Art and Design Commons^™

Biodive, Morgana Faucett

Graduate Theses

Humans exist among an intertwined series of ecosystems and environments. As a species, we curate the spaces, these environments, that surround us to suit our internalized visions of the world. While such curation is not inherently negative, humanity’s industrial process of constructing our visions is not always handled with sustainable methods. This paper analyzes my creative work through the framework of architecture’s role in climate change and human impact, highlighting past and present building practices. Solutions for future practices will also be considered, specifically targeting the questions of construction material, building function, and repurposing of older buildings to achieve a …

Inner Portraits, Bethany Salisbury

Graduate Theses

This paper investigates the many interconnected layers of women’s mental health through portraiture and how animal and plant symbolism can represent the way women's hormones and bodily health affect their mental health. I reveal how the artwork created presents these connections and inner mental health narratives to the viewer, creating a space of empathy, destigmatization, and self-reflection. This body of portraiture art connects five women through a series of both two-and three-dimensional portraits based on interviews using my own adaptation of Sara Lawrence-Lightfoots’ (1983) portrait methodology.

Women and non-binary individuals have always dealt with difficult interactions of bodily and mental …

Elevating The Queer Body, Grant Mahan

Graduate Theses

Elevating the Queer Body is an art based exploration in removing objectification in the visual consumption of my own queer body. Throughout this thesis, I explain the experience of queer objectification, and how to overcome it through abstraction in a painting practice. This research comprises spiritual ideologies, as well as the history of abstraction, to inspire me in creating an ethically consumed representation of my figure. This is achieved through an abstract depiction and veiling of my figure. Presented compositions are overlaid with Islamic inspired devotion and ornamentation as a form of elevating the body itself.

Choosing Penumbra, Christina Melchiorre

Graduate Theses

Amaranthine | adjective

am·a·ran·thine | \ ˌa-mə-ˈran(t)-thən , -ˈran-ˌthīn \

1a : of or relating to an amaranth

b : Eternally beautiful and unfading; everlasting, undying

2 : of the color amaranth; a shade of reddish-rose

My work explores the narrative I have with family in relation to who I am and how I have developed as a result of both positive and negative influences. Despite the dysfunctional dynamics that I experience with my family, I choose to remain connected to them and continue to endure and persevere through the obstacles that they create. I particularly experience these moments through …

Imprints: The Marks We Make, Patricia Botts

Graduate Theses

When walking throughout a cemetery, you may notice the small dash on a tombstone between the year of someone’s birth and their death. Have you ever given thought as to how a tiny line can represent so much? Even a small mark, such as the dash, can represent volumes in the entirety of a person’s life and the imprint they leave on those around them. In my work, I use various types of line as symbols associated with representations of life. I am most interested in lines as visual representation of physical and psychological wounds, both newly created and those …

Negotiating Balance, Oscar Adolfo Soto

Graduate Theses

When we enter a room with a bed and dresser, we imagine that someone goes there to sleep. When we enter a larger room, with rows of uniform desks facing a whiteboard or lectern, we understand that people go there to learn. In most cases, the intention for the space and how we are to conduct ourselves in it is determined before the furniture is selected. When we are not privy to those intentions, the furniture itself can offer clues that help us understand what we are to do. As a contemplative device, I apply this framework to the world …

A(M(End)Ing))) Expectations, Renee Holliday

Graduate Theses

This thesis statement explores how my intersectional identity as an artist and mother with a working-class background are intertwined, and how that upbringing has influenced each of these roles and my actions and interactions with those around me. The first part of this thesis A(m(end)ing))) Expectations serves to highlight the diverse experiences that helped form the basis of my identity while also exposing many of the unhealthy societal and familial expectations that are often placed upon women. The exhibition YES/AND is the culminating work of how these varied identities, combined with contemporary themes of feminism, affects my artistic decisions and …

Nurture, Lauren Taylor League

Graduate Theses

Nurture is a series of sculptural and performative works created to explore the emotional and psychological effects of objects as they relate to familial memory and the various processes one uses to nurture and express love. These moments incapsulate the need for comfort and connection, the need to be nourished, the need for protection, and the need to remember. The filmed interactions with each individual sculpture evoke the natural relationship of emotional release to the processes of remembering and healing.

By using sculpture as a residue of performance and creating work that serves as a memory of interaction and experience, …

Dust And Shadow, Anna Grant Dean

Graduate Theses

Dust and Shadow is an investigation into systems of order and chaos that exist within the natural and manmade worlds. Human constructs (such as grids) and manmade systems (such as social media) abide in a space that is tangential to the structures and systems that choreograph the functions of the natural world. Exploring how these two very different worlds weave in and out of human existence allows me to examine my relationship to the complex facets of this twenty-first century experience.

My research into chaos and entropy serves as a catalyst for this body of work. Examining the parallels between …

Unhinged: Anthology, Elizabeth Shepard

Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

Unhinged explores women in mythology and religion that are perceived as “evil,” but in my telling, are reincarnated as modern, everyday female leads. The theme of Unhinged: Anthology is how women fight oppressive forces, not shying away from female identity and power. I’ve adapted my stories from myths and folklore from other cultures. The first three stories in Unhinged: Anthology are: “The Huldra“ (Norse), “The Rangda” (Balinese) and “The Maenad” (Greek). I’ve written these stories in the form of scripts, approved by my committee members. Because traditional black-and-white high contrast adds to the horror aesthetic, the medium for the pages …

Vern Multilingual Font System, Nathan Zawadzki

Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

Vern is designed in Latin, Cyrillic, and Hebrew for a total of roughly 160 characters or glyphs in this writing system. Based on the research of these systems, a reverse contrast style fits Cyrillic and Hebrew, while normal contrast has more difficulty in adjusting to them. This slab serif, reverse contrast style keeps the look of a traditional serif font in Latin. Vern’s unified design across multiple languages works in media such as book text or large-scale signage.

A Guide To African Princesses, Makayla Ray

Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

A Guide to African Princesses inspires young Black/African American girls and will encourage Black/African American storylines in Hollywood. It includes Princess Yennenga, Queen of Sheba, Queen Amina of Zazzau Kingdom, Kandake, the empress of Ethiopia, and Yaa Asantewa. To achieve this, the guide focuses on having text including each princess’s name, lifespan, legacy, and appropriate phonetic transcription. Phonetic transcription is important because the spelling of a word or name does not always tell someone how to pronounce it. The guide also includes decorative elements; the decorative elements, linking back to the culture of each African princess. Research methods include, but …

Wild Apparel: A Sustainable Clothing Line, Jogvan Andreas A. Jacobsen

Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

The fashion industry has increasingly contributed to environmental waste through production and distrubution of crops, fibers, and garments that are dumped every day, polluting our water, soil, and air. My sustainable clothing line does the opposite, with clothes and packages built from recycled materials. With Wild Apparel, I will create casual streetware clothes with a subconcsious focus on being sustainable, contributing to bettering our earth, although not in a protesting or reprimanding way. The clothes are made from recycled plastic, driven by solar powered machines and fair wages to the employees. Wild Apparel will be working with organizations around the …

A Sensual Exploration Of Melancholy, Rachel Blumer

Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

What does it mean to be melancholy? It is a distinct and personal emotion—a type of sadness and a feeling all its own. Melancholy is not something people usually seek out, but it can be a comfortable, pensive, and creative space to sit in. The beautiful thing about melancholy is how one is able to be both joyful and sorrowful at the same time. I began the project by conducting a survey about what others think sadness smells, tastes, and sounds like. I have also researched poetry and music. I explore melancholy in different mediums and creative techniques, including a …

Disguysed, Margaret Feltman-Ruiz

Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

Throughout history, women had to change themselves in order to accomplish their goals. My thesis brings attention to these often forgotten or dismissed women of the past. Disguysed is a nonfiction children’s book that focuses on 12 women from history who disguised themselves as men to further their careers or lives. Each spread contains an illustration of the woman, along with a biography from the research I collected. Separate from the biographies, the book contains extra historical context to shed light on the social climates that these women experienced. The design of the illustrations isn’t masculine or feminine, in the …

Portrait Of An Illustrator, Eli Mchone

The Anthology

No abstract provided.

Native American, Danielle Walker

The Anthology

No abstract provided.

Serpents, Alanna O'Brien

The Anthology

No abstract provided.

My World, Stacey Walden

The Anthology

No abstract provided.

Sunset Hues, Lizzy Kleinkauf

The Anthology

No abstract provided.

Creatively Confident, Eleanor Fentiman

The Anthology

No abstract provided.

Edith, Edie Estes

The Anthology

No abstract provided.

Topography, Maggie Claytor

The Anthology

No abstract provided.

Color In Motion, Cheyenne Walsh

The Anthology

No abstract provided.

Visit Peru, Natalie Huxtable

The Anthology

No abstract provided.

William, Rachel Goldie

The Anthology

No abstract provided.

After Stieglitz, Ashley Roberts

The Anthology

No abstract provided.

I Know I Have Bad Posture, Maggie Claytor

The Anthology

No abstract provided.

Nowy Sacz, Powland, Wiktoria Piotrowskka-Ruchala

The Anthology

No abstract provided.

La Lune, Edie Estes

The Anthology

No abstract provided.