Art and Design Commons^™

Batik Of Java: Global Inspiration, Maria Wronska-Friend

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Batik, the technique of patterning cloth through the application of wax, reached the highest level of complexity on the island of Java. While deeply embedded in local traditions and associated with the social order of Java, outside Indonesia batik became a powerful cultural intermediary connecting countries as diverse as Netherlands, Japan, Ghana, India, and Australia. In the early stages, this process was an outcome of the Dutch colonial agency. In the 17^th and 18^th centuries the Dutch East India Company sold Indian textiles destined for Indonesian markets as well as small quantities of Javanese batiks to the Japanese. …

Closing The Power Gap Through Internet Technology: The Artisan View, Judy Frater

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

In India today, artisans are considered skilled workers who can realize the concepts of designers. But traditionally, craft was designed, produced, and marketed by artisans. As traditional artisans aimed for new markets, designers took on the role of “interventionists” to bridge the gap in familiarity with new consumers and bring craft into contemporary markets. While this works, unfortunately demoting artisans to worker status results in minimum value for their work, little to no opportunity for creativity or recognition, and waning interest in traditions. Co-design has potential to restructure the relationship between urban designer and artisan. However, often what is called …

Dresden Embroidery In Early Kentucky Counterpanes, Laurel Horton

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper examines four white embroidered bedcovers which include elements done in Dresden work, a distinctive technique combining pulled-thread embroidery with surface stitchery. The distinctive lace-like stitches of Dresden embroidery typically appear in delicate, small-scale applications, such as cuffs, collars, and handkerchiefs. These four counterpanes, made in Kentucky in the early nineteenth century, are among a small number of embroidered white bedcovers that include Dresden embroidery. In contrast with the ancient roots of other stitchery styles, Dresden embroidery emerged in Europe in the 1720s as an inexpensive alternative to delicate Flemish bobbin laces. The technique spread among cottage needleworkers in …

Laminated Paint, Travis R. Austin

Theses and Dissertations

Though we may not perceive it, we are surrounded by material-in-flux. Inert materials degrade and the events that comprise our natural and social environments causally thread into a duration that unifies us in our incomprehension. Sounds reveal ever-present vibrations of the landscape: expressions of the flexuous ground on which we stand.

Meeting Place An Exhibition – And – Locating The Country: An Australian Bricoleuse’S Inquiry An Exegesis, Annette Nykiel

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This practice-led PhD research investigated alternate forms of articulation to relate stories of place-making, as narrative or object, and added threads to the complex meshwork and herstory of the Country. The research was conducted in ‘The Country’, of the north-eastern Goldfields and Yalgorup Lakes in Western Australia. These two non-urban sites provided unique experiences of the bush, local people’s stories and understandings of time. The research investigated the implications of non-urban spaces as studios in relation to the concepts of place, time and narrative.

This research was, in part, experiential and drew on an absorbed embodied awareness of notions of …

The Classical Versus The Grotesque Body In Edith Wharton's Fiction, Joshua T. Temples

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In her landmark works The House of Mirth (1905), The Custom of the Country (1913), and The Age of Innocence (1920), Edith Wharton responds to earlier depictions of the classical, pure Victorian and Edwardian woman. Wharton's "inconvenient" women overturn popular stereotypes. Subsequently, they are barred from their social groups, but they are independent, unlike the complicit and obedient women of the classical body, most of whom ascribe to the trope of the "Angel in the House." The grotesque seeks to undercut the unrealistic expectations enforced by the classical through its embodiment of progression and humanity, and Wharton is drawn to …

Considering Perspectives, Cynthia Epps

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This body of work, Considering Perspectives, explores the ideas of perspective, not only in terms of spatial perspective in art, but also regarding how our vantage point and presumptions affect how we feel about certain subjects. The subjects of my work are spaces or objects often overlooked or considered mundane. When we approach a work of art, we typically do so with a multitude of presuppositions that influence our response. Often, we are not even aware of this. By splicing together multiple perspectives I use my work to create awareness that there may be more than one way not …

Irrational Aggregates, Courtney N. Ryan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis paper examines the work included in my Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition entitled Irrational Aggregates. The goal of this work is to facilitate a dialogue between our natural environment and the excessive consumer-based environments in which we live. Combining a variety of ceramic techniques including hand building, wheel throwing, and casting these sculptures appear to be grown from, and even taken over by nature itself.

Often drawing inspiration from my personal narrative, that of consistent upheaval, relocation, and adjustment to new places, my work can appear both grounded and in a state of motion. I believe …

In Search Of Communication, Usman O. Oladeinde

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the work included in Usman Oladeinde’s MFA thesis exhibition. The goal of this thesis paper is to explore major themes such as communication, identity, change, centeredness, landscapes, and language. These paintings present Arabic letter forms transformed into illegible shapes which are painted on landscape backgrounds, often depicting an aesthetic of textual elements receding into space. All these works are inspired by the Qibla, which is represented in the abstract and painted using acrylic media. Occasionally image transfers are mounted on the painted surface.

Visual representations like mine are communicative without forcing the viewer to one specific idea. …

Mindful Escapism, Kench Weathers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the art work included in Kench Weathers’ MFA thesis exhibition. This work explores major themes such as the sacred, contemplation, optical illusion and paradox. The installations involve multiple three-dimensional geometric shapes that are formed with steel tubing (welded together). These works have various inspiration; both contemporary secular and sacred and are influenced by sacred paradox, both visual and ideological. The mixture of the two-dimensional with the three-dimensional creates multistable perception within the viewer. The work introduces visual and perceptual distortions of depth and dimensionality. These forms are nonrepresentational but act as a catalyst for the viewer. I …

Aiga Design For Democracy 2018, Anne M. Giangiulio

Anne M. Giangiulio

Stop Child Marriage, Anne M. Giangiulio

Anne M. Giangiulio