Browsing by Author "Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member"

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Open Access
Beaded vessels
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1988) Goreski, Jeannine Denise, author; Lundberg, Thomas R., advisor; Williams, Ron G., committee member; Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member
These vessels are full. They contain vastness, subtleties, memories, questions, and moments. These vessels are empty. They offer stillness and energy. Beads are vehicles. They connote the precious and command close inspection revealing structure, line, image, color, light, idea, and tactile sensuality. The intimate scale of the beads easily lends them to personal, passionate content. The center, crucial both structurally and philosophically is the genesis from which each vessel spirals upward and outward. Stitched together, each bead is locked in a structured, ordered brick system, pattern. This bead-by-bead building process is important; it speaks of time, frailty, vulnerability, and integral elements. Able to transmit light through matter, glass beads allow for emphasis through illumination. Light suggests seeing and entering. Notions of interior and exterior, knowing and darkness are addressed. Color, inseparable from light, symbolizes emotion. Form is dictated by metaphor. The spaces created are born of contemplation and inviting of contemplation. Symbols of growth, change, directions, motion, and transcendence reflect my thoughts and questions.
Open Access
Buildings-reflections, interior spaces
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2001) Lee, Jiseon, author; Lundberg, Thomas R., advisor; Coronel, Patricia D., committee member; Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member; Mitchell, Carol A., committee member
Buildings-Reflections and Interior Spaces are abstractions of urban environments. Their conception springs from a wish to break familiar patterns of ordinary environments. The simple, geometric and repetitive images indicate uniform urban architecture and reveal the standardized lifestyle of contemporary cities. In turn, the layers of spaces symbolize the complicated construction of urban architecture. The inspiration comes from urban architecture. Buildings as man-made geometrical forms are attractive to me. I was born and raised in a big city, which was modernized and developed in a short time. Concrete buildings and houses of similar styles pervade the city, but also claim their own identity. For me, the insignificantly detailed architectural structure provides considerable differences among buildings and for the overall aspect of the city. The sequence of windows and doors and angles and combinations of walls and stairs offer visual and physical variety. The question is: how can this visual aspect visually and physically interact with audiences, when forms inspired by buildings- which are exterior and hard objects- become relatively small, soft and interior when set up into exhibition spaces? Initially, I was looking for visual similarities and differences within the forms of spaces with which I am familiar. It became my intent to incorporate these with my experiences and observations of people in these spaces. My visual interests include physical distance and the relationships of forms within interior spaces, buildings and environments. The built environment is represented as a more universal space and a communicative object of abstracted geometric structure. Buildings-Reflections integrates repetition, order and disorder, relationships among surfaces, three-dimensional forms and untouchable perspectives. I am also interested in the relationships of opposites such as dark and light, big and small, transparent and opaque, condensed and open details, which represent features of urban architecture. Buildings-Reflections is intended to evoke viewers' memories of specific or ordinary places, just as I interpret these environments through impressions and fragments of my own memories. Interior Spaces invites viewers to participate in internal spaces that are created in an exhibition space, which are themselves already interior spaces. Partitions or wall-like panels are stitched and joined to create an isolating and contemplative space. This work leads audiences to walk through the passages created by screen panels. The stool placed inside invite the audience to sit and allows them to experience the layers of space around them as a new environment I regard materials and techniques as parts of the content of my works. Plastic screen is an actual architectural material and connects exteriors and interiors of buildings. In the actual objects, architecture, which is hard and opaque, becomes soft and transparent with this material. The use of transparent screen and opaque fabric, or several layered pieces of screen, allows me to create surface depth and three-dimensional forms. Softness of the works reduces the intimidating feeling out of size and architectural form. The size of the works suggests that viewers are in an imaginary big city. Soft and transparent materials are also deliberately chosen to eliminate the standardized feelings of architecture, providing intimate and tactile feelings. Stitched drawing is applied to plastic screen and fabric, which along with simplified geometric shapes that relate to three-dimensional forms, and various thickness of stitching allows variety of spatial perspectives. By manipulating these materials and techniques, I develop spaces that can interact with the actual environments in which the work is installed. Reinterpreting architectural forms in soft materials allows me to transform the nature of the original objects. I hope the work allows the audience to experience new environments that are a transformation of the familiar patterns of contemporary architecture. I also wish that the installation of the works allows audiences to interact with my works both physically and visually.
Open Access
Drawing interventions
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Reckley, Amy, author; Lehene, Marius, advisor; Kokoska, Mary-Ann, advisor; Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member; Kneller, Jane, committee member; Flippen, Paul, committee member
I make drawings. Even if I use color and three-dimensional elements in my work, I think of my practice to be that of drawing. The questions I attempt to explore in my work are grounded in the contemporary art discourse that combines two and three dimensional practices into an elastic definition of drawing. My works play off of flat surfaces and into space serving as a confrontation that questions the definitions that separate two dimensional (painting/drawing) and three dimensional (sculpture/installation) practices. In response to specific locations and architectural structures, I fluctuate between perspective and physical presence. I reflect upon a particular set of structural conditions set forth by existing spaces (comers, rafters, stairs, ceilings, walls), and engage possibilities within those spaces with specific materials, gestures and divisions. All of the elements in my work converge to suggest singular situations or moments that are between flux and stasis. My works play upon the notion that psychological spaces are comprised of experience, perception and memory. As architectural interventions on the familiarity of spaces and perspective, drawings play out in sequences of destruction and reinvention. Preexisting perceptions of structures and spaces are broken down to create the illusion of something more fluid, vulnerable and impermanent. My work presents the possibility that the real, the actual and the illusion that one element may or may not signify a particular reality can exist within a singular space.
Open Access
Drawn and quartered: a bipolar frame of mind
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2001) Armstrong, Joel, author; Twarogowski, Leroy A., advisor; Turner, Ronny E., committee member; Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member; Ellerby, David A., committee member; Getty, Nilda C. Fernández, committee member
I spent the past two years erasing the lines of drawing, dragging my feet over the boundary drawn in the sand, stretching the limits, both in the use of medium and the format of the final presentation. Some significant installation pieces preceded Drawn and Quartered and influenced its execution. Clothes Lines, my first installation, pinned all the senses of the viewers into the piece-visual and tactile with objects dangled in front of them, backyard sounds, sod, smell, and humidity. I gained a striking insight into my art from this work. I realized that I could take something very personal (a days worth of laundry)-and the viewers accepted it as their own personal stories. In other words, instead of them looking at my art, my art was looking at them. Emersion) the Sign of Jonah, my next installation, also invited the senses into the setting but did not dictate a landscape as conspicuously. It was grander in scale with over 200 wire fish, a 12-foot boat serving as a light source for the 30- by 4O-foot gallery, and gulf sounds and sand. It was a huge production that dealt, mostly, with memories of night-fishing as a child. Although I persistently unfolded and multiplied this imagery throughout the piece, the multiplication and duplication of images actually obscured the event portrayed by the installation. With this piece, I realized that I wanted my art to be sparser, give less direction to the viewer. That sparseness leaves spaces for the viewers to enter the installation, to participate in the work, to let the art tell their stories. I'm incited into a high level of activity by a mind that races past sleep that never rests until it's exhausted, until it has exhausted all analytical and absurd possibilities of an idea or an image. Typically, this mind-play intersects and merges with the vivid memories dwelling within me to drive me into a frenetic outputting of work. After Emersion) opened, however, I suffered from long episodes of depression in which I seemingly produced nothing at all. At odd moments, frenzied activity intersected these depressive episodes. Most mornings, though, it required effort to get out of the house. Keeping to the activities demanded from working at a full time job, and being a student, husband, father, and teacher overwhelmed me. After several panic attacks including losing my way home, I was diagnosed as bipolar (manic-depressive). Drawn and Quartered shares what it's like to live with a hypervigilant, restless mind-to look "normal" even "well-adjusted" on the outside, and feel oppressed and overwhelmed inside-to be drawn to both living hidden in shadows and noticed in spotlights. This piece was sensually sparse, even visually sparse as compared to my other installations. I invited the observer more than ever to participate in the art, but prescribed and directed participation less than ever. In Drawn and Quartered, without touching the art, the observers could see only the shadows of drawing; they could not even see the medium. In Drawn and Quartered, the observers themselves are drawn into the piece to discover the drawing from its shadows. As in my other installation pieces, art intersected life. Comments from observers and bystanders (what they told me in their own ways): Those who don't know, who offer platitudes, who become uncomfortable when they see a person's bipolarness overflow the dammed up recesses to be lived out loud, what happened to them? Some glimpsed behind the wall and gained some empathy. Many observers still kept their distance in art as in life. They did not touch, did not open up, did not understand. But those who know, who have experienced bipolarness, validated their experiences, told their own stories, made art of their own lives.
Open Access
Elemental cloth
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2007) Cason, Cory Jo, author; Lundberg, Thomas R., advisor; Coronel, Patricia D., committee member; Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member; Clemons, Stephanie, committee member
Cloth is elemental. In its most basic form, it is created by interlacing threads in an over-under construction. Individual threads are woven together to create a substantive piece of cloth, and the result can be uncomplicated and beautiful. Elemental or basic, uncompounded visual form has the potential to be beautiful in its simplicity. Using only components deemed essential, I endeavor to create a visual experience with elegant directness and a quiet presence that arises from this idea of unassuming simplicity. My weavings focus on the essential, the elemental, and the inherent beauty found in visual simplicity. I use cloth to inhabit, divide, and shape interior architectural space. Acting as architectural markers, the weavings delineate space and guide viewer movement. It is important for me to create an overall atmosphere, as well as to provide engaging visual details. It is my intent to create a space that is refined in its simplicity, where stillness and silence are tangible. Architecture, spatial organization, movement, and color are specifically related to the viewer's experience and also described within the microcosm of the constructed cloth. The influence of architecture is evident in my work. I am particularly interested in twentieth century modern architecture. Cleanness of line, exactness of expression and use of industrial materials are aligned with my central idea of simplicity and visual economy. These characteristics influence the overall organization of the complete space and the design of the individual weavings. The two-dimensional weavings work together to create a three dimensional space. They act as an architectural construction that creates a distinct space through which viewers can move. The influence of architecture is also seen in the strong verticality and large scale of the weavings. The use of concrete, a material known for its economy and basic building applications, is a suitable companion for the cloth; both are inherently elemental in their nature. The weavings are grounded by their placement over concrete bases, reminiscent of architectural bases with columns or pillars. The spatial organization of woven fabric panels guides viewers through the work. By moving through the space, viewers can change their perspectives on the complete space as well as their proximity to the individual weavings. The small spatial gaps that occur in the weave of the cloth allow light and air to become components of the piece. This transparency encourages the layers of cloth to optically overlap and increases spatial depth. Viewers can affect the space by their own movement. Encouraged by the warmth of the material and innate human connections to the cloth, viewers can move throughout the space to take a closer look. The weavings are light and airy, and the space is activated as cloth sways with movement of the viewer. Movement is also present in specific fabric details. I use the ikat-dyeing technique to accentuate the vertical movement of the warp threads, in contrast to the less active unmarked space in the cloth. Ikat also marks the movement of the horizontal weft across the fabric, where one might see staccato marks or more lingering dashes. This technique allows me to reinforce and highlight the elemental nature of the cloth construction. The reduced color palette of blues, grays, whites and blacks acts to provide cohesion for the piece and sets the emotive tone of the space. A serious and contemplative color, blue fills the space with a quiet calm and stillness. This color palette evokes a sense of an expansive outside space effecting an atmospheric quality, while complementing the color of concrete and emphasizing economy and simplicity. The color relationships within the cloth highlight visual transition and emphasize transparency and lightness. I am drawn to visual simplicity and the creative potential it holds. Cloth, which is inherently elemental, is the form I have chosen to explore this idea. My weavings focus on the essential and the elemental, and I endeavor to create work that speaks with a quiet presence and that is beautiful in its simplicity.
Open Access
Images in time
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1987) Patin, Thomas, 1958-, author; Dietemann, David L., advisor; Yust, Dave, 1939-, committee member; Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member; Coronel, Patricia D., committee member; McKee, Patrick L., committee member
In my work of the past few years two of my major concerns have been the perception of wholes and the role of art as a means to understanding the world. Gestalt theories of perception present several principles describing how perceptual wholes are formed. However, Gestaltists see a whole only as perceptual and ignore that a whole is theoretical as well as perceptual. Also, Gestaltists do not consider a perceptual whole as changing and diverse. Our experience, however, is a buzzing confusion upon which we impose order in an attempt to see and understand our world. We are our own most intriguing example of theoretical and perceptual wholes. Despite tremendously varying experiences and changes in time we nevertheless view ourselves as whole and continuous. In my work I create a situation in which a person experiences the disparate elements within it over time as well as space, and inter-relates those elements both through a perception of them as well as through an attempt to understand them as being together. It is my aim for my work to be a part of a history of art and ideas which serves as an instrument in an attempt to understand our world.
Open Access
Intersections
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2005) McNamara, Jennifer L., author; Lundberg, Thomas R., advisor; Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member; Hannig, Jan, committee member; Bates, Haley, committee member
To view the abstract, please see the full text of the document.
Open Access
It's gonna take a lot of love to get us through the advertisements
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1989) Foskin, Keith Louis, author; Dietemann, David L., advisor; Yust, Dave, 1939-, committee member; Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member; Enssle, Manfred J., committee member
My paintings identify and enact the moment when perception, shaped by cultural images collides with experience. Through the recreation of this moment my paintings illuminate unrealistic or stereotypical points of view. They focus on American popular culture's manipulation of image. Each painting acts as a metaphor for my perceptions and challenges the mass media's illusionary and cursory imagery. In content my paintings explore and recreate the paradoxical nature of American popular culture. I imply a sense of contradiction through ambiguous spatial development and the utilization of dichotomous cultural, metaphorical and symbolic images. My painting's formalistic expressiveness suggests that experience can offset American popular culture's manipulation of perception.
Open Access
Masquerade
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1995) Morris, Deborah Watkins, author; Lundberg, Thomas R., advisor; Sparks, Diane, committee member; Coronel, Patricia D., committee member; Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member
Masquerade embodies ideas concerning disguise and facade, separation and distance. As a landscape Masquerade is a place which depicts a frame of mind in memory. I think of this installation as a garden. Natural landscapes are not yet gardens, and they must thrive by chance. Gardens are watered places of planned beauty. They are controlled, contained spaces of ordered and selected abundance. For these reasons gardens have come to mean places of harmony and pleasant viewing of ideal forms in nature. Elements in the Garden In recent years many artists have utilized empty clothing as an image to express concerns about gender and other political or social issues. By eliminating the body, clothing through reference can focus on complex human conditions. For me, the empty dress provides a simple but content laden form with which to discuss the feminine and the female body in culture and nature. I use the dress as a metaphor to symbolize interior/exterior/mind/body. Looking at the empty dresses in Masquerade there is a sense of the body pushing outward against the cloth of the dress. The dress becomes the outermost boundary of the body, and cloth functions as a barrier between inside and outside. Stiffened cloth assumes shell-like qualities of containment and protection. The exterior view of the form also reveals messages about age, size ideals and sexuality. These strapless sheath evening gowns seek attention, a desire for attraction. The alluring forms mask the implied women inside. We see only the exterior and consider that we know all about these women. These facades are completed by culturally accepted codes applied to the dresses' forms. I am looking at the codified shell as well as the unknown empty inside. In Bangkok, Thailand, I remember a temple garden where dozens of stupa had been placed, their glittering structures towering over me. Passage between the stupa was narrow, and I felt dwarfed in their totemic presence. When I designed the dresses for Masquerade, I strove to evoke something of this forest feeling. With the multiple dresses I wanted to create tension between the forms like the passages between the stupa. Since social relationships are suggested, the dresses assemble in a non-touching gathering. Earth and glass make the floor. These materials were chosen to echo ideas presented in the dresses. As cloth supplies a screen between inside and outside, glass performs as a barrier between up and down. Glass also allows us to see a submerged reflection, an illusion going downward. The floor's glass tiles arranged in a grid pattern intimate a shiny ballroom floor. Exquisitely formed flowers have long been associated with the unconscious, the body, the feminine, and the earth. Gaily colored corolla and tempting petals sway invitingly to passing bees. Flowers reach upward to the light while their roots dig downward into the earth. Exchanges between the bee and flower benefit them both through fertilization and nourishment. Choosing to use images associated with natural systems allowed me to derive from and mirror their substance. Undulating edges at the top and bottom of the dresses came from observing the petals of roses. Structural ribbons of wire were suggested from crocus. Because the flower is the sexual organ of the plant, ideas about allure and sexual appeal could be applied to the surface decorations in the motifs of flower festoons. By associating women's dresses to flowers I could think of the whole composition as a garden. In the ordered arrangement of Masquerade the viewer is denied entrance. Viewing of the dresses must be interpreted by culture's codes. The dresses' shells only permit exterior gazing. Real understanding is barred by the masquerade, the illusion.
Open Access
Naturaleza muerta
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1995) Mott, Cynthia, author; Dormer, James T., advisor; Orman, Jack L., advisor; Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member; Turner, Ronny E., committee member
I am constantly seeking out images that surround my daily life. I am attracted to the refuse of man-made objects that are left behind in varying states of decay. They become the records of existence, of the comings and goings, of ordinary people. I identify with these images, attracted by the repetition of patterns and shapes. The redundancy of daily habits are reiterated by fences, buildings, and chairs. Basic elements create patterns, asserting control within a space, reflecting the human need to organize and define. Structure and shape may overtake the recognition of objects transcending the normal realm. Life is rarely static. These inanimate objects mirror the same cycle of birth and death as our own lives. They force us to confront our own mortality. My work visually embodies our inevitable place in the life cycle through the cultural aesthetic of the built environment.
Open Access
Ornament within structure: investigation of cellular wall structure of plants
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Drake, Amber Nicole, author; Bates, Haley, advisor; Coronel, Patricia, committee member; Medford, June, committee member; Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member
In my recent body of work I have chosen to magnify the cellular structures of plants and modify them into a more concrete and visible state. This process alters the familiar perception of plant cells, reassembling them into a new material and format. I am using the inherent beauty within the basic structure of the plant to express a fresh vision of beauty itself. By using cellular structures as a means to ornament the body, I'm forcing the viewer to interact with these forms in an unfamiliar way. Manipulating the plant’s innate qualities by magnification and modification of materials distorts its original value, fundamentally humanizing it. It is distorted further as I add functionality to the images by fabricating them into jewelry forms. The alteration of the original form creates a new relationship of semblance between plants and humans.
Open Access
Phylogeny
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1993) Javernick, Michael, author; Dormer, James T., advisor; Orman, Jack L., advisor; Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member; Ruby, Christine, committee member
My intention has been to synthesize and hybridize forms and marks into unique and compelling visual poetry. Having worked as a biologist in the past, I am intimately familiar with the structures and processes associated with living things. The language of shapes, forms and marks with which I have chosen to work is informed by this familiarity. The majority of the work is done in the media of intaglio prints because I felt the images required the tremendous complexity of marks for which this media allows. I approached the plates as sculpture, treating it as a relief surface. Every plate and corresponding image speaks of an intense, sometimes aggressive, physical involvement. Much of the actually image making occurred subtractively through either scraping or open-biting. Images where more "found" than "built". Drawing has provided me with the opportunity to more rapidly transform and search for images, and has made preliminary experimentation with color possible. All the works can be seen as descendants of the drawing Cloaca. The bilateral symmetry and kidney-like motif of this image have undergone transformations in each successive image. As these mutations compounded new motifs appeared. While the images do speak of the phenomena of organic life, my only conscious intention has been to create work that is visually intriguing and speaks of my unique and personal vision.
Open Access
Piecing together
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2003) Ment, Becca, author; Fahey, Patrick G., advisor; Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member; Frickman, Linda, committee member; Kneller, Jane, committee member
To view the abstract, please see the full text of the document.
Open Access
Prints and sculpture
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1989) Gilhooly, Barbara Marie, author; Dormer, James T., advisor; Lakin, Barbara L., committee member; Orman, Jack L., committee member; Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member
The source of my work comes from a strong background in drawing. My subject matter is secondary to the constant need to draw. The choice to make prints is an obvious one because I feel printmaking is the direct result of drawing. I rely heavily on multiple-line etches to achieve rich, active black areas. The zinc plate is scraped, after several deep etches, to pull up the middle valves and then burnished and polished to obtain the bright white areas. This intense involvement with the incised and irregular surface of the intaglio plate is also prevalent in my sculpture pieces. The marks drawn into the wax echo the linear quality of the etched plates. My work is an obsession of ongoing ideas that allows me to continually draw in a variety of media, allowing me to determine the material that has the greatest aesthetic impact for the perceived intent.
Open Access
Stitched cloth
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1992) Aviks, Ilze Anita, author; Lundberg, Thomas R., advisor; Coronel, Patricia D., committee member; Mitchell, Carol A., committee member; Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member
To view the abstract, please see the full text of the document.
Open Access
The particular in prints
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1995) Frye, Kathleen, author; Dormer, James T., advisor; Orman, Jack L., committee member; Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member; Williams, Ronald G., committee member
I make art because I like to look at things and I want to make images which describe how I feel about what I see. My work is based on a cycle of seeing and responding to the visual world as well as to the images that develop as the artmaking progresses. I choose subject matter which is visually exciting to me and has compelling formal qualities which offer an enticing opportunity to make descriptive marks. These formal qualities include: the abstract structure of forms; how forms are altered by shifting points of view or distance; the impact of light on forms; repetition of forms, pattern; and finally, the nature of large spaces (landscape) and intimate spaces (interior, figures). I prefer to work directly from what I see in front of me, rarely using intermediary sources such as photographs or slides. The mark-making possibilities inherent in the printmaking media of intaglio and lithography are well suited to my direct approach to making images. In addition, printmaking offers a means of creating a tactile surface with deep rich blacks, a surface which I find to be particularly expressive. If an image communicates something of how I experience both the external characteristics and the underlying reality of the visual world, as well as my love for the printmaking process, then I consider it complete.
Open Access
Two-valved seed vessels
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2004) Hubbard, Jonathan, author; Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member; Nelson, Chris, committee member
My thoughts and artwork are inspired by my great admiration and attraction to nature and natural forms. In my artwork, I draw upon the strength of nature and its beautiful delicacies, to create forms that are strong and bold. All of my pieces of artwork that I create use a variety of traditional metalsmithing techniques. The media I have chosen to construct these pieces of art is mild steel. By using steel as the main media, I am able to transform its cold harsh surface into something that is inviting and natural. It is this manipulation of the material that I am also intrigued by. I see all of my artwork as vessels or pod structures. These structures are studies that document the ever-changing stages of the media selected. Some of my pieces reflect strength and a solid volume, while others contain soft and fragile elements that portray the stages of growth followed by cracking, decaying, and death.
Open Access
When the bough breaks
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1997) Clarke, Amy Catherine, author; Lundberg, Thomas R., advisor; Reid, Louann, committee member; Coronel, Patricia D., committee member; Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member
To view the abstract please see the full text of the document.
Open Access
Woven places
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1989) Ackles, Sharla Fell, author; Lundberg, Thomas R., advisor; Knoll, Diane Sparks, committee member; Orman, Jack L., committee member; Voss, Gary Wayne, committee member
To view the abstract, please see the full text of the document.