My work explores the intersection among the healing properties of textiles, color, and herbs. Through scent, sight, and touch, the combination of the three gives added functionality to the cloth by drawing on nostalgic feelings of care and comfort. The cloth nurtures the body, mind, and spirit. I infuse this ability into the textiles by using herbs and spices to dye my yarn. I then weave this into a large, thick, warm cloth that has pockets stuffed with dried herbs and spices. This creates a blanketing cloth that is comforting, healing, and protecting.

After 6 months of collecting stories and conducting interviews about menstruation, I wrote and devised a one-act play all about these diverse, comedic, political, heartwarming, and unifying stories. All of them are based on true stories and should shock and motivate the audience for change. It was 2 days shy of opening as a full production in Spring 2020 before the university shut down due to COVID-19, and after some revisions after a year of personal and societal contemplations of justice, it will finally have a staged reading this spring.

Pierre Loti incorporates Christian subtexts throughout his 1886 novel Pêcheur d’Islande. The symbolic representation of Christian figures and imagery helps both to reflect and foreshadow plot points as well as the events and emotions experienced by the characters. This subtext allows for an understanding of the characters’ suffering by comparing them and plot points to Christian figures and biblical events, adding another layer of meaning to their characterizations. Loti also argues for larger ideas through his imagery, such as the ethicality of the draft. The overall effect of this style allows the reader to connect more deeply with the characters and plot, in addition to creating broader ideas and perspectives on events in the novel and their applications in the real world.

In my research, I aim to critique the motives of artists’ use of landscape as a medium during the 1960’s Land Art Movement. Examining several works through an ecosemiotic lens, we see that Land Art can signify the relationship a modern human has to the Earth. While often inevitably symptomatic of the Western ideology from which it was born, many works of Land Art mimic Animistic monuments and practices. The question is whether the work is successful in its attempt to reestablish human attention and connection to the natural world, or if it is an expression of empty spirituality. In a time of increasing environmental crisis, it is important to examine whether a human mark on the land is disruptive or replenishing.

When walking around campus, students are bombarded with information at every turn. There are multiple signs for clubs, flyers on public health, and screens with event information. It is easy for infographics on a wall to be discarded due to poor design. To make sense of this abundance of information, students typically focus on the clearest or most appealing information sources. When not properly thought through, information designs may become busy and confusing. The solution is to focus on the user and tailoring the design to fit those users. By looking at key details in the design, readability and interest can be expanded to offer a clearer and more recognizable final product. Color, typography, and composition are all important considerations when going through the design process. In this project, we wanted to see how each detail of the design affected the user response. Multiple information designs were made, with each either succeeding or failing in each of the three design principles. By allowing users to provide feedback, we were able to prove the importance of the principles and their role in well thought out design. This primary
research is encouraging in support of this idea. However, more research and a larger sample size that is more representative of the general population will be necessary for the future to further decide the effectiveness of the design principles.