Art Practice Commons^™

West Coast Workshop To Southwest Institute, Hannah Marie Cerne

Art & Art History ETDs

This thesis considers Tamarind Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico (originally established as Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles, CA), and its contributions to collaborative printmaking. Originally founded in 1960 by June Wayne with Clinton Adams and Garo Antreasian, Tamarind Lithography Workshop (the precursor to Tamarind Institute) revitalized lithography through structured collaboration between artists and master printers, alongside rigorous training programs. This thesis provides an institutional history of the workshop during its relocation to the University of New Mexico, highlighting its transformation into a university-based institute that integrated education and professional production. Using social and labor-based methodologies, this study analyzes how …

Foundations Of Art: Materials, Methods, And Meaning, Elizabeth Mellott

Art OERs

This course provides an introduction to the tools, materials, and processes used across a wide range of artistic media. The focus is on understanding how different materials shape the way art is created and experienced. Attention is given not only to what artists make, but also to why particular media are chosen to communicate specific ideas, emotions, or perspectives. The physical qualities of materials, the methods used, and the cultural meanings attached to them all influence artistic decision-making.

The course surveys several major categories of artistic media. Pigment-based practices include painting, drawing, and printmaking, where color and mark-making form the …

The Adjacent Possible, Marcus O’Donnell Prof

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

My hybrid traditional-digital prints explore pattern, chaos and complexity at the intersection of bodies, sexuality, and landscape. The ‘Strange appearance’ series overprints photogravure key plates, (developed through layering several original images of urban gardens) onto multiple colour pigment prints of close focus details of flowers or foliage. This process creates micro landscapes and variants which change in colour and form as layers intersect. This exhibition uses three different key plates over a repeated sequence of the same twenty colour underprints. These different approaches to variation, multiplicity and adjacency speak to both possibility and mutation: the open and the determined aspects …

Unraveling Landscape Stories, Marcus O’Donnell Prof

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

In Silvi Glattauer’s photographic practice nothing is set, time, light and landscape are each staged in unexpected ways. An image is never singular: often literally composed from multiple exposures, always taken through multiple processes, and always opening a dialogue with the rich history of her own work and the work of other artists. For Glattauer photography, and more particularly printmaking, isn’t about fixing an image it is about opening it up. It is work marked by nimble curiosity and although it is often technically startling it is never about technique, rather, it is about an ethic of slow looking.

The Function Of Art, Magdalen O. M. Pickering

Theses and Dissertations

With the help of machines and the powers of perception, Magdalen Pickering introduces logic to strange and fantastical subjects. The Function of Art explores a hybrid of techniques in painting, screenprinting, and computer generated imagery as Magdalen attempts to use generative printing to obscure art historical consciousness. The installation crosses into virtual reality; reframing textiles, landscapes, and the gallery space through a metaphysical lens.

Recollections Of A Tejana Life, Carolina Yáñez

Art Theses and Dissertations

This thesis encompasses the life of a young woman navigating life in Texas through various political and social barriers. My interdisciplinary practice analyzes the historical context of Mexicans in Texas from its Revolutionary period into current injustices. Through fiber, printmaking, and photography I create a visual diary to illustrate what the political has made personal. These works display the beauty of Tejano culture, but also the power struggles that threaten communities I care for, as well as my own existence that persists against far-right wing agendas.

Current politics and government leadership in Texas have inspired me to make artwork calling …

My Art Is Garbage, Beth Shepherd

The Goose

In “My Art is Garbage,” I describe three recent art projects where garbage is both a theme and an artistic medium used to critique the overuse of and inability to reuse or safely dispose of plastics we use every day. The first work, Untitled (Plastic Film Balls), uses non-recyclable single-use household plastic made to form an installation of shimmering balls and alludes to the environmental footprint of the artworld. Plastic Shores, a series of monotype prints, reminds us that plastics in the environment are deleterious to species that we see every day. Finally Plastic Pests, a series …

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.

Unruly And Unresolved: A Shared, Precarious Survival, Sara Inacio

Masters Theses

I'm just a little rat trying to survive,

To exist and not be perceived.

Building a home,

In a place unnatural to me.

Destroyed and rebuilt again,

I've learned to live in the toxic world you've created.

In a world that is not made for my belonging, I’ve had to find my way, to exist and build with what’s within reach. Such a constant state of construction feels oddly familiar and comfortable to me, home is always in the process of becoming. As I build, I think about how the home building process always takes up the space of others, …

Sincerely, Regan Leigh Chrisman-Boman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sincerely is a compilation of diaristic narratives depicted through the lens of a distorted reality. This distortion is manifested through the influence of social norms placed on me and my gendered experience of this world. The stories I tell through my work deal with the mind, body and daily life. My images within this body of work are sourced from my written journal, and creating a visual diary. I provide a space of relatability for the viewer to feel seen and not alone through the discussion of personal experiences that are both unique and not unique to myself. The work …

Beyond The Veil, Noah S. Constantino

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

The philosophy behind my work is accented by this process in the sense of its micro-complexity. The idea of reshaping a flat surface to mimic complex topography coincides with the question I’ve been asking myself throughout making this work: What is outside of our structured and contrived reality and what does that look like? The complexity of depth within the process and the constant re-evaluation of the surface of the print is a parallel attempt to answer this fundamental question. To answer this, the fear of the unknown will always be present, but we must not let its complexity distract …

Inner Portraits, Bethany Salisbury

Graduate Theses

This paper investigates the many interconnected layers of women’s mental health through portraiture and how animal and plant symbolism can represent the way women's hormones and bodily health affect their mental health. I reveal how the artwork created presents these connections and inner mental health narratives to the viewer, creating a space of empathy, destigmatization, and self-reflection. This body of portraiture art connects five women through a series of both two-and three-dimensional portraits based on interviews using my own adaptation of Sara Lawrence-Lightfoots’ (1983) portrait methodology.

Women and non-binary individuals have always dealt with difficult interactions of bodily and mental …

Strange Creature, Dagny Walton

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Strange Creature is an exploration and renovation of the myth of the American West. I extract elements from the known and recognizable myth of the West and create my own rendition, focusing in particular on themes of transformation and violence. Here in this black mirror world, animals speak out loud, cowboys face down a wildland with eyes, and two suns light up the lonely sky. There is no continuous narrative thread, but each piece is a vignette that takes place in a single shared world. This world is at once familiar and completely alien. I intend to surprise the viewer …

Weather Permitting, Acadia Kandora

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Weather Permitting is an exhibition of objects and printed matter, primarily in the form of publicationsthat examine my relationship to nature and the idea of nature as both sanctuary and armor. At a young age, my parents would take my on a hike every Sunday instead of going to church. The hikes acted as a weekly pilgrimage deep into the woods and a ritual instilling the idea of nature being a place of spiritual refuge and retreat. A sanctuary - of course, weather permitting.

As I grew up and experienced hardship, my first instinct has always been to go hide …

Turning Tides, Lauren Whitmore

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Synthesizing personal narrative, sociological phenomenon, and art historical analysis, Turning Tides examines the relationship between power dynamics and sexual assault. Inequities and injustices with regard to the handling of sexual assault, and the norms that allow this issue to be pervasive, are woven throughout the cultural fabric of the United States. Feminists and feminist activist artists in the 1970s brought the matters women, and other marginalized groups, were facing to the forefront of political and social dialogue. The resulting work left an indelible mark on public perceptions and allowed for other activists and artists to build upon the foundations; creating …

Do You Want To Be Tender?, Leah Grant

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, you will find a body of writings and artworks that reflect Leah Grant’s art practice and research. Throughout the paper, you will see Leah alternate back and forth between her artwork and writings. Leah Grant addresses her personal experience as a Black woman and what it means it explore vulnerability through understanding how the relationships around her affects the relationship she has with herself. Leah has created a collection of poems, prints, and video and audio collages that assist her with revealing and concealing.

Love Labor: Literal Symbols And True Abstractions., Karen Weeks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

If the home can be a metaphor for our own interiors, then the things that collect there can be similarly thought of, performing as punctuated moments within that interior, giving it shape, creating contours. Within the domestic setting, macro social forces such as global capitalism as well as the more immediate experience of meeting our children’s demands can push and pull us, equally informing the experience of being in the home. Love Labor: Literal Symbols and True Abstractions is comprised of images sourced from common ephemera of the home meant to represent the everyday: notes, discarded letters, open envelopes, unfinished …

An Uncertain Line: Making Art About Photographs Of American War And Violence., Cassidy Meurer

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

Photography’s power in capturing a moment in history is indisputable, but inevitably flawed. Assumptions of objectivity and truth are made that do not count for the bias of the photographer, or the bias of the viewer. These assumptions do not explain the warped effect of freezing life at a fraction of a second. Information is left outside the frame; stories are fragmented in their retelling. Certain historical photographs have become iconic over time. My interest lies in images of American battle, violence, and trauma; those that have political and propagandic weight. Coded, controversial, and inherently emotional, these photographs have become …

Waiting Room., Helen Payne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Waiting Room is an installation of drawings and monotypes that re-envision everyday printed materials common in medical offices. The brochures, poster, bulletin board and children’s ABC book in this Waiting Room offer guidance suggest invasive and dysfunctional policy. A door opens onto a further room, where a hundred ultrasound images cascade onto the floor. This work, called Transducer Phosphene is the product of a fictional character’s encounter with a cruel (and not fictive) abortion policy. Waiting Room is the fruit of an inquiry that spanned my three years of study at the Hite Art Institute, a probing into the politics …

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 …

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 …

Leila Abdelrazaq Interview, Quest Sawyer

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: Leila Abdelrazaq is a Palestinian author/artist, who was born in Chicago. Her work combines art and activism, addressing topics such as diaspora, refugees, history, memory, and borders. In 2015, she graduated from DePaul University with a BFA in Theatre and BA in Arabic Studies. She is best known for her graphic novel Baddawi (April 2015)- a story about her father’s refugee experience. Her website (https://lalaleila.com) also contains comics and zines, illustrations, and prints she’s created based on self- expression and her love of activism. Leila is also the founder of a blog called Bigmouth Press and Comix, …

In The Margins, Savannah Bustillo

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

A margin is defined relative to something else. A ruled line. A body of text on a page. The margins are the excess, outside of the value we can qualify or quantify. Our understandings of the habitability of the margins are too often framed as fundamental differences between those that inhabit value and the rest that do not. What would happen if we reframed the margins beyond a simple dichotomy? What could we gain if the margins were a habitable space around and between the things we prioritize in defining? By analyzing a body of my own art, I …

Time And Lines, Richard Pecos Pryor

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

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” -Annie Dillard

I want to make art that is worthwhile, that shares something important. This desire often overwhelms and hinders me from starting projects. I find myself questioning the purpose of art altogether. Yet, once I relinquish control into action—just simply start and keep going—the unforeseen meaning eventually presents itself.

Drawings begin with lines. Partnered with curiosity, I began this series by exploring the potential of drawing materials. How far and for how long can a single sharpened pencil last? What does a mile of lines look …

Personal Puzzles: Exploring Meaning In A Printmaking Workshop, Sally Jayne Rydalch

Theses and Dissertations

In an effort to assist self-guided artists in constructing meaning and creativity through the technique of printmaking, the author has compiled a curriculum to engage these artist/students in thoughtful research, discussion, art-making, and critique. In this qualitative case study there are eight participants from age 14 to 79, with varying educational and art experience, who enrolled in a relief print workshop with no recompense other than participation. The particular benefits of learning relief printing are described. The author's goal is exploration of student responses to a curriculum centered around constructing meaning and engaging in introspective and informed discussion. In fostering …

The Process That Eats Itself, Brent Houzenga

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Chance and the found object set the stage for artworks that illustrate the clash between the everyman, popular culture and high art. The investigation of my process, surroundings and interests leads to an infinite amount of possibilities in a process that is beginning to eat itself.

Ghost Water Exhibition, Michael G. Sharp

Theses and Dissertations

The Ghost Water exhibition of artworks by Michael Sharp was comprised of four main works titled: 30 x 60 Minute Grid Series, Suspension, History/Prehistory, and Lake Bonneville Remnants. The artwork was created as a reaction to the land that once held the prehistoric Lake Bonneville and to its current remnant Great Salt Lake. The work explores the dialogue between absence and presence.

Cozy Mart: Convenient Aesthetics, Eric John Edvalson

Theses and Dissertations

Convenience stores in their various forms are not only commercial outlets of foodstuffs and sundry items but are also experiential in nature; the act of going to a convenience store is a culturally shared experience. In homage to these spaces, Cozy Mart is a public art installation and performance which recreates this shared experience in an idealized form. Based on do-it-yourself culture, appropriation of public space, and artistic traditions of sculpture and printmaking, Cozy Mart invites interaction with art outside of the traditional gallery space and capitalizes on alternative methods of art distribution.

Maria Deau Senior Art Portfolio, Maria Deau

Senior Art Portfolios

No abstract provided.

Shaurya Kumar Interview, Tejas Patel

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: A native of Delhi, India where he studied printmaking and painting at the College of Art; Shaurya Kumar graduated with his MFA from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2007. Since 2001, Kumar has been involved in numerous prestigious research projects, like “The Paintings of India” (a series of 26 documentary films on the painting tradition of India); "Handmade in India" (an encyclopedia on the handicraft traditions of India); and digital restorations of 6th century Buddhist mural paintings from the caves of Ajanta. Kumar’s research is focused on creating works which appreciate and appropriate new media while highlighting the …