Material World, Nicole Weldy

All Theses

My thesis, Material World, delves into the use of the crochet unit as a construction technique for building forms. Through this, I aim to organize different materials in a way that responds to the challenges posed by the physical world. My artistic process is centered around honoring the inherent qualities of thread and uses these qualities to create form, lightness, and linearity. At the same time, I remain receptive to transformative processes such as combining three-dimensional (3D) printed lines and lace stiffener to push the boundaries of what thread can do. By combining manual craftsmanship with technology materialized as …

Iteration One, Julian Suver

Masters Theses

In the fashion world, companies put a lot of effort towards classifying their products as luxury to the consumer. The age of social media has aggrandized collaborations with famous artists, endorsements by celebrities and even the appointment of pop stars as directors of the biggest fashion houses in the world, as if this makes the clothing better. I can't help but question what luxury actually means when you strip away marketing and if this status can be given or taken away. If a silk dress gets irreparably stained or ripped is it still luxury? Is an old band T-shirt found …

To Dig A Hole And Fill It Back Up, Jackson Whetstone

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

Abstract:

The socioeconomical philosophy of the United States is still very much related to the Marxist Labor Theory of Value which states that “the economic value of a good or service is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor required to produce it” (Das Kapital, Marx 1.) This philosophy has penetrated the way that we think about art and object, and in turn positions art as a means of transaction, thus limiting art to a form of glorified currency. This Essay will chronicle my art practice, that have led up to two thesis pieces, Trench and Dig …

Ritual And Digital Craftsmanship: Imprudent Practices, Mik Patrik Mcdonnell

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

This essay explores the role of traditional and digital craftsmanship in my art practice as it relates to provocative imagery. I tackle the question of how my practice is influenced by my audience. My process and products both aim to agitate the ascetic individual. The argument opens on a poetic, personal note, before defining craft/craftsmanship and its social reception according to scholarship. I outline the intended audience for my work being those akin to my mother: christian, middle-aged, and leaning conservative. Because I employ devotional, virtuosic craftsmanship I argue my work is effective at provoking dialogue with these persons who …

Crafting Community: A Ceramics Center, Nadia Mechboukh

Theses and Dissertations

For artisans, being part of a community can facilitate engaging with the public. Networking and collaborating with peers are vital for building meaningful relationships that can lead to mutual inspiration and learning opportunities. By strengthening the connection between society and various forms of craft, we can weave invisible threads that link the stories that craft tells with the time and place in which they were created. Pottery is a craft that has existed for thousands of years. Ceramics and clay have carried the history of communities and their ways of living through centuries and have been used as identifiers of …

A Parar Para Avanzar: To Stop/To Stand/To Strike To Advance, Christina N. Barrera

Theses and Dissertations

This paper presents the first fragments of a political framework outlining how I situate my work, which lives between “craft” and “art” models of making and between colonized and colonizing traditions. My writing proposes ways of making and being informed by practices, strategies, and organizing that work towards greater autonomy and liberation under these conditions.

Crying At Nothing But Colors, Maryalice Carroll

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

crying at nothing but colors is an installation of ceramic works that explores the abstraction of feelings, both physical and emotional. The installation itself is a house made out of tension cables that stretch wall to wall in the gallery space. Inside the house are 7 ceramic objects placed on wooden pedestals paired with tufted rugs.

Throughout this essay, I will describe the abstract ceramic objects as Beings. They are colorful and have textured glaze on the surface with a gloopy opalescent glaze oozing out of holes that cover each piece. They are an extension of myself. They are the …

Defiantly Childlike: Using Aesthetic Resistance To Heal, Sarah K. Reagan

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines an alternative processing mechanism surrounding the act of healing after traumatic experiences in life. Using a methodology of iterative patterning and tool-pathing, a collection of inflatable garments and wooden mannequins analyzes defense mechanisms learned in early childhood development. This work highlights an essential body of recent scholarship that takes cuteification seriously to restore a childlike approach to mastering fear. This paper will review the definitions of cuteness and childlike humor and then describe how visual culture has implemented these components to subvert established power.

Snake Tube Adventure Racing… And More!, Jane Marie M. Tardo

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

My work revolves around using a specialized blend of art, design, and craft to interpret political narratives through fabricated products. These objects weave contemporary commentary and consumer indulgences into sculptural cultures. Each product is designed to mimic its own marketed culture—offering an enticingly tactile, interactive experience that is equal parts confusing, concerning, and delightful. The products are accompanied by investment opportunities in the form of popular, limited released merchandized objects, such as hats and patches. Using humor and subtlety, my gamelike installations explore arenas such as agency, autonomy, intimacy, and dueling realities in a time of ecological collapse and cultural …

Rockhounding, Seafaring, And Other Material Tales For The End Of The World, Noemie Fortin

The Goose

In the face of accelerated environmental degradation and climate instability, the future of the Earth and of all life on earth is difficult to visualize. Therefore, the different mediums through which we consider environmental issues are just as important as the actions we take to address them. Focusing on three projects combining art, science, and activism, this article suggests a compilation of material tales. They tell stories of plastic rocks and aluminum nuggets where the protagonists are partly finely crafted objects, partly waste materials, and sometimes both at once. Artists Kelly Jazvac, Yesenia Thibeault-Picazo, and the collective Studio Swine collaborate …

Spanning, Mary Katherine Carder-Thompson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dossier consists of three chapters. Chapter 1 is a comprehensive artist statement describing my system for spirit communication that leverages the latent power of wool processing tools. This system borrows strategies from varied sources including living history, paraconceptualism, and bricolage. Chapter 2 visually documents my studio practice over the two years of my MFA candidacy at Western University. Chapter 3 is a case study of Luanne Martineau’s 2009 drawing, Who are they you salute, and that one after another salute you. This case study addresses Martineau’s engagement with Modernism’s legacy and discusses how her work builds an equitable …

Kiddush Levana, The Moon Is Your Handheld Mirror, Noa Ginzburg

Theses and Dissertations

Noa Ginzburg is weaving cast-off and hand-made objects, lights, reflections, spells, drawings, and an abundance of knots into site-responsive installations. In her thesis, Ginzburg addresses Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings, the synergy of assemblages, repurposing of materials in the era of Anthropocene, and how notions of solidarity and indeterminacy influence her work.

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 …

Soheila Azadi Interview, Jillian Bridgeman

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: Soheila Azadi is an interdisciplinary visual artist and lecturer based in Chicago and Iran. Born in the capital of Islamic cities, Esfahan, Azadi absorbed story-telling skills through Persian miniature drawings since she was nine. Azadi’s inspirations come from her experiences of being a woman while living under Theocracy. Now residing in the U.S. Azadi is dedicated to transnational feminism with a passionate devotion to the ways in which race, religion, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity intersect. Azadi uses performance art and performative installations as methods to both materialize and narrate stories about women’s everyday struggle in the world. Her …

After The Big Wind Stops I See Gentle Waves, Eunji (Jubee) Lee

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis covers my reflections on the inspirations and the motivations behind selected works including my candidacy exhibition; Resonance and my thesis exhibition; after the big wind stops I see gentle waves. It contains my life throughout my MFA studies and the development of my art practice. Through its story-within-a-story method of narration and my describing streams of my thoughts, I am attempting to explain the processes of my development and the discoveries I have made, the little things in my daily life, and the big turning points that inspired me. My work and this document have been strongly determined …

Through My Window, Haiyin Liang

Theses and Dissertations

I convey my thoughts through art jewelry; making jewelry is my language of communication and commemoration. Inspired by historical Chinese art and contemporary jewelry, my practice pays attention to bring classical Chinese aesthetics of hazy poetic and ideal arrangement into the contemporary jewelry field. The attention to detail refers to the quiet contemplation and emotional experiences encouraged by each of my works. Through my research, I use metalsmithing language to communicate with non-precious materials finding my own way of expression and meditation. Meanwhile, I build environments that display jewelry off the body in order to construct a picturesque landscape. The …

Michio Iwao Interview, Grace Johnson

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Michio Iwao is one of four sons of the parents Kotama and Tomonosuke Iwao. He is known as an Asian American craftsperson that was born on July 12, 1922 in Suisun City, California. During World War II Michio and his family were relocated and held at the Gila River Internment Camp also known as Trulock. This stay lasted from 1942 to 1945 under the War Relocation Authority. This Japanese Internment camp inspired Iwao to spend his idle time learning how to make bird pins. This was the start of Iwao becoming a craftsperson.

Dana Weiser Interview, Julia Boucher

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Education: University of Colorado at Boulder, B.A in Fine Arts, May 2001. Penland School of Crafts, Attended August2001-May 2001, woodworking and blacksmithing. School of the Art Institute of Chicago, B.F.A, Ceramics, May 2003 & Post-Baccalaureate Certificate, Ceramics May 2004 University of California at Los Angeles, M.F.A in Ceramics, June 2007 & M.A in Asian American Studies, December 2016.

Awards: National Scholastic Art Award in Ceramics, 1997. D’Arcy Hayman Award, 2005. Laura Andreson Scholarship, 2006. Elizabeth Heller Mandell Memorial Scholarship, 2006. Laura Andreson Scholarship, 2007. Finalist in Artist Runway.com, 2008.

Exhibitions: National Scholastic Art Exhibition, Corcoran Museum, Washington DC, …

Sarah Nishiura Interview, Larry Villanueva

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Sarah Nishiura grew up in Detroit and now lives in Chicago, where she makes paintings, drawings, prints and quilts. She learned to sew from her mother and learned to love geometry from her father. From her grandparents, who were great builders, painters, stitchers, weavers and gardeners, she learned that making things is one of the greatest imperatives, privileges and pleasures in life.

So Much Apparent Nothing, Emily Mcbride

Theses and Dissertations

This document contains reflections on motivations behind selected works leading up to and including my thesis exhibition so much apparent nothing. Through journal excerpts and analysis of my own psychology, I attempt to put into words my thoughts concurrent to my making, indirect as they may be. The following text shares my personal conflicts and ideologies surrounding art-making, the permanence of objects, and the acceptance of an identity in flux.

Reviving Project:A Chinese-American Culture Exchange Project, Yushan Cassie Sun

Undergraduate Research Posters

Through art exhibitions in Beijing, China and Richmond, Virginia, Reviving project 01 aims to help promote/ revive a craft technique in Qinghai, China that is disappearing due to the urbanized surroundings.

American artist were invited to collaborate with people from Qinghai to make new pieces incorporating original crafted pieces.

The Bone Folder By Ernst Collin (2nd Ed.), Peter D. Verheyen, Ernst Collin

Libraries' and Librarians' Publications

DER PRESSBENGEL / THE BONE FOLDER: A DIALOGUE BETWEEN AN AESTHETICALLY- INCLINED BIBLIOPHILE AND A WELL-VERSED-IN-ALL-ASPECTS-OF-THE- CRAFT BOOKBINDER By Ernst Collin, translated and introduced by Peter D. Verheyen Der Pressbengel, by Ernst Collin, was originally published in German in 1922. Conceived as a dialogue between a bibliophile and a master bookbinder on all aspects of the bookbinding craft as well as specific techniques, the text also addresses the conflicts between quality and cost and matters of good taste. The family and bindery of W. Collin were Court Bookbinders in Berlin from the mid 1800 until the "liquidation" of the …

The Bone Folder By Ernst Collin, Peter D. Verheyen

Peter D Verheyen

DER PRESSBENGEL/THE BONE FOLDER: A DIALOGUE BETWEEN AN AESTHETICALLY- INCLINED BIBLIOPHILE AND A WELL-VERSED-IN-ALL-ASPECTS-OF-THE- CRAFT BOOKBINDER

By Ernst Collin, translated and introduced by Peter D. Verheyen

Der Pressbengel, by Ernst Collin, was originally published in German in 1922. This is its first translation into English. Conceived as a dialogue between a bibliophile and a master bookbinder on all aspects of the bookbinding craft as well as specific techniques, the text also addresses the conflicts between quality and cost and matters of good taste. An introduction by the translator discusses the historical context of the decline of formal training, a trend …

The Bone Folder By Ernst Collin, Peter D. Verheyen

Libraries' and Librarians' Publications

DER PRESSBENGEL/THE BONE FOLDER: A DIALOGUE BETWEEN AN AESTHETICALLY- INCLINED BIBLIOPHILE AND A WELL-VERSED-IN-ALL-ASPECTS-OF-THE- CRAFT BOOKBINDER By Ernst Collin, translated and introduced by Peter D. Verheyen Der Pressbengel, by Ernst Collin, was originally published in German in 1922. This is its first translation into English. Conceived as a dialogue between a bibliophile and a master bookbinder on all aspects of the bookbinding craft as well as specific techniques, the text also addresses the conflicts between quality and cost and matters of good taste. An introduction by the translator discusses the historical context of the decline of formal training, a trend …

An Evolving Tradition: Andoa Pottery Of The Ecuadorian Amazon, Joe Molinaro

Art and Design Faculty and Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

An Evolving Tradition: Andoa Pottery Of The Ecuadorian Amazon, Joe Molinaro

Joe Molinaro

No abstract provided.

Pottery Of The Ecuadorian Amazon, Joe Molinaro

Art and Design Faculty and Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Pottery Of The Ecuadorian Amazon, Joe Molinaro

Joe Molinaro

No abstract provided.

Deep In The Peruvian Amazon, Joe Molinaro

Joe Molinaro

No abstract provided.

Jatun Molino: A Pottery Village In The Upper Amazon Basin, Joe Molinaro

Joe Molinaro

A video documentary depicting the making and firing of the pottery produced by the women of Jatun Molino, a small, remote village located in the upper Amazon basin region of Ecuador.