Career opportunities with a ceramics emphasis include:
- creative consultant
- prototype designer
- business owner
- artist
- arts administrator
Ceramics emphasis
Model your future!
Our internationally acclaimed ceramics program is an ideal place to mold your creative impulse. You’ll learn traditional and avant-garde techniques and firing processes from working faculty artists and renowned visiting artists at one of the largest wood-fired kiln facilities in the country. With a 10,833 square-foot main studio complex on more than three acres featuring seven kilns—including one of only three Tozan kiln sites in the world—you can confidently explore your unique artistic vision.
NAU’s studio art program allows you to flourish in your chosen medium. By developing a sophisticated understanding of art principles and polishing your technical skills, your education will prepare you to leave your own vibrant, expressive mark on the world. Just as importantly, you will expand your future opportunities by learning business practices for artists, including grant applications, gallery representation, self-promotion, and maintaining a sustainable and safe studio. The arts are everywhere.
With an NAU BFA, you are poised to apply your studio art knowledge in many settings.
Studio features
- 24 electric pottery wheels, 36” slab roller, and 6 electric kilns
- Extruder, spray booth, ball mill
- Soldner clay mixer and Peter Pugger clay mixer
- Venco de-airing pug mill and ventilated glaze room
- Photo room with lightbox and backdrop
- 4 gas kilns (Geil downdraft/Car kiln downdraft/Laguna updraft/Reduction cool gas test)
- Outdoor kiln pad for atmospheric firings (salt,soda, raku)
- Wood kiln facility with Tozan, Anagama and Noborigama kiln sites, plus double catenary arch wood/wood-soda, small anagama, train, and double-wide train kilns
Creative space
Occupying more than three acres on NAU’s south campus, the state-of-the-art Ceramics Complex offers the resources you need to cultivate the skills and discipline to develop a successful and sustainable career in the arts:
- a 10,833-square-foot main studio complex
- two outdoor kiln areas
- a newly built clay mixing and dry materials storage building
- a traditional Japanese tea house
Visiting Artist Program
The department’s active Visiting Artist Program hosts two to three national and international professional ceramic artists each year. By working with visiting artists, you’ll be exposed to a broad variety of techniques and approaches to working in clay.
Post-Baccalaureate program
The Post-Baccalaureate program is for individuals who have completed a BFA degree (or equivalent) and are in transition to the next phase of their artistic career. The program provides up to 2 students a year the opportunity to develop a body of work, in order to apply for graduate school or other future goals. Contact jason.hess@nau.edu for more information.