While the pastoral environment that surrounds my studio is inspirational in itself, my treescapes and organic abstractions are reflections of referential places experienced along my life's path. Considering the constant onslaught of information in our increasingly rushed society, I hope my work, influenced by the natural world, may allow the viewer to slow down briefly and live in the moment.

This research study analyzed the sources of nutrition blog information as measured by frequency and type of sources used by nutrition bloggers. Since the use of online resources for finding health information has become more prevalent, it is important to further research the topic for the purpose of better understanding how our nutrition agenda is set by nutrition bloggers. Focusing on 20 nutrition blogs, the study content analyzed 3,156 blog posts during a one-year period from September 1, 2011 to August 31, 2012, yielding 5,263 sources. Additionally, in-depth interviews were conducted with the writers of all 20 blogs in July 2012. The findings showed that (1) nutrition bloggers are sourcing half of the time, (2) nutrition bloggers are citing a variety of sources that include both credible and less credible sources, (3) nutrition bloggers are finding and choosing sources in various ways that include both credible and less credible methods, and (4) there is no difference in the sources selected by men and women bloggers. Overall, this study shows the need to create best practices for blog sourcing that serve as guidelines for both bloggers and readers, with emphasis on guidelines for source frequency and credibility of sources.

From Tempera to Ink to Code traces the remediation of Orthodox icons. It examines icons’ unexplored, other media: cheap print, the book and digital media. Its interdisciplinary, cross-medial approach draws upon the fields of media studies, art history, art practice, religious studies, history and bibliography to establish an alternative way of viewing and understanding the icon beyond its original medium. The study focuses on the Vladimir icon of the Mother of God as one of the most venerable Russian Orthodox icons. It traces the Vladimir icon’s process of remediation from tempera on wooden panel to loose print, to bound codex and to digital form. It brings into focus the icon’s less researched, mass-produced media and applies the methods of art historical and bibliographic research to all media in question with equal scrutiny and attention. The dissertation provides a new way of looking at the storage, handling and display of icons in all their media. It categorizes the icon’s media into two groups: display media (tempera icons and loose prints) and storage/cache media (books and digital images). The display media invite veneration and thereby retain an “aura,” in the terminology of Walter Benjamin and David Morgan. Storage media, on the other hand, discourage veneration and, so, accrue no such aura. The study concludes that the loss of an object’s aura happens in unexpected aspects of remediation—in the binding, coding and, in a word, storing of information. The relationship that the study draws between the codex and hard drive has important implications for both book history and media studies, whereas its discussion of remediation, veneration and aura offer valuable contributions to the fields of iconology and iconography.

Paintings and drawings are the physical representations of my dialogue with the world around me. Art is how I connect to what is too large, or too vague, or too personally meaningful to express in any other way. Space and its transformation by light and color have always been central to this dialogue. I am particularly intrigued by spatial ambiguity. Space exists for us only in how it relates to us and so, space changes. One viewpoint or state of mind might make space seem freeing, while another makes the same space feel confining. Barriers are sometimes delineated, sometimes obscured. At other times, they are broken. This has a political implication which appears in my work as fissures, fences, compression, and collapse.The space of my inner self, the space outside, and the space between the two are relationships that drive what I paint and draw. My art is the place where I acknowledge the cracks in the ice and where I try to keep from falling through when the ground opens up. Shifting planes are where I try to keep my balance while peeking through the cracks and over the edge.

"Handicraft" means a useful or decorative object made by a craftsman who has direct control over all stages of production. Handicrafts have always had a greater value, an identity of their own that is reflective of their place, culture and materials, as well as a sense of belonging to a particular place and time. With the ever-growing mass production that followed the Industrial Revolution, we lost those crafts to multiple reasons: one being cheaper, industrial-made products reducing the demand for handicrafts, and another being a shift in consumer tastes. Most craftspeople hardly earn enough to survive and fulfill their basic needs, and naturally seek greater economic stability. In hopes of making a better future for their children, they send them to schools to gain knowledge that could help them gain employment and be able to make better livings for themselves and their families, halting the passing of knowledge. Hence, the heritage of skills that had been passed for generations in a family comes to end. This risks the loss of a craft that once was a source of pride and joy for these artisans – and for the larger community There are a number of efforts going on around the globe to preserve the indigenous crafts of different cultures, and to allow that knowledge to be passed down to new generations. My focus in this paper is a specific object (the charpai) from the Jandi craft, and its preservation through innovation. My work seeks to advance and preserve the skills and traditions of the artisans, while designing a new set of products inspired by the craft that hope to reconnect more artisans to the craft and empower them in terms of knowledge and finance.

Angel Jones Artist Statement My mixed media collages address issues concerning the outcast, the overlooked, and the underprivileged. My inspirations come from what I experience and perceive around me. My purpose in life is to use my art to address social issues that involve children. For example, I focus my attention on issues ranging from homelessness to mental illness. I am passionate about how vital these concerns are to our success as human beings. To express my ideas, I layer a variety of materials and textiles. The materials include fragments of photographs, drawings, and objects. The textiles include articles of clothing and fabrics. Recurring symbols and imagery link the individual pieces together. The theme of each work determines the materials and media. While doing research for a piece, new social issues often surface and lead to the next piece.

I propose a theoretical framework that describes how avatars incorporate media as an inherent part of their nature and find a hosting body in cyborgs to navigate and spawn in media. I propose the birth of a new scion that combines avatar, medium and cyborg into a conceptual being that I call “ICEVORG.” The ICEVORG expands beyond representation into the actual physical world by means of media transgression—more specifically, by the use of the Strange Loop also known as Metalepsis ICEVORG find an effective soil to thrive and interrogate our ideas of reality by means of iteration, expansion, fragmentation and naturalization. The development of the framework that explains the concept of ICEVORG happens in the interstices between fiction and reality. The ICEVORG transgresses boundaries to reach and transcend the concepts of the avatar and cyborg in order to generate meaning and pursue relevance in contemporary society. By dissecting the ICEVORG under the light of metalepsis that I am able to elaborate a framework to explain the world of post-hyperrealism and how ICEVORGS have become agents of change. Finally, in order to construct my argument, I employ autoethnography, a research methodology that allows for a more personal voice to be included as part of the research process.

In a broad sense, cultures undergo a metamorphoses due to the external influences and systems impacting the evolution of internal identities. Conversely, Individuals within cultures react to those external influences and systems.The act of hacking a culture is an opportunity to challenge an existing or imported system in order to bring about change and improvement. An aspect of culture hacking is to create messages of satire or irony in order to criticize, or completely reject established systems within cultures. Post Arab spring, Egyptians practiced culture hacking by applying their cultural tools to external systems and influences, producing a process of ‘Egyptianization’. This investigation examines the MFA program’s culture at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar as a case study, and adapts those Egyptianized tools to hack the culture. The program has its own values, rituals, traditions, imported systems, influences and dominant symbols. The aim of this thesis is to generate customized hacking methodologies that identify cracks within this culture and develop an innovative framework to critically analyze them through visual representation.

This thesis utilizes theories and ideas from the field of psychology to inform intertextual and interdisciplinary readings that compare and contrast theatre and film texts. In Chapter One, I compare Carlos Fuentes' drama Orchids in the Moonlight to Nicolas Winding Refn's film Bronson in order to investigate the extent each oscillates between Carl Jung's notion of the collective unconscious and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's schizoanalytic paradigm. I found that while these vacillating aspects helped illuminate different perspectives of each text, Orchids in the Moonlight more closely represents the collective unconscious, while Bronson more robustly embodies schizoanalysis. In Chapter Two, I examine the magnitude to which the play and film version of Jean Cocteau's Orpheus illuminate his self-portrait. By analyzing the similarity and differences between how Cocteau depicts mirrors and the female personification of Death, I discovered the film version to more profoundly evoke and depict Cocteau's self-portrait. Finally, in Chapter Three, I discuss my process of writing a new play with film elements called Flooded—before providing a sample of the text, and later analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of the film contents in the play.

This document contains reflections on motivations behind selected works leading up to and including my thesis exhibition so much apparent nothing. Through journal excerpts and analysis of my own psychology, I attempt to put into words my thoughts concurrent to my making, indirect as they may be. The following text shares my personal conflicts and ideologies surrounding art-making, the permanence of objects, and the acceptance of an identity in flux.