Art and Design Commons^™

Mixed Messages, Hannah Duggan

Masters Theses

The bodies of work that I have created during graduate school stem from my interest in mass media, culture studies and spectatorship in the digital era. My research engages digital technology and media studies to consider the ethics and ambivalence associated with spectatorship. Using traditional art mediums, I explore social and digital media, revealing tensions through representation and materiality. This translation from digital to analogue media is pivotal in all my work. Handmade objects introduce slippage and meaning as they break from the limiting format of the screen. This thesis will explore the research and content that inspired the creation …

The Artist's Diary, Anamae Gilroy

Senior Projects Spring 2022

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

Combat Artist, Delvin Goode

Master's Theses

The integral bond that unites the American citizen with the selfless men and women of the Armed Forces will be strengthened through my juxtaposition of uncommonly complementary crafts. “Combat Artist”, featuring high-quality ceramic mugs, unique packaging, pristine painted panels, and kindred graphics will bridge a gap that enhances relationships between these two worlds through a shared love of country and shared culture. The resultant works create fantastic windows into my military life communicating messages full of humor, patriotism, and love. I aspire to masterfully unite ceramic techniques with proven principles of design distributed across all mediums within my work, culminating …

Reclaim, Harris Benjamin Deno

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

I make ceramic and mixed media objects that embody interaction with material. Translated from the simple utterance of the hand the material articulates the labor. As in any relationship there are miscommunications and disagreements; Desperation, struggle, and honest interaction are apparent on the surface of the labored forms. Objects are created in an immediate fashion, the intimacy of the moment folded into the material. Each interaction an embodiment of the human experience. I think of these works as entries in a journal; The gravity of a moment is captured, relieving the mind by bearing that weight.

Whenever approaching a work, …

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 …

Resilience, Resistance And Revival In 20th-Century Yoruba Art, Charles Mason, Andie Near

Kruizenga Art Museum Exhibition Catalogs

Kruizenga Art Museum, Hope College Catalog for exhibition: “Resilience, Resistance and Revival in 20th-Century Yoruba Art”. Exhibition dates: January 17—May 16, 2020. Charles Mason, author; Andie Near, photographer, designer; Lisa Barney, editor; Cecilia O’Brien ‘21, typographer.

Between And Beyond, Noah F. Heil

Art and Art History Honors Projects

Between and Beyond is a series of handbuilt and wheel-thrown ceramic objects which explore intimate queer relationships through the human figure. I assemble slabs of clay to create openings and negative spaces within the sculptures, implying the ways in which the human form also acts as a vessel. The sculptures as well as the figures themselves remain open and vulnerable, literally and metaphorically. The body is depicted through fragmented sections, alluding to the ways in which society and culture break up gender and sexuality into limiting binaries. These intimate, private moments are meant to conjure an imagined future free of …

Caddo Contemporary: Present And Relevant, A Collaboration To Highlight The Caddo Nation, John Handley

Faculty Publications

In collaboration with the Caddo Mounds Historic Site in Alto, TX (CMSHS), Stephen F. Austin State University presented the exhibition “Caddo Contemporary: Present and Relevant,” January 24 – March 24, 2019 at the Ed and Gwen Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House. The exhibition highlighted the work of seven living Caddo Nation artisans: Wayne Earles, Chad Earles, Chase Earles, Raven Halfmoon, Yonavea Hawkins, Jeri Redcorn, and Thompson Williams. The exhibition was important for two specific reasons: It was the first exhibition that highlighted the work of living Caddo artists working in traditional and/or adapted art forms. And, it …

Xx Openings, Jackson Siegal

Senior Projects Spring 2018

XX Openings represents my dual sculpture and photography practice. The title comes from a 70’s domestic frame, with 20 openings of varying sizes for family pictures. Half of the slots were filled with stock pictures of smiling family scenes, while the others just had measurements for the openings themselves. The object struck me as alienating, and oppressive. I didn’t see any scene within those openings I felt connected to.

The frame came to symbolize varying perspectives, ways of seeing, and ways of being. As my sculpture practice has weighed more heavily on my work as a photographer, I feel tensions …

The Long Goodbye, Sidney Meret Williams

Senior Projects Spring 2017

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

Breaking Wind, Todd William Pentico

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Breaking Wind is a research project and thesis exhibition composed of a series of ceramic objects in conjunction with paintings that explore the systems that dictate belief, the motives that drive curiosity, and biological connection to our surroundings. The work uses the context of the gallery and devices used in museums such as plinths, shelves, and wall text to reinforce the idealized and fictive into something believable.

In the work, Breaking Wind refers to a clumsy breakdown and rethinking of the seemingly simple natural phenomenon, wind. Wind is understood as a natural occurrence that has no origin or any innate …