Integrating Art and Science: The Online Studio Format
The online format provides unique opportunities to incorporate cross-disciplinary modes of thinking in studio courses. Two fully online studio courses I teach at Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Experience Anatomy and Drawing Through a Lens, integrate science-based disciplines. Assignments utilizing field studies allow students to get hands-on opportunities to learn directly from their own scientific research. Using a model similar to The Art of Scientific Investigation, by W.I.B. Beveridge, students are instructed to define the problem, conduct observational research through sketches, and carry the assignments through to finished drawings. The processes of art and science are therefore similar. In a series of learning units, my courses cover concepts such as the Fibonacci sequence, plant dissections, mathematical formulas in design, anatomy in art, bone and muscle studies, field research of plants, and many other integrated science and art topics. Direct observational drawing from these findings allow for more informative learning and engagement. Online resources serve as critical support for student research and enhance the knowledge students are gaining in the field.
Adjunct Professor
Minneapolis College of Art and Design
Amy Sands has exhibited her work in a number of solo and group shows both nationally and internationally, includingPrints Tokyo 2012, at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, and Estampa, the 2003 Madrid International Print Fair. Her work will be shown in three upcoming international exhibitions in Douro, Portugal: Global Print 2015, 1st Virtual Print, and the 8th International Printmaking Biennial of Douro 2016. She was an invited artist in residence at the Skopelos Foundation for the Arts in the Isle of Skopelos, Greece, in 2005. Nationally, her work has been exhibited in New York and also received a juror’s award at the 2013 MAPC Juried Members Exhibition at the McDonough Museum of Art, in Youngstown, Ohio. Sands’s work is in the permanent collections of the New York Public Library, Pratt Institute, Metropolitan State University, Buena Vista University, and Central Lakes College, as well as in many private collections.
