Notes from the Woodshed: Sculpture, Abstraction, and Improvisation This class takes its title from a book of writing by the black American visual artist Jack Whitten (1939-2018). Whitten’s title itself borrows from a tradition in jazz music, ‘the woodshed’ was a metaphorical place to practice, experiment and develop new ideas before taking them public. We engage the classroom as our own ‘woodshed’, creating sculptural form through close looking, response, and improvisation. Students will develop the basic skills and visual language for creating sculpture using wood, foam, Magic-Sculpt, and found materials. We will read Whitten’s book ‘Notes from the Woodshed’, and other texts that contextualize the rich histories of abstract sculpture made by black Americans in the 20th century. No former experience with art is necessary to take this class.

Advanced Studio I This course is designed for dedicated students who have taken full advantage of the many different modes of creation offered by the Program in Studio Art.  Demonstrated visual literacy is essential before entering this course where you will begin developing an individual voice and practice as a young artist.   Designed to help develop a cohesive body of work with a personal point of view, this course provides the basic tools needed to express artistic intentions visually, verbally, and in writing.  Weekly group critiques, class discussions about contemporary art theory/art criticism, and regular one-on-one studio visits with the Studio Art faculty and visiting artists provide a broader context for your artwork. This class culminates with a public exhibition curated and promoted by the class as a whole.  In addition, students are guided in the creation of a professional portfolio, including extensive documentation of the artwork produced and multiple versions of an artist statement, both suitable for submission to artist internships, residencies, or graduate schools. Graduating seniors enrolled in ART 700 will curate, mount and promote a solo thesis exhibition.  They will also create and submit a digital portfolio to be archived by the Program in Studio Art. Interested students should contact the professor a minimum of one (1) week prior to online registration. Provide a transcript of all completed Studio Art courses, images of work created, and a brief, 1-2 page description of the media you intend to use and the subject matter you wish to further investigate. Students are expected to have completed two Studio Art classes in the medium they wish to explore before applying for ART 700. Approval required. 4 hrs sem./lab.

Spacing In this course we will investigate physical structures encountered daily. Buildings, parks, and infrastructure constitute this built environment, reflecting their societies. But what could abolitionist architecture look like, or how might public space in the U.S. create new social relations? Through lenses of race, class, and gender we will build critical vocabularies around the practice of making space. We will focus on the historical and contemporary embodiment of power, race, and culture of the U.S. through the built environment. This studio class will then present a series of projects addressing basic three-dimensional construction and model making techniques. We will engage historical and contemporary artworks, urban planning, architecture, and poetry from perspectives of resistance to dominant modes of constructing space.

Sculpture I In this sculpture class we will foreground “process” in the creation of form. We will address a variety of traditional tool and material relationships as well as inventing new and unusual processes with unconventional materials and tools. Parallel to studio-based experimentation we will engage in a weekly practice of critique learning how to process the visual with language. The class will be organized around a series of existing artworks, texts and films that will serve as models to help guide our collective inquiry.

Ruins and Rituals In this course we will examine monuments, memorials, landscape, and cultural memory. The title comes from a 1979 sculptural work by the black feminist artist Beverly Buchanan. Buchanan has described her works as monuments made from earthen materials to remember acts of black resistance in the United States. We will also investigate recent actions to remove and destroy monuments to confederate soldiers and other figures related to colonial violence. This is a studio class incorporating material experimentation and research. Students will work at model scale using paper, wood, plaster, digital photography, and photoshop to propose (anti)monuments for our time.

Matthew Schrader

Reviews and ratings for Matthew Schrader at Middlebury College.Matthew Schrader teaches Notes from the Woodshed, Senior Independent Study I Supervised Studio Time, Senior Independent Study II Supervised Studio Time and more.  Explore top rated instructors and find the best for you.Is Matthew Schrader good ? Find out on MiddCourses.

The course is project-based, students need to work with cardboard a lot. The workload depends on how much work you are willing to put into it. The grading is ambiguous, and there is only one midterm check-in during the whole semester. You can't really know how well you did in this course until the final grade is given. There are constant short essays, but each is not longer than a page. Although a prompt is given, the topic can be really flexible. The readings are also short.

This course was a very chill class with little outside time required. The cardboard projects are open-ended, creative, and generally fun to make. There are a few readings and 1 page responses that can be tedious, and some of the classes are slow moving and long. 

This class feels a little aimless, but a solid art class to take overall, especially as an Architecture student who needed a studio course. I like how Schrader incorporates readings with projects, but there is sometimes some disconnect. The projects are very open-ended and he is really happy wherever you take it, as long as you show you have put some time and effort into the projects. Very nice professor, although things are slow sometimes. 