Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Radical Housewife Activism: Subverting The Toxic Public/Private Binary, Emma Foehringer Merchant

Pomona Senior Theses

Since the 1960s, the modern environmental movement, though generally liberal in nature, has historically excluded a variety of serious and influential groups. This thesis concentrates on the movement of working-class housewives who emerged into popular American consciousness in the seventies and eighties with their increasingly radical campaigns against toxic contamination in their respective communities. These women represent a group who exhibited the convergence of cultural influences where domesticity and environmentalism met in the middle of American society, and the increasing focus on public health in the environmental movement framed the fight undertaken by women who identified as “housewives.” These women, …

It’S Better To Have Loved And Lost: Exploring The Creation Of Emotional Connections Between Inanimate Film Characters And The Spectator In “The Window Display”, Kamyn Asher

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis project examines the way that cinematography can create an emotional connection between the film’s characters and the audience. The main component of the project is a film I wrote, directed, and shot, about a stool that falls in love with a pair of pants, titled “The Window Display.” While it is clear that the typical film relies on the emotional impact of the fictional story, this film attempts to create the same effect but with inanimate objects. Thus, “The Window Display” illustrates the ways in which different visual language, especially images from the silent film era, work together …

The Genre Formerly Known As Punk: A Queer Person Of Color's Perspective On The Scene, Shane M. Zackery

Scripps Senior Theses

This video is a visual representation of the frustrations that I suffered from when I, a queer, gender non-conforming, person of color, went to “pasty normals” (a term defined by Jose Esteban Munoz to describe normative, non-exotic individuals) to get a definition of what Punk meant and where I fit into it. In this video, I personify the Punk music movement. Through my actions, I depart from the grainy, low-quality, amateur aesthetics of the Punk film and music genres and create a new world where the Queer Person of Color defines Punk. In the piece, Punk definitively says, “Don’t try …

Infinity, Carmen Fodoreanu

CGU MFA Theses

My current paintings are not finite objects. They test the quantum world of possibilities by exploring the idea of continuity and change. They generate, with each viewer, a state of self-reflection that in exchange promotes a wide range of unpredictable feelings and reactions that became thoughts and beliefs. For a painting of mine, there are multiple or infinite solutions and I, along with the viewers, search for answers. To suggest this state of infinity I extend the paint from the actual canvas onto the walls that host it. My paintings present no borders, no frames: just fluidity.

Jack Wilson Mfa Thesis 2014: Chasing The Unicorn, Jack T. Wilson

CGU MFA Theses

More than anything, my art practice is about overcoming the proclivity to collude with stagnation. Somewhere in the middle of the endless pugilistic battle between consciousness and unconsciousness lies my work, positioned in between the tension of the known and the unknown. The line and the absence of it. The edge and the center. Instinctively, we surround the unknown/other with fear. When encountering a dark shape lying in my path, I automatically jump. The stick might be a snake. Although my survival mechanisms have built walls between the light and the dark, through my work I wish to illuminate things …

Queering The Freeways: Deconstructing Landscape And The Potential In Spaces Of Destabilization, Anna R. Aqua

Scripps Senior Theses

Abstract

This paper begins by introducing the concepts of urban anthropology and poststructuralism that lay a basis for my project and referencing some of the themes that will be explored in further chapters. Chapter I analyzes conceptualizations of Los Angeles in terms of center and edge, and discusses the ways in which Greater Los Angeles can be an interesting site in terms of queer possibilities of built spaces. In Chapter II the focus shifts to Los Angeles freeways, distinguishing them as in-between spaces of the built landscape and examining how they have been conceptualized by prominent scholars and artists. Chapter …

Musical Missteps: The Severity Of The Sophomore Slump In The Music Industry, Shane M. Zackery

Scripps Senior Theses

This study looks at alternative models of follow-up album success in order to determine if there is a relationship between the decrease in Metascore ratings (assigned by Metacritic.com) between the first and second album for a musician or band and the 1) music genre or 2) the number of years between the first and second album release. The results support the dominant thought, which suggests that neither belonging to a certain genre of music nor waiting more or less time to drop the second album makes an artist more susceptible to the Sophomore Slump. This finding is important because it …

The Pacific Crest Trail: A History Of America’S Relationship With Western Wilderness, Jenn Livermore

Scripps Senior Theses

The Pacific Crest Trail has become increasingly popular since Clinton Clarke first envisioned such a trail in the 1930’s. By comparing the original motives and experience of the trail to the realities of the trail today, the trail’s fluid narrative becomes apparent. While this narrative is ever changing, over the course of the trail’s history one theme has remained constant – a notably problematic relationship with wilderness rooted in an exaltation of the sublime and post-frontier ideals. This thesis focuses on how the Pacific Crest Trail’s development over the past eighty years has created an experience that, on the surface, …

The Biomorphic Grotesque In Modernist And Contemporary Painting, Audrey Howell

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper looks at the concepts of the biomorphic and grotesque in art from the start of the 20^th century to the present with a focus on painting and drawing. Included in the discussion of the grotesque throughout history are the works of Dadaist Otto Dix, painter Georg Baselitz, and feminist artists Judy Chicago, Hannah Wilke, and Ana Mendieta. Each used grotesque imagery to comment or react to a larger sociopolitical issue. Biomorphic artworks from the 20^th century are mentioned as well, with specific examples of work by Lee Krasner, Willem DeKooning, and Hans Bellmer. These artists together …

Rieglematica: Re-Imagining The Photobooth Through Female Performativity And Self-Portraiture, Allison E. Riegle

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper explores the historical significance and advancements of automatic photobooth portraiture from the late 1800s onwards, focusing specifically on the intention behind the photobooth’s creation and the significance and cultural implications of its introduction into society. As it gradually became a staple of modern society, regularly visited by citizens to have their portraits taken, numerous artists sought out the photobooth as both a studio and a stage in which to document performative self-portraiture. The space and aesthetics of the photobooth have inspired artists to re-envision the confines of the booth and use its automatic function as a point of …

Le Corps Propre, Andrea M. Breiling

CGU MFA Theses

Le Corpse Propre, is a series of large scaled paintings; performative archaeological stripteases through which layers of material stratigraphy reveal themselves through a deliberate process of revealing and concealing.

Patch Wright, Patch Wright

CGU MFA Theses

Wright is a contemporary sculptor whose work focuses on history, symbolism, and the experience of materials and objects.

Labor, Vera Bauluz

CGU MFA Theses

I make sacred objects from scratch, from ready mades, from industrial materials, and sometimes from trash or recycling. I treat those objects with love and reverence to embed them with essence and soul. I propose conversations with objects exquisitely executed, that question our social order and the machine, easily understood by everybody, although still challenging our understanding of contemporary art.

The placement of the work and the lighting, as fundamental part of the installation, attempts to generate strokes of conscience that enhance human understanding and capabilities beyond a specific discourse.

Humor and sacred coexist in my installation and in my …

Projectordinary, Paul M. Kelley

CGU MFA Theses

These works are slices, reflections and projections of life. They celebrate what seems humdrum and humble. With stripped-down almost deadpan effects that are nearly as dull as the objects, my works lie somewhere between 2D and 3D, blurring the lines of physical space with the digital. The spatial and sculptural qualities that they attain induce a playful illusion in the moment of trying to make sense of what the eye sees. With a bit of precision, it is vital to make use of the negative space and align animations and digitally repeated forms with objects to retain believability, normality and …

Sally Bruno, Sally Bruno

CGU MFA Theses

My investigation starts with an examination of color, form and line. It continues with an examination of how these elements collide and collude to form objects both abstract and representational. What interests me is the intersection between formal abstraction and representational imagery. My goal is to combine these practices in a rigorous, epistemological inquiry into how human beings make sense of their surroundings, using our minds and our bodies, our perceptions and our expectations, to come to understand the visible world and our embodied relationship to it.

Images For A Nation: The Role Of Conservation Photography In American Environmentalism, Nathaniel W. Yale

Pomona Senior Theses

Photographs have long been integral in revealing American values, ideals, and identity. Accordingly, a study of environmental, or "conservation," imagery offers insight into America’s relationship with the natural world. In an examination of key figures and their conservation photography work, this thesis explores how the national conservation dialogue has been shaped by powerful images that, in some cases, even led to crucial acts of federal conservation. The first section highlights four photographers and their context and influence in this dialogue: W.H. Jackson’s photographs from Hayden’s 1871 survey of Yellowstone, Carleton Watkins’ work at Yosemite and Mariposa Grove in the 1860s, …

Making Rich Use Of "Leisure", Augusto Sandroni

CGU MFA Theses

I make paintings, drawings, installations and sculptures using oils, acrylics and everyday materials such as burlap, reclaimed wood, cardboard and duct tape. More than any other, Matisse’s work was always a point of reference. Everything I do is partially informed, even if not directly by the work of my predecessors, with Matisse toping the list: the element of joy, play and expression of visual beauty is something I’m not ashamed to strive for. I also embrace risk taking, not conforming with establish norms or methodology; I’m always hoping for novel ideas and methods to infiltrate my workflow.

Would You Come With Me, Chin-Hsin Chen

CGU MFA Theses

I believe we are connected with everyone and everything around us, and we are all connected by invisible lines. In my generation, loneliness is common. We are living on the border of virtual and physical spaces, reality and imagination mix together and create chaos. We send out signals through both these virtual and physical spaces even though it is becoming harder and harder for us to tell the difference between the virtual and real world these days. But we still need these two world to process our emotions, to digest our daily stress, and to make sure that we are …

Borders, Anwar I. Alzeer

CGU MFA Theses

Abstraction provides me with great freedom. Mixing abstraction and imagery introduces emotions and feelings. Color plays a vitally important role in my paintings. It can sway your thinking, change your actions, and cause reactions. It can irritate or soothe your eyes, raise your blood pressure or suppress your appetite, when used in the right ways.

Rope-A-Dope, Gabriel L. Perez

CGU MFA Theses

I create from everyday items, coming from everyday people. I do not think that what I create is too difficult for anyone to understand but I know that although I created it, it eludes me. Plastic containers, disposables, and clothing reach out to eyes that see them differently. I’m not trying to make people see things differently; I’m just trying to make you look. Call it theatrics but with a history of various performance experiences, I am not above pulling a cheap trick to get your attention. Nor will I shun the lingo and logic of decoration since I am …

"Mr. Lee", Bin Li

CGU MFA Theses

My paintings are a territory where I express, fight, question and discover what is happening around me. Each element in them struggles with others. They reveal a world almost entirely comprised by conflict and confusion. My goal is to build a connection between my work and myself, to communicate with viewers and to question myself and my audience by representing my personal experience in ways that are revealing and new to me. Somehow, this also offers viewers the opportunity to rethink their relationships to the world around them.

William Morris And The Kelmscott Chaucer: Design, Production, And Conservation Analysis, Gretchen Allen

Scripps Senior Theses

William Morris’s Kelmscott Press was founded specifically for the purpose of producing handmade printed works in a rapidly industrializing age. The techniques he and his confederates employed to make the Kelmscott books resulted in beautiful publications with remarkable material fortitude, as exemplified in the Press’s masterwork, “The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer Now Newly Imprinted”. This thesis examines the condition of the copy of the Kelmscott Chaucer in the Scripps rare book collection from a book conservator’s perspective to analyze the connection between William Morris’s personal philosophies, his resulting artistic decisions, and the longevity of the book as an art object.

Know Yourself And You Will Be Known: The Gospel Of Thomas And Middle Platonism, Seth A. Clark

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus and is primarily composed of rhetorical statements that were used to preserve the teachings of itinerant Greek philosophers. These collections were used to persuade individuals to join the philosophical schools represented, much like the early followers of the Jesus movement would use his teachings to convince others to join them as well. However, the theological background for the text is still debated because it contains esoteric and enigmatic references not fully understood by most scholars. This work argues that the theological and philosophical background for the Gospel …

The Frozen Moment: Representations Of Space, Time And The Experiential In Installation Art, Alexandra Trimm

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper examines the history of installation art and explains the concept and themes within my installation component of the studio art major. It details how readymades, site-specificity, and an emphasis on experiential work all contributed to the creation of installation art as a medium. Next, I turn to my own work, exploring the theme of representing time and altering the perceptions of the viewer. Through a web of fishing line and tempered glass, the installation visually imitates a single, frozen moment of an explosion that the viewer can walk into and explore. The paper continues with a discussion of …

Reexamining The 1950s American Housewife: How Ladies Home Journal Challenged Domestic Expectations During The Postwar Period, Margaret Bonaparte

Scripps Senior Theses

My thesis examines the role that Ladies Home Journal played in challenging the ideals of domesticity that emerged in the postwar period in the United States. Originally founded in 1883, Ladies Home Journal emerged from World War II as the most popular and highly circulated women’s magazine. Husband and wife duo Bruce and Beatrice Gould served as co-editors-in-chief from 1935 to 1962, and populated the magazine with numerous ambitious and talented female writers and editors. Many of these female staff members also married and had children, while maintaining their careers. During an era where employees discriminated against women in the …

"Other Than Dead": Queering Vampires In Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Interview With The Vampire, And The Gilda Stories, Megan E. Gianniny

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines three diverse vampire narratives from around the 1990s, arguing that the liminal figure of the vampire, forever in between life and death, is also then well-positioned to queer norms around gender, sexuality, and relationships. This queering, however, manifests differently in each narrative. My analysis looks at each of these three narratives in turn, while also considering how each text’s placement as mainstream or not mainstream affected the manifestation of the vampires’ queering.

Exemplary Equines: Gazes And Gesture Of Bovine Animals In Trecento Fresco, Elsa L. Bruno

Scripps Senior Theses

Horses were high status animals in the middle ages. Strong, costly, and used in war, they symbolized power and wealth. Yet in some Trecento Italian frescos, horses take on another role. Particularly through their eyes, ears, and body positioning they seem to communicate with each other regarding the religious scenes at hand. Additionally, horses are often the only beings paying attention to Jesus or God, or are the sole beings who break the fourth wall of an image to engage with the viewer. While the revolutionary use of gesture and eye movement has been examined in humans in these frescoes, …

Women At Work: Working Girl, Disclosure And The Evolution Of Professional Female Stereotypes, Hayley A. Strickland

Scripps Senior Theses

In this analysis, I examine how stereotypes of working women function in some of the most popular film and television shows made in past thirty years. A study of films such as Working Girl and Disclosure and television shows such Ally McBeal and Sex and the City within a second-wave and postfeminist framework ultimately reveals that Hollywood stereotypes of working women have evolved very little and simply become more creatively disguised.

Madrid Me Mata: Regional Identity Politics And Community Building Through The Music Of La Movida Madrileña, Winona A. Bechte

Scripps Senior Theses

Chapter 1: Formation and Early Beginnings of music in la Movida
-In the first chapter I am writing about how the early development of la Movida runs very much alongside political initiatives to stimulate cultural development in Madrid. Specifically I am writing about how popular songs and musicians at the time translated these messages of regional pride and identity that was being heavily stimulated by the government into a way that the general public could understand and support. Citing specific song lyrics and early bands of la Movida, I also track the years leading up to 1975 and how music …

“Of The Woman First Of All”: Walt Whitman And Women's Literary History, Vivian Delchamps

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis contemplates Walt Whitman's role in the lives of 19th and 20th century women writers and his significance to early American feminism. I consider the ways women inspired him to develop pro-feminist ideas about maternity, womanhood, and female liberation.