School of Foundation Year

Foundation at KCAI could be the most intense but rewarding year of your life. Foundation students explore fundamental concepts and skills through intense studio work. Various media and situations teach new strategies and promote respect for materials, process and quality. Like a language immersion course — constant and concentrated — students learn in a highly individualized environment with resources galore.

Fall semester

In the fall semester, students collaborate with faculty and other freshmen in studio space used exclusively for foundation. Whether students are working singly or in groups, collaboration is constant and the key to active learning. Reviews are based on concrete demonstrations of problem solving, creativity, intellectual curiosity and a sense of responsibility to the self. Perceptual activity — how to look and notice — is followed by a five-week study of visual forces, how to make it “look.” Over a series of Mondays throughout the semester, students concentrate on three areas: “Woodshop Toolbox,” “Coloring Book” and “Visual Symposia.” Students engage their own perceptual abilities while working with materials like stationary woodworking tools, color usage and digital media.

The fall semester winds down with structural abstraction, which asks students to demonstrate the validity and depth of their learning strategies. They are confronted with new media and possibilities that test and challenge creative thinking and advance an ability to sense what is possible within the reality of deadlines.

Spring semester

During the spring semester, students move to specialized coursework that cements the acquisition of studio strategies and skills with diverse media. The range of workshops in which students may be placed runs from the traditional to the avant-garde. Examples of recent workshops include “Calligraphy/Book,” “To Draw is to Discern,” “The Woven Self,” “Living Monuments” and “Photo/Book.”

Through concrete works employing visual language, form-making, collaboration and scheduling, students develop a capacity for abstract thinking that is applicable from one discipline or medium to another.

Studio space

Foundation studios are large, raw, industrial spaces that allow for works of large scale by individuals or en masse.  Studios are open to students from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. The 20-station digital lab is available 24 hours a day in the Student Living Center. Foundation year’s access and expectations make for an unforgettable year. One recent graduate remarked that the final year of law school was not as intense.