Art and Design Commons^™

Unfurling Blue Carpet Memories, Sara Ahli

Masters Theses

Glass is an amorphous solid, existing in a liminal space, embodying indeterminacy. Its states of transformation from viscous flow to structural solidity carry the imprints of bodily influence. With the direct intention of using glass as a conduit to explore materiality, memory, and self-awareness, I construct a language of embodiment that arises through a series of performative encounters between my physicality and glass in the hot shop.

The mediating process I employ to create and arrive at the glass artwork I make is as necessary as its final form. Motivated by the desire to claim agency over my personal narrative, …

Modern Times, Will Beattie

Masters Theses

At the intersection of glass, photography and sound lies issues of perspective, framing, and information. These factors as well as the conceptual space between object and image offer an opportunity to explore the way we register narrative through contradicting signifiers. Glass historically has been used as an instrument to reveal spaces, moments, and phenomena previously imperceptible to the human eye. This rendering of previously unseen spaces through language, technology or vision, may work to reorient the viewers’ perspective and allow for a new understanding of the world. The power of disruption as a potential catalyst is central to my studio …

Soft Procedures, Alec Figuracion

Masters Theses

Looking through the soft lens — from the vantage point of a place one calls home, and steered by an interiority that feels a little too much sometimes — I am interested in the hazy, undefined subjects and instances that occur around the peripheries of our lenses: fuzzy imprints of memories, shifting notions of home, and shapeless narratives. Working primarily with the moving image, I investigate the multiple threads that might exist between them, and persistently shift and adjust the focus ring on the camera lens so as to embrace and celebrate multiplicities, and our collective definitions of softness.

Snowstorm, Caleb Shafer

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the connection between memory and place-building, focusing on how personal narratives and physical models compress details to reveal their core essence. Memories serve as a bridge between time and space, allowing for a non-linear experience of time and offering a unique perspective on the existence and transformation of places. Although this compression involves some loss, it generates new narratives and insights into life while examining the power structures and cultural systems inherent in representation.

Umbrales (Thresholds), Maureen Scally

Masters Theses

Umbrales is Spanish for Thresholds.

Thresholds are by nature ambivalent spaces, inviting two distinct realities into play. As an artist, I materialize my experiences as a migrant into an architectural form. A series of textile walls shape a space that is simultaneously interior and exterior so that the audience circulates in the negative space in between. It is in the construction of this threshold condition — a simultaneous placement, neither here nor there — that a complex narrative of place unfolds.

False Eidetic, Zach Sockol

Student Projects

Do memories still exist if they are forgotten?

Memories define the soul. They are created to outlast the experience, but what is left behind? A moment in time captured with the lens of the mind, it is intangible. These memories shape our worldview, our thoughts, our reality. It is the culmination of these experiences that makes us who we are, yet through reminiscence, those moments are viewed so clearly in your mind that to you it is the truth, only to hear someone else remember it completely differently. Does this mean our memories aren’t real? Will we ever be able …

To Excavate An Absence, Margaret Compton

Graduate Theses

This thesis is an exploration of memory’s fluctuating aspects, utilizing natural materials and casting processes to create a sculptural body of work deeply rooted in materialized metaphor. Examining the relationship between mold and cast, part and whole, and interior and exterior, I utilize casting as a framework to understand the duality of remembering and forgetting. Memories, much like the natural landscape, are ephemeral, fading, and fracturing over time. Both external environments and internal mental landscapes share the common language of erosion, existing as present or absent, remembered or forgotten. Conestee Nature Preserve in Mauldin, South Carolina, serves as my “site” …

Affectionate Facsimiles, Julio C. Williams

Theses and Dissertations

The paintings in Affectionate Facsimiles are journeys into the expansiveness of color and memory via the accumulation of gestural action. Sporadic freneticism is used to archive desire and time and their relationship to identity. Thin and translucent layers are built up in bursts of intensity as palimpsests of intentioned labor.

Ripe Spoils, Yan Cynthia Chen

Theses and Dissertations

Chen’s practice primarily focus on sculptures and installation. She explores the interplay between the idea of nature and the constructed environment, by examining how language informs what we know. The central thesis, "Ripe Spoils", employs citrus fruits as symbols for bodily experiences and personal identity, investigating their cultural and historical significance. Her sculptures summon the qualities and embedded meanings in materials like paper pulp and clay, wax and citrus fruits, often resulting in abstracted forms evocative of the human body. This thesis paper and exhibition reflect on themes like mortality and the essence of self.

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Place-Conscious Vs. Place-Bound, Julie Avetisyan

Theses and Dissertations

Julie Avetisyan’s installation of sculptures, paintings and printmaking works are driven by an exploration of constructed identity that is not place-bound, but place-conscious. In this paper, she explores how her art practice generates world building under the context of the Armenian Diaspora – considering histories of indigeneity, migration, and assimilation.

Recollection, Shelby Ann Theis-Lukenbill

MSU Graduate Theses

My work is inspired by life's transient nature and objects' enduring capacity to house memories. The delicate sculptures I create combine second-hand objects with paper to capture the essence of moments and possessions that define personal histories. The objects I use represent more than their form or chemistry; they are imbued with fragments of history and memory that I am driven to preserve. In this work, the sentimental nature and purpose of my belongings hold an equal or greater value than the physical nature and purpose of those belongings. I illuminate an object’s sentimentality by combining its form with painted …

At The Table, Payton Olivia Brown

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This written document is the accompanying thesis for my Master of Fine Arts exhibition, At the Table. This document, as well as my artwork, investigates the profound impact that food has on one’s life by strengthening connections with others, upholding traditions, and cherishing memories. It also elaborates on the inspirations, research, and experimentation utilized in the process of creating the exhibition. Through an array of paintings, mixed media, and sculptural work, this exhibition is intended to depict my own personal experiences and memories in relation to food.

Although I am making autobiographical artwork, I am also trying to portray the …

Gathered Vessels, Marguerite E. Mccoy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My journey with ceramics is a path paved with the memories of my mother's kitchen, travels across Europe, and a deep love for creating spaces where people can come together. From the warmth of a mug that fits just right in your hands, to the gentle sounds of water playing in a fountain I've crafted, my work is about making those little moments of connection feel extra special. I create ceramics that are meant to be picked up, used, and loved - pieces that carry a bit of my story to join in with yours. Whether it's joining in your …