Graduate Study
Ceramics
Program Overview
The ceramics studio embraces the contemporary spectra of aesthetic ideas and innovative techniques to educate and train professional artists/craftspeople. It strives to support students' career goals with pragmatic information and suitable facilities and equipment.
Our structured courses address specific issues inherent to utilitarian pottery, vessel aesthetics, ceramics sculpture and mixed media. The ceramics program also receives substantial reinforcement from the other craft studios because they, too, explore similar formats and concerns that face artists and craftspeople in the 21st century.
Curriculum Review
The MFA is a professional degree for practicing artists, craftspersons, or designers who desire to leave a lasting impression on their fields by devotion to their work and high standards of discipline and artistic ideals. The MFA is generally a two-year, full-time program that involves the presentation of a thesis. The thesis includes written documentation and formal exhibition of a body of work.
Courses include
Major 42 credit hours
Humanities 10 credit hour
Graduate Forum 3 credit hours
Electives (optional minor) 15-18 credit hours
Thesis 18 credit hours
Total 90 credit hours
Studio residence program
The School for American Crafts offers a craft residence program. Participants are accepted in the ceramics, glass, metals and wood studios.
Residence positions are limited and are awarded after the review of all applicants’ portfolios, transcripts and references. An interview is required. Accepted studio residents are required to register for at least two credits of independent study during every quarter of residence. These two credits can be taken as an audit, thus reducing the tuition cost to the resident.
Accepted residents are expected to be present in their assigned studio during class hours and to contribute up to 10 hours of work per week in the main studio. These work hours will be coordinated and overseen by the major faculty in the area. In exchange, the school will provide workspace, access to facilities and supportive instruction. The resident is invited to participate in the full range of studio activities.
Participants may be people seeking additional studio experience prior to undergraduate or graduate study, early career professionals or teachers on leave who wish to work again in an academic studio environment. The major faculty in the area will make decisions concerning appropriate candidates.
Inquiries should be made to the Residence Program, College of Imaging Arts and Sciences, School for American Crafts, Rochester Institute of Technology, 73 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5603.
Career Outcomes
Job TitlesCraft apprentice, studio artist/assistant, studio owner, teacher/instructor, administrator, ceramic designer, model maker, production manager, product design, restorer, curator
Functions
Assist master craftsperson, create and/or craft pieces design, operate craft studio, teach in school systems and privately
Recent Employers
Buffalo China, Boston Valley Terra Cotta, Morovian Tile, Vermont Clay Studio, Williamsburg Colonial Village
Admission Requirements
Applicants should hold a baccalaureate degree in a field of arts, sciences or education from a regionally accredited institution in the United States or Canada. Applicants should demonstrate, through the quality of the undergraduate record and creative production, a genuine, professional potential. The undergraduate degree should include 75 quarter credit hours (50 semester hours) in studio courses.
International students need a minimum score of 550 (paper-based) or 213 (computer-based) on the Test of English as a Foreign Language. Those coming from countries where the baccalaureate degree is not given for programs in the practice of art may be admitted to graduate study if the diploma or certificate received approximates the standards of the BFA, BA or BS degrees, and if their academic records and portfolios indicate an ability to meet graduate standards.