School of Art and Design

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/10342/29

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Open Access
Beyond the Folds: Emergent Properties in Paper
(East Carolina University, 2023-04-28) Rhodes-Pruitt, John
In this body of work I explore the relationship between visual art, information science, and the geometry of paper in an attempt to create a unique visual language with which I make records; not unlike writing in a journal. Using cyanotype, origami, drawing, and digital techniques I co-opt the language of computers (binary) to represent aspects of myself in paper form, blending the analog and digital into a distinctive way of communicating. The work is informed by my understanding of Constructor Theory, Information Theory, and Quantum Mechanics with which I draw thematic comparisons between the fundamental nature of who I am with the fundamental nature of the universe.
Open Access
The Legend of Ayon: A Sculptural Monomyth
(East Carolina University, 2023-04-28) Prevette, Thaddeus
The Legend of Ayon is a sculptural representation of a hero's journey into a world of the unknown, then returning victorious after overcoming trials and tribulations. My research depicts my fascination with fantasies originating from ancient historical myths and combining them with modern mythology. I view the various forms of modern media, film being one example, as this era's mythologies. Ayon is a warrior pursuing a monster, who overcomes the trials of the wilderness and the unknown world and is guided towards a realization that community is stronger together than fractured. For me, these sculptural vessels, dragons, and objects have become a therapeutic process by using a variety of materials to fabricate a body of work that invokes a sense of permanence, structural integrity, and tranquility.
Open Access
Exploring Online Art Education: Multi-Institutional Perspectives and Practices
(2022-09) Song, Borim; Lim, Kyungeun
How can art educators transmit their passion and enthusiasm for art teaching and learning to cultivate human potential in the virtual classroom? As a collective case study focusing on our online undergraduate courses, this research examines how two instructors used instructional methods and technologies, and how their students responded to their pedagogical endeavors. Qualitative content analysis was utilized. Virtual art classes can encourage students to look into themselves and become more aware of themselves. Communicating and feeling connected to others are critical for students in online settings. As demonstrated in our course design, connectivity between students and instructors can be facilitated through a multi-layered structure, providing for more efficient communication. This study also found blurred boundaries between real and virtual learning environments. When we facilitate fluidity and conceptual flexibility as online art educators, digital technologies may expand our thinking and expression frameworks.
Open Access
Art as Radical Act: Teenagers Revisit Diversity and Social Justice through JR’s Giant Baby
(2022-08-22) Song, Borim
In this article I share ways that I have used the artworks of contemporary artists to encourage middle school students to reflect on the concepts of diversity and social justice. This paper describes my use of an artwork called “Kikito (Tecate, Mexico-USA, 2017),” a work in the Giant series by a French artist JR. When I shared images of this artwork with students, the participating teenagers discussed this public art piece verbally as well as through texting via social media. They then created artworks based on their reflections. Although the quality of student outcomes varied in both the text-based discussions and drawing activity, they clearly showed that the Giant Baby project and JR’s stories deeply engaged the students in a critical examination of the U.S./Mexico relationship and sparked their interest in the role of the visual arts as a source of social justice and systematical change.
Open Access
Alone Together? Fighting Student Isolation in Online Art Education
(2022-07) Song, Borim
The COVID-19 pandemic required most K-16 educators to transition to the realm of online education. Across the nation, a plethora of insights on new technologies, platforms, and secret tips for distance teaching have burgeoned. Yet one critical aspect seems be missing: our students. Aren’t they left out in these discussions? This essay recounts my personal journey as an art educator during the emergent culture of COVID-19. Sharing my stories and students’ reflections, I particularly focus on strategies to prevent student isolation within virtual art education and explain how to use synchronous and asynchronous methods to stay connected with the students.
Open Access
CRENULATION & TENTACULARITY: An exploration of ceramics as a tool for communicating marine conservation topics
(East Carolina University, 2022-05-02) Beblo, Julienne
The ocean is a fascinating, three-dimensional environment that contains diverse organisms and unique interactions. It is also a common source of inspiration for aesthetics. Unfortunately, marine ecosystems have been negatively impacted by human activities. Art can be a powerful tool for communication, especially when being utilized to translate scientific ideas. The body of work presented in this paper represents the use of clay as a medium for communicating the beauty of the ocean and the need for marine conservation.
Open Access
Escapist ideations
(East Carolina University, 2022-04-22) Hutchinson, Katya Lee
Escapist Ideations is a series of intaglio etchings exploring personal anxieties around global and systemic crises. Visualized as a series of escapist fantasies, each print represents a theme which is explored using representative objects staged throughout the scene. In the tradition of classic printmakers like Max Klinger, Bertha Lum, Mary Cassatt and Francisco Goya, this series of prints is contemplative and critical. With an emphasis on environmental and social issues, Escapist Ideations focuses on the role of the passive participant in a climate of reckoning and realization. Executed through traditional printmaking processes, the series is built upon an amalgam of influences from science fiction literature and film, and visually influenced by traditions of classicism. Escapist Ideations reflects a contemporary take on both fiction and process.
Open Access
An Obligation to do One’s Best
(East Carolina University) Smessaert, Dana
An Obligation to do One's Best is an exploration of myth and reality at home in a small southern town. The artist is calling into question whose history we are referencing when it comes to art, economics, and culture. In these liminal landscapes, the viewer/spectator becomes a collaborator in the mythos of racism in the Southern narrative--the denial of not only its racist past but also the strides of the Civil Rights protests. The research explores the agency of history and cultural capital through a site-specific installation with images, video, sculpture, and sound. Creating a liminal landscape of the American South through physical and metaphysical readings of its trauma, history, and understanding the "...south as a noun that behaves like a verb." The South is entwined with history, politics, economics, and racism, a link that can never be severed, this paper consorts with classic literature, history, cinema, demographics, and philosophy. The American South, the house, the name, and the family's history are complicated and seemingly transparent to those on the outside. However, the stories of those who live here still exist in the space between myth and reality.
Open Access
Fear Not This Body
(East Carolina University, 2019-11-26) Buss, Carolyn Adda
Body shame is an insidious part of Western culture. As a fat woman, I am intent upon expressing and sharing the beauty of bodies that are commonly vilified in an effort to combat that shame. In my MFA thesis exhibition, I present an installation consisting of a series of larger-than-life nude self-portraits alongside a series of enameled objects that I call bodies: these share forms with various stereotypical feminine body types, present diverse skin tones and textures, and feature assorted anatomical features typically coded as unsightly or undesirable. The large portraits envelop the viewer in a fat body and encourage them to pick up and interact with these small enameled representations of fatness. The final portion of the installation is the sticky-note wall; a participatory activity with viewers based on vulnerability research and an experiment I performed within Jenkins Fine Arts Center over the month of September. The work has already helped others, and I expect to continue making body- and fat-positive works in order to continue helping viewers gain their own confidence.
Open Access
You, the Candidate
(East Carolina University, 2019-07-25) Clark, Kayla N
This thesis investigates the relationship between graphic design and political campaigns with a focus on color and typography. The extent to which the general public identifies typeface and color palette characteristics is tested using surveys of college students. Findings from these surveys are used to select six color and typeface combinations, which are then designed and applied to a political campaign. Amazon MTurk is used to distribute these campaigns alongside surveys to five hundred individuals nationally. These surveys are designed to document the general public's perceptions of campaign design. Specifically, randomizing the release of campaigns across individuals reveals the relative influence of color and typeface on a campaign's signaling of political party and ideology. Surveys also document perceptions of kindness, trustworthiness, modernity and traditionality to these designed campaigns. The combination of graphic design, large-scale public dissemination and survey-based feedback introduces a data-driven design methodology that has the potential to improve and enrich the graphic design process for students, working designers and researchers. This research works in conjunction with a participatory installation that brings attention to creating design decisions and the influence of political design. The installation encourages involvement with the political process as participants create their own political campaign ephemera on a custom-designed application.
Open Access
Art: The Grand Illusion
(East Carolina University, 2019-05-14) Stoehr, Alexander
My presentation facilitates an understanding of everyday design choices and the potential influence it has on a viewer. From marketing designs to popular film I do my best to breakdown my understanding of the artist/audience relationship. I then attempt to provide examples of this potential influence. But whether this power is good, bad, or neutral, however, is up to my audience. I will carry this thought process with me through my career.
Open Access
Scurry
(East Carolina University, 2019-05-01) Shultz, Ronson
There has been a shift in the politics in America with many voters moving into a post-truth society. Where debates, laws and policies are framed by appealing to emotions, rather than facts. This political movement, also known as the alt-right slowly emerged within the '90s but then exploded into the mainstream in 2017 with a deadly rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Using the fictional animal, the critter, and while assuming the role of an anthropologist in the North Carolina region of the U.S., I am examining the birth and resulting consequences of this highly tribal political ideology.
Open Access
Is there a solution to climate change?
(East Carolina University, 2019-05-01) White, Margaret Claire
This document supports my Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition consisting of two digital prints, ten lithographs, vinyl text corresponding to each print and 5 stickers with listed references, in the SOAD gallery. The artwork is divided into two sections: mitigation and adaptation, and subsections detailing specific predicaments including ocean acidification, energy production, and thawing permafrost. Accompanying text explains the scientific and social relevance behind the imagery. In this way, the art acts as a framing device for the science and social issues of climate change. As I made the work for this exhibition, contemporary events included the 2018 mid-term elections and the International Panel on Climate Change released their report on the impacts of our rising global temperature. These are both relevant and pertinent to the thesis. While the media acknowledged the overwhelming alarm generated by the IPCC report, climate change was forgotten by the midterm campaigners in favor of policies on immigration and healthcare. Climate change is a pressing concern that will affect us for generations even if we solved it today. I believe it worth discussing, especially in the context of a university, but I hope this thesis will one day be irrelevant.
Open Access
Metamorphosis in Red
(East Carolina University, 2019-04-26) Lang, Joanne; Lazure, Timothy
Folk and fairy tales have been told for centuries and they remain a mainstay in children's literature. When they were first written down, the tales included startling episodes of mistreatment of women, including sexual assault, oppression and violence. Though these stories have become sanitized over time, they still contain vestiges of the original written injustices. As a child, being read these narratives normalized this conduct and even as an adult, the stories continued to seem benign. Examining these tales more closely, especially the original versions, allows us to question the behaviors in the stories and related episodes in today's world. My thesis exhibition examines the well-known folk tale Little Red Riding Hood. Textiles, wall hangings, enameled wearable art, and a setting of handmade and found objects recreate emotions and themes from the tale. As they enter the installation, I ask the viewers to consider the challenges the girl protagonist faces through the various historical versions of the story. The exhibit culminates with my interpretation of the story's ending, a shift from the traditional views of Little Red Riding Hood.
Open Access
Untitled
(East Carolina University, 2018-12-06) Bradsher, Jessica
I believe in the practice of empathy. Einfühlung is the ability to put oneself in the shoes of another and is the inspiration for this thesis exhibition. My work elicits emotion through sculptural representations of realistic facial expression, body language, and various contextual clues. My pieces are based on individuals I know personally and inspired by emotional states they have experienced viscerally. Through sharing these figures, which stand in for the people we meet in our everyday lives, my thesis offers a chance for reflection on the ways in which we empathically interact and coexist as members of the human race.
Open Access
Fracture: Representing Identity
(East Carolina University, 2018-04-27) Harris, Katya J
This document provides written support for the thesis exhibition, Fracture: Representing Identity. The body of work presented in the exhibition seeks to provide more accurate images of people, counter to the limiting representations saturating contemporary visual culture. By utilizing the visual element of fracture and focusing on the human body, the work I create serves several separate but related functions. First, creation of the works allows for a process of contemplation, during which I may reflect on my own developing ideas regarding personal identity in the current social and political climate. Second, the interactive nature of the work lets me share these ideas with a public audience. Lastly, this body of work serves as a platform from which to create a dialogue about identity and the responsibilities of image-makers who engage with representations of people, and topics at the forefront of today's identity politics.
Open Access
Cultural Mansters
(East Carolina University, 2017-05-03) Wells, Andrew Ross
This document is written in support of the thesis exhibition, Cultural Mansters, which represents and supports the idea of using satire and non-threatening imagery as tools to create a discourse on sociopolitical topics. By placing these innocent, furry, and cute characters in situations that closely resemble the harsh realities of people who live in the United States, I am creating a platform on which to discuss the social, political, economic practices that have slowly lead us to where we are now.
Open Access
Fragile: Handle with Care
(East Carolina University, 2017-05-03) Rubio, Hosanna
Memory has always been dearly held in my family, and easily lost. I watched as my loved ones surrounded themselves with objects that acted as physical anchors to the full lives they had lived, the places they had been, and the things that were important to them. This experience heightened my desire to document, to create a catalogue of my own that will allow me to capture my life in this moment. Fragile: Handle with Care is a body of work consisting of jewelry and sculptures that explore significant issues such as mortality, religion, and gender. Creating layered, detailed pieces allows me to find balance in the chaotic, to attempt to exert control over the uncontrollable aspects of my life and in the world at large. Petra Ahde-Deal asserts that jewelry is not only for adornment, but that it at times can be used to ease moments of change. In her words, "transitional jewelry can function as healing devices in reconstructing the self after personal crises." (91) My work combines traditional metalsmithing techniques such as enameling and casting with newer technologies like digital manipulation to create intricate pieces that serve as a platform to explore this recreation of identity. My experiences are not universal, but I hope to inspire an atmosphere of dialogue with my work to show that sometimes moments of pain and tragedy can offer us the greatest opportunities for beauty and transformation.
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Enneagram: An Illustrative Exploration
(East Carolina University, 2016-04-28) Thomas, Jordan
“Enneagram: An Illustrative Exploration” is a collection of work created during my last two years as a BFA Candidate in Studio Art and Illustration. The bulk of the work is based around body adornment and tattooing and how body modification is a means by which we outwardly express our inner narrative.
Open Access
VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS IN AUGMENTATIVE AND ALTERNATIVE COMMUNICATION (AAC): AN EYE TRACKING STUDY TO EXPLORE INFLUENCES OF ABSTRACTION, REALISM, AND FAMILIARITY ON THE GAZE PATTERNS OF A PERSON WITH ANGELMAN SYNDROME WHO USES AAC TECHNOLOGIES AND IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH AND THE ART CLASSROOM
(East Carolina University, 2016-05-04) Allen, Nicole E
People who are non-verbal and have intellectual disabilities often use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) technologies to have a voice, but are often left out of decisions about how their language is represented visually and how its lexical symbols are organized. The gap between designing effective images as part of a visual language expands as many images designated for use on AAC technologies are based upon assumptions of what is appropriate and effective. This eye tracking study explores the effects of images with varying levels of familiarity, abstraction, and realism, and how these factors affect the gaze patterns of someone with Angelman syndrome and is also an emerging communicator. Results revealed evidence to support Kress and van Leewen's theories describing how salience and vectors, when employed in images, influence ways of looking and the reading of images. Further exploration into how visual elements can direct the gaze and potentially create more effective visual language representations could inform educational and research practices to allow people without a voice to become more active agents in their lives, communities, and discourses.