Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
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- All Subjects: art
- All Subjects: Mechanical Engineering
Virgil and I met in 2019 while Virgil was performing a ceramics demo at the ASU Ceramics facilities. We collaborated on Virgil’s first line of completely handmade functional wares for his collaborative show at the ReVOlt gallery for Indian Market, Santa Fe 2019. In 2020, Virgil came to ASU as a visiting artist faculty and began work on larger pieces using more sculptural clays and exploring internal support structures under the guidance of myself and artist Ben Jackel. Seeing this large work and the opportunity to build on this, renowned art critic and appraiser Peter Held brought myself and Virgil to Reitz Ranch Center for Ceramic Arts, the former studio and home of Don Reitz. Don was an American master, building huge vessels and sculptures and firing them in salt, soda and wood kilns built on his property. He built a particularly larger Anagama style kiln, deemed the Reitz-agama, which measures 60in tall and 30 feet deep, specifically to be able to wood fire his massive wares. Don’s work is visceral and emotional, made with a heavy hand and minimally glazed, allowing for the buildup of wood ash and salt from the atmospheric firings to complete their surfaces. The ranch still holds all of his kilns, and hundreds of his pieces from years of success and failures. The owner of the ranch Sheryl Leigh-Devault, and Don’s former assistant Ben Roti, invited Virgil and I up to work at the ranch any time we wanted during this visit, and due to the closures of ASU studios and a desire to push our work together further than we ever had before, we orchestrated a week visit. This week visit developed into two weeks, and had since developed further into a one and a half month short term quarantine residency.
So far, I have found three rolls of film that were able to be developed. Some of the rolls I have found were blank or too damaged to be developed. I will continue to search for more as I do this project. My goal is to have eight to ten complete rolls by the time I begin making my book.
Developing the pictures is always a surprise. They had remained undeveloped for years until I found them. I never know what will be on the roll. I always have so many questions when I see the pictures for the first time after they are developed. I wonder who took the pictures, where/when they were taken, how they ended up in a thrift store and how subjects would feel about the pictures today. I would like to be able to answer all of these questions, but I know it would be difficult to track down the people in the photos.
Even though the photos are of strangers they seem to still have a sense of nostalgia for me. They remind me of my memories from the era they were taken in. This connection is one of the bases I want to use for my presentation of the photos. One idea I have is to sequence these pictures from least clear to most clear, starting with pictures that can barely be comprehended. I think this would accurately represent memories in my own life. Many of my early memories are more blurred and less coherent but the more recent memories are much clearer. Sequencing will be an important tool for conveying my intended message. There are also many other tools I can use in post processing; however, I want to try to keep the photos as original as possible. There are some ways I could explore manipulating the photos without changing their original unedited look. Some ways I could do this are cropping, resizing and narrative. I will continue to explore these tools as I progress through this project.
Methods: The Eye to Eye mentorship program assessed involved mentors and mentees who completed 12 in-person art sessions out of the normal 20 in-person sessions. The first main assessment was the BLD (Breger Learning Difference) Feedback Survey addressing one’s experience in the Eye to Eye program and which were completed at the end of the mentorship program and filled out by mentors, mentees, and mentees parents (one parent for each mentee). A total of 12 mentors, 6 mentees, and 6 mentee parents were included in the feedback survey final analysis. The second main assessments were the pre and post Behavior Assessment System for Child, Third Edition (BASC-3) provided to mentors, mentees, and mentees parents (one parent for each mentee). A total of 10 mentors, 5 mentees, and 5 mentee parents were included in pre and post BASC-3 final analysis. Fall 2019 (pre) and Spring 2020 (post) optional interviews involved 5 mentors and 3 mentees who showed interest and were comfortable participating with additional release forms.
Results: The program was generally positively rated in the feedback survey by mentors, mentees, and mentee parents. The highest responses for mentors, mentees, and mentee parents all incorporated average ratings of 4.0 or higher (out of 5.0) for perceived understanding of socio-emotional skills after Eye to Eye, experience in Eye to Eye, how having a mentor or mentee made them feel, and perceived change in self-awareness. All three groups reported fairly high ratings of improved self-awareness of 4.0/5.0 or above. No negative ratings were provided by any participants and the lowest response was no change. The BASC-3 evaluation found statistically significant improvement in mentors’ anxiety and atypicality and mentees’ sense of inadequacy.
Discussion: The Eye to Eye program was popular and well-rated despite only involving 12 in- person one-hour art sessions. The mentors, mentees, and mentee parents felt positive about the Eye to Eye program when answering the feedback survey. Some suggestions are made on how to improve this program to better enhance someone with learning differences future ability to succeed. Future research is needed to assess the true impact due to the COVID-19 epidemic and other limitations.