Age

Date of Graduation

7-2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts in Art (MFA)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Art

Advisor/Mentor

Springer, Bethany L.

Committee Member

DeWitt, Dylan J.

Second Committee Member

Andree, David

Third Committee Member

Callander, Adrienne

Keywords

miniatures; found surfaces; exhibition; abstract backdrops; mounted works; water; risographs; economical craft; octopus

Abstract

Age is a body of work that uses open ended, multi-directional narrative, economical craft, body positioning, and disorder to create situations for curiosity to take hold and rekindle a sense of naivety. Intentionally pedestrian material choice and playful, curious methodology work in tandem with the visual language of play to create a world building opportunity for the participating viewer. The objects are anchors or starting points with spaces in between for flexible narratives and imagined and reimagined worlds with no prescribed beginning or end point.

The exhibition and written thesis represent a conglomeration of connected-by-association ideas, a Rube Goldberg machine of an idea, in which the idea is in constant motion. This is made apparent in the slightly disjointed construction of the written thesis, which represents a tentacular model of thinking in which the reader is focused on one thought, and everything around that thought simultaneously, much like the thought process of an octopus, who has a central brain in the head that works in tandem with a brain located in each tentacle.

This thesis paper begins with a section titled “This is an example of a back story,” that acts as a written representation of my state of mind throughout the process of making this body of work. It is a jotted down intuitional recollection, objectified through the use of sophisticated footnotes and figures.

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