For Your Edification & Enjoyment: A Guide to Arts IAPs 2016

The words “school” and “leisure” are etymologically linked, yet it is all too easy to forget this association of learning with enjoyment, given all the beastly competition in academe and the unremitting pressure to keep up your GPA. The Independent Activities Period (IAP), a special term at MIT that runs from early January until the end of the month, is designed to re-acquaint you with the idea that learning is a leisurely pursuit, an “intermission of work.”

Construct a bamboo bicycle. Weave medieval textiles. Bind books. Design inflatable, edible objects from yeast and an electronic pneumatic control toolkit. Build large-scale ice sculptures. Knit patterns based on fractals, numerical sequences and space-filling curves. Make an electric guitar, a video game, a teapot, a poem. Paint, sculpt, draw, print. Revel in these choices, dear readers, and enroll in an IAP (or two).

IAP 2016 will run from Monday, January 4, through Friday, January 29, 2016. To help you navigate the profusion of arts courses, we have compiled a list of classes in the visual arts, graphic design, multimedia, music, performing arts, architecture & design, books & letters, film, and craft, beginning with two IAPs offered by CAST Visiting Artists Keith Ellenbogen and Joan Levy Hepburn.

 

CAST-SPONSORED COURSES

Underwater Conservation Photography
Keith Ellenbogen, CAST Visiting Artist, and Allan Adams, MIT Department of Physics, Instructors

This intensive crash course in underwater photography will cover everything from underwater optics to hacking simple ROVs to building custom imaging devices to the ecology of coral reef ecosystems and the behavior of their inhabitants. These topics will be covered in lectures, in lab work, on local field trips and in team design and construction projects. The final week will be spent putting these skills and devices to use at the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Glover’s Reef Research Station (GRRS) off the coast of Belize. A traveling exhibition of video and still images from this expedition will be shown at the Bronx Zoo, the MIT Museum, the Boston Planetarium, SUNY/FIT and beyond.

Form and Color
Joan Levy Hepburn, CAST Visiting Artist, Instructor

This class will focus on learning visual language and color perception through drawing and painting. Students will come away from these classes with a new awareness of observational skills documented in drawing, an understanding of form, a thorough understanding and control of color and applications of its use as light and pigment, and the completion of an oil painting.

 

GRANT WRITING

Getting a grant from the Council for the Arts at MIT, Susan Cohen, Director, Council for the Arts at MIT

 

VISUAL ARTS—3D (SCULPTURE/ CERAMICS/ GLASS)

Beginning Pottery Wheel, Darrell Finnegan, Technical Instructor and Studio Manager

Ceramica Botanica, Darrell Finnegan, Technical Instructor, Studio Manager

Composite Forms, Darrell Finnegan, Technical Instructor and Studio Manager

Creature and Character Creations in Clay, Jason Pastorello, Technical Instructor

Creature and Character Creations in Clay 2, Jason Pastorello, Technical Instructor

Mighty Mugs, Jason Pastorello, Technical Instructor

Mighty Mugs, Section 2 Jason Pastorello, Technical Instructor

Super Bowls, Jason Pastorello, Technical Instructor

Super Bowls 2, Jason Pastorello, Technical Instructor

Team Challenge: Ceramics Coat of Arms, Jason Pastorello, Technical Instructor, Student Art Association

Totally Teapots, Darrell Finnegan, Technical Instructor and Studio Manager

Contemporary Geometric Beadwork, Kate McKinnon, Erik Demaine, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Martin Demaine, Technical Assistant, CSAIL

Crafting the Cosmos – Handmade Projects and Introductory Astrophysics, Zach Berta-Thompson, Postdoctoral Fellow, Kavli Institute

Enameling Course, Tara Fadenrecht, Technical Instructor

Intro to Metal Sculpture, Tara Fadenrecht, Technical Instructor

 

VISUAL ARTS—2D (PAINTING/ DRAWING/ PHOTOGRAPHY)

Beginning Oil Painting Workshop, Nicole Tariverdian, Technical Instructor

Interpreting a Still Life-Beginning & Intermediate, Nicole Tariverdian, Technical Instructor

Oil Painting Workshop, Nicole Tariverdian, Technical Instructor

Quick Draw: A Crash Course for Absolute Beginners, Mauricio Cordero

Introduction to Gum Bichromate Printing, Thery Mislick, Technical Instructor and Studio Manager

Basic Camera and Classical Darkroom Techniques, Thery Mislick, Technical Instructor and Studio Manager

Digital to Analog Black and White Photography, Nicole Tariverdian, Technical Instructor

Introduction to Drawing, as taught in the Class “Introduction to Design for Engineers,” Carolyn Jundzilo-Comer

 

ART TOURS & COLLECTING

A guided tour of Class Distinctions: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer, Anne McCants, Professor of History

MFA Japanese Art Tour, Hiromu Nagahara

Slow Looking Art Workshop: Sol LeWitt, Courtney Klemens, Campus and Community Outreach Coordinator

MFA Tour: American Art of the Sea, Prof. Christopher Capozzola

Beyond the “Like”: Collecting and Contemporary Art, Courtney Klemens

 

GRAPHIC DESIGN & MULTIMEDIA

Coding Creativity, Cindy Bishop

DUSPviz: Basic Habits of Effective Graphic Designers, Mike Foster

ArtMTR, E-David painting robot source code rewrite, Ben Tritt, CEO ArtMATR

DUSPviz: Code your First Web Site—Introduction to HTML/CSS/Javascript, Mike Foster

DUSPviz: Create a Research Poster—Intermediate Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop/InDesign, Mike Foster

DUSPviz: IMapping with Leaflet JS—Intro to Web Mapping, Mike Foster

Video Games as Media Hybrids, Michal Zmuda

Digital Imaging 101, Jenn Morris, Digital Imaging Manager, MIT Libraries

Build a CNC Drawing Machine, Victor Leung, Instructor

 

MUSIC & PERFORMING ARTS

Build your own Electric Guitar, Hayami Arakawa, Asst. Director

IAP – Movement, Concentration and Meditation Techniques for Performers, Jean Rife, Lecturer in Music and Theatre Arts Department, musician

Vintage Musical Sound: Audio Technology from 100 Years Ago, Timothy Peng

Bhakti Modern Dance Master Class, Deborah Abel, Artistic Director, Deborah Abel Dance Company

Intro to Hoop Dance, Angie Tun

Japanese Tea Ceremony, Kyoko Wada

Learn to Play Music on Your iPhone or iPad, Dazza Greenwood, Scientist

                                                

ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN

Bamboo Bicycle Frame Making Workshop, David Wang, Founder of Bamboo Bicycles Beijing

Forces Frozen—Exploring Structural Ice Shells, Caitlin Mueller, Assistant Professor in Building Technology, Lancelot Coar, Assistant Professor, University of Manitoba

Inflated Appetite, Wen Wang, Postdoctoral Associate, Chemical Engineering, Lining Yao, Research Assistant, MIT Media Lab, Jifei Ou, Research Assistant, MIT Media Lab, Chin-Yi Cheng, MIT Architecture

The Distaff Arts: Medieval Clothing Technology, Margo Collett, Anne McCants

 

BOOKS & LETTERS

Historic Letterlocking: The Art and Security of Letterwriting, Jana Dambrogio, Thomas F. Peterson Jr. (1957) Conservatory

Two Bookbinding Styles, Kate Beattie, Preservation Associate, Ayako Letizia, Conservation Assistant

What’s Old is New: Recent Additions to our Special Collections, Stephen Skuce, Rare Books Program Manager

Pleasures of Poetry 2016, David Thorburn, Professor of Literature

EMBRACING THE OUTSKIRTS (book reading), Jo Ivester ’77

Mobile Reading Marathon: Arabian Nights, Susan Wiedner, Staff

Create Your Own Comic! (Artistic Ability Optional), Rebecca Thorndike-Breeze, Ph.D, Lecturer, CMS/W

Comics Culture from Print to Screen, James Paradis, Lacey Lord

MIT Writers’ Group, Steven Strang

 

FILM

Abstract and Experimental Film Laura Ryan, Film Office

Art and Lunchtime Discussion: Ann Hirsch Ann Hirsch, Courtney Klemens, Campus and Community Outreach Coordinator, List Museum

Urban Planning Film Series, Ezra Glenn

 

CRAFT

Chirimen-Zaiku: The Art of Japanese silk crepe craft, Mineko Sasaki

Daytime Knitting, Fabiola Hernandez

Ikebana: The Art of Japanese Flower Arrangement, Hiroko Matsuyama

IAP math + knitting, Teal Guidici

 

Posted on December 18, 2015 by Sharon Lacey