The NSU Art Department offers a comprehensive program in the Fine Arts, exploring the practical and creative experiences applicable to various future careers. Our innovative facilities and dedicated faculty help students evolve their creative, technical, and conceptual skills. All Art Department degree programs are recognized and accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art & Design (NASAD), the nation’s foremost accrediting body for the visual and design arts. Your education at NSU is the platform to launch your creative future.
Northern Art Galleries
Visiting Artist Program
Clinics, Camps and Workshops
First-Rate Facilities
Envision yourself in your future career by touring our Mac lab in Dacotah Hall or our Arts Studio in Spafford Hall.
Facilities
Spafford Studios
The spacious Spafford Studios are homebase for our Art and Design students. This large room houses multiple classrooms, faculty ofices, and eight semi-private studio spaces for junior and senior art students. With its previous life as a basketball court, the room features large amounts of natural light, beautiful hardwood floors, and immense space for the arts.
Sculpture + Ceramics Studios
The Sculpture Studio encompasses all types of 3D media, tools, and equipment. The primary space is home to woodworking equipment, welding equipment, spray booth, and storage room. The Ceramics Studio includes everything needed for ceramics in both hand-building and wheel-throwing. Equipment includes ceramic wheels, a pugmill, electric, gas, and raku kilns, and a large variety of premixed glazes as well as chemistry to create your own, and a large spray booth for glaze.
Printmaking Studio
The Printmaking Studio is well-equipped with a Takach Intaglio press and Graphic Chemical Lithography press, offering traditional lithographic stones, tools for intaglio, relief and monotype methods, and technology equipment for digital printmaking. The space also homes additional mixed media equipment including a Bambu Labs 3D printer and Glowforge laser cutter and engraver.
Digital Studios
The Digital Studio, all housed within Dacotah Hall, comprise of two computer labs with Mac Studios and iMacs, two medium format inkjet printers, a laser printer, a large format inkjet printer, scanners, lights, a lighting studio, and a podcast recording studio. Each computer is loaded with the full Adobe Creative Cloud software, free to students enrolled in the program.
Photography Studio
The Photography Studio continues to house equipment for both historic and contemporary image making. Our Darkroom includes eight film enlargers, facilities for processing black and white film, and fully stocked chemistry. The space also includes chemistry for alternative processes, like lumens and cyanotypes, exposure frames, and and a UV lightbox. The Digital Photography lab includes digital cameras and the shared Digital Studio equipment.
Moving Imagery Lab and CAVE
The Moving Imagery Lab (M.I.L.) serves as a film and television studio, including a green screen that allows students to use virtual backgrounds in television shows and various visual effects in short films. The CAVE is an audio space designed for movie sound design, musical performances, and podcasting, complete with a Foley pit and Sound lab. These spaces are equipped with Mac Studios, Mini Macs, and specialty audio and film equipment.
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Mission Statement
The NSU Art Department educates and prepares students for careers in the fields of art, art education and graphic design. Our mission is to provide an outstanding, relevant arts education experience that is highly competitive - in quality and value. We work continually to meet this goal by providing modern nationally accredited degree programs in Art Education, Art and Design studies. We prepare our students for success through a diverse mix of foundation studies, intermediate and advanced coursework and explorative research which is presented in the Senior Capstone Experience. Professors and staf maintain an open door “one-on-one” policy with all students. Our purpose is to educate, train and prepare students to achieve their educational and career goals in the fields of art education, art and design.
NASAD Accreditation
The NSU Art Department is a fully accredited member of NASAD – the National Association of Schools of Art & Design. Founded in 1944, the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD) is an organization of schools, conservatories, colleges, and universities with approximately 321 accredited institutional members. It establishes national standards for undergraduate and graduate degrees and other credentials for art and design and art/design-related disciplines, and provides assistance to institutions and individuals engaged in artistic, scholarly, educational, and other art/design-related endeavors.