Ceramic Arts Commons^™

Crying At Nothing But Colors, Maryalice Carroll

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

crying at nothing but colors is an installation of ceramic works that explores the abstraction of feelings, both physical and emotional. The installation itself is a house made out of tension cables that stretch wall to wall in the gallery space. Inside the house are 7 ceramic objects placed on wooden pedestals paired with tufted rugs.

Throughout this essay, I will describe the abstract ceramic objects as Beings. They are colorful and have textured glaze on the surface with a gloopy opalescent glaze oozing out of holes that cover each piece. They are an extension of myself. They are the …

Audience, Minah Kim

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My work, “audience,” reflects binary oppressions sensed and recognized in my private memory and psychological space of living as a transnational being. Linguistic and sensical cognition I(a vulnerable transnational individual) had, have easily been dis-esteemed and devalued by White-centric epistemology. By confronting the reality of history that shapes my thoughts, performance, names, and meanings, I emphasize transnationality as an opportunity to multiply visual tools, dialogues, and inter-connections of individuals. This work integrates moments of physical connection and accountability by utilizing multidisciplinary expression, including ceramics, writing, sound, and the movements of performers and of the audience. Like an interfusion between artists …

The Systemic Punches: Displacement Experience Of Vulnerable Immigrants, Eric Andre

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

"The Systemic Punches: Displacement Experience of Vulnerable Immigrants" focuses on the impact of systems of state control such as immigration laws, policies, and practices that have been institutionalized and that have marginalized immigrants. In my thesis, I pay specific attention to inhuman acts of exclusion and discrimination resulting from the systemic barriers perpetuated by xenophobic and nationalist ideologies.

From this standpoint, my thesis exhibition employs interactive space, which includes visual art (drawing, sculpture ceramics), projection, video, and sound, as a means to explore the effects of the exclusive and discriminatory immigration policies and practices. Furthermore, it is designed to explore …

What's Going On Here, Joanna R. Pike

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project is an installation depicting shirts and pants in various degrees of Recognizability. The Components vary from somewhat Unrecognizable to entirely Unrecognizable; Bumps and Blocks are interspersed and interrupt the Semi-logic of What’s going on here while adding repetitive elements to clarify the existence of the Semi-logic. The arrangement of the Components in the installation makes the Unrecognizable forms surrounded by the In-between Space into somewhat Recognizable versions of shirts and pants. The viewer does not fully recognize all the Components, but instead understands the implied Recognition given their existence within the installation. The ideas of Lists, Patterns, Systems, …

Heartwork, Lance Taylor Loftin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Heartwork is a collection of paintings, drawings, and sculptures that explore the many ways identity is shaped by familial histories and personal memory. Focusing on my time growing up on a pine tree farm in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 90s, Heartwork explores gender, religion, regional traditions, family, and art. Through conversations and collaborations with my family, painting acts as an impetus for strengthening relationships. By reevaluating the past, I am able to create a web of interconnected narratives that inform and shift my understanding of the present.

Do You Wanna Go Dancing?, Anthony Kascak

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The transdisciplinary art work within Do you wanna go dancing? unpacks the experience and perception of my interpersonal relationships, as well as the role that touch and introspection has in my visual arts practice and everyday life. I am interested in pairing the act of looking with the sensation of touching through specific installation and arrangement of intimate imagery, ceramic fragments and frames, and manual or digitally fabricated surfaces. The negotiation of these installations orient the viewer to consider their positionality within space, as well as the extent in which distance, intimacy, and vulnerability fluctuate inside these psychological spaces.

The …

Seeing Through Feeling, Christopher Mitchell Rodgers

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this paper is to describe both the inherent formal qualities and conceptual framework that are addressed within the exhibition, Seeing Through Feeling. The exhibition is centered around the methodology of making, collection, and display all through the one singular positioning, the object. The objects within the exhibition are either handmade or collected fragments that weave together around the singular position of craft and history under the pretense of how our understanding of time may not always be true. The thesis breaks down key components through specific themes into the categories of the hand, eye, symbol, object, value, …

Good Dyke Art, Sam M. Mack

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The work in good dyke art visually expands upon conversations about institutional critique and its contradictions, specifically questioning who dictates the boundaries between institutions and bodies: how divisions are made between them and who enacts or receives force. One’s participation in this critique, however, indicates a participation in the problematics of the institution and by extension, a desire to critique may also be considered a desire to participate in that system.

Ceramic, glaze, and found objects manifest an allegorical formalism that utilizes coded languages of institutional spaces, traditions of queer-coding, and charged word-play. The ceramic vessel forms reference the Ancient …

Ice Cream, Richard Frank Peterson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ice Cream is a series of 2D and 3D depictions of lawn ornaments, Charlie Brown, and novelty ice cream bars, which question how White America is indoctrinated through seemingly innocuous images and objects. The exhibition unveils the white supremacy fostered within the American way of life and articulates an environment where Americans act in racist ways when they believe they are acting morally. The research found within Ice Cream attempts to dismantle the foundation these justifications are built upon. This honesty, coupled with acknowledging that these historic traditions are rooted in racial constructs, will result in a double consciousness and …

Tableau Vivant [Living Picture], G J Christopher Drobnock

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With an overwhelming concern for functionality, the design world and industrial production have moved far beyond the pure necessity of the handmade object. With the paper coffee cup, disposable utility is the primary goal; afterwards the service is performed and the thing is discarded. On the other hand, the clay object can be used and reused allowing a personal relationship to form between the user and the object, the maker and the user. My work is meant to reconnect us with the haptic; the tacit knowledge of the physical. I want the user to think of a place beyond the …

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 …

Tethered, Samantha Jean Dixon

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Tethered addresses the innate fear of forgetting where an individual's family originates, both physically and historically. Not long after discovering that part of my family was almost completely annihilated during the Holocaust, I produced Tethered as visual documentation of the long-term effects of families of survivors. The exhibition is also influenced by my grandmother's experiences as a Mauthausen concentration camp survivor and my own experiences being raised by a survivor.

The knowledge of the imminent loss of memory initiates an instinct to repetitively record and remember personal history. Numerous memories have been forcefully buried in the darkest recesses of the …