About the Art Department
Welcome to Taylor University's visual arts department. This Web site offers a brief overview of the possibilities of artistic study at Taylor University. The visual arts program at Taylor enables students to explore a large variety of studies in the realm of art from a Christian perspective and encourages critical thinking about how Christian faith is reflected in the visual arts.
Our contemporary world shares a common intellectual and physical culture that is significantly determined by the visual arts. Whether through the physical environment, information media, entertainment or consumable products, the visual and design arts influence our beliefs, choices and actions with increasing sophistication. The Taylor University art department, in conjunction with the broader liberal arts community, sees its purpose as the training of Christian professionals who are adept at reading this visual environment, and engaging it creatively and redemptively.
It is evident that the visual arts are playing an increasingly significant role in our world today. We see this as a time of tremendous opportunity for the Christian community. The visual arts are significant not only for their communicative and expressive value, but because the creative impulse is central to our humanity reflecting the truth that we are made in the image of God, the ultimate creative agent, whose character is seen in His artwork, Creation. Human creativity is a gift we believe we should celebrate and enjoy, as well as put to good use.
In recent years, we have observed a growing awareness in the Christian community and among Christian young people in particular of the inherent value of the visual arts and of the wide range of career options now available to them. In the last five years the number of students majoring in art at Taylor has more than doubled, with approximately 105 to 110 students currently pursuing majors in art. In addition, 35 to 40 students are working on minors in studio art and graphic design, programs that were established only three years ago. Clearly, this is an exciting time to be involved in the visual arts and at Taylor University in particular.
Many specific career avenues require training in the visual arts. A major in art is a good first step toward a career in architecture, publication design, fine arts production, advertising, industrial design, graphic illustration, arts administration, art education or art therapy. Graduate study in art history or the studio arts leads to careers in fine arts, university level arts, education, arts administration and museum work. Combined art majors with minors or second majors in psychology, biology, business and journalism lead to careers such as art therapy, medical illustration, gallery museum administration or advertising. There is a wide range of opportunities for students with an art major because of the growth of design professions, media and community arts programs that depend on people with visual arts skills.
The art department at Taylor University has four specific goals:
- To provide undergraduate art majors with strong foundational skills that will prepare them, technically and intellectually, for success in graduate or advanced professional programs in the fine arts or the design professions.
- To provide teacher training in art education for certification and instruction in primary and secondary schools.
- To offer liberal arts students art courses which will enrich their comprehension of cultural issues.
- To encourage our faculty to serve as role models by actively producing in their chosen field of the visual arts and by articulating how Christian faith, the visual arts and the current issues of our culture interrelate.