Education Commons^™

From Margins To Museums: Tracing The Evolution Of Representation For Contemporary African Artists In The United States, Victoria Mouraux Durand-Ruel

Master's Theses

This thesis examines the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement on the art community in the United States and the evolution of representation for Contemporary African artists. By analyzing the careers and artistic contributions of Omar Ba, Toyin Ojih Odutola, and Njideka Akunyili Crosby, the study explores the concept of artistic agency according to which African artists have more control over the production and distribution of their works.

The research begins with a comprehensive literature review, investigating the historical contexts that have shaped the art landscape, including the impact of colonization, decolonization, and globalization. The study reveals how these …

How I Came To Jam With The Angels Of The Dirty South: A Journey Into Art And Art Education, Miki Skak

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper dives into my personal journey from a far-left activist youth into becoming an artist. It explains how a poet saw artistic potential within me, introduced me to the world of art and eventually art education. I reflect on the art education I have received from several different art schools and how they try to adapt to the demands of the contemporary art world that has been in a constant condition of reshaping itself since Marcel Duchamp’s readymade. As an artist who is less focused on the techniques of traditional artistic mediums, I investigate how the state of art …

Treescapes, Alexandra Délano Alonso, Marco Saavedra

Occasional Paper Series

We’ve each been looking to the trees for a long time. One of us painting, the other writing, with, by the trees. In the middle of the city and its noise, finding the branches. Standing, inquiring, returning. Why the trees, how we belong to each other, is a question worth asking again and again. These paintings and poems are part of an ongoing conversation, of many layers, of many trees, of what we lose and find under their canopies, in blooms, in dirt & seasons. What walking among the trees has taught us is that every art is an invitation …

Painting Our Treescapes: A Visual, Gretel Olson, Ingrid Olson, Stephanie Schuurman-Olson

Occasional Paper Series

Two children (ages 6 and 9) represent an afternoon spent in their urban, wintery treescape through visual art, photo documentation, and written narrative. The first piece, "My Imaginary Forest", considers the seasons, animals, and issues of artistic representation of nature. The second piece describes the relationship between a favourite tree and a child, and considers others -- both present and future -- who also occupy "Our Knotty Tree". All of the words, visual art, and photo selection are those of the children.

Food For Thought: Rituals In Place Based Learning, Natalia Pilato

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

In my mother’s kitchen lasting bonds among family, friends, and newcomers are created. Using that space as a point of departure, I explore the significance of pedagogical places outside of classrooms that serve as flavorful ingredients for performative and participatory learning. This article articulates ways in which rituals associated with Sicilian cultural traditions are interwoven and complicit in establishing dispositions for socially engaged learning and teaching in the arts, showing how an ethic of care can transcend generations. With a focus on place-based learning, making art and enjoying food are investigated to show how healthy productive relationships, appreciation for beauty, …

A Community Of Knots, Katherine Mahler

MFA in Visual Arts Theses

In her 1965 essay On Weaving, the artist Anni Albers stated, “As it is possible to go from any place to any other, so also, starting from a defined and specialized field, can one arrive at a realization of ever-extending relationships. Thus tangential subjects come into view. The thoughts, however, can, I believe, be traced back to the event of a thread” (Albers XI). A thread is the beginning of coming into being. In this paper, I will discuss the lines of my work from the beginning of the program, exploring mapping to how my work as a teacher …

Acorporation, Inc.: Corporate Form As Art Project And Advocacy, Chad Erpelding, Ruth Jebe, Jeff Lingwall

Art, Design & Visual Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Development of the corporation was a key turning point in the institutional history of business. The concepts of life beyond the existence of its founders, limited liability, and the ability to accumulate massive amounts of capital through stock ownership changed the nature of commercial practice in the United States and around the world. This has not been without controversy, particularly as large corporations began to capture much of modern economic life. Great economic power has not always meant great responsibility, and concepts of corporate citizenship and legal “personhood” remain subjects of debate. Similarly, how corporations do, or ought to, navigate …

Exploring High School Students’ Perceptions Of The Influence Of Fine Arts Education On Academic Achievement, Samantha Fields

Doctor of Education in Teacher Leadership Dissertations

This qualitative study aims to explore student perceptions of fine arts exposure on academic achievement in a southwestern Georgia high school. The study focuses specifically on exposure time and how it affects students academically. Qualitative research methods were used for this investigation. Information was collected through questionnaires, interviews, and artifacts analysis to better understand student perceptions of how fine arts education impacts their personal growth and academic success. This study’s findings provide insights about discovering students’ perceptions of fine arts exposure in relation to personal academic achievement. The results of this investigation can help educate stakeholders and policymakers as they …

Building A Pedagogy Of Idea Generation And Embodied Inquiry, Kate Joranson

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

What futures become possible when we center questions, inquiry, and affective responses in research processes? What does it mean to support encounters with new ideas? In this article, I explore non-extractive models of teaching and learning, sharing ways of making space for idea generation, an under-described part of research and creative practice. The coming-up-with-ideas part of creative and scholarly work can be challenging to articulate, share, and teach. What if we paused and stretched this part out, making it more visible? By browsing physical collections of books in community with one another, during “curated browsing” experiences, we give ourselves — …

Kole, Isaiah Aladejobi

Masters Theses

This project focuses on the development of building blocks influenced by the architecture and design styles of Yoruba culture and Washington DC. These building blocks aim to provide an educational and culturally enriching experience for individuals of all ages, with a particular focus on youth.

By combining the traditional design elements of Yoruba architecture with the modern urban aesthetic of Washington DC, the building blocks offer a unique blend of cultural influences for children and adults to explore. Through hands-on building activities, users can engage with the cultural heritage of these two regions, while also developing important skills such as …

“Come Think With Me”: Finding Communion In The Liberatory Textual Practices Of Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Jehan L. Roberson

Criticism

Defining text as anything that can be read, self-identified learner and artist Kameelah Janan Rasheed explores reading as radical communion within her multifaceted textual practice. A 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, Rasheed’s work spans vast bodies of knowledge and temporalities to interrogate both the aesthetic and the limits of the text. At times producing collages with letters cut out from books in her own expansive library, and at other times posting scans from various books that are marked up with her rigorous note-taking, Rasheed approaches the text as an invitation to commune with the author in order to collectively arrive at new …

Making Then Meaning, Ben Denzer

Masters Theses

This is an artist talk contained within a book. It is 816 pages and 49 minutes long. Closed captions run across the spreads. A video of this talk can be watched on bendenzer.com/making-then-meaning

At RISD, I’ve been prompted to expand the scope and tools of my practice and to reflect on questions of meaning in my work.

I spend my days making things, but I’ve never really had good answers to questions of why I make the things I make, or what their meaning is. I don’t think there are simple answers to these questions.

I think meaning comes from …

Hailey's Hearing Aids, Hailey Marie Garcia

Whittier Scholars Program

Individuals from the deaf and hard-of-hearing community are likely to experience more anxiety and depression due to defective cognitive, social, communicational, and emotional skills (Azizi et al., 2019). The word “disability” is embedded with historical negative connotations with phrases such as “deaf and dumb” because if they were deaf or mute then they were automatically labeled as inferior (Horovitz, 2007). Since the 18th century, the DHH community has been seen as incapable, even inhuman, hence the development of emotional deficiencies that bleed into one’s perception of society and their self esteem (Gallaudet, 1886).

How do you navigate a hearing world …

Rethinking Graphic Design Pedagogy For The Cuny Academic Commons: On Process, Generosity, And Creative Collaboration In Mapping A Foundation Graphic Design Course For Faculty And Instructors, Suzanne Dell'orto

Publications and Research

The creation of an Open Education Resource with the CUNY Academic Commons for a foundation course in graphic communication at Bernard M. Baruch College, City University of New York (CUNY) is a natural extension of the generous visual and written communication that is at the heart of Graphic Design. Graphic designers are inherently collaborative, working through a shared visual and written language to communicate. This Open Educational Resource (OER) serves as a base template to be shared department-wide with all instructors at CUNY and beyond to provide a framework for instruction for this studio course that is taught as a …

Reflections On The Heuristic Power Of Contemplative Art In Teaching And Research, Patricia Morgan

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

In this article I discuss the heuristic power of combining contemplative and creative practices using different stages of my research into learning through contemplation. This began with a realisation I had, in my first meditation retreat, about the similarities between creative and contemplative consciousness. It initiated twenty-three years of applied and theoretical research that started with contemplative art workshops I ran in rehabilitation centres. In PhD research that followed I tested a hypothesis of learning through contemplation founded on the concept of an elemental ground of learning that contained an integrating force I termed the feeling nexus. In later …

Preparing Teachers For Integrating Visual Arts For Academic Success Of Elementary School Students, Jennifer Roux

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The majority of people agree that students’ education should provide them with the essential skills to be successful in the 21st-century workforce. Although these same sets of skills are commonly practiced through the process of making art, art education continues to hold an inferior status in schools. This disconnection raises the question, what has led to the devaluation of art in academics? This senior capstone will explore how teachers are prepared to integrate visual arts into the classroom. Through the use of a literature review, interviews with three in-service teachers, and a survey of students majoring in Liberal Studies at …

Ideation And Iteration For Creatives, Sandee M. Chamberlain

KSU Distinguished Course Repository

This course addresses the development of visual literacy including concepting, initial approaches of creating an encompassing aesthetic, creating timelines for production, and exploring the refining aspects of creative production. Students will devise an advanced creative problem and provide a documented account of their creative journey to present as a process journal at the end of the course.

How Do Arts Contribute To Educational Research? A Book Review Of Arts-Based Research In Education: Foundations For Practice, Niroj Dahal

The Qualitative Report

I write this review as a recommendation for potential readers: those who are new to and veterans with respect to arts-based research. Arts-Based Research in Education: Foundations for Practice is edited by Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor and Richard Siegesmund, with contributions from 22 authors and a cover artist. In addition to providing some information from a usual structure around contents, central themes and concepts, intended audience, genres of writing styles, strengths and weaknesses, and uniquenesses, I primarily focus on the content of the chapter entitled “Four guiding principles for arts-based research practice” which I found extraordinarily significant in the second edition of …

Sunrise Haiku Project: Learning To Trust, Diana Lynn Tigerlily

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

Born and raised in Illinois, I moved to the ocean during a major life transition, leaving behind the familiar: family, forest, and soil. This essay incorporates reflection, photographs, and haiku to represent sixteen months of journeying to the ocean sunrise everyday. The daily practice yielded unexpected insights, moments of deep healing, and growth. The biggest lesson for me was that no matter how thick the clouds and how strong my doubt, the sun will still rise. By witnessing the phenomenon of the sun rising everyday, I have been able to rise up through layers of self-doubt and grief, and begin …

A Daycare Artist Residency In Minusio: Aesthetic Eunuciations In Borderspaces, R. Michael Michael Fisher

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

This is a compilation of happenings from an artist residency at an urban core daycare and kindergarten site from July-December, 2021. The artist provides some notes on how to approach a residency, create site-specific art and work with the children, their teachers, care staff and the community surrounding the site. A newly coined concept of minusio, emerged over time and served as an invisible basis for art-care, in a sense the mirror(ing) of the gift of nurturing but also the lack of care—and offering a route to what human’s really desire, when they are not so busy and distracted …

Rooms That Awaken Us: A Poetic Inquiry Of Multiple Selves, Rawda Harb

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

Using poetry as a research method, the author wrote for self-expression, self-discovery and self-healing during the pandemic. As she wrote, she realized that she is a different person in different settings with differ- ent people. Without intending to ever share this work, she then examines her multiple selves’ learning-teach- ing dance with life using literature by Aoki, Leggo, Dewey, Tajfel and others. She even discusses the notion of multiple selves in life with her young children and is fascinated by their artistic response.

Becoming An Artist: Embodying Emergent Art Making Practices, Kate L. Wurtzel

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

Absract: Written in layers, this creative essay invites the reader to consider the relationship between one’s own becoming and emergent practices in the teaching and making of art. Weaving between a discussion on the theoretical concept of becoming and emergence, along with a personal narrative presented with images, the author tries to demonstrate what emergence might feel like in the body while creating alongside-and-with her own child. From points of disruption to points of harmonizing with material and material bodies, this essay examines emergence through the lens of an embodied relationality and offers up potential ways to experience such practices.

Studio As Collage: Familiar And Strange, Alison Shields

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

In this visual essay, I present an artistic inquiry I created as I examine the studio as a space to dwell, a space to daydream and a prompt for the imagination. I draw from previous research about artist studios and a visual archive created of objects within the studio as I re-imagine the studio as a collage; it is a place filled with odd juxtapositions of images, artworks, ideas and space that may produce new connections and imaginings. Through presenting the studio as both subject and process, I encourage readers to embrace the strangeness within familiar places.

Dreaming My Ancestors: A Poetic Inquiry Into Longing And Legacy, Maya T. E. Borhani

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

This poetic inquiry traces certain aspects of my identity as the daughter of an Iranian immigrant growing up in the United States. I use autobiographic life writing (Hasebe-Ludt, Chambers, Leggo, 2009) to lay out (some of) the bones of a larger personal and family story, followed by a suite of poems addressing some of the mysteries, wonderments, gifts and reckonings that I am left with—and which are inherent to—my misplaced, scattered family history and lineage. Although my father shared little about his life in Iran before coming to the U.S., with the help of other relatives I have gleaned a …

Skyward, Darlene St.Georges

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

Skyward illustrates the embodiment of creation-centred research (St. Georges, 2018; 2019; 2022b/c; 2023; St. Georges & Bickel, 2022), which relies on creative-experiential-engagement and interaction. Creation-centred research is uniquely rooted in métissage (Hasebe-Ludt et al, 2009), poetic inquiry (Fidyk & St. Georges, 2022; inpress) and storying (Archibald, 2009; 2019), and leans into arts-based practices (Leavy 2015; 2018; Sinner et al., 2018). The term “creation-centred” reflects the ontological and cyclical nature of artistic practices and supports its creative intention and integrity. Situated in an aesthetic and creation-centred paradigm, it resists privileged discourse while generating and weaving threads of our stories through the …

Silent Interruptions: Democratizing Academic Discourse Through Wordless Narrative Research, Jeff Horwat

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

Emerging in the early twentieth century, wordless novels portrayed stories of working-class laborers, immigrants, and other marginalized groups overlooked and silenced by industrialization. Wordless novels visually operationalize their silence by presenting their narratives without words to call attention to hidden struggles of different social groups exploited under capitalism, colonialism, and other forms of systemic violence. This paper explores how the generative power of visual silence forces a pause in hegemonic discourses to create space for reflection and social change. Drawing from the collectivist ethos of wordless novels, wordless narrative research is introduced as a method of creative inquiry to study, …

In The Imaginal Realm Before She Could Read: A Healing A/R/Tographic Inquiry, Barbara Bickel

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

This healing a/r/tographic inquiry ritually cycles through ancestral time to the present inspired by a recently found small grey book above the author’s dad’s desk—10 years after his death. This article shines light and memory onto spirit infused matrixial borderspace(s) through the co-mingling of text and image; returning to a site where text first met image in the early years of the author’s life. She is both the young dreaming artist-child and the responsible artist/researcher/teacher seeking embodied relational imaginal knowledge through the light of both image and word.

Data’S Entanglements: Artmaking As Corresponding Companion During Diffractive Analysis, Kelly Clark/Keefe

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

This essay invites readers into two creative correspondences that emerged during the author’s involvement in a participatory arts-based research project called Life Lines. The Life Lines project aimed at engaging a small group of young adults alongside researchers in their use of multimodal arts practices to inquire into what makes young adult identity work work the way that it does. In Life Lines the phenomenon of identity and the approaches to inquiry used to explore it were conceptualized through a material feminist framework that proposes the co-constituting nature of meaning and matter (i.e., bodies, atmospheres, and objects of …

The Way Of The Crane, Alexandra Fidyk

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

Using pastiche, a dreamscape and reflection upon it, offers entry to a centring practice. In holding both, a new image emerges. The dreamscape—an unexpected scene of cranes in joyous dance—unfolds as actual dream and offers a metaphor for understanding the dreamer’s life. By extension, the dream returns practice as a syn- aesthetic engagement, which she calls expressive arts pedagogy. In this condensed yet nuanced rumination, personal and professional, poetic and haptic, participating and witnessing blur. This practice, the way of the Crane, is timely because it introduces, by embodying its own phenomona, a relational pedogogy for our troubled times—a pedagogy …

Interlude Art And Poetry, Darlene St.Georges

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

Interlude cover page introducing Articles and Essays of this issue.