Creature, Form, Artifact

Undergraduate

This course explores the forms that humans and other animals make and asks what motivates the creation of objects. Through monthly hands-on projects, students investigate how choices of material, tool, and gesture shape both process and outcome, discovering how each decision transforms the development of a sculptural form. Emphasis is placed on experimentation, creative play, and “sculptural thinking” as a way of working across disciplines. Lectures and field trips to Yale institutions, including the Peabody Museum and the Yale University Art Gallery, introduce students to the wide range of formal expressions produced by artists and by the natural world. By studying existing natural and manmade forms, students are invited to develop or reconsider their own habits of making and material handling. As an introduction to sculpture for first-year students, this course fosters close attention to the specific qualities and meanings of different materials and methods. Students are encouraged to embrace process, welcome unexpected results, and generate new questions about how form can become a mode of inquiry and expression. HU RP TTh 9am-10:15am