Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2016, Art

World, world, world, world, world, world, world, world, world, world, world, world, world, world. New, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new. Body, body, body, body, body, body, body, body, body, body, body, body. Human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human. Entanglement, entanglement, entanglement, entanglement, entanglement, entanglement, entanglement, entanglement, entanglement, entanglement, entanglement. How, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how. Inside, inside, inside, inside, inside, inside, inside, inside, inside. When, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when. About, about, about, about, about, about, about, about. Animals, animals, animals, animals, animals, animals, animals, animals.

MFA, Kent State University, 2014, College of the Arts / School of Art

This paper will explore the journey I have taken to achieve my thesis exhibition. After the completion of my BFA degree in 2007 with a focus in both sculpture and painting, I continued to pursue my passion for creating art. However, I was thrown into a world void of artistic surroundings and daily interactions. I had to adapt to my new, smaller environment with a lack of equipment and tools that were available during my undergraduate experience. I occupied a small studio that forced me to focus on smaller paintings and jewelry designs. Unable to pick up where I left off, I went on a search for new materials and subject matter that would accommodate my new art. It was this dramatic change that would bring me to where I am today as an artist.

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2008, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Architecture (Master of)

By allowing all members of a community to participate in and interact with art, this project will benefit the whole of a region and move its focus to the knowledge gained through the creative process. By evaluating existing art studios, museums, art education methods, and libraries, positive and negative aspects of their user relationships become clearer. The concepts of scale, accessibility, flexibility, and interactivity represent several important factors ignored by older examples. Meanwhile, newer institutions embody the concepts of adaptability, opportunity, and community involvement. Through blending methods of education, exhibition, and resource collection, a better typology will arise to more effectively serve its community. Such a project requires a revised understanding of art, its makers, and contexts. This new paradigm will return art to the public to demonstrate its importance as a process of collaboration and education not a final, isolated product.

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2023, Environmental Studies

The contemporary age suffers from a state of cynicism and inertia in light of climate change and seemingly inescapable global capitalism. This project departs from the theory and creative work of William Morris, a 19th century artist, designer, and revolutionary socialist, in conceiving of a socialist aestheticism—an aestheticism that acknowledges the creative labor behind art-making and the imaginative limitations of creating "true art" under capitalism. This is done through an analysis of Morris's involvement with the socialist periodical "The Commonweal" and his subseqeunt creative, utopian project the Kelmscott Press. The value of utopianism and creative labor is then applied to the state of contemporary art and the climate change crisis. Finally, there is a reflection on "Realized Utopias," an art exhibition I created on the subjects of this discussion through a creative praxis process.

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2017, Art

The Space Program is a program of missions and media in space, including: • Space Program (program), 56-page printed program accompanying the Space Program (live), 2017 • Space Program (live), installation-performance (30 minutes) with six video projections, technical equipment, convex mirror, and ukulele, 2017 • Missions in Space, pilgrimages and performances in space, 2016 - ongoing Mission Equipment, functional sculpture for Missions in Space, 2016 - ongoing • Transmissions, postcards and other communications from Missions in Space, 2016 - ongoing • Support the Space Program, a yard sale exhibition to fund the Space Program, 2016 The Space Program in all its forms—including this document—is necessarily reflexive, which is to say that it addresses its own form as content and acknowledges the “I” of the author(s). I, Melissa Yes, am an artist and graduate student at The Ohio State University (OSU), and I am a time-space mechanic, a wily bricoleur. I take things apart and remake them. When I break something down, I see how it contains and is contained within systems that can be rewired. In the Space Program, I deconstruct images, sounds, timelines, and popular Western values and narratives to tweak a system of connections among people, media, and messages. In the Space Program (live), I steal snippets of (mostly) popular American film and television programs, break them into pieces, and pattern them into my own (re)invented narrative. In so doing, I take apart constructs such as masculine American individualism, Manifest Destiny, and habits of dualistic logic. The Space Program is a mixed signal, both in the fact that it is a mixture of forms and sources of media, but also because with the Space Program I am communicating multiple (seemingly opposed) things at once. Making and unmaking—seeming opposites—are ways of naming transformation. Production and consumption are one process—a digestion—and the Space Program digests objects, interactions, moving (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, University of Akron, 2014, Theatre Arts-Arts Administration

In the spring of 2007, I approached Professor Durand Pope, then Director of the Arts Administration Program at The University of Akron, about the possibility of curating an exhibition of contemporary art, artists, and ideas as a project thesis towards the fulfillment of the degree for a Masters of Arts in Arts Administration at The University of Akron. Professor Pope agreed to the project, with the contingency that a formal research document would detail some aspect of the exhibition. The proposed exhibition was a collaborative effort between myself and my mentor, colleague, and friend, Dr. Kevin Concannon. Dr. Concannon, at this time, was a tenured associate professor of Art History in the Myers School of Art, at The University of Akron. The exhibition, titled AGENCY: Art and Advertising, was the result of almost three decades of research by Concannon, as well as my own, and was presented at the John J. McDonough Museum of Art, a Center for Contemporary Ideas, Art, Education, and Community, located on the campus of Youngstown State University, in Youngtown, Ohio. AGENCY: Art and Advertising was on view in the galleries at the McDonough Museum between 19 September and 8 November 2008. Sited at six locations within the communities adjacent to the McDonough Museum was the artwork Untitled (The New Plan), an outdoor billboard installation by the artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres. This paper acts as an addendum to the project thesis that chronicles the inspiration behind and thought process around the choice of this work and its subsequent installation and placement as a featured component of the exhibition AGENCY: Art and Advertising

Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2023, Educational Administration

Considering the high cost of shipping, the extensive nature of government customs policies and procedures, and the risks associated with art fraud, copyrights, and art security, research gaps about the benefits of international art exchanges limits the opportunities for individual artists. Using Goudie and Viles' framework of inquiry, this mixed-methods action research study investigated international art exchange benefits from two groups of German and United States artists. The results of the study indicated several benefits including the ability to critique/compare art styles with their overseas peers, the stimulation of international art meetings, and the appreciation of other cultures. The action plan included the creation of a systems-level model for international art exchanges to expand worldwide exchange opportunities to more individual artists.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2023, Art/Art History

This thesis investigates the intersectionality of ink painting and revolutionary politics in modern China with the work of Fu Baoshi (1904-1965) as an analytical lens. Through a critical sociopolitical contextualization of Fu's paintings at crucial junctures in his career, I will analyze the ways in which his paintings have changed to reflect their respective eras. Along with negotiating his artistic identity and practice, these same junctures have provided a means by which I will critically examine Fu's negotiations of national identity. Born in 1904 when China's final imperial dynasty—Qing (1636-1912)—was in a terminal decline, he grew up during the tumultuous era of warlordism and the shaky beginnings of the Republican Era (1912-1949). Fu was an artist and political activist during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). He was an artist in service of the entire Chinese state as a propagandist (1926-27, 1929-30 for the Kuomintang, and 1950-66 for the People's Republic of China). Though he died one year before the Maoist-led Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Fu's work was posthumously affected. In addition to the abovementioned events, I examine Fu's negotiations of national identity evident in his art historical writing, his time as a propagandist, as well as his formative studies in Japan from 1932 to 1935. His studies proved fruitful as he developed a novel trajectory of modern “guohua” (Chinese national painting) and his signature style that elevated his work to a position of paramount importance. The goal of my project is to provide, a succinct yet satisfactory historiography of modern China while interrogating the ways in which Fu Baoshi not only captured the essence of his natural subjects through novel landscape painting, but the ways in which his career embodies the search for a quintessential “Chinese-ness” within the fine arts and in the realm of national character.

DNP, Kent State University, 2019, College of Nursing

Abstract Background and Review of literature: Arts-based interventions have been studied in the cancer care setting and shown to have positive effects on pain, anxiety, depression, and various quality of life indicators. Participants of group art-based experiences often experience a deep sense of connectedness to one another, and self-awareness. Purpose: This project was designed to elicit the perceptions of the adult cancer survivor who engaged in a multi-modal expressive arts intervention in a community cancer support group setting. Methods: This project used quantitative and qualitative approach, purposive sampling from existing adult cancer survivor community support groups. Theoretical concepts from Natalie Roger's Creative Connection® informed the overall design, implementation and evaluation of the project. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected using the Expressive Arts for Cancer Survivor data collection tool consisting of a post-intervention 12-item Likert Scale survey and 7 open-ended questions developed for this research. Implementation Plan/Procedure: An expressive arts intervention consisting of drawing and painting or clay work was implemented at the Breast Cancer, Blood Cancers, and Head and Neck Cancer community support groups. Group participants were invited to explore other modalities such as expressive writing, sound, movement and group dialogue to enhance the expressive art experience. Implications/Conclusion: Expressive arts during the cancer support group setting fostered creativity, insight, and self-awareness; helping survivors learn more about their feelings. Participants experienced a deeper sense of connectedness and appreciation for others within the group. The opportunity for sharing was positively received; the arts provided a means of self-expression. Participants expressed a strong desire to discuss the use of expressive arts with their healthcare provider. Findings signal the importance of developing evidence based (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2018, Art/Art History

Successful collecting societies transform museums through the expansion and strengthening of an institution's permanent collection. The Georgia Welles Apollo Society at the Toledo Museum of Art is an example of a successful society whose collective efforts have brought major works of art to the Museum through the active engagement of the membership. Since 1986, the Society has collectively voted to fund the acquisition of over fifty-seven major works ranging from ancient to contemporary art. Contributions include works by notable artists including Chuck Close, Dale Chihuly, Alfred Stieglitz, Yinka Shonibare, Mary Sibande, Maya Lin, Robert Arneson, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Andrea Palladio, and Jasper Frances Cropsey. As a whole, these gifts have impacted the museum in their totality, breadth, and significance. Through archival study and oral history, this research brings together the history of the Society for the first time. In the following history of the Society, critical moments of the Society's development are examined in order to analyze and explore best practices, as well as to discover the realistic challenges that possibly all societies encounter. Georgia Welles, the founder of the Society, still leads the Society today. Her story is portrayed to highlight the dedication of a key individual, a person who is necessary for a collecting group's development and overall success. Additionally, through a detailed examination of the 2012/2013 year in the area of global contemporary art, the annual program of events and meetings are analyzed. Currently, no other histories of art museum collecting societies have been published. This research sets an example for more institutions to publish the history and impact of their existing societies.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2017, Art/Art History

The works, doctrine, and persona of Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) have all heavily influenced successive generations of artists from both the modern and contemporary eras. Scholars frequently examine Cezanne's impact on the artistic movements of Fauvism, Cubism, and Expressionism. While these connections have been widely discussed, Cezanne's relation to and impact upon the iconic French Dada artist Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), the American Abstract Expressionist Clyfford Still (1904-1980), and the British street artist Banksy (b.1974) has not been given sufficient analytical attention. Duchamp coined the expression "cult of Cezanne" when he discussed other artists (including himself) who spent time referencing, studying, and following the paintings and career of Cezanne. In this thesis, I am appropriating the phrase "cult of Cezanne," and loosely defining it to incorporate a group of modern artists (including Duchamp, Clyfford Still, and Banksy) who were/are leading figures of their own respective movements while being notoriously autonomous vis-a-vis the other "members" as well as the artists and art officials working contemporarily. A careful analysis of Cezanne's letters and selected primary sources from the late nineteenth century provides evidence for ways in which Cezanne's reclusive persona, and his search for a truly autonomous painting style, connect him to these three disciples. The commonalities between Cezanne and his "cult members" exemplify ways in which these three artists refused to become an extension of the "Modernist institution" of Cezanne. By rejecting the formal style of their master, they instead followed in his footsteps by emulating his reclusive lifestyle and single-minded approach to artmaking. Without previously studying, referencing, and/or following Cezanne at some point in their career, they might not have been provided with this kind of exemplar. I believe that shadowing Cezanne's lifestyle, his interaction with the art world, and (open full item for complete abstract)

MA, Kent State University, 2014, College of the Arts / School of Art

Teaching socially transformative art lessons can instill positive social change in individual students, classroom environment, and the school setting. However, many art teachers do not attempt socially transformative art lessons at the risk of disciplinary action, termination, personal safety, and reputation. This single subject case-study examines a successful socially transformative art lesson executed in the classroom and reveals strategies that will assist other art educators.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2014, Interdisciplinary Arts (Fine Arts)

Berni Searle is an artist based in Cape Town, South Africa who uses her body in performance and photographic works. In this dissertation, articulations of identity within the context of Searle's work are examined in their social-historical relationships. Searle, in her art, both uses her body to illustrate constructions of identity and reclaims her body (and by extension, other similar bodies). These performances of articulated identity considered through the rubric of reprendre will elucidate the construction of Coloured identity in the South African body politic. These performances will also allow a consideration of counter-spaces for discussing political agency. Since the collapse of apartheid in South Africa in 1994 the citizens of the new, non-racial state have had to contend with lasting effects of the violence and racism that founded much of South African history. Coloured identity emerged as a distinct one early in the development of South African nationhood. Problematically, Colouredness has been associated with absence and socio-political marginalization that tended to undermine this community's agency during the apartheid era and after. The trend can lead to contesting racial tropes of national belonging that only serves to increase disenfranchisement in a new democracy. Berni Searle, as a Coloured woman, engages such histories in insightful ways by embodying the shifting paradigms of Coloured identity. In so doing, Searle also participates in important discourses in the African contemporary art community. Using Searle's work as a lens through which to examine issues of identity, body and enfranchisement, this dissertation demonstrates how her works open up spaces to discuss political agency and racial identity in the post-apartheid era. Such considerations carry important theoretical weight for discourses in South Africa regarding the importance of racial identity in the new nation. In addition to Coloured identity, Searle's works also engages with (open full item for complete abstract)

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2008, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Art History

Cora Elma Pratt (1888-1977) educator, collector, artist, and philanthropist spent much of her life building her innovative International School of Art (ISA) in Europe, Mexico, South America, and the United States. Pratt first established her ISA in 1928 in Zakopane, Poland and later organized locations throughout Europe and Mexico. From her travels with the ISA, she acquired a notable 2,500-piece collection of international folk art, which she gave to the Miami University Art Museum in Oxford, Ohio in 1970. This study includes a mini-biography, recounting incidents and experiences that molded Pratt into a devoted art educator and promoter of international folk art in the United States and abroad. As a promoter of folk art, she aligned herself with the Brooklyn Museum, a premier institution that was setting the pace for folk art and children's art exhibitions, acquiring artwork to sell in their gift shop and organizing folk art exhibitions from the 1930s through the 1960s. During Pratt's years of involvement with the Brooklyn Museums, she and the ISA organized the first exhibition of Polish folk art in the United States, Polish Exhibition, 1933-34. This study analyzes Pratt's ISA and looks at a couple of the most prominent artists who taught with her and the workshops they conducted. This thesis also examines some of the popular pedagogical theories promoted by Franz Cizek (1865-1947) and John Dewey (1859-1952) that heavily influenced Pratt's ISA, her educational mission, and eventually, how she believed the collection needed to be interpreted in a traditional art museum environment. While today Pratt's collection remains in storage at the Miami University Art Museum, the implication of this study could allow for Pratt's collection to be interpreted as material culture instead of folk art.

MFA, Kent State University, 2009, College of the Arts / School of Art

The goal of this study was to examine the effectiveness and impact of Nature-Based Art Teaching. While recently there has been a great deal of literature made available concerning Nature Based learning in general education, very little research exists in the area of Nature Based Arts Education. It was my goal to provide awareness of the research that already exists and at the same time bring the ideas from the field of general education into focus enabling their usefulness for art educators today. With the realm of visual culture receiving heavy attention presently and throughout the past ten years, it is my intention to expand this and veer our direction a bit in order to include the complete sensory experience of the natural environment in the K-12 art curriculum. It is very much ingrained in the minds of teachers and students that school is an indoor event. It is my goal to advance knowledge and provide inspiration that will lead educators to expand their curricular choices in order to adopt the outdoors; to provide that inner to outer bridge. With this curriculum expansion there also is great potential to increase interdisciplinary relationships. Nature-Based Art Education is important for the field of art education in order to help children form a positive relationship with the natural world that will lead to reverence for the natural world and eventually actions that will help preserve the environment.

Master of Arts in History, Cleveland State University, 2012, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

The notion of Tibetan art as a preservation of the Shangri-La culture that existed before Chinese occupation is a pervasive ideology among western scholars. Buddhist thangka paintings were and still are an important aspect of Tibetan heritage and sense of identity. This paper, however, focuses on the shifting roles of Tibetan artists from the onset of the Chinese “liberation” of Tibet in 1959 to present day. The tremendous lack of scholarship on contemporary Tibetan artists, including both those who still live in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and those who have traveled abroad, has served as a catalyst for the research presented in this thesis. The major theme of this paper, which encompasses the shifts in Tibetan artistic identity over the past sixty years, is presented three different sections. The first section explains artistic identity as it was before the Chinese occupation. The second section presents Tibetan art identity as it existed under Communist rule and the Cultural Revolution, and the third section notes the changes in contemporary art identity in regards to the post-Mao era to present day. The change in social and political climates dictates how Tibetans classify and explain their identity and the roles of artists change with both internal and external influences. The Buddhist thangka artists, socialist-realist painters, and contemporary artists, all define Tibetan artistic identity over the last sixty years and create a visual, interconnected timeline of Tibetan people's suffering and transformation.

MA, Kent State University, 2024, College of the Arts / School of Art

Within the practice of curating non-Western art, there is a delicate balance necessary when developing the language for didactic texts. This research investigates the dichotomy of aesthetics versus contextual meaning in the display of African art within U.S. museums, specifically analyzing two installations at the Art Institute of Chicago: the 2011 exhibition curated by Kathleen Berzock and the 2019 exhibition curated by Constantine Petridis. Through employing content analysis, this research examines the language used in didactic object labels to determine where the bias, if any, lies between highlighting aesthetic or contextual qualities. By categorizing and counting nouns and adjectives in the labels, the findings reveal a significant emphasis on contextual language in both installations, with 81.3% in the 2019 installation and 81.5% in the 2011 installation. The research contributes a quantitative approach to art historiography, advocating for the importance of contextual knowledge in the appreciation of non-Western art, and indicating a shift towards more nuanced curatorial practices that honor the cultural significance of the objects displayed.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Music

In recent years, scholars have commenced to reevaluate the advent and origins of 20th-century artistic movements, with the repositioning of experimental artistic networks like Fluxus as a decentralized, transnational network of artists, a component as integral to Fluxus' identity as its interdisciplinarity. Despite such claims, many art historical and musicological inquiries remain focused upon the activities of Fluxus artists within historically conceived artistic “centers” in the United States and Western Europe, as opposed to a more holistic investigation of Fluxus' “transnational” aspect. Informed by archival and ethnographic research, and engaged with art historians, musicologists, and cultural anthropologists, this dissertation interrogates these dominant narratives through three interrelated, yet distinct case studies involving Icelandic and non-Icelandic artists: Nam June Paik and Charlotte Moorman's scandalous performance at Reykjavik's Theatre Lindarbær, the emergence of the Icelandic collective SUM, and Magnus Palsson's role in experimental arts pedagogy. Such an investigation is not only concerned with examining Iceland's (and the Nordic region more broadly) historical and socio-political position within this transnational milieu, but also the individuals who cultivated, embodied, and lived these cross-cultural exchanges, who have been relegated to the periphery of contemporary historiography.

MA, Kent State University, 2019, College of the Arts / School of Art

This case study research describes how a mid-career art teachers makes visible holistic approaches to art education in a choice-based practice in an urban public charter school. It includes a dual review of literature on the topics of choice-based and holistic practices in contemporary art education. The findings of this case study research describe a detailed analysis of how holistic and choice-based approaches support each other in practice.

MFA, Kent State University, 2016, College of the Arts / School of Art

Body in the Landscape of the Mind was an exhibition comprised of eight sculptures that explored the dependent and binary relationships of the body and mind as tangible couples. For each piece, one component referenced or responded to the body as an abstract or hybridized rendering of it. The second component was my translation of the qualities of different thoughts into various sculptural objects, which were largely guided by forms and features found in the natural world. Using ceramics, clay, mixed media, and found objects, I created pairs that became metaphors for growth and decay, deterioration and regeneration, containment and non-containment, balanced interdependence, and mutability of form. Ultimately, these works are the result of deliberating the human condition and our existence. Envisioning, dissecting and relating our most fundamental sources - the body, the mind, and nature - was my way of attempting to find commonality and interrelatedness among their features and capabilities.