The artist, Laura Ann Schroeder, discusses her Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition, Witness, Revival, Testimony, which was installed at Tipton Gallery in Johnson City, TN from March 2, 2023 through March 31, 2023, with a public reception held on March 24, 2023. The exhibition consisted of a collection of sculptural works and installations that evoke scenes and memories from the artist’s childhood. This body of work deconstructs the traditional family dynamic and the private domestic space through recreations of everyday life. The artworks are primarily made with repurposed consumer textiles and techniques like stitching and quilting that have historically been considered “women’s work.” Through the process of creating this body of work, the artist analyzes how past moments culminate to affect her understanding of gender, spirituality, and personal identity.

I am not quite sure how to be a woman. It’s complicated, contradictory and highly surveilled. I make videos, sculptures and wearable objects that attempt to rationalize my female identity. The body is a sustained fixture in my work: as an armature, as an absent actor for constructed environments, as fragment and as the literal inclusion of my image. It is through these various modes of dis/embodiment that I negotiate the complexities of gendered existence. Crumbling ceramic and paper objects, pieced fabric forms, videos, beauty products, and delicate flowers reference splintered narratives and unwieldy terrains. I consider the idea of pink, not exclusively as color but as a framework for the perpetual performance of the body and the negotiation of contradictions within constructed identity.

Through my art process and material selection, I investigate how interior spaces long to accumulate memories and possessions. I am interested in encroaching floor to ceiling build-up of collected goods kept in the homes of individuals unable to discard or part with possessions. These individual’s daily movements through their space and their denial of the surrounding mass informs my work. My work is larger than human scale, made of multiple units, and dense; yet understated by the subtle use of color and repeated materials. When I make an installation it often begins with creating a wall or a floor that delineates itself from the actual architecture of a room. I procure discarded domestic fragments such as carpet, shingles, and blinds. I select one material for each project to emphasize excessive quantities. I seek out donated goods and trash piles, heaps on the edge of consumer waste. The sourcing of these materials is serendipitous. I elevate these mundane materials by taking them out of their original context. The cycle of regeneration moves from material to “art object” back to material again as the work is displayed and dispersed back into the cycle of waste. In this thesis I will discuss how through my process and materials, I investigate interior spaces where memory and possessions accumulate.

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This study focuses on Vadie Conner Williams, an individual folk artist, and the drawnwork she has created throughout her lifetime. Included is a description of her rural farm background, her needlework skills and her creative process. The study also examines the significance of drawnwork to Williams and determines how she has adapted her work to satisfy her personal needs as well as the needs of her customers. Based on tape recorded interviews and a close examination of her work, the study concludes that drawnwork is an integral part of Williams's everyday life; it is an indicator of her beliefs and a source of identity within her community.

Using figures from the popular culture program The Bachelor in a large-scale tapestry-style weaving, I address the drive to create idealized simulations in order to better understand one’s own reality and identity. Natural dye and traditional weaving processes in combination with digital weaving technology allow me to literally integrate the juxtaposition of analog and digital elements which defines a woven image. Dye work and pattern allow for large gestural drawing marks while individual threads overlap to create literal pixelized imagery. I examine the act of weaving as the creation of screens through which one can see, hide, or obscure. I similarly question the role of the observer of a false reality and examine the choice to participate in, construct, or re-create a simulation.

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the quality of design, materials, construction, appearance, and performance of mens 100% cotton jersey knit t-shirts from three retail categories: mass merchant, fast fashion, and better. These retail categories were represented by brands Fruit of the Loom, H&M, and Brooks Brothers, respectively. A convenience sample was comprised of 78 t-shirts. 13 white and 13 navy t-shirts from each brand were used for testing according to ASTM and AATCC standards and specifications. Evaluations and measurements were conducted before washing, and after one, five, ten, and twenty laundry cycles. The t-shirts were evaluated for fabric weight, fabric count, color change, whiteness change, crocking, smoothness appearance, bursting strength, pilling, dimensional stability, and skewness. The navy t-shirts in the ‘better’ retail category met five out of the six requirements specified by the ASTM standard. However, the navy t-shirts in the ‘fast fashion’ category met four out of five met by the ‘better’ category. In conclusion, the decision to purchase a t-shirt from these retail categories may depend on consumer expectations.

The artist discusses her Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition Holler, held at Tipton Gallery March 2ndto March 13th, 2020. The exhibition features an installation of works on fiber, paper, and found objects tied to her upbringing in Southern Appalachia. A variety of collected materials including bedsheets, chalkboards, and barbwire are taken out of their traditional contexts and brought into a new vantage point through the artist’s alterations. Gregg re-contextualizes materials, language, and signifiers as a process of decoding formative experiences in domestic and academic spaces. Themes examined in the work include rote learning, tradition, indoctrination, identity, and cultural psychology. Literary references include writings on critical pedagogy by educators Paulo Freire and Bell Hooks. The influence of conceptually driven artworks by Adrian Piper and Bruce Nauman and their relation to language and repetition are discussed, as well as the themes of identity and domesticity as seen in the works of Tracey Emin and Mona Hatoum.