Major Maps

Certificate of Fine Arts or Associate of Fine Arts in Visual Arts 

To avoid excess credits at graduation from VCU, complete course recommendations listed below and apply in first year at community college.  The community college ART classes listed under course recommendations will fulfil requirements for the Art Foundation program (the first year of all visual art majors) at VCU.

The Department of Sculpture and Extended Media’s full-time faculty members and various part-time and technical faculty represent a spectrum of directions and philosophical attitudes. Faculty interests range from formal to conceptual, from the concrete to the evanescent. This breadth of interests is presented to students and contributes to the comprehensive nature of the department. Students are not only exposed to traditional sculpture media, but encouraged to explore technology’s parameters and to pursue interdisciplinary activity.

The department encourages sculpture students to broaden their experience in other areas. By promoting a curriculum that encourages students to take a wide range of courses throughout the university, faculty stress links between art, science, the humanities and the world. As a consequence, sculpture students have rich, productive associations with professors in many fields. Sculpture students are challenged to exploit their full potential by questioning notions of contemporary art. The goal is to provide students with the vocabulary, the seeds of discernment and the skills of both analysis and synthesis in order to become participants in the dialogue of our time. All of this takes place in an environment of high expectation regarding self-motivation, intellectual capacity and responsibility. The sculpture program is housed in a state-of-the-art facility. Sculpture majors are provided with semi-private, locked studio spaces and are given time, support and encouragement to pursue their independently determined goals. 

Sculpture alumni are equipped with the critical thinking, creative problem solving, and technical skills that many careers of the 21st Century require.  Alumni often start working as artist assistants and move on to careers as studio artists themselves. Fabrication skills- particularly those in 3D digital modeling and CNC technology- are in high demand, and graduates from our program have a reputation for their abilities in these fields. Many of our alumni work in the art world as curators, preparators, conservators, administrators, and other art related professions.

Our alumni have the agility and forward thinking that will carry them through a rapidly changing world, and this will equip them for careers that may not yet exist at the moment they graduate.