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Sunday in the Park with George: Jules and Yvonne
No full textIn Sunday in the Park with George, Jules is a rival painter who is critical of George\u27s work. In one scene, Jules and his wife Yvonne stand before one of George\u27s painting and critique the quality of his work. Jules and Yvonne are both modeled after figures from the painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. In order to mimic the texture of the paintings brush strokes, both characters have costumes that have visual and physical texture. Yvonne\u27s bodice is made from a multi-colored burnout velvet.https://ir.uiowa.edu/costume_design/1046/thumbnail.jp
Sunday in the Park with George: Act I Costume Renderings
No full textThis is an example of the costume renderings created for Sunday in the Park with Georgehttps://ir.uiowa.edu/costume_design/1045/thumbnail.jp
New Women in the Anglo-Indian Novel, 1878-1901
Get PDFBy the late nineteen century, Englishwomen had established themselves in India in considerable numbers, gaining the sobriquet, memsahib (female superior), seen as a stereotyped English woman, concerned only with her material home and social life. However as the century progressed Anglo-Indians rose in social status, adopting the same demands for education and sexual independence along with the “New Women” of England. Their concern with independence, respect, and intellectualism can be seen in Victorian Indian novels as India becomes a space where people push against the social norms of Britain. Yet this space is also highly segregated, only leaving room for white English women to break their oppression. New Woman novels often champion racial segregation and “purity” in the domestic sphere, complicating the feminist ideal.
In this project, I examine two New Woman novels within India and by contrast two novels by an Indian author set in Britain. While the New Woman in Anglo-Indian novels was often glorified, the racist roots of the authors have been left untouched. I will consider the space that India provides for the female writers and characters, along with what the writers consider to be a New Woman and her interaction with the wider world. This also leads to the question of mixed race children, and these novels reveal that the imperialist New Woman ideal goes hand in hand with racial purity, so that mixed-race children are killed. Of the four New Women novels examined, the first, Anna Lombard (1901), appears to break racial segregation, only to reinforce it through the heroine’s second British marriage and the death of her first Anglo-Indian child. The second, On the Face of the Waters (1896), reflects on Britain’s rise to power through the Great Mutiny, shifting the focus to the domestic sphere and the racism instilled within. Finally, as an Indian native, Toru Dutt’s novels, Bianca or the Young Spanish Maiden (1878) and Le Journal de Mademoiselle d’Arvers (1879), present an anti-colonialist perspective on the domestic sphere and intersection of cultures, subverting the imperialist New Woman narrative and its resolution. These novels form a conversation about death and grief as well as revealing the New Woman’s role in imperialist India, with the Indian writer “writing back” against the assumptions of the Anglo-Indian women novelists
Memories of Wuhan
Get PDFWith the development of globalization, more and more cultures blend together. Perhaps because of this, nowadays many foreign artists advocate their native styles. As a Chinese student, who enjoys designing projects with visual meanings, I decide to make a series of 12 postcards, illustrating famous architectures in my hometown, Wuhan. I’m looking forward to practicing the skill of transferring sketches to digital forms fluently.
I was born and raised in Wuhan, China for 20 years, and would like to share images of my home and myself. I choose to draw famous architectures in Wuhan because I enjoy the design and the symmetry of the buildings. Once I chose the topic, I decided to use the form of a postcard, because I would love to mail the happiness of my graduation from university to everyone I appreciate. After determining the form and content, I started selecting several images of architectures in Wuhan to draw. I was fascinated by the crush of both British churches and Chinese traditional pagoda in Wuhan. Additionally, when deciding the quantity of postcards to make, Professor Dicharry suggested I do at least 12 postcards for a great diversity for architecture in Wuhan. After that, I re-learned Graphic Design programs through multiple tutorials when I didn’t know features in Illustrator. Now I’m increasingly comfortable with using Illustrator. When I’m drawing architecture on a computer, I first sketch them on paper, then upload drafts to Illustrator and mount the architecture in black and white, making them look like classic film. After mounting everything, I designed a visually interesting layout for installation, emulating the way people frame photos at home.
During the process, I learned some lessons. At first, I was struggling in deciding whether to do architecture or food or both. Both of them, in Wuhan, are famous in China and even in the world. I finally gave up the food part, and chose to draw the architecture for a more concentrated theme, rather than jumping around the topics involving everything. I learned that sometimes I have to give up things to make the whole more focused. I think the ability to transform sketches to digital images is useful, especially when I need something that cannot be found online, then I could make them on computer, making me more flexible when finding sources
Jomon Pottery: Influence, Style, Technique
Get PDFI have been researching Japanese art and culture for most of my college career, studying it for classes, papers, and presentation. The purpose of this honors project was to further explore the creation of ceramic objects and its unique position in the larger sphere of Japanese culture, art, and art history by immersing myself it its origins, Jomon pottery, by learning from and trying to recreate this traditional ceramic process.
From Junko Habu’s Ancient Jomon of Japan and Jonathan Kidder Jr’s The Jomon pottery of Japan, I found that the forms of the earliest examples of Jomon ceramic ware are comparable in shape to objects found in Korea during the same time period. This suggests an early interaction between these two early cultures. Creating perfect reproductions or replications of specific Jomon objects was not my aim. Thus, for this project I stepped away from the wheel, and investigated the process of coil and pinch building that would have been used throughout the Jomon era. This involved building the shape of the vessel over several hours, layer by layer, in contrast to the immediacy of throwing on the wheel. I used three different clay bodies for this project: a modern stoneware, earthenware, and black clay body mix that is analogous with clay found in Japan. I found it difficult to achieve larger forms with the red, and black mix compared to the modern clay body as the objects would collapse while wet. This leads me to believe that, though similar, there are additional ingredients that are present in the clay body from Japan that are important to structural integrity that have not been accounted for by the recipe that I used. I used the plates, photos, and illustrations from Ancient Jomon of Japan and The Jomon pottery of Japan to guild the style of decoration using different types of cord and strings, hatch marks with woodens tool, and coils of clay. I created several objects that followed the ornamentation of a specific region, picking and choosing aesthetic elements from that region I found to be interesting. I pit fired the objects to achieve a traditionally accurate coloration.
I was fascinated with experiencing the ceramic process from the perspective of people form so long ago. From hand mixing the clay to having to slowly build up each object I felt myself being transported back in time. I found carving into the coils of the red, and black mixes to be particularly fascinating as it allowed me to dig deeper into the object creating a greater play of texture and a wider range in shifts of color. Though I have discovered several mark making techniques that I find myself incorporating into my practice, I find myself more interested in researching Jomon objects rather than recreating them. I find myself in a better position to engage with the Japanese art history community, while having a better understanding of the art world around me
From Feet to Flippers: The Evolution of Whales
Get PDFOur image of extinct animals changes constantly as new fossils emerge. One of the best ways to communicate these discoveries is through paleoart, which combines scientific knowledge with fine art to reconstruct the prehistoric world. Unfortunately, bad paleoart frequently gives an inaccurate view of the past, depicting its subjects as monsters or failed versions of their modern descendants rather than real, living animals. For this project, I set out to combine my interests in paleontology and animation to accurately reconstruct the evolutionary history of one of my favorite groups of animals: the whales.
For information on both extinct and modern whales, I contacted Dr. Annalisa Berta, a marine mammal paleontologist at San Diego State University. Her expertise was invaluable; it gave me a clear picture of how whales changed over time and helped me choose ten species to represent key stages in said transformation. Using living animals as a guide, I sketched each whale, starting with a simplified skeleton, then adding muscle and external tissue. Color was difficult, as I had to use modern animal patterns as references without simply copying them. Once I had finalized the design of each whale, I redrew them in Procreate. These drawings would serve as the assets I would be animating, with each body part being on a separate layer so it could be moved independently. Additionally, I digitally painted multiple backgrounds and fishes that the whales would interact with. Once these were imported into After Effects and rigged, I could start animating. This step was the most technically challenging; while I had basic experience with After Effects, this project required me to learn many more advanced features. Luckily, once I sorted out the more challenging effects, I was able to keyframe the entire project very efficiently. The final step was creating two informational posters to display with the animation.
Although I’m happy with my project, I do think I needed a more efficient pipeline for creating my assets. However, the time and attention to detail I put into them means I can be confident in both their quality and accuracy, and ultimately, that was the point of this entire project. If I can bring these animals to life and communicate their story to viewers, then I will have succeeded in what I set out to do: use animation to teach about a subject I love
Investigation of Motor Inhibition Influence on Working Memory Representations
Get PDFMotor inhibition is a cognitive control ability that allows humans to rapidly stop an action even after initiation. Previous research has demonstrated that motor inhibition influence can extend beyond the action one is trying to suppress (Wessel & Aron, 2017). For example, stopping an action initiated in the right had will also decrease muscle excitability in task-unrelated leg muscles. This discovery led to a global theory of inhibition, which tries to explain this non-selective nature of the inhibition process. Researchers began studying this inhibitory process with Electroencephalography (EEG) and found that the psychological motor inhibition process was reflected in a neural signature, known as the fronto-central P3 event-related potential, that indexes successful response inhibition (Wessel & Aron, 2015). With a way to index response inhibition, scientists were able to demonstrate P3 activation and decreased muscle excitability in task-unrelated muscles when following surprising events (Dutra et al., 2018), which lead to a reappraisal of the breadth of psychologically relevant events that induce inhibitory effects. Scientists then began to wonder if this global theory of inhibition extended even beyond the motor system itself. Indeed, working memory was also inhibited when the P3 component was activated via surprise (Wessel et al., 2016). In our study, we designed a new way of quantifying this disruption of working memory by inhibitory control systems during a hybrid working memory/go-nogo task. Specifically, we tested working memory precision when participants received a go-trial (no inhibition) or a nogo-trial (inhibition)
Immigrants Owners of Restaurants in Iowa City
Get PDFIn my honor project of Journalism major, Immigrant Owners of Restaurants in Iowa City, I experienced many struggles and learned a lot from them. In the beginning, I found this independent study pretty late in January, which usually should be decided at the end of last semester. However, I luckily got into this honor project with Professor Kevin Ripka’s approval to be my supervisor
Link Predictions for Social Networks in an Online Health Community
Get PDFOnline social networks are ubiquitous in our daily life and offer different ways for people to interact with each other. Link prediction aims at predicting future social connections or interactions between two users within a social network. This project implements different link prediction algorithms and evaluates their performance for online social networks among users of an online health community for smoking cessations. The social networks were based on users’ online interactions via four communication channels: blog comments, message boards, group discussions and private messages. The outcome of this study will help to provide insights into the design of recommender systems in such online social networks, and to improve user experience and engagement in online health communities
