Historians have held the Carolingian rule of Western Europe as a brief strike of light against the dark backdrop of the Medieval period. In this period two structures emerged for the first time in church architecture: the westwork and the exterior crypt. These two structures did not follow models found in Early Christian architecture: they accommodated functions specific to developments and needs that emerged in the context of the Carolingian Empire. Although both hold many opportunities for scholarship, the exterior crypt offers significant insights into developments at the heart of Carolingian liturgy, society, and architectural design. Two of these exterior cryptsthose at the abbeys of Saint-Denis in Paris and Saint-Germain in Auxerreprovide the framework for the examination of other exterior crypts that emerged during this period. This thesis will explore these two crypt forms and the functions and references they express.

Trials and Tributaries examines recent disasters occurring in southern Louisiana, interpreted through the Greek myths The Twelve Labors of Herakles. Mankinds false sense of control over Louisianas resources leaves us vulnerable to natures powerful acts of reclamation: hurricanes, floods and the ground sinking beneath our feet. While researching the details and origins of The Twelve Labors, I found a plethora of similarities with local culture, politics and natural disasters. The characters in these narrative prints include hybrid monsters drawn from Greek mythology, which I have then further augmented with various forms of local south Louisiana fauna and contemporary political figures. I explore events ranging from Hurricane Katrina of 2005; the BP oil spill in the Gulf, Summer 2010; and the raging university budget cuts going on during my thesis year, 2010-11. The exhibition consisted of nine woodcut prints on repurposed bed sheet fabrics, appliqué stitched together to form colorful, layered surfaces. Accompanying the prints were a collection of crocheted floor pieces called foot prints, which incorporated scrap fabric from the printing process as well as clothing donations. The pluming shapes of the foot prints mirror Doppler images of monstrous weather conditions, encroaching on painfully smaller coastal cities and ecosystems. This powerful image of pluming dangerous substances or weather systems is the embodiment of the force behind Trials and Tributaries.

Of Reality: A Society of Selves is a series of photographs that challenge the viewers perception of reality. Through digital image manipulation, costumed, multiplicitous self-portraits merge with handcrafted miniature environments. With the goal of illustrating the complexity of existing within society, the resulting images examine the psychological process of perception as it relates to social interaction and identity.

Because I process my external world internally, I often think of my mind as a vessel-housing my internal reality: fears, demons, curiosities, joys, sorrows, etc. My body of work is comprised of paintings and drawings that present surreal interpretations of these occupants as depicted through line, color, gesture and form and, as such, are true self-portraits in that they bring the inside out.

The Quiet is a series of photographs that focuses on nightly travels in South Louisiana and Oklahoma. The images recall my time growing up in Southwest Oklahoma through the depiction of dismal yet riveting structures. The images are based on the idea of architectural ecology― that is, the relationship of architectural structures to one another and to their surroundings. I photograph isolated vernacular structures and pair them with other photographs to create a single panoramic image. By digitally merging complementary scenes, I create an illusion that derelict structures can exist as neighbors. The final results are seamless panoramic representations of scenes reminiscent of the neighboring towns and lonely streets I explored as a youth.

We frame our experiences as narratives, and associate the narrative with the book. My work takes the form of an immersive installation of printed, paper polyhedrons that act for me as non-traditional book structures. The planes of the polyhedrons function as pages without prescribing a certain order of events. The focus has been to blur the linear narrative into a body of visual work that represents my particular human experience, one full of memories and dreams, contradictions and juxtapositions, chaos and calm. What began as an objective examination of concepts of time in physics, philosophy, and psychology has developed into a thorough exploration into the nature and quality of my own experience. This thesis is written as a personal narrative, describing my exploration into the nature of time and navigating the reader through my creative process, research, personal reflections, and the evolution of my ideas about time. Through a continuous, self-reflective, and sometimes unpredictable process, I have developed a language of imagery that captures the essence of my experience, and I have structured that imagery into an in-the-round installation that envelops the viewer as fully as the process enveloped me. I hope to encourage my audience to more closely and consciously consider the nature of time and its impact on their own work and their own lives. Time is life, time is change, time is memory, and time is self. Without time, there is nothing.

The six sculptural works that comprise my thesis exhibition emerged from a prolonged series of investigations into the intricately interconnected phenomenon of embodied experience in the world as we know it. These works explore the connections between mysteries in our inner and outer worlds, taking as inescapable fact the notion that our bodily vessels, in all their complexity and subtlety, are the vehicles through which we encounter the world. As such, this work posits embodiment as both frame and anchor for all knowledge and experience. These sculptures, made from ceramic materials and mixed media such as sugar, salt, string, and found objects, engage perennial questions through process, form, and language. From questions about the innate human longing to understand love or the human hearts ability to experience levity even in the wake of incredible suffering, to questions about what a strand of hair or a beam of light are made of at their most infinitesimal essences, this works structure and content suggest such inner and outer mysteries are ultimately connected by an epic, invisible web that I call what-is-ness. My work seeks to investigate and to articulate that web. This document extends my material inquiry into the realm of language, using both conventional prose and the mode of poetry. Knots (or, riddles) embedded in the sculptural works are teased out through empirical, philosophical, and figurative reflection. My hope is that this text will prove a fitting companion to the sculptural works themselves, and that both will leave the reader/viewer with more resonant questions than definitive answers.

My work explores the manifold personalities and roles of contemporary women, through depicting different female figures from western mythology. The mythic women in my paintings each have their own personalities, stories and roles to play, which are often conflicting in nature. By having my model act as a mythological character and by replacing the scenes from mythology with a contemporary setting, my paintings emphasize the universal and timeless essence of women. Each painting also utilizes the symbolic use of color to intensify the sensory experience of the viewer. The mythic figures I rendered are Proserpine, Venus, Psyche, Penelope, Artemis, and Athena. The first three were painted on large canvases in oil; the rest were created as monotypes on paper. To address the duality and complexity of human nature, I painted two different images for each character. Two different scenes were extracted from Greek mythology for oil paintings. For monotypes, the same image was altered into two different versions.

The Island Hunter Association and this field guide are elaborate constructions that assist you in looking at familiar places in a new way. Following the methods and procedures Ive outlined in this field guide you will become an expert in tracking the many incarnations of Islands. Fact and fiction, real and psychological, Islands are all around.

This body of text speaks about an installation that deals with feelings of displacement, and isolation. This work invites and encourages the viewer to view another family with new eyes, perhaps finding similarities between this family and their own.