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Can creative material translation reshape artistic appropriation to escape the cycle of mimicry and mockery linked to contemporary visual art practice? To explore creativity in material translation, my project has been divided into three case studies, each translating a different pattern, from a different context and material, into my chosen pattern-making language of glass murrine. In the first case study I translate a Moorish plasterwork pattern from the Alhambra, in Granada, Spain. This pattern has been copied before: a translation of fidelity printed by Owen Jones in his publication The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.1 Jones’ pattern and my patterns will be used to examine fidelity and infidelity in material translation. In the second case study I translate Paisley, a Kashmiri textile pattern appropriated and adapted by western manufacturers in the 19th-century. Paisley's history of adaptation will be examined in relation to my translation, to compare the two methods in the context of a single decorative idiom. In the third case study, I translate a stamp- printed furnishing textile pattern designed by Bernard Adeney in the 1930s. This translation will be an isolated interaction between two makers, a similar position to the critique of contemporary visual appropriation, allowing for a comparison between infidelity and appropriation. Murrine has been chosen as my material language because of its ability to create patterns with colour, depth and unlimited variation. The murrine technique involves the heating up and stretching of canes or sheets of coloured glass, arranged in designs that become very small when elongated. These stretched lengths are then cut in cross-section to form mosaic tiles. Developed by the Greeks and Egyptians, the murrine technique has been under constant development for the last 2000 years. I have further refined the technique, incorporating new methods such as waterjet cutting. I have made final artworks from each set of murrine in the format of flat glass panels, each exploring its pattern in a unique way. An examination of each artwork, its process of translation – including drawings, computer models, photomontage and other designing methods – and its material and contextual change will forge the link between making and writing in this project. My original contribution to knowledge is the exploration of a practical act of visual translation, analysing material change and creativity. The project serves as a model for material translation, questioning the contemporary act of appropriation in both art and culture. The project developed through my rejection of contemporary practices of appropriation, along with my passion for the spiritual nature of pattern and the glass technique of murrine. My theoretical framework is built around the linguistic concept of ‘creative translation’. Linguistic theorists such as Jorge Luis Borges ‘treated translation as a creative force in which specific translation strategies might serve a variety of cultural and social functions’.2 My project will adapt this linguistic concept to visual practice, investigating its relevance to material language.

The ancillary trades of the London based élite fashion industry are the focus of this practice-based research, which is founded in material culture studies. Hitherto these trades have not been the subject of any in depth scholarly work, and therefore this thesis seeks to make a contribution to knowledge by assessing and documenting their historical and contemporary application and significance; by examining and assessing the potential of laser technology to those trades that are concerned with embellishment; and by developing and applying a material culture framework to the execution and analysis of practice. The ancillary trades serve the material production of luxury fashion through the small scale, bespoke manufacturing of items such as artificial flowers and buttons; and the provision of specialist finishes such as bead-work, embroidery and pleating. These trades have developed little over the last century or more and most still involve varying degrees of skilled hand-making processes; but while their French counterparts are widely recognised as crafts, they remain an entity to which scant attention has been paid in assessments of either élite British fashion or of the crafts in Britain. Through a series of material culture analyses this research critically evaluates these trades, examining their contribution to the necessary distinction of historical and contemporary élite fashionable dress, and investigating the making practices and wider circumstances of key trades and practitioners. The contextual research not only situates the empirical practice-based case study in the field of interest but also is significant in informing the aesthetics and techniques invoked in practice. The potential of laser technology is investigated in the production of items of embellishment, alternatives to the more ubiquitous sequins, beads and faux jewels. Presented and critically evaluated within the thesis, the outcomes, a series of embellished textile proposals for the élite fashion industry, are hybrids of industrial process and hand-making techniques. Artefacts are central to this research. The interdisciplinary material culture theory and method of Jules David Prown, foregrounding the artefact as a repository of information, has been adopted for the contextual research and further developed in relation to the analysis of the objects that inform practice, while the outcomes of practice serve as material mnemonics in the retrieval of the intimacies of the making process. Referring to a range of associated literature, archival research and interview findings, the outcomes of the ancillary trades and of practice are examined in the aesthetic, cultural, technological, and socio-economic circumstances of their production and consumption.

Printmaking within the applied arts is an extremely diverse practice that can extend the concept of what a print can be. Rather than the dissemination of published images and text, in this context printed information is transformed into objects and materials, ceramics, textiles, tableware, clothing. Prints such as these are not ʻreproductionʼ they are ʻproductionʼ.Process is crucial to both printmaking and the applied arts and the determining aspect of production plays a vital part in defining the qualities of a work such as print-decorated ceramic objects. To work with a printmaking process in this sector requires interpretation, predictive foresight and a degree of ʻthinking-through-makingʼ to transpose an image into the physical world of materials and objects. Printmaking, specifically within the ceramic discipline, is often plagued by issues of integrity brought about by problems relating to ʻdivisionʼ, these issues include: - - The physical divisions between image and object - The divided tasks in production that can disrupt thinking and making - A division of perceptions surrounding the surface/form relationship that considers the surface as supplementary or artificial Commercial production has developed approaches and techniques to integrate surface and form, combat these negative perceptions and raise the value of this type of work. These methods are not, however, always appropriate or accessible to individual ceramist-printmakers working in the studio. How can this sector overcome these negative factors and adopt strategies that invest some value of visual integrity within production? The research project answers this question in two ways: A low-tech, accessible method was developed in the studio with the aim to offer a new practical approach that physically integrates complex ceramic forms with the printed image. The aim was to facilitate this unity at an early ʻraw-clayʼ stage, where the combined manipulation of surface and form can take place together, resulting in an aesthetic that has ʻvisual integrityʼ. The second aim of the research has been to identify the inherent qualities of working and thinking ʻwithinʼ the language of ceramics and print materials and processes. ʻSyntacticʼ qualities and factors have been determined through research into historical innovations and the observation of current commercial practice in the field of screenprinting and screenprinted ceramics. This has helped to establish approaches to overcome negative factors relating to the perception of division, and invest integrity in the work through principled approaches to practice. The project adopts a methodology of ʻthinking-through-makingʼ where iterative studio experimentation is undertaken through tacit understanding, gained from experiential knowledge combined with research of contemporary and historical precedents. This approach is reflected upon and informed by writers who discuss working within the inherent language of printmaking. The research contributes to the advancement of knowledge through the development of a new versatile technique that can be easily accessed by ceramists and printmakers who wish to produce integrated ceramics and print works. This contributes to the advancement of technology, perception and knowledge in the field of printed ceramic objects. My approach and the development of a value system also offers a tool to further the critical

No presente trabalho investigou-se a utilização de diferentes haletos metálicos hidratados (SnCl2.2H2O, MnCl2.4H2O, SrCl2.6H2O, CrCl2.6H2O, CoCl2.6H2O e CeCl3.7H2O) como catalisadores ácidos de Lewis na alquilação de indóis com olefinas ativadas via reação de Friedel-Crafts. Nas reações entre indóis e cetonas α,β-insaturadas os melhores resultados foram obtidos com o emprego de SnCl2.2H2O (10% em mol) como catalisador. As reações com enonas alifáticas foram realizadas à temperatura ambiente, já a obtenção de adutos indólicos derivados das chalconas só foi possível sob condições de refluxo. Para as reações com nitro-olefinas os melhores resultados foram observados com a utilização de CoCl2.6H2O (10% em mol) como catalisador: seu uso em condições sem solvente, sob aquecimento, permitiu a obtenção de diversos nitroadutos em altos rendimentos e baixos tempos de reação. Dois dos compostos obtidos através desta metodologia foram utilizados com sucesso como materiais de partida na síntese de tetraidro-β-carbolinas, demonstrando a utilidade sintética da metodologia desenvolvida. Um novo líquido iônico imidazólico 1-alquil-éter funcionalizado também foi investigado como promotor na reação de alquilação de indóis, sendo utilizado com sucesso como catalisador nas reações com enonas alifáticas e nitro-olefinas em condições de ausência de solvente. / In the present work, metal halide hydrates (such as SnCl2.2H2O, MnCl2.4H2O, SrCl2.6H2O, CrCl2.6H2O, CoCl2.6H2O and CeCl3.7H2O) were investigated as Lewis acids catalysts for the Friedel-Crafts alkylation reaction between indoles and activated olefins. In the reactions of indoles with α,β-unsaturated ketones the best results were achieved using SnCl2.2H2O as the catalyst. The reactions with aliphatic enones were carried out at room temperature, while reflux conditions were required for the reactions leading to chalcone indolic derivatives. For the reactions with nitroolefins the best results were obtained employing CoCl2.6H2O as the catalyst: its use under heating, in solvent-free reactions, lead to several nitro adducts in high yields and short reaction times. Two of the compounds obtained by this methodology were successfully used as starting reagents for the synthesis of tetrahydro-β-carbolines, illustrating the synthetic utility of the developed methodology. A new 1-alkyl ether functionalized imidazolium ionic liquid was also evaluated as the promoter in the indole alkylation reaction, being successfully employed as the catalyst in reactions with aliphatic enones and nitroolefins under solventless conditions.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-149). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-149). Also available on the Internet.

This doctoral dissertation provides a theoretical examination of amateur craft as a differential practice. Concepts drawn from an inter-disciplinary source base are used to define, characterise and elucidate features of amateur craft practice that have long been presumed superfluous and opposite to valorised ‘professional’ practice. I investigate the attraction, motivation and complexities that lie behind this widespread, yet largely understudied, phenomenon of modern culture. Studies of everyday life, social history, aesthetics, material culture, art criticism and craft theory help conceptualise the position of the amateur, and case studies from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – including the paint-by-number mania in 1950s USA, suburban chicken keeping, and amateur railway modelling – serve to substantiate the theoretical claims made. The thesis is not comprehensive in its coverage of either a specific craft medium or a particular chronology or geography. Instead the thesis is divided into three thematic chapters: amateur surface intervention, amateur space, and amateur time. These chapters reveal some of the unexpected consequences of subjecting amateur practice to serious study. The examples demonstrate how amateur craft practice is differential within capitalism,dependant on its structures while simultaneously stretching, refracting, and quietly subverting them. As a reprieve or a supplement to an individual’s primary occupation, the constrained freedom of amateur craft practice fulfils an essential role within modern life, providing a temporary moment of autonomous control over labour-power in which the world can be shaped anew.

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