There is no abstract available for this thesis.

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1993. / Typescript. List of references: leaves 90-92.

Thesis--Southern Illinois University, Functional Area of Curriculum and Instruction. / Vita. Bibliography: leaves 52-55.

During the 1987-88 academic year at Ball State University, it was decided that a series of transparency masters should be produced to support changes occurring in the state's curriculum for industrial technology education. With my interests in instructional material, I felt that this was the year to produce such materials. The instructional benefits to prospective and veteran teachers seem well worth the time and effort.Upon the discussion of changes in the curriculum conclusions as to personal feelings have ranged from panic to delight. Most feelings of panic stemmed from unpreparedness and lack of high quality instructional material. The observation has formed the objective for this creative Project: to use data gathered from Indiana's State Curriculum Guides, recommended textbooks and interviews with high school instructors to design transparency masters for instructional implementation. / Department of Industry & Technology

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

Brief mentions by three writers on synthetic painting media first intrigued my interest in a' new technique of making transparent acrylic paintings on glass or plexiglas supports, some of which were said to I I simulate stained-glass windows. In writing this paper on acrylic polymer transparencies my problem was three-told: first. to determine whether any major recognized works of art have been produced by this, method; second, to experiment with the technique and materials in order to explore their possibilities for my own work; and third, to determine whether both materials and methods would be suitable for use in a classroom. Pursuant to these objectives I reviewed art journals of the past decade to determine whether any major works in acrylic polymer transparencies have received national recognition. At the same time I consulted every available book on acrylic painting methods, to obtain all possible information as to how to proceed. Following this, I experimented, over a period of approximately eight months, with a great many materials and methods. During the course of this experimentation, I produced a number of transparencies, using. various colorants, media, supports and dikes, also exploring many methods of applying these materials to obtain a variety of effects. As a result of my research and experimentation, I have reached the following conclusions: First: So far as can be determined, no major works in acrylic polymer transparencies using these specific methods have yet received national recognition. However, a great many works in closely related art forms are being produced, and are receiving recognition. Second: After several months of experimentation, I agree with Jensen, Woody and Chavatel that this medium has great possibilities, and that when these possibilities are realized in the future, by artists of skill and imagination, major works of great beauty may well be created. Third: It is believed that acrylic polymer transparencies would I be a most suitable project for use in many classrooms. The materials are non-toxic and perfectly safe and easy to use; both the emulsion and the colors are water-soluble, making for ease of cleanup; both materials and technique are new, and therefore challenging to young people; .and finally, the beauty of the jewel-like colors when viewed by transmitted light furnish a great incentive to the student to create in this medium.

My capstone is a conversation of the Millennial Generation’s views of individual identity and masculinity, with the hopes of deconstructing the socially constructed and exclusive notions of masculinity by defining a generation’s “common sense.” My piece is inspired by the portraiture of Chad States in Masculinities (2011) as well as Loren Cameron’s work in Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits (1996). The theoretical basis of my project relies heavily on Antonio Gramsci’s concept of “common sense” as well as José Esteban Muñoz’s disidentification. Common sense refers to an instinctual, “uncritical and largely unconscious way of perceiving and understanding.” It “is a collective noun, like religion” yet it “is not something rigid and immobile, but is continually transforming itself, enriching itself with scientific ideas and with philosophical opinions which have entered ordinary life.” Furthermore, disidentification is Muñoz’s third mode of dealing with a dominant ideology. This aspect “neither opts to assimilate within such a structure nor strictly opposes it; rather, disidentification is a strategy that works on and against dominant ideology and hegemony. Disidentification works as the negotiating mechanism for common sense because it is against assimilation to mainstream masculinity as well as asks individuals to be their personal identity in spite of what hegemonic masculinity dictates. Thus, I hope to instill a new understanding of the “common sense” of the Millennial Generation, and how the notion of masculinity is personal, fluid, and disidentified.

Following his 1924 break with the Paris avant-garde, Francis Picabia (1879-1953) decamped to the French Riviera and soon began work on his radically new Transparency paintings. This series, which occupied Picabia from approximately 1928 to 1933, drew on classical imagery of biblical and mythological subjects, layering disparate human forms and natural motifs in sensuous compositions remarkable for their ambiguous pictorial space and sinuous lines. The Transparencies' resistance to narrative or allegory--notwithstanding their apparent clarity of reference--parallels the paintings' evasion of formal interpretation in spite of their classical beauty; both of these characteristics have made Picabia's Transparencies one of his most inscrutable and misunderstood bodies of work. To avoid treating the Transparencies as a non sequitur or as a conservative abandonment of earlier modernist goals, it is important to understand the sources of the concepts underpinning these works but originating in Picabia's earlier Cubist and Dada periods. Dimensionality, appropriation, figuration, and a rigorous commitment to individualism are all themes from Picabia's acclaimed work in the 1910s and early 1920s that continue into the Transparencies. Particularly relevant are the multivalent interpretations of the spatial fourth dimension--scientific, philosophical, and occult--that Picabia had first encountered in the context of Cubism and the Stieglitz Circle and, later, in his friend Marcel Duchamp's optical experiments. In the Transparencies Picabia's layered outlines both deny linear perspective and suggest projections of interior worlds. In 1936, Picabia affirmed his interest in the fourth dimension, referring specifically to the Transparencies' superimposition at the time he signed Charles Sirató's "Manifeste Dimensioniste." Picabia's visual synthesis of decades of avant-garde concerns in the Transparencies appealed to the American expatriate writer Gertrude Stein, who became one of Picabia's closest friends and confidantes in the early 1930s after she saw his recent paintings. Stein's commentary on Picabia's work and their friendship in "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" and "Everybody's Autobiography" reveals the painter's impact on Stein at a turning point in her career, but also elucidates their shared search for new verbal and visual expressions of the human figure and higher dimensionality. / text

Transparencies: New Zealand from 1953 to 1974 through the Slide Photography of Gladys Cunningham This thesis focuses on the amateur slide photography of Gladys Cunningham, formerly of Onehunga, Auckland. Viewed collectively, these slides provide a visual autobiography of a New Zealand woman’s life, as well as a larger social narrative. As Gladys’s granddaughter, I argue that Gladys’s 35mm colour transparencies, nostalgic fragments that memorialise a family history, are informed by the social history of European New Zealanders between the early 1950s and early 1970s. Gladys’s slides reflect stabilities and changes for the photographer herself, her family and New Zealand society. While the term “transparency” suggests that the meaning of a slide can be understood by all, in reality further contextual information is necessary to appreciate the family and public histories from which these scenes have been separated. To situate Gladys’s slides, I refer to popular magazines and tourist texts from this period, including The Weekly News, National Geographic and New Zealand Holiday, and to commercial slides, postcards and travel marketing texts. I analyse the near absence of Maori within Gladys’s slides and travel journalism, suggesting that their omissions represent a lack of dialogue between Pakeha and Maori. In New Zealand and overseas, slide photography was the popular medium for recording extraordinary family events during the 1950 and 1960s. Through an analysis of memory, leisure and photography, this study examines how Gladys’s photography documents family and community membership and celebration. I explore how aesthetically pleasing representations of family leisure also contain partly concealed clues to less positive memories and to secrets that were not unique to this family. I discuss the impact of private and public transport on Gladys’s slide photography, noting how car travel facilitated spatial and temporal freedoms, and how slide photography strengthened connections to extended family and distant communities. In contrast, Gladys and Jim’s later dependence on coach transport enhanced their ability to take slides and expanded the “family” gaze of their camera, but limited their photographic opportunities.

Transparencies: New Zealand from 1953 to 1974 through the Slide Photography of Gladys Cunningham This thesis focuses on the amateur slide photography of Gladys Cunningham, formerly of Onehunga, Auckland. Viewed collectively, these slides provide a visual autobiography of a New Zealand woman’s life, as well as a larger social narrative. As Gladys’s granddaughter, I argue that Gladys’s 35mm colour transparencies, nostalgic fragments that memorialise a family history, are informed by the social history of European New Zealanders between the early 1950s and early 1970s. Gladys’s slides reflect stabilities and changes for the photographer herself, her family and New Zealand society. While the term “transparency” suggests that the meaning of a slide can be understood by all, in reality further contextual information is necessary to appreciate the family and public histories from which these scenes have been separated. To situate Gladys’s slides, I refer to popular magazines and tourist texts from this period, including The Weekly News, National Geographic and New Zealand Holiday, and to commercial slides, postcards and travel marketing texts. I analyse the near absence of Maori within Gladys’s slides and travel journalism, suggesting that their omissions represent a lack of dialogue between Pakeha and Maori. In New Zealand and overseas, slide photography was the popular medium for recording extraordinary family events during the 1950 and 1960s. Through an analysis of memory, leisure and photography, this study examines how Gladys’s photography documents family and community membership and celebration. I explore how aesthetically pleasing representations of family leisure also contain partly concealed clues to less positive memories and to secrets that were not unique to this family. I discuss the impact of private and public transport on Gladys’s slide photography, noting how car travel facilitated spatial and temporal freedoms, and how slide photography strengthened connections to extended family and distant communities. In contrast, Gladys and Jim’s later dependence on coach transport enhanced their ability to take slides and expanded the “family” gaze of their camera, but limited their photographic opportunities.