2006-2007 Creative Research Awards
Student’s Name Major Faculty Mentor
Shantelle Jackson Dance Travis Gatling
Project Title: The Techniques, Styles, and Interests of Black Choreographers
This student plans to study the techniques and methods utilized by black choreographers by attending the International Association of Blacks in Dance. This is a conference that unites all current pioneers of Blacks in dance and offers an avenue for the new generation of dancers to connect with and learn from masters in the field of dance. It also educates younger generations about contributions of Black artists in dance. The student will study the methodology of today’s leading black choreographers by attending seminars, master classes, performances.
Angela Patmon Dance Travis Gatling
Project Title: Performance and Aesthetics of Current Black Dance
This student plans to conduct research on the performance and aesthetic of Black dance companies though attending the International Association of Blacks in Dance conference. The purpose of the conference is to promote Black dance as well as amplify opportunities for up and coming artists. The student’s research will include observation of professional performances, hands on study in dance studio master classes, and analysis of panel discussions.
Keith Skogstrom Painting Robert Peppers
Project Title: Slideshow
This student plans to heighten awareness of the environmental trends that are the result of human interaction through his newest artwork, entitled “Slideshow.” The piece will be interactive in that the viewer will have to slide viewfinders left and right in order to view the entire image. One viewfinder’s movement will directly correlate to the other’s movement. As one moves away from the center the other will as well. This movement will speak to the balance and duality of the human interaction with the environment. Each viewfinder will look in on an identical four foot painting, which will be black paint on white plexiglass. The painted part of the art work will be eight feet long and eighteen inches tall. This will be lit from behind and the light will radiate out of the viewfinders. The images will demonstrate an optimistic outlook in that it will show how as the environment becomes increasingly damaged it also rids itself of the fossil fuels required to cause such damage. In other words, the damage caused by the use of fossil fuels may be lessened due to the reduction of these fuels’ existence.
Crystal Marquardt Photography Julie Dummermuth
Project Title: Creating the Past: A Collaborative Exploration
This creative project entails a collaboration between two different artists working in two distinctly different concentrations: painting and photography. This collaboration will explore the two artists’ childhoods and the ways they have formed their present, specifically looking at the issue of verbal abuse and their ability to connect with others. They will be creating two eight feet by four feet multi-media pieces, each work representative of their own individuality and the histories that generated such individualism. The pieces will be created using layers of multiple papers, photography, screen prints, lithography, etching, India ink, watercolor, oil paint, graphite, charcoal, fabrics, as well as some text. They layers they create will add visual depth, but will also serve as cues for the viewer to grasp the character of events that have shaped the way they interact with others. They will be using their own childhood memories and incorporating their body language to illustrate how they cope with the unknown present. Through this work, the artists hope to influence viewers to delve into their own past and consider their present and the manner in which their own lives have shaped their characters.
Taylor Bobinchuck Painting Carolyn Cardenas
Project Title: Away Around Athens
The artist will be capturing small intriguing moments of interactions among people found in and around campus and Athens. The artist will create large paintings which capture their energy and interactions. These paintings will not be realistic, but rather an expression of the people and their actions. The paintings will range in size from eight to twenty square feet.
Ben Hauser Photography Dan Williams
Project Title: Muhlenburg County
This project is a photographic exploration of the decaying remains of the American Industrial era. The artist plans to re-examine the age of modernism and our nation’s manufacturing past as a means of evaluating our contemporary socio-economic situation. Who makes our goods now? What is the quality of these products? What kind of purpose are we striving for now? Do we have a sense of identity as a nation? What sense of roots do we have? The artist hopes to tell a persuasive story about the values of our industrial past. He wants to create a project that has complexities and sophistication, but which can also be appreciated by the people at large.
David Hausman Painting Robert Peppers
Project Title: Companionship
This artist plants to create a painting in the library that will walk with you from the third floor to the second floor learning commons, incorporating shaped canvasses and bright color. It will be an organic shape with multiple canvasses constructed of masonite and 1x2 planks of wood. There will be smaller shaped canvasses breaking off of the original shape. It will involve balance, perspective, shape, pattern, form, and illusion. It will be abstract and surrealistic in nature, while exciting the viewer and enticing one to follow the piece from the top all the way to the bottom.
Kyle Mohler Graphic Design Don Adleta
Project Title: U$A
This artist plans to visually portray the “dumbing down,” defacing, and commoditization of American culture and the American dream through combining design and film. The student sees Hollywood as selling anything, anyway it can, and plans to use their own methods of advertising against them in an exaggerated manner through creating a series of films.
Kristine M. Polson Graphic Design Don Adleta
Project Title: Drop Kick the Myth
This artist plans to debunk the common underlying belief that popular brands have anything to do with ability, and bring attention to the fact that popular brands in combination with sports creates an atmosphere that affects children’s psyche negatively. The student will create an environment that stresses the feeling of competition, demonstrating what children feel on a field because of the psychological affect that the brands emulate in recreational sports. The student will also produce an informative and graphic representation of her research.
Suzanne Seesman Sculpture Jennie Klein
Project Title: Performing the Everyday (A study in contemporary performance art)
This student plans to attend the 2007 “National Review of Live Art” in Glasgow, Scotland. There, she will be interviewing contemporary artists, viewing live art, and executing her own impromptu performance.
Melissa Stamolis Painting Carolyn Cardenas
Project Title: Female Sensibility: Exploring the nature of organic abstractions and perceptions of beauty
This artist plans to create a series of paintings that explore the complexities of using paint as a medium. Paint creates an element upon canvas through pouring, layering, glazing, and applying additives. This will create a physical structure simulating the artist’s perception of beauty, which is tied to the nature of the female through color, composition, and texture. The artist plans to create eight works on canvas that will provide the structure necessary to renew the ideas of the feminine. With this translation of feminity through paint, the artist hopes to evoke the natural sensibility of a woman and incorporate a postmodern appropriation of popular culture.
Ashley Stuart Graphic Design Patricia Cue
Project Title: Beneath the Surface: Crohn’s Disease
This project has to do with Crohn’s Disease, a gastrointestinal disease. The student plans to document the experiences of those diagnosed with this disease. From this information, she will create an installation piece accompanied by a print collateral that will allow viewers to create self-awareness about how they stereotype those with a disease by sensory stimulation. They will be able to experience the physical and emotional effects of Crohn’s Disease and the stereotypes that result. The print collateral, along with the installation piece, will also serve as an educational tool that can either introduce Crohn’s Disease or further the education of the viewer.
Jennifer E. Thompson Graphic Design Stacy Asher
Project Title: Pink-aholic
The end goal of this project is to graphically express geographical, chronological and gender-associated issues concerning the color pink through a series of designed gallery pieces that are meant to inform the viewer.