Art and Design Commons^™

With Love, ; An Interdisciplinary And Intersectional Look At Why Creativity Is Essential, Theo Starr Gardner

Whittier Scholars Program

My Whittier Scholars Program self-designed major, Teaching Creativity, is a mixture of Art, Literature, and Education classes. My research and praxis classes have been focused on the ‘how?’s and 'why?’s of creativity, so it felt only right that my project should be a constructivist, generative project. The project I have been working on throughout my time at Whittier, and that has just fully come to fruition on April 11th, 2024, was a solo art gallery/open mic event entitled ‘With Love,’. With Love, was conceptually inspired by the research I’ve conducted on creativity and creative arts education over the past few …

Truths & Lies Mugs, Kaitlyn D. Davis

Cedarville Review

Four mugs with different inscriptions:

Mug #1: brown, "I'm worthless"
Mug #2: white, "I am wonderfully made"
Mug #3: brown, "I have to fix myself"
Mug #4: white, "made whole by Christ"

The Drip Effect, Gabriela M. Bush

Cedarville Review

Two bowls created for the kitchen table, with a glaze effect to represent waves.

In His Hands, Nina Friess

Cedarville Review

A ceramic sculpture of a sparrow held by two human hands.

Creating An Index To Graduate Theses To Support Their Discoverability, Ellen Petraits

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

As a Research and Instruction Librarian, one of the most frequent questions I'm asked is how to find past theses on a particular topic or theme. There is an active thesis culture at RISD that goes beyond writing and binding a text. An exhibition is held in the graduate gallery to celebrate a curated selection of theses at the beginning of the academic year. (See Book of Thesis Books) Theses can range in format from an artist book to a loose-leaf portfolio. Many emphasize the visual and are a bridge to the student’s studio work. They may include unusual or …

Radical Youth Work: A Community Based Approach To Working With Youth, Young Adults And Families, Weston J. Robins

National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference

Radical Youth Work: A Community Based Approach to Working with Youth, Young Adults and Families

A focus on experiential mentoring, humanistic counseling and community engagement as a way to work with youth, young adults and families to provide true holistic therapeutic support and guidance.

Ripe Spoils, Yan Cynthia Chen

Theses and Dissertations

Chen’s practice primarily focus on sculptures and installation. She explores the interplay between the idea of nature and the constructed environment, by examining how language informs what we know. The central thesis, "Ripe Spoils", employs citrus fruits as symbols for bodily experiences and personal identity, investigating their cultural and historical significance. Her sculptures summon the qualities and embedded meanings in materials like paper pulp and clay, wax and citrus fruits, often resulting in abstracted forms evocative of the human body. This thesis paper and exhibition reflect on themes like mortality and the essence of self.

Chinese-English Dictionary Enable Select Search …

Rooted In Meaning: Plant Iconography On Nasca Polychrome Ceramics, Amanda G. Lange

Theses

This thesis explores the Nasca use of plant iconography as part of their polychrome ceramics produced at the end of the Early Horizon around 100 BCE to those produced in the beginning and middle of the Early Intermediate Period circa 1to 450 CE. During this time the religious site of Cahuachi was in use as a pilgrimage center as well as the production center of polychrome pottery. The Nasca created their colorful ceramics here to distribute to visiting pilgrims during times of festival or ritual. The culture’s iconography has been studied extensively, most of which focuses on the forms of …

Programa De La Conferencia Segundo Congreso Internacional De Iconografía Precolombina

Segundo congreso internacional de iconografía precolombina. Barcelona, 2023. Actas.

Barcelona, 2023.

Victòria Solanilla, organizador

17 al 20 de octubre de 2023.

En el Museu de Cultures del Món de Barcelona. Calle Montcada, nº12-14, 08003, Barcelona.

Y en el Institut d’Estudis Catalans. Calle del Carme, nº 47, 08001, Barcelona.

Organizado por el GRUP d'ESTUDIS PRECOLOMBINS· con el apoyo del MUSEU ETNOLÒGIC I DE CULTURES DEL MÓN· INSTITUT D'ESTUDIS CATALANS· SOCIETAT CATALANA D'ESTUDIS HISTÒRICS

New Commandments, Jacob Sussman

Masters Theses

I reach into the earth, pull out mud-encrusted objects, and recombine them to define new meanings. With every object transposed, the past breaks down; new potentials form. “New Commandments” recombines historical symbolism through an intuitive building, destroying, and merging to reimagine or re-establish meaning.

The work critiques rites of passage, masculinity, and stereotypes by deconstructing how histories, ideologies, and preconceptions form.

As a queer person raised in-between Judaism and Christianity, social preconceptions and religious expectations festered my formation. Our choice is taken away at this moment of conception. To take back autonomy, I reimagine historical, and religious symbolism and transmute …

Curiosity Beyond The Hidden, Yi Young Kim

Masters Theses

What lies beneath the surface of vessels? This captivating thesis explores the hidden world within, drawing inspiration from traditional Korean ceramics and employing coil-built sculptures. By focusing on the hollowness of vessels, this study unveils their profound interconnectedness and inherent uniqueness.

Through spontaneous stacking of claylike glazes and textured elements, the artwork reveals mysterious processes and transformations within these vessels. Exposing the intricacies of hollow spaces, viewers are invited to contemplate the mesmerizing realms concealed within.

Intertwining elements of Korean heritagewith intricate structures, this artistic endeavor

sheds light on the hidden and challenges preconceived notions of everyday existence. The work …

Green + White = Pink, Dora Chen

Masters Theses

My thesis seeks to explore the unknown forces that are constantly shaping our lives. I am intrigued by the intangible connections that link people, objects, and places together, and how they manifest across space and time. As a ceramicist emphasizing both interiority and tactility, my work will dissect layered ideas of closeness and disruption in order to reveal a nuanced understanding of how we exist in perpetuity with what can’t be seen. I wish to explore this topic through carefully directed installations that emphasize intimacy and engagement among audience members. Through inspiration from my past experience, childhood memories, as well …

A Typological And Chemical Analysis Of Roman Oil Lamps From Poggio Del Molino, Brandon Tejo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Terracotta lamps, known to the Romans as lucernae, are small, handheld, often decorated objects which provided ancient people light. To modern researchers, they serve as tools for dating stratigraphy and iconographic studies. Beyond their immediately apparent aesthetic and symbolic value, the chemical compositions of the clay of these lamps reflect their origin. This study complements archaeological typologies with chemometric analyses to describe 16 Late Republican and Imperial Roman lamps recovered from the villa at Poggio del Molino (PdM), Tuscany. These finds were recovered from the 2021 and 2022 PdM excavations. The combined approach of typology with X-ray Diffraction (XRD) …

Spaces Of Wait And Their Weight, Eman Alhashemi

Masters Theses

i have been exploring, researching and observing what influences affect a space within the traditions, rituals, food, thoughts and behavior. what happens when that space of comfort disappears and changes? through a series of work that waits, melts, merges, and exaggerates in am attempt to find its place. as i borrow objects and movements from daily life observing my surroundings and extracting mundane things that take on different forms whether exaggerated or unidentifiable. this recent culmination of work over the two years at risd look at objects and spaces of waiting, discomfort, longing and sharing. our behavior is affected by …

The Hospitality Of Doubt, Ian Grieve

Art Theses and Dissertations

This paper discusses the last two years of research toward a Master of Fine Art in Studio Art. I mainly address my painting practice, but while in the program, I have worked in collage, ceramics, intaglio printmaking, and sculpture. My paintings are thick, multilayered, and often contain ambiguous narratives. The pictures develop through engagement, openness, and response within the work. I seek and embrace connection with viewers of the work. The spectator ‘completes’ the art and enhances or alters the artworks meaning by observing it and applying their individual perspectives. I seek to incorporate a sense of nostalgia and familiarity. …

Heretic Territories: Spells For Fracture, Mia Greenwald

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This monograph accompanies the MFA thesis exhibition, Heretic Territories: spells for fracture. The show uses video, weaving, clay, and bacterial/fungal bodies in three main bodies of work: Inter; Lost, remain, fracture; and For, Of Them. The pieces, and the relationship between them, explore themes of magic, the body, and land in contradiction and opposition to colonial and capitalist structures. I approach the artificial hierarchies that subjugate people, non-human creatures, and land while trying not to replicate the mistakes of posthumanist scholarship that bypasses the fact that not all people are afforded full access to the category …

Dulce Sueños De Tierra, Sweet Dreams Of Earth, Jordany Genao

Theses and Dissertations

Jordany's paper congregates their archival research into an art practice that examines the decolonial impulse to excavate the self and produce autonomy. Using ceramics to reference and re-animate Taino ritual objects found in museums, resulting in alternative museology, their work seeks to honor Caribbean ancestors by subverting colonial history.

Contact Sheet, Jiwoong Jang

Theses and Dissertations

Jiwoong’s thesis paper is a field guide to how he navigates his curiosity with photography, sound, sculpture, ceramic, and installation. Connecting fragments through narrative vignettes, he underscores how chance, walking, light, time, and uncertainty inform his art.

Negotiating Liberty: Fine Ceramics For The U.S. American Market Before 1860, Presley Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that the rise of the consumer market toward the end of the eighteenth century led to the production of decorated fine ceramics that became powerful modes of popularizing new ideas in the United States regarding independence, national symbols, and abolitionism.

Silhouette, Andy Bissonnette

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

As a potter, I am deeply interested in the union between form, surface, and function. I believe these elements are intrinsically connected and the most successful pots are able to balance all three in a way that is both aesthetically pleasing and practical. From the proportional relationship between the foot and rim, to the way a glaze breaks or pools across an articulated surface, each detail is crafted with intention and care. Silhouette is a metaphor for how I conceptualize and conceive each of my pieces. It’s a way to explore form through both an aesthetic and practical approach. My …

The Day Before The Day, Marlaina Lutz

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The reason any particular moment has the potential to change the course of your life is because of the accumulation of meaningful moments that happened in between. The in between is where care happens. It’s where acts of kindness are done without witnesses and where vulnerability is met with an unconditional reception. It’s where trust is built and where our darkest and brightest parts become exposed. Can you remember what you did the day before you decided someone was your best friend? Or what you did the day before you spoke to a parent for the last time? What about …

Tea Time With The Devil, Hamish Jackson

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Tea time with the Devil

Tea Time with the Devil began with the hypothesis that I could create a diverse palette of glazes from one local material. I chose to base my experiments on a granite from Devil’s Playground in western Utah. I collected its rocks, hauled them back to USU and crushed them into powder. Each glaze contains at least 50% of the Devil’s granite. This palette resulted from much trial and error — mostly error. Between 2020 and 2023, I ran thousands of glaze tests to formulate and hone these surfaces.

Why this place and material?

The wild …

Second Nature: Impressions Of Place., Trish Korte

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For my art practice, I grow and forage my art materials for eco printing, a direct contact printing method that reveals leaf shapes and hidden imagery through heat and pressure. I take specific cues from surrounding materials, objects, and environments. Tree systems and compelling textures of fungus are interpreted through ceramic and fiber. With an ongoing collaboration of natural materials and eco printing processes, my art speaks symbolically and metaphorically through imagery and materials. This thesis and accompanying exhibition present an examination of current work in context with an ongoing investigation of natural materials and eco printing.

Through The Kaleidoscope, Andrea Simpson

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Andrea Simpson, a California-based artist with a BA and MA from the California State University of San Bernardino, draws inspiration from the transformative power of psychedelics. Her artistic style merges vibrant colors, rhythmic patterns, and abstract forms, showcased across diverse mediums including ceramics, glass, and painting. Simpson's dynamic and experimental approach to art invites viewers on a mesmerizing journey that merges music, psychedelia, and contemporary art, providing a unique and immersive encounter.

Qualia, Maxwell Henderson

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

In this thesis, I examine the transformative potential of pottery through the lens of "qualia," the subjective experiences, emotions, and perceptions that shape our conscious lives. Stemming from my personal journey, which includes a childhood of poverty in Arizona and a biracial identity, I advocate for inclusivity and diversity in art and society by challenging material hierarchies and conventional artistic practices.

I delve into the vibrant aesthetics of Japanese Kutani porcelain, the fluidity and balance in ceramic vessels, and the impact of my background on my artistic approach. My experiences foster a rejection of painterly language and arbitrary hierarchies, prompting …

A Different Perspective On Christmas, Jessika Hughes

Forces

No abstract provided.

Tiny Details, Jessika Hughes

Forces

No abstract provided.

Good Luck—You Don’T Need It, Madelaine L B Smith

Cedarville Review

Good Luck—You Don’t Need It is a functional ceramic tea set. This piece was inspired by the work of Mariana Baquero, and her use of text in ceramics. It was made using stoneware and fired to Cone 10. The writing that spans the set is from a letter given to the artist by her father before she started her freshman year at Cedarville University.

The Emotional Mug Series, Rachael A. Mahaffey

Cedarville Review

No abstract provided.

Valuation, Tobias Gilbert

Art and Art History Honors Projects

My Studio Art honors project seeks to question the delineation between art, craft, and design and the lack of value placed on most everyday objects. While in our society homes are seen as an investment to be maintained and passed down, almost none of the objects that fill said home receive this level of care leading to mass consumerism of objects made merely to fit a function, not to last or hold their value. Valuation is a set of dining room furniture made of red oak and white ash accompanied by a full set of ceramic dinnerware and napkins. The …