Fine Arts Commons^™

A Tinker's Studio, Catherine L. Hudnall

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is meant to describe and explain a space in which one can imagine things necessary for making objects that wobble, squeak, clack, creak, crank in and out, open and close, light up, roll about and generally hurl themselves into creepy existence. It is also an endeavor to describe some objects having lately taken such a journey into being. These include (but are not limited to): a chess table for one, an examining table and tray, two workbenches, chessmen and women, creaky floorboards, stairs on wheels, a stool on wheels, and Monsters of various sizes and shapes.

If Chivalry Is Dead, Women Have Killed It, Nicole Heimbach

Theses and Dissertations

I am interested in the dual meaning of pattern. Pattern is a design format used for decoration. By introducing certain images into patterns, they have the ability to give meaning or messages. The repetition of a certain image emphasizes importance to a particular idea or issue. I embroider pattern designs onto pre-manufactured clothing pattern pieces as a response to things in society that I find absurd. This body of work focuses on female iconography. The delicate nature of these materials lends themselves to feminine associations. Embroidery, which is stereotypically associated with women's work, is used to play on these clichés.Patterns …

Conversations With The Self: An Artist's Visual & Written Wanderings, Elizabeth W. Perkins

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis is made up of episodes in which I am in dialogue with myself, sometimes in dialogue with the work, and yet other times I am speaking directly to the reader/viewer. The tense also sways from past to present as frequently as the visual language does. The following episodes are a selection of writings from my final year at graduate school. The episodes express my influences, inspirations, theories, and philosophies as a person and a maker. I think of these things as what allows me to wander and then wander somewhere else completely different within the same landscape. I …

Growth And Deterioration, Brooke A. Hine

Theses and Dissertations

I use porcelain clay because it allows me to focus on the subtle color shifts between white, beige, and gray. The forms I make in clay are associated with tangled roots, naked tree branches, hollow logs, and bones. I reveal this with a dense mass of curvilinear hollow forms that stack into a rhythmic linkage. They twist and turn, relying on gravity to dictate their structure within the installation. The ends of some are closed while others remain open to expose their interior. The tearing and perforations on the surface of each piece are employed to emphasize deterioration. In opposition …

Calliphysics, Sara Miller Clark

Theses and Dissertations

My work focuses on the reality and life of mental objects. The unseen masquerade as the seen, not only in our mind's eye but as an immediate visual experience.

To realize this I apply volumetric form to models of thought and present them in a variety of environments. The forms are derived from the fields of science and mathematics, specifically geometry and topology. Topology or "rubber-sheet geometry," is the study of shapes whose essential attributes are unchanged by continuous deformation. The shapes are not defined by measurements of distance and angle, but by whether they can be transformed when bent, …

Graduate Body Of Work, Paul Dipasquale

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis describes the technical processes involved in producing my work. Illustrations and diagrams complement the manuscript. The sculpture is represented by photographs.

I do not intend to verbally describe what each sculpture attempts to project for itself. I have done and will continue to do sculpture because it makes more sense to me than anything else, including writing about what I have made. The investigation, planning, creating, and presentation of my work manifests itself in the object. I would, therefore, undercut this intent if I attempted to duplicate my sculpture rhetorically.

The works discussed were shown at three locations: …

The Bending Of Wood With Steam, James H. Cottey Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

Based on experimentation with the steam bending of wood to curved shapes, this thesis describes my involvement with three basic aspects of the process. First is the procurement, assimilation, and construction of the equipment and apparatus necessary for the steam bending of wood. Secondly, the determination of certain qualities of particular woods in reference to steam bending is made. This includes: woods easily bent; woods not easily bent; the time required to plasticize stock; and the time required to set curves. Also noted are some of the physical limitations involved in bending stock with steam in the craftsman's studio. Thirdly, …