Art and Design Commons^™

The Fuller The Bucket Is, The Harder It Is To Fly, Jacob Littlejohn

Theses and Dissertations

My abstract paintings are informed by the momentary sublime rooted in the vastness of the natural world. Based on imagined and real landscapes, the work evokes minutia and phenomena that affect our perceptions of reality, and signifies a longing to reconnect with the natural world.

As I Wander, Michelle Lum

CGU MFA Theses

My work highlights moments of wonder from my everyday life to give a more holistic view of reality. To me, experiences of wonder are spaces where a person feels God’s presence, where the spiritual reality of our world becomes visible. Sacraments in the Christian tradition are visible signs of a divine reality. I think of my work as sacramental: heightening moments where the visible gives way to the invisible—not by denying their physical characteristics but through them. The heart of my work is in the intersection between that which is deeply ordinary and that which is deeply extraordinary.

Step 10, Jinhong Cai

Masters Theses

Step 10 is an experiment on provoking empathy through

abstracted elements within my studio practice. I am

proposing to craft an emotional piece without leaning

on my identity. This written thesis consists of two parts:

narrative prose and an explanation of my studio practice.

While the installation is entirely devoid of cultural or

personal references, this text-based thesis is full of them

because it is intended to inform whoever is interested in

learning more about the motive behind this creation.

The questions I bought into the thought and creation

process are: Can a piece of art still successfully bring

out …

A Part From You, Kenneth Rick Briggenhorst Jr.

MSU Graduate Theses

I invite empathy through art that is technologically assisted to find alternative interpretations for nontheologically informed faith. The sudden passing of my dearest friend, Jimmy, encouraged me to dig through my archives of data, to cherish all the bytes that remain of him. In this endeavor, I find that death is not the end, but a post-physical state of being. I express this sentiment in a part from you, where the work utilizes inanimate constructs to place your faith in, to make sense of the complexities of grief in a digitally tethered way of life. This life that allows many …

A Perfect Escape: Fantasy, Place And Narrative In Adolescence, Cydney Cherepak

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This essay explores the realms of special places, the literary genre of fantasy, narrative, and comics. These topics are traversed alongside subjects of adolescence and the creation of stories for middle-grade readers. Framed with personal stories, as well as peaks into my process, I investigate these subjects through the lens of my own life and work, specifically my thesis project, a comic for middle-grade readers titled Beyond the Castle Walls. Beginning with adolescence in association with special places, I consider the work of developmental psychologists David Sobel and Edith Cobb as they pin-point the role of secret forts, nature, …

De La Nature Au Processus D’Artification. Matière [Forme/Objet] Sens, Alexandre Melay

The Goose

Les progrès technologiques modifient radicalement ce qui nous était autrefois familier. Ce sentiment troublant venu de l’ère Anthropocène met en lumière l’impact humain sur la nature. Mais la perte d’un monde naturel nous oblige à gérer notre environnement en tant qu’environnement artificiel. Face à cette mutation profonde du concept même de nature, l’art opère un processus d’artification, renouvelant la nature dans de nouvelles formes néoarchéologiques et de nouvelles esthétiques, par le « passage du non-art en art ».

Capacity, Rachel Baydian

CGU MFA Theses

This Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition by Rachel Baydian is an installation of ceramic sculptures that function as a stand-in for the human body, touching on relationship, interconnectivity, and imperfection. Using abstracted forms that derive from the earth, these art objects are sculpted to mimic nature and its processes. The work highlights our human connection to nature as integrative and vital. Through experience and tactility, there is more of an awareness of space and heightened senses. The work taps into the awe and seduction of the mystery of nature through seemingly ordinary elements of the physical world.

Closing Pause, Peter London

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

Peter London was invited to offer a response to the two part special issue of An Arts-Based Contemplative Pause as a last moment of pause. Peter, in turn, graciously offered his contemplative thoughts that we hope will inspire others to pause and engage their own contemplative reflections inspired by the artist scholar offerings in this special issue.

The Dream Of Being Totally Open, Frederick Greis

Theses and Dissertations

This essay details four major themes in the paintings of Frederick Greis: spiritual experience, nature, pleasure, and humor. These themes are described within the context of the artist's main goal, which is to create an experience of profound unburdening.

Relations To Live By, Morgan Gardner

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

In 2017, I experienced the ARTS Pre- Conference of the Canadian Society for Studies in Education as a welcome refuge. As participants, we gathered to feed our minds, bodies and spirits via arts-based, contemplative practice. It became a day of (re)visioning academic life. In gratitude for this day, I share two poems from my research journal supporting my own (re)visioning of academic research. The poems are meditations on the small and large wonders of nature and their connection to the wealth of our fragile, mysterious lives. They explore our immeasurable interconnectedness to all of life and the life-giving relations that …

Lifetime, Emily E. Kuchenbecker

Theses and Dissertations

Time is my bully. Time marks the start of something, as well as the end. We are all carrying out the inexorable passing of time as it relates to our impending mortalities.

I do not fear death.

The awareness of my body’s impermanence employs me to feel that much more connected to the vessel containing that of which I am.

But what am I? Am I my body- or is it much deeper?

Through the work executed during my graduate research, I have attempted to quantify my existence through the archiving my time and body. This document ushers you through …

Sediment - Behind The Cover Art, Melanie Moore Bermudez

The STEAM Journal

Ideas of mapping, topography, erosion and evaporation have been loosely connected to my work for several years now. In my latest series I have put more of a focus on those ideas. In particular I am interested in the movement of sediment pushed by a flow of water and then left, stranded in a new location, as that water source dries up and diminishes. The pigments of the ink in the paintings are my sediment that I build up layer after layer to create a mini geological world caught in a moment of shift, pause and flow.

Sediment, Melanie Moore Bermudez

The STEAM Journal

Ideas of mapping, topography, erosion and evaporation have been loosely connected to my work for several years now. In my latest series I have put more of a focus on those ideas. In particular I am interested in the movement of sediment pushed by a flow of water and then left, stranded in a new location, as that water source dries up and diminishes. The pigments of the ink in the paintings are my sediment that I build up layer after layer to create a mini geological world caught in a moment of shift, pause and flow.

Liminal Surfaces, Georgina E. Grenier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The poet Ben Okri wrote: “Stories are the secret reservoir of values: change the stories individuals and nations live by and tell themselves, and you change the individuals and nations.” (Stibbe)

In the early 21st Century we are facing numerous environmental problems that are being caused by human activity. This era is termed the Anthropocene , a time when accumulated pollutants are causing detrimental ecological change. Ocean creatures are threatened by increasing seawater temperature, acidifying pH levels and melting ice. On land we are experiencing droughts, alteration of biomes, extinctions and an atmosphere that contains less oxygen per breath than …

James Kao Interview, Alice Haller

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: James Kao was born and raised in Houston, Texas. After studying philosophy and focusing on the texts of Ludwig Wittgenstein at the University of Chicago, he worked as a bakery buyer for a specialty foods retail chain in Southern California. In 2001, James forwent his corporate career and returned to Chicago to take classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he received an MFA from the Painting and Drawing Department. He is Assistant Professor of Art at Aurora University in Aurora, IL, and is co-founder and co-director of 4^th Ward Project Space in …

Design In Nature, Farhana Azim

The STEAM Journal

Floral Designs are a combination of, line, form and space. By creating balance while incorporating all these three elements in proportion to the space allowed, with an eye on the use of color and contrast, enabling the smooth visual flow of the design one produces the perfect arrangement.