MFA, Kent State University, 2021, College of the Arts / School of Art

This series of weavings creates a sensory experience that heightens an awareness of tactility created by phenomenological movements of wave patterns. These works are influenced by my interest in swimming. Dynamic actions such as floating, diving, splashing, bending, and submerging provide inspiration for the development of the undulating structural transformation of the weave patterns. These rhythms vibrate with motion, color, and are meant to provide an immersive experience through their optical physicality. Similar to the action of swimming, directional forces and elasticity are at play, intersect and break up with moments of activity and rest.

Committee: Janice Lessman-Moss (Advisor); Andrew Kuebeck (Committee Member); Peter Christian Johnson (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts; Textile Research

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

In my studio practice, I am currently exploring relationships between the visual language of textiles with the materiality of glass. This work utilizes the line and structure inherent in weaving while capitalizing on the properties of glass, specifically its ability to transmit and refract light. Line, structure, color and light are the genesis of possibility and idea. The marriage of textiles and glass is a fascinating and absorbing exploration for me.

Committee: Davin Ebanks (Committee Chair) Subjects: Fine Arts

MFA, Kent State University, 2017, College of the Arts / School of Art

This essay analyzes the works in Trey D. Gehring's M.F.A.- Textile Arts Thesis Exhibition Musclebound. The writing discusses how this exhibition presents, in the form of woven and knitted works, the male body as a decorative object and proposes that the sculpting of the male body into an idealistic form– suggestive of patriarchal power and extremes of biological maleness– is an intentional act of objectifying one's own body to allow for homosocial bonding within the patriarchal structure that regulates men's homosocial interaction. It further asserts that the digital nature of the processes, imagery, and their underlying reliance on optical mixing emphasize the abstract quality of identity and gender.

Committee: Janice Lessman-Moss MFA (Advisor) Subjects: Art Criticism; Fine Arts; Gender; Gender Studies

MFA, Kent State University, 2015, College of the Arts / School of Art

Snapshots serve as markers of time and place. They record people and places as a way to preserve memories of significant events or landmarks. In this series of weavings I collage images from photographs as a means to capture a sense of grief generated by the loss of my brother. As a special person who shared so much in my past I wanted to preserve his memory, and my response to his absence, through commemoration in weaving. Digitally generated compositions are made tangible through the process of making the cloth, serving as both a concrete and abstract connection with time. They are meant to create a narrative in remembrance of my deceased brother, Gregory Trevor Benade (1975-2013).

Committee: Janice Lessman-Moss (Advisor); Kathleen Browne (Committee Member); Darice Polo (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts; Textile Research

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

As an artist and writer, I create work to explore my own complicated identification and disidentification with queer aesthetics, experiences, and environments through conceptual and physical processes. My thesis, entitled Someone's Sun, is a meditation on gay loneliness in the current age of gay-male sociality made material in a series of handwoven tapestries. I aim to embody a sense of self-inflicted ennui, a self-defeating act of seeking for connection while simultaneously hiding oneself behind banal / insipid landscapes. Through the remediation of photographs of sunrises and sunsets posted by gay men as placeholders for their own portraits on social media apps, I abstract and amplify saturation and composition in photoshop to create a digital painting of an otherworldly environment akin to those of Science Fiction films and television. I use my digital paintings as references, glancing up at them as I dye-paint warps with a variety of color using painterly brushstrokes, once again filtering each image through a further filter of abstraction. Through these digital and analog painting processes I explore color and scale, culminating in a final remediation by weaving with single toning color of wool and a metallic lurex weft yarn on traditional floor looms to create shimmering watercolor tapestries. I weave queer tapestries, that whisper seductively hushed desires while screaming “look at how I shine.”

Committee: Gianna Commito (Committee Member); Gianna Commito (Committee Member); Eli Kessler (Committee Member); John Paul Morabito (Advisor) Subjects: Art Criticism; Art History; Behavioral Psychology; Communication; Developmental Psychology; Fine Arts; Gender; Gender Studies; Personal Relationships; Psychology

MFA, Kent State University, 2023, College of the Arts / School of Art

Geometries of Absence explores themes of queer abstraction through weaving and drawing. It engages an epistolary praxis in queer textiles scholarship to document gay marriage over long distance in the context of the contemporary political climate. Three weavings at the intersection of tapestry, drawing, and painting, rooted in Jose Esteban Munoz's theory of queer horizons illustrate the ideas put forth.

Committee: John Paul Morabito (Advisor); Eli Kessler (Committee Member); Gianna Commito (Committee Member); Janice Lessman-Moss (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts; Gender; Glbt Studies; Personal Relationships

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Environment and Natural Resources

Biological invasions threaten biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Stream ecosystems and their adjacent riparian zones are connected via a complex network of direct and indirect linkages, presenting a unique setting for the study of invasion. I investigated the effects of two different riparian invaders on stream biota and stream-riparian trophic linkages: an invasive insect (hemlock woolly adelgid Adelges tsugae; hereafter HWA) and an invasive shrub (bush honeysuckles Lonicera maackii and L. tatarica). Both sets of studies used the same basic approach at >20 streams across a gradient of invasion intensity: record geomorphology and water chemistry, collect and assess in-stream biota, quantify reciprocal subsidies, and determine riparian spider density, relative reliance on aquatically-derived energy (i.e., nutritional subsidies originating from periphyton), and invertebrate food-chain length (using naturally-abundant stable isotopes) at each study reach. I also conducted a before-after, control-impact (BACI design) honeysuckle removal experiment. My results suggest that in-stream physical and chemical alterations (i.e., large-wood characteristics and nutrient concentrations) associated with HWA invasion and subsequent hemlock decline drove changes in stream invertebrate diversity and trophic relationships. Evidence for ecological consequences of this invader was strongest at lower trophic levels. For example, periphyton biomass was greater at uninvaded reference sites than at severely invaded sites (x = 1.37 vs 0.52 mg cm-2), while relative abundance of herbivorous macroinvertebrates increased from 4 to 23% at the severely invaded sites. Spider (family Tetragnathidae) densities were 3.2 times higher at sites with severe hemlock decline and although density was not linked to emergent insect density overall, δ15N signatures of Araneidae and Pisauridae spider families tracked emergent insect δ15N (r2 = 0.42 and 0.78, respectively), suggesting a trophic linkage. (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: S. Mazeika Sullivan (Advisor); Lauren Pintor (Committee Member); P. Charles Goebel (Committee Member) Subjects: Ecology; Environmental Science; Freshwater Ecology

MFA, Kent State University, 2020, College of the Arts / School of Art

The Sacred Transfigured are the cumulative results of researching textile processes as sacred ritual resulting in artifacts that can be engaged in a participatory manner by the viewer. Questions I aim to resolve through the artworks presented are: Why are textiles special? How can material like wool and linen be transfigured into precious artifacts? What about this construction process is sacred? What is the role of the artist in that process? These questions are explored through weaving, felting and stitching specifically to examine the unique and magic qualities of textiles that can serve as tools of communication between artist and viewer. The artifacts presented are both precious objects and theatrical garments serving to heighten the senses of the viewer and help construct a certain aura around the wearer.

Committee: Janice Lessman-Moss (Advisor); Isabel Farnsworth (Committee Member); Andrew Kuebeck (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts; Performing Arts; Textile Research

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2019, Spanish

This thesis explains how three forms of contemporary Mayan art--music, weavings and murals--form part of the larger effort in Guatemala to revitalize Mayan languages and culture, known as the Mayan Movement. This movement began in the 1990's after the end of Guatemala's 36-year long genocidal and ethnocidal civil war. The research focuses on three case studies: 1) a Mayan hip hop group that retells ancient myths through Spanish and Mayan-language lyrics, 2) a Mayan weaving cooperative that has taken advantage of the often culturally damaging tourism industry to raise awareness about the lasting effects of the civil war, and 3) a mural painted by a Mayan art collective depicting the people's history of Mayans in Guatemala from the genesis of the first human beings to present day. Each chapter analyzes the symbolism and cultural knowledge communicated by a different form of artwork, often relating them back to ancient Mayan myths, and concludes that each form of art constitutes a form of survivance, a combination of “survival” and “endurance” that refers to the active presence of indigenous peoples, worldviews, and ways of life in the world today, that inherently defies the historical and contemporary attempts to erase them.

Committee: Betsy Partyka Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: Cultural Anthropology; Fine Arts; History; Language; Latin American History; Latin American Studies; Modern History; Native American Studies; Native Studies; Political Science

Master of Arts, University of Akron, 2018, Clothing, Textiles and Interiors

Edward S. Curtis photographed Native American culture for his epic 20-volume work, The North American Indian, published from 1907-1930. Curtis's work features over 2,000 photographs of Native Americans, rich with artifacts of Native American culture. Study of these photographs containing native artifacts reveals new perspectives on Native American life during the time Curtis took his photographs. This research focuses on Navajo weavings, one of the most popular and recognizable artifacts. Curtis wanted to capture a vanishing race of Native Americans, a popular belief of his time. Analysis of Navajo weavings in these photographs reveals a different viewpoint. Curtis's beautiful photographs captured a period of transition as the Navajo used their ancient craft of weaving blankets for other Native American cultures to create rugs for a growing Anglo-American market, preparing their culture for the future.

Committee: Virginia Gunn Dr. (Advisor); Teena Jennings-Rentenaar Dr. (Committee Member); Sandra Buckland Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Native Americans

MFA, Kent State University, 2018, College of the Arts / School of Art

In my thesis, I am investigating an understanding of self by using the unique language of textiles to translate digital photography. We construct identity via the mind-body connection, which is the mind's processing of the body's physical experience. As human experience is based on linear time, our notions of self depend on a constant cycle of perception, storage, and recollection. However, as memory is an unreliable source, our definitions of inner identity become highly variable. The disconnect between past and present is at the heart of the disconnect between mind and body. The imagery used of the body in the box references interior and exterior forces of influence that contribute to the fluctuation of memory and therefore self- understanding. The box is also symbolic of storage, of something meant be kept, as the picture is used to hold on to an experience or memory. Compartmentalization means an attempt at order. Thus, the imagery of containment connects to the binary nature of both weaving and digital information: the relationship of pixel and thread. Each exists due to their respective systems of order. The digitally designed weave structure both defines through its binary system and obscures through its visual effect. As the proximity to origin affects the clarity or accuracy of memory, so the physical proximity to the weavings determines the clarity of the image. This leads to a question of looking at the imagery and experiencing the sensation of tactility present in textile—looking and touching. Here lies a presentation of embodied cognition—the crux of the mind-body connection. The image/mind is held within the cloth/body.

Committee: Janice Lessman-Moss MFA (Advisor); Davin Ebanks MFA (Committee Member); Andrew Kuebeck MFA (Committee Member) Subjects: Design; Fine Arts; Language; Metaphysics; Optics; Philosophy; Systems Design; Technology; Textile Research

MFA, Kent State University, 2018, College of the Arts / School of Art

Weavings are formed through a gradual accumulation of threads inserted sequentially over time, fostering a connection between the materials and weaver. I am inspired by women of ancient Greek mythology who overcame adversity through their craft of weaving. Penelope sat at her loom weaving by day and secretly unweaving by night to stay off untimely decisions. Sisters Procne and Philomela communicated across borders through messages hidden in woven tapestry. Arachne was transformed into a spider by the goddess Athena so that she would weave for all eternity. Through the process of creating their textiles, these women exhibited considerable emotional strength and artistry, which I draw upon to bring their resiliency and feminine legacy into my own work. I use the loom as a conceptual tool, finding meaning in the metaphors associated with the process of weaving in conjunction with the physicality of the materials. My understanding of textile processes allows me to utilize the vocabulary of weaving to create textural cloth. Experimenting with compositional elements, I blur the line between foreground and background through the intersection of color and weave structures. Weaving is a form of three dimensional drawing, allowing me to delve into the pictorial and dimensional planes simultaneously. When complete and presented on the wall or suspended in space, the weavings read as eloquent objects of texture, color, and rhythm. While the ancient myths motivate my enthusiasm for the process, my use of decorative motifs was informed by my interest in the pattern and decoration movement of the 1970s. This group lead by women artists, placed value on pattern, craft, and ornament. They utilized complex pattern and shape relationships and upheld the decorative and feminine aspects of their work. Like them, these characteristics are important to me in my work. Through embracing the traditionally feminine activity of weaving and its rich history, I am connecting to the myriad gene (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Janice Lessman-Moss (Advisor); Gianna Commito (Committee Member); Peter Johnson (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts; Folklore; Interior Design; Museums; Textile Research

MFA, Kent State University, 2018, College of the Arts / School of Art

This body of woven work results from my interest in exploring the concept of stress, a dominant aspect of living in our fast paced, technologically advanced society. It represents an attempt to focus and concentrate on meaningful content through active engagement in construction, such as hand weaving, felting and spinning; methods antithetical to the causes of contemporary stressors. I will be relying on the systematic nature of weaving as an organizational tool to express the natural urge to find balance and structure. In addition, the physical and metaphorical aspects of the textile medium will support the analogy between cloth and skin, as a form of literal and figurative protection. To acknowledge the cumulative nature of stress I will make a series of objects to reveal a sense of transformation over time. Through the use of the unique language of textiles I will be examining the effects of mental, physical and emotional stress generated by personal experience.

Committee: Janice Lessman-Moss (Advisor); Taryn McMahon (Committee Chair); Davin Ebanks (Committee Chair); Andrew Kuebeck (Committee Chair) Subjects: Cognitive Psychology; Fine Arts; Performing Arts; Sustainability; Textile Research

MA, Kent State University, 2018, College of the Arts / School of Art

Disease is like death. It is not worthy to be spoken of. It is eroding from the inside, taking energy and destroying minds. It is vicious and must not be glorified. But Soul eager to survive at all costs and Body as an evidence of a crime committed by disease, - they are uniting in a single burst and giving birth to the Inspiration. Revelation creates images. Images are moving, puzzling into the pictures and freezing, caught by a digital camera. They acquired a new dimension and new depth not by printing on glossy paper but by weaving into the sophisticated Cloth. Blind Fate or personal choice? Darkness in light or the light in the darkness? Fight or surrender? Faith or unbelief? Life or Death? The eternal questions that humanity as a whole and each of us as a part are asking ourselves, I am trying to answer through the artistic engagement of digital photography and jacquard weaving. I am using a woven structure as a poetic language, evoking shapes, rhythm, and space in unexpected juxtaposition. Immobilized Time turns into a texturally patterned textile that represents the space-time fabric with the imprint of the story of one soul. As the body and soul are two unbreakable parts of one, the photography and jacquard cloth are interwoven in one, reincarnating the flat graphic image into a tactile and multidimensional augmented reality of the textile body, where every part carries meaningful ideas and coded thoughts.

Committee: Janice Lessman-Moss (Advisor); Robin Vandezande (Committee Member); Rebecca Cross (Committee Member) Subjects: Art History; Textile Research

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1987, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Engineering

MFA, Kent State University, 2015, College of the Arts / School of Art

Vignettes is a series of six large industrially-woven tapestries examining the language of pornography and its effect when juxtaposed with non-pornographic imagery. Titles of streaming online videos from a pornographic website are superimposed over images of majestic, unspoiled landscapes. By separating these phrases from their visual contexts, the specific qualities of pornographic language are evident: it is a language of classification that is violent, sexist, racist, and degrading. This is important because the usage of such language is not arbitrary or context-specific; it reflects our genuine feelings about the societal position of women and about the extent of our voyeuristic privilege.

Committee: Janice Lessman-Moss (Advisor) Subjects: Fine Arts

Master of Arts, University of Akron, 2014, Clothing, Textiles and Interiors

ABSTRACT This thesis investigated the role of traditional textiles within the Bolivian culture in the early twenty-first century. Creating traditional textiles is an important aspect of Bolivian life. Women are able to spin, dye, and weave to create a textile. These textiles can be sold and have been an assurance that women would always be able to make money. An ethnographic study was conducted in Independencia, Bolivia, in order to observe and research the steps in the making of a textile within the context of the culture. The steps included shearing the sheep, cleaning the fleece, spinning the fleece on a drop spindle, dyeing the yarn with natural dyes, weaving the yarn, and sewing the woven fabric into an end product. These labor-intensive steps were learned by initially observing and then actively participating. Since February, 2010, there have been quite a few changes due to outside influences. These changes mean that textile traditions are not being passed down. Today the mothers are not teaching their daughters these steps because the daughters are away at school. Within the community, the traditional dynamic has been altered. Men are forced to travel for work; the children are away at school; and the women are in the home juggling many roles, including maintaining the home, taking care of the animals, and weaving in order to acquire physical money to pay for school supplies.

Committee: Teena Jennings-Rentenaar Dr. (Advisor); Virginia Gunn Dr. (Committee Member); Sandra Buckland Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Cultural Anthropology; Families and Family Life; Fine Arts; Textile Research

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

A map is typically a didactic way to read the world. It tells you how to get from point A to point B or it can encourage the viewer to explore an area. Liz DeBellis created woven tapestries that start as a map image. Each is a reflection of a place she walked and knows intimately. As she walked through a landscape fallen leaves, stems and pods were collected to be used as dye to stain fabric: the leaves create marks and shadows of themselves. This fabric was then incorporated into the large weavings she created. Each is a representation of an area that is important to DeBellis. She interpreted various digital maps of each location, picking and choosing exactly how to represent the geography as a weaving. The finished weavings are not exact replicas but rather a reflection of her experience and relationship with the location: Each tapestry is a visual demonstration of the artists footprints in a place. When filled with weavings, the gallery creates a narrative-atlas of her life.

Committee: Janice Lessman-Moss (Advisor); Kathleen Brown (Committee Member); Isabel Farnsworth (Committee Member) Subjects: Cartography; Fine Arts; Textile Research

MFA, Kent State University, 2013, College of the Arts / School of Art

As an artist, I am interested in how to inject the personal and intuitive into the regularity of systems, and with this body of work, I do this primarily by introducing disruptions. Responding to the flat, loom-controlled patterning that is used to structure a field of yarns, I introduce irregularity and disruption through painting the yarns with organic shapes prior to weaving. The result is a body of work that balances steady patterning of weaving with painted images in transitional movement.

Committee: Janice Lessman-Moss M.F.A (Advisor); Kathleen Browne M.F.A (Committee Member); Michael Loderstedt M.F.A (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2009, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Architecture (Master of)

The global economy is growing competitive, yet poverty and illiteracy prevail in rural Guatemala where indigenous cultures fight extinction. Peasants struggle for freedom from a system of corrupt law that has bound them to practices that do not celebrate their own traditions and culture. The place in the landscape itself bespeaks intensity - of color, of weather and of climate - that requires a sensitive built approach. Locals can exploit their existing materials and methodologies to arrive at more sensible strategies, relating back to native practices of weaving, harvesting, following sun movement, and gathering in communal workgroups. Tulan, a non-profit organization working to educate indigenous adults in the rural areas, has limited funding but is in need of an insightful, meaningful space to strengthen their mission. This thesis proposes strategies they can use to establish building workshops for their own students to come together and fabricate the new building. Through empowerment and education in a new headquarters for indigenous-run Tulan, their own cultural colors can shine through, weaving new patterns across Guatemala.

Committee: Vincent Sansalone (Committee Chair); Rebecca Williamson (Committee Chair) Subjects: Architecture