BFA: Bachelor of Fine Arts
Probe the frontiers of art theory, cultural relevance, and the making of art through a wide range of genres, mediums, and techniques.
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The world needs more disruption.
MFA: Master of Fine Arts
Hone the aesthetics and capabilities that will put you at the leading edge of the fine art world.
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Facilities & equipment
Watkins facilities put all the tools of fine arts fabrication into your hands, including 10 drawing, painting, sculpting, printmaking, and design studios, clay and metal fabrication facilities, and an outdoor work yard and casting area.
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pARTners.
Explorations in collaboration
Faculty:
Full—and part-time faculty
along with professionals
in the field
Full—and part-time faculty
along with professionals
in the field
Tom Williams
Assistant Professor of Art History
BA Art History, University of West Florida
MA Art History, State University of New York, Stony Brook
PhD Art History, State University of New York, Stony Brook
Tom Williams has taught at the School of Visual Arts, the Museum of Modern Art, New York University, and Vanderbilt University and is a graduate of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. His writings have appeared in Art in America, Grey Room, and other publications. Williams has been co-facilitating the art workshop in Unit 2 (the Death Row unit) of the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution since 2013, and he has co-curated (with Robin Paris) a number of exhibitions of prisoners' art, including Life After Death and Elsewhere at Apexart in New York City.
Robin Paris
Associate Professor and Chair
BA Studio Arts, The Evergreen State College
MFA Photography, Savannah College of Art and Design
Paris was born in Atlanta, GA, but at some point, has called Washington, Colorado, and California home. She has been photographing since she was 12-years-old when her father gave her a small Instamatic camera. She has continued the practice, but the cameras have changed. Several of her photographic projects have focused on community members in a small town (Sewanee, TN) and prisoners on Tennessee’s death row (with fellow Watkins professor Tom Williams.) Their work with prisoners has resulted in 11 exhibitions, including one at Apexart in New York. That work has also been featured in The Guardian, El Pais, Hyperallergic, Huffington Post, and many other publications.
Appointed in 2003
SEE LESSBrady Haston
Associate Professor
BFA Studio Art, Middle Tennessee State University
MFA Art, Montana State University
Following graduate school, Haston spent the next eight years in Chicago teaching at Columbia College before returning to Nashville. His shows include Paintings and Sketchbooks and Abstract Painting in Tennessee (Cheekwood Museum of Art), the Los Angeles Printmaking Society National Exhibition, The Portrait: An Investigation of the Self (Camberwell College of Art in London), Bacchanal (Appalachian Center for Crafts), Art Chicago, Intersection (Contemporary Artist Workshop in Chicago), Superstruct (PLUG Projects in Kansas City), and Up Close with Prints (Frist Center). Haston is the recipient of the 2016 Tennessee Arts Commission for painting and a 2016 Pollock-Krasner Foundation grantee. He is represented by Zeitgeist Gallery of Nashville.
Appointed in 2008
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