Spring 2026 Course Search

In this course we will focus on cutting and welding non-ferrous metals. Hand cutting and CNC assisted plasma cutting will be the methods in which stock will be cut. The fabrication processes will begin through brazing methods (acetylene) for connecting non-similar metals. There will also be instruction on pinpoint forging as well as the safe use of the blacksmithing forge in the Sculpture department. We will then advance to learning the skills involved in using the GTAW welders for non-ferrous welding.

“When I combine imagery and text, I'm really just trying to surprise myself,” writes poet Diane Khoi Nguyen. In fact, there are many pathways to surprise when we start to experiment with multimedia. Certainly the result must have been surprising when the late John Giorno, in 1968, developed the phone-based, poetry performance project, Dial-a-Poem.

It is a commonly felt experience, in our current age of climate crisis, misinformation, pandemics, declining birth rates, late-stage capitalism, and the apparent twilight of democracy, etc., that we are living through (or at, or near) the end of the world. Where do we look for precedents for this feeling? To what extent does this dark life imitate art, or vice versa? Where does ‘dystopia’ end and realism begin?