The Department of Art & Design's programs are designed to help you cultivate a rich and dynamic relationship to art while providing the real-world skills and perspective required to pursue a career in the visual arts.
In the Department of Art & Design at CMU, you have the opportunity to take a variety of courses in
drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, photography, graphic design, and animation.
Foundational coursework is intended to provide you with a hands-on understanding of the principles of art, as well as a critical perspective of art in practice and as a profession. In conjunction with foundational course requirements, you are able to take classes specific to your interests. Here is where you will acquire a first-hand understanding of materials and emerging technologies related to your field of interest.
As you begin to develop a relationship to materials and tools, you'll be encouraged to work across disciplines and consider your role as a designer and maker in context to the world around you, potentially leading to careers in animation, graphic design, photography, studio art, art education, and art history.
Congrats to Alumni David Birkham for earning the Western Michigan University School of Communication Graduate Research and Creative Scholar Award for 2021. He was also selected to present a paper at the Central States Communication Association in March
Congrats to Kate Kinder, lecturer in painting and drawing. She is
having a one-person exhibition titled Adidas & Bustello at 621
Gallery in Tallahassee, Florida opening March 5, 2021. She says about the work “The
subject matter I am including in a body of new paintings act as a mirror of our
human environments. Portrayed as fields of wobbly mugs on shelves, vegetation,
indoor pools, patterns, and the human body, I am looking at our
theoretical and physical, visual relationship to objects. The paintings are
acting as platforms of inquiry for philosophies such as Object Oriented
Ontology, however, I deeply appreciate them simply as paintings, too.”