools, hand held power tools, and wood working clamps. The wood shop also has a steam tube for bending wood.
All equipment is maintained by the shop technicians to provide a safe working atmosphere and the technicians are always available for assistance to ensure safety and enjoyment of time spent in the wood shop.
The BFA in the School of Art and Design is often combined with double majors or minors in the following related programs:
