Art and Design Commons^™

“Making The Bed”: Challenging Ideologies Of Ownership, Nonlocality, And Romanticism In The Age Of The Anthropocene, Ainsley P. Foster

Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

The current Age of the Anthropocene marks a recent and rapid transition into a period in climate history that is notably defined by human impact. Modern Western sentiments of grief, frustration, and romanticism as a result of the interplay between domestic and corporate spaces seem to culminate in an overall attitude of apathy and acceptance of the Age of the Anthropocene. Various art forms collaborate to create the current conversation of the causatory and reactionary relationship that humans have with the Anthropocene, offering interpretations of how individuals and corporations view ownership of and responsibilities to the environment. There is a …

The Art Of Engaging The Public: The Effect Of The Arts On Civic Engagement, Kathryn Fraley

Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

No abstract provided.

Healing Artists Through Art, Corey Aaron Cundiff

Masters Theses

Men die by suicide nearly four times more than women, with higher rates among artists. There has been an increase in the rate of suicide over the years, primarily linked to depression and mounting societal expectations imposed upon men. The prevalence of social media and the awareness that comes with indicates that the issue of suicide may never disappear unless action is taken. This paper examines the need for art therapy to counter depression among male artists. No longer do we need to rely strictly on medication and talk therapy to treat depression. Many art therapy techniques have proven quite …

Ai And The Creative Process: Part Two, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

Article discussing the effects of artificial intelligence on the creative process in the art world.

Hacking The Library Exhibition Panels, Sally Brown, Jackie Andrews, Matthew Conboy, Ruth Yang, Trudy Trudy Borenstein- Sugiura, Shan Cawley, Chantel Foretich, Xue'er Gao, Ryan Lewis, Robin Miller, Imari Nacht, Chris Revelle, Erin Tapley

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The hacker ethos in the positive sense is about the ability to deconstruct and reconstruct information systems. Hacking starts with reconceptualizing libraries. Libraries are now beyond the book. As libraries evolve into a new sort of space --still a space for research, learning and study-- but also for community engagement and collaboration, library exhibits present a unique opportunity for both collaborating exhibitors and library users. Artists engage with libraries creatively through artist residencies, installations, using discarded library materials in their work, collaborative workshops, digital collections remixing, performances and more. Hacking the Library will present artwork that highlights the intersecting values …

Ai Art: Artists’ Best Friend Or Mortal Enemy?, Ethan Gabrys

Tredway Library Prize for First-Year Research

This paper analyzes the impacts and implications of generative AI software on art and examines the ethics of using such tools. Through the argument that careless use of these tools presents a danger to the art world as they risk devaluing human expression, Gabrys states that “as what it means to be human changes with each generation, new artists express sentiment through their art. Art has the ability to tell us about the human experience.” He concludes that the use of AI tools takes the skill and sentiment of human artists out of the equation, begging the question: if the …

Silhouette, Andy Bissonnette

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

As a potter, I am deeply interested in the union between form, surface, and function. I believe these elements are intrinsically connected and the most successful pots are able to balance all three in a way that is both aesthetically pleasing and practical. From the proportional relationship between the foot and rim, to the way a glaze breaks or pools across an articulated surface, each detail is crafted with intention and care. Silhouette is a metaphor for how I conceptualize and conceive each of my pieces. It’s a way to explore form through both an aesthetic and practical approach. My …

Hailey's Hearing Aids, Hailey Marie Garcia

Whittier Scholars Program

Individuals from the deaf and hard-of-hearing community are likely to experience more anxiety and depression due to defective cognitive, social, communicational, and emotional skills (Azizi et al., 2019). The word “disability” is embedded with historical negative connotations with phrases such as “deaf and dumb” because if they were deaf or mute then they were automatically labeled as inferior (Horovitz, 2007). Since the 18th century, the DHH community has been seen as incapable, even inhuman, hence the development of emotional deficiencies that bleed into one’s perception of society and their self esteem (Gallaudet, 1886).

How do you navigate a hearing world …

“You Will Never Touch My Roots”, Zari Apodaca

Art & Art History Student Scholarship

Zari Apodaca ’23
Major: Studio Art
Faculty Mentor: Professor Judd Schiffman, Art and Art History

An Exhibition of ceramic objects reflecting on genocidal trauma and cultural bereavement in Armenian culture. Through her art, Zari asks questions about the intergenerational effects of exile and persecution. In Zari’s words: “Through multiple ceramic copies of face plaques and head sculptures, I work to understand who I see myself to be, despite feeling so disconnected. I communicate my inner thoughts concerning identity and society through text carved into clay and broken up pieces of faces to better understand the missing gaps in myself.”

Bound By Matter, Carlie Antes

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

I view most aspects of life as being made up of tiny particles of matter that come together and synthesize to shape both our individual and collective human existence. Delicate threads are intricately woven together forming textiles and fabric. Tiny cellular particles shape all living species. Devices of human invention are mapped and constructed to aid in making sense of situations and surroundings. An accumulation of day-to-day moments coalesce to form complex memories and emotions. Each of these compositions are comprised of physical and/or emotional matter. This body of work utilizes the physical matter of my own lived experiences to …

Why Sweep The Cinders…, Gretchen Larsen

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

In my creative practice I climb down the ladder, put the glass slipper on my own foot, and build the ball for myself (and everyone I know, of course). What I mean is, instead of waiting for the prince and his kingdom to come, I have learned to pursue my own dreams. I do this by dreaming up and building objects using a mixture of traditional and new media. I work with wood, acrylic, LEDs, microcontrollers, lamp parts, and other materials including fabric and projectors. I create, live with, and create again, objects of my own design. The objects I …

Beauty And Modern Art: The Importance Of Classically Educating Students About Beauty Through Modern Art, Rebecca Brooke Edwards

Masters Theses

It has often been asked throughout the history of mankind what classifies beauty within an artwork. When observing some of the outstanding works of Leonardo DaVinci or Sandro Botticelli, a few of the great masters of the Renaissance, there is no problem teaching students about what makes those artists’ work beautiful. What about the artistic work from the past two hundred years to the current art being produced today? I have found through my own personal journey as an artist that there is a severe lack of promotion for creative gifts being used for God within the Christian communities (and …

Tactile Arts Club, Hayden Hauge, Rowan Havranek

Honors Expanded Learning Clubs

Students will build tactile skills while learning how to crochet, knit, and sew, and they will have a finished project in their hands at the conclusion of the club.

Art 101: Introduction To Art Oer Curation, Erica L. Schiller

Curated OER Collections

This OER curation is an annotated bibliography of prospective OER for the GVSU course ART 101: Introduction to Art.

Mama, Hannah Scott

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

“By writing herself, woman will return to the body which has been more than confiscated from her, which has been turned into the uncanny stranger on display” (Cixous, 1975). Through a depth of research into feminist perspectives on motherhood, I have created an art installation titled, "Mama". From my research, I have found many artists who make work about their experiences in raising children, women’s work and labor, and the trauma of giving birth. Louis Bourgeois, Natalie Loveless, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Mary Kelly, and Jenny Saville are a handful of artists whose work on motherhood has greatly inspired me to …

Bibliography For "Beyond Borders And Shores: A Display In Celebration Of Asian And Pacific Islander American (Apia) Art And Heritage", Margaret Puentes

Library Displays and Bibliographies

A bibliography created to accompany a display about Asian and Pacific Islander American (APIA) art and heritage in May 2022 at the Leatherby Libraries at Chapman University.

Pinus Longaeva: Exploring The Intersections Of Art And Science Through Ancient Bristlecone Pine Trees, Delaney Burns

Honors College

This creative thesis develops a series of 30” by 20” woodblock prints that explore the intersections of art and science through ancient bristlecone pine trees. These trees can live for over 5,000 years, making them extremely important to dendrochronology, the study of dating and analyzing tree rings. The growth patterns of these tree rings are used to study climate change over long periods of time. This thesis focuses on these trees due to their importance to climate change and personal significance to the author. By studying the history of ecological art movements, these prints are placed in the category of …

P.W.I., Callie Chan

Art & Art History Student Scholarship

Callie Chan ’22
Major: Studio Art
Minor: Mathematics
Faculty Mentor: Professor Judd Schiffman, Art and Art History

In her work, Callie Chan explores her feelings as a Chinese American at a predominantly white institution. Chan creates a massive quantity of seemingly identical objects made one at a time. Her identity is physically stamped onto each individual piece of clay as she squeezes them within her palm. This act of repeatedly squeezing releases a frustration within herself : As one of very few Chinese Americans at Providence College, Chan lacks a sense of belonging, acceptance, and understanding. In carefully considering her …

Forgotten Lunchbox: Painting Thesis, Madigan Farrell

Art & Art History Student Scholarship

Madigan Farrell ’22
Major: Studio Art
Minor: Marketing
Faculty Mentor: Professor Heather McPherson, Art and Art History

Madigan Farrell's "Forgotten Lunchbox" is an exhibition of abstract painting exploring the ways in which painterly gestures can correspond to various cognitive activities. Integrating self-reflection and personal lessons, Farrell aims to compose a positive portrayal of her experience learning how to manage her ADHD during childhood.

New Myths And My Religion, Pallas Lane Umbra

Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

New Myths and My Religion
Pallas Lane Umbra
Faculty Advisor: Katie Mitchell

As every civilization has had its myth and legends, this creative thesis project introduces a new mythology. This world is born of our own, shaped by the experience of growing up queer in the Appalachian South. There is a specific exploration of love, rage, and spirituality. Inspired by Greco-Roman mythology while also reflecting on personal experience, this body of work shares a visual, symbolic language that is interpretable; one myth can tell many stories. Along with this new iconography, the work strips the viewer of ease and comfort …

To Remember You By, Tesla Kawakami

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

This project is an illustrated zine memoir of queer love, dating, and growing up, framed by what was left behind. I explored my dating history through illustration, writing and material objects. Each section was about a different person, and was structured through a cut paper illustration of the item that they left behind at my house. I used a variety of different illustration techniques including cut paper, collage, painting, and found materials.

Family, War, And Identity, Claire E. Smith

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

An exploratory mixed media project using photography transfers centered on my Ukrainian grandmother's immigration during World War II.

It Won’T Be Easy, Allison Arkush

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

Interdisciplinary artist Allison Arkush engages a wide range of materials, modalities, and research in her practice. In It Won’t Be Easy, Arkush places and piles her multimedia sculptures throughout the gallery to create installations that overlap ­with her writing and poetry, sometimes layering in (or extending out to) audio and video components. This approach facilitates the probing exploration of prevailing value systems through a flattening of hierarchies among and between humans, the other-than-human, and the inanimate—though no less lively. Her work meditates on and ‘vendiagrams’ things forsaken and sacred, the traumatic and nostalgic. The exhibition title acknowledges that the …

The Ghosts Shed Tears, Sarah Jentsch

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

Before I was taught what made us different, I thought my brother and I were the same. The only difference between a doe and a buck was the antlers. As I grew, I noticed differences—in the way people spoke to us, in what was expected of us, in the questions we were asked. In what our futures were supposed to look like. The difference between the doe and the buck was still the antlers, but those antlers made one a trophy and the other venison.

Many of my formative experiences I came to understand through animals. My family home, cradled …

I Want To Go Home, Amber Boris

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

The significance of a home lies within the memories of the space. I Want to Go Home is a body of work that explores this idea through a collection of sculptures and drawings depicting my childhood home. This house holds meaning to me not only because it is where I grew up, but because it was also my mother’s childhood home. Six generations of our family have passed through the house, creating a long history of associated stories, memories, and emotions.

I have constructed scaled down sculptures of rooms for these memories to live in. The spaces are left empty, …

The Power Of Places, Sophie R. Lasher

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

My senior project is an art exhibition entitled The Power of Places that explores the places that have shaped me and how they have done so through photography-centered multimedia collages, cyanotypes, and physical artifacts. This theme was born from the intensity of the emotional tie that forms between person and place, between heart and home. I believe we are a collection of the places that have shaped us. These places hold our stories, our memories, and everything that makes us who we are; we don’t notice it happening, but these locations become ingrained in our lives. I believe we are …

Laser Cutting And Engraving – Designing In The Digital Age, Emily Ward

Summer Scholarship, Creative Arts and Research Projects (SCARP)

Laser cutting and engraving uses are broad and have many application purposes in both Visual Arts and Engineering. Gaining an understanding of the hardware and software necessary for students to successfully use the Universal Laser Systems M‑300 laser cutter in the Engineering Fabrication Lab will open possibilities for both art and engineering projects at our school. After testing a series of materials including birch wood blocks, ceramics, and acrylics to find the correct settings for laser cutting, CorelDRAW software was used to design custom drawings to be laser cut or etched. The printmaking blocks were laser cut for prints to …

Photography Is All We Need - Photography Is Never Enough, Lex Thompson

Art and Design Faculty Works

An essay about the exhibition Surface Tension, curated by Michelle Westmark-Wingard, at Bethel University’s Olson Gallery. Featuring four artists working with photography: Sophia Chai, Paula McCartney, Christine Nguyen and Letha Wilson.

Worcester Public Art For Esl Students, Eleanor Rueffer

Visual and Performing Arts

Funded by the Steinbrecher Fellowship, "Worcester Public Art for ESL Students" are original teaching materials (a 28-page booklet and worksheets) that utilize simple English to introduce some of Worcester's iconic public artworks. While the intended audience is English learners, the focus is on the content and is encouraged for use by anyone looking to enjoy and learn about Worcester history and art.

The booklet includes descriptions and histories of six Worcester artworks (Burnside Fountain, Soldiers' Monument, Major Taylor Statue, Mechanics Hall Mural, Rogers-Kennedy Memorial, and Chamberlain Fountain) with technical terms or difficult words bolded and explained in a glossary.

Eleanor …

Reframing Leadership Narratives Through The African American Lens, Marion Missy Mcgee

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Reframing Leadership Narratives through the African American Lens explores the context-rich experiences of Black Museum executives to challenge dominant cultural perspectives of what constitutes a leader. Using critical narrative discourse analysis, this research foregrounds under-told narratives and reveals the leadership practices used to proliferate Black Museums to contrast the lack of racially diverse perspectives in the pedagogy of leadership studies. This was accomplished by investigating the origin stories of African American executives using organizational leadership and social movement theories as analytical lenses for making sense of leaders’ tactics and strategies. Commentary from Black Museum leaders were interspersed with sentiments of …