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How I Came To Jam With The Angels Of The Dirty South: A Journey Into Art And Art Education, Miki Skak

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper dives into my personal journey from a far-left activist youth into becoming an artist. It explains how a poet saw artistic potential within me, introduced me to the world of art and eventually art education. I reflect on the art education I have received from several different art schools and how they try to adapt to the demands of the contemporary art world that has been in a constant condition of reshaping itself since Marcel Duchamp’s readymade. As an artist who is less focused on the techniques of traditional artistic mediums, I investigate how the state of art …

Standing On The Edge Of A Dream, Parto Ahmadpour Mobarake

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Standing On the Edge of a Dream delves into the intricate tapestry of lived experiences shaped by relocation, emphasizing the nuanced space that exists between reality and imagination. As an individual who has undergone the transformative journey of immigration, I recognize that the concept of relocation is like standing on the edge of a dream. This notion becomes a living structure, intricately woven with threads from our past, present, and future. My artistic exploration extends beyond my artworks, yet it remains deeply rooted in my personal narratives. The artworks in the exhibition continue to draw inspiration from personal memories and …

Where Will I Be From, Melissa Loney

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Where Will I Be From is an exhibition and film centered around the intersections of generational grief and technology. I documented domestic locations connected to my family across the Great Plains. This on-site photo documentation was then used to create photogrammetric renderings of these locations and their structures, recorded in the open-source CAD software Blender. Together, these familial places, separated by hundreds of miles, were digitally compiled to make one collective world. The aesthetic of this project connects the visual languages of Southern Gothic and Low-Poly Video games. The Gothic nature exposes an isolated decaying presence within a rural landscape. …

The Bridal Industry: Body Image And Sizing Charts, Natalie Knapp

Apparel Merchandising and Product Development Undergraduate Honors Theses

The apparel industry in the United States of America lacks a unified size chart. This inconsistency allows vanity sizing and individual retailers to preside over the systematic regulations of sizing. The bridal industry is the singular industry that is not affected by vanity sizing in the United States, which causes a plethora of issues when coupled with the media’s thin ideal and push of certain body standards.

The project utilized four sections of literature review: regarding sizing inconsistency, mass media and size dysphoria, United States standard of sizing, and brides and weight loss. Additionally, four different size charts from four …

Personal Equation, Nicholas Hobbs

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The body of this paper is a formatted version of text which exists natively on the web and is accessible at www.personalequation.art. Its non-linear narrative is meant to accompany and mirror, not describe, the artwork in the exhibition. The following two paragraphs are copied from the exhibition statement accompanying Personal Equation, which is on view in the Reading Room at the Fayetteville Public Library from April 3 to June 30, 2023: A personal equation is one that attempts to account for the inevitable role of subjectivity in scientific observations. The term was coined by astronomers in the 18th century who, …

The Theatrical Lighting Design For The Production Of The Moors., Austin James Bomkamp

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis paper, The Theatrical Lighting Design for the Production of The Moors documents the process of the lighting design for the production of The Moors written by Jen Silverman and produced at the Fine Arts Center University Theatre by the University of Arkansas Department of Theater. This document includes the research, process, implementation, and evaluation of the theatrical lighting design for this play.

Death Like Dreaming, Junli Song

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This written dissertation accompanies my thesis exhibition, Death Like Dreaming, which took place in Sculpture Gallery in the spring of 2023. This show was the culmination of my MFA at the University of Arkansas and centered around my most recent zhenmushou sculpture. I began making these mythical beings from my mythology in the summer of 2022. This essay will provide theoretical, historical, and personal context to the work, expanding upon my artistic journey and exploration during my degree. I will focus on my conceptual and formal decision making, areas of research, and discuss the world building and personal mythology that …

From An Unlikely Place, Brittany Borcher

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

From an Unlikely Place, a collection of eight ambitious paintings created while in residence at the University of Arkansas, examines the intersections of landscape painting, gendered gaze, feminine experience and the language of abstraction. One of the challenges I faced while working on this project was finding points of connection between verbal and visual language. As an artist, I consider where vulnerability, sensitivity and generosity intersect my work and am curious about the strange potential an individual's visual language; in my case, a concoction of abstract and figurative forms has to communicate the quality of experience. When placed together on …

Portal, M'Shinda Abdullah Broaddus

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Portal is a series of large-scale multimedia collages that work to show the intersections between three very different and Tim-specific imagery. The imagery utilized, and the intersections highlighted aim to acknowledge a deep cultural history of how black men have been stripped of their personhood in visual media, and how that history has negatively impacted/impacts the way that black men are able to exist in reality.

Student Preferences On The Development Of A Non-Alcoholic Beverage Product To Alleviate The Negative Impact Of Alcohol On College Campuses, Cecilia Azar

Human Nutrition and Hospitality Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

Alcohol abuse and peer pressure to drink are prominent issues on college campuses across the nation. More than 50 percent of college students aged 18 to 22 consume alcohol monthly and 33 percent consistently engage in binge drinking (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2021a). A non-alcoholic beverage product marketed to students as an alternative to alcohol in social settings could alleviate some of the negative impacts, such as peer pressure and the dangers caused by overconsumption.

Through two phases, this study implements University of Arkansas student preferences and recipe modification in the development of a non-alcoholic beverage product …

The “Invisible” Impact In The Arts: A Multiple-Case Comparative Study Depicting The Challenge Of Impact Reporting For Arts Impact Organizations, Heidi Rolf

Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

This Honors Thesis researches the complex interrogative following the arts impact industry and the impact reporting methods available to the organizations within this industry. The research is achieved through a multiple-case study on six different arts impact organizations and additional web-based analysis. The case studies provide the structure for the ultimate discussion on available impact reporting methods for arts impact organizations and the level of importance, difficulty, and constraints associated with this form of reporting. This study presents detail on the growth and position of the current arts impact industry as well as that of the creative economy as a …

The Scenic Design: Songs For A New World By Jason Robert Brown, Morgan Mcinnis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Songs for a New World by Jason Robert Brown was produced by the University of Arkansas Department of Theatre as the final show of the 2022-2023 season. The musical comprises sixteen independent songs taken from Brown's work on various projects, coming together to create a collection of scene-songs that examines life and the choices we make. While each song's storyline is different and musically distinctive, each presents similar stories of characters facing a moment of decision in their lives and an opportunity to transition from old to new. The result is neither an ordinary musical nor revue but a theatrical …

A Contemporary Dressing Of Henrik Ibsen’S Hedda Gabler, Heidi Rose Decaluwe

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The following thesis describes the process of creating the costume designs for the production of Hedda Gabler that was produced at the University Theatre at The University of Arkansas in the spring of 2023. In this thesis, I will explain the process, from my initial response to the script to the final stage production. Included is a full script analysis, an extrapolation of the stages of design, from research to rough sketches and preliminary renderings, final color renderings, the process of turning renderings into fully realized costumes, and finally an evaluation of the entire process.

Dressing The New World: Costume Design For An Unconventional Adaptation Of Jason Robert Brown’S Songs For A New World, Callie Lythgoe

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis follows the process of designing the costumes for the University of Arkansas’ production of the musical Songs For A New World by Jason Robert Brown. The following will detail the steps taken to conceptualize and realize the costume designs for the full process of the production. Included in this thesis is the analysis of source materials and other dramaturgical research, my research images and process sketches, final costume renderings, and production photographs. Overall, this document will record the design process and my evaluation thereof.

Existentialism And Creative Practice, Catherine Hudgens

School of Art Undergraduate Honors Theses

The creative process mimics the existentialist philosophy of human freedom and the responsibility to create one’s own meaning in life through an emphasis on invention, experimentation, and ceaseless becoming. Through my body of work, I examine the meaning-giving capacities of the viewer and creator as agents involved in a work of art. The sculptures, as well as found objects, have the power to illuminate the human circumstances they emerged from, while the process of making is also the process of learning, where objects can be used to understand ourselves and the world. Philosophical concepts can be accessed through art in …

A Poor Third? A Reexamination Of Manuscript And Print Markets In Fifteenth And Sixteenth-Century Rouen, Kate Hodgson

School of Art Undergraduate Honors Theses

Manuscript and print scholars of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries have deemed Rouen a ‘poor third’ to the workshops in Paris and Lyon. Lacking the cultural status and political influence of these two major centers of book production, Rouen’s manuscript tradition has been coined an “eclectic” group of illuminators who were limited to a local, discontinuous demand for books and whose regional role hardly even bears examination. However, Between 1419 and 1449, Rouen was an epicenter of political and economic exchange between Normandy and England. The city’s manuscript ateliers experienced a period of unparalleled patronage from an international, elite clientele, …

Life-Centered Design: Bridging The Gap Between Gendered Clothing Systems And Institutional Spaces, Erin Enmark

School of Art Undergraduate Honors Theses

Over time, we have molded, convoluted, transformed, and eradicated day-to-day wearable clothing. Whether through media-based imagery, practicality, or trend cycles, clothing has become ever-changing and representative of who we are and how we chose to express ourselves. However, in some ways power structures (schools, businesses, corporations) have exploited this expression and implemented guidelines for expressing yourself through this medium. Creating societal, gendered dress codes allows systems of power to reinforce control of individuals. Judith Butler states in her book Gender Trouble that “male” and “female” are socially constructed categories. She argued that notions of universal womanhood reinforce the binary upon …

Creating Adaptive Clothing For Dialysis Patients, Lilli Martin

Apparel Merchandising and Product Development Undergraduate Honors Theses

In 2021, more than 1 in 7 Americans, or 37 million people, had chronic kidney disease. Chronic kidney disease is a progression of the loss of kidney function. As kidney disease progresses, the kidneys are no longer able to filter and clean the blood, which can lead to kidney failure. A failure of working kidneys can lead to accumulation of toxic waste, fluid volume excess, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and early death (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021). If the disease progresses to total kidney failure, it is fatal unless a kidney transplant or a dialysis treatment …

The Connection Between Gen Z And Online Fast Fashion Media; Aiming To Create A Sustainable Future In Fashion., Rachel Peters

School of Art Undergraduate Honors Theses

It is impossible to think about culture in the past two decades without referencing social media. My generation, commonly known as Gen Z (born between 1997-2010), has been on the forefront of social media development. One of the first generations to grow up with some form of unfiltered online social experience, Gen Z has been hard wired to consume media. While using social media alongside my peers, I have observed a problem that has resulted from this: mass consumption. A mass consumption of food, beauty products, home decor, and clothing in particular. On social media we see hundreds of videos …