Art and Design Commons^™

Earth 2020: We Were Here, Devin Kelly

2020 MFA Visual Arts

No abstract provided.

Painting Ecological Change In Pacific Northwest Bird Populations, Rachel Rothberg

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

The following four oil paintings are part of an ongoing series that visually explores bird populations and behavior in Northwest Washington, particularly in Bellingham and Whatcom County. I combine biological, detailed illustration with painterly practices to communicate fragile ecological balances to my audience through a medium seen less frequently in the field of conservation. My work examines the tension between life and death in the natural world to provoke conversations about environmental issues and to encourage compassion for local scenery. The work illuminates how birds, humans, and the ecosystems we inhabit are intertwined, inspiring a sense of wonder for our …

What The Eyes See And The Mind Knows, Amanda Durig

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

Every morning as I set out for a walk, my mind starts trailing off as my eyes scan my neighborhood; I begin to wander into a daydream, tuning in to the pictures that I paint in my mind, imposing what I am observing into a new possibility of reality. This exploration into the lives of others in this world is a breath of fresh air, a reprieve from the demands of daily life. I am inspired by the narrative that is unknowingly being written into the earth by my neighbors, intrigued by the solutions that they come up with for …

Capacity, Rachel Baydian

CGU MFA Theses

This Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition by Rachel Baydian is an installation of ceramic sculptures that function as a stand-in for the human body, touching on relationship, interconnectivity, and imperfection. Using abstracted forms that derive from the earth, these art objects are sculpted to mimic nature and its processes. The work highlights our human connection to nature as integrative and vital. Through experience and tactility, there is more of an awareness of space and heightened senses. The work taps into the awe and seduction of the mystery of nature through seemingly ordinary elements of the physical world.

Falling, Rachel Zucker

The Tuxedo Archives

No abstract provided.

Nature V Nurture And The Nature Of Astrology

The Tuxedo Archives

No abstract provided.

Canyonlands, Matt Davis

The Tuxedo Archives

No abstract provided.

Wild Connections, Sarah Huttner

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

My work is about the variety of relationships occurring in nature, whether it is the small delicate touch of a bumblebee landing on a flower to collect pollen, or the struggle between native and invasive plants fighting for survival in the prairies. “Wild Connections” is a visual response to learning about the inner workings of various ecosystems and placing emphasis on those which I find deserving of more awareness. Using traditional and experimental printmaking methods, I capture the relaxing elegance of the habitats and simplistic beauty of their creatures to place emphasis on their importance in our environment. Occasionally subtle …

Apocalypse Lakardowo: Ecocritical Analysis In The Film Lakardowo Mencari Keadilan, Aulia Maulida, Abdul Basid

International Review of Humanities Studies

Human-nature interaction today enters a worrying stage. Film as a literary work begins to record this interaction. The film Lakardowo Mencari Keadilan to be one of them. This research uses the content analysis method with an ecocritical approach. This film is a research primary data source supported by various related references. The analysis emphasizes the study of environmental literature which focuses on apocalyptic reading with pastoral views that surround it through Creswell spiral analysis methods: data management, reading, and note-taking, classification and interpretation, then data visualization. In this research, Lakardowo's environment in the film Lakardowo Mencari Keadilan reflects the impact …

So . . . We're Going For A Walk: A Placed-Based Outdoor Art Experiential Learning Experience, Priscilla Anne Stewart

Theses and Dissertations

Schools in the United States often emphasize making children competitive in a global economy while neglecting the importance of developing citizens who are ecologically responsible. Problems of climate change, loss of biodiversity, mass extinctions and degradation of the natural environment, are often ignored. Some researchers have suggested that children lack unstructured play time in nature, have an increased amount of screen time, lack mindfulness, and are insulated from the natural world. Many children rarely have significant experience with nature's wildness. It is common for people to experience a sense of placelessness in the hyper-mobility of present times where "globalizing" agendas …

Closing Pause, Peter London

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

Peter London was invited to offer a response to the two part special issue of An Arts-Based Contemplative Pause as a last moment of pause. Peter, in turn, graciously offered his contemplative thoughts that we hope will inspire others to pause and engage their own contemplative reflections inspired by the artist scholar offerings in this special issue.

Awe-Struck, Emily Robertson

Masters Theses

Awe-struck is an exploration at the intersection of embodied and situated cognition, sight, sense-making and nature with an additional layer of artistic interpretation and emotional response. Adapting elements of Terrapin Bright Green’s biophilic design principles, this work pushes past the well researched benefits of incorporating nature into a designed space, to uncover an individual’s personal connection to an environment. The connection is multi-faceted—layered with observations of space, color and location, filtered through a lense of physical, philosophical and psychological reactions and then translated into an individual personal history. With a specific focus on wild spaces, where humans have designed and …

Darwin Or Frankenstein?, Sylvia S. Santamaria

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Through sculpture and drawing, I create my own versions of natural specimens primarily based upon the visual unity of disparate organisms. Invented specimens are composed using a variety of processes employing a mixture of atypical materials following the (20^th, 21^st century) Postmodern shift away from formalist and traditional uses of any singular medium. As well as a variety of art materials, the specimens are hybrids of organic and biomorphic elements, blurring boundaries between botanical, animal, fungal, metal, and mineral. Is my approach perhaps like Charles Darwin, observant and studious naturalist, or am I more like Dr. Frankenstein, …

The Dream Of Being Totally Open, Frederick Greis

Theses and Dissertations

This essay details four major themes in the paintings of Frederick Greis: spiritual experience, nature, pleasure, and humor. These themes are described within the context of the artist's main goal, which is to create an experience of profound unburdening.

Effloresce, Rebecca Lee Schneller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Effloresce is a series of oil paintings and charcoal drawings containing the human figure and natural imagery and forms. This pairing represents the intersection of the inner realm of human emotion and spiritual experience with the external realm of nature and the world.

Both contemporary and historical painting and drawing traditions serve as inspiration for this body of work, particularly the natural symbology found in Medieval and Renaissance Art. I employ painting techniques inspired by contemporary painters Alex Kanevsky, Mia Bergeron, Helene Delmaire, and Zoey Frank, as well as historical painters John Singer Sargent, Joaquin Sorolla, Rembrandt Van Rijn, Lucian …

Relations To Live By, Morgan Gardner

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

In 2017, I experienced the ARTS Pre- Conference of the Canadian Society for Studies in Education as a welcome refuge. As participants, we gathered to feed our minds, bodies and spirits via arts-based, contemplative practice. It became a day of (re)visioning academic life. In gratitude for this day, I share two poems from my research journal supporting my own (re)visioning of academic research. The poems are meditations on the small and large wonders of nature and their connection to the wealth of our fragile, mysterious lives. They explore our immeasurable interconnectedness to all of life and the life-giving relations that …

Kayla Mitchell, Senior Art Exhibition Portfolio, Kayla M. Mitchell

Senior Art Portfolios

This is a portfolio of work shown in the Bush Art Center Galleries at St. Norbert College from April 8th through May 3rd, 2019. This work includes a series of four illustrations.

Ephemerals, Julia Abbott, Special Collections, Fleet Library

6th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest 2020

No abstract provided.

Lifetime, Emily E. Kuchenbecker

Theses and Dissertations

Time is my bully. Time marks the start of something, as well as the end. We are all carrying out the inexorable passing of time as it relates to our impending mortalities.

I do not fear death.

The awareness of my body’s impermanence employs me to feel that much more connected to the vessel containing that of which I am.

But what am I? Am I my body- or is it much deeper?

Through the work executed during my graduate research, I have attempted to quantify my existence through the archiving my time and body. This document ushers you through …

From The Dirt Up: Layering Story, Place, And Environmentalism Within Three Picture Books, Lucinda Rowe

Children's Book Writing and Illustrating (MFA) Theses

The world is changing before our eyes – species are going extinct, the amount of habitat available to wildlife has decreased, and children are spending less time outside than in the past. Through analyzing environmental ideology within early childhood education and children’s literature, I demonstrate that picture books can inspire nature conservation, appreciation, and stewardship by encouraging outdoor play and exploration. I compare picture books that successfully demonstrate eco-consciousness without being didactic, how my thesis fits within the current environmental movement, and how it helps stretch the definition of what is considered eco-writing.

This thesis consists of three illustrated picture …

I Thought The Earth Remembered Me, Hannah Bates

Theses and Dissertations

The forest is teeming with activity: fungi transform dead logs into nutrients, roots entangle themselves with the earth, and strong winds break resilient boughs. Like the forest, the human body functions according to a complex system of agents - from the micro bacteria in the gut to the pores of the skin. The built world has often been rendered in opposition to these processes of nature. As a vessel through which the world is experienced, the body is an intermediary between raw matter and fabricated things. The planet is suffused with human life, and there is a critical tension between …

Pantheon, Zilia Balkansky-Sellés

Comparative Woman

No abstract provided.

Budding Plant, Amberly White

TYGR: Student Art and Literary Magazine 2018-present

No abstract provided.

Canyon Colors, Jacob W. Arnold

TYGR: Student Art and Literary Magazine 2018-present

This shot was taken at sunrise inside Palo Duro Canyon in Canyon, Texas on December 22nd, 2017

Modified Landscapes, Esther Nooner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Modified Landscapes is a body of work that reflects serious thought regarding Nature and its future. My personal experience and beliefs are at the core of why I believe this subject to be of great importance and why it will sustain many artists’ investigations for the time to come. The influences that informed this process are explored through experiences I had traveling, reading and exploring the photograph as a material object. The manipulation of the photograph is meant to question the beautiful, untouched scene and break the Romantic gaze that is historically tied to representations of Nature and insist upon …

Discovering Wonders And Tragedies, Mackenzie Sayre Josephine Wardell

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Discovering wonders of the weather and the ever changing plant life in the Northeast, and tragedies about how disrespectful and selfish humans are towards the environment;My senior project is showing my viewers how exciting and diverse the natural world is and how necessary it is to recognize the destructiveness of plastic and our single-use culture.

During this past year, I’ve spent my time collecting from, observing, and recreating the natural world. I’ve experimented with new mediums such as cyanotype printing, which is brought to life by exposure to sunlight, and I’ve delved into my curiosities about the world of trash …

Sediment - Behind The Cover Art, Melanie Moore Bermudez

The STEAM Journal

Ideas of mapping, topography, erosion and evaporation have been loosely connected to my work for several years now. In my latest series I have put more of a focus on those ideas. In particular I am interested in the movement of sediment pushed by a flow of water and then left, stranded in a new location, as that water source dries up and diminishes. The pigments of the ink in the paintings are my sediment that I build up layer after layer to create a mini geological world caught in a moment of shift, pause and flow.

Sediment, Melanie Moore Bermudez

The STEAM Journal

Ideas of mapping, topography, erosion and evaporation have been loosely connected to my work for several years now. In my latest series I have put more of a focus on those ideas. In particular I am interested in the movement of sediment pushed by a flow of water and then left, stranded in a new location, as that water source dries up and diminishes. The pigments of the ink in the paintings are my sediment that I build up layer after layer to create a mini geological world caught in a moment of shift, pause and flow.

Parlance, Carolyn Mcintyre Norton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The richly-colored screenprints displayed in Parlance are explorations into sound-inspired imagery created through the blending of two divergent approaches: 1) drawing made by meditative inspiration and 2) printing driven by the execution of a predetermined plan.

Considered representationally, each print is a chorus of layered interpretive drawings of natural sound. My intent is to bring into view ethereal concepts through responsive mark making.

Considered technically, the printing process employs a predetermined set of formulas that produce a mathematically-finite set of prints. This systemized method causes common visual elements to disperse among the prints, resulting in a set of uniquely layered …

Liminal Surfaces, Georgina E. Grenier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The poet Ben Okri wrote: “Stories are the secret reservoir of values: change the stories individuals and nations live by and tell themselves, and you change the individuals and nations.” (Stibbe)

In the early 21st Century we are facing numerous environmental problems that are being caused by human activity. This era is termed the Anthropocene , a time when accumulated pollutants are causing detrimental ecological change. Ocean creatures are threatened by increasing seawater temperature, acidifying pH levels and melting ice. On land we are experiencing droughts, alteration of biomes, extinctions and an atmosphere that contains less oxygen per breath than …