Contemporary Crafts major

Create objects with a purpose. 

In our Contemporary Crafts program, you’ll work in clay, glass, metal, and nontraditional materials to create highly crafted pieces that will inspire ideas for exhibition and/or mass production. You’ll dive into digital practices and learn about a variety of production techniques to make objects that impact society, economy, and culture. People will purchase, wear, use, exhibit, and write about what you do. You will graduate with studio, conceptual, and business experience, ready to enter the field of contemporary crafts as a thoughtful, skilled, and engaged maker. 

Our graduates go on to work as jewelry designers, ceramicists, glassblowers, entrepreneurs, festival artists, arts administrators, art critics, museum curators, exhibition designers, gallery directors, and gallery owners. 

Fine Arts alumni focusing on crafts accepted into graduate programs: 
Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, State University of New York at New Paltz, California State University at Long Beach, and University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Peek goggles-free into the wood, jewelry, and welding studios of Battelle Hall

Launch Experience

Facilities

You'll have access to:

• Fully equipped ceramics studio, including mixers, extruders, slip tanks, slab rollers, and kilns that include gas, electric, salt, and raku 

• Glass studio that’s equipped for hot and cold work and includes color and clear tanks, casting equipment, large annealers, lapidary wheels, and a diamond bandsaw 

• Jewelry studio with individual benches for student use, each with a flex shaft, and a lab that includes forming and raising tools, casting equipment, rolling mills, sandblasters, and soldering stations 

• Tool room with common hand tools for fabrication, stone setting, and mold making 

Student work

Careers

Recent employers

Find the right internship, write a standout resume, interview well, and land the ideal job for you.

Visit Career Services

Faculty

Apply now

Need more information? Contact us.

Check out the latest Contemporary Crafts news