American Art and Architecture Commons^™

Nikki S. Lee’S Self-Stereotyping And Refiguring Cultural Stereotypes, Somi Lee

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines a Korean Conceptual photographer, Nikki S. Lee’s performative photographs and film in the series of Projects (1998-2001) and Parts (2002-2005). Through a theoretical analysis of her self-representation in disguise, my research explores established Western stereotypes as well as the artist’s fluid identity in relation to other cultures.

Sconce Upon A Time: Evaluating Multimodal Methods Of Researching Period Lighting Technology, A Case Study Of Drayton Hall, Neale Elizabeth Grisham

All Theses

This thesis reviews several methods of researching light sources and lighting schemes from the “long eighteenth century,”[1] on a historical site. Despite the period’s cultural reliance on lighting as well as technological advancement in this era, there has yet to be published documentation on how to engage with evidence of lighting technology on historic sites for better understanding of the site’s relationship with lighting.

Using Drayton Hall in Charleston, South Carolina as a case study, this thesis outlines and demonstrates the process of five methods of investigating period lighting technology. These methods are: wall investigation, anchorage points comparison and …

The Dance Of Domesticity: How Gender Constructs Obscure Lived Experience At Museums, Marcy J. Botwick

Museum Studies Theses

My thesis focuses on Mary Shepard Greene Blumenschein and Ernest L. Blumenschein, married artists born in the late 1860s. Ernest Blumenschein was an important regional artist and member of the Taos Society of Artists (TSA). Paintings by Blumenschein and other TSA members promoted tourism in the Southwestern United States through annual exhibitions and their use in advertising the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (AT&SF). Mary Greene Blumenschein was an award-winning painter and illustrator whose work focused on images of women at the beginning of the twentieth century, however, she is now a secondary and obscure figure in art history. …

Creating A 1940s Costume: A Historical Investigation, Jennifer Mott

The Confluence

The purpose of this Art History research investigation was to create a costume from the 1940s by immersing myself in a time period when people often made their own clothing. This was done to better understand what it means to have a personal connection to the items I wear. Our experiences as consumers in the twenty-first century are vastly different than those belonging to the people that lived during the mid-twentieth century because almost all of our clothing is purchased from corporations and created by people that we will likely never meet. For this investigative study, I shopped for and …

Portrait Of The Artist’S Wife: Dorothea Webster Mitchell, 1894-1985, Molly Mcclain

History: Faculty Scholarship

Dorothea Webster Mitchell participated in the career of her husband, a well-known plein air artist Alfred R. Mitchell working in San Diego, California. The article reconstructs Dorothea's subjectivity, or changing conceptions of herself as a creative and artistic woman who found herself enmeshed in her husband's life and work.

Constructing A Religious Paradox: The Nauvoo Temple, 1841-1846, Justin R. Bates

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

While still in poverty and fleeing heavy persecution in 1841, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints committed themselves to an unexpected architectural endeavor. They decided to construct a temple to their God in their newly christened frontier city of Nauvoo, Illinois. What motivated these poor, homeless, persecuted Christians to start construction on such an ambitious project? Though they were being driven from the state, were about to lose the Temple, and had just lost their alleged prophet, they still chose to finish it. Despite significant financial and social challenges, the Latter-day Saints chose to build the …

An Early And Feminist History Of The Paula Cooper Gallery, Kristen Clevenson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides a microhistory of Paula Cooper’s early efforts in creating a more cooperative gallery model with emerging artists and seeding the growth of SoHo, New York. It also argues for Cooper’s unheralded role in sustaining women artists through marketing, economic support, visibility, and wider institutional opportunities.

Pioneers Of Evacuation, Pioneers Of Resettlement: The Photographic Archive Of The Japanese American Incarceration And The Settler Colonial Imaginary, Christina Hobbs

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reexamines the photographic archive of the Japanese American incarceration during World War II produced by the US government, arguing that these images “restage” the evacuation, incarceration, and resettlement periods through a settler colonial “pioneer” mythology, thereby obscuring the precarity of Japanese Americans' racial positionality between “settler” and “native.”

Ryan Hitt Collection, University Archives And Special Collections, Prescott Memorial Library, Louisiana Tech University

University Archives Finding Aids

The Ryan Hitt Collection (800 C.E. - 1600 C.E.; 2 linear feet) is a collection of pottery shards, points, and plumbs found by the donor hunting for artifacts in fields and woods.

How Can Biomimicry Inform A Sustainable, Ethical Future In Architecture And Design?, Chloe Hanf

University Honors Theses

This publication traces effects of systems theory and assemblage thinking on American architecture and design since the 1960's in relation to contemporary ecological thought and biological discoveries. Building upon these observations, the author concludes that biomimicry belongs at the forefront of contemporary theory and praxis in architecture and design.

Disorientations, Noah Greene-Lowe

MFA in Visual Art

The materials that make up the ordinary and mundane in the United States also reinforce and normalize a white spatial imaginary. Conventions of mapping, imaging of land and landscape, and elements of the built environment continue to orient us in a logic of space as property. In my sculptural work, I employ strategies of disorientation and creative repair, or reconstruction, to unsettle the spatial practices of whiteness and structures of power embedded in the mundane, the familiar, and the domestic. I consider the planned cohousing community where I grew up as an influence on my work, and my whiteness. By …

Echoed Sites And The Unknowable Object, Joseph Canizales

MFA in Visual Art

This thesis will discuss the expanded field of sculpture, simulacra, digital technology, and two terms I’ve devised: the unknowable object, and echoed sites. Within these two terms, I’m concerned with the complicated relationship between humans and geology and how we extract material from the ground without reflecting on the geologic history of the site. In echoed sites I create sculptures with and without a geologic site or object, by way of digital technology. These forms display two states paradoxically in balance, where what’s presented leaves more questions than answers. Thus, as part of echoed sites, exists the unknowable object. …

Preservation And Public History In Mound Bayou, Mississippi, Walker Bray

Honors Theses

This paper is an exploration of the history of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, an all Black community in the Mississippi Delta formed by freedmen in the wake of Reconstruction. This paper also discusses the ways in which Mound Bayou citizens are working to preserve their history and make it known to a wider audience. In particular, this work discusses the recently opened Mound Bayou Museum of African American Culture and History and related efforts to restore and preserve historic structures in Mound Bayou. In addition, this work also seeks to explore ways in which the University of Mississippi can effectively supplement …

Framing Colonialism: An Analysis Of Kent Monkman’S Mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People), Jasen D. Evoy

The Confluence

The 2019 diptych mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) by Kent Monkman is one of a series of recent commissions by the Metropolitan Museum in New York granted to diverse artists, shifting the Museum’s focus to a broader, inclusive, and global scope. Monkman’s large scale paintings are site specific, exploring interactions between the work and the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum. The work uses visual quotation to connect to historical works within the collection of the Met, thereby commenting on the legacy of colonialism and subsequent impacts on Native peoples and cultures. The analysis of the work focuses on visual and …

The Construction And Defense Of Artistic Authorship In Contemporary Copyright Disputes, Sophie Bell

Theses and Dissertations

Through the lens of three contemporary copyright infringement cases, this thesis examines topics in the field of art law, each grounded in the recent history of art and its controversies, in order to illuminate the unique set of legal conditions shaping contemporary artmaking, sale, and exhibition in the United States.

Black And Silver Screens: Afropessimism And Filmic Appropriation In Contemporary Video Art, Madeleine A. Seidel

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis looks at the video works of artists Ulysses Jenkins, Ina Archer, and Garrett Bradley and their appropriation of images of Black actors in Classic Hollywood films through the theoretical framework of afropessimism.

“Paint What You Hate”: Philip Guston’S Hooded Figures And The Postponement Of The Exhibition Philip Guston Now, Thomas Baldwin

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis interrogates the postponement of the Philip Guston Now exhibition, examining the justification for the postponement, the actions taken by the National Gallery of Art, and the effects of the postponement. My research examines the museum’s choice to cite social justice as the main context for understanding Philip Guston.

Achakali Chickasha Holbachi Italatalit Ithana: Continuation Of Chickasaw Design Practices, Lily Shore

Interior Design Undergraduate Honors Theses

The project aims to create an accessible tool to document, preserve, and honor Chickasaw design techniques by creating interactive 3D models replicating ancestral structures available through an online gallery. A virtual exhibition focuses on structures commonly found in a traditional Chickasaw village. The constructions represented include a traditional council house, summer house, winter house, and corn crib. Each is accompanied by contextual information, including a collection of historical photographs, information concerning use, and conventional architectural drawings such as plans, sections, and isometric views. In fruition, the project aims to function as a resource to commemorate the history of traditional Chickasaw …

The Evolution Of Place And Neighborhood Identity In Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, Isai Castaneda

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research paper examines the relationship between place and identity by looking at the evolution of both in the specificity of the neighborhood of Boyle Heights, in Los Angeles, California. The role of the built environment and its evolution is tied to socio-cultural evolution in Boyle Heights in a narrative that emphasizes the systems of power and control that emerge through the lenses of dwelling and transportation infrastructure. Historical review of secondary sources, images, and graphics (like maps) serve to support the arguments made. The research paper focuses on Boyle Heights and Los Angeles during its interwar years, primarily examining …

The Met Costume Institute: Evolution, Metamorphosis, And Cultural Phenomenon, Shelby Kanski

Senior Honors Projects

No abstract provided.