Dissertations

AJF is committed to supporting the field of contemporary art jewelry at all levels, including jewelers at the beginning of their careers. In this section of the website, you will find dissertations written by jewelers as part of their studies.

13 December 2012

HOME.

MFA Thesis, 2012, Towson University

Rachel Timmons

HOME. is a series of both wearable ADORNMENTs and sculptural objects that explores being permanently anomalous and building a refuge that offers COMFORT. Small, contagious INFILTRATions continue to linger with the viewers after their encounter with the work. These tiny REMNANT entities also contaminate those who have not interacted with the glitter-dispensing objects but who have come in contact with someone or something that has. The objects expose inner vulnerability, often hidden by vibrant manifestations. The objects worn on the body make the wearer into a curiosity by functioning as body extensions, disablers, causes of disorientation and/or recognitions of OTHERness. With viewer participation, the sculptural objects change the viewer's appearance or perception, either by dispensing glitter particles that function as small invasions and reminders or by engulfing his or her known surroundings with a new and unexpected milieu. The gaudy and animated nature of the pieces allows the viewer to enter an unknown experience that constructs HOME.


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01 November 2011

Touchmarks: The Social Life of Plastic Baskets

MFA Thesis, 2009, State University of New York, New Palz

Venetia Dale

Venetia Dale received her BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2004 and her MFA from the State University of New York at New Paltz in 2009. She currently reside in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she maintain a studio practice and teaches in the metals department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her thesis explores themes of utility and exchange within a global economy. Patterns, materials and forms sourced from plastic baskets are fragmented, abstracted and re-imagined in pewter in her thesis project titled Touchmarks: The Social Life of Plastic Baskets. More images of Dale's work can be found at: www.venetiadale.com


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01 November 2011

The Objectification of Absurdity

MFA Thesis, 2009, State University of New York, New Palz

Jamie Sachs

Jamie Sachs earned his MFA in Jewelry and Metalsmithing at The State University of New York at New Paltz under Jamie Bennett and Myra Mimlitsch-Gray. His thesis exhibition, The Objectification of Absurdity, was hosted at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art in May 2009. His thesis, also titled The Objectification of Absurdity, dealt with ideas of function and utility through the manipulation of everyday objects. More of Sachs's work can be found at: http://sachs-appeal.blogspot.com/


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25 October 2011

In The Presence Of Absence

MFA Thesis, 2010, State University of New York, New Palz

Barb Smith

Barb Smith received her BA in Fine Arts and Art Education from Purdue University in 2003 and her MA in Photography and Related Media from Purdue University in 2005. In 2008, she moved to New York to pursue an MFA in Metal under Jamie Bennett and Myra Mimlitsch-Gray at the State University of New York New Paltz. In May 2010 she completed her thesis, which was entitled In the Presence of Absence. The visual and written components of the thesis address collection, accumulation, translation and transformation of ubiquitous objects as markers of time, place, loss and memory. More images of Smith's work can be found at: www.barbarasmithart.com


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25 October 2011

Sites of Potential

MFA Thesis, 2011, State University of New York, New Palz

Celine Browning

Celine Browning studied with Myra Mimlitsch-Gray and Jamie Bennett at the State University of New York at New Paltz, where she graduated in Spring 2011 with an MFA in Metal. Browning's thesis paper explores themes present in Potential Difference, her most recent body of work. Potential Difference explores what happens when our connection to a space is altered, severed, reconnected, short circuited: in other words, what happens when function turns to dysfunction or, rather, to re-function. In this body of work, the sterile, supposedly neutral white walls of the gallery are used as a way to approach the subject of embodiment in the built environment. Plausible fictions are created; extensions of the space that question how viewers interact with the white walls of the gallery and how this fictive space mimics the state of our corporeal bodies - struggling against and yet ultimately succumbing to decay. More images of Browning's work can be found at: www.celinebrowning.com


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25 October 2011

No Longer/Not Yet

MFA Thesis, 2009, California College of the Arts

Ahna Adair

Ahna Adair received her MFA in May 2009 from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco where she worked with Metal Arts Chair, Marilyn Da Silva. Her thesis paper explores modern temporalities, the pace of craft and the politics of slowness using the unfinished project as a focal point. In the body of work entitled No Longer/Not Yet, the unfinished project represents a possible rupture in existing ideas of progress and achievement within the current technological climate. By turning a blind side to a singular and final result, her work lingers in process and duration, as she makes something out of nothing and back again, advocating for thoughtful and prolonged engagement within the everyday.


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