Art Practice Commons^™

How Art Works: A Psychological Exploration, Julia A. Sienkewicz

Art Inquiries

Book review of How Art Works: A Psychological Exploration, by Ellen Winner.

The Noisemakers: Estridentismo, Vanguardism, And Social Action In Postrevolutionary Mexico, Andrea Lepage

Art Inquiries

Book review of The Noisemakers: Estridentismo, Vanguardism, and Social Action in Postrevolutionary Mexico, by Lynda Klich.

Leonardo: Discoveries From Verrocchio’S Studio, Lindsay Alberts

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

An Interview With Karen Graffeo, Sonja Rieger, And Carolyn Sherer, Kerr Houston

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Wicked, Hard And Supple: An Examination Of Suzanne Valadon’S Nude Drawings Of Young Maurice, Courtney Hunt

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Where You Come From Is Gone: Reinhabiting The Ruins Of The Native South, Catherine Wilkins

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

The Settlement In The Salt Meadow: Housing In Steinway Village, 1873–1890, Anne Vuagniaux

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

The Aleppo Minbar: Symmetry And Islamic Aesthetics, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

The Aleppo minbar (pulpit for Friday sermons) is a monumental architectural sculpture commissioned in the middle of the 12th century in Aleppo, Syria, by Nur al-Din al-Zangi, who was ruling from Damascus. Envisioning the end of the Crusades, Nur al-Din sought to place the minbar in the Aqsa Mosque after Muslims reclaimed Jerusalem, where it was installed in 1187 by the Ayyubid ruler, Saladin. Richly ornamented with many geometric forms and designs, the wooden minbar expresses an algorithmic Islamic aesthetic based on symmetry, with patterns that imply an infinite expanse contained within borders. Manifesting an aesthetic that persisted for …

Sufism, Beauty, Love: Ecstasy And Rapture Of Islam In Asia. Study Guide, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Key Vocabulary: Concepts, Practices, Buildings, Masters/Leaders/Disciples

Major Sufi Figures

Suggested Readings

Introduction To Drawing, Panagiotis Mavridis

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Hunting For Insects And Metaphors In The Mojave, Mark Graham

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

462, James Anthony Martin

MFA Thesis Exhibit Catalogs

As far as significance of 462, it has two meanings in this context. First, it represents me. 462 was my motorcycle racing number. Secondly, it is the theoretical idea of the next stage of human evolution. Right now, humans are composed off 44 and 2 chromosomes. Adding 2 more would make us 46 and 2, also known as, "Christ Consciousness". it is obviously not science, but I like the idea of humans obtaining a higher consciousness.

La Cofradía De Artes Y Artesanos Hispánicos: 1978 To 1983 Redefining Tradition In The New Mexican Art Market, Ethel Mercedes Everett

Dissertations and Theses

La Cofradía de Artes y Artesanos Hispánicos: Redefining Tradition in the New Mexican Art Market. May 2019.

This master’s thesis explores the 1978 founding, existence, dissolve, and the legacy of the Santa Fe, New Mexican artist exhibition group, La Cofradía de Artes y Artesanos Hispánico (La Cofradía). La Cofradía was formed by six Santa Fe Hispano artists in reaction to creative limitations first imposed on Hispano artists in 1926, when the annual Spanish Market was formed. The Spanish Market was the sole arts sales venue available to Hispano artists in the exclusionary Santa Fe gallery and museum market. The Spanish …

Parallel Pattern: A Familial Legacy Of Care, Diana Antohe

Theses and Dissertations

My work revolves around exploring identity of the in-between, occupying the Venn diagram middle of two cultures. As a Romanian-born, American-raised artist, I want to preserve and broadcast links to the cultures of my upbringing and birthplace. In attempts to ground and define my own “in-between” identity, I look to my parents and grandparents for cues on how they made home for themselves wherever they went, reflecting their experiences with voluntary and involuntary displacement. This text connects the research and influential family practices that shaped its companion exhibition, ranging from the role of portability in emotional transnationalism to the lasting …

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 …

Graphic Content Warning; Personal And Political Traumas, Emily K. Wardell

Theses and Dissertations

The written portion of this thesis work is meant to address and further investigate the visual work created using mediums of print and found video. This artistic research has been interested in examining varying associations with truth, recollection, and evidence. This includes the recollection of public histories and news-media narratives as well as my own history and trauma. Through this work my aim was to create a deconstruction and revolt against how associations are formed, and how to understand imagery as information. This thesis first discusses my relationship to appropriated imagery, then connects and examines it through the addition of …

Humans Aren't Boxes, Art Isn't Finite, Brianne Alta Humphreys

Theses and Dissertations

I am bored. All around me are systems that perpetuate repetitive, reductive, and mundane modes of living. In an attempt to counter a culture obsessed with singular ways of existence and bite-sized perfection, I utilize moving mediums of video and performance to dive head first into a vast array of sloppy sincerity. The crisp, white-washed, analytical, and restrictive is loudly replaced with the empirical, haphazard, and instinctual. My intention is to create and encourage raw, performative-based work that is as multifaceted as unbridled life itself. This alive and physical practice hosts a conglomeration of sweat, memories, heartbreaks, hymn singing, line …

Lotion In Your Lungs, Raul H. De Lara

Theses and Dissertations

This is a document explaining in detail my artistic practice from childhood to the day I graduated VCU. It will perhaps only be understood by those who have themselves already felt such ways, or similar ways – words and ghosts are mostly invisible.

A Spectacle And Nothing Strange, Taylor Z. King

Theses and Dissertations

Working through methods of abstraction and comedic mimicry I choreograph awkwardly balanced sculpture with objects of adornment as a means to defuse personal sensitivities surrounding my experiences of gender, desire, and home. The research that follows is concerned with the adjacent, the in between, above and underneath, because I feel that this kind of looking means that you are, to some degree, aware of what lies at the edges. Maybe this is what Gertrude Stein means to act as though there is no use in a center—because this concerns a way of relating, though there are many things in the …

The Wild Beasts, Peter Cochrane

Theses and Dissertations

The Wild Beasts springs from my desire to thank my ever-expanding queer chosen family and mentors for their strength. Working through the often violent and othering aspects of the lens and photographic histories I create floral portraits responding to each person’s being and our relationship. Using the 19th century, 8x10 large format view camera—the same used by colonialists and ethnographers to “capture” the divinity of Nature—I erect each as a traditional still life studio setup at the threshold between the natural world and that constructed by humans. These environments speak both to the character of each friend and also to …

Parallel Narrative: Short-Video Social Media Platforms’ Influences On Contemporary Narrative, Ruiqi Zhang

Theses and Dissertations

Through the study of Kwai, a popular short-video social media platform in China, this thesis investigates the social issues, media class divides and aesthetics specific to Kwai culture. It further proposes a strategy of artistic practice - parallel narrative - an experiment in video art production and editing techniques that explores new possibilities of narrative in video art. Integrating theoretical research on Post-Internet art and object-oriented ontology, this thesis reveals people’s ability to digest multisource information and shows how mobile technologies and open-source materials contribute to the formation of parallel narratives.

Roses & Thorns, Stephanie Alaniz

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This written thesis has been created alongside the thesis exhibition shown in the Laura Mesaros Gallery at West Virginia University (displayed March 18th to March 22nd). The work presented consisted of drawings, bookmaking, and various forms of printmaking and collage. This body of work is meant to create an analysis of insecurities and body positivity we associate with our physical selves. This work is a collective experience that has been a collaboration with over 80 participants. The number of participants help to create a larger overall collective voice. By creating this collective voice, we can experience these feelings together and …