Fine Arts Commons^™

Sad Swimmer, Janie Packer

be Still

Clay is such an exciting and responsive medium in which to work. Most often I only have a germ of an idea when I begin a project. I begin to build a form and before I know it, a wild dance has begun between me and the clay. It seems to know the steps and where we are headed, so I blithely follow along, taking my cues from a bend or an outcropping in the clay. Maybe it’s starting to look like a weeping woman, or a cat with a crown on its head. I just let the dance go …

The Mysterious Woman, Eno-Emem Okpokpo

be Still

While creating this image, I took these questions into account. What I love most about the process is that all of these questions can be answered by the viewers of this artwork. Based on our own experiences, we can come up with story lines for everything that we see. Therein lies the beauty of art. Its true meaning is left to the creative imagination of whomever appreciates it.

As healthcare professionals, we have to understand that each patient might be our “Mysterious Woman”. We have to appreciate the fact that our patients are emotional beings and not just a collection …

Looking From Within, Phillip Berges, Berges Alvarez

be Still

I made this with my father using a lateral chest X-ray superimposed under a quality control film. Together, we drew in the facial features, cut and pasted and enlarged the photographic image to produce this beautiful, strong assertive woman. We thought this image perfectly reflects the power, determination, and mystery contained within her gaze. Together and from within, women show their strength.

Untitled, Ben Sokoloff

be Still

In the outdated traditional view of women, spiders are associated with certain qualities and attributes. Beauty. Grace. Cunning. Homemakers. Skill with crafts. I tried to imagine these over-generalized features in another form that can be juxtaposed with this antiquated view. And I came up with the spider from the story of Arachne.

Root Of Everything, Christina Mangiaracina

be Still

This piece is entitled Root of Everything. A woman waters the soil like she nurtures her family and inspires our minds. She plants the seeds in our heads so we can explore and see paths blooming from the branch up north all the way to the branch down south. The female form is the nutrient of life.

The Bather, Paula Waziry

be Still

What inspired me to work on the female form was the belief that our minds can create our reality. Most of my life I had suffered from morbid obesity - reaching at one point 288 lbs. Most likely my body weight reached higher numbers, but I refused to step on the scale after observing the dreaded 288! I was suffering from low self esteem, depression, severe low back pain, tendinitis, plantar fasciitis and several other "itis" when I realized that the most powerful tool that I had available was my brain. If I was going to turn my life around, …

Sibyl, Paula Waziry

be Still

What inspired me to work on the female form was the belief that our minds can create our reality. Most of my life I had suffered from morbid obesity - reaching at one point 288 lbs. Most likely my body weight reached higher numbers, but I refused to step on the scale after observing the dreaded 288! I was suffering from low self esteem, depression, severe low back pain, tendinitis, plantar fasciitis and several other "itis" when I realized that the most powerful tool that I had available was my brain. If I was going to turn my life around, …

Birth Of Venus, Paula Waziry

be Still

What inspired me to work on the female form was the belief that our minds can create our reality. Most of my life I had suffered from morbid obesity - reaching at one point 288 lbs. Most likely my body weight reached higher numbers, but I refused to step on the scale after observing the dreaded 288! I was suffering from low self esteem, depression, severe low back pain, tendinitis, plantar fasciitis and several other "itis" when I realized that the most powerful tool that I had available was my brain. If I was going to turn my life around, …

Black-\`Blak\, Venise Keys

Theses and Dissertations

My studio practice explores themes of identity derived from the basic question of Langston Hughes, What does it mean to be a Black artist? My artwork draws from memory, Black Feminist literature, along with the aesthetics of the African diaspora and the Black Arts Movement. In this essay, I reexamine childhood experiences in my mother's hair salon; beauty rituals of U.S. Black women; and the consuming male gaze in Western art to explain how these influences manifest in the artwork of Black-\`BLAK\.

Fragmentation Of Thought, Thomas Seay

Graduate Theses

This thesis statement expounds on my thesis exhibition, a series of four sculptures that explore the contemporary expanding field of sculpture through the fusion of non-traditional or unmonumental materials with portrait painting and collage techniques. The works are built on questions of form, and references historical art movements: Renaissance and Baroque, Cubism, and Post- Modernism. The first is present in the classical portraiture I include in the pieces; the second, in the fragmented style; the third, in the multiple narrative voices of viewers, in the use of non-traditional or unmonumental materials, and in the unexpected groupings of objects, both made …

Reflections, Nsu University School

Hieroglyphics: the NSU University School Literary Magazine

No abstract provided.

Stories Of Otherness, Lee Ann Harrison

Graduate Theses

The thesis exhibition Stories of Otherness is an interactive installation created using dance, music, photography, video, ceramic figurative sculptures, and armatures of found objects to create a voyeuristic and physically participatory experience of situational art. Many artists from various art and literary genres influence my research and art, including Petah Coyne, Mona Hatoum, Pina Bausch, Mia Michaels, and Jeanette Winterson. The multi-faceted combination of art mediums and artists inspires me to create a mixed media, multi-dimensional installation for an immersive participant’s experience as a source for awareness, empathy, reflection, and ultimately as a “call to action” evoking change.

This thesis …

Vita Via Dolorosa, Vivianne Lee Carey

Graduate Theses

This thesis statement accompanies my MFA project entitled Vita via Dolorosa, which features a glass and steel horse-drawn carriage sculpture that metaphorically depicts a woman’s journey through life, from childhood to death. Supporting the carriage, which is the primary sculpture in this exhibit, is a performance piece that addresses the transformation of this woman by means of sculpture, music and drama. This largely autobiographical multidisciplinary exhibit uses the metaphor to explore the passage of time symbolically through the dark, aged-color palette, the iconic imagery, and the combination of animate and inanimate sculptural resources such as horses, steel and glass. …

Ripple, Surge, Release, Meryl E. Engler

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

There is something primal and instinctual about living through the physicality of one’s body. The body reacts to the world through feel, ruled not by logic and rational thought, but rather energy, movement and impulse. While this might seem mindless, focusing on the physical for me leads to a state of mindfulness, where every action serves a purpose and I seek to reach clarity through repeated exertion. In art, I seek to slip into this mindful state so each layer of carving, printing, and paper comes from the decisive awareness of my movements and energy.

Growing up playing among the …

Ceramic Apprenticeship With Professor Eddie Dominguez, Victoria E. Norton

UCARE: Research Products

The purpose of this research is to explore specific techniques and processes as employed by Eddie Dominguez through an apprenticeship in ceramic art in which I will be intimately involved in both the critical thinking and process of Professor Dominguez’ work. Topics of focus include building upon my skills of testing glazes and clays in order to discover which glaze and clay combinations cater best to the work. I also plan to investigate idea generation and art concept, an element of Eddie Dominguez’s work that is very important.

Many other vital studio practices were implemented during the apprenticeship. Skills such …

Factors That Lead Students To Study Music Education : A Descriptive Study., Alexander T. Hamilton Ii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to survey music education students in their first year of undergraduate studies to learn what influences and/or musical experiences affected their choice in selecting music education as their major. Participants (N = 28) were enrolled in an Introduction to Music Education course at a mid-sized metropolitan university. Subjects were asked to complete a survey and rate perceived degree of influences on the selection of the music education major. Participants were also asked to provide written responses on personal influences that led them to select music education as a major. Survey results indicated that …

The Materiality Of Wood In Michelangelo’S Biblioteca Laurenziana: The Laurentian Staircase, Kaitlin Arbusto

Art & Art History

During the sixteenth century, Michelangelo designed a library at the Florentine monastery of San Lorenzo that was, even during its time, quite unlike any other from the Renaissance era. Though the master clearly sought to produce something dramatically different from what had already been done, library design had a long history that he would have known. Although today’s libraries are most closely related to their medieval European precursors, many of the canonical elements of ancient Roman libraries have survived into the modern era. Like their medieval counterparts, ancient libraries often had separate quarters for Greek and Latin volumes and were …

Crossing The Divide: Art As Mediation And Pilgrimage, Sophia Keskey

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

Founded on my personal experiences of growing up in an interfaith household and my high school semester abroad in Israel, my artistic practice seeks to build bridges between people, connecting diverse communities across divides (cultural, religious, economic, racial, ethnic etc.). Through two process, mediation and pilgrimage to self, specifically in using myself as an active participant, I argue that the process of making can become the neutral ground in which to build relationships and begin to imagine coexistence.

Mediation is expressed by Homi Bhabha’s definition of negotiation: “The ability to articulate differences in space and time…to intervene in the forest …

A World In Flux : Envisioning Climate Change From An Ecocentric Perspective., Katlyn Brumfield

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

Compositional Intent: A Presentation Of Original Music, Daniel R. Key

Music Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper summarizes the inspiration, compositional techniques, and performance history of three works by composer Daniel Ryan Key: cling (2015), for euphonium, tuba, and piano; GAIA (2014), for two flutes; and Hours (2016), for chamber orchestra. Hours is a work in two movements, "0400" and "1700."