▼ Surgical scrubs are worn by a variety of medical professionals in various capacities all over the world. Called by the shortened name “scrubs” the one-time surgical only attire is now worn by men and wormen in every conceiveable medical capacity. Once only available in white, scrubs now come in a diverse array of color assortments, all of which carry implict meaning both for the medical professional and patient. To assess some of the possible interpretations of various scrub colors, and determine preferred colors, a three pronged approach was used. A Make-See-Do model (a hands-on, participatory experience) was employed to triangulate the data. First, nineteen medical professionals were given an in-person questionnaire asking about their color preferences, scrub color preferences, clothing preferences, and experiences wearing surgical scrubs. The professional then used a MakeTool (a toolkit to build a model) to pick their preferred color(s) and cut of scrubs by affixing small laminated colored scrub pieces to foamcore “dolls” with velcro patches. Sixteen different colors were available. Second, the identical questionnaire was also sent to 249 medical professionals who took the online survey and selected scrub configurations and preferred colors with toggle buttons. Thirdly, 341 potential patients were given an online survey asking them to guess the profession of a medical professional, based on the color of her scrubs. A list of ten possible professions was listed below her picture and the same picture was shown ten different times with the same woman wearing different colored scrubs each time. To help understand and interpret the data, a literature review of color symbolism, marketing, psychology, physiology, and history was completed. Patient and medical professional response was several times greater than initially anticipated. Both groups appeared to be quite emotionally invested in the choice of scrub colors and had strong preferences about what colors were associated with medical professionals. The most preferred color for medical professionals was light blue, light green, and then darker blue. Professionals who wore these colors were likely to be identified first as a doctor, a nurse, and then a dentist. Nurses had wider lattitude with colors and were recognized as nurses if they wore the afforementioned colors or pink, purple, gray, or red. Patient surveys demonstrated that the colors blue and green were clearly viewed as “medical” colors. If other colors were worn by professionals, patients became confused at their role. Professionals were consistent in their views on scrubs and no difference was seen between online and in-person interviews. The colors overwhelmingly preferred by medical professionals were: light blue, light green, and a darker blue. These colors were seen as the most “professional.” Darker colors and bright and light colors were considered unacceptable. Most professionals didn’t think a trim color was necessary and only 15% of them preferred two colored scrubs. A majority of the participants believed the fit of scrubs needed improvement and had various suggestions for upgrades and betterment. Advisors/Committee Members: Mayo, Noel.

Advisors/Committee Members: Chafetz, Sidney.

Advisors/Committee Members: Heimdal, George.

▼ This research is representative of the present condition of my art practice and the underlying conceptual basis for it. My work is generated out of the body's capacity to employ external resources to satisfy inner drives. It draws from all stages of the developing self, simultaneously approaching an adult of 25 with an infant in a mother's womb.The work mostly takes three-dimensional form, consisting of artifacts appropriated from the realm of everyday consumer goods, and sometimes involving performance. The works are ephemeral, emphasizing the unstable conditions inherent in such materials as lipstick, sexual lubricant, and vegetable shortening.A concentration is placed on the artist's body as a site of constant negotiation between inside and outside. Upon contact with my materials, through thought and physical touch, substances are passed through my being, dissolving the body's limits. The viewer is addressed from a psychologically charged arena of emotion and desire, demonstrating how personal homogeneity is ruptured by inevitable projections of a part of oneself outside the self.Finally, I have sustained a belief in this body of work, that consciousness is inseparable from a body, and the notion of a completely integrated self is impossible. Advisors/Committee Members: Slaughter, Todd.

▼ Films, movies, even overly exorbitant, big budget Hollywood films can hold a place in the mind of an artist that is as significant as some of the other sources that artists often use to fuel their work. Movies are sometimes questioned in their validity or place in the studio of an artist, and I believe that for certain reasons, Hollywood films and associated ideas of fame and celebrity can provide a fruitful a place of exploration. Hollywood films, in the minds of certain individuals, myself included, provide a place for the imagination to wander, to escape from daily activities and revel in the nostalgia of childhood or memory: a place to explore the desire associated with dreams, the fame that often comes with being a celebrity, and the endurance behind the idea of work ethic that can fuel such explorations. Advisors/Committee Members: Lisbon, Laura.

Advisors/Committee Members: Bole, Mary Jo.

Advisors/Committee Members: Friley, Eugene.

▼ The primary purpose of this study is to examine the historical context of choreography which brings literature to the stage, as well as to investigate the works and life of Theodore Seuss Geisel; and to discuss how this information informed the creation of Seuss Suites, an original work of dance, music, sets and costumes, based on the life and works of Seuss.It is hoped that this study will inform other choreographers about the exploration of the creative process necessary for adapting a particular artist's life or literature to the stage. A secondary purpose for pursuing this study is to help others acquire a different perspective on creating dances by learning the process of creativity from the literary approach of Seuss and comparing it to the creative process of choreography. Additionally, this study will inform people who may be familiar with Seuss's books about other aspects of the writer's character and will draw hypotheses about how his experiences may have inspired his works.Seuss's books were often characterized as absurd and nonsensical, however, they often contained underlying social and political issues. After investigating the fascinating life of this private man, I was compelled to bring his life and works to the stage through dance. Just as Shakespeare's plays have been sources of inspiration to choreographers, so, I was inspired to capture the essence of Seuss's stories and translate them to the stage through dance. My interests were in seeking out any parallels between events in Geisel's personal life and the books he created during those times. Advisors/Committee Members: Giffin, John.

▼ This thesis explores the distorted repetitive patterns of childhood memory, through deconstruction and reconstruction of old and new familial imagery. It inquires about the recurring nature of patterned distortions found in memories that create infinite uncertainties. This is achieved by creating a memory map where the fragmented memories are plotted in order to find answers to questions related to the distortions. Advisors/Committee Members: Massey, Jr, Charles.

▼ My practice is concerned with the effects of painting and drawing on perceptual systems. The purpose of this research is to examine our material relationship to the world and to consider how we might shift our views in order to broaden our perceptual experiences. In this thesis I will examine the collaborative role of materials in our daily lives and provide examples of how these interactions might affect the ways in which we engage with life, art, and artistic practice. Advisors/Committee Members: Lisbon, Laura.

Advisors/Committee Members: Fistick, Stanley.

▼ This short dissertation is a description of a portion of a large body of paintings, as well as an analysis of the philosophies behind their production. Particular attention is given to concepts that relate to grids and various applications of those concepts: architecture, cartography, mathematics. The notion that some concepts, such as the grid, hold too rigidly to an internal logic to have more than limited use for determining approximations(or simulations) based on previous empirical data. A preference is given to such empirical data as it appears to have a more concrete relationship to notions of material truth. Advisors/Committee Members: Pentak, Stephen.

▼ When I came to the Ohio Sate University, the sources of my works of art were visions that spontaneously came to my mind. During the past three years, my interest shifted from searching the origin of those visions to using language, especially writing systems. The main cause of this change is my experience learning a new language and culture. While trying to communicate with others and making artworks in the U.S., I wondered what an audience with different cultural backgrounds gains from my works of art and how I should evaluate the works. I became interested in how other people see things, how they communicate with others and how this affects my own perspective. I attempted to explore this perspective by making experimental pieces with glass and language. After three years of experimenting, I wonder about the value of my pieces. I now see them as a diary of my thoughts and as a form of communication from myself in the past at the point I was making the pieces. Advisors/Committee Members: King, Catherine Ruth.

Advisors/Committee Members: King, Robert D.

▼ How do we visually record experiences provoked by a missing person, place, or thing? What triggers us to recall such moments? I am currently developing a body of art that explores memory perception through modifying furniture parts, and presenting them on the wall. I look at simple forms and textures like my grandparent's chair, or fuzzy filigree textured wallpaper, and study how effectively an upholstered object evokes memory. My current studio work involves the transformation of memories into subversive upholstered vessels and objects that parallel the grounds of contextualizing furniture. I have given this exploration a name: Familiarture.Familiarture is a series of sculptures that explore furniture as subject. These modified upholstered forms create a familiar environment with anomalous furniture-like objects that exploit the possibilities of what furniture is, what furniture does, and what furniture reminds us of. In presenting these objects, moreover, I treat the audience to a glimpse of my personal history through upholstered sculptures. I use the cavity as a metaphor for the body and create art works that evoke a sense of loss and longing for the known and unknown. I begin with the familiar family furniture and deconstruct the object through modification to create something new.The final artwork hovers in an in-between state, open to multiple interpretations. These works pose as altars, shrines, or containers evoking a sense of connection between the audience and these mysterious objects. Advisors/Committee Members: Buckley, Carmel.

Advisors/Committee Members: Pentak, Stephen.

Advisors/Committee Members: Shay, Robert.

▼ I direct models to cover their entire body with food, and then photograph the fusion between their bodies and the food substance. Plastered peanut butter, greasy butter, and smooth, glistening nacho cheese covers torsos revealing only a sliver of flesh, a clue that there is a human being behind the thick, lavish material. Neither a solid nor a liquid, peanut butter piles up on top of itself while flowing over the figure. Though the bulging, lumpy, abrasive peanut butter surface on the body suggests disease, its form is also sensual and compelling. The excessive quantity of Marshmallow Fluff created a fantasy world, made out of white, thick, sticky, heavy material, intertwining bodies as it pulls and prods them in numerous positions. The photographs depict a state where whatever you touch or lick becomes a part of you, and there is little distinction between subject and background and between human and environment. This massive amount overwhelms the model as well as the viewer and can be frightening and intimidating, as well as comforting and protective.We are not supposed to rub food over our naked bodies. Food should enter our mouths for digestion and nourishment, not as decoration, clothing, or play material. The act of transforming food into something inedible fascinates me because it creates a delusion that parallels my own relationship with food. For me, food is a mirage that promises comfort, may or may not provide nutrition, and becomes an obstacle in trying to maintain my weight. Advisors/Committee Members: Modrak, Rebekah.

▼ The following will attempt to present a view of the artwork created for my Masters of Fine Arts thesis show through the influences, imagery, and creation process. I will analyze my current practice and discuss how I approach my printed images and bring them into fulfillment. I will relate my own practice to ideas and artistic styles that have influenced and continue to influence me in my own work. Allegorical in nature, my works rely on a reasonable degree of visual literacy in their development process as they include aspects of Medieval Art, Comic Books, Literature and Music, and works by contemporary printmakers that have all seeped into the cracks and crevasses of my artwork. Finally I will elaborate on how the created product is intended to operate visually and conceptually both in and outside the gallery space. Advisors/Committee Members: Massey, Charles.

Advisors/Committee Members: Roth, Richard.

Advisors/Committee Members: Roth, Richard.

Advisors/Committee Members: Csuri, Charles A.

▼ I am interested in the role of the performative and pedagogic with regard to nature. The pedagogic version of nature is built out of images, photographs, paintings, and fictional descriptions that form a collective memory of nature generalized into sublimely grand views, majestic landscapes, and benign animals. The performative moments are the unexpected. These are the moments of incongruity or strangeness that call to question the original idea. I am interested in the shift from pleasant to dangerous. Each element of the installation has the potential to turn one way or the other. My work explores a physical world created by allowing several perspectives to exist in the same space. These views form a new, hybrid place, inhabited by a variety of creatures. Within the format of a ceramic figurine, landscape space is stretched, substituted, morphed and abbreviated. It is a world of apparent familiarity, but the pieces are intentionally arranged in an illogical manner. I use color, pattern, detail and decoration as clues for identifying a path through the work. I work on multiple pieces and parts at once, shifting scale and perspective back and forth among the elements. As I work, the visual manifestation of the ideas gets refined and defined as details are added and subtracted. Each piece is a part of a larger visual catalogue, both recording and investigating my experience of the world. Sometimes the images are more like dreams than factual accounts. Stories are altered and embellished to read more like a memoir than a travelogue. The isolated pocket of the figurine forms a window to a moment, pulled out of context, like a snapshot or a single page from a book. Rather than making the entire place, I am making close up views of particular details. The time and location are changing, so perspective can change from piece to piece. Each element is its own vignette, providing a place to pause within the landscape. I exploit the idea of a simulacrum in my work. Things are made to be ridiculously, almost naively simple, reflecting an “idea of” rather than having a relationship to any physical characteristics. They are a copy of a copy of a copy. The multiple is important in terms of deciding how much of something is needed for the illusion to become impenetrable. It also anchors the image in the general rather than the specific. I repeat the images as many times as necessary to seem obsessive or over the top. Eventually the image becomes the truth. In my world, the only thing authentic is inauthenticity. This place maintains a delicate balance, teetering between an ability to drift into an innocent wonderland or a dangerous nightmare. The shifting uses of scale, detail, and color within the idea of a ceramic figurine keep the installation fluctuating between realism and simulacra, fact and illusion and logical and absurd. The result is a landscape full of undetermined potential, ready to be explored. Advisors/Committee Members: Harvey, Rebecca.

▼ Meaning is traceable in a series of responsive actions and interactions. Meaning in painting can come through a system that begins with reaction to a given surface and develops through a series of stimulus and intuitive response until resolution is achieved. The paintings I have made over the past two years adhere to this system and are composed on unprimed plywood panels. The pattern present in the grain of the wood acts as a sort of map to guide the forms that I develop throughout my painting process. The forms are solely derivative of the pattern present on the panel without any outside influences dictating their shape. My process has been fairly consistent over the course of my graduate career, but the work may be separated into two bodies. The first body includes work from September 2004 through November 2005, and the second includes work from December 2005 until the present. In this thesis I will provide insight into my process as it pertains to both bodies of work and discuss changes that occurred resulting in the shift from first to second bodies. Advisors/Committee Members: Pentak, Stephen.

Advisors/Committee Members: Green, Jonathan.

Advisors/Committee Members: Chipperfield, Michael A.

Advisors/Committee Members: Massey, Charles.

Advisors/Committee Members: Slaughter, Todd.

Advisors/Committee Members: Slaughter, Todd.

▼ The Pawnee traditionally lived between the Platte and Loup Rivers in what would become central Nebraska. In 1875 the majority of the Pawnee Nation moved to Indian Territory, bringing to an end their traditional way of life on the plains. My grandfather, the son of a tribal chief, was an important figure in the preservation of Pawnee artifacts in the twentieth century through large donations to major U.S. museums. These artifacts, along with the myths and folktales of the Pawnee, have inspired my artwork. I am fascinated by the Pawnee culture and am very proud to be a part of the Pawnee Nation. I look to draw meaning and insight from these traditions using glass as my chosen medium of expression. I combine the traditions of western art that I have spent the last sixteen years studying with the stories and traditions of this “lost universe” in an effort to live with the traditions of my ancestors. “We tell the stories of our past”, writes the ethnographer Keith Basso, “and in turn, history breathes life into us.” I have produced three individual pieces that are each based on a specific Pawnee myth. The final form of each piece is based on an architectural modeling process that best suites the conceptual thrust of the piece. I am interested in the intersection of art and architecture and how materials along with tradition meet at this point. Ultimately, I am interested in using architectural space as an atmosphere in which the sacred elements of the Pawnee may be embodied in an effort to represent the culture through stories. Advisors/Committee Members: Harned, Richard.