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 …

Dirt Circus: Queering Sports And Home Through Filth, Hannah Patteson

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This monograph accompanies the MFA Thesis Exhibition, “Dirt Circus”. I outline the history of circus and carnival culture and the ways in which queer identities are expressed through these artistic modes. I describe the nonconforming expressions of gender in these arenas through bearded ladies, aerialists, clowns, and the freak show. I then explore various groups from the 70’s to present day, including Bread and Puppet Theater, The Cockettes, and Split Britches, who utilize performance to further their ideologies of gender freedom, anti-capitalism, and sexual liberation. I compare our differing uses of cheap art and public engagement within the realm of …

Nest, Camillia Elci

Masters Theses, 2020-current

The major themes in this body of work are time and layers. These themes are linked by the materiality of the work. Intentional destruction and recreation, perpetually. The work is constantly being made, destroyed, and remade. It is always partly past and partly future. Nest is a self portrait displaying objects acquired and made over the past several years.

Icarus Rooted, Lacey Minor

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This thesis conceptually frames and accompanies the MFA body of work Icarus Rooted by Lacey Minor. This work grapples with the acceptance of impermanence and illustrates her personal narrative about grieving family lost to addiction — juxtaposed with societal reflections on the opioid epidemic in America — using the potato as a symbol for the addicted body.

And All The Things That Grew On The Ground, Sarah E. Phillips

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This is a document archiving and describing my work for the years 2019-2021 as part of the completion requirements for the Master of Fine Arts degree. As a whole, this work investigates the paradox and negotiations of access to the self, the history, and to the landscape you occupy. It asks questions about authorship, valuing, sacred and sacrament, but retains the gravitation, umbilical tie to memoir and narrative. Ritual, habit, and transformational cleansing are recurring themes in the work. Body, breath-- access to the invisible. Preservation of the uncertain. Fragility carries weight, and importance, destruction and negotiation as vessels of …

Masks: A New Face For The Theatre, Alexi Michael Siegel

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

This study seeks to reimagine and reinvigorate modern theatre’s relationship with mask work through text-based historical research and practice-based artistic research. It focuses on three ancient mask traditions: pre- and early Hellenistic Greek theatre, Japanese Noh theatre, and Nigerian Egungun masquerades. Research on these mask traditions and recent masked productions informed the development and staging of a masked performance of Charles Mee’s Life is a Dream. The production featured sections for each of the ancient masking styles and a final section that explored masks in a contemporary theatrical style. As a whole, this creative project pulls masks out of …

Silenced Imbalances, Ashley G. Roth

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Awkwardness and vulnerability

through continuous public display and criticism

this and these inhibiting, defeating a person’s ability

to be able to function to the fullest extent.

Disabling.

Through literal and metaphorical ciphering I blend original poetry with my artwork in order to address misperceptions about gender, sexuality, mental illness, and ableism within American society. My undergraduate thesis work is an expression of my personal experience with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), major panic disorder, depression and dermatillomania.

Wearing My Heart On My Sleeve, Sam Hunter

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Wearing My Heart On My Sleeve is a collection of fabric and fiber works that focus on issues related to my recovery from a heart attack. Using the hospital gown and other garment forms as templates for self-portraiture, I explore the emotions surrounding the diagnosis and subsequent management of my chronic health condition. My art-making process combines tradition and technology, using modern, high-speed sewing machines and computers to create the fabric for contemporary interpretations of traditional garment and needlecraft forms. I am also concerned with the use of language and words as critical design elements for the fabrics I create. …