Art and Design Commons^™

About Time: Visualizing Time At Burning Man, Gordon D. Hoople, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Nathaniel Parde, Diane Hoffoss, Max Mellette, Rachel Nishimura, Virginia Gutman

The STEAM Journal

About Time was a 30 foot long, 3000 pound wooden sundial that went up in flames at Burning Man 2019. The piece reflected on the role time plays in our lives. We organize our lives around time—are enslaved to time—and yet we know so little about it. Physicists and philosophers continue to grapple with deep puzzles of time—Is time a fundamental quantity, independent of human actions or observations or is it an emergent property of our perception? This installation projected time using two sundials: a horizontal dial which swept time out across the desert floor and an …

Promoting Healing With Therapeutic Use Of Clay, Jennifer Fortuna

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

Alice McCall Smith, occupational therapist and artist based in North Carolina, provided the cover art for the Summer 2019 issue of The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy (OJOT). The piece, titled “Mother and Child,” is an 8-1/4” tall sculpture made from clay. Alice grew up on a hill sheep farm in the Scottish Highlands. She has used many of the skills learned on the farm in everyday life and in occupational therapy practice. After being diagnosed and treated for depression, Alice turned to sculpting to cope with challenging emotions. The therapeutic use of clay was a meaningful part of her …

Phantasmatic: Interrogating The (Im)Materiality Of Bodies Through Wool And Clay, Alexandria J. Arceneaux

LSU Master's Theses

Phantasmaticis an exploration of materials and materiality which relies on the concept of the phantasmatic body elucidated in Gayle Salamon’s work Assuming a Body: Transgender and Rhetorics of Materiality. This thesis is an exploration of these ideas. In my work, I use wool and clay to represent the material (known) and phantasmatic (sensed) bodies in an effort to explore an expanded understanding of the body at large. My work is also an effort to expand my own understanding of my phantasmatic body and its relationship to (my) materiality.

Bridging Dimensions: A Robotic Art Project, Samantha Miller

Honors Theses

Spanning the divide between the humanities and STEM has been a pursuit of my undergraduate experience. In my senior project I seek to relate these disciplines through the creation of “automated canvases.” Resulting is a series of robotic art pieces that automate the opening and closing motion of Turkish map folds. These map folds then present a series of paintings displaying a tone of the uncanny and references to parallel universes. Utilizing robotics in my project allows the paintings to push further into a third dimension than normally possible. Providing literal motion to my traditionally two dimensional work requires consideration …

Darwin Or Frankenstein?, Sylvia S. Santamaria

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Through sculpture and drawing, I create my own versions of natural specimens primarily based upon the visual unity of disparate organisms. Invented specimens are composed using a variety of processes employing a mixture of atypical materials following the (20^th, 21^st century) Postmodern shift away from formalist and traditional uses of any singular medium. As well as a variety of art materials, the specimens are hybrids of organic and biomorphic elements, blurring boundaries between botanical, animal, fungal, metal, and mineral. Is my approach perhaps like Charles Darwin, observant and studious naturalist, or am I more like Dr. Frankenstein, …

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.

Zitrone, Chase Roy Young

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis paper is to describe the elements and narrative associated with the exhibition, Zitrone, as well as the conceptual and theoretical ideas influencing the work. The exhibition is centered around an invented singular historical object in the form of a vehicle, and a museum display of artifacts, documents, and recreations intended to validate the existence of the central subject. Drawing on the work of artists Marcel Broodthaers, Damien Hirst, and David Wilson in conjunction with theoretical writings of Dave Hickey and Lewis Hyde, the exhibition seeks to address the perception and presentation of history as absolute …

Seeing Through Feeling, Christopher Mitchell Rodgers

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this paper is to describe both the inherent formal qualities and conceptual framework that are addressed within the exhibition, Seeing Through Feeling. The exhibition is centered around the methodology of making, collection, and display all through the one singular positioning, the object. The objects within the exhibition are either handmade or collected fragments that weave together around the singular position of craft and history under the pretense of how our understanding of time may not always be true. The thesis breaks down key components through specific themes into the categories of the hand, eye, symbol, object, value, …

Living Stone, Jason P. Millward

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

My sculptural work has a direct relationship to the rich tradition which utilizes human form as its primary means of communication and visual exploration. This tradition employs body language and gesture to convey emotion and ideas. Even my abstract work begins as an idea from a figurative gesture. Rather than executing a naturalistic body, I simplify and stylize the figures, focusing on the concept and aesthetics of the piece.

To do so, I emphasize certain formal elements in the design: concave and convex planes juxtapose to intensify light and shadow.Shapes are made by a continuity of line to create a …

Between And Beyond, Noah F. Heil

Art and Art History Honors Projects

Between and Beyond is a series of handbuilt and wheel-thrown ceramic objects which explore intimate queer relationships through the human figure. I assemble slabs of clay to create openings and negative spaces within the sculptures, implying the ways in which the human form also acts as a vessel. The sculptures as well as the figures themselves remain open and vulnerable, literally and metaphorically. The body is depicted through fragmented sections, alluding to the ways in which society and culture break up gender and sexuality into limiting binaries. These intimate, private moments are meant to conjure an imagined future free of …

Hart, Joel Tanner, 1810-1877 - Relating To (Sc 3402), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3402. Biographical sketch, date and author unknown, of sculptor Joel Tanner Hart, a native of Clark County, Kentucky.

This Is Just To Say, Iren Tete

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

My memories are marked by the desire to evade logic. At a young age I became a proficient player of the “What If” game.

What if I could hold light in my hands?

What if shadows had form that could be touched?

What if I could see through structures?

These mental exercises affected my relationship with reason and validity. Aware of the threat of the ordinary, I embraced the inherent magic in the notion of possibility. I understand possibility as the limitless potential of object, thought, or scenario. This potential extends beyond the apparent and prompts more questions than it …

Mutual Muses: James Seawright And Mimi Garrard, T. Michael Martin

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

Mutual Muses: James Seawright and Mimi Garrard

Catalogue published on the occasion of the 2018 - 2019 exhibition, Mutual Muses: James Seawright and Mimi Garrard, organized by the Clara M. Eagle Gallery, Murray State University, Murray, KY. This exhibition project and catalogue were supported by a generous grant from the Creative Motif Fund.

Mutual Muses is a two-person exhibition showcasing works by James Seawright and Mimi Garrard, who have been working together as well as individually since the 1960s. Their lives and practice have inspired each other throughout their careers. This exhibition is an interwoven love story featuring individual works …

Behind Closet Doors: Horror And Dislocation In The Queer Closet, Corey C. Allen

Theses and Dissertations

“Behind Closet Doors: Horror and Dislocation in the Queer Closet,” is composed of a collection of sculptures, videos, and sound works that are directly associated with themes of horror and anxiety derived from the precarious space of the queer closet as detailed in this thesis of the same name.

Warped Gates, Christopher Roberson

Theses and Dissertations

I am interested in the ambient conditions that are filtered through our bodies and our relationships with the built structures positioning us. I am combining experimental material approaches with a sensitivity to the spaces around an artwork to create sculptural situations that are dissonant and precarious.

Constraint And Control, Patricia Ayres

Theses and Dissertations

I have long considered themes of the body. Drawing on my knowledge as a fashion designer, I bring materials and hardware from the fashion industry into my artwork transforming and rendering them non-functional. My sculptures relate to stories of isolation, separation, and confinement. The following pages will analyze how the United States penal system controls, constrains and restricts the body through physical and psychological wounds. Furthermore, they will examine how the Catholic Church controls people’s minds and behavior through a ritualistic belief system.

North American Data, Joseph A. Burwell

Theses and Dissertations

North American Data fractures and reconfigures pre-existing narratives into new, unauthorized forms of storytelling. Core samples extracted from various narrative sources are reassigned new roles according to their proximity to each other. This paper functions as an introduction to the essential actors and their dramatic inclinations within fluctuating scenarios.

Generative Movements, Cabbage Juice, & Habitats Of Selfhood, Jason Michael Rondinelli

Theses and Dissertations

The content of this essay is a reflection on my practice as an artist. A summary of text includes an analysis of my attraction to certain materials such as drywall, cabbage juice and coconut oil, all materials are the extensions of my memory, intention and pleasure. From warm memories of bathhouses and the flesh of others to managing illness at home, my artwork distills a lived experience into material reality. These materials take the shape of sculptural networks that serve as biographical biomes. The architectural and organic components of the work are sourced from my own experience and the surreal …

Dress Up, Ye'ela B. Wilschanski

Theses and Dissertations

Dress Up (Performance, 40 minutes) is a dress that functions as a floor, blanket, tablecloth, book and walls. It tells a visual story about domestic care giving rituals, referencing different times and places.

The Alchemical Vessel, River Soma

MFA Statements

My work comes from a place of deep feeling on a bodily level. Amidst the decorative play, there is a sense of the primitive and primordial, and also a certain humanity and clumsiness through struggle. Through the hermetic tradition I relate the alchemical vessel and its symbolic process of interior development to my artistic practice. Focusing in mixed media sculpture, I discovered a concentrated accumulation of symbolism specific to my practice, but also the full recognition of my practice as a ritualized psychological undertaking.

Unf Seaside Sculpture Park, Jenny Hager

Posters

The Center for Community-Based Learning supports collaborative real world learning experiences in the Jacksonville Community and beyond. The Student Affairs Community Council at the University of North Florida, the Lazzara Family Foundation and Mountain Star Capital recently provided $50,000 to UNF’s Sculpture Program in order to create the Seaside Sculpture Park, a program to support arts education through a year-long public art installation in Jacksonville Beach.

Greetings From..., Casey Mae Schachner

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Greetings from... is a reflection of my roots in the tropical vacationland of Florida, a place for which I feel both nostalgic and conflicted. Growing up in southern tourist destinations, I was confronted daily with the extreme contrasts of living in paradise. In my artwork, I am translating the cacophony of Florida through the lens of materiality. By re-configuring commodified objects of the tourism industry, the sculptural works in this show exhibit my consideration for the paradoxical relationships that exist between materials and place. Much like the avant-garde Surrealist object, or the assemblage of found materials in provocative combinations that …

Living Tangent, Cornelius Alexander Hugo

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

A living tangent is how I am known by many and how I have lived my life for some time. I think in tangents and my life and art seem to evolve through them. Everything I make is connected by multiple thoughts or tangent lines that run from something as simple as the color red, to the idea that I believe communism has invaded my family’s homeland. This then leads to the recollection of childhood games, taught to me by my family in Venezuela and the importance these games played in my psychological development and in my presence as an …

High + Low: A Forty-Five Year Retrospective Of D. Dominick Lombardi, T. Michael Martin

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

This catalog contains information about the exhibition High + Low, a 45-year retrospective curated by T. Michael Martin, featuring 20 distinct chapters of the art career of D. Dominick Lombardi. The common thread throughout his work is his interest in blending together qualities of highbrow and lowbrow art, and experimentation with various media. His life-long journey began with his exposure to modern art when he first saw a reproduction of Picasso’s Guernica(1939) at the age of 3 or 4, and continued with his introduction to the seductive world of Zapcomix in 1968.

The exhibition begins with the …

Generic Of, Nicole Levaque

Theses and Dissertations

generic of is a creative text paralleling the creation of my thesis exhibition. I use fragmented layers of narrative, description and prose in the same way each handbuilt ceramic is fired multiple times, allowing the glazes to build upon themselves. This is a close study of the still life, the intimacy of consuming, and how trauma is passed through the gut.

Lotion In Your Lungs, Raul H. De Lara

Theses and Dissertations

This is a document explaining in detail my artistic practice from childhood to the day I graduated VCU. It will perhaps only be understood by those who have themselves already felt such ways, or similar ways – words and ghosts are mostly invisible.

A Spectacle And Nothing Strange, Taylor Z. King

Theses and Dissertations

Working through methods of abstraction and comedic mimicry I choreograph awkwardly balanced sculpture with objects of adornment as a means to defuse personal sensitivities surrounding my experiences of gender, desire, and home. The research that follows is concerned with the adjacent, the in between, above and underneath, because I feel that this kind of looking means that you are, to some degree, aware of what lies at the edges. Maybe this is what Gertrude Stein means to act as though there is no use in a center—because this concerns a way of relating, though there are many things in the …

Iteration, And The Iron Theater, Kurt Breshears

Master's Theses

Sculpture is produced with considerations to aesthetic appeal using mathematical patterns and physics. Both avenues of sculpture, the static sculpture and the performance art, have their foundation in this approach to creating artworks. The work in the catalog is a visual representation of this process.