Identifier

etd-06072005-105003

Degree

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Art

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

My work is inspired by my immediate environment. I am especially interested in places which exhibit visual evidence of history, of industrial, natural and human life and the corresponding cycles of building, abandonment, destruction and salvage. In Baton Rouge, these relationships are dramatic, the lush vegetation, birds and overwhelming presence of industry make this interplay constantly tangible. My current work began with the phenomenal concerns within the struggle of nature and industry. Newly built industry is highly ordered, the perfect symbol of not only technology, but also control. However, older industry is more chaotic, with the initial order obscured over time. Nature rusts components, plants grow wildly around the wires and repairs and odd added parts disrupt perfect patterns of the original designs. Older factories are no longer symbols of technology and control, but technology and nature and their interaction over time. My work, modular ceramic building blocks or bricks, is a response to this environment. Their design integrates many aspects of both nature and industry, geometry, repetition and fitting parts. The bricks vary reflecting the various stages of erosion or entropy. While working and investigating, I have become interested not only in natural phenomenon but also in landscape and the built environment. In these spaces, it is impossible not to think about why something was built, abandoned or destroyed. The larger social issues, including class and environmental issues, have come to the surface. With this new focus, a series of exploratory, temporary, collaborative, site projects were executed at various sites in Baton Rouge. In these projects, the work exists in the same spaces in which it was inspired.

Date

2005

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Robert Silverman

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_theses.2852

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Fine Arts Commons

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