Art Practice Commons^™

And This, Our Measure: Figurative Realism And Workaday Culture., Perry Walter Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Man has created vast and powerful systems. These systems and their associated protocols, dogmas, and conventions tend to limit rather than liberate. Evaluation based on homogeneity threatens the devaluation of our humanity. This paper and the artwork it supports examine contemporary culture and its failings in the stewardship of the humanist ideal.

My paintings referenced herein are satirical narratives. The story told is one of alienation and evisceration. The visual subject matter is the human figure and environments dominated by architectural geometry. The male figures are conspicuously turned from view, a visual cue to their estrangement. Parallel and subordinate thoughts …

My Journey Home: A Study In Hand-Felted Wool., Ashleigh Robertson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is a supporting paper for a Master of Arts Graduate Exhibition entitled My Journey Home: A Study in Hand-Felted Wool, held at Slocumb Galleries October 30 through November 3, 2006. The work in the exhibition represents a concentrated study in the graduate program in Fiber Art at East Tennessee State University. My artwork is an expression of my feelings and emotions toward my family, particularly the women in my family.

The paper begins with an introduction detailing my artistic research and culminates with a reflection of the work shown in the exhibition. The cultural and historical influences that shaped …

Four Greco-Roman Era Temples Of Near Eastern Fertility Goddesses: An Analysis Of Architectural Tradition, K. Michelle Wimber

Theses and Dissertations

Lucian, writing in the mid-second century AD, recorded his observations of an "exotic" local cult in the city of Hierapolis in what is today Northern Syria. The local goddess was known as Dea Syria to the Romans and Atargatis to the Greeks. Lucian's so-named De Dea Syria is an important record of life and religion in Roman Syria. De Dea Syria presents to us an Oriental cult of a fertility goddess as seen through the eyes of a Hellenized Syrian devotee and religious ethnographer. How accurate Lucian's portrayal of the cult is questionable, though his account provides for us some …

Present Access., Garry D. Renfro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The artist discusses his Master of Fine Arts exhibition, Present Access, hosted by The Carroll Reece Museum on the campus of East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tennessee, from April 2 through April 25, 2007. This exhibit contains works that span his four-year tenure in the graduate program and represent several iterations of the artist's exploration of the landscape as metaphor and discovery.

Subjects discussed explicate the development of thought and process leading to the pieces presented in this exhibition. Topics explored include the importance of form, material, media, research, personal history, experience, and memory. Also considered are the …

And There Were Green Tiles On The Ceiling, Jean Catherine Richardson

Theses and Dissertations

In this document I shall explain my art process, and reflecting on my work, will explore the themes and emotions that evolved. I shall accompany the images of my MFA exhibition with personal poetic vignettes. These vignettes are memories and thoughts that surfaced both while making the art and while viewing the final exhibition. While the primary experience is looking at and being with my art, I hope these anecdotes and stories give some insight into my motivations and actions as an artist. In these stories I shall use my own voice; I am Scottish and will tend to use …

Navajo Baskets And The American Indian Voice: Searching For The Contemporary Native American In The Trading Post, The Natural History Museum, And The Fine Art Museum, Laura Paulsen Howe

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the display of Navajo baskets and examines some of the possible meanings Navajo baskets can reveal. Acknowledging that the meaning of a work of art changes when it is placed in different environments, the thesis explores what meanings are revealed and what meanings are concealed in basket displays in three venues: the trading post, the natural history museum, and the fine art museum. The study concludes that the fine art museum has the most potential to foster a dialogue about the contemporary Navajo, whose identity is a product of continuity and change. Chapter one discusses the basket's …