Beauty from Ashes

Content

Table of Contents ……………………. Page 2

Thesis Proposal …………………….... Page 3

Process Images ………………………. Page 4+

Memory as Materiality …………….…. Page 5

Materiality ……………………………… Page 6

Gathered Elements …………………… Page 7 + 8

Contextualized | Decontextualized … Page 9

Classification Begins ………………… Page 10

Image Story | Personal Expressions Pages 11-14

Inspiration (persons, artwork, music) .. Page 15

Spark of Life…………...……………….. Page 16

Thesis

Reflection and Research Proposal - Patty Bowman Kingsley

As a woman, and single mother of two daughters, I have been privileged to know wonder and to experience people in diverse settings of creativity, life, and leadership. I have also lived through, and beyond, misogynist damage and historic abuse. My body of work will explore this deep history, using the abstraction of form and concept, to decontextualize and recontextualize my lived story.

I embody faith-based pedagogy, engaging with material exploration to find and investigate hope, joy, and meaning. I am interested in the intersections and convergence of time, trauma, and memory, as I honour the joy of living and giving within various communities.

I propose to create process work that expresses the compression of my lived experience over time. As a person who collects memories from land and people, I have gathered materials and objects that historically document significant moments in time from my life. I will investigate the materiality of these artifacts through physical manipulations of their properties, including using destructive violence (fire, and aggressive methods of exploration) as needed.

I will then sort, classify, and display these fragments of material, exploring the convergence of my past, in the context of my present. I am keen to understand, how to learn from and leave behind the past. While still part of me, I wish to travel lightly, in fullness, as I live my one remarkable, creative life.

Process Images

Memory as Materiality

Memory as material to explore mnemonic discoveries through contextualized and decontextualized exploration of objects in the space/time continuum

Materiality Perceptions

gathered

Objects collected over time

History transformed and repositioned through fire and destruction

Gathered Elements

from land, from the sea, from history

Contextualized …Decontextualized

I have created beauty ashes, my whole life, now it is time to do it literally.

Classification

…if I could save time in a bottle…

Classification

…if I could save time in a bottle…

Image Story | Personal Expressions

And so it begins…again…