Matching Items (395)
Description
Our lives are full of possibilities but also of self-imposed limitations. For some, finding their purpose in life and their place in the society is instinctive, but for many of us it requires a deliberate search. For the latter, self-discovery is a journey; an intentional path of many turns and twists, ups and downs, some surprises. It requires a person to slow down and assess oneself. What has been so far, what is right there on the surface, what is hidden deep down, and what is it that one strives for? Now, imagine narrowing down that path even more, and try to answer the question: Who am I as an artist?
ContributorsBlasko, Tanja (Author) / McMahon, Jeff (Thesis director) / Bowditch, Rachel (Committee member) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
How do you convey what’s interesting and important to you as an artist in a digital world of constantly shifting attentions? For many young creatives, the answer is original characters, or OCs. An OC is a character that an artist creates for personal enjoyment, whether based on an already existing story or world, or completely from their own imagination.
As creations made for purely personal interests, OCs are an excellent elevator pitch to talk one creative to another, opening up opportunities for connection in a world where communication is at our fingertips but personal connection is increasingly harder to make. OCs encourage meaningful interaction by offering themselves as muses, avatars, and story pieces, and so much more, where artists can have their characters interact with other creatives through many different avenues such as art-making, table top games, or word of mouth.
In this thesis, I explore the worlds and aesthetics of many creators and their original characters through qualitative research and collaborative art-making. I begin with a short survey of my creative peers, asking general questions about their characters and thoughts on OCs, then move to sketching characters from various creators. I focus my research to a group of seven core creators and their characters, whom I interview and work closely with in order to create a series of seven final paintings of their original characters.
As creations made for purely personal interests, OCs are an excellent elevator pitch to talk one creative to another, opening up opportunities for connection in a world where communication is at our fingertips but personal connection is increasingly harder to make. OCs encourage meaningful interaction by offering themselves as muses, avatars, and story pieces, and so much more, where artists can have their characters interact with other creatives through many different avenues such as art-making, table top games, or word of mouth.
In this thesis, I explore the worlds and aesthetics of many creators and their original characters through qualitative research and collaborative art-making. I begin with a short survey of my creative peers, asking general questions about their characters and thoughts on OCs, then move to sketching characters from various creators. I focus my research to a group of seven core creators and their characters, whom I interview and work closely with in order to create a series of seven final paintings of their original characters.
ContributorsCote, Jacqueline (Author) / Button, Melissa M (Thesis director) / Dove-Viebahn, Aviva (Committee member) / School of Art (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
There are problems in the breeding practices of miniature horses. This study seeks to determine the source of these detrimental outcomes based on an evaluation of primary attributes selected for by breeders and the lack of genetic information and understanding of these attributes. In order to do this a program model was created to test the effects of selection criteria on breeder behavior and the resultant foals of these crosses. Moving forwards this program will evolve into a database of the equine genome for different horses. This will allow breeders to input their horses and do faux crosses in order to decrease the incidence of negative and detrimental outcomes.
ContributorsDavis, Marissa Lynn (Author) / Oberle, Eric (Thesis director) / Martin, Thomas (Committee member) / College of Letters and Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
The 1878 Treaty of Berlin sought to address the issue of minority rights in order to stabilize the interests of the Great Powers and the international order; however, in their formulation of a treaty intended to save the imperial component of the system, the European imperial powers not only gave one of their official acknowledgments to nationalist principles, but articulated a critique of the existing notion of state protection for ethnic minorities. This tentative but landmark modification of the imperial model of legitimacy suggested Europe or the world could consist of a host of sovereign nations. In so doing, it recognized the political, and ideological changes that nationalism demanded, changes that would reshape how national groups organize politically, culturally, and militarily. The logic of nationalism demanded that new boundaries, conceived on national lines be drawn, and they were drawn, both within the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. The Treaty of Berlin led to the formation of Greater Bulgaria and Albania, and these new nationalities formed a initial answer to the European question of minority groups. The Treaty of Berlin is useful to examine in relation to its better-known and much more radical offspring, the Treaty of Versailles. Differences in the approach of either treaty provide a study in the lasting effects of soft power to resolve international conflict. The Great Powers met in Berlin to address a developing crisis in an attempt to avoid a destabilizing regional conflict through diplomatic and legal means, whereas the Paris Peace Conference met at Versailles to develop new order across Europe in the wake of the Great War. The Treaty of Versailles, sharply chiding the Central Powers as it promulgated a victor's peace, hoped to prevent future war by placing economic burdens on Germany. While the conference at Paris acknowledged the minority position, the overwhelming legal focus went to addressing developing nations and nationalisms in a way that was consistent with the beliefs of old imperial rule. The earlier Treaty of Berlin's relative emphasis on minority questions as logically antecedent to the disposition of nationalism becomes of highest significance in retrospect. It is this focused approach to addressing developing nationalism that makes the Treaty of Berlin an important point of discussion. It provides a precedent for how questions of minority rights should be addressed, and where it falls short of an answer on how conflict might be prevented, it explores how the tensions within the international system can exacerbate one another, as they did in the breakdown of diplomacy and law that to the First World War . This thesis aims to address how the triumph of nationalism as a model of state legitimacy almost immediately gave rise to the question of legal protection of minorities. The minority question only became more urgent as nationalists developed policies that practiced first passive, and then active exclusion of minority groups. While nationalism's relation to democratic rule seemed to solve the problems of representative government, it quickly forced the question of how legitimate representation was determined. Shifting notions of political legitimacy, unworkable empires, and heightened international rivalry formed a widening spiral of crisis that eclipsed the minority question, but this thesis supports the belief that the centrifugal force of conflict came out of the avoidance of addressing minority rights completely. Attempts were made through the twentieth century to mitigate conflict between people groups, but many failed to produce fully developed solutions, while many others favored the status quo, seemingly hoping that the question would answer itself. A study of the early history of the minority rights question helps us understand the national question in the old-new light of the international order and questions of international law. Given the conflicts that have arisen out of the relations between nations and the question of minority rights, the minority question is present in much of today's thinking about human rights and the maintenance of international order. Understanding the origins of minority rights and the factors considered in the early negotiations set to address the problem helps develop a deeper understanding of the of the interactions between nations and people today.
ContributorsGobble, Tyler Scott (Author) / Oberle, Eric (Thesis director) / Martin, Thomas (Committee member) / Aviation Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
It goes without saying that marriage, and the concept of two people staying together for the rest of their lives, is not easy. In today's society, divorce is something that is becoming more and more prominent among people. However, despite the divorce phenomenon there are still success stories of couples who last and manage to stick together despite the odds. It is difficult to measure the "successfulness" of any marriage due to the fact that so many different elements comprise them. However, there are endless assessments available to be used as tools for attempting measurement of success. A majority of them are related to measuring relationship quality in terms of individual satisfaction by focusing on each individual's happiness within the relationship. Obviously, every marriage is different and there are many things that can impact a couple's' likeliness to stay together such as the general circumstances surrounding their union and each partner's willingness to persevere. For instance, there are a variety of different factors that influence the overall success of marriages within and surrounding the United States Military. Such as physical proximity, frequency of communication, and a mutual desire to make the relationship work. Cultivating a relationship in which one partner is a service member and one partner is a civilian is stressful for both people involved. Specifically, the intense stress couples experience associated with deployment can often cause severe problems such as depression and anxiety that may lead to divorce or mental health problems later on down the road. Stressors specifically related to the deployment cycle can contribute to depression among both service members and their spouses. Most of these families face unique stressors through the course of military service and deployments, including frequent relocations and recon�gurations of the family system, ambiguous loss and fear for a loved one's safety, and high levels of stress and/or dysfunction among family members (Flake, Davis, Johnson, & Middleton, 2009; Huebner, Mancini, Wilcox, Grass, & Grass, 2007) Separation , unpredictable duty hours, and single parenting (parenting while the veteran is away either being deployed or on training courses) are just a few of the stressors that face partners of veterans on a regular basis (Padden, Connors & Agazio, 2011). Dr. John Gottman, the executive director of the Relationship Research Institute. has conducted extensive research regarding marital stability and divorce prediction on thousands of couples over the last forty years of his career. Using video cameras, heart monitors, and other biofeedback equipment, he and his colleagues have screened interviewed and tracked what couples experience during moments of conflict and closeness. Over the span of the last forty years, Dr. Gottman has created a theory he calls "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse". In the New Testament, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are a metaphor marking the beginning of end times. Dr. Gottman's Four Horsemen on the other hand, are a metaphor marking the beginning of the demise of a marriage. The horsemen include criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. They are communication styles among couples that Dr. Gottman says can predict the end of a relationship. This notion holds true especially in the implication of military relationships. Focusing on the predictors of divorce, and inspecting the elements of these relationships in which the military is a condition of the union, discoveries can be made as to what makes these military relationships more difficult. An examination through the lens of Dr. Gottman's horsemen of the circumstances surrounding these unions in which deployment physically separates the two partners demonstrates how deployment in and of itself can cause couples to encompass each of the horsemen and eventually push them towards divorce. Throughout the course of this paper, the different elements that embody each of the four horsemen will be examined and analyzed as they pertain to the deployment process. Upon completion of the examination of these different factors, it can be suggested that deployment in its nature becomes the harbinger of the apocalypse. By encompassing all the different aspects of the first four original horsemen, and pushing military couples towards the behaviors that lead in the direction of divorce, deployment in and of itself can be thought of as predecessor, or harbinger of the apocalypse.
ContributorsSerdy, Taylor B (Author) / Martin, Thomas (Thesis director) / Mowzoon, Nura (Committee member) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
The Beauty Within is a ceramics show displaying human body anatomy, which seeks to bridge aspects of my biological sciences major in the School of Life Sciences with aspects of my studio art minor in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. My goal in creating the show was to change the opinion of people on human body organs from unease to admiration by recreating these organs in an artistic light. By stylizing the construction of the pieces and bringing in the contemporary form of art \u2014 makeup art \u2014 I hoped to bring a new light to the pieces and highlight the beauty within the human body. By leaving the pieces partly unfinished I further hoped to draw attention to the natural beauty within the pieces regardless of the makeup that covers them. By holding the show in the human anatomy lab room on campus and having both animal and human organs on display I was able to create that sense of disgust toward the organs in the viewers. The beauty of my created pieces was then directly contrasted with the disgust felt about the real organs by displaying each of my pieces next to a real organ. The reactions of the viewers reflected a change in view from the actual organs to my re-created organs, and therefore the goal of the show was achieved.
ContributorsThomas, Brandon Lee (Author) / Weiser, Kurt (Thesis director) / Chung, Samuel (Committee member) / School of Art (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
I saw a Dove ad called "Real Beauty Sketches" where a group of women described themselves to a sketch artist, and then a complete stranger described them to the same artist. By the end of the ad, it's apparent that the women, when describing themselves, were very critical of all their features. When total strangers described them the resulting portrait was more beautiful to the women. The take-away from the campaign was that others see more beauty in you than you do in yourself. I explored that idea through my thesis. My aim in this project was to learn to see the beauty in myself through personal artistic expression. I completed a series of self-portraits; for about four months straight I drew one portrait of myself every single day. I also recorded my thoughts in a diary entry as I drew my portrait, hoping to capture my emotions and moods during that day. The resulting outcome of my creative project is twofold. The physical outcome is about 100 self-portraits and daily diary entries that represent the creative thesis project I pursued. The second outcome cannot be physically seen. I have discovered more about myself in four months than I have in twenty years. I have begun to see myself differently, and positively. This thesis project turned into a journey of self-exploration, and I'm looking forward to what the future holds for me.
ContributorsRao, Rachana Sai (Author) / Hood, Mary (Thesis director) / Button, Melissa (Committee member) / School of Art (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Dressler Makes Things (DMT), as a thesis project, explores the viability of DMT as a monetized blog. DMT is a life improvement blog with a focus on cooking. Its blog niche sits between nostalgic, sensory food blogs and professional, actionable life improvement blogs. Because blogs that bridge this gap are rare, DMT aims to fill this need by making cooking easy, affordable, and attainable for anyone, but particularly females in their early twenties. This thesis explores marketing topics like brand, blog niche, unique value proposition, current viewers, and user personas, as well as information about the current blogging environment and an analysis of relevant competitors. It also develops marketing objectives for DMT, as well as positioning, conversion, referral, content promotion, and partnership strategies to reach these goals. Finally, it discusses distribution, pricing, and promotional tactics, as well as an operational plan and financial projections.
ContributorsParsons, Dressler Eileen (Author) / Gray, Nancy (Thesis director) / Bitter, Gary (Committee member) / School of Art (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
For my creative project, I began an art press that produces small-run vinyl records and artist's books. Initially, the venture began as a means to circumvent record pressing facilities as a vinyl record-cutting service. By the end of this project, the focus shifted to encompass more visual art products than just vinyl records. The project began with vinyl records because I saw a need in the market; in the past decade, the industry has grown dramatically, but the dozen record pressing plants in the country cannot keep up with the demand. Because record pressing companies prioritize large orders, it is difficult for many small bands and independent record labels to produce work on this medium. This is due to the long lead times, high prices, and large minimum order sizes. I located a man in Germany, who invented a machine that makes high-quality, lathe-cut records. I named the project Blushing Soup, as homage to my father, who passed during my first semester of college. It is through his passing that I was able to secure funds to pursue this venture. I brought on a partner, who was more familiar with art and audio recording than myself. In the summer of 2015, we met with this inventor to learn how to use his machine. By October of 2015, a machine of our own had arrived. In early November, Blushing Soup won a grant from the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. During this time, we released two vinyl records for local bands. For a culminating project, I coordinated a Record Store Day compilation album consisting of six bands featuring. After securing all of the music, the machine started having problems, which forced me to cancel this release. Recognizing the delicacy of the machine, prompted a shift in the aim of Blushing Soup. During this process, I started learning printmaking processes, and I realized that Blushing Soup could function as more than a record cutting service; we could be an art press. In the last few month of this project, I started making artist's books. By the end of April 2016, Blushing Soup will have released vinyl records for two bands, as well as produced four handmade books. This creative project centered around the process of creating art through lathe cutting and printmaking; the objective was not to maximize profits but rather refocus the consumption of art (in a sustainable practice).
ContributorsStringer, Shelby Manning (Author) / Essig, Linda (Thesis director) / Peck, Sidnee (Committee member) / School of Art (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Leonardo's anatomical studies of the heart demonstrate the dependency of form and function on one another and that their combined activity leads to a comprehensive understanding of the cardiovascular system. While Leonardo was able to make incredible deductions regarding the heart's anatomy and physiology through the concepts of form and function, it is evident that his preconceptions hindered him from realizing the full scope of his individual findings. In this paper, I will evaluate the perception of anatomy, the manner in which anatomical knowledge was acquired, and the resultant traditional understanding of the cardiovascular system during Leonardo's lifetime. Leonardo's drawings of the heart will then be analyzed to determine what conclusions he was able to make regarding the heart's anatomy and physiology. Finally, I will compare Leonardo's findings to the modern understanding of the cardiovascular system. Because Leonardo's anatomical studies were hidden from the world for so long, many of his conclusions regarding the heart did not come to light before other individuals had already begun to reach them on their own. Although he made incredible leaps in the understanding of the cardiovascular system, he made little contribution to modern cardiology. Now Leonardo's work can only be examined retrospectively to determine the accuracies and inaccuracies of Leonardo's conclusions in comparison to our modern understanding.
ContributorsMulligan, Kelly Suzanne (Author) / Codell, Julie (Thesis director) / Martin, Thomas (Committee member) / School of Art (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05