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Visual Arts Courses

Courses in the Visual Arts at Wesley Theological Seminary are taught by Catherine Kapikian, Deborah Sokolove, and Artists-in-Residence. Although not every course is offered every semester, courses in the Visual Arts listed in the current catalogue include:

RA-111 – Visual Arts and Proclamation: From the Catacombs to Citicorp: Encounter Christian themes (seeing is believing) in 1800 years of art. Study periods, styles, and major works mirroring theological constructs. Critique of contemporary art scene in light of learnings. Occasional field trips. Two credit hours.

RA-112 – Art as Embodiment: The Holy in Washington DC Art: Theological themes and major styles of art encountered through studio lectures, slide presentations, and field trips to this city’s painting, sculpture, manuscript illumination, icons, and stained glass. Application of learnings to local church. Three credit hours.

RA-114 – Ecclesiastical Design and Construction: Art as Proclamation: Learn to see church environments critically; program visual initiatives; utilize visual symbols; experience contemporary religious works on-site; create and construct choice of paraments, vestments, banners, site-specific work, and graphics. Two credit hours.

RA-151 – Language of Mystery: Art in Contemporary Sacred Service: A church oriented study of: aesthetic theory; non-verbal vocabulary used by visual artists; precedents in visual theological proclamation; program initiatives for art in worship, education, fellowship, and outreach. Two credit hours.

RA-152 – Contemplative Drawing: Nurturing the Spiritual Self: Stimulate prophetic imagination through seeing, drawing, being. Explore creative process in relationship to spiritual formation. Left-hemispheric verbal, logical, and analytical processing integrated with right-hemispheric spatial, intuitive processing. Especially for non-artists. Evaluation on process rather than product. Two credit hours.

RA-301 – Beauty, Art, and the Knowledge of God: Study of selected theologians and artists on the relationship of beauty and the knowledge of the divine; analysis of artistic expression both as stimulus for and transmission of the human experience of the holy. Prerequisites: Completion of Religion and Arts requirement and ST-305 and ST-306. Three credit hours.

RA-351 – Arts Practicum: Individual projects with theological focus in student’s choice of medium such as paint, fabric (vestments, banners, tapestry), clay, wood, calligraphy, photography, poetry, dance, etc. Students unacquainted with dynamics of creative process in relationship to spiritual formation (art as meditation) and unacquainted with non-verbal expressions of Christian proclamation encouraged to participate. One credit hour. May be repeated once for credit.

RA-363 – Chapel Visuals: Student in consultation with instructor will design and render work for WTS Chapel or student’s local church setting. Paraments (altar, table, pulpit, frontal), vestments (stoles, chasuble, cope), banners, installations, bulletin cover are options. One or two credit hours.

RA-451 – Visual Arts Apprenticeship: Work with one of Kapikian’s ecclesial commissions under supervision. Participate in creative process and work through design phases from inception of idea to installation of completed product (paraments, banners, vestments and wood and fiber installations).