Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Pleasure Is All Mine, Lola Ogbara

Graduate School of Art Theses

One’s identity is shaped by many factors such as race, culture, physical appearance, nationality, and religion—amongst many more. As an artist, the subjugation of identity in the context of race, gender, and sexuality is a world I examine closely. Subverting myths of sexual deviancy and racial inferiority that perpetually pathologizes Black feminine sexuality, I often use and reference my own body to create avenues of power through physical and intellectual pleasure. Through material use of clay, metal, photography, and installation, I emphasize on how contemporary Black social cultures are able to write their own narratives in order to further progressions …

Big Girl | Little Girl, Emily Mueller

Graduate School of Art Theses

In my thesis document, I unpack the relationship of my photographs to space, bodies, language, and childhood through a feminist lens. The interaction with these various aspects alludes to larger societal structures that inform identity. I am interested in the negotiation between gender and the way it informs the occupation of space, both photographic and physical. The intersection between subjects and objects is dissected using the definitions of these terms set forth by Judith Butler. Becoming a subject does not indicate that one is free from the power that creates it. The figure in my photographs wonders if attempting to …

Branding On A Budget: Marketing In The Nonprofit Sector, Nicholas Biere

Honors Projects

“Branding on a Budget: Marketing in the Nonprofit Sector” This service learning project combines academic research with experiential service learning. The purpose of this project was to create a strong brand for BeInstrumental, a nonprofit music education organization from Toledo, Ohio through the creation of a graphic branding plan. Principles of visual communication technology, graphic design, marketing strategies, branding, and graphic design are all implemented in this project.

Alternative Methods, Hunter Stabler

LSU Master's Theses

ABSTRACT

In the realm of precognitive artmaking, the artist’s role is that of an antenna. One must be receptive to the subtle, invisible flow of creative novelty in order to participate in the involuntary channeling of new ideas, new processes, and alternative methods of creative production. Carving out new territory within the realm of static art is a primary objective for my artistic process. By utilizing digital fabrication tools, paired with my affinity for intricate craft and optical metagrobolization, I have created a body of work that invents alternative processes and unique aesthetic languages.

Digital imaging, digital modeling and digital …

Recreating The Virtual Bullets That Pierces Through The Soul Of Gaming: Video Games And Its Cultural Perception On America’S Violent Homefrontier, Brandon Palomino

ART 108: Introduction to Games Studies

For the past fifty years, video games have been around as a form of entertainment we consume on a daily basis. Unlike the books and movies seen in pop culture today, video games take us on virtual journeys where people participate in unique gameplay objectives based on player involvement. Because the idea of player engagement was rare at the time, it was inevitable that video games would revolutionize the way we view entertainment onwards. With video games becoming increasingly popular throughout the years, the debate of whether they are truly violent in nature has rubbed many people like myself the …

Gaia Bioplastics: A Design Exploration Of Bioplastics Through A Brand Campaign, Kelsey Long

Honors Program Theses and Projects

The world is drowning in petroleum-based plastics. Plastics and their byproducts have created an environmental crisis by polluting our oceans and negatively affecting human health and diverse ecosystems around the world. Alternative bioplastics sourced from plants, especially hemp, seaweed, and lignin (organic polymers in wood and bark), offer promising solutions. Still, bioplastics currently make up only one percent of the global plastics market. My undergraduate scholarship in Graphic Design aims to build a consumer awareness campaign of bioplastics and promote their viability through branding, logos, and advertising designs. Based on research into hemp, seaweed, and lignin-sourced bioplastics, I have developed …

Zentangles For Mental Health Awareness, Rachel Immel

Honors Projects

The world is starting to see the rise of a stress related epidemic. Finding time to balance the struggles of everyday life, like academics, finances, careers and relationships, while also maintaining personal mental health is becoming increasingly difficult. This is what prompted me to use my project as an opportunity to help people relieve stress and create a community through the use of art, especially during a time where social interaction has been severely limited due to COVID-19.

My project is a series of live-streamed Zentangle art classes I hosted personally that were open to the public through Zoom. Zentangle …

Chemistry In Art: The Science Of Dye, Madeleine Gray Burland

Honors Projects

Fabric arts, and the practice of dyeing fabric using various resist techniques, is a tradition that goes back centuries, and is unique among art mediums in its relation to science, as the innovations in dye production have directly affected the art form. The development of synthetic dyes in the 1800’s greatly affected the way fabric is dyed, and subsequently the way clothes were made and consumed. As opposed to dyes made of natural materials, synthetic dyes cam in more colors, were brighter, easier to make in large quantities, and lasted longer since they didn’t fade with repeated washings. The practice …

Redefining Gender & Gender Expression Through Self-Perceptions & Self-Reflections, Deborah O. Ade

Publications and Research

As societies evolve policies are developed to recognize and formalize these changes. One current context for change is New York City and the concept that has undergone significant change is gender. Many individuals no longer identify with the traditional binary distinction of male or female. Subsequently, new gender categories have emerged (e.g., bi-gender, pan gender, androgynous). Indeed, a total of 31 gender categories have been recognized by the NYC Commission of Human Rights. The goal behind this acknowledgement is to encourage equitable treatment and respect of all individuals within the workplace. NYC businesses that do not accommodate individuals identifying with …

The Always And Never Seen, Linnea Ryshke

Graduate School of Art Theses

In my art practice, I strive to recover the value of non-human animals as fellow beings with whom we are in relation. In the last decade, “the animal question” has gained momentum across disciplines, and I situate myself as part of the effort to challenge the denigration of nonhuman animals that has led to the widespread exploitation of their labor and bodies. In my practice, I create paintings, drawings and mixed-media collages that recover the genesis of the word “animal” as meaning one with breath, one with soul. Through expressionist mark and material tactility, I create intimate and large-scale works …

The Life And Struggles Of Red Cockaded Woodpeckers, Michaela Gay

Honors Theses

This series of paintings focuses on red cockaded woodpeckers, an endangered species of bird and the longleaf pines forests which they live in and are reliant upon. I drew my inspiration mostly from personal experience with my family’s own efforts to restore one of these forests as well as my longstanding belief in the importance of protecting the environment. However, the point of these paintings is not to preach to people, but rather to show them the beauty of these trees and birds, so they can perhaps begin to care about them themselves instead of just being told that they …

Art Of Darkness, Sarah Roper

Honors Theses

This paper describes the process, production, and explanation of Art of Darkness, an artistic expression of the struggle with anxiety. All of the work is inspired by literature and art from the English Romantic and Victorian eras, and focuses on quotes about the mind, emotions, and other thought processes. As each piece highlights a different aspect of anxiety, it also portrays the struggles of anxiety through color palette, printing process, and symbolism. These printed pieces consist of letter-press printed materials, with ink-wiped backgrounds and hand-stitched details. Also included are large-scale prints with silkscreened foregrounds, a selection of bookmarks, a …

Sobremesa: The Time Spent Savoring Food And Friendship, Rosa V. Salas Gonzalez

Honors Theses

Sobremesa is the culmination of five different ceramic sets handcrafted and uniquely made as a way to enhance the experience of eating and sharing food. This work honors the Latino and Hispanic tradition of Sobremesa, which is the time we spend sharing special moments with friends and family after eating. I explore the relevance of sharing meals as a member of a Venezuelan family and how these memories of my childhood before moving away to another country relates to the way in which I approach the creation of my functional vessel’s aesthetic and conceptual background.

The pieces that make up …

Female Leaders Navigate The Arts, Post 'Me Too', Peyton Kennedy

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

As the lights dim and the curtain rises on a theatrical production, there are roles to fill onstage and off. Perhaps the most important roles in modern theatre are those of leadership. Leaders in the arts have the power to influence company communication, shape the culture of the rehearsal room and navigate through a crisis. However, leadership and power can be manipulated, as the world witnessed through the ‘me too’ movement. As allegations rose against prominent leaders, the push for change strengthened. We are now three years past Hollywood’s ignition of the ‘me too’ movement, which prompts the question: have …

‘How Has Art Refocused Consumers’ Attention Within A Visual World Through The Exploration Of Package Design?’, Frances Hackney

Honors Theses

The art of design has refocused the attention of consumers as they have entered into a visually demanding world. While this concept is complex and perplexing, stemming from endless influencing factors, the elements of design can be broken down into areas of focus to dissect the visual world of marketing. A simple way to communicate the influence of design on the consumers is to unveil the answers through the study of art.

In this thesis, the study will turn to the world of art to learn more about consumerism. The goal is to understand how visual images and the ongoing …

The Hair You Wished To Comb, Sarah Barch

Honors Theses

This thesis is a collection of poems exploring gender and trauma in Greek mythology by retelling classical stories in a female voice.

In Search Of Place, Aleida Hertel

Graduate School of Art Theses

The work I make as an artist is visceral in its form and poetic in its expression. I work with minimal materials through installation, sculpture, video, sound and public projects. My work responds to personal memories of displacement and diaspora, as well as socio-political events.

Ultimately, my art centers its attention towards the Other and the understanding that resides in the ethical, philosophical and political conditions of Otherness, hoping for empathy and transformation.

Tracing The Past, Drawing The Present, Sixue Yang

Graduate School of Art Theses

The group of work, Rising Water, Floating Islands is inspired by traditional Chinese scroll landscape paintings. Such landscape paintings combine meticulous technique, compositional complexity, and tension between representation and abstraction to reveal an alternative universe that waits discovery amid our mundane existence. In “Rising Water, Floating Islands,” I explore the political and social ramifications of the ongoing cultural conflict between traditional and emergent contemporary values. By combining traditional Chinese elements and techniques with my own markings and gestural adaptation in my painting, I give the audience the opportunity to contemplate the implications of our present digital condition through traditional esthetic …

An Analysis Of The History And Ethics Of Video Games, Trenton Brock

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Establishing & Applying Brand Guidelines For The Wood County Humane Society, Paige Isovitsch

Honors Projects

The purpose of this combined VCT Synthesis and Honors Project was to create consistent branding for the Wood County Humane Society (WCHS). The objectives were to create brand guidelines for the non-profit, and then implement the guidelines to create new marketing materials. This project is interdisciplinary in nature and includes visual design, marketing, and communications.

Many non-profits struggle with revolving staff, and some, such as WCHS, do not have a staff member with expertise in marketing and design. In the case of WCHS, this resulted in inconsistent branding that appeared unprofessional and confusing to the community. With this project, I …

The Work Of Art In The Age Of Surveillance: Towards A Society Of Civil Power, Grace Eunhae Cho

Graduate School of Art Theses

State and corporate power have expanded and enforced their dominant territory and influence through the development of visual technology. Art and visual technology are inseparable. Thus, art has been utilized as an essential tool through which power glamorizes and visualizes its authority. Over the course of the modern age, power has increasingly adopted different strategies in order to conceal its appearance. In particular, the development of information and communication technology has enabled power to be not only invisible but also intangible. This thesis, "The Work of Art in The Age of Surveillance: Towards A Society of Civil Power," explores how …

A Drawing A Day Keeps The Pandemic Away: Vol 3, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas

A Drawing a Day Keeps the Pandemic Away

The project is called A Drawing a Day Keeps the Pandemic Away. We created it on March 17th, which was the day when we realized that we weren’t going to be able to go back into the museum and continue installing the exhibitions we had been planning to open on March 27th. People were asking us what we, as an art museum, were going to do to reach out to the community during the pandemic shutdown and honestly we were wondering that ourselves, so we had an online brainstorming session and came up with the idea of posting a daily …

Explorations Of Liminality And Intersectionality In Tabletop Games, Alyna Kim

Honors Thesis

In fantasy role-playing games (RPGs), especially tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs), participants are required to collaborate to create not only fantasy personas in the shape of characters, but also the world and space that makes up the game itself. Participants therefore create a sense of both time and space that exist outside of basic reality. The created space and time––referred to as a world or a story––exists as a liminal space that participants and characters use as a tool to both exist and explore. While the participants exist physically in the real world, the game space allows them to go beyond …

Sink Hollow Volume 9

Sink Hollow

Our world experiences radical change every day. With this change, things that used to make us feel grounded in our lives may not translate. Our realities may not hold true anymore. Through artistic expression, whatever form that takes, we re-examine what it means to be human after change.

Issue 9 takes a journey of re-examination during times of radical- and sometimes harsh- change. The collage of pieces we have curated re-examine so much of what I thought I knew and give an entirely new meaning to my reality. I would challenge you as you read this issue to re-examine change …

Don't Forget Me, I Can't Hide It, Thomas H. Morrill

Theses and Dissertations

Memory, technology, and space are the metaphorical and material players in my work. The video represents an emerging consciousness stuck in a nostalgia-laced, self-referential, emotive loop. It weighs the probability of its experience of life as solipsism. The walls are facsimiles of walls.

Cat & Mouse, Leah Flook

Art Theses and Dissertations

An early and pervasive paranormal experience cements my interest in the invisible link between predator, prey, and bait. My sculptural installations and drawings create spaces to evade, lure, misdirect, and trap my elusive phantom. I divide my research into three sections; The Stadium, The Players, and The Game. The Stadium is a separate world, one that holds different laws and physics. Here, I explore the correlation between Slapstick Comedy and Horror genres and their ability to bend reality in order to create a story arch. The Players references tropes played out within these genres, Ophelia and the Final Girl, and …

"My Self Is The Art Is": An Art Installation Exploring Self-Reflection In Art-Making, Alexis Rubertino

Honors Projects

This is an art-installation which explores the following question: How does self-reflection play a role in art-making, particularly involving tacit artist-viewer communication?

I consider the self to be the recognition of a sum of experiences which constitute a sense of being: the self is experiential baggage that actively shapes the way one experiences the world. Artists must analyze their self and assume the viewer’s self to fulfill the intention of their art.

Art, loosely defined, points at or interacts with life and living – artists gather materials (visuals, ideas, audios, objects, etc.) and combine them to provide juxtapositions which create …

A Jungle, A Dream, A Wallowing Thing, Liz Moore

Graduate School of Art Theses

I view my creative process as jumping head first into material, laboriously wringing it dry, and wetting it again until it transforms into its own. I use felt, silicone, family heirlooms, and embroidery, which contend between each other materially and connote feminine and fantastical landscapes and characters. I drench the felt in pastel colors and excrete silicone filled paint through cocoons of lace, to call forth associations of beauty and the grotesque. I am very interested in the tension held between two and three dimensional space, and how teetering on this line allows me to question reality, expectations of language, …

Exploring A Qualitative Approach To Arts Advocacy And Evaluation, Lycette C. Belisle

Undergraduate Theses

The quantitative impact of the arts has become an increasingly important factor in determining the overall value of a project, and is often used to determine acceptance of submissions, public recognition and funding disbursement. This project evaluates current understandings of how the arts function within society, popular methods for determining the value of the arts and explores how qualitative reasoning can be utilized to communicate the value of supporting artistic endeavors. While placing a numerical value on the arts based on data collection can be important, this project will aim to evaluate the implications of relying so heavily on facts …

Guilt Free Homecoming, Ruby Elliott Zuckerman

Art and Art History Honors Projects

No abstract provided.