Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

5-2017

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

M.F.A.

Department

Fine Arts

Degree Program

Studio Art and Design, MFA

Committee Chair

Massey, Scott

Committee Co-Chair (if applicable)

Hanger, Barbara

Committee Member

Hanger, Barbara

Committee Member

Carothers, Mary

Committee Member

Singel, Rachel

Committee Member

Gawley, Kevin

Author's Keywords

sculpture; nostalgia; memory; trauma; innocence; narritive

Abstract

Humans have evolved an overwhelming awareness of self, other, life, and death. We have learned to selectively process information and to replace dissociated memories with less disturbing ones. We have evolved this ability to deceive ourselves, thus producing a personal reality that is innately false. As a society we tend to idealize our vision of the past, particularly our vision of home. Our idealized notion of home presents itself as a supposedly traditional form of domestic life, but bears little relation to the way people actually lived. This concept of a cozy home full of family love is an invented tradition. Two poles are created: the ideal and the broken self. The sweetness and pleasure in seeing or recalling certain objects or experiences, that nostalgia, intermingles with feelings of sadness, loss, and regret. Glimmers of memory, perhaps real or perhaps fabricated, become dreamlike flashes in the landscape of our mind. Nostalgia and sentiment can be deconstructed through the frailty and distortion of memory by investigating the reality of lost innocence.

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