Painting Facilities at BU

STUDIOS AND SHOPS

Graduate Students have 24-hour access to individual studios on the third floor of the 808 Building, approximately 250-350 square feet each. Most have natural light with views of Boston and Brookline.

Graduate students have full access to their own woodshop, printshop, and spray booth.

With training, graduate students are also granted access to the Printmaking facilities on the 4th floor of the 808 Building, directly above the graduate studios. Printmaking facilities include etching, lithography, silkscreen, bookmaking, letterpress and digital print studios.

Additional facilities available to graduate students include a fully equipped woodshop, welding shop, ceramics facilities, black-and-white darkrooms, digital media studios including vinyl cutters and a Risograph printer.

Students frequently utilize the Engineering Product Innovation Center (EPIC), a 15,000-square-foot, $9 million facility on Commonwealth Avenue, just steps from the School of Visual Arts. This state-of-the-art facility features everything from laser etching to rapid prototyping, allowing designers to collaborate with engineering staff and students to see their projects through all stages of hands-on production.

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COLLECTIONS AND SERVICES

The Visual Arts Resource Library is a non-circulating collection of books, exhibition catalogues, directories, magazines, and sound and video recordings available for SVA students and faculty. New books are added annually, and acquisition recommendations are always welcome. In addition to housing an over 6,000-volume reference collection, which includes many rare and unique items.

The Visual Arts Resource Library’s digital resources include Apple desktop computers fully loaded with the Adobe Creative Cloud, a large-format digital scanner, and a tabletop copy stand for documenting work. A collection of digital equipment, including digital cameras, projectors, audio recording equipment, lighting kits, and more, are available for short terms loans to SVA students and faculty. Visit the SVA equipment page to learn more.

The Karl Fortress Audio Archive is a resource developed by Karl Eugene Fortess (1907–1993), a painter and printmaker who headed the School of Visual Arts printmaking department from 1956 to 1973. Beginning in the early sixties, he undertook a major artist interview project, creating 269 recordings with prominent American artists. These interviews are available for students to borrow from the library on mp3 players. The list of interviews in the library’s collection includes many prominent American artists of the twentieth century, among them Romare Bearden, Thomas Hart Benton, Louise Bourgeois, Helen Frankenthaler, Philip Guston, Alex Katz, Jacob Lawrence, Jack Levine, Robert Motherwell, and Alice Neel.