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Normal Editions Workshop Newsletter, 2024-2025, Wonsook Kim School Of Art And Design

Normal Editions Workshop Newsletter

Annual newsletter for the Normal Editions Workshop, School of Art, Illinois State University.

Creatura, Carly Marie Odegard

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

My sculptural practice is rooted in the belief that humans and nature are not separate, but deeply interwoven. I create immersive installations that embody cycles of life, death, and transformation; spaces where spiritual and material realities coexist in tension and harmony. Through cast metal, organic materials, and fabricated forms, I channel archetypal symbols from mythology, ritual, and the collective unconscious to create environments that speak to both personal and universal experience.

During my time at Fort Hays State University, I developed a body of work grounded in installation and cast metal. I forged branches, flowers, and leaves from steel, and …

Performance Assemblages | Wintersession 2025 Syllabus, La Samuelson, Movement Lab

Course Materials & Research

In this course, we will make solo and collaborative performance works. We will approach performance as the project of creating new contexts for interrelation–between beings, material, matter, the known, and the unknown–that allow both the performer and the viewer to learn and/or experience something we otherwise would not have access to. In other words, the work of this class is the work of listening in the direction of something you can’t quite yet hear, and taking the time to figure out: where you might stand, what device you might invent, what you might wear, and how you might work with …

Performance Assemblages | Research, La Samuelson, Movement Lab

Course Materials & Research

No abstract provided.

Huchum: The Legacy Of Fire Suppression, Indigenous Land Management, And Media Representation, Carolyn Coyne

Pomona Senior Theses

In my thesis, I examine how various forms of news media from the 1900s to present day in Ohlone territory have framed a particular hegemonic ideology around fire that matches early colonial journal entries – an ideology that is fueled by fear, sensationalism, and exclusion and directly commits violence against the Ohlone people. I investigate this time period because this is when modern news corporations, like The New York Times, rose into prominence. Specifically, I question how media representations of fire inform regulations over controlled burns; what are the similarities in discourse between media framing and policy? What tactics are …

Art As Witness: Carrying Christian Iconographies In The Works Of Henry Ossawa Tanner During The Gilded Age To Contemporary Autobiographical Testimonial Art, Ziona King

Pomona Senior Theses

Culminated in a solo exhibition of three works titled the prodigal daughter and The Great High Priest, Baptism, and The Lord of Hosts, this research explores the implications of the Christian methodologies and iconographies in the works of Henry Ossawa Tanner to influence testimonial artwork containing personal Christian iconographies of water baptism, spiritual encounter in everyday life, the lion of Judah, bowls, and more interpretive motifs.

Averting "Death By Powerpoint", Nora Xinyi Cai

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

This lesson empowers students to design presentation slides that effectively communicate their ideas to unfamiliar audiences. The lesson emphasizes the key guiding principle for slide design, one message per slide, along with four steps to implement it. Students will develop the vocabulary to assess the quality of others' presentation slides and apply these four steps in creating their own. The lesson seeks to cultivate a dynamic, collaborative, and creative learning environment by design.

The Influence Of Shopping Context And Anthropocentric Bias On Consumer Preferences For Human And Ai Designers In Fashion, Dooyoung Choi, Ha Kyung Lee, Christina Soyoung Song, Ji Young Lee

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

This study explores how shopping contexts (hedonic vs. utilitarian) influence consumer preferences for AI- vs. human-designed fashion products. In Study 1, participants with hedonic motivations preferred human-designed items, while those with utilitarian motivations preferred AI-designed products, supporting the hypothesis that shopping context affects designer preferences. Study 2 further investigates the mediation of competence-warmth traits in designer preferences and the moderation of anthropocentric bias. It finds that hedonic shopping contexts increase the desire for warmth-related traits, leading to a preference for human designers, while utilitarian contexts favor competence-related traits and AI designs. Additionally, individuals with higher anthropocentric biases showed stronger preferences …

Stimulating Focus And Calmness Through Soft Fabrication: A User-Centered Approach, Emmanuella A. Oku

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the potential of active attention objects embedded with technologies such as LEDs to enhance focus and calmness in individuals with inattentive ADHD, particularly in classroom settings. Individuals with inattentive ADHD often struggle with irritability, stress, and panic attacks when exposed to external stimuli such as loud sounds, varying light intensities, strong smells, or physical sensations, which significantly hinders their ability to concentrate and remain composed. My literature review discovered a connection between an individual’s blinking pattern and their focus, and my work explores how to design active attention objects to engage with blinking as a focus tactic. …

Doing History With The Saints, Marcus O’Donnell Prof

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

The portfolio and practice reflection presents four pieces from, Queer Saints (2025), an evolving new series of photogravure prints. The series plays with the covering and uncovering of the saint’s body and the collision of the erotic and ecstatic in Christian iconography. Each print takes a particular saint and layers a coupling of images together, creating condensed narratives of desire. The layered images haunt one another ghosting both spirit and flesh. This reflection draws on Elizabeth Freeman’s idea of “erotohistoriography” to explore ways of doing history with the body in visual arts practice.

How Art Centers In Michigan Use Social Media To Communicate Mission, Alexandria Milot

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The use of social media for marketing purposes has become a widespread practice for nonprofit and for-profit organizations. Social media can assist in communication efforts in many ways, including communicating an art center's mission. However, with limited documentation of the use of social media marketing within these organizations, it can be challenging to know how current art centers are using social media and if their social media marketing strategy is reaching their intended audiences. This research explores how art centers in Michigan use social media to communicate their mission to their audience and if it matches the organization’s original purpose …

Four Beating Quadrants, Sumaita Mahmood

Quill & Scope

No abstract provided.

He Wore Gold: A Pulse In Metal, A Story In Links, Priyanka Gera

Quill & Scope

No abstract provided.

Heartbeats, Romy Pein

Quill & Scope

No abstract provided.

Symptoms Tachycardia, Patricia Weinstein

Quill & Scope

No abstract provided.

Something Different Like Us: A Children's Book Project, Isabella B. Gonzalez

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this project is to write and begin illustrating a children’s book. The end goal is to complete the full script, finish rough sketches of the entire book, fully illustrate the cover and first two pages, and present the project in the form of an exhibition.

This story follows three little chicks (Dixie, Charlotte, and Phoebe) around a small farmyard as they encounter a new type of animal, a family of rabbits. For the majority of the book, the chicks fear the newcomers since they look so different. The sisters judge, avoid, and suppose the worst of the …

Designing Your Next Read: How Psychology Shapes The Way We Choose Books, Stephanie M. Xu

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

Designing Your Next Read invites students to explore the psychology behind everyday choices through the familiar act of picking a book. Using the lens of design psychology, the lesson examines why decision-making often feels overwhelming and how small shifts in perception, environment, and heuristics can make choices easier and more enjoyable. Students engage in interactive exercises, including a book-browsing activity, mini-lectures on choice biases, and a “Book Blurb” exercise, to reveal how heuristics such as availability, affect, and familiarity shape responses.

Through guided discussion and reflection, students connect psychological theories like the paradox of choice and decision paralysis to their …

Sunbathers, Marta Louise Sorenson

Art and Art History Honors Projects

Sunbathers is a Studio Art Honors project that explores the awkward intimate nature of introspective life through autobiographical, figurative ceramic sculptures. The forms capture the relationship between body and reality. The project consists of seven portraits, varying in size and display, arranged together on pink pedestals. Each figure communicates a part of self, embodying the internal interactions of everyday existence. The sculptures perform as objects yet speak with the specific sense of being seen/presented. Features shift in and out of focus—glossy glazes draw the eye, while matte colors move inward; the exaggerated, slumped forms are adorned with bright, illuminating glazes. …

The Chemical Nature Of Colors, Bryant Corbin, Bryant Corbin

Longwood Senior Thesis Proposal

No abstract provided.

A Happy Medium?: Using Image Generators To Explore Solution-Focused Art Therapy’S Miracle Question, Daniel A. Hernried

Art Therapy | Master's Theses

This mixed methods, randomized, single-session study tested whether integrating text-to-image generations into Solution-Focused Brief Art Therapy alters therapeutic rapport and short-term outcomes relative to traditional artmaking materials. Participants were assigned by coin flip to create using either a text-to-image generator or convention media (23 per group), completing immediate and three-day follow-ups. Alliance was measured using DREAM (Dimensions of Regard, Empathy, and Authenticity Metric), and problems were rated pre/post; groups did not differ significantly on DREAM total or facets, and both modalities produced reliable pre-to-post reductions in problem severity. At the same time, process differences were pronounced: the AI condition showed …

Wondering And Wandering, Madeleine Herisson-Leplae

Theses and Dissertations

For my thesis, I have taken the concept of excavation and used it as a visual metaphor for my artistic process. Using my recurring motifs of a hole, ladder, and the gem, I break down the writing into three sections. First, the hole, a metaphor for entering an image; second, the ladder, process as investigation; and lastly, the gem, which represents wonder and delight. This work is influenced by childhood fantasies, video games, and believing in magic.

Love Letter, Amy S. Duval Ms

Theses and Dissertations

I applied to graduate school to reconnect with and better understand my studio practice, acquire language, and to disrupt my known ways of making. Generally speaking, I see my practice as being about being seen, and unseen, and the pain and pleasure of being perceived. I’ve learned about my ways of being in the studio. I’ve come closer to speaking honestly about my relationship with my materials, processes, tools, how I value my own labor, and how this informs my work. I am grateful for the cascade of small epiphanies that came and left me while I worked in my …

Mementos, Zixuan Guo

Theses and Dissertations

Relevance:

Personal Relevance: This project merges my passion for film photography and modern technology, aiming to create a design that bridges traditional and modern practices.

Local Relevance: Richmond’s rich historical context provides an ideal setting to illystrate that traditional arts like analog photography can be preserved while integrating modern digital technology.

Global Relevance: Globally, there is an increasing trend toward combining traditional and modern design approaches, particularly in architecture and interior design. Synthesizing analog and digital means is used to meet the balance between materiality and modern technology (Rose, 2014; Pelizzari & Scrivano, 2011). Designers balance tactile materials like wood …

Barca Nostra: Photography, Tourists, Travel And Refugees, Panizza Allmark

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The relic of the Mediterranean’s deadliest shipwreck, in which around 1000 migrants perished at sea in 2015, was resurrected as an art installation displayed at the 58th Venice Art Biennale titled Barca Nostra (Our Boat), by artist Christoph Büchel in 2019. The shipwreck was placed on a wharf near a café at the festival without an accompanying descriptive text. It was considered disrespectful, as it is a display of a site of tragic Black deaths for white middle-class spectatorial consumption. It served as a site for tourist selfies. It also serves as a memorial and sparks debates about migration and …

Hard Edge Expansion, Quinderrious Humphrey

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Hard-edge painting has always been rooted in precision, crisp forms, and the rejection of gestural abstraction. My work builds on this tradition while pushing its boundaries, breaking free from the conventional picture plane, exploring objecthood, and activating space through material and color. By using shaped wood substrates instead of canvas, I transform paintings into physical objects that interact with their environment rather than existing as flat images. The natural grain of the wood plays an integral role in this, creating an organic contrast to the controlled, geometric forms I apply.

Color functions as both a formal and perceptual tool in …

Mark & Gesture, William E. Pugh

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This paper explores the development of my painting and printmaking practice through the lens of process, artistic influence, and creative community. At the heart of my work is a dedication to mark-making in printmaking and painting as gesture and authorship and as a visual language shaped by process, scale, layering, and texture. My work is influenced by artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Wayne Thiebaud, and Peter Max, as well as by my personal history with music. The paper reflects on how process, interdisciplinary influence, and artistic dialogue shape a practice rooted in both personal exploration and discovery.

Guanacos De Corazón, Ana Marcela Sinnett

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This thesis explores the intersections of indigeneity, mestizaje, and decolonial aesthetics through a mixed-media art practice rooted in Salvadoran history and identity. Drawing on ancestral traditions such as indigo dyeing and backstrap weaving, Guanacos de Corazón investigates how materiality, folklore, and handcraft function as forms of visual resistance, meaning art that disrupts dominant narratives, critiques systems of power, and reclaims erased cultural memory.

Through formal analysis, historical context, and interviews with Salvadoran artists, this thesis challenges ideas of mestizaje that promote cultural and ethnic superiority and contribute to the erasure of ancestral beliefs.

How do we rescue ancestral traditions that …

Exploring Power Dynamics In Ghana Through Ceramic Sculpture, Collins Yaw Antwi

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The works in this thesis explore the implications of power dynamics such as inequality, power struggle, and oppression within Ghana’s society. I abstract specific elements such as coins, and especially cowry shells which honors Ghana’s past through their use as a source of currency in the colonial era and further serves as a metaphor that represents power. Platters and bowls from different cultures serve as a container for these dynamic symbols of power. By incorporating these elements in my sculptures, I bring attention to the struggle and challenges Ghanaians have experienced over the years. In other ways, I find it …

Counter Dots, Barbara Cutlak Soares, Special Collections, Fleet Library

12th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest 2026

Entry for the 12th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest. Opening reception and award ceremony Wednesday, February 25, 2026 at 6:30pm, Fleet Library, 1st Floor Main Reading Room. Juror: Gabrielle Reed. Counter-Dots is an interactive book that explores playfulness and tactility through the design of letters. Each letter and number is composed on a 21 × 21 grid of perforated holes that matches the same module of a spiral-binding puncher. The holes create a layering effect, allowing the letters to relate to one another. The book can be completely unbound from the spiral, allowing for an open-ended …

Memoire, Lucie Kusner, Special Collections, Fleet Library

12th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest 2026

Entry for the 12th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest. Opening reception and award ceremony Wednesday, February 25, 2026 at 6:30pm, Fleet Library, 1st Floor Main Reading Room. Juror: Gabrielle Reed.