Ceramics
Giselle Hicks
Ceramics
Our bachelor of fine arts (B.F.A.) degree program in ceramics helps you become a professional ceramist. We encourage you to explore several directions: pottery, sculpture, tile mosaics, and other areas as you focus on the specialty that interests you most.
Your early studio courses focus on methods of hand building, wheel throwing, and mold work, as well as basic glaze chemistry and application. You also learn to use decorative techniques, kiln firing, and studio maintenance. As you become more advanced, you will use traditional and experimental techniques for production pieces and individual works of art. At this level, you will mix your own glazes, clays, and slips and fire your own kilns.
Our extensive ceramics area includes a wheel room, hand building room, fully equipped clay mixing facility, plaster room, and a large room for ceramic sculpture. There is also a completely stocked glaze laboratory; a kiln room with several large gas kilns and electric kilns; and a patio with kilns for raku, wood, soda, and pit firing, as well as an Anagama kiln.
The Shaped Clay Society, a group of ceramics students and faculty, is active on campus and in the community. Through various fund-raising activities, the group is able to increase educational opportunities, such as bringing visiting artists to campus, or support a local organization, such as a recent benefit for the Interreligious Food Consortium of Central New York.
Many of our graduates have become studio ceramists, teachers at both the high school and college level, or have pursued other avenues such as designing and working in industry or occupational therapy, or managing cooperative ceramic studios.The School of Art and Design feels that drawing plays a vital and primary role in the creative life of an artist. Click here to read more about this common thread that weaves through our art and design programs.