Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Still Life Happens, Mary Ann Crabtree

Theses and Dissertations

After dedicating over two years to pursuing an MFA degree focused on ceramics and sculpture, I find myself transported back to a familiar setting from my past: a tableau reminiscent of what remained in the dining space after four young children finished a meal and exited the room. Revisiting the scene recalls happy times despite the disorder. What helped maintain my sanity during the relentless repetition of the every-day-long task was the realization that every day, innocents are learning to become aware of the world around them. For my thesis exhibition, I created a tableau as a loud reminder of …

Dulce Sueños De Tierra, Sweet Dreams Of Earth, Jordany Genao

Theses and Dissertations

Jordany's paper congregates their archival research into an art practice that examines the decolonial impulse to excavate the self and produce autonomy. Using ceramics to reference and re-animate Taino ritual objects found in museums, resulting in alternative museology, their work seeks to honor Caribbean ancestors by subverting colonial history.

Contact Sheet, Jiwoong Jang

Theses and Dissertations

Jiwoong’s thesis paper is a field guide to how he navigates his curiosity with photography, sound, sculpture, ceramic, and installation. Connecting fragments through narrative vignettes, he underscores how chance, walking, light, time, and uncertainty inform his art.

Vesptures, Nyasha T. Chigama Ms

Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

This is an invitation into the delicate space of living between two worlds, of having feelings of happiness and sadness at the same time. Delicate emotions and situations which are not easy to share but are paramount in my research of what it takes to want more out of being just a parent, come from a certain country than the one I am living in, and navigate between two cultures. This is a journey around some of the experiences I have faced when I found myself in a different space other than the one I grew up in. The …

Welcome To The Sitting Garden At The Busy Hands Museum, Stacie Sabady

Theses and Dissertations

I wanted to attend VCU to learn how to unravel my mind and find the words to describe it. While I did make progress in that area, my surprise discovery is that I need to unravel my body too. It has become unbalanced from years of neglect. When working, I find solace through escape. I find a positive outlet for my perfectionist tendencies. I find a way to visually illustrate my obsessive qualities. Throughout the years of these findings, I have ignored my body pleading with me to take it easy. I have always honored the materials and the tools, …

Emotional Reverberations, Kirsten Heteji

Theses and Dissertations

Projecting psychological mindscapes onto domestic objects allows for an emotive and bodily connection to the domestic realm. Body, for me, is the clay and how it holds touch and softness indexically recording the actions of making in the final forms. Pushing, pulling and pinching clay evokes sensations that connect the maker’s body as well as the observer of the work to participate. I shift expectations by experimenting between the hard and softness of bodily material like clay, giving it emotional fragility in how it contrasts the original structure it imitates. I think about creating objects and the arrangement them of …

Beauty In Imperfection: Post-Hyperreal Cosmetic Containers, Se Hee Jang

Theses and Dissertations

An unhealthy reliance on vision alone, fed by pervasive, doctored, hyperreal imagery in the mass media, suppresses a more balanced use of other senses, reinforcing superficial beauty standards. Trapped by an uncritical preference for the visually “perfect” and harmonious, people increasingly seek to remove physical attributes they consider “imperfect,” without first considering how these “imperfections” benefit and distinguish them as unique individuals.

This thesis addresses superficial beauty standards by shifting focus from singularly visual experience to a more nuanced sensory aesthetic that also considers haptic qualities. Through a combination of research writing and targeted making, my work examines society’s understanding …

Restoration, Shannon M. Slaight-Brown

Theses and Dissertations

The marks I make in clay have different characteristics, and the physical mark of one’s fingertips or visual record of the hand is personal and intimate. This visible activity is the evidence of my constant presence and control within each object. Its repetitive meditation produces a private relief from my persistent anxieties. This exploration for me is not only visual, but also physical. This is the start of my infatuation with the idea of pattern. It has its own discrete visual language and modes of communication; and through my research I am developing a method of intercommunication.

Symbiosis Now, Priscilla Fusco

Theses and Dissertations

As we narrow the world’s parameters with our activities, we crowd other organisms that support us. Scientists and philosophers including Charles Sanders Peirce, Lynn Margulis, Thomas Khun and Dave Goulson articulate the role of the biomass, an intelligence that offers fertile dialogue for sculptors.

A Fearsome Beauty: Material And Cultural Exchange Between Venice And The Islamic Near East, Tahera H. Tajbhai

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will explore the relationship between Venice and the Islamic Near East. By examining works from various media, this paper argues that Venetians viewed the Islamic Near East as being ‘awesome,’ and that this view was twofold, as Venetians were both enamored with and fearful of this rising power.

Synthetic Landscapes, Benjamin Thomas Jordan

Theses and Dissertations

My work explores the complex social geography of modern society and the intricate relationship between mankind and the environment. Through this work I explore the past and present lineage of manifest destiny, from its beginnings in Europe to western expansion in America, to forms it has takes in contemporary America. These ceramic forms serve as the conceptual grounds to explore the romanticizing of the western landscape especially from an individual and group perspective. I simultaneously celebrate the history of the pastoral life while questioning the authenticity, and motivations of that lifestyle, and use this platform as a jumping off point …

Cajamarca Ceramic Spoons From Northern Peru: Forming A Symbolic Function, Jeanette Louise Nicewinter

Theses and Dissertations

Ten painted Cajamarca-style ceramic spoons form the foundation for an investigation of the way that these seemingly utilitarian objects were bestowed with economic and symbolic value both within and outside of the borders of the Cajamarca region, located in the north highlands of present-day Peru. Since the ceramic spoons have been recovered from sites associated with large and powerful societies and states, such as the Moche of the north coast and the Wari of the central highlands, an analysis of the form, style and imagery present on these spoons reveals how these objects transcended cultural boundaries. To assess and evaluate …

Conjoined Lucuma Fruit Vessels: Evolution & Context In Nasca Art, Carley Elder

Theses and Dissertations

The function of a ceramic vessel is often evaluated in relation to its form. Vessels with complex forms can be challenging to analyze from this perspective and require a different approach. One such example is an overlooked yet long-lived specialized vessel type in the form of conjoined lúcuma fruits found throughout the ancient Andes. The main object of this study is a Nasca version of this vessel type in the Virginia Museum of Fine Art. This study explores the relationship between form and iconography, rather than function. It examines how Nasca potters adopted the conjoined lúcuma form vessel and adapted …

Threshold, Marisa Finos

Theses and Dissertations

Are the threshold experiences encountered between waking and sleeping similar to the liminal space between life and death? The sights, sounds, and bodily sensations experienced in the unconscious void blur the lines between the unknown and our conscious existence. Using the figure, I portray how the body might exist in these transitional moments. Through my investigations into sleep paralysis, dream states, and notions of an afterlife and the soul, I explore how we perceive the self in these altered states of consciousness.

.(In|Out)Sider$, Jarel M. Harwood

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the insider/outsider dynamic experienced by individuals as they enter diverse social situations. The shift from insider to outsider is evoked through an art installation of 18 sculptures drawing influence from "goth" subculture, as the viewer enters and interacts with the art space. The subjects of culture and identity are discussed as they pertain to insider/outsider status.

Visual Communication On Cajamarca Ceramics From Pre-Hispanic Peru, 1000 - 1460 Ce, Jeanette Nicewinter

Theses and Dissertations

This project analyzes a database of 118 ceramic sherds that were excavated from the Late Intermediate Period site of Yanaorco, located in the Cajamarca region of the north highlands in present-day Peru, for vessel form, style, and imagery. Through the placement of these sherds within the context of inter-community feasting events that took place at Yanaorco, fineware ceramic vessels are interpreted as prestige items that were utilized by the elite to further differentiate themselves from other community citizens. By examining key examples of representational and non-representational imagery depicted on the sherds, an understanding of the social agency of the vessel …

The Dragons In Your Dreams, Jacquelyn Walther

Theses and Dissertations

What if every craving that you ever felt stayed with you forever? Suppose facades couldn’t exist, and what should only be the deepest, densest core of a desire was formed into a mass, a body. Its will matching yours in its physical presence. I make creatures that are embodiments of emotions. In this study I mainly focus on desires and inhibitions surrounding romance. I explore anatomical structures and how material make-up can directly reflect emotional character. In this exploration, the materiality of clay allows for a thorough manipulation of the composition of the creatures. In this I am also able …

The Engraved Head Motifs On Cupisnique Style Vessels: Innovation And Appropriation In Early Andean Art, Yumi Park

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a formal and iconographic study of a distinctive engraved motif found on Cupisnique style vessels that were excavated in what is now northern Peru. The Cupisnique style was developed approximately between 1200 – 200 B.C.E., and was mainly centered in the Jequetepeque and the Chicama Valleys in the northern coastal region of Peru. This study includes an analysis of two ceramic vessels in the collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (henceforth VMFA). The purpose of this dissertation is to document and analyze the Cupisnique engraved head motifs and to argue that these motifs reflect the …

Voice On The Skin, Sarah Turner

Theses and Dissertations

“The body can write on the skin from the inside—the soul, the mind, and the passions rise to the surface in boils, blushes, and rashes, and the invisible inside speaks by writing from the other side of the page”. -James Elkins Skin not only covers but reveals what is behind it. I utilize its language as indicator of flaws and pathologies. I depict and manipulate this, not just as it already exists with the human body, but as projections of my psychological states onto inanimate objects. Proposing that sight is a kind of touch, we touch with our minds, through …

Indeterminate Lines, Hyun Kyung Yoon

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis work is about flow. Indeterminate lines symbolize the developing plant form and explore the perception of space by experimenting with the subject's proportion and shape. Movement is also a vital factor of space, a notion found in the early forms of cursive script (grass script) of Far Eastern calligraphy. My individual plant pieces work as dots and lines of cursive script. An installation's ceramic pieces illustrate similar flow and movement when viewed as a whole.

Growth, Peter Fitzgerald

Theses and Dissertations

In nature we see a wide variety of bold colors and unique shapes. Trees personify these characteristics with their curved branches creating distinctive lines and shapes. Leaves and blossoms enhance their structures with an array of colors. Trees possess awe inspiring energy. Each tree is a living thing, its growth shaped by its environment.Similarly, my work is a response to the environment. I employ a spontaneous and bold technique in an attempt to capture the energy I perceive in nature. The use of vigorous lines and high keyed contrasting colors with varied textures conveys that trees are living, growing entities, …