Art and Design Commons^™

2+2=Cake: A Book Of Conversations About Possibilities In Business And Art, Elizabeth Ann Alspach

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

2+2=CAKE is a toolkit for people interested in creating their own economic container to support their livelihood. Calling upon the entrepreneurial experience of artists and creatives who founded or run organizations, the book and accompanying workbook and motivational posters serve as an incubator, buoy, and affirming resource for those looking to build the economic container in which they make their livelihood.

Shift: Moving Art Classes Into Rural America, Amy Schmierbach Mfa

Art & Design Faculty Publications

For the past 25 years academia has worked to create virtual and on-line classes. They have become mainstream and an expectation at each university. They want to keep education accessible for individuals unable to come to campus or that live in remote locations. Across the country universities have shrinking enrollment for their on-campus courses. The student that do come to campus learn differently than what most professors have been taught themselves. These students are passionate about the world and they want to impact their communities. The usual lecture or art demo may not be enough to prepare our students for …

Water Gets Lost In The Sea, Sun Gets Lost In The Desert, Rocio Paz Guerrero

Theses and Dissertations

The absence of happiness, the absence of nature, the absence of justice, the absence of absence, which is presence. My desire is to make these voids visible and sensible by connecting to and with others, from our intimate and collective life experiences, with empathy, and by sharing. Through a hybrid of sculpture, installation, and performance, I move within this tense in-between space, asking myself about that void, if it is possible for it to be filled, or if it is perhaps too big, or if it is perhaps too late.

Turning Tides, Lauren Whitmore

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Synthesizing personal narrative, sociological phenomenon, and art historical analysis, Turning Tides examines the relationship between power dynamics and sexual assault. Inequities and injustices with regard to the handling of sexual assault, and the norms that allow this issue to be pervasive, are woven throughout the cultural fabric of the United States. Feminists and feminist activist artists in the 1970s brought the matters women, and other marginalized groups, were facing to the forefront of political and social dialogue. The resulting work left an indelible mark on public perceptions and allowed for other activists and artists to build upon the foundations; creating …

Weather Permitting, Acadia Kandora

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Weather Permitting is an exhibition of objects and printed matter, primarily in the form of publicationsthat examine my relationship to nature and the idea of nature as both sanctuary and armor. At a young age, my parents would take my on a hike every Sunday instead of going to church. The hikes acted as a weekly pilgrimage deep into the woods and a ritual instilling the idea of nature being a place of spiritual refuge and retreat. A sanctuary - of course, weather permitting.

As I grew up and experienced hardship, my first instinct has always been to go hide …

Optimistic And A Little Flawed, Christian Schultz

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The accompanying exhibition to this paper, Optimistic and Flawed is a body of drawings and objects that explores the liminal space between playful and intended actions. Inspired by the landscape of the yard and the actions that take place within, the goalless play of a child and the laborious maintenance of an adult. The value of play exists within labor and labor exists within play. The drawings observe this through the theoretical framework of telic and paratelic motivational states as they relate to drawing. Abstracted yards and landscapes provide a space for the labor of the hand. A history of …

Time. Moves. Things. Change., Jennifer Wester

Art Theses and Dissertations

In this paper I discuss my art making principles and their physical representation in some examples of my most recent work.

Having started my artistic practice during a particularly transformative period of my life, this paper reflects on my artistic evolution, it’s influences, and the principles I’ve acquired along the way. In it, I explain and analyze the function of failure and mmy relation to manipulation. I show, through image and descriptions, the ways in which a spectrum of pieces converge to substantiate my claims of intent to outcome. And I illuminate synergies between my practice and historical artists such …

Tomorrow Is The Worst Day Since Yesterday, Matthew Carlson

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

Susan Sontag wrote: “Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other space”.

This work addresses aspects of that citizenship. I used my experiences as a person living with a disability and as a parent to a son with Autism to explore the dichotomy of this dual citizenship. The …

As Many Names As Objects, Luke Herrigel

Senior Projects Spring 2021

“And we: spectators, always, everywhere,

turned toward the world of objects, never outward.

It fills us. We arrange it. It breaks down.

We rearrange it, then break down ourselves”

• Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies

“Honesty is Unbelievable”

• A Bumper Sticker I Saw

For my senior show I used collected materials, found objects, personal ephemera (both genuine and fabricated), paintings and sculpture to make installations that I would change every night of the show’s duration. Each morning the installation would be photographed, left for only a few hours, and then would be uninstalled to make way for creating a new iteration. …

Combat Artist, Delvin Goode

Master's Theses

The integral bond that unites the American citizen with the selfless men and women of the Armed Forces will be strengthened through my juxtaposition of uncommonly complementary crafts. “Combat Artist”, featuring high-quality ceramic mugs, unique packaging, pristine painted panels, and kindred graphics will bridge a gap that enhances relationships between these two worlds through a shared love of country and shared culture. The resultant works create fantastic windows into my military life communicating messages full of humor, patriotism, and love. I aspire to masterfully unite ceramic techniques with proven principles of design distributed across all mediums within my work, culminating …

Dead Weightless, Isaiah Schwartz

Senior Projects Spring 2021

There is more than convenience embedded into my attraction to the unrefined materials that I work with. Shopping cart (baby size), palette, cheesecloth, bucket, and window. Each is rich with an individual history that expands beyond the use it was intended for. Suspending them in the air is my observance of the sanctity of their mundane uses. To create something new, also out of these unrefined materials, and to refuse to polish it. To have resolution in a thing that is also ambiguous. I can find intrigue in a million different things as soon as I pay attention to them. …

The Last Prisoners Of War: How Nazi-Looted Art Is Displayed In U.S. Museums, Monica May Thompson

Geifman Prize in Holocaust Studies

How art museums approach NLA is important today because much of the public relies on museums for their education. NLA cases are especially controversial because they are not only legal battles, but ethical ones so museums have to be extra careful approaching them. Even if the museum has won the legal battle the public may not see them as winning the ethical one therefore they might want to avoid displaying this information to the public. However, as we can see with the previous websites, it actually looks worse for museums not to be open and honest about their NLA pieces …