Date of Award
5-12-2024
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Department of Art
Advisor(s)
Ann Clarke
Second Advisor
Peter Beasecker
Keywords
Ceramic;Cowboy;Gender;Identity;Manifest Destiny;Sculpture
Subject Categories
Arts and Humanities | Fine Arts
Abstract
This thesis dissects the experience of gender in public and private spaces utilizing lessons gathered as a “horse girl.” The concept and experience of being “woman” is navigated through various value systems drawn from Indigenous philosophies, government treaties, the queer experience, the history of the cowboy, familial story-telling, and personal life accounts. The Americanized, Western worldview of gender is analyzed and critiqued. This research discusses the implications the era of “Manifest Destiny” had on the colonization of land, bodies, and ultimately the contemporary idea of identity. I employ the cowboy as a vessel for translating these histories and identities. Our idea of the cowboy is draped in the masculine dressings of the silver screen of Hollywood and spun out of pop-culture folklore. All the while, cowboys were historically impoverished, commonly persecuted individuals from the POC and LGBTQ populations. They have sat offstage, as their culture and identities are cherry-picked and rebranded by the media. I contend with and question these experiences, histories, and American value systems in large-scale figurative ceramic sculptures. Craft materials and processes relating to “women’s work” are paired with these sculptures. The practice of the modern artist is critiqued and the artist is related to a consumer working in conflict with the land-based identity politics discussed in this thesis. I consider what we owe to our community from our consumptive practice. Ultimately, I question the artist’s production and its relationship with the white box of the gallery with its considerable history as the enforcer of the European-colonial identity.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Stone, Katie, "Becoming and Unbecoming "Girl:" Understanding a Gendered Life Through Lessons Learned as a "Horse Girl"" (2024). Theses - ALL. 834.
https://surface.syr.edu/thesis/834
