Sculpture Commons^™

Existentialism And Creative Practice, Catherine Hudgens

School of Art Undergraduate Honors Theses

The creative process mimics the existentialist philosophy of human freedom and the responsibility to create one’s own meaning in life through an emphasis on invention, experimentation, and ceaseless becoming. Through my body of work, I examine the meaning-giving capacities of the viewer and creator as agents involved in a work of art. The sculptures, as well as found objects, have the power to illuminate the human circumstances they emerged from, while the process of making is also the process of learning, where objects can be used to understand ourselves and the world. Philosophical concepts can be accessed through art in …

A Different Perspective On Christmas, Jessika Hughes

Forces

No abstract provided.

Tiny Details, Jessika Hughes

Forces

No abstract provided.

Remembering Wenonah: Colonialism And The Power Of Representation, Adam Gaffey, Monica De Grazia, Iyekiyapiwiƞ Darlene St. Clair, Jill Ahlberg Yohe

CLASP Lecture Series

This panel explores how the lover’s leap narrative and its representation of Native American figures has been used to forge distinctive visions of public memory both in and beyond Winona, Minnesota. For most, details of the lover’s leap are reduced to Wenonah’s fatal action, specifically how she protested her family’s rigid customs of arranged marriage by jumping to her death from a bluff atop the Mississippi River. The goal of this panel is to offer a fuller account of the purposes this story has served in popular memory and the implications of its persistence for different audiences, past and present. …

Creativity, Craftsmanship, And Connection: Large-Format Sculpture Design, Jacqueline L. Puga, Gordon Hoople

The STEAM Journal

Artistry is a concept that is not usually explored in engineering yet is an invaluable skill that touches everything from product design to systems thinking. This past summer I developed conceptual designs for a large format sculpture that required connecting engineering knowledge with artistic vision. The initial phase required constant inspiration and creativity. The first step was to look at previous sculptures showcased throughout the world, such as at venues like “Burning Man,” to understand the possibilities or limitations of the space provided. Sketching varied and numerous ideas was essential in our design process. Next, we took our favorite ideas …

Future Trash, Xinan Ran

Theses and Dissertations

Xinan Ran explores the politically different, yet similar cultural habits that China and the US share under the influence of late-stage capitalism. Through her handmade, speculative products inspired by novelty gadgets, or “Unitaskers,” she examines the heightened prevalence of the contemporary wellness market. The project “Future Trash” encompasses soft sculptures, printed materials, performance, and installation.

Bloody Show, Leonie Weber

Theses and Dissertations

Leonie Weber reflects on how reproductive, domestic, and emotional labor is addressed in her artwork, and her experience as an artist-parent in the art world. Moreover, she specifically discusses mothers who are navigating their own artistic paths. Her practice encompasses sculpture, printmaking, performance, and installation.

Subject To Change, Shauna Steinbach

Theses and Dissertations

Making visible what is often unseen, muted, or ignored, Shauna Steinbach discusses the unscientific models that make up their sculpture and installation practice. Steinbach’s work explores philosophical thoughts and inquiries surrounding imprints, impermanence, and interdependence. The deaths are small until they are big.

Jogakpo Window (7 Feet X 4 Feet), Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

Materials: glass, sunlight, post-it notes. Image description: Photographs show a large window covered with a 조각보 patchwork of colorful post-it notes. Sunlight illuminates the paper.

Symbols In Sketchbooks, Diana Rice

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

My installation is an expression of the sketchbook in the sense that it is an object bound by time. Specifically, it is the assemblage of time, cognition, and the materiality of the sketchbook. The installation consists of various sized papers interlinked by tied thread. On the papers are drawings and sketches arranged in proximity to other sketches that are the inspiration or iteration of one another. Thus, a web of evolution is created. This project is an exploration of how images are created and evolved, such as symbols, and how the material construction and physical presentation of the installation affects …

Effects Of Surface Noise On Printing Artifacts: An Artistic Approach To Hiding Print Artifacts, Samuel New

All Theses

This research focuses on improving the quality of Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) 3D printing by using fractal noise to mask certain print artifacts (e.g. layer lines and stair-stepping). The use of textures is quite common in digital sculpting for aesthetic reasons. This study focuses on finding specific textures that minimize visible 3D print artifacts.

Nepantla: The Space In-Between, Samantha Shamard

All Theses

The word Nepantla is from the Mesoamerican Nahuatl language and is used by theorist Gloria Anzaldúa to describe a space of mixed, and borderland identity. Nepantla: the space in-between creates a physical manifestation of my experience as a mixed Latina woman raised in American suburban culture. This series is made up of ceramic objects on wall-mounted altars made of wood panels adorned with wallpaper and paint. The surfaces utilize visual references and color schemes from 90s girls’ bedrooms and Mexican pop-culture. Ceramic bones and cacti mounted onto the altar forms are all made through molded ceramic processes, which for me …

Aiii Sài Gòn Hông?, Jackie Ta, Ngoc Uyen Phuong Ta

All Theses

“Aiii Sài Gòn Hông?”

In Saigon, “Ai… hông?” is a phrase that street vendors often shout to advertise what they sell for the day. This body of work, “Aiii Sài Gòn Hông?” (Translates: “Saigon, anyone?”) invites the audience to take a glimpse into the vivid everyday life in contemporary Vietnam through a perspective of a Saigon local. Utilizing the modalities of painting and sculpture, I collect, accumulate and organize parts of the streets and marketplace by manipulating and amplifying certain key visual elements. The goal of the work is to reconstruct an experiential space that speaks not only to the …

North Coast Otters Public Arts Initiative: Commemorative Auction Catalog, J. M. Black

Archives & Reprint Series (imprint)

In 1999, a citizen science program for submitting river otter observations was created through the Humboldt State University Wildlife department. In 2017, Jeff and Gilly Black from the HSU Wildlife department were inspired by the public arts initiative by The Art of Fundraising project of England's Dartmoor National Park. In 2019, a special partnership with Ink People Center for the Arts, North Coast Open Studios, HSU’s Art Department, Crescent City Art, and the Trinity County Arts Council led to local North Coast artists decorating more than 100 3-foot-tall otter sculptures. The sculptures were displayed at shops, galleries, schools, and other …

Kiss/Caress, Laurie Green

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

Like many aspects of self, my sexuality remained under wraps for the first three decades of my life. I felt desexualised in my body, unaware of my autism but deeply aware of my alienation and social position. Unable to find a sexual reflection in popular culture and bombarded with tropes of toxic masculinity I turned my sexual desires inwards. Only with my closest confidant, my partner, did any semblance of sexuality emerge, mediated by images and symbols imbibed as a teenager. My deep desire for connection that extended into sexuality felt ossified and unaired—kept in an air-sealed wrapper, like a …

S.O.S., Sondra P. Schwetman

IdeaFest: Interdisciplinary Journal of Creative Works and Research from Cal Poly Humboldt

There are two major bodies of work I generate: one is based on three-dimensional clothing construction, and the other is allegorical figurative work. Both bodies of work display their own poetry. Working with materials such as: Forton MG resin, fibers, bronze, found objects, etc., I feel that possessing knowledge in as many mediums as possible is necessary so that one can achieve a “vision” that is a basis for communication. It is my desire to start a dialogue about women’s issues, cultural change, and contemporary miasma. S.O.S. addresses a variety of related issues: bearing witness to our current times, social …

Tableaux For The Future, Sally Curcio

Masters Theses

My sculptural installations aim to elicit a sense of optimism and possibility through form, color, and mode of display. The work subverts the symbolic order by repurposing everyday forms and objects, allowing us to see the familiar as new, and thereby awakening us to what may be possible to formulate a better, more beautiful, more universally connected order.

Winding Down River Road, Gillian Harper

LSU Master's Theses

As a mechanism to explore my temporary home in Louisiana, Winding Down River Road is a collection of artworks that integrates natural materials collected from landscapes in southern Louisiana with steel and petroleum-based products. My interest in researching environmental issues, ecology, and industry has shaped my vehicles for observation and how I generate data. Through a variety of methodologies, I am considering how climate change is forcing many of us to re-contextualize how our home can be affected by the very industries we rely on. Personal engagement with residents living in the dystopian atmosphere of southern Louisiana’s industrial corridor and …

Half In Dream: The Tangle In The Grid, Abbey L. Paccia

Masters Theses

Half in Dream: The Tangle in the Grid discusses the form and content of a physical art installation by the same name. The site-specific installation is a large three-dimensional collage of natural ephemera collected from the area around Amherst, Massachusetts, which interacts with natural lighting conditions to illuminate a gallery-facing image of ever-moving light and shadow. The written work elaborates some of the many details within the structure of the artwork, and reveals the philosophies, embodied practices, and methodologies that informed the visual work's creation. Woven throughout are reflections on phenomenology, walking practice, General Systems Theory, collective making, narrative arts, …

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 …