Date of Award

Summer 8-16-2024

Level of Access Assigned by Author

Open-Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Intermedia

Advisor

Sheridan Kelley Adams

Second Committee Member

Susan Smith

Third Committee Member

Regina Smith

Additional Committee Members

Samantha Jones

Abstract

Sense making in a creative practice is a yearlong auto-ethnographic thesis, archiving what it is, to be a sense maker as an artist. Research shows that sense making by the viewer deepens their appreciation of the art, and to do this, there needs to be sense making art to consider (Strijbosch, Wim, et al. 2022). In the Article, On the neuronal dynamics of aesthetic experience: Evidence from electroencephalographic oscillatory dynamics The MFA thesis begins by touching on the formative ideas that create the guardrails for sense making in a multi-species ecofeminist framework. Sense making is a term used in several fields. In a creative practice, the term sense is used as an adverb to describe making the verb. If one is sense making, they are processing ambiguity through their art practice to understand or ruminate on what it is that they are thinking and potentially learning. Many artists speak of thinking through making, sense making references this idea. The background for sense making has been influenced a series of frameworks, multispecies ecofeminism, the edge effect, Two Eyed Seeing, Native American Paraconsistent Logic, world creating, lifeworlds and storytelling to name a few. The paper explores edges in multiple forms, and the importance of multiple ways of knowing when meeting and walking with the unknown. All of this to situate the making as an artifact of thought. There is a contextual review of othersense makers, both personal and historical. There is a proposition that this is a means to nurture activism or thinking outside the barriers of convenience. It is a call to be aware of the whispered answers that making can provide. The artistic research includes photographic methods, floral arranging, and prose. The discussed MFA show, Sense making in a creative practice, July 2023 to May 2024 was held at the University of Maine, in Lord Hall gallery from May 18, 2024, to July 12, 2024. The small installation material list included, University of Maine softwood cellulose nanofiber, Beam Paints watercolor, copper, hemp string, cordage, twine, and thread. Cellulose nanofiber became a great teacher of sense making, deepening its relevance as an art material and co-creator.

Comments

Thanks to the support of Colleen Walker of The Process Development Center at the University of Maine. Much of the artistic research was contingent on access to Cellulose Nanofiber products.

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