Art

About the Department

The Art Major at Earlham College is unusual because it emphasizes both contemporary craft media, such as ceramics, metalsmithing and weaving, and more traditional media, such as drawing, painting and photography. The program also offers a range of options for work in art history and curatorial practices.

Earlham's Art Program requires no prerequisites for introductory courses, and both majors and non-majors are welcome. Each student majoring in Art chooses an area of focus, which consists of at least four courses in one of the following: ceramics, drawing, art history, metalsmithing, painting, photography and weaving. In addition to building competency in a focus, each student also takes art fundamentals, art history and a course in theatre, music or film.

All Art majors complete an intensive senior project in their area of focus, known as a Senior Capstone Experience. These projects, planned in consultation with department faculty, customarily lead to participation in a senior art exhibition in Leeds Gallery or to the presentation of a research paper, the curation of an exhibition, completion of a community arts project or a similar public presentation appropriate to the project.

Each Art major completes an internship as well. The broad range of options for an internship includes work in a museum, apprenticing with an artist in a studio, participating in an intensive off-campus workshop, or working in a community arts program. Students are strongly encouraged to take advantage of the Great Lakes Colleges Association's New York Arts Program, which is an opportunity to spend a semester in New York City as an apprentice to an artist — some of them internationally known — or work as an intern in a major museum or gallery.

Among the resources available for art students are five studios; a kiln building with a variety of electric, gas and wood-fired kilns; a darkroom; well-equipped metals and weaving studios; Leeds Gallery, an art exhibition space in Runyan Center; and the Ronald Gallery in Lilly Library, which displays pieces from Earlham's Permanent Collection and other artists. Students in art classes often enjoy opportunities to participate in field trips to regional museums and sites. The Art Department also offers many intensive courses both on and off campus during May Term.

The studio art faculty members are all working artists who make and exhibit their own art in addition to teaching. Our art historian curates many exhibits from the College's Art Collection throughout the year in the Ronald Gallery in Lilly Library.

Recent graduates from Earlham include students in a wide variety of excellent graduate programs. Many others have gone directly into the world of arts, working in their own creative studios or completing apprenticeships with professional artists. Two of our recent graduates received the Thomas J. Watson Foundation Fellowship. Each spent a year studying a subject of their own design.