Art Practice Commons^™

Dab Shunt Spoor, Jen Grabarczyk

CGU MFA Theses

My work functions as an act of bearing witness. In it, I process consciousness, memory, narrative and time through the choreographed integration of cerebral representations and bodily movement. Through forms both strange and elegant, I seek to activate a viewer’s memory and consciousness–psychologically and corporeally.

Elke Krystufek And The Obessive Production Of Person, Melanie E. Emerson

Mid-America College Art Association Conference 2012 Digital Publications

Elke Krystufek’s artistic practice has centered almost wholly on duplicate and substitute images of herself, specifically emphasizing the female body and its position within the discourses of art history and gendered identity. While an earlier generation of feminist artists used their bodies as subject and object of their work in order to critique stereotypes and forcefully dismantle barriers that excluded women from the public sphere or labeled them objects of desire, Krystufek uses similar tactics to point to the fact there is no longer a private space. Identity is not solely the property of an individual, but rather an open …

Intimate Distance: Negotiating The Urban/Suburban Divide, Whitney L. Sage

Mid-America College Art Association Conference 2012 Digital Publications

As a native of Farmington Hills, a suburb thirty minutes outside of Detroit, I have always had a peculiar relationship with the city. As a child I visited Detroit often for family outings to the DIA and Tiger Stadium. Hours later we would be driving on I-96 returning west. All of my early memories of Detroit are happy and warm, however they are seen through the rose-colored glass of wide cultural and geographic separation from the city. In this way, my artwork, which discusses Detroit’s past and present through literal representation, radiates nostalgia and expresses both a sense of intimacy …

Creating With Code: Critical Thinking And Digital Foundations, Brad Tober

Mid-America College Art Association Conference 2012 Digital Publications

While students are often attracted to opportunities to learn how to use software applications commonly employed by digital artists and designers, the fact remains that time spent on purely software-based instruction in the classroom is time that could arguably be better spent on exploring the broader conceptual issues of making digital work. This presentation begins to frame an argument for the comprehensive integration of code-based technologies, such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Processing/Java, openFrameworks/C++, and Objective-C, into digital art and design foundation curricula. This integration holds the potential to position code-based technologies as new media for teaching art and design alongside …

How To Produce Articulate Artists, Peter J. Barr Phd, Christine Reising

Mid-America College Art Association Conference 2012 Digital Publications

This twenty-minute Powerpoint presentation will describe the team-taught, year-long Foundations Core Concepts Program at Siena Heights University in Adrian, Michigan. It has been in place since 2006 and has successfully integrated a course previously called "Language of Art" (taught by an art historian) with hands-on studio assignments previously taught in a stand-alone design course (taught by a studio professor). We have found that this hybrid approach is extremely effective in developing sensitive and articulate art majors who are prepared to integrate design concepts into all of their artworks and to analyze and describe eloquently both personal and historical works of …

Man : Woman : Human, Maressa Tosto Merwarth

Theses

The present day atmosphere seems to be so much about one or the other. Whether it is politics, religion, or even something as small as Apple or PC, it seems like it is impossible to exist in the middle; you either "are" or "are not." With the blinders firmly strapped on, there is so much not coming into view. By only seeing things in absolutes, is what we DO NOT experience and believe as important as what we DO?

This is a cumbersome question without a simple yes or no answer. However, rather than attempting to create some kind of …

Trafačka: Young Artists In An Alternative Space (Life Of D.I.Y.), Dora Novey-Buttfield

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper documents the functions and internal structure of Trafačka, an experimental arts space located in the Prague 9 district. There is very little research on the presence and significance of alternative culture in Prague today, and the term itself is difficult to define. Using personal interviews conducted by the author and some background research on Czech alternative culture and spaces, the study highlights the stories of the residents and artists of Trafačka in light of the debate on alternative culture.

The author explains how Trafačka is an example alternative space and describes the complexities of being separated from other …

Platten En Perkament, Peter D. Verheyen, Marlene Hoogeveen (Translator)

Librarian Publications

Translation into Dutch for Handboekbinden (Journal of the Stichting Handboekbinden) by Marlene Hoogeveen of: Peter D. Verheyen. "Vellum on Boards" The Guild of Book Workers Journal 39 (2004). Vellum is arguably one of the most beautiful binding materials in use, and at the same time one of the least used in modern design bindings. While it is often used in limp bindings, its use “over hard boards” has been much more limited. A study of the bookbinding literature reveals it being covered in-depth to a larger degree in German language trade manuals than in English. This could explain their seemingly …

Female Flesh And Medieval Practice In The Later Middle Ages, Megan E. Marzec

Mid-America College Art Association Conference 2012 Digital Publications

My work explores the importance and presence of the female body in medieval religious practice as exemplified in medieval art, religious texts and hagiographies. My research shows that while the reasoning behind female imagery and imagery of the nude is disputed, the prevalence of mandorla-like images, images of the female nude, and images displaying the femininity of Christ suggest the meaningfulness to the medieval viewer. I discuss extensively Julia Kristeva’s writing on the woman as abject and the artistic experience as an element of religiosity. For this research I analyzed works by various artists including Robert Campin, Jan Gossaert and …

Circulating Collections Book Repair Manual, Marianne Swanberry Hanley

Treatment Manuals

The audience for this manual are work-study students and library technicians working charged with repairing items from our circulating book collection. Be careful because a repair done incorrectly can cause more harm than good if you are not sure don’t do it. Never be afraid to ask, no question is too small.

It is important to maintain control over your work. Work should be neat and organized. When new staff is hired they are trained by an experienced person and given manuals for reference. Each employee’s work is reviewed periodically to be certain that they understand the principles and techniques …

Blanket Statements, Issue 109, Fall 2012

Blanket Statements: News Publication of the American Quilt Study Group

Blanket Statements, Issue 109, Fall 2012

Preconciousness, Michael James Ripp

All Student Theses and Dissertations

Preconsciousness ... Explores the topographical model of the mind through the deconstruction of accepted realities. Blurring the boundaries of consciousness and unconsciousness. Embracing and accepting the abstract view of the mind as “realms” independent of each other. Surreal, yet familiar spaces and environments become a gateway to the preconscious and a deeper awareness. These unique spaces become a catalyst for a physiological journey to the unconscious. Complex views and interpretations of oneself and ones experiences come to the surface. Engaging memories and emotions such as anxiety ... joy… tranquility………manifesting as physical space as spaces become representations of unconscious. Minds are …

All That I Am Or Hope To Be, I Owe To My Angel, My Mother, Pamela Planera

All Student Theses and Dissertations

All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel, my mother. A quote that binds the relationship my mother and I will always have, through life, death and the paths I choose for my future to fulfill a promise. A promise I intend to keep and fulfill until we meet again… on the other side…

All dilapidated architectural buildings of my series are considered symbolic spaces. They become tangible - representing a venue of dreams where we become deeply affected, by our behavior, our environment, our society and ourselves. Each venue spawned an identity - it’s …

Downing, Joseph Dudley, 1925-2007 (Sc 2598), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2598. Letters from artist Joseph Dudley Downing, France, to Elinor Green (later Hunter), who worked for the United States State Department in Bern, Switzerland. They discuss their shared interest in art and discuss upcoming visits. Also includes letters from Joseph’s brother, Dero Downing, to Green discussing the possibility of donating artwork to Western Kentucky University.

Temporalities And The Drawn Response To The Conservation And Restoration Of Paintings, Brian Fay

Other resources

This paper will consider the temporal implications for drawing in the light of conservation and restoration treatments to paintings by the Seventeenth Century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer.

Using three critical frameworks: Norman Bryson’s becoming model for drawing and the relationship of liminality to a painting during conservation/restoration, George Didi Huberman’s anti-chronological reading of the detail and the pan in painting, and Walter Benjamin’s definitions of drawing the paper will seek to address some implications for a drawing practice that responds to a pre-existing museum artworks.

The paper will present some findings from my own drawing practice that responds to Vermeer’s …

The Mamluk Kaaba Curtain In The Bursa Grand Mosque, Sumiyo Okumura

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

A Kaaba curtain is a door curtain which covers the door of the holy Kaaba, the most sacred site of Islam in Mecca. Upon the occasion of the conquest of Egypt and Hejaz by Sultan Selim I in 1517, Selim I donated a Kaaba door curtain to the Bursa Grand Mosque, one of the five most important mosques in the Islamic World. This Mamluk curtain is very different from Ottoman Kaaba curtains in both its shape and design motifs. It is noticeable that five fragments, including a piece of inscription, hang down from the upper border. We see a similar …

The Kanga, A Cloth That Reveals- Co-Production Of Culture In Africa And The Indian Ocean Region, Phyllis A. Ressler

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The Kanga is one of Africa's least understood textiles. As a simple cotton, colorful, hand and machine printed cloth it embodies dynamic historical co-production of culture throughout African and Indian Ocean trade networks. Exploring African mercantile trade history, the coproduction and exchange of iconography, the diverse use and meanings of the Kanga, suggests a valuable discursive role for this textile. Despite its longevity of more than 150 years, its significant role in creation of identities, and its contribution to communication through design and social meaning, the Kanga, receives limited attention in textile research. Though seen by many as a simple …

The Parenthetical Notation Method For Recording Yarn Structure, Jeffrey C. Splitstoser

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Until now, describing yarn structure has been more art than science, especially for complex yarns and cordage like those encountered at Cerrillos, a Paracas (ca. 900-100 B.C.E.) site in the Ica Valley of Peru, where yarns and cordage frequently involve multiple colors, sub-structures, and materials (e.g., Image 1). My early attempts at describing yarn structures using notation were essentially undecipherable to others. Likewise, narrative methods proved too wordy and no less confusing. (For instance, a narrative description of the structure of specimen 2001-L185-B1654- S001, a rope-like yarn pictured in Images 2 and 3, would be: Twelve Z-spun-singly-ply yarns Ztwisted with …

The Twenty-First Century Voices Of The Ashanti Adinkra And Kente Cloths Of Ghana, Carol Ventura

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Craft production and use are continually adapting to meet the needs of consumers and the market in order to survive. The Adinkra and Kente cloths of Ghana are no exception, having maintained their visibility and viability by addressing changing and challenging economic and political realities. Fabric strips are sewn together to produce rectangular Adinkra and Kente cloths that are wrapped around human bodies in styles determined by gender and rank. These cloths are not only beautiful, but communicate as well. Old and new symbols representing proverbs, beliefs, and politics are woven into Kente and printed onto Adinkra cloths. Commemorative fabrics …

Queen Alexandra’S 1902 Coronation Gown, Donald Clay Johnson

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Queen Victoria's wearing black mourning clothes for 40 of the 63 years of her reign prompted much discussion between fashion-setting Prince Edward and Princess Alexandra about what should the new queen wear for her coronation, the first state occasion in which they, as king and queen, could define taste and fashion for what was to become the Edwardian era. With such a long interval of time since the last coronation there were no strong expressions of traditional attire for such a ritual occasion which prompted the new king and queen to think expansively about the roles and functions the coronation …