This work is a survey about the cabinetmakers possibilities to use laser engraving for personalised décor in furniture making. I have used analog and digital techniques in a way to take control over the end results of the laser engravings that I make from my patterns and motifs. My motifs and patterns are mainly constructed with a digital pen in a sketch program om my computer. Initially, I did a number of technical tests to learn about the different settings so that I later on could use them to my advantage when I created different motifs. After understanding most of the consequences of different settings I began to adapt my motifs with a conscious planning for how I could use the laser engraving settings to control the final result. In some cases, I have also done some after work in the form of pyrographing or Dremel engraving by hand. Much more are to be desired of those results. My conclusion is that the best results I got were when I used the laser engraving to complete my motifs the way visual artists use their brush, which is what I learned during my work. In addition to the practical work, I have also tried to make a theoretical reasoning about decór and ornament historically and where I fit in today.

The work in this show reflects my interest in the role of the ceramic vessel historically as well as its place in the dialogue of contemporary art. Traditionally thought of as an object of craft and function, the vessel has found footing also as a conceptual container of ideas and artistic expression. It teeters on the threshold between craft and art, between art and life. Because of its strong association with the domestic, I find the vessel to be a fitting form on which to paint ornamental patterns and imagery associated with my own home life and to put into question its role as a strictly functional object.

Accumulation of Divine Service is a ceramic installation referencing the sublime attribute of service, and how it relates to our temporal existence. Many aspects of the sublime are implemented into the contemporary art world today. The sublime can refer to ideas from terror to joy, and all across the spectrum of human emotions. The unifying element that seems to tie them together is a quality of awe-inspiring greatness, or the metaphysically divine. These attributescan inspire the mind and often lead one to dwell on the existence of a Supreme Being or Deity,what His purposes are, and how we as mortals work with or for that purpose.This installation encompasses some of my thoughts on the divinity that I believe dwells within all mankind. I do this by incorporating into the installation two repeated elements, the finial and the mug. The finial is an architectural element that is implemented at the apex of most religious meetinghouses. It is used for this purpose because it points toward the heavens and lifts the mind upward toward God. The mug, on the other hand, is one of the most humble and universal ceramic service vessels. It is used around the world as a drinking container whose sole purpose is service, or to give life-sustaining nourishment to mankind. The combination of these two visual elements seeks to encompass my personal art practice, my research, and the element of the sublime that we all possess.

This degree work in textile design positions itself in the textile- and surface pattern design field by investigating the interpretation of the translation from traditional to contemporary. The motive is to apply a sustainable aspect to surface pattern design by “recycling” traditional and cultural patterns into renewed contemporary expressions. The aim is to design a collection of contemporary surface patterns by exploring and interpreting traditionally common patterns, such as curbits and folklore painting. Modern printing techniques, new technology and materials have been used in the investigation. Three suggestions for a contemporary surface pattern collection have been developed. A repeated pattern that has been laser engraved and colored on acrylic plexiglass, a mirrored pattern that has been digital printed, coated, and cut to reveal the tabletop, and a large-scale placed pattern that has been transfer printed in three layers to enable for a color-mixing-effect. This project contributes to reinforce the knowledge of traditional craftsmanship and establish a new legacy that can serve as both a link to pattern history and as an archive of today. The project desires to influence how a sustainable approach to “recycling” traditional or cultural images and motifs can be used to design new surface patterns.

Laotse has said, "Man's loss of his original nature comes from the distractions of the material world acting through the five senses.”1 That we have not regained our original nature is self-evident. Our society indicts us; its works convict us. We have become slaves to the extent that we have diverged from, as well as our own nature, the nature of our universe. It is to the cutting through the haze of invalidities which constitutes much of the atmosphere in which we design and build that this thesis is directed. First, in this search, this one for freedom in a sense, the nature of man, of universe, and the relationships which do and could exist between them, will be explored in terms of building. If, perhaps, subsequent analysis of existing relationships appear too critical, it must be borne in mind, that much is based upon, as well as observation, introspection. Second, cultures will be explored in an effort to more clearly establish the relationships which exist between man and the pattern he produces. With this relationship in mind, our contemporary pattern will be examined and an attempt will be made to evaluate the dominant trends which now seem to be directing it toward the contradictory expressions so apparent today. Third, designs will be given of a natural community and of a natural living unit, illustrating through application of these same natural relationships, but two of many levels of planning. A site in the Blue Ridge Mountains, northeast of Roanoke has been chosen as the area for development which, although topographically undesirable for building by present criteria, permits demonstration of the flexibility attainable through application of spirit and technics of natural building. This thesis is an attempt to see the whole more clearly in terms of its parts. Design today, as attested by almost every area of development, is in a state of chaos, less conscious of the world for which it was executed than it is of itself. The method of approach, not being purely scientific, is in itself a questioning of contemporary methods of inquiry. Natural law, in the academic sense, is but the notation of physically observed phenomena and has been taken more as a boundary than as a fluid instrument of understanding cognizant of omnipresent relativities. Natural law, in its broadest sense, at best, but an instantaneous approximation (for what has become of Euclidean geometry and Newtonian physics), is here suggested as a criterion for design. A criterion which will continue to grow together with science and art in the interests of man. / Master of Science

This text is about the phenomenon of ornaments and colour, how I relate to them and how this relationship has developed through time. I contextualise these two subjects by taking a few examples on how they have been discussed and perceived throughout history. I find these subjects interesting because I have experienced a difficulty to include these two expressions in my practice before, although I have wanted to. In this research, I came to realise, I am just a result of my own environment. An environment embossed by ideas that ornaments are unnecessary and colours are out of fashion. I also describe how I, in my practice make ornaments in porcelain and aim for a spatial and spiritual expression, resulting in a setting reminiscent of a temple, which also is where the ornaments have their origin.

One of the main goals of this thesis is to better understand Czech Neo-Baroque tendencies and their placement within the context of Czech sculpture in general. To be able to better understand the role of Neo-Baroque in this artistic branch it is important to first cover the process of Baroque's revival in Czech lands which triggered creative approach to Baroque motifs and the birth of Neo-Baroque at the end of the 19th century. This is covered in the first part of the thesis. The opening chapter mentions different perceptions of the term Neo-Baroque and how its understanding evolved from the 19th century until present. Chapter that follows elaborates on the topic of Neo-Baroque being one of the historicizing styles and discusses the cultural and ideological circumstances which led to its widespread use. The topic that strongly resonates here is the Prague urban sanitation which turned most of the sculptors into modelers who would transform Neo-Baroque facades of new buildings into complex decorative schemes. The topic in question also covers periodical swatches of Celda Klouček and Friedrich Ohmann, a very valuable ideological impulse which significantly contributed to raising awareness of the Baroque beauties of Czech provenience as an inspirational source for decorative sculpture and plaster...

En s’emparant de la question ornementale, le cinéma s’inscrit dans une réflexion reliant les territoires balkaniques de l’art, au-delà de l’opposition entre les beaux-arts, les arts décoratifs et le design. La pensée de l’ornement au cinéma ne relève pas de l’évidence, tant il est vrai que l’histoire de la notion est marquée par sa relégation au seuil de la création artistique. Pourtant, il semble bien que l’ornement soit présent partout où il faut combler du vide, décorer un objet, embellir le corps. À quoi tient l’attrait de l’ornement au cinéma ? Quelles sont les relations qu’entretient le cinéma avec la pensée ornementale des images ? Contre le préjugé qui frappe l’ornement d’insignifiance, il semble nécessaire d’éclairer ses implications morales, sociales et politiques. À travers un corpus circonstancié qui se déploie à l’entour du cinéma, de l’histoire de l’art et de la culture visuelle, ce travail de recherche entend cartographier les enjeux critiques, formels et perceptifs du régime visuel de l’ornement. Penser l’ornement aujourd’hui, c’est opérer un basculement dans l’ordre des valeurs dont il se fait l’héritier. Il s’agit non seulement de faire retour sur son histoire et son élaboration conceptuelle, mais également d’emmener l’ornement vers un au-delà du discours de la subsidiarité pour établir une pensée dynamique de l’ornemental au cinéma. À travers différentes propositions théoriques, se formulent autant de constellations articulant les enjeux esthétiques, historiques et politiques de l’ornement : le régime de la dépense et le corps féminin en exercice, le processus de réification de « l’ornement de la masse » dans la modernité, le discours sur la couleur ornementale et la hantise cosmétique, les formes naturelles et abstraites, le paradigme du tapis et la texture des images, les états altérés de la perception. Les questions ornementales adressées au cinéma s’intègrent dans une pensée rénovée du style – point vif de la tension qui anime l’art et la vie – en tant que procédure de qualification des formes. / As it seized the ornamental issue, cinema has become part of a reflection process relating the scattered territories of arts, beyond the opposition between fine arts, decorative arts and design. Thinking the ornament in cinema is far from obvious, since this notion, throughout its evolution, has always been marginalized at the threshold of artistic creation. Yet, it does seem that the ornament is present wherever a void needs to be filled, an object to be adorned or a body to be embellished. What makes the ornament appealing in cinema? What relationships does the cinema hold with the ornamental visual thinking? To counter prejudices confining the ornament within insignificance, it appears necessary to clarify its moral, social and political implications. Through a detailed corpus spreading around cinema, history of art and visual culture, this research paper aims at mapping the critical, formal and perceptual issues of the visual regime of the ornament. Thinking the ornament today means swaying the order of the values it has inherited. It is not only about looking back on its history and its conceptual elaboration, but also about bringing the ornament beyond the subsidiary speech to establish a dynamic thinking of the ornamental in cinema. By way of different theoretical suggestions, many constellations are being elaborated. They connect the aesthetic, historical and political stakes of the ornament: the regime of consumption and the gestures of the feminine body, the process of reifying the “mass ornament” into modernity, the speech on decorative colour and the cosmetic obsessive fear, the natural and abstract forms, the carpet paradigm and the texture of images, the altered states of the perception of ornaments. The ornamental issues, which are addressed to the cinema, blend into a renovated thinking on style – central in the tension that stirs arts and life – as a process of qualifying forms.

This thesis examines stained glass windows in Indianapolis churches built between 1865 and 1915. It studies the trends in Indianapolis stained glass windows and compares them with the national trends in stained glass design. The evidence contained within this thesis indicates that a wide variety of styles popular at the time are represented in Indianapolis churches. The evidence also suggests that some national trends in stained glass did influence the design of the windows in Indianapolis. However, most of the windows in the surviving Indianapolis churches from the period are not typical of the high style trends in church stained glass found elsewhere in the United States. / Department of Architecture

Hissaar is a noun and a verb, it is the periphery and the extremities, and the walls and the fortress. And it is to encircle, to wrap and to contain. This paper is an inexhaustive account of thoughts, experiences and lessons learned, of varying forms that influence my aesthetic sensibilities, my art-value system, and my art- ethical concerns. They provide for my art the impetus for its perpetual (and perhaps circular) journey. It is about finding connections between the fraying ends of free floating ideas. The following fragments explores how words make ideas, ideas make images, images make memory; memory sets into architecture, architecture moves the body, the body needs pain and pain needs words.