Christian Ard, Student Work

Key Russell, Student Work

Artist Statement

The bandages symbolize keeping emotions together during a relationship and mending after a relationship ends. I posed the model to touch different parts of the body. These body parts are important, as each area is symbolic. The head represents a person thinking logically in a relationship and attempting to rationalize emotions. The heart represents feelings you cannot choose or rationalize. I think the heart is where feelings form even if they are not expected or wanted. The pelvic area represents sexual desire. Covering the chest, head, or torso may allow for the other two to express themselves more openly.

Heather Snyder, Student Work

Internal Struggle

Artist Statement

In person, both parts of the mask are clearly visible, but through photography, I chose to focus on the aspect not seen by most people. In my day to day life, people often see me as upbeat, friendly and put together. I am always told that if any one can do it, that I can. Yet most people fail to see the struggles I face, just as they do. Instead of sharing and burdening them with my problems in addition to their own, I withhold and pull on my strength to help them through theirs. Its a choice I make daily, and for me the right one.

The black yarn mask that strangles the individual who wears it represents those suppressed feelings and thoughts that fail to be set free. When withheld for too long, they begin to suffocate and wear the person raw. Often, we try and hide from these feelings, turn our backs to the world and reflect on ourselves.

The bear represents the view the world receives. The mask purposely is looking up and is placed on the back of the head, as the individual appears to be positive and happy, but in reality, their head and heart ache.

In the photography aspect, I had my model convey what they thought frustration, fear, and defeat would looked like to them in action form. From those shots, I selected the best and placed them within a series, demonstrating the process as one goes through their withheld thoughts. Then reveling the final result- the confusion and overwhelming feelings that can come within the public space without warning. Within the image is the symbol of spilled ink, which stands for missed chances- opportunities that can easily be missed while stuck in your head, overwhelmed by everything that should have been said.

In Process Photos:

Hot glue was used to make a flexible mask that would fit over the head. 

Yarn was incorporated into the glue.

Tracing paper, gel medium, wire. 

Research:

Painted Bride

Silvie Heger, artist, Germany

Miranda July, artist, USA

Megan Lennon, Student Work

Bitch, I am the Pope

For some, religion can be a toxin; a venomous substance that is involuntarily injected into us at a young age. Who’s to say that a woman can’t be pope? Are we fools to allow religion to run our lives? The answer is for you to decide. All I know is, “Ain’t nobody prayin’ for me” (Kendrick Lamar).

Nicki Smith, Student Work

Artist Statement:

I used a delicate sheer fabric to conceal my body. My personal goal for this was to have an ambiguous figure roaming around. The "happening" occurs when the fabric billows around me. Water soaking the fabric, the sand getting on the fabric and the fabric dragging through the sand making marks is also part of the happening. The video has an overall sense of eeriness. I slowed down the film to .4x the speed and put an appropriate filter on top. I feel the color genuinely helps with the ambiguity of the piece. The underlying meaning for this piece collectively was to suggest a sense of knowing that left the viewer confused yet wondering. 

Alex McNutt, Student Work

Alex's concept inspired by "Meshes of the Afternoon" by Maya Deren (1943), action figures and the sea.

Materials to make the mask - wire, tracing paper and gel medium.

Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) is a short experimental film directed by wife-and-husband team, Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid. The film's narrative is circular and repeats several motifs, including a flower on a long driveway, a key falling, a door unlocked, a knife in a loaf of bread, a mysterious Grim Reaper–like cloaked figure with a mirror for a face, a phone off the hook and an ocean. Through creative editing, distinct camera angles, and slow motion, the surrealist film depicts a world in which it is more and more difficult to catch reality. In 1990, Meshes of the Afternoon was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", going into the registry in the second year of voting. In 2015 the BBC named the film the 40th greatest American movie ever made.^{[2] -Wikipedia}

Conrad Kane, Student Work

Twisted paper wrapped around human body.
Poetry Garment Assignment

The Vine by Robert Herrick

I dream'd this mortal part of mine


Was Metamorphoz'd to a Vine;


Which crawling one and every way


Enthralled my dainty Lucia.


Me thought, her long small legs & thighs


I with my Tendrils did surprize;


Her Belly, Buttocks, and her Waste


By my soft Nerv'lits were embrac'd:


About her head I writhing hung,


And with rich clusters (hid among


The leaves) her temples I behung:


So that my Lucia seem'd to me


Young Bacchus ravisht by his tree.


My curles about her neck did craule,


And armes and hands they did enthrall;


So that she could not freely stir,


(All parts there made one prisoner.)


But when I crept with leaves to hide


Those parts, which maids keep unespy'd,


Such fleeting pleasures there I took,


That with the fancie I awook;


And found (Ah me!) this flesh of mine


More like a Stock, than like a Vine.

James Mattson, Student Work

Grace Shipman, Student Work

Kelsie Claremont, Student Work

Kelsie merged the concepts and formal qualities of the plague mask with the bunny ears. 

The mask was constructed of wire, tracing paper and gel medium. 

Kelly Austin, Student Work

Materials:

Wire, tracing paper, gel medium.