Art and Design Commons^™

Ni De Aqui Ni De Alla..., Jc Santistevan

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

Ni de aqui ni de alla navigates the complexities of belonging to two cultures-Mexican

and American-while not fully identifying with either. By visualizing liminal spaces,

migratory patterns, and quotidian subject matter the work serves as a metaphor for

the Latinx experience in the United States-an experience defined by conflicts between

conformity and resistance, individuality and community, spirituality and secularism,

alienation and belonging. "Black and white are the colors of photography…..they

symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair," Robert Frank once said, and it is

through a nonlinear installation of black and white imagery that I seek to describe the

push …

Personal Details, Ben Nathan

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

In 2022 I lost my Paternal Grandmother. I found that in addition to the loss of a dear matriarch I mourned everyday things lost to the past. From furniture to childhood relationships, I was made keenly aware of their absence. As I longed to spend more time in the past, I created a studio practice of printing and drawing, whereby I enable myself to spend hours a day in quiet introspection, just drawing and reflecting on my life as expressed by personal details.

My work melds renderings of everyday spaces and objects from memories of childhood and my present experience …

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 …

Apotheosis, Zekiel Betzer

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

Zekiel Dirk Betzer’s oil paintings are a visual representation of transfiguration – the elevation of daily life into myth. He believes that if we defer to monolithic ideologies to narrativize our life, we are prescribed a relationship with the transcendent, rather than discovering it, leading us down the path of ideological possession. He is principally interested in how we, as both artist and audience, invent meaning and how this invention informs the way we engage with reality; especially how objects or memories become sacred.

Methods In Costume And Projection Design For Theatre, Jessica Wallace

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

A report detailing multiple practices for theatre design in costumes and projection. It is focused on playscript analysis, the design process, and the final build of the design for production.

Sweet Nothing, Austin Riddle

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

These pots were made as companions for you and your home. A vase for your table, full of freshly picked flowers as you and your partner eat breakfast and plan your day's activities. Large platters and compartment trays to present home-cooked meals with friends on a warm summer evening. Whiskey sippers that nestle in warm hands, topped off as needed from a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels.

As a maker, I play these moments on repeat in my mind. As a designer, these scenarios direct the formal elements I develop for each piece. Pushing out an exaggerated belly on a …

Artifiact, Max Saunders

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

The main purpose of this body of work is to explore gestural mark making and wood kiln effects on functional and sculptural vessels. A limited number of forms, including teapots, cups and large sculptural vessels were made to explore different types of mark making and the different effects that can be achieved in the wood kiln. The end goal was a body of work that can be explored on many levels, from using the pots as functional vessels to exploring the larger work as dynamic gestural sculptures.

The Aberration Of The Species, Kristin Ayla Murray

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

The Aberration of the Species in an exhibition meant to encourage viewers to consider in impacts technology has had and continues to have on the relationships and interactions we experience in daily life.

Common Objective, Josh Scott

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

Pots are like people. Gestural qualities can make pots appear to move like people. They form groups in ways that people might. Repeated forms on a pedestal can appear to be in formation like a military unit. More importantly, pots perform specific jobs or tasks in ways similar to people.

Inherently, the job someone holds or the function of a pot will have an effect on perceived importance. A funerary urn may seem to be a more important form than a coffee mug, yet both are committed to specific tasks. This can be likened to a lineman and a doctor. …

Arid Visions, Casey Miller

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

“The vibration of this light, the spaciousness of these skies enthralled me. I knew there was a spirit in nature as in everything else, but here in the desert it was an especially bright light.”

-Agnes Lawrence Pelton

Arid Visions is inspired by my experiences exploring the deserts of southern Utah. The desert landscape is a bounty of diverse flora that appear alien-like. My work celebrates these plants, honoring them for more than what they are sometimes perceived to be. The desert can be an unforgiving place… where an agave’s mesmerizing layered leaves lure you in, but get too close …

Mélange De Motifs: Custom Pattern Designs Inspired By The Interiors, Architecture, And Gardens Of Vaux-Le-Vicomte, Jill Christine Harmon

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

How can a historic precedent be successfully employed to inform modern design? History will always provide a degree of influence in contemporary design. In design, a historic precedent can be the backbone of a creative concept and stands as a relevant and informative aspect throughout the project. The precedent acts as a basis in developing designs with substance and meaning and is a fundamental practice in architecture, landscape architecture, and interior design. Delving into the history of Vaux-le-Vicomte, often referred to as Vaux, provided three relevant aspects which compose the historic precedent for this MFA project. First, the creative initiative …

Reliquary, Matthew Sloan

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

I am interested in ritual – the rituals we inherit, and those we choose for ourselves.

By situating the everyday mugs, cups, plates, and bowls next to objects more closely associated with ritual and ceremony, I am suggesting that all of these are significant objects. On one hand, the tableware essential to the rituals of daily living we share at home, on the other, communion vessels and reliquaries are used to deepen a spiritual ritual shared by a community. Both rituals are important experiences worthy of introspection, and consideration.

This is why I make pottery. I believe that handmade objects …

Spectrum, Kara Kellett

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

Many people believe their memory works like a video camera, capturing and storing their experiences. However, memories can be manipulated or planted without us noticing. If this seems insignificant, consider the big consequences of false memory: although eyewitness identification of a criminal is often unreliable, it has an incredible power to sway a jury.¹

My interest in studying memory and my introspective nature has led me to create this series of work—a visual collection of my experiences as a spectrum of color and shape. These pieces have been influenced by age, emotion, personality, and bias. With each piece, I …

Maladaptive, Megan Thomas

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

This ceramics MFA thesis presents themes of environmental and emotional transition through metaphorical bird imagery. The artist juxtaposes humans and ravens, who are capable of adapting to changing environments, with songbirds, who are less capable of surviving change. The artist asks viewers to consider the loss of ways of existing in the world that goes hand in hand with loss of biodiversity. Works include sculpture, sculptural and functional vessels, and drawings.

Waiting Room, Adam Lefebvre

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

Waiting can be exasperating, but sometimes that helplessness, knowing there is nothing to do but wait, is a comfort.

I have come to understand the value of the handmade through using and living with thoughtfully crafted objects. I am attracted to goods made by people who give voice to their material. When this is done well, I slow down and pay more attention to the object and the task they are performing.

Attraction and distraction. What are the differences between objects meant to attract our attention and those meant to distract? I would much rather lead a life full …

A Working Ideology For Graphic Design, Jeremy Nixon

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

This exhibition represents an experimental body of work completed for the Caine College of the Arts. It explores the interplay of explicit and implicit functions within semiotics, while simultaneously communicating the college’s messages and honestly representing my own aesthetic ideals. Through the treatment of these explorations I hope to create an aesthetic experience for the viewer. That stems from my own ideology – which consists of a myriad of conscious and subconscious beliefs – that make up who I am as a designer.

My conception of form arises from an essentialist approach to space and shape. This conception developed out …

Hyperreal Communication, Idil Tayhan

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

”In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles.” -Guy Debord

Particularly in the contemporary era, image duplication and manipulation techniques have been advancing rapidly. These advancements are forming a new discourse around communication that is drastically different from its predecessors. For this reason, in the contemporary era, communication has become questionable in its truthfulness and sincerity. As a designer, I am concerned with the extreme commercialization and commodification of communication. My work looks to the situationist movement of the 60's, which sought to disrupt every cultural front in order …

Second Chances, Michael Bingham

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

"Second Chances"

"Making the most out of whatever Life gives you".

For decades I have been making art out of things that other people have abandoned, discarded, sent to thrift stores or sold in garage sales. Since my youth I have possessed the ability to find value, usefulness and even see beauty in objects that most others would label as trash.

This is both a curse and a blessing. It requires patience and space to save, appreciate and tolerate the chaos accompanying objects that have not yet found their useful place in the world. Most of the art, including my …

Finding Balance, Quinn Maher

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

Exhibition Statement

Finding Balance is my exploration into the relationship between form, firing, and utility.

In the studio I pay close attention the silhouette of each piece, looking for strong continuous lines in both the positive and negative space accentuating the volume created on the potter’s wheel. I spend time with each piece combing the surface to create texture and reveal the course particles below the surface. As I apply white slip to this textures surface, the high points allow the fluid slip to break and pool in recessed areas creating a layer of depth and variety. The white slip …

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 …

Wonder, Katriona Drijber

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

WONDER is an exploration of the point at which what we know and what we think we know begins to break down. I melt and erode the perfect patterns I worked hard to construct through the manipulation of kiln atmosphere, using excess carbon, wood, and soda ash. I then add ephemeral, delicate imagery of animals in china paint. These steps introduce elements of the unknown and unpredictable onto intimate objects at the core of domestic human life. By disrupting organized patterns and reintroducing the animals we share the world with, I explore the question: What is lost when we surround …

Participate!, Michael Kettinger

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

Hands-on art projects that directly reference scientific information may be a good outreach tool to generate interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

Anticipation Of Subsequent Days, Christopher Watt

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

This thesis exhibition is a presentation of my research into historic and autoethnographic analyses of social, material, and technical practices that support the production of atmospheric-fired stoneware and porcelain vessels. My work examines contemporary ceramic processes of wood-firing, salt-glazing and wood ash glazes and how they continue craft practices of historic traditions.

By critically examining the ceramic studio as a ground for material and ethnographic research, I aim to better understand the social conditions that support and produce atmospheric-fired ceramic practices in the 21st century, as well as how and why we continue to create such pots. My practice-based research …

Luminous, Antra Sinha

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

As an observer, I have enjoyed the momentary happenings of the world. In India, I have watched shimmering waves from the shores of the Bay of Bengal. In Utah, I have admired gleaming sunlight on freshly fallen snow on the mountains. Peering into the kiln at peak temperature I have been in awe of the bright white light. Close to my heart I hold the significant memory of my dog’s passing, who laid in my lap as the ball of light escaped her. I gather these fleeting moments, and carry them into my studio. I relive these happenings in my …

Bloom, Madeline Walker

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

Bloom is an installation that exists as a theory and expression of systems, inspired by harmful algal blooms found in various aquatic environments.The way in which a unit becomes exponential is explored, as well as the influence of pattern on perception and development. The balance between beauty and repulsion, as well as mindfulness and excess, is a paradox that is questioned and explored from concept to completion.

Working in an intuitive, yet methodical way, the experience of living with OCD is expressed as a parallel to the overwhelming growth patterns algal blooms exhibit. The observations and experiences that influence the …

Point Of Inflection, Jonathan D. Stein

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

Images of Soda Fired Clay

Iteration, Nick Lammay

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

Ceramic Iterations

The Manhattan Collection: A Study On Furniture Design, Gabriel Anderson

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

I have designed a series of pieces of furniture that all share some key similarities, not in form or even style (though my personal aesthetic will be seen in all of them), but rather in materials. All of my pieces use a combination of metal, wood, and stone. Obviously, this is not remarkable as these materials have been used to build furniture for as long as furniture has been built. However, I have endeavored to explore how these materials can interact with one another within a piece of furniture. My goal was to create furniture where the materials do not …

Pyrosynthesis, Matthew Allen Fiske

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

Daily life plays an important role in what I make and why. The needs of the kitchen and home are for me, like many potters, a useful starting point for conceiving specific utilitarian forms. I make a lot of cups, bottles, and drinking vessels. Lately I’ve been interested in the idea of designing and making these vessels in sets. For me, there’s nothing better than gathering with a group of friends, eating, drinking, and using handmade ceramics. I’m motivated to make objects that enhance these experiences and enliven domestic spaces.