Scholarship & Research
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Item Perceptual interference(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2019) Willard, Alyssa Riann; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Jim ZimpelWhen I explore my surroundings, I often wonder about what we can never truly know. My studio practice serves as an outlet for my questions, and I expect it to generate more questions than answers. I have questions about origins, the unknown future, and the interactions between matter and energy. In conjunction with this written thesis I created works that will be displayed as my MFA thesis show in the Helen E. Copeland Gallery. These works are responses to my research into various energy forces, which stems from my collaborations with Montana State University's Physics Department. My primary interest this year has been electromagnetism which is the study of the interactions between electricity, magnetism and light. But I am also interested in how electromagnetism connects to other forces such as gravity and sound, and how these various systems follow patterns that are very similar to fractal patterns found in nature. There is a lack of knowledge when it comes to what connects various forces to others, which stimulates my interest in the interactions between them. My current questions have led me to the conclusion that invisible forces connect and influence all things.Item Deep Now & The Seed Bank Project(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2018) Jones, Rachael Marne; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Jeremy HatchThe Deep Now & The Seed Bank Project critically examines flaws in Western Society's tendency towards singular perceptual and singular analytical ways of constructing reality. The exhibition is built from cultural signifiers of both loss and hope, expanding on the belief that what we leave behind is an indication of the future. I am among one of the first generations to expect a future in flux, and in order to adapt, our methods of problem-solving need to expand to include both analytical and automatic thinking strategies. As a relatively new civilization that has expanded its influence globally, the instigation of metacognition between the head and the heart could ignite the fundamental psychological shift to understanding deep time within Western Society. Only with a sense of empathy, as well as deep humility for reconciling our place within the larger eco-system of the earth, will the future look brighter for future generations of all life forms. Looking at both analytical and automatic thinking patterns exhibited within Western Society's evolutionary trajectory, this paper posits that both are valid problem-solving strategies depending on context and flexibility. This involves understanding our reality as a construct, fabricated from both cognition and phenomenological experience. Accepting that this construct will demand flexibility in interpretation as the future changes insures a more cognizant relationship with our environment. Deep Now & The Seed Bank Project was formulated with a rich recognition of cultural signifiers that relate how the 20th and 21st century established Western Society's values as well as a self-consciousness of our era. Through flow state drawing processes, artefactual sculpture and ritualistic, reliquarizing seed banks, the work hopes to deviate from apocalyptic visions, while recognizing an eminent paradigmatic shift in the future of Western Society. The exhibition harks to focus clearly on the clues from the past to rebuild a more interconnected and sustainable intention for our projection into space and time.Item Live for a day - live for an age(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2016) Kim, Soon; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Dean AdamsHumanity has a limited amount of time. Life's brevity is what makes it beautiful. With unlimited time, we lose the beauty of the human experience. The same way an immortal cell becomes cancer, an immortal human loses their humanity. Things seem to matter more the less time we have. One's emotional state affects one's perception of time and leads to a heightened awareness that extends even to the body. Most of us focus too much on the past or worry too much about the future; we lose time because we fail to exist deeply in the present moment. Through my research on biological time and the human condition, painting, and personal experience, I delve into the themes of life and mortality with emphasis on time and identity coupled with organic cells and DNA sequences. I hope that my art inspires others to consider the heavy themes that often motivate my art such as the imminence of death, and with the knowledge of that reality, using the time you are given to the fullest.Item The gradual instant(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2016) Osman, Michelle Jocelyn; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Sara MastUsing visual imagery of my perceived environment allows me to map the intersection between unease with my surroundings and a deep connection to them at the same time. This work forces me to address questions of how I choose to interpret my environment. Integrating transitory clouds formations with signs of the built environment locates the work in an ephemeral and contemplative non-space.Item Forecast in hindsight(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2001) Comnick, JulieIn my paintings I depict the 'weeded out.' The people in my images are socially commonplace, and the material objects are unsentimental, discards, or debris. They are persona and things that inhabit our everyday experience, but go overlooked within our urban landscape. In my continued tendency to portray the disregarded, or to look at the overlooked, I have become concerned with the act of making the unpictorial pictorial. When commonplace elements are extract from their ordinary environments and posited within the painting, they come subjects. Renewed within the painting, the subjects take on a primary role as allegorical signs and social indicators. I depict theses subjects on monochrome grounds, secluding them form their conventional settings. By isolations the subjects I have, in effect, pre-selected the focus of the paintings, disrupting consciousness' accustomed task. Without the need to distinguish or discriminate, the observer perceives the images form outside the periphery of consciousness. Consciousness predetermines what not to observe; my paintings ask the viewer to go back and see the things that went previously overlooked.Item Mystory : invented illogical misinterpretations of natural phenomenae [sic](Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1981) Wyffels, Ronald EdwardMy art is a visual expression of my true nature; my way of seeing myself in this world ("Mystory"). My work uses a theatrical metaphor in the sense that I stage life size "sets" or "scenes" that allude to my feelings and observations. My art deals with invented illogical misinterpretations of natural phenomenae acting as points of focus that preoccupy my thoughts, detaching them from all that stuff that we’ve seen for so long and now take for granted. To cite one work: "Everythingishappeningallthetime" is a physical manifestation of my attitude that things are so closely related that they become one. Wall becomes book becomes table becomes chair becomes floor... and are painted in such a way that they become "...wallbooktablechairfloor...", all occuring at once. I use an imaginary "selective light” to cut-out and reveal the stuff that life and this world is made of. By this act of "illuminating" real objects, I am bringing to light the abstract nature of reality and the visual strangeness of life itself. My art uses illusion and reality simultaneously, making the real unreal and the unreal real, I believe addition and subtraction are different aspects of the same thing. In my art, something taken away is being used in its absence due to the presence of what remains. My works invisibly extend to complete a space greater than that which they physically occupy. My approach to working is a blend of making and finding; part "doing" and part "letting happen". I try to attune myself to the nature of the materials and to integrate this with my ideas. In this way I reveal myself to me.Item Illusions of fabric in functional jewelry(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1990) Pedersen, Gayle PatriciaThe focus of my thesis work in jewelry design has been form, function, and illusion. The form is the transformation of fabric, both woven and lace, into functional jewelry made from bronze and sterling silver. My intent is to translate the idea of soft, pliable fabric into metal, and create the illusion of fabric. This idea is especially important with the silver lace pieces. The sterling silver pins and necklace of lace embossed metal are translations of several elements. The layers of metal are copies of stiff white lace collars found in fifteenth and sixteenth century paintings. Flat pieces of sterling silver are folded and pinched into tight gathers to create the impression of a ruffle. Several layers of metal are attached to resemble the fullness of the lace collars. The diffusion of reflective light and the negative spaces create an illusion of increased visual depth. The white matte color of the silver provides a strong contrast to the dark area of negative space. The process of leaving silver white imitates the starched lace and stiff doilies used by my grandmothers. The Norwegian women who immigrated to the United States brought only their clothing and jewelry; my grandmother was one. Her most treasured pieces of jewelry were her Norwegian pins of filigree framework, with silver and gold disks. As a child I was fascinated by how elaborate and beautiful they were. Even though my works look nothing like these pins, they have been a strong influence, both visually and emotionally.Item Untitled(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1983) Wagner, Kurt Frederick; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: John E. BurkeThe same things are done by us, over and over, with terrible predictability. One may be forgiven, in view of this, for wishing at least to associate with beauty.' (Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow). My wish is to attempt to rub elbows with my perception of beauty. The work that you see before you is an example of how I perceive the things of this world. Beauty lies within our perception. It Is something that we bring to this world. Since I began graduate school I have tried to set up sculptural situations within an enclosed format. These situations were designed to stimulate our senses in a general way. During my thesis work I discovered that through the drawing of these situations I was able to be more specific about how I see them. This made the perception of what I made an important part of the work. Observation is the threshold of perception. It is through observation that perception is revealed. This is not observation with perfection of duplication as the final solution. It is the 'mistakes' or rather how we deviate from the reality of observation which releases the personality of our perception. In a sense I am drawing things that are not physically there. This is where the beauty lies. The work you see before you in this show is four separate pieces. Each piece consists of three parts: the viewfinder, the still life, and the drawing of the still life through use of the viewfinder as a window for my perception. I see each part as being dependent on the other parts in order for the piece to be complete. It would be impossible to grasp the full intention of these pieces without all parts being present. I believe that sculpture has the potential to encompass whatever it takes to bring an idea to life. What I am doing is to combine two dimensional, three dimensional, and perceptional levels in order to reach this potential. Over and over, I orchestrate these differing levels in an attempt to at least rub elbows with beauty.Item Impetus, statement, media(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1983) Sugarman, Matthew Lamoureux; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Francis J. Noel IIIThe overall idea/theme in my art is that of the search through imagery for the ways that consciousness works in the world, and beyond that, to discover what the true nature(s) of consciousness is and/or are. I often feel intuitively, as a momentary revelation, that the true nature of consciousness is that of one universal consciousness bonding man, nature, and even all matter together in some way. The connection to universal awareness is not the experience of my own consciousness in everyday life, but a missing link to be found hidden somewhere within myself and probably this missing link can be found in my own perception which is changeable. I find that through working in art one can probe different ways of perceiving, doing, experiencing, and discovering different states of awareness, including intuitive states of being in a now space, between past and future.Item New Paintings(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2005) Smith, Steven Connolly; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Harold SchlotzhauerThese works stem from a traditional subject matter for painting, the nude. And, these paintings incorporate many of the traditional aspects of representing the nude figure: they are constructed on panels and painted in thin, transparent layers. They utilize linear and atmospheric perspective in order to achieve the illusion of space. They are monumental in scale. The colors are derived from a limited palette, and the figures are grouped in artificial ways. At first glance, they appear to be traditional figure paintings. Closer inspection reveals anomalies to traditional figure painting. The figures appear transparent and incorporeal, as though aware they are constructed of paint. The underpainting is pronounced, and repentances--pentimento--quite apparent. These effects fix the figures somewhere between the physical surface of the picture, and the illusionary space of the painting. The interplay of these paintings as they shift between physical, two-dimensional object and illusionistic window is carried through to the frames. The traditional function of the frame--to organize the space of the painting, to eliminate outside distraction, to focus the attention of the viewer--is hybridized to serve multiple functions. Spaces in the frame that are real, that are actual, echo spaces in the painting that are illusionistic. This activity unites the painting with its frame. The real transparency of the space in the frame is allowed to contrast the painted transparency of the painted surface, calling into question the differences of each, and allowing frame to be as painterly, as gestural, as illusionistic as the painted surface.