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Full-Text Articles in Art and Design

White Noise, Chris Cohen May 2019

White Noise, Chris Cohen

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

White Noise investigates moments when white supremacist ideology injects itself into the conversation about American Identity and American History in an attempt to co- opt those definitions and control the conversation. The exhibition considers the effects of this identity crisis on American identity, white identity, American history, and family unity. The exhibition looks at these issues through the lens of the Virginia Historical Markers program, Civil War Re-enactment, contemporary white identity politics and supremacy, monuments, educational history museums, and the artist’s personal narrative about white supremacy as it relates to his own sense of loyalty and connection to his family. …


Morpho: Expectations & Mutations, Lynda Bostrom May 2018

Morpho: Expectations & Mutations, Lynda Bostrom

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Morpho: Expectations & Mutations is a written document accompanying the culmination of my three years painting at a graduate level. The result of which is an autobiographical body of work navigating the tension of being a human with an invisible disease, while straining to understand Western societal constructs of women. I simultaneously reject these fairy tales as a standard recipe for happiness, yet identify with its visual language that is rooted in the vernacular of my generation. Redefining the elements I reject or embrace helps me to look beyond the boundaries of these constructs, and adopt an attitude of curiosity …


Remembering Virtual Worlds: Painting And Video Games, Nathaniel M. St. Amour May 2017

Remembering Virtual Worlds: Painting And Video Games, Nathaniel M. St. Amour

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Video games create the feeling of great achievement and place the player into a role that turns them into a great hero. These experiences feel significant because they require great time and emotional investment. The monumentality of these experiences, however, are at odds with the transience of the electrical virtual worlds. The medium of oil painting helps overcome the sense of transience because of oil painting’s durable permanent way of image making and stillness. Painting’s inherent nod to history also creates a dissonance between the newness of the video game medium and the antiquity of painting, a contrast exacerbated by …


Old Furnace Artist Residency: Art Is A Conjunction, Jon William Henry May 2016

Old Furnace Artist Residency: Art Is A Conjunction, Jon William Henry

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Old furnace artist residency is an ongoing body of work that encompasses a long-term art project that relies upon social aesthetics. This project weaves together social sculpture, relational aesthetics, intervention, gesture, performance, community art, and participation art to create a praxis of social justice and art. The underlying principles of the project are rooted in feminist and queer theories of activism that focus on enacting social, political, and economic liberation. Thus, old furnace artist residency focuses on using art as a tool to weave people together.


Home Starts From Within, Joliza G. Terry May 2016

Home Starts From Within, Joliza G. Terry

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Moving to Harrisonburg proved to be a culture shock for me because in the past, I had lived in areas where the levels of diversity were different and allowed me to feel more at ease. I faced the issue of feeling uncomfortable in a new-found environment and felt compelled to start a dialogue about my experience through my artwork. It was imperative for me to find a way to create a community for myself, and by doing so in my artwork, I have thrived from my experience of feeling out of place. I began making work about self-image, family and …


Shift; Explorations In A Changing Sense Of Self, Tara J. Ott May 2016

Shift; Explorations In A Changing Sense Of Self, Tara J. Ott

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

In my art practice I am exploring how my “sense of self” changes as both the external and internal factors continue to shift throughout the stages of my life. I have centered on two main themes: personal experiences connected to gender that are based on the female body and changes in the formation of social identity in relation to others who are part of my life. My work mainly revolves around self-portraiture and reflections of my life, usually expressed through photography, video, painting and sculptural installations. In some bodies of work, however, I have used other women or people from …


The Misconception Of Knowing, The Invention Of Time; Curiosities & Introspections Of Vernacular Photography, Patricia D. Drummond May 2015

The Misconception Of Knowing, The Invention Of Time; Curiosities & Introspections Of Vernacular Photography, Patricia D. Drummond

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The Misconception of Knowing, the Invention of Time; Curiosities & Introspections of Vernacular Photography is a body of work that combines photography, artist books, and alternative processes in a series of pieces that explore the synergy between the act of creating vernacular or common photography, the photograph in its many forms, and the interaction with the photographic image at all the stages of its existence. It also exists in conjunction with this written monograph, which supports and gives insight into the work. Through the use of poems, sketchbook musings, the history of photography, critical theory and social norms within photography, …


Tried It With Glasses Off Too; Sometimes., Nolan John Fedorow May 2014

Tried It With Glasses Off Too; Sometimes., Nolan John Fedorow

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

I use a small wedge of wood as a tool to pick out food scraps that find themselves lodged between my teeth. I also use a small wedge of wood as a tool to keep a straight door from swinging freely on a crooked house. The small wedge of wood I stuff in between the floor and door as a tool is a controlling apparatus, much like landowners who use fencing to keep people from walking repeatedly through their land and inadvertently creating a path where they shouldn’t. A wooden door stopper will come to adorn a perpendicular-patterned patina across …


Student’S Achievement And Artistic Growth Through The Implementation And Enrichment Of The Visual Journal, Emily Nannette Quesenberry May 2014

Student’S Achievement And Artistic Growth Through The Implementation And Enrichment Of The Visual Journal, Emily Nannette Quesenberry

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Abstract This study investigates the incorporation of the visual journal as a learning tool within the art curriculum to understand how it contributes to students’ perception of themselves as artists, students’ understanding of art content, and how it can be used as a source of formative and summative assessment of student growth over time. This study was conducted with a control and a test group. Each group participated in the creation of visual journal pages throughout the course of one semester. However, the test group received additional information on visual journal artists and techniques as well as daily time to …


The Effects Of Constructive Language Instruction And Cooperative Learning On The Quality Of Artwork At The Middle Level, Laura Allison Thompson May 2014

The Effects Of Constructive Language Instruction And Cooperative Learning On The Quality Of Artwork At The Middle Level, Laura Allison Thompson

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This study investigates the effects of explicit instruction in constructive language and cooperative learning activities on the quality of art work produced by seventh grade art students. Data collection included pre- and post-intervention cooperative learning surveys, student and teacher rubric evaluations, artist statements, teacher observations of student interactions, and photographs of artwork. Rubrics included five criteria: 1) idea formation and development, 2) problem-solving, 3) openness to suggestions, 4) depth of theme, and 5) perseverance. Students completed a self-portrait project individually to provide base line data and samples with which to compare collaborative works after two interventions. During the interventions, students …


Interactive Instructional Technology To Bring Art Students Meaningful Museum Experiences, Sarah Elizabeth Brown May 2014

Interactive Instructional Technology To Bring Art Students Meaningful Museum Experiences, Sarah Elizabeth Brown

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The purposes of this study are to: (1) investigate how pre-service art teachers are prepared to implement instructional technological tools for virtual museum experiences and art lesson plans; (2) determine the impact of preparing pre-service art teachers to use instructional technological deliverables to create a virtual art museum experience for the classroom; and (3) investigate the impact of using instructional technology in art teacher lesson plans and instructional delivery. I believe pre-service teachers need specific training on how they can use technology in their art classrooms. Technology is a necessary tool for teaching creatively and can enhance an art curriculum …


Peer Critique In The Secondary Art Classroom: Strategies For Best Practices, Krista Nicole Castrodale May 2014

Peer Critique In The Secondary Art Classroom: Strategies For Best Practices, Krista Nicole Castrodale

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The Virginia Standards of Learning and National Visual Arts standards require that art criticism and student peer critique are present in the secondary art curriculum. The standards set minimum requirements and serve as a starting point for comprehensive art education. Additional guidance for art teachers is necessary to ensure that peer critiques become a crucial component of their secondary art curriculum. Art teachers rely on their own experiences with critique for instruction. However, traditional models of art criticism do not seem to utilize the varied strengths of students. Contemporary student peer critique strategies are needed for teachers in secondary art …


Meditation On The Middle Ground, Jennifer Chandler Creef May 2014

Meditation On The Middle Ground, Jennifer Chandler Creef

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The installation of Meditations on the Middle Ground, is a space filled with photomontages, video and sounds that were captured during my expeditions out on the water, through the woods and by the shore. My work is a meditation on my relationship with the natural environment and how to form new realities out of these interactions.


Creativity In The Elementary Art Classroom: Incorporating Strategies For Encouraging Creativity, Hannah Kim Sions May 2014

Creativity In The Elementary Art Classroom: Incorporating Strategies For Encouraging Creativity, Hannah Kim Sions

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Virginia art educators base their lesson plans on the Visual Arts Standards of Learning for Virginia Public Schools. Although creativity is implied in these standards, they are not directly mentioned; it is possible that lessons are not encouraging student creativity. Through a review of literature, this study explored the role of creativity in the elementary classroom, the role of creativity in the art education classroom, and strategies to encourage creativity in students. Findings suggest that creativity can be incorporated into lessons through a variety of strategies. Creativity is a lifelong process, and strategies that are incorporated into lesson plans, will …


Learning To See, Jade Webber May 2014

Learning To See, Jade Webber

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Learning to See is a written document accompanying the culmination of my three years painting at a graduate level. Through an exploration of line, color, shape, light and bears I traverse the wandering heart of painting. This document is an exploration of the place in which people become bears and bears become mountains.


Kaczynski Is To Walden As A Predator Drone Is To Batman., Evan Fitzgerald May 2013

Kaczynski Is To Walden As A Predator Drone Is To Batman., Evan Fitzgerald

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

I can see an image of Darth Vader making graphs that describe the Singularity with his left hand while tightly rendering Odysseus gouging out the eye of Polyphemus with his right hand. At the same time Vader is reciting philosophy and critical theory in both English and binary code through a speaker in a mask that filters his true voice. The written portion of my thesis provides perspective into my artistic practice while elaborating on the ideas behind the two-dimensional allegorical panel paintings from my thesis exhibition, Kaczynski is to Walden as a Predator Drone is to Batman. I use …


The Inclusive Art Classroom: Time And Strategies, Margaret Harrison Vaughan Miller May 2013

The Inclusive Art Classroom: Time And Strategies, Margaret Harrison Vaughan Miller

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Art teachers are required to teach inclusive art classes that provide instruction for general education students and their mentally disabled peers. This study reveals the amount of time an art teacher needs to prepare for and teach the exceptional education students in an inclusive art classroom during school, at school after hours, and at home. Successful teaching strategies are identified. The following recommendations should be taken into consideration: educational institutions should require that preservice teachers take classes on exceptional education, and school districts should provide inservice workshops on teaching inclusive classes to general education teachers, including art teachers.


Where Feet Are As Light As Feathers (A World Of Things), Katie Zickefoose May 2013

Where Feet Are As Light As Feathers (A World Of Things), Katie Zickefoose

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Where feet are as light as feathers (a world of things) is a combination of 2D work including painting, drawing, and prints, in conjunction with a written monograph that supports and gives insight into the work. Through a series of short stories, both fictional and nonfictional, fleeting thoughts, as well as research in critical theory and art history, I make connections between my art, my process, and my own earthly living.


Visual Art Assessment For Middle School Students, Kathryn Batlle May 2013

Visual Art Assessment For Middle School Students, Kathryn Batlle

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This research study was designed by a middle school art teacher to fulfill the new teacher evaluation requirements in Virginia. The study was implemented in a sixth grade art classroom of sixteen students in the 2012 fall semester. This research study investigated the use of an authentic assessment tool to document student growth in a middle school art classroom. This performance assessment tool, evaluating student artwork, used detailed criterion-referenced rubrics to score student achievement in units focused on drawing and painting. The design included a pre- and post-instruction artwork that was assessed with the created rubrics. Student artwork was organized …


Evocation Of Memory And Place, Colleen Pendry May 2012

Evocation Of Memory And Place, Colleen Pendry

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

My work investigates the inseparability of memory and emotion. Guided by what remain of my mother’s tattered memoirs, I have investigated a place from her past that suggests an intense search which filters through her writings and in tandem with my own visual remembrance. Through the manipulation of materials, technique and space, my work reveals a simple yet complex connectedness to memory and place.


Self / Center, Jason J. Anderson May 2012

Self / Center, Jason J. Anderson

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The act of photographing myself has had a profound effect on my personal healing after surviving a suicide attempt in the winter of 2008. Coming to the end of my rope after years of trying ex-gay therapy and countless bullying in the workplace and from others left me with a fragmented self that was collapsing. It was through the reawakening and rebuilding of myself that I began to photograph myself as a means of therapy and closure. My work has consistently dealt with the elements of faith and sexuality and the problems that one goes through in attempting to reconcile …


Art From The Outpost, Field Notes, New Territory, And The Invisible Hamster, Dymphna De Wild May 2012

Art From The Outpost, Field Notes, New Territory, And The Invisible Hamster, Dymphna De Wild

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The outpost installations I create reveal my choice to be inventive with mostly found materials that I discover on my walks. Calling myself an artist-archeologist, I write down field notes as I collect my art-bound specimens and make a descriptive inventory for each of the works. I often surprise my viewers (and myself) by creating something fabulously strange and compelling with things that were cast aside. I hope to increase my viewers’ abilities to find beauty in these forgotten and trashed items and to generate an innovative dialogue and an outside-of-the-box way of thinking.


Domestic Bliss, Carrie D. Spencer May 2012

Domestic Bliss, Carrie D. Spencer

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Domestic Bliss is my ceramic sculpture and mixed media MFA thesis exhibition with supporting written monograph. Through the combination of these works I investigate influences in my life, which ultimately affect the choices I make regarding my role in domestic space. I critically examine illusions of domestic bliss, specifically myths about female domestic roles, emphasizing the impact my grandmother and her hand-made dollhouse have had on my life.


"By Reason Of Birth", Cheyenne Kody Crawford May 2011

"By Reason Of Birth", Cheyenne Kody Crawford

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This written monograph is intended to parallel my MFA thesis show, “by reason of birth”. These written accounts from my childhood are specific occurrences in my life that influenced the creation of this work. Through the combination of written and made work, I recall an ambiguous past that allows the viewer to infer his or her own personal histories alongside mine.


Fixing Belief: Artificial Preservatives, James Walker Tufts Iv May 2011

Fixing Belief: Artificial Preservatives, James Walker Tufts Iv

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Research opened with inquiries into the state space of the self and various modalities of the construction of the self. Flawed research design led towards a loss of original focus, spaces opened accordingly. Early sculptural work looked towards a semantic flattening through flushing out and digitally manipulated photographic and video work investigated avenues of ocular-centric landscape construction. Photoshop CS5 and its Content Aware Fill tool were engaged as collaborator and animations ensued. Hesitant time-based sketches were developed to suggest work incomplete and instead took their place. Space-based sketches followed, using the multiple to thwart focus on parts and draw it …


Spiritual Nature, Carolyn Elaine Kent Dec 2010

Spiritual Nature, Carolyn Elaine Kent

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Spiritual Nature by Carolyn Elaine Kent.


Wearing My Heart On My Sleeve, Sam Hunter May 2010

Wearing My Heart On My Sleeve, Sam Hunter

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Wearing My Heart On My Sleeve is a collection of fabric and fiber works that focus on issues related to my recovery from a heart attack. Using the hospital gown and other garment forms as templates for self-portraiture, I explore the emotions surrounding the diagnosis and subsequent management of my chronic health condition. My art-making process combines tradition and technology, using modern, high-speed sewing machines and computers to create the fabric for contemporary interpretations of traditional garment and needlecraft forms. I am also concerned with the use of language and words as critical design elements for the fabrics I create. …


Incognesia, Holly George May 2010

Incognesia, Holly George

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

A monograph for the MFA Thesis Exhibition for Holly George, exhibited in Sawhill Gallery in Duke Hall April 5, 2010 - April 10, 2010. The title of the exhibition, Incognesia, is indicative of the artist's process of mapmaking. It is a fusion of other words, an invention based on fact but nevertheless on the verge of fantasy. Like each word in Lewis Caroll's poem, "Jabberwocky," the title calls multiple meanings to mind. It utilizes the Latin incognitae, meaning "unknown," but also references its later cartographic usage of "undiscovered" lands. While the suffix, -nesia, links to a series of islands such …


I Am The Landscape, Aimee George Dec 2009

I Am The Landscape, Aimee George

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This thesis investigates the ideas and concepts of my photographic works. Ranging from still photography to video, these works convey how external surroundings affect internal states, and show my personal relation to these surroundings, the landscape. The landscape becomes more than just a landscape. The landscape represents me, my feelings, my reactions, and my internal states. The landscape becomes me and I become the landscape. The landscape becomes “the objective mirror of the world and the mirror of the artists’ soul.” i am the landscape.