Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Creativity, Craftsmanship, And Connection: Large-Format Sculpture Design, Jacqueline L. Puga, Gordon Hoople

The STEAM Journal

Artistry is a concept that is not usually explored in engineering yet is an invaluable skill that touches everything from product design to systems thinking. This past summer I developed conceptual designs for a large format sculpture that required connecting engineering knowledge with artistic vision. The initial phase required constant inspiration and creativity. The first step was to look at previous sculptures showcased throughout the world, such as at venues like “Burning Man,” to understand the possibilities or limitations of the space provided. Sketching varied and numerous ideas was essential in our design process. Next, we took our favorite ideas …

Behind The Cover, Julie Orr

The STEAM Journal

Julie Orr's artwork - Daze Ablaze - for the cover of this issue of The STEAM Journal.

Color Compliments, Jennifer Hansen Rolli

The STEAM Journal

A discussion of the range of use of complimentary colors

Specimen X1-2020, Clayton Ehman

The STEAM Journal

This is the artwork that is featured in the cover.

Stretch, Weight, Relaxed, Proud, Twisted, Jesse W. Standlea

The STEAM Journal

I created “Stretch, Weight, Relaxed, Proud, Twisted for the show “Perceive Me”. For this show, 48 artists collaborated to create representations with and of the artist Kristine Schomaker. In her artwork, Kristine confronts and deals with body image as related to her struggles with an eating disorder she suffers from.

Evolution Of Island, Dominique Kongsli

The STEAM Journal

Evolution of Island emerged from the depths of an ocean of blue paint. My process involves observation of nature: I remember scuba diving in Thailand in the Andaman Sea and having a spiritual experience underwater while observing Christmas-tree worms pop in and out of the coral.

The Marriage Of Art And Science, Mike Doyle

The STEAM Journal

Art work that shows how the viewer translates visual cues into meaning

And The Stars Look Very Different Today, Amy Rogin

The STEAM Journal

A personal reflection about synesthesia

Metaphorical Cities - Behind The Cover Art, Elana Melissa Hill

The STEAM Journal

This is a reflection on how cities function like organisms. An artist's interpretation of the spaces surrounding them.

Metaphorical Cities, Elana Melissa Hill

The STEAM Journal

This is a reflection on how cities function like organisms. An artist's interpretation of the spaces surrounding them.

Passing, Paul Kelley

The STEAM Journal

Passing is a Site-specific public installation assembled with plastic and an iPad. At its center, the iPad displays a video loop of a human image repeatedly walking in and out of the frame. The work maintains my foundational interest in having the viewer slow down to have a more thoughtful and absorptive experience with the work and surrounding space – continuing my practice of challenging viewer’s expectations and putting them in a position to stop and question.

Combining An Intuitive Art Workshop And Neuroscience Rituals To Make Us Happy, Audrey Gran Weinberg

The STEAM Journal

One might wonder how intuitive art can connect to neuroscience and how this could be accomplished. In this descriptive article, research connecting art therapy and neuroscience has been collected and a workshop on Intuitive Painting has been described in detail. The connection was made by the author based on an article by Barker (2017), ‘4 Rituals to be more Happy,’ who writes a popular science blog. The rituals: gratefulness, expressing negative emotions, decision making and human touch were combined with Dr. Pinkie Feinstein’s method of Intuitive Painting in a small group setting. Although subjective, it would seem that at least …

Wonder, Walking, And Water, Rachel Mayeri

The STEAM Journal

Art and Science is a seminar and studio course on science-inspired art practices. We will survey and discuss cutting-edge art-science theory, practice, and institutions in seminar. In studio, we examine art-science topics in hands-on experiments, and guided activities leading to art projects.

Nature In Deconstruction, Russell Chowdhury

The STEAM Journal

This 'desconstructive photography' shows how humans interact with nature.

A New Generation For Art And Science, Alice Marie Perreault

The STEAM Journal

My interest in this cross-over between art and science, specifically, the body and supportive technologies, has lead me to mixed media and installations where I can examine degeneration and a “new” generation using a combination of conventional and unconventional materials. Unlike re-generation, which is a return to an original state, “new” generation gives way to new arrangements.

Getting Girls In Stem & The Dangers Of Forgetting That Science Is Art - Someone Made It Up, Heidi Therese Dangelmaier, Camilla Hermann

The STEAM Journal

Encouraging girls to participate in STEM is a hot topic that has captured the concern of the world’s academic, business and scientific communities. The intention is noble, however the strategies being deployed are reinforcing the very bias society seeks to eliminate. If we wish to advance our evolutionary journey as a species, a shift from “feeling sorry for disadvantaged girls” to “fearing STEM without girls’ reformation” is imperative. This piece discusses the rise to an initiative to redesign culture: Girlapproved.

Blowouts, Bricks, And Lines, Kenneth Fandell

The STEAM Journal

This essay shares the interdisciplinary insights from three projects

Discovering And Demonstrating Patterns, Maria Klawe

The STEAM Journal

Harvey Mudd College's President Maria Klawe shares her personal journey in combining a love of mathematics and art.

The Wonder Of A Child, Shraddha Chaplot

The STEAM Journal

A personal piece on the wonder of childhood and the continuation of curiosity into adulthood.

Jaguar Sun, Anya Nadal

The STEAM Journal

Cymatics, is derived from a Greek word, meaning "wave", is a subset of modal vibrational phenomena. The term was coined by Hans Jenny, a Swiss follower of the philosophical school known as anthroposophy. This is a visual representation of the frequency field. I created this piece from acrylic on canvas based on the subtle energies I can see and feel.

Gary Brewer - Dark Matter Series, Gary Brewer

The STEAM Journal

In the Dark Matter series of paintings I am abstracting images from NASA’s efforts to map dark matter using the Hubble Space Telescope. From these abstractions I create diaphanous veils of blue that convey a sense of movement; the movement suggests primal forces: wind, water air and fire.

The figure in the foreground is one of the elements: gold, copper, silver, which develop into a variety of fantastic shapes. The ‘elements’ which are the foundation of life on earth, are born in the heart of a star and explode out into the universe upon its death and collapse. The force …

Animals In The Wild, Brittany Samson

The STEAM Journal

As a photographer, I am extremely interested in the concept of perception and I let this concept drive most of my artistic work. I present four images from my photographic series “Animals in the Wild,” which explore this idea of perception. These four images: Giraffe, Dinosaur, Buffalo, and Bunny—are drastically varied photos that include no real animals, but instead beg the mind to perceive shapes, colors, figure, and coincidence as an animal.

Leaf Miner's Leaves, Susan Hoenig

The STEAM Journal

For many years I have been collecting leaves and discovered a phenomena that I find truly fascinating on specific leaves called "leaf miner's leaves". The leaves are the dwellings of animals, various insects' architectural habitat. Leaf miner's leaves are a phenomena in nature in the plant kingdom where the larvae of various insects tunnel their way through a leaf eating its living tissue. The leaf miners create distinctive patterns on each leaf. The snake-like serpentine tunnels protect them from predators and plant defenses.

Cold Hard Facts, Paul Kelley

The STEAM Journal

COLD HARD FACTS is an ephemeral installation composed of a projector, digital images and ice. The work continues my interest in having the viewer slow down to have a more thoughtful and absorptive experience with the work and surrounding space. With a short-lived duration, the piece considers the transitory nature of things and how truths can be misconstrued as facts, whereas truths are malleable and facts are not. They are cold, hard and indifferent.

L.A. River Project, Erin Payne

The STEAM Journal

A field note that reflected the artists' experience of the city and the making of art through an activity at the L.A. River.

Magic Milk – A Moving Picture!, Elizabeth Park

The STEAM Journal

The art and science behind 'Magic Milk'.

Beer And Brewing In German Culture: Bridging The Gaps Within Steam, John D. Sundquist

The STEAM Journal

A university-level course on science, history, and culture of beer and brewing offers students from a wide range of disciplines a unique opportunity to learn from each other. They gain an appreciation for STEAM and the interaction of a number of disciplines while examining a subject of growing interest. This paper provides a brief description of such a course and includes specific examples of ways in which students explore science, engineering, humanities and the arts, as these areas of research come together in the study of beer and brewing.

Research And Inhabited Image (Ria): A Spatial Hypothesis, Sveva Avveduto, Fabio Fornasari

The STEAM Journal

This paper discusses the possibility of representing research activity as a narrative path starting from an experimentation field. The aim is to test and verify connections between social space and the construction of images of the world through the building and perception of specific language in the narrative dimension of research. The field work we present has been carried out as an installation art in Borromini’s Crypt in Rome, and is the example of rendering the story-dimension of research through a medium, a narrative technology in constant progress and evolution. In this way research activity can be presented as ascent …

K-12 Students See Steam Everyday, Meghan Reilly Michaud

The STEAM Journal

Today’s students exist in a visual world. A new semiotic language has emerged in the digital age. It consists of an ever-evolving vocabulary of signs and symbols that one can rapidly decipher. Icons represent applications and functions on a plethora of modern devices. Sounds indicate changes and the start and end of activity. The exposure of new audio and visual media are part of everyday communication, now more than ever. The Arts teach our students to better perceive these cues and the information that they deliver.

Turbulence, Climate And Supercomputers, Georgios Matheou

The STEAM Journal

Turbulence is often referred to as the last mystery of classical physics. Although turbulence is ubiquitous and prominent in our daily lives – from the mixing of milk in a cup of coffee to the perpetual motion of the atmosphere and the resulting weather variation – our understanding of this complex phenomenon is comparatively very limited (e.g., Davidson et al., 2011).