Light is a recurring image in my work. To represent light, I use vivid images of shadows illuminating different values with the intention of setting particular moods and feelings. Light is an essential element for all life. It has a subliminal message of peace, life, clarification, illumination, beginnings and endings. The softness of the gentle sunrise in the beginning of the day and the drama of the light at sunset adds beauty to everything it touches. As an artist, light inspires me spiritually as it simultaneously reveals the extreme beauty and force of the natural world.

This thesis is an investigation and analysis of a classical typology, the Villa, aided by extensive travel and research. The project begins to identify a new found set of guidelines of proportion, planes, points, and the space in between them to understand the forms in which a Villa can take within its landscape. An understanding of the wealth and opulence required to live in one of these Villas broaches the way we begin to think about the amounts of space required to live. A purely hand drawn and produced set of drawings were produced, punctuating deliberate choices in construction and landscape. These abstractions are then brought to fruition through model and painting, breathing life into the ideas that are displayed. / Master of Architecture / This project is a result of the exposure and analysis of the classic typology of the VIlla. An early interest in Palladio, fueled by an incredible and rigorous study abroad program led to research and study into the ways in which a building can have an emotional impact on its inhabitants, and how a building begins to feel connected to its landscape. The thesis developed into a search for order, a way of ordering and arriving at a solution of proportion, points, planes and atria. These aspects then created the Villas, a series of abstracted ideas of an ideal getaway in a vibrant countryside.

This thesis presents a method for combining GPU programming with traditional programming to create a fluid simulation based watercolor tool for artists. This application provides a graphical interface and a canvas upon which artists can create simulated watercolors in real time. The GPU, or Graphics Processing Unit, is an effcient and highly parallel processor located on the graphics card of a computer; GPU programming is touted as a way to improve performance in graphics and non–graphics applications. The effectiveness of this method in speeding up large, general purpose programs, however, is found here to be disappointing. In a small application with minimal CPU/GPU interaction, theoretical speedups of 10 times maybe achieved, but with the limitations of communication speed between the GPU and the CPU, gains are slight when this method is used in conjunction with traditional programming.

This thesis presents a method for combining GPU programming with traditional programming to create a fluid simulation based watercolor tool for artists. This application provides a graphical interface and a canvas upon which artists can create simulated watercolors in real time. The GPU, or Graphics Processing Unit, is an effcient and highly parallel processor located on the graphics card of a computer; GPU programming is touted as a way to improve performance in graphics and non–graphics applications. The effectiveness of this method in speeding up large, general purpose programs, however, is found here to be disappointing. In a small application with minimal CPU/GPU interaction, theoretical speedups of 10 times maybe achieved, but with the limitations of communication speed between the GPU and the CPU, gains are slight when this method is used in conjunction with traditional programming.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Kansas, 1983. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 287-294).

The group of works that I am presenting as my Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition is a selection of my best work from the past three years. It is made up of two different artistic forms: fairly small sculptures comprised of aluminum channel and plexiglas, on the one hand, and lithographs and watercolors, on the other.

At the root of all living beings is our breath -- without it, we are not alive. Eastern practices such as yoga and meditation are conveyed through the awareness of our breath and the encouragement to be present in what our physical bodies are telling us. This awareness is a huge influence in architectural design. Building well and thinking well are in turn living well, and this architectural thesis served as a journey in discovering how human health can manifest itself in a physical building. The architectural project is an Institute for Being and is located in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, DC. The program of this project consists of spaces to encourage people to seek their own path in spiritual grounding within the otherwise hectic urban context. / Master of Architecture

The intent of this study was to investigate those artists in early Utah art history who played an important part in the development of water color painting.

This research develops an extendible framework for reproducing watercolor in a digital environment, with a focus on interactivity using the GPU. The framework uses the lattice Boltzmann method, a relatively new approach to fluid dynamics, and the Kubelka-Munk reflectance model to capture the optical properties of watercolor. The work is demonstrated through several paintings produced using the system.

Something About Marybell is a children's book with audio compact disk, in which I combined three art forms: storytelling, illustrating, and music composition. The nature of the story reflects my love of animals, which has been the essence of all my previous works as well. Beyond the technical matters I practiced and obstacles I encountered while working on each of the aforementioned art forms, the most important point I discovered was that all three were consistently interrelated, and I never could develop one medium without considering the others. Working on this project also was a journey to trace my major influences in different subjects. My drawing style is influenced by cartoons and animation films, which are now considered significant artistic styles in Japanese subculture. My music composition reflects a broad influence from many composers' works working in a variety of genres, especially piano works, of all eras. There are two specific works I studied as model works for this project: Poulenc's L'Histoire de Babar le petit éléphant (The Story of Babar the Little Elephant) and Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. It was a challenge to blend one stylistic approach into another to accurately realize my musical conception.