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My final thesis exhibition, Effluvia and Aporia, explores impermanence, loss and uncertainty. I use materials and images in a poetic way, where there is a link between what the work is and what it means. I use looped videos with images of water, light, and dissolving clay to invite a meditative state. I also use materials like tissue paper, paper-mache, and paper thin porcelain tiles to invite fragility and complexity into the viewer's experience. I am concerned with creating an interactive environment that allows for a multiplicity of responses and interpretations from each viewer depending on their unique perceptions. I am interested in impermanence, loss and uncertainty as themes because I find that they are ever present in life. My intention is to explore these ideas and create an experience that allows for the viewer to reflect on them as well.

The worldwide gap between rich and poor is widening. Status seeking and status keeping are fueled by the conspicuous consumption of luxury goods. These bright shiny objects are staples in a restricted economy in which only the wealthy participate. The notion of gaining riches for the purpose of helping the poor is fading. Materialism, luxury and riches have been the subject of religious and secular inquiry. In this quest, wealth has been condemned and applauded. Prestige-obsessed consumers are becoming blind to worsening social conditions.

This thesis defines both design and the role of a designer, and includes an exploration of the differences between art and design. Additional topics covered are the history of design education, the principles of design, and the expectations for design education held by students and the design industry itself. From my own research and experiences as a professional designer and design instructor, I have outlined a curriculum on how to produce students who can create good designs, as well as know how to act as professional designers.

On Friday October 21st, 2016, there was a large-scale hack of an Internet domain hosting provider that took several websites including Netflix, Amazon, Reddit, and Twitter offline. Dyn, a cloud-based Internet Performance Management company, announced at 9:20AM ET that it resolved an attack that began at 7AM ET that day. However, another attack happened at 11:52AM ET. The attacks raised concern among the public and directed our attention towards Internet security. This also revealed the precariousness of Internet infrastructure. The infrastructure being used today is opaque, unregulated, and incontestable. Municipally provided public utilities are built without any transparency; thus, we do not expect failure from those systems. For instance, the Flint, Michigan water crisis raised issues of water infrastructure. Not only did the crisis spark talks about the corrosion of pipes, but also larger societal issues. Flint, a poor, largely African American community, became a victim of environmental racism—a type of discrimination where communities of color or low-income residents are forced to live in environmental dangerous areas. In order for myself and the larger public to understand this opaque system, we need to understand the infrastructure and how it works. With regards to Internet infrastructure, I focus on data centers, where there are backup servers, batteries and generators built into the architectural landscape in case of failure. There is a common held thought that overshadows the possibility of imminent technological failure—it cannot happen. This sort of thinking influences other modes of our daily lives: individuals building concrete bomb shelters underground for the apocalypse, stocking food, but not preparing for data breakdown. The consciousness of loss is further perpetuated by technology and its life expectancy. Clouded Space: Internet Physicality attempts to explore the unexceptional infrastructure of the Internet and how it exists right beneath our feet. That in itself is not very cloud-like. The work questions integrity of our infrastructure as much as environmental issues, highlighting the questionable relationship we have with data and our inclination to backup data to protect ourselves from failure. This is a relatively new topic and the challenges are not well understood. There seem to be cracks in the foundation, and though they are not yet obvious, they appear to be widening.

This work focuses on the cross-section between classic still-life art and complex personal issues. It uses traditional and nontraditional still life photography to tell individual vignettes about my life. I explore unresolved issues, which offer subtle suggestion of an experiential narrative. All of the backgrounds and objects included are intentional and represent specific places, people, and events. I allow the viewer to bring their own experiences to the photographs, by not giving them specifics of my stories. I used this work as a way for me to move past these experiences and my hope is that they might also help others. I have created beauty from my dwelling.

This thesis concerns a body of work titled "One-Liners". Through portraiture the paintings deal with how humor can illuminate difficult and complex emotions.

My work is defined by where I reside at the time of its creation. I am interested in exploring my own sense of place based on my curiosity with the unique character and history of my surroundings. The work discussed here is specifically concerned with the landscapes, communities and development practices prevalent throughout the Midwest. In my work I use my own personal experiences with disorientation and dislocation in the various suburban, urban and rural landscapes I encounter in my everyday life and share them with a wider audience. In that way they can place themselves within the ambiguous landscape I choose to depict and recall that it happens everywhere throughout the United States. My work uses combinations of printmaking, drawing, installation, book arts, and video art to express these themes.

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Image makers are often--and rightly--held to task for what they produce. This is a necessary lesson, but the time has come for us to cast a critical eye on the processes that lead up to the creation of that image in the first place, especially as it relates to sustainability and environmental cost. When asking the question of "what does this work say and who is it saying it to?" we must concurrently ask "what is the environmental cost of making this work and is that cost balanced by what it is saying?"