Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
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Item Heads or tails(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1973) Pollock, John WilliamItem Cupcakes to comics(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1973) Oderkirk, Stephen VernItem Monotypes(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1984) Moss, Lynda Bourque; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Francis J. Noel IIISpace... vast, endless, personal or intimate, permeates my work. Oblique and haunting as well as curious and humorous, the monotypes are landscapes offering divergent elements. They hold images suggesting questions rather than answers. The Western landscape, a big place with vague boundaries, is my source for these works. By visually wandering across a prairie, gazing at an expanse of water or observing the sky, I acknowledge a sense of spaciousness and immediacy. These sensations call for a focal reference. This may be something physical and tangible or it may be an internalization. Both provide a meditative response. I believe a duality of vision allows an acceptance of experience in an individual way. Agnes Martin suggests a similar concern: 'It is from our awareness of transcendent reality and our response to concrete reality that our mind commands us on our way - not really on a path or to a gate - but to a full response.' My perception of the landscape is similar to that of many artists, from the nineteenth century to the present. Walt Whitman wrote of the 'strange mixture of delicacy' evident in the plains and mountains. David Smith spoke of the rawness and harshness of the American landscape. The process of monotypes - a combination of painting and printmaking - and the consequent characteristics of the process suited my interests and visual language. The spontaneity and immediacy of painting transfer in a direct and sensitive manner. Luminosity, layering and compressed imagery are utilized. These works share complicity and economy. In all the monotypes a paradox is present, an expanse is occupied by defined independent marks. Foggy ambiguous ground/atmosphere exists with strange awkward rudiments. Borrowing from Jack Burnham in 'The Great Western Salt Works', these may be referred to as very primitive 'signifiers'. Each monotype presents a syntax for divergent qualities. Each represents time; time of thought and time of action. They are my record of seeing. Richard Hugo expressed a parallel attitude in 'Open Country': '...And you come back here where the land has ways of going on and the shadow of a cloud crawls like a freighter, no port in mind, no captain, and the charts dead wrong.'Item The poetic quality of metaphor(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1983) Braun, Kenneth JohnThe poetic quality of metaphor is important in my work. The most attractive aspect of metaphor is in the ability of images to make inferences, that are seemingly unrelated to their own physical characteristics. The images then become a vehicle for a shadowed sense or mood that is more poetic than prosaic in feel. I enjoy enhancing this poetic nature by inventing situations or contexts that have a dramatic flavor. I find that the image then projects its own curious reality, separate from mere literal depiction. In some instances, I employ an almost iconographic presentation to my imagery, while in others using a more narrative approach. Both have advantages that allow me to play upon the dramatic element I am fond of exhibiting. The source for my work is more a result of seeking a mood or sense complimentary to my own sensibilities, sometimes alluding to self, other times reflecting a relationship between myself and my immediate environment. The source of my imagery is generally drawn from the world of objects that surround me. It is their common everyday qualities that provide me with a great many possibilities of combination. The character of their combination in my work is exciting to me, in that it frees me from the past experience of forcing a preeminent sense of meaning upon image. The combinations reflected become more a poetic response on my part, to an intuited relationship, oftentimes originating from allowing contrasting or unrelated images to Combine, I also feel that the poetic quality of metaphor in my work induces an observer response, confronting his own sensibilities.