WHY STUDY ART and ART HISTORY AT BAYLOR

In an increasingly visual world, the demand for the skills of artists, designers, and art historians is growing. Whether creating with paint, pencil or charcoal on canvas or paper; with tactile materials such as clay, fibers, metal or wood; with light on photographic paper; or with pixels on a computer screen - artists and designers play a key role in communicating ideas, information and aesthetics.

The Department of Art and Art History promotes the study of Art History through lectures, seminars, museum visits, and guest speakers. The program seeks to encourage critical thinking, close looking, and analytical writing through the study of art and culture.

Baylor's Department of Art and Art History is unique as it offers students a wide array of classes within a broad range of artistic areas and disciplines while challenging them to think creatively and critically: preparing them to enter the professional visual world or advanced study.

AREAS OF STUDY

Foundations Art History Ceramics Fabric Design Graphic Design Painting Photography Printmaking Sculpture Course Descriptions

MEET OUR FACULTY

Winter Rusiloski

Associate Professor of Art
My approach to teaching emphasizes basic visual concepts and principles, while empowering students to develop their own ideas and perspectives. An initial emphasis on technical skills and formal aesthetics facilitates growth and development of their own ideas during personal investigations. Contemporary issues in painting are of paramount importance to my instruction.

Robbie Barber

Professor of Art
My teaching approach centers around empowering our students to overcome challenges. I want them to be problem-solvers and to push themselves. Additionally, I want studio art majors to understand that Sculpture and 3D Design can be the hub of many different approaches to making art. Teaching the Elements and Principles of Design continues to be the backbone of my approach, as well as teaching how to problem-solve a variety of media in relation to contemporary sculpture.

Heidi J. Hornik, PhD

Department Chair & Professor of Art History
My courses and research have always intersected beautifully and manifested in excellent undergraduate research projects on Italian Renaissance and Baroque art. Teaching the aspects of Connoisseurship from original works of art in the Armstrong Browning Library has enabled undergraduate students to experience the kind of work that I do internationally. Frequently, my research on art and theology also engages students' interdisciplinary interests.

Greg Lewallen

Senior Lecturer of Art
I love the interaction with students in the studio. I love getting to know them and building relationships with them. I ask them to give me their very best effort and I expect no less of myself. I feel a deep sense of responsibility to my students and try to challenge them to go beyond their comfort zone, to attempt something they wouldn't attempt on their own. Most times the results are predictable. Sometimes, the results are totally unexpected. Every once in a while, they are exceptional. That is what gets me up every morning, to see if today is the day one of my students is going to cross that threshold, the day they will have that personal Eureka! moment.

H. Jennings Sheffield

Associate Professor of Art
I think my favorite part of teaching is introducing, and witnessing students experience the magic of photography. I love the moment when they first see their prints come to life in the developer. It is a magical moment. I think it is extremely important to expose students to all different types of art, genres, considerations and intentions current in the art world today. It is our role as artists to constantly ask questions and then investigate them. I think the most important thing is for them to learn how to critically think and keep asking questions.

Kyle Chaput

Assistant Professor of Art
The acts of making art and teaching are an intuitive and intrinsic aspect of my being. I believe students learn best when they are enthusiastic and when students sense an instructor's passion for art and teaching, they respond in kind. To meet this obligation, I strive to inspire my classes through a technically and conceptually engaging curriculum that reflects my devotion to the fine art of printmaking and education.

Julia Hitchcock

Professor of Art
Cultivating a strong desire to think through seeing helps students to identify the connections between the act of making art and cognitive discernment. The intertwining of technical and experiential learning derived from real life experience is potently relevant and transferable every time they enter the art lab.

Mack Gingles

Associate Professor of Art
My role is to inspire students. I approach this responsibility by teaching a practice of drawing that focuses on the possibilities inherent to working from direct observation. If they can engage the world in front of them in a way that invites critical thinking, their effectiveness is incalculable when they start asserting themselves more independently through their own projects.

Virginia Green

Associate Professor of Art
The creative process is inspired by the soulful melodies and rhythmic influences that define the pace of the visual concept. As a graphic designer, I embrace the semiotic and aesthetic value of the letter form and the emotion it evokes when used as an element of design. Items in nature, flora and fauna, serve as sources of inspiration for their complex symbolism and simplistic form as graphic symbols.

Tina Linville

Assistant Professor of Art
The materials, concepts, and processes of fiber art enrich the lives of every student that genuinely engages with them. My classroom culture is centered on the values of curiosity, generosity, and meaningful artistic risk. Students explore fabric design with an interdisciplinary approach, inspired by diverse artists and designers, both western and non-western, traditional and contemporary.

Andrew McIntyre

Assistant Professor of Art
My approach to teaching students about ceramics begins with building the fundamentals of their technical skills and critical thinking. I challenge students to bring in their own perspectives of reality and execute it purposefully in their work. I think one of the most important things for my students to learn is that in order to succeed, you must take risks, which means that sometimes you may fail. My hope and goal as a teacher is to influence and encourage my students to be dedicated, work hard, find confidence, learn from mistakes, and continue to ask questions. I find it to be extremely rewarding when a student finally makes their first object out of clay.

FEATURED WORK

• All
• Student
• Faculty

Featured Student 1Gingles_ArtworkFeatured Faculty 1Featured Student 5Featured Faculty 6Bundle III, woodcut & monotype copy

OUR FACILITIES

Baylor University's Department of Art and Art History maintains world class studio facilities that encompass cutting edge technology and state-of-the-art equipment allowing students' imagination to have no bounds. Our smart classrooms provide the latest in computer and presentation equipment for contemporary instruction. The goal is to give our students access to industry-standard practise and equipment so they can move seamlessly into their professional careers.

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT - Click Here for More Information

Josh Martin Graphic Design
Walt Disney Imagineering

Erica Thorpe Photography
Christie's Auction House, New York

Cade Kegerris Painting
Full Time Muralist and Painter