Sanam Emami and students have been digging in the dirt along the Poudre River, exploring the possibilities of local clay. Local clays differ from commercialized, highly processed clays that are sourced from manufacturers. Using local clay to make functional objects ties its utility to place and provides a richer understanding of the connection between humans, place, and Earth.
In the Department of Art and Art History, together, we discover, imagine, engage, solve and express. We make, teach, and interact with art that helps us explore and challenge our world.
Art-making is one of the many means of expression that humans engage with to understand and interpret the world around them.Community based art education is a collaboration between students and their teacher, tailored to the students’ needs. CSU art education students and teachers craft meaningful visual art experiences for students throughout Fort Collins.
The evolution of Colorado State University’s Art and Art History department is tied to the space it is housed in. At first, art classes were held in Old Main and all across campus. But since 1974, the Visual Arts building has housed all disciplines from art history to printmaking to electronic art. The painted cinderblock functions as a blank canvas for students, faculty, and staff to create art and is a place to work, learn, create, collaborate, and grow.
Technology has always been fundamental to the crafts which are rooted in the use of some tool. The Greek root tekhne— an art, skill, craft in work; method, system, an art, a system or method of making or doing — is about systematizing, standardizing, and organizing. For Del Harrow, associate professor of pottery, throwing on the wheel is about practice and a development of skill, repetition of movements, and involvement in a kind of ritual practice.
Eleanor Moseman, associate professor of art history, studies the role women artists play as cultural producers. Her experience teaching on Semester at Sea brought a global comparative element to her courses Intro to Visual Art and Women in Art History, encouraging students to compare art in Spain, Japan, and Ghana.
From electronic art to silver mining in Bolivia, the German Enlightenment to Congressional productivity, our faculty are able to extend their research based on donor support from Great Conversations.
