If community is defined as a group of teachers, learners, and others who collaborate to achieve common goals, art education that is based on the interests and needs of that community can be identified as community-based art education (CBAE). CBAE programs often have goals that are congruent with educational theory or pedagogy for social justice. In this study five CBAE programs were examined for purposes, goals, instructional methods, and curriculum in order to determine how pedagogy for social justice could be applied to art education in community-based settings. The five CBAE programs were evaluated with a rubric integrating social justice into community-based art education. That information was used to create a set of best instruction practices for teaching for social justice in CBAE, as well as curriculum recommendations.

“Nota” is a merging language of sound, instruction, and visual elements from the unique experience of performing on a wind instrument. I create improvisational drawings inspired by the nature of improvisational sound, performance, and the reflection of moment making. These works are tied to my interest in the human body and its endless variations. The anthropomorphic nature of these instruments ties closely to the human element of touch and breathing. As a focus for this experience, I create drawings that are inspired by the essence of communicating through touch what I am often trying to communicate though musical performance. The results begin to describe the form of the formless of sound and sound thought.

The research and body of work collected in this document address the relationship of my memories to specific physical visual forms. These representations form the basis of how the mind structures relationships between specific objects and memories. Through reflection associations are created that activate the mind to recall these memories via mnemonic visual references. These mnemonic references are objects of familiarity that create a concrete relationship between form and memory experiences.

The work I have created during my time as a graduate student is a reflection of the dialogues I have engaged in with other artists and acquaintances both in and outside of the academic arena. Stylistically this work is derivative of my involvement with graffiti, Tattooing, and underground comics. I have developed the icon of the rider to represent the agency and responsibility of myself as an artist in reflecting these various contexts.

This thesis focuses on the oppositional and complimentary forces of light and shadows in the culture of Naples, Italy. Demonstrating, through photographs and the analysis of these photographs, how the light of Naples, a ‘northern’ light, and its resultant shadows echo (metaphorically and in reality) the light and shadows of the society, culture and history of Naples, Italy.

WISP is a forest that requests a reconsideration of the human relationship to nature and to the woods. It beckons the spirit and threads the supernatural through the everyday. The forest installation is comprised of drawings, sound, and suspended inorganic and organic objects that create an intimate entanglement and engages the body and senses. This paper reflects the experiences and the philosophies that led to this installation.

This is an arts-based research study on the effects of applying extensive and diverse sketching techniques to the development of a cohesive body of work, which reflects the significant and meaningful events of the artist-researcher’s life. The research techniques employed and studied consist of looking at historical exemplars, sketching, reflecting, critiquing, and revising. The results of the research were then reflected upon and applied to the field of art education in an attempt to discover the benefits for both teaching and learning in kindergarten through 12th grade curriculums.

This arts-based study discusses using the horror film and monsters as a means of exploring the personification of fear in contemporary society. The paper incorporates the viewing and dissection of horror films into an artistic process to explore fears in order to further artistic expression. It additionally shows how this process can be used in an art classroom within the context of contemporary art to empower students and facilitate art criticism discussions.

This study is about how the research of monsters and contemporary artists who create monster-related work can help create monsters from my own imagination using the process of synthesis. In it I discuss how the monsters I created in my artwork tell a story. I also talk about how this study can be used to relate art to other fields of study such as English and History, and the idea of Visual Culture.

In this arts-based thesis for a Masters degree in art education, I explored the meaning of my artwork through a constructivist investigation. During the process of artist research and making artwork, I was able to push boundaries for my art and myself and I was able to discover what kind of artist I was and what meaning was behind my artwork. This process of research,questioning, reflective documentation, and discovery has provided new tools and styles for teaching my students how to find their own personal voice in their artwork.