Sculpture

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https://hdl.handle.net/10217/180175

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Open Access
Chase Meadors: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Meadors, Chase, artist
The artist's statement: Isolation, surveillance, and ostracization are themes that my work focuses on. These themes emerged not only throughout my childhood and adolescence but are also fears and concerns I still carry around in my daily life. My past experiences have made me paranoid about being watched, being othered, and being alone. I have chosen to manifest these persistent concerns into my body of art. To create within these themes without letting them overwhelm me, I need to follow a routine in my creation. Music is a must. The feeling of being filled with and surrounded by music breaks down my fears of being observed and lets me delve into my art. My work is both a process of concept influencing materials and vice versa. I work on material exploration while developing concepts, and expand on these concepts using notes, sketches, measurements, and math, then build up from armature to base to skin. With my work, I want to focus on creating a dialogue. I want people to feel something, to think about something, and to discuss something. I am not going to assume what this something is to each person, as long as it exists and causes the viewer to in some way interact personally with the work.
Open Access
Annaka Christensen: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Christensen, Annaka, artist
The artist's statement: Throughout my journey in becoming an artist I have found myself entangled with, and thriving in, LGBTQIA+ and mental health communities. Growing up in the cities around Denver, Colorado I have developed a deep understanding and interest in nature that is ever present in my artmaking practice. When I create work that combines these aspects of my identity and my surroundings, I find myself drawn to mixed materials, and the different ways they can coexist within and around each other. I find myself exploring how different materials can affect each other and I like to push the expected boundaries of what a material can do. I plan to pursue my RN degree after earning my BFA and I believe that is connected to my focus on promoting self-identity, mental health awareness, and ideas related to anatomy in my creative practice. Throughout my time in undergrad, I have found myself focusing on 3D artworks that are both abstract and anatomical. The ideas of discomfort, disgust, and dysphoria come up a lot in my artwork, and this is both a way for me to connect with others going through the same experience, while also showcasing to those outside of my communities the hardships that people like me face. Within my capstone exhibition, Natural Imposter, one can see the evidence of the identities discussed above. This show is the culmination of all I have learned both technically in art, and about myself throughout my time at CSU. I have distilled my practice down to the idea of processing my own traumas and identities with art. There is not a set meaning for my works that everyone needs to see and understand, they mean something to me, but I want them to be a starting point for others to approach their own experiences and emotions. Life is not just one person's experience, there is a connection, a living breathing essence that flows through all of us, and art is one of the most universal ways to show this. Breathe in, breathe out, and open yourself to other perspectives.
Open Access
Amy Fromme: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Fromme, Amy, artist
The artist's statement: My artistic practice fuses my roles as both an observer and a translator, providing an opportunity for a conversation between what can be studied and how to best use materials to imitate, alter, and reconceptualize the observable world. I am constantly absorbing facets of the world around me, be it by reflection of body language, inquisition of the diverse qualities of the natural world, or delving into the meditative attributes that musical synesthesia can endow. Intentional observation is the root of my motive to create. My production begins by transforming observational interpretations into an inventory of ideas. My creative index is then further refined through my relationship with music. I often experience synesthesia, which allows a space for auditory stimuli to work in collaboration with visual imaginations. This phenomena motivates me to translate my sensory experiences into sculptural artwork. Once I have honed a concept, I assign materials that will honor my idea. To represent a gestural theme, I may select a steel rod as an armature. While a steel rod may appear rigid, the slightest bend creates a possibility for an individualized expression. Each material decision plays a role in the final product of my work, bridging the gap between ideation and formation.
Open Access
Syd Hanna: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Hanna, Syd, artist
The artist's statement: Functionality is important to me. Many of my pieces are made with usability in mind while challenging the idea of traditional function. Experimentation is a big part of my practice. It is essential to get in the studio and try different materials that can command others to create a balanced relationship. Exploration of saturated colors that clash and battle each other for prominence make for an exciting conversation. Unpredictable textures lead me to color choices that create a synthesis of the two. I begin with a structure; something that creates an undoubted sense of security and familiarity. I use the reliability of structure to allow for ambiguity in other materials. In this body of work, I take the uncontrolled inflation of the foam and find ways to regulate it. Each time the foam is applied it settles and expands in a different way than before, embodying opportunities for chance. The uncertainty of this process excites and challenges me. This triggers a call and response in my process, creating what feels like an instinctive methodology where I fluidly work with, and build upon, the foundation I have created.
Open Access
Sophie Levitt: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Levitt, Sophie, artist
The artist's statement: At the start of each studio session, I cultivate a positive atmosphere by organizing my workspace, ensuring materials are within reach, decluttering to prevent distraction, replenishing my energy with a snack, and activating my music speaker. Creating this organized and positive environment opens the door to a free-flowing and unconstrained thought process. Within this constructive environment, my material choices are guided by positivity and structure. I gravitate towards vibrant colors, shiny materials, and small objects, embracing whatever captures my attention. Given the diverse range of my small materials, I keep tweezers, a heat gun, various glues, and pliers close at hand. This marks the initiation of my creative journey. I delve into extensive experimentation with various materials and mediums, assessing how they complement each other. I rejuvenate this process through iterative cycles until a small object that captures my intrigue emerges. Before I embark on the creative cycle again, I set aside these pieces for potential future alterations. Creating many small objects through repeated iterations keeps my mind intrigued, curious, and stimulated. This immersive creative process transports me to an altered state where the constraints of time, external pressures, and boundaries cease to exist. I value the freedom, lack of constraints, and playfulness embedded in my creative process. Within this realm, I delve into a personal expedition through my psyche, involving exploration, critique, and self-reconstruction. This process empowers me to create art that functions as a tool for self-exploration, self-presentation, and self-therapy.
Open Access
Calliandra Bevers: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Bevers, Calliandra, artist
The artist's statement: The planning of a sculpture begins in my sketchbook which is often filled with a few drawings and then an overwhelming amount of words. It's a place where I have conversations with myself, writing down feelings and questioning my decision-making process. There are pages of poetry and reminders of who I want to be. Intentionality is something I continuously keep in mind, aiming to create works that represent and provide recognition of this current version of myself. The idea of words influenced me to collect community narratives to explore the shared conversations amongst us. Through various forms of communication, such as written, verbal, anonymous, or face to face, I encourage the public to respond to questions through introspection. These prompts strive to surpass the usual "How are you?," that is often followed by an automatic, not-fully considered "Good," to uncover deeper connections. Once the questions were asked, I didn't know what to expect. To my surprise, the quantity of participation was abundant. This shock was quickly followed by the quality of the feedback, which was thoughtful, respectful, and more often than not, noted intimate life details. This collaboration with the public was insightful as many replies overlapped, revealing muted conversations that thread us together. Expanding my knowledge of materials and tools is important in my artistic practice. Sewing has been a medium in which I’m investigating the boundaries of what materials can withstand being stitched. The methods of sewing that I have experimented with, whether that be by hand or use of the sewing, embroidery, or quilting machine, all demand my attention. I gravitate towards materials that have already had a life. My work is a product of my environment in which I benefit from the people, places, and things around me.
Open Access
Kelsey Gruber: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Gruber, Kelsey, artist
The artist's statement: My work explores the phenomenon of death as a portal. I transmute antiquated objects into something new through various types of preservation. I let most of my materials come to me through happenstance, or what I believe to be fate. This implies that the materials have died in some way, whether it be a literally dead specimen or a metaphorically dead object: one that is obsolete, or has been given up by its previous owner. I take these objects and I conserve their liminal attributes in a way that protects, honors, and holds as sacred. I use vinyl plastic furniture wrap to preserve larger found objects that associate to the daily home (chairs, fence). I custom "tailor" the plastic wrap to each object and hand-sew the wrap along with the "ruined" parts of the found object; perceived brokenness. By honoring the broken parts, the pieces are given a new meaning and new life through preservation. For more natural materials like the wasp nests and dead flora, I apply coats of clear protective spray enamel to harden their structure and in some cases to add shine. This elongates their lives and "freezes" them in the state of death - this state becomes a portal to rebirth. By combining notions of overgrowth and death with preservation and protection, my work creates a liminal yet everlasting portal. This transformation shifts our common narratives around death into something continuous rather than something that is final. I have been curious about death from a young age, and I needed to come up with a way that I could connect with death in a factual, but meaningful way. Death does not only exist in the cessation of life: it exists in creation and all throughout life in terms of rebirth. Death is not an end, it is in fact a cycle that is as close to us as our waking lives. Between these moments of constant death and life is where I find the fibers of creation; the poetry of existence; the honey and the egg.
Open Access
Dominic Cutilletta: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Cutilletta, Dominic, artist
The artist's statement: Making things has always been my way of expressing myself, with a physical manifestation, or tangible objects being the result of my understanding and interactions with the world. I am making work that puts me into my own world in which I can do anything I want, and essentially draw in metal in a way that will hold up over time within a 3D space. I think the confrontation sculpture creates with the viewer, often interacting directly with each other is a very powerful and relevant aspect of sculpture that’s helped my body of work land where it is. I’m constantly focused on my emotions resulting from the situations we find ourselves in as humans who form relationships with one another and things around us that can’t be seen, but experienced. The relationships and connections I've formed with the beings and things I've experienced throughout my life is a driving force in preserving memories through sculpture. I've chosen to represent this through metalwork and welding specifically to satisfy my appetite for irony in that it’s one of the processes holding, or connecting much of the world around us together. I want to accentuate and display a material of which I love with formal concepts reminiscent of a creepy whimsical fuzzy dreamscape memory.
Open Access
Hannah Chatham: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Chatham, Hannah, artist
The artist's statement: I experiment in combining different materials and processes to create unexpected forms. Sculptures of fused wax, wool, and metal explore traditional techniques and new connections. Life-casting allows for self-objectification with a sense of humor. Plant, animal, and human anatomy blend together, playing between ironic and erotic.
Open Access
Mandy Kaufman: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Kaufman, Mandy, artist
The artist's statement: I highlight the way that leather can be used as both a fabric and as an armor to show the different ways that we interact and give meaning to the world's oldest material. My work is heavily inspired by Brutalism and how this style of architecture highlights the strengths and inherent qualities of concrete. In the way that architects such as, Le Corbusier used concrete and its capability to create massive, clean, reduced structures to show the beauty of concrete as a medium I strive to extend this philosophy to materials that I use. My work with leather shows the inherent strengths of this ancient medium. I use leather as a material to explore the lines between concepts like masculinity and femininity. I explore the poetic irony of a heavy, masculine material used to make a light, feminine form. I also explore the lines between different forms of life such as plant life and different animal life from mammal to reptile and human and the relationships we have, to each of them and how those relationships should change.
Open Access
Taylor Morrow: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Morrow, Taylor, artist
The artist's statement: Art is derived from basic forms found in nature, crafted and stylized with our own complex perception of reality. Using simple lines of metal to form trees, creating large stone circles, or making wooden cubes allow the initial framework to be universally recognizable. Details such as the addition of paint, smaller wires, glossy beads, dynamically cut wood, or pools of liquid resin can be added to these basic, or more abstract forms to create a new layer or dimension of realism. The placement of smaller materials help the eye flow across the overall form, with accents such as resin seeming to flow like rivers, clusters of beads stretching outward, and various carvings of shapes pointing in certain directions, organizing together in patterns and recognizable symbols. This essentially lets the viewer find themselves lost in the artwork, finding intentional, or unintentional meanings in the art whilst still being able to return in larger composition. A diversity of materials allows the art to portray a variety of aesthetics ranging from something raw and organic, like the look of plants, stone, or burnt wood, to something entirely artificial, with the use of industrial parts, polished metal, glass, fluorescent paints, digital fabrication, and computer animation. This allows the art to tell a multitude of narratives. In many cases, it is a physical representation of our evolution from the primitive to the modern. Furthermore, the synthesis of these materials in unconventional ways allows for environments to form that only exist in imaginative space.
Open Access
Kailee Bosch: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Bosch, Kailee, artist
The artist's statement: My practice as a maker began at the lathe. As a child, working in my fathers studio, I learned to make small functional objects: spinning tops, bowls, and the like. I grew up making and thinking about round wooden objects. While this history of woodworking is it at my core, I have expanded my vocabulary of materials and processes. In this body of work, I am focusing on three materials: wood, clay and bronze. I’m interested in wood for its continual push at precision, movable only with the right technique and tools. Clay is different. It is extremely pliable with the ability for endless additions and subtractions. It can be manipulated with the simple touch of my hand. Bronze, has another character. It is not easily moveable in its solid form, but when heated it transforms into a beautiful, viscous liquid that can be cast into endless shapes. Each of these materials is important, as are the process, craft and craftsmanship that give them form. I make both functional objects and speculative designs, playfully and with precision and rigor. I am interested in parts that make up a larger whole, connections, modules and systems. I think about the advantages and disadvantages of a given way of working, how the process gives shape to formal elements. I am seeking an interplay between traditional ways of making that value the hand and newer technologies that allow for precision, and repeatability. I am inspired by the Bauhaus, ideas of everyday design tied to craftsmanship and functionality. Works such as Marcel Breuer’s tubular steel furniture influence and inform my practice. Each of my works rely on both my hand as the maker, alongside a range of tools and machinery: computer controlled machining, 3D printed connections, laser cut extruder dies – the marks of each of these processes are recorded in the work. The result is a variety lines, layers and textures, as the hand turned wooden spindles, bronze cast connections, and cut and manipulated clay pieces, each display marks of the maker. Space and installation are also important; the interaction of objects with their surroundings. My designs respond to architecture and the body. My works build and reflect upon each other, with each material, process, and piece informing the next.
Open Access
Jeramy Smith Robertson: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Robertson, Jeramy "Smith", artist
The artist's statement: "In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed"-Charles Darwin. I make sculpture that look at human interactions in a critical and satirical manner. With the hope that my audience will think more about the effects of their actions on nature and each other. I want to shine a light on political and societal issues, like military policing by the USA and the debate on gun rights, highlighting the implications of the choices individuals make on a global and personal scale. I do this by comparing mousetraps to handguns and turning the Afghanistan war into a drinking game. I use familiar iconography to present loaded political issues so that discourse can form around a subject.
Open Access
Simone Ingram: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Ingram, Simone, artist
The artist's statement: The process of creating my metal works begins with hours of planning and measurements. The protractor and pen lend a hand in the early stages of creating my geometric works by leaving its own evidence of the importance I put into precision. This process of planning naturally drew me to metalworking because it requires a large amount of physical labor, utilization of tools, and has natural properties of allowing geometry and precision to appear. Creating geometric metal work has enabled me to explore two ideas that are predominant design elements of my work: color and movement. Color is investigated and applied to provoke an emotional response. It creates its own conversation of how we assign colors to feelings and ideas. Furthermore, developing an introspective conversation of how these concepts make us feel. In assistance to color, movement is an additional element of these works that is put into the viewer's hands. By creating geometric metalwork with bending planes, the viewer is given the opportunity to appreciate the metalwork from different angles. By exploring, their perception of these works may change.
Open Access
Windswept and deposition
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Klassen, Jaclyn, artist
The artist's statement: There is an importance to me in clay with its ability to speak of weight, human and geologic history, and stillness. These aspects of clay, which have grabbed my attention in such a way as demand inquiry, underpin much of my work. Stillness, weight, and the gravity of things echo through my work and in my memory as a sunny afternoon when still quite a young child. I am sitting on the ground, alone in my sister's room playing with her necklace. This necklace is of the lightest silver, yet I recall its weight. I lift it and let it fall, over and over, curling into my palm. Never once does it fall the same. It is always revealing itself anew through movement, texture, and weight.
Open Access
Rheya Eddings: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Eddings, Rheya, artist
The artist's statement: From a young age, I've felt the need to heal the world, my work is an effort to heal its wounds. I took the responsibility upon myself, to forcibility make those who avoid the topic of racial equality, understand it. With my installations, the use of the figure is very important. To fully immerse my viewer into my work I create a scene, that lacks dialogue. That way the what my viewer sees is their own narrative. Instead of force feeding them information they are unwilling to address. This way, the viewer as the option to ask, neighbor what they think the content is. The truth of the matter is we are becoming desensitized to the violence in our world. And the media is to blame, visual arts have become a new cornerstone of gaining information. Making a portion of a stage scene more recognizable to the public. Most of my scenes are completely fabricated by me. The rest are usually found objects that I alter according to the scene. To create a sense of self-awareness, everything generally has significance behind it. From color to orientation. My body casting may include wood, metal, foam, silicone and a fiber of some sort to create the full picture. I've often felt that when a person takes their own time and money to fight for something they belief in; its importance increases.
Open Access
Abigail Galvin: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Galvin, Abigail, artist
The artist's statement: Through documentation or metaphor, I seek to understand how both our sense of agency and our sense of restriction are deeply tied to an awareness of our own bodies. The result of this process is two interrelated series of work. On one hand, I use abject elements of the body to analyze issues of identity and control. On the other hand, motion and interaction explore an ecstatic sense of freedom and connection. In all of the work, the human body is focused on as an interface where these conflicting senses merge and create tension.
Open Access
Reanna Nelson: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Nelson, Reanna, artist
The artist's statement: I am interested in the complex interactions we have with the landscape around us. The metaphorical meeting places between humans and our environment - the connections we form with the land, the use and management decisions that are made, the effect that natural disasters have on us - reveal that changes made to the land are never purely ecological, but are reflections of culture. My work recognizes the dual view we tend to have of the natural environment as both a resource for us to use and as an untouched place to be preserved. While there are increasing uncertainties about what purpose nature should serve and what our role in the landscape should be, it is true that the way we perceive the land is inextricably linked to the values we place upon it and ultimately the decisions we make about its treatment.
Open Access
Devan Kallas: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Kallas, Devan, artist
The artist's statement: My works are tied together by the line of intimacies and are deducted by the space of neglect. They take various forms and range in topic but all stem from a sense of self and emphasize importance of the temporary. I am motivated by the boundaries of a contemporary self, pushing and poking at the limits of comfort, if it's not made with an uncertainty it is not made at all. Most recently my art has seeded from a politically charged idea and manifested itself with a poetic movement. Each piece has a specific motivation and intent; I believe each is made with purpose not just simple aesthetic appeal.
Open Access
Marcus Stevenson: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Stevenson, Marcus, artist
The artist's statement: My approach to making is to adapt, collage, and re-contextualize imagery and objects which helped to form my worldview. Using woodworking techniques, I combine recycled objects, marbles, electric motors, found and bought hardware, and all kinds of mechanical arrangements to create tension between tradition and the novelty. For example, my 'Lectric Tricycle Drones consist of a simple motor circuit in combination with wheels and a monorail system. The name of the work evokes the new wave of hi-tech, autonomous vehicles, but the wooden construction, finish quality, and lack of utilitarian purpose hearken back to a time where toys and games were less about bells and whistles, and more about deriving enjoyment from simplicity. I feel it is important to make art which is accessible in its visual vocabulary, and also an honest translation of my worldview. Since it's hard or even impossible to encapsulate an entire worldview into a single object, I aim to parse aspects of my worldview and human experience into the objects I make. Toys seem to offer the next generation an instance of the values of previous generations. I think we behave as if the creation of new ideas categorically invalidates old ideas, and this is often to our detriment as a society. Ultimately, I have to admit that my foremost goal as an artist is to entertain, and then to sneak what little wisdom I have through the door in the process. At the end of the day, I'm still just a kid who wants to have fun, and share it, too.