Art and Design Commons^™

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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(Meta-)Physical Artworks: Digital Augmentation In Art Observation, Macy A. Toppan

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Augmented art— the subgenre of art that incorporates physical and digital artwork— is a rapidly growing field driven by advancing technology and a new generation for whom that tech is a given. Yet the presence of media like augmented and virtual reality in exhibition remains a controversial subject. Rather than focusing on the many theoretical debates about whether digital pieces can qualify as "good" art, we study it in practice through the eyes of the casual art observer. This paper highlights the audience in a within-participant study that asked viewers to take in a physical sculpture intentionally built with virtual …

Baird, Nancy Disher, B. 1935 (Sc 3705), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3705. “Enid Yandell: Kentucky Sculptor,” a speech delivered at the Filson Historical Society, December 1983, by Nancy Baird [also the author of an article subsequently published as “Enid Yandell: Kentucky Sculptor,” Filson History Quarterly v. 62 (1988)].

The Space Between, Alexander Dixon

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The Space Between investigates the intricate relationship between perception and reality. By integrating graphic design principles with the optical qualities of glass, the exhibition creates visual distortions that challenge and redefine our understanding of the world. The pervasive use of black throughout the exhibition signifies the vectorized image, a vital element of graphic design and the technological abyss prevalent within our society. The fundamental geometric shapes, coupled with minimalist sculptural forms, employ a graphic approach to highlight visual communication's influence on perception.

Graphic design has a history of shaping public perception. The basis of graphic design is the act of …

Burning Through The Shell, Ethan Harmon

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

Artist Statement

“Burning Through the Shell” embodies the process of freeing myself from my inner turmoil. By pouring molten iron into a wooden trough, the iron burns and scorches its way through the wooden exterior, leaving behind only the remnants as it cools and frees itself from its temporary shell. This destructive yet creative act represents shedding my shell of social anxiety and insecurity, emerging stronger and more resilient. Throughout my life, I have always struggled with “coming out of my shell” and dealing with my mental health in a positive way. However, once I discovered my passion for sculpture …

Forgotten Encounters: The Legacy Of Sculptresses And Female Muses, Laura Engel

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

Sculpture as a medium is inherently connected to legacy making. In producing three- dimensional monuments designed to withstand the test of time, women artists provided evidence of the lasting quality and permanence of their creative acts. This article examines the actress, sculptress and novelist Anne Damer’s sculpture of the famous actress turned Countess Eliza Farren (c. 1788), paying particular attention to the relationship between sculpture as a static art form that captures tactile embodied presence and the ephemerality of performance. Farren’s involvement in Damer’s staging of the private theatricals at Richmond House (Farren directed and Damer starred) suggests that their …

Out In Thin Air, Daiqing Zhang

Masters Theses

My work often takes form in experience-charged installations underscored by phenomenology. The whys and hows behind the work mostly remain unspoken, since I would rather my work speak for itself. This writing project offered me the opportunity to comb through and tell the stories and thoughts that informed the work.

I have built a collection of documentation about the experience of having a sensitivity to moments of wonder in everyday life. These archives recorded sensuous imprints in life composed of mundane phenomena. In the collection there are images/footage of a glimpse of light leaking through cloud crevices; a brush of …

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 …

Other Bodies: Deconstructing Visual Binaries By Subverting Visual Representations Of The Other., Amaiya L. Crawford

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

The goal of creating my sculptural work, The Avian, is both to broaden the visual categorization of sentient bodies, as well as to deconstruct binary thinking regarding the way that bodies display racialized, gendered, and sexualized characteristics. The Avian does this by subverting visual and aesthetic tropes that construct labels like human, monster, and animal. Subversion acts as the main design influence that illustrates how the display how othered bodies can be used to highlight the constructed nature of how we construct humanity. This paper posits that by acknowledging an expansion in visual categorization, in addition to further pushing opportunities …

Existentialism And Creative Practice, Catherine Hudgens

School of Art Undergraduate Honors Theses

The creative process mimics the existentialist philosophy of human freedom and the responsibility to create one’s own meaning in life through an emphasis on invention, experimentation, and ceaseless becoming. Through my body of work, I examine the meaning-giving capacities of the viewer and creator as agents involved in a work of art. The sculptures, as well as found objects, have the power to illuminate the human circumstances they emerged from, while the process of making is also the process of learning, where objects can be used to understand ourselves and the world. Philosophical concepts can be accessed through art in …

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 …

Creativity, Craftsmanship, And Connection: Large-Format Sculpture Design, Jacqueline L. Puga, Gordon Hoople

The STEAM Journal

Artistry is a concept that is not usually explored in engineering yet is an invaluable skill that touches everything from product design to systems thinking. This past summer I developed conceptual designs for a large format sculpture that required connecting engineering knowledge with artistic vision. The initial phase required constant inspiration and creativity. The first step was to look at previous sculptures showcased throughout the world, such as at venues like “Burning Man,” to understand the possibilities or limitations of the space provided. Sketching varied and numerous ideas was essential in our design process. Next, we took our favorite ideas …

Bloody Show, Leonie Weber

Theses and Dissertations

Leonie Weber reflects on how reproductive, domestic, and emotional labor is addressed in her artwork, and her experience as an artist-parent in the art world. Moreover, she specifically discusses mothers who are navigating their own artistic paths. Her practice encompasses sculpture, printmaking, performance, and installation.

Subject To Change, Shauna Steinbach

Theses and Dissertations

Making visible what is often unseen, muted, or ignored, Shauna Steinbach discusses the unscientific models that make up their sculpture and installation practice. Steinbach’s work explores philosophical thoughts and inquiries surrounding imprints, impermanence, and interdependence. The deaths are small until they are big.

Mettle, Chelsey Augustine

Master's Theses

While many see Graphic Design as a separation from art, for me, it has always been a happy blend between my fine art and technological skills. In both areas, I think about what I want the audience to think of feel when the pieces in question. Form, color, anatomy, and concept are all part of my creative process, regardless of whether I am creating digitally with a Wacom or building a wax form in the foundry.

During my graduate studies, I started to get into a flow of building narratives to hone in on conceptual branding ideas. Being able to …

This Side Of Silver, Bennett Wood

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Half Of Two Hungers, Aida A. Lizalde Rios

Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

half of two hungers is an extension of my sculptural practice; a weaving of the ambiguous borders of memory, trauma, disease, identity, assimilation, survival, spirituality, love, erotics, and desire. It is a psychological and sensorial landscape, where I travel consciously and subconsciously to pull shapes and material experiences out into the world of bodies and objects.

To All That Will Ever Be, Has Been, And Is., William Silverstein

Senior Projects Fall 2023

Artist Statement:

Broadly, this exhibition celebrates steel and the transfer of force, both figuratively and literally, from one object to another. Metal is a medium that resists your inputs yet uniquely captures the labor required to shape it. In my work, I have blended historical and modern metalworking techniques to create my interpretations of natural and manmade objects.

Degradation, deformation, and pushing material to its limits have all been key elements of my process. How much weight can a weld hold before it fails? How thin can a surface be sanded before collapsing?

In recent years, I have been very …

Endure, James C. Toomey

Senior Projects Spring 2023

The work is tubular: fistulous, circulatory.

It starts out as a body and obscures into something sprawling and replicating, perhaps cancerous.

Some parts are handmade paper. I begin with a pulp and strip it in water, then pour it into thin sheets— it dries practically weightless. It shrivels and shrinks and clings to itself, tenderly. It leaves caverns inside.

The work withers how I might expect skin to act when it is no longer living. I was sixteen when I held my father while he died. When I peel away my paper sheets, it is how I imagine it might …

Warmth Of The Sun, Drake M. Gerber

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Warmth of the Sun, is a reflection on personal experiences I’ve had in the landscape while living in the Northwest. This curated experience is an attempt to capture my sincerity towards a place and hold onto that feeling. I intend to share faded memories of personal experiences through enigmatic sculptures to make the viewer look a bit closer at these objects and see the landscape in a new way. This paper explores thoughts on the idea of place, material, process, contemporary influences, and the experiences that inspired this body of work.

Found And Fabricated, Molly S. Davis

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

My MFA written thesis addresses work completed and shown in a thesis exhibition at West Virginia University as well as significant influences to my studio process. While my stated focus is sculpture, the work presented in the exhibition consisted of three sculptural pieces and two sets of prints. This thesis, along with the supporting exhibition, addresses my investigations into the physical properties and tendencies of materials and how that information can guide and inform a work of art. Physical characteristics of the materials such as color, texture, shape, and weight are emphasized and guide the creation of the works in …

Above And Below, Kristen Brown

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

My recent graduate artwork uses abstraction of form to describe the intersection between humans and the environment while relating the landscape of our skin to the ever-changing qualities of the natural landscape surrounding us. The photographic material is stressed into three dimensional shapes, producing creasing and tears as it is being contorted by human impact. At the same time that I am creating something new, I am manipulating artifactual evidence of something that already exists in everyday life. This is akin to how our bodies are distorted by outer influence, as well as our own autonomy. Above and below the …

S.O.S., Sondra P. Schwetman

IdeaFest: Interdisciplinary Journal of Creative Works and Research from Cal Poly Humboldt

There are two major bodies of work I generate: one is based on three-dimensional clothing construction, and the other is allegorical figurative work. Both bodies of work display their own poetry. Working with materials such as: Forton MG resin, fibers, bronze, found objects, etc., I feel that possessing knowledge in as many mediums as possible is necessary so that one can achieve a “vision” that is a basis for communication. It is my desire to start a dialogue about women’s issues, cultural change, and contemporary miasma. S.O.S. addresses a variety of related issues: bearing witness to our current times, social …

Winding Down River Road, Gillian Harper

LSU Master's Theses

As a mechanism to explore my temporary home in Louisiana, Winding Down River Road is a collection of artworks that integrates natural materials collected from landscapes in southern Louisiana with steel and petroleum-based products. My interest in researching environmental issues, ecology, and industry has shaped my vehicles for observation and how I generate data. Through a variety of methodologies, I am considering how climate change is forcing many of us to re-contextualize how our home can be affected by the very industries we rely on. Personal engagement with residents living in the dystopian atmosphere of southern Louisiana’s industrial corridor and …

Military, Art & The Inbetween, Andrew Storck

Masters Theses

I find myself navigating life from the perspective of both a civilian and military service member. Everyday, I am between domestic, civilian spaces and military memories as my military service has impacted every aspect of my adult life. Serving in the United States Air Force allowed me to travel the globe while working alongside people from every class and race, on missions focused on tasks greater than ourselves.

My artistic practice explores how my time in the military has affected my transition back into civilian life by using sculpture and installation to express a variety of emotions. I hope my …

All At Sea, Yangyang Mao

Masters Theses

What is the reality of young people born between 1985 and 1995 in China? How do they feel about themselves? As one of the generation, I feel like I’m often haunted by futures that failed to happen. Reasons are multiple and are closely influenced by the social context, such as the implications of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) and One Child Policy (1980-2016), which has marked each individual’s growth in this age with unfading recollections.

Traveling Troubled Wallflower, Julius Cavira

Masters Theses

Cavira is an interdisciplinary Conceptual artist... nuff said.

Shalom, Zoe Schwartz

Masters Theses

I am a Jewish Filipina American, a hybrid of two hyper feminine archetypes: the Jewish American Princess and the Pinay Beauty Queen. Generations of assimilation, colonization and genocide taught my matriarchs to internalize the white male gaze. It was not until I looked in the mirror that I saw her. She understands the importance of performance and appearances because she knows, in a world that will not protect you, there is safety in conforming to feminine norms. She uses her knowledge of pop culture, beauty standards, humor, class symbols and social acceptability to imitate and perform desirable [white] femininity and …

Holding Spaces, Zibby Jahns

Masters Theses

I’ve focused my graduate studies at RISD on the conceptual and social function of chairs as an investigation into comfort and grief. Grief is an apprehension: defined both as “to grasp” and as “anxiety/loss”.

With the multitude of deaths due to the inadequacies of our government and healthcare system, and the general anxiety everyone has been feeling through this pandemic, it has felt difficult to grieve for any individual person, in person. We have to grieve in the ways capitalism has taught us: silently, behind closed doors, without much time or fuss or drama, mourn with dollars and move on. …