Undergraduate Studio Concentrations

Undergraduate studio concentrations at MICA allow you to expand the focus of your studies, or enhance your possibilities for creative expression through exploration in depth of media, disciplines, technology, and approaches to art-making beyond your major.

Each studio concentration offers a core sequence of courses that provides a structure for building essential skills and concepts in the field. Most also incorporate electives that let you explore the possibilities for your own work. You work closely with a concentration advisor—generally the department chair—to select courses and pursue a coherent program of study. You use the open studio electives included in your major degree plan to complete a studio concentration (requirements for concentrations range from 15–18 credits), so a studio concentration does not add to the total number of credits required for the BFA.

A studio concentration may be incorporated into any MICA major, and students majoring in art history are strongly encouraged to pursue a studio concentration. You may select a concentration to explore in depth an area closely related to your major (an interactive media concentration for a graphic design major) or to branch out into a different medium (a painting major with a video concentration).

Animation offers a range of electives covering such areas as interactive animation, cartooning, narrative photography, the graphic novel, and performance, installation, and sound art. It has two paths—traditional (cell-based) narrative animation and experimental animation.

Book Arts offers an interdisciplinary framework for exploring the book form (offered jointly by photography and printmaking). Students make artists’ books, and may collaborate with visual and literary artists on creating chapbooks, broadsides, and limited-edition art books. Courses are drawn from illustration, graphic design, printmaking, photography, and liberal arts.

Environmental Design provides for students majoring in other areas coursework to help conceive of work spatially, heighten the ability to work three-dimensionally, and build the technical skills to develop and document complex architectural-scale projects.

Experimental Fashion is a structured, sequential investigation for fiber majors into the domain of fashion, art, and culture. The program balances practice and theory, placing fashion in its broadest cultural context—from consumption to the global market. Visual cultural research and critical thinking are integral to concentration coursework. Students obtain the knowledge and ability to verbalize theories and ideas that relate to their own work and enhance their skill in interpreting and articulating their understanding of art and culture. Courses are drawn from studio and liberal arts.

Graphic Design responds to the interest of students from other majors to study and develop a basic understanding of graphic design as a part of their preparation for professional life as an artist; provides a foundation of technical skills that students can put to work—building Web sites, designing publications— as well as a deeper understanding of the power of branding and visual communication in contemporary culture and the impact of mass media and culture on fine art.

Illustration offers coursework of value to students in drawing, animation, general fine arts, graphic design, painting, photography, printmaking, and interdisciplinary sculpture. Required courses offer a strong understanding of contemporary practice and theory in illustration, and electives let you personalize the concentration to inform creative practice in any medium or discipline.

Interactive Media concentration’s core course requirements can be adapted to meet the needs of on- or off-screen-based artists investigating such areas as CD or Web publishing, interactive installation, multimedia, sound art, and robotics. Electives allow you to choose a direction that best meets the requirements of your chosen focus.

Photography provides a structure for students who are interested in pursuing extended study in photography as a complement to work in any major. With course offerings broad enough to address your particular interests.

Printmaking provides a structure for extended study in printmaking, with a proposed sequence of classes, you may tailor your study to meet your unique creative goals and vision.

Video offers technical training coupled with a historical and critical overview of the medium that is rapidly expanding the opportunities for expression of artists in all disciplines.