Breaks in new ceramic studio.
The UPD College of Fine Arts (CFA) further solidifies its status as the country’s premiere art school with the establishment of its new Ceramic Studio. The new facility will have a test run this July when the college faculty will participate in the first in a series of workshops on the creation of ceramic art.
The new Ceramic Studio, which will have its own work area inside the CFA’s Tolentino Hall, will feature a gas kiln, an electric kiln and a raku kiln.
The workshop, which begins on July 7, and runs through to August, will conduct instruction in the fundamentals of ceramic materials and their formal manipulation for the expressive creation of ceramic art objects in a cooperative studio environment.
It includes lectures illustrating historical influences on contemporary ceramic art, demonstrations of ceramic techniques for sculptural and design work, supervision approaches for studio practice in ceramics and evaluation of creative activity through group critiques.
Participants will meet as a group once a week on Mondays from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. and/or from 2:30–5:30 p.m. The studio setting will be accessible during regular hours of campus operation throughout the week for participants to continue working. Participants may subscribe for a single six-week workshop or re-subscribe for another six weeks.
The workshop can accommodate as much as 20 participants. It is is headed by CFA professor Rita Badilla-Gudiño, who is also project proponent and coordinator of the Ceramic Studio. She has coordinated workshop activities with Visiting Fulbright Scholar Tom Decker to implement the materials, resources and facilities required for instructional content.
The first run of workshops will be open to all faculty of the CFA while a second run will be open to students and staff of the CFA as well as the academic community as a whole. The initial introductory session was held on June 28 at the CFA’s Tolentino Hall. The culminating activity of the workshop series will be an exhibit at the end of the semester.
According to CFA dean Florentina P. Colayco, the new Ceramic Studio and the series of workshops will help to expand the CFA’s palette of materials and media.
“This proposed series of workshops is intended to stimulate a cross-disciplinary interest in the studio practice of ceramics. Building interest in the study of ceramic art across the disciplines of Visual Communication, Studio Art, Industrial Design, Art Theory, Graduate Program, RGEP, Continuing Education and Summer Programs will aid in the development of future curricula and may broaden the scope of existing course offerings.”