Students extract planar shapes from earlier Negative/Positive drawings and transform them into abstract compositions, exploring rhythm, repetition, overlap, transparency, movement, scale, emphasis, balance, and spatial depth while considering how planar forms can suggest metaphor, meaning, and visual content. To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. FOUNDATIONS: ARTS 103 Planar Form: From Observation to Abstraction by Dawn Hunter, Project Author and ARTS 103 Course Director “A created form can be based on reality—recognizable—or abstract—unrecognizable. A form might be created to convey a meaning or message, or it could be merely decorative.” —Wucius Wong, Principles of Two-Dimensional Form The Planar Form Project marks an important transition in ARTS 103 as students move from observation and visual editing toward abstraction, interpretation, and increasingly independent decision-making. Rather than beginning with arbitrary abstract shapes, students return to their earlier Negative/Positive Space drawings and extract enclosed shapes created through the interaction of objects, edges, and negative space. Forms that originated through direct observation are removed from their original context and reconsidered as independent visual elements. Planar Form. Student example exploring repetition, rhythm, scale, overlap, and movement through the organization of abstract planar forms. Repeated shapes and shifting spatial relationships create a vertically structured composition in which formal elements begin to suggest imagery and metaphor without becoming explicitly representational. Continued, Planar Form Project : The extracted enclosed shapes from their Negative/Positive Space drawings are used in the creation of a deck of twenty 4 × 4-inch Planar Form cards that they use to explore a wide array of visual possibilities through thumbnail studies and eventual, more refined, compositions that utilize the same twenty shapes. The focus shifts from attempts to replicate what they had first observed to an investigation of what each shape can do as it is reorganized and recombined. Along the way, students come to realize that the same visual information can be used to create a wide variety of successful solutions, and that the choices one makes as to which information to use, how to select it, how to combine the selected information, how to alter it, and how to employ it within a given composition are all critical. From Negative/Positive Space to Planar Form. A completed Negative/Positive drawing, left, becomes source material for the next stage of the ARTS 103 curriculum. Students identify and extract enclosed shapes from their drawings to create a vocabulary of abstract planar forms, upper right. A classroom critique, lower right, supports the collaborative process of identifying shapes that can be removed from their original context and reconsidered as independent visual forms. Why is learning to re-conceptualizing form important? Learning to re-conceptualize form helps students see that information about visual form is not fixed and can be highly flexible. A form that begins as part of a given object can be ‘retrieved’ and altered to become part of another given object or even become entirely transformed to become part of an entirely abstract composition. In the process of re-conceptualizing form, students move beyond the realm of representation. By using the same formal relationships that the representation uses, students can suggest metaphor, meaning and even content. This ability to retrieve and re-conceptualize prior knowledge is crucial to the student’s development of independent visual thinking. Student work by Ryan Arambula. Planar Form, Project A , left, and Planar Form, Project B , right. Across the two projects, Arambula transforms abstract planar forms through repetition, rhythm, overlap, transparency, scale, movement, pattern, and spatial depth. The works demonstrate the progression from formal experimentation toward increasingly complex visual content, as abstract forms are re-conceptualized to suggest landscape, environment, movement, and metaphor. Applying Planar Form Concepts Building on this formal exercise, students’ consideration of the visual relationships among the repeated, enlarged, and/or overlaid shapes can introduce the subjects of metaphor and content. The various relations of advance and retreat, contraction and expansion, dominance and submission, acceleration and collision, growth and disappearance that are produced by the forms enable a wide range of associations with experience. Student work by Savannah Jones, Danielle Lass, and Mia Lupinacci. These examples document the development of Planar Form from individual extracted shapes to thumbnail experimentation, collaborative revision, and resolved composition. Savannah Jones’s Planar Form deck establishes a vocabulary of re-conceptualized shapes; her thumbnails and Turning Up the Heat collaboration with Danielle Lass demonstrate how those forms can be repeatedly reorganized and transformed. Mia Lupinacci’s thumbnails and final Planar Form, Project B demonstrate the progression from experimentation toward a resolved composition in which formal relationships begin to establish a distinct visual language and content. Recursive Curriculum Diagram Click on the figure to magnify the figure! A Recursive Model for Foundations Learning model illustrating the original curricular model and conceptual framework developed by Dawn Hunter and applied in her ARTS 103, Fundamentals of Art course. Applying Planar Form Concepts continued: Within the larger curriculum of ARTS 103: Foundational Principles, the Planar Form project showcases the kind of recursive learning that keeps students coming back to techniques and observations in new ways. Here, students aren’t simply rehashing their Negative/Positive Space drawings and crude forms, but rather are returning to prior ways of understanding and putting them to use in a novel, increasingly abstract context. That observations of form get translated into shapes, which in turn get transformed into abstract forms and ultimately harbor meaning, is at the heart of the idea of how foundational knowledge can serve a student best: when it can be repeatedly reconsidered, re-adapted, and most importantly, applied independently in novel situations. ARTS 103 Fundamentals of Art student project display. A selection of student work from sequential Foundations assignments demonstrates the progression from observation and Negative/Positive space to the extraction, transformation, and reorganization of planar forms. Displaying projects together makes visible the relationships between assignments and the recursive development of visual thinking across the course. The Assignment Sheets Click on the assignment for the full page to pop-up! Above, Planar Form: Turning Up the Heat . Charles Van de Kree and Elissa Myers. This collaborative exercise asks students to exchange compositions and reinterpret a partner’s visual ideas. Repeated organic forms, converging lines, changes in scale, and a strong central axis carry across the two drawings, while each student makes distinct decisions about spatial depth, movement, emphasis, and visual hierarchy. Conclusion The Planar Form projects ask students to recognize that visual information is not fixed to the context in which it was first created. Shapes discovered through observation in the Negative/Positive Space project are extracted, re-conceptualized, combined, revised, and ultimately used to construct entirely new visual experiences. Through experimentation, thumbnail development, collaboration, and resolved compositions, students move from applying formal principles toward making increasingly independent choices about metaphor, meaning, and content. In this recursive process, earlier learning becomes material for new discovery: students are not simply learning how to organize form, but how to transform what they already know into new ways of seeing, thinking, and communicating visually. Student Artwork | Rowyn Dempsey | Planar Form, Project A Rowyn Dempsey uses repeated opaque planar forms, shifts in scale, and densely crosshatched values to create rhythm, emphasis, and implied spatial depth. The two large groupings establish a dynamic relationship across the composition, while smaller repeated forms move between and around them. Changes in size, placement, repetition, and value create a strong sense of movement while maintaining unity across the composition.

At the University of South Carolina, Dawn Hunter's students explore positive and negative space through observational drawing, Gestalt principles, and figure-ground reversal. Visual information is then extracted and transformed, preparing students to move from perception toward abstraction. To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. FOUNDATIONS: ARTS 103 NEGATIVE POSITIVE SPACE by Dawn Hunter, Project Author and ARTS 103 Course Director “If two objects are close together they define the space in between.” —Donald Judd Visual Perception and Visual Editing: Students investigate spatial perception and abstraction by creating high-contrast black-and-white drawings from direct observation of still-life objects. Through critical interpretation and compositional organization, they develop complex arrangements that explore how positive and negative space define one another. The resulting works integrate principles of fusion, closure, and containment, reinforcing the essential relationship between observation, structure, and the foundational elements of art and design. In this section: Negative/Positive Space Homework, Student example demonstrating the investigation of figure-ground relationships through direct observation. Working in black and white, the student reduces still-life objects and the spaces surrounding them into interconnected positive and negative shapes. The two compositions explore how changes in viewpoint, cropping, and spatial relationships transform the perception of the same visual problem. Continued, Negative/Positive In-Class Work : The Negative/Positive In-Class Work introduces students to the relationship between positive and negative space through direct observation of a still life. Working in stark black and white, students move away from describing individual objects through outlines and instead perceive the composition as an interconnected arrangement of shapes. The first drawing shows a still life as one big positive shape surrounded by empty negative space. On the other hand, the second drawing does something different - it uses a technique called figure-ground reversal. This means students have to discern which shapes best "describe" or "define" space around or within the objects. The must analyze, perceive (find) and draw the negative spaces within or surrounding the still life objects. Why is learning Negative and Positive Space Important? Through studying this short example, students will learn how our brains join together individual parts to make sense of what they see. They will study composition in more detail, and in particular learn about the Gestalt principles of organizing parts to make a whole. The student imagines the edges between the black and white areas and uses cropping, overlap, negative space, cast shadows and the edges of the paper as key elements within the composition. In recognizing these forms, students realize how many shapes are hiding within a work to create unity, balance, depth, movement and a hierarchy. Negative/Positive In-Class Work . Three student examples exploring figure-ground relationships through direct observation of a classroom still life. Working in India ink on 18 × 24-inch paper, students translate observed objects and the spaces between and around them into high-contrast black-and-white shapes. From left to right, the compositions demonstrate different approaches to cropping, containment, closure, overlap, and the organization of positive and negative space, revealing how changes in perception and visual editing can transform the same still life into distinctly different compositions. Applying Negative and Positive Space The drawings also generate visual information that can be revisited and transformed in subsequent projects within the larger curriculum of ARTS 103. The initial investigation of positive and negative space is gradually transformed into a source of abstract planar forms by subsequent problems. Students understand that the visual information generated by a particular problem can be extracted, reconsidered and re-created in response to a new problem. This recursive process prepares students for the transition from perceptual observation to abstraction in the Planar Form projects, the assignment immediately following the Negative and Positive assignment. Learning is carried forward, transformed and applied in new ways throughout the Foundations program. Negative/Positive Homework. Student examples exploring positive and negative space through two pictorial windows within a single composition. Observed objects are simplified into selective black-and-white shapes, allowing subjects to remain recognizable without conventional outlines or descriptive detail while emphasizing implied edges, figure-ground relationships, and the interaction between the individual windows and the larger page. Negative/Positive Homework Building on the in-class investigation of positive and negative space, the Negative/Positive Homework asks students to apply the same perceptual and visual-editing strategies with greater independence. Students select their own still life and develop three thumbnail studies before creating a final composition containing two or three pictorial “windows.” Within each window, observed objects are reduced to interconnected black-and-white shapes, encouraging students to consider figure-ground relationships, grouping, containment, closure, proximity, and the active role of the composition’s edges. Negative/Positive Homework. Student example combining three pictorial windows within a single composition. Each window explores a different figure-ground relationship while repetition of black and white shapes creates visual unity across the page. The introduction of multiple windows expands the problem from observing and simplifying a still life to organizing relationships across an entire page. In this homework students see how different compositions relate to each other and to the page as a whole. Additionally, there is a relationship between closure and containment. For example, shapes and spaces "continue" and their proximity changes within the relational whole from one window pictorial window to the next. Thus how one crops, and balances forms or utilizes implied lines and edges can create unity and movement within a composition. These are all points that students learned about through the in-class drawings, and now they have to reapply that knowledge to solve a more complex The Assignment Sheet Click on the assignment for the full page to pop-up! Conclusion Together, the Negative/Positive In-Class Work and Homework move students from guided observation toward increasingly independent visual decision-making. Students first learn to recognize that the spaces surrounding and occurring within objects are as visually active as the objects themselves. They then apply that understanding to a more complex problem in which cropping, figure-ground relationships, proximity, containment, closure, implied continuation, and the edges of the page must be considered across multiple pictorial windows. What begins as an exercise in perception therefore becomes an investigation of composition and visual organization. Just as importantly, the drawings do not end with the assignment. The black-and-white shapes students discover through observation become source material for the Planar Form projects that follow. Forms are extracted from their original still-life context, altered, repeated, enlarged, overlapped, and reorganized to solve new compositional problems. In this transition, students begin to experience a central idea of the ARTS 103 curriculum: visual information created in one context can be retrieved, transformed, and applied in another. Negative/Positive Space therefore serves as both an investigation of perception and an important bridge from observation to abstraction, preparing students to use what they have learned rather than simply leave it behind when the next assignment begins. Negative/Positive Homework. Student example using two pictorial windows to investigate figure-ground relationships, containment, closure, and compositional unity. Forms extend beyond and between the windows, encouraging the viewer to perceive the black and white shapes as parts of a larger visual whole.

Interviews with notable South Carolina figures, plus outdoor activities, cultural events, and Dawn Hunter’s award-winning art on Dawn Hunter | South Carolina Sunshine. Southern 500, Darlington, SC The Southern 500, officially known as the Cook Out Southern 500 for sponsorship reasons, is a NASCAR Cup Series stock car race at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina, United States. MOJA Arts Festival, Charleston, SC The festival annually recognizes the African American traditions and cultural legacies of four selected West African and Caribbean countries. The 2026 festival will celebrate Barbados, Gullah Geechee, Jamaica and Sierra Leone. Sunrise at the Beach Bulls Island, South Carolina Southern 500, Darlington, SC The Southern 500, officially known as the Cook Out Southern 500 for sponsorship reasons, is a NASCAR Cup Series stock car race at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina, United States. 1/12 Interviews, features, and discoveries across South Carolina Dawn Hunter Art ® | South Carolina Sunshine™ is a lifestyle webzine dedicated to promoting all things South Carolina and is part of the Dawn Hunter Art ® boutique web network. This website is a collaborative project of visual artist and Fulbright Scholar Dawn Hunter and her daughter, Darcy. Together, they learn about and explore the state's vibrant culture, discover its hidden gems, and learn about the great people who make up its communities. There is a particular focus on events that extend beyond local communities by featuring "happenings" with regional, national, and international connections. They feature an online listing of outdoor activities in South Carolina. For the culture enthusiast , they regularly publish photo essays of art exhibitions. Dawn Hunter Art ® | South Carolina Sunshine™ provides curated content with a unique and intimate look into what makes the state special. Along the way, Dawn is committed to sharing her creative life and process with others in the Studio Visit section. Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Two New Studio Visits! First up: ArtFields 2026 Dawn Hunter's The Last Art School of the Living and Dead displayed in the Lake City, SC annual exhibition! View photos of the exhibit and read an essay about the painting developed over time—where memory, mentorship, and lived experience come together in a shifting visual landscape. Enter the Studio Visit page here! Next: Society for Neuroscience Go behind the scenes and read about Dawn Hunter's process when she drew Pasko Rakic at the annual Cajal Club social. A portrait drawn from life, capturing a moment of focus and exchange, where drawing becomes a way of seeing and engaging with the process of thought and observation. Enter the Studio Visit page here! New Interview Meet Udorji Oji, emerging artist, currently studying Biological Sciences and Art Studio at the University of South Carolina. Known for his striking colored pencil work, Oji blends realism with conceptual exploration, drawing inspiration from both academic training and personal history. A recent participant in major exhibitions like the SVAD Juried Art Exhibition and Artista Vista: Rooted, he is now focused on expanding his portfolio and revisiting the conceptual themes that first sparked his passion. Click Here to Read the Full Interview! Featured Sections About Experience South Carolina! - the inspiration behind our website, we are fueled by the remarkable talents and accomplishments of individuals in the Palmetto state. With a unique blend of art, science, and community service, we've crafted a vision for a site that transcends the ordinary. Browse our online webzine that celebrates and explores the exceptional people, enchanting culture and natural beauty of South Carolina. Go to About SC People Dawn Hunter's SC People section for South Carolina Sunshine™ provides exclusive interviews with notable individuals contributing significantly to their communities throughout the state. From community and business leaders to creatives, each story sheds light on South Carolina's rich diversity and evolving culture. Stay tuned for our following lineup featuring inspiring conversations with engaging artists, entrepreneurs, and educators shaping our present and mapping our future lives. In this photo, Nakisa Abdollahbeigi at her exhibition opening, Carry On. Go to SC People Outdoors South Carolina Sunshine™ | Outdoors section is your resource for exploring the stunning landscapes, hiking trails, and outdoor activities in South Carolina. We have organized a collection of must-see places and exciting things to do. Embark on unforgettable adventures and create cherished memories as you experience the natural beauty and charm of South Carolina's great outdoors. Go to Outdoors Culture Welcome to South Carolina Sunshine™, your ultimate guide to the vibrant cultural events that make the Palmetto State shine. Our specially catalogued content features an array of exceptional happenings across South Carolina, ensuring you stay informed and inspired. Immerse yourself in the rich tapestry of our state's culture and discover events that capture the essence of South Carolina Sunshine™. Go to Culture Dish with Darcy Join Darcy, Dawn Hunter's vivacious daughter, as she embarks on mouthwatering culinary adventures throughout the Palmetto State. Accompanied by friends, local talent, and a passion for food, Darcy showcases South Carolina's diverse and delectable cuisine. Embrace Darcy's motto, "food prepared is meant to be shared," and savor the scrumptious flavors of our beloved region with Dish with Darcy™. Go to Dish with Darcy Studio Visit Join artist Dawn Hunter for a Studio Visit. Here you'll journey through her creative world. Explore a captivating photo essays and "Tumblr" page that showcases her past, present, and future projects, reflecting the depth and diversity of her artistic endeavors and gain a unique insight into the creative process of this talented South Carolinian artist Go to Studio Visit Events Calendar - Get your 'SC Daily Sip' Unearth South Carolina's hidden gems with 'SC Daily Sip', your curated events compass to the state's best food, art, concerts, and more - click to start exploring today! Take Me There Get Outside! Explore Congaree Discover the Congaree National Park , a host to a diversity of plant and animal wild life. It is one of largest preserved stretch of old growth bottomland hardwood forest in the southeastern United States. The floodplain is revitalized by the waters of the Congaree and Wateree Rivers, which deliver essential nutrients and sediments. This natural process fosters a rich ecosystem and sustains the impressive national and state champion trees found within the park. Experience Botany Bay Heritage Preserve Explore the untamed natural beauty of Botany Bay Heritage Preserve which spans 4,600 acres on Edisto Island. The maritime forest and tidal creek of this Lowcountry beach allow visitors to see weathered trees that resemble natural sculptures rising from the sand. The coastal sanctuary provides walking trails and is home to some of South Carolina's diverse wildlife comprised of more than 100 bird species. This hidden gem, is rich with cultural and ecological heritage and is just a scenic drive from Charleston. Escape to Bulls Island Bulls Island stands as the largest of four barrier islands within the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge, remaining remarkably untouched and pristine. Established in 1932, this refuge is dedicated to safeguarding wildlife and their habitats across its expansive 5,000-acre expanse. Bulls Island boasts a flourishing maritime forest enriched by a variety of fresh and brackish water impoundments, alongside a picturesque beachfront. Extensive networks of roads and trails crisscross the island, providing abundant chances for hiking and wildlife observation. Brought to you by artist Dawn Hunter, recipient of awards including a Fulbright Fellowship and a Starr Foundation Fellowship, as featured in… crazyhorse/ swamp pink CIRCULATING NOW

The Shrine Inventory and Final Project asks students to transform personal objects and experiences into visual metaphors, integrating observation, symbolism, mixed media, and prior learning through deconstruction and reconstruction. To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. FOUNDATIONS: ARTS 103 Significant Content: Shrine Inventory and Final Project by Dawn Hunter, Project Author and ARTS 103 Course Director. Based on Shannon Lindsey’s Content and Metaphor Project and Jim Sajovic’s Foundations Shrine Project “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” —Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island Deconstruction, Reconstruction, and Independent Meaning: The Shrine Inventory and Final Project brings together the formal, perceptual, and conceptual strategies developed throughout ARTS 103. Students begin by constructing a personal assemblage—a “shrine”—from objects, images, clothing, papers, and other materials connected to their lives and experiences. Rather than beginning with a predetermined image for the final composition, students first create an environment rich with personal associations and visual information. Olivia Askins | Shrine Final Project Mixed media In her final composition, Olivia Askins transforms materials and imagery explored through her shrine and preliminary studies into a layered mixed-media work. The flowers symbolize childhood, growth, and her discovery that art can extend beyond drawing through experimentation with materials, layering, and reinterpretation. Crocheted borders, fiber flowers and stems, celestial imagery, and metallic spirals bring drawing, collage, pattern, and physical texture together within the composition. Continued, Significant Content The shrine then becomes the subject of sustained observation, interpretation, and transformation. Students examine the assemblage from multiple viewpoints, isolate portions of it, investigate positive and negative space, and develop a series of thumbnails that translate the three-dimensional arrangement into possible two-dimensional compositions. The final work may be abstract or representational, but it must communicate a concept. At this stage of the course, the elements and principles of design are no longer the subject of the assignment. They have become tools students use to communicate something else. Shrine Inventory and Preliminary Studies | Olivia Askins Olivia Askins’s shrine, left, establishes an inventory of personal materials, textures, imagery, and symbols that become the starting point for her final project. In her preliminary studies, right, she selects and transforms elements from the assemblage through collage, crochet, drawing, pattern, and abstraction. Flowers, curving stems, celestial imagery, and spiral forms emerge as recurring motifs as Askins moves from intuitive assemblage toward a more intentional exploration of childhood, growth, and creative discovery. Building the Shrine: Personal Experience as Visual Material Students begin by creating an assemblage that reflects something about themselves or their life experiences. The shrine is intentionally open-ended. Objects may carry personal histories, cultural associations, memories, or symbolic meanings, while other selections may initially be made intuitively. This process builds upon the intuitive approach introduced in Slashing Symbols. Students do not need to know exactly what every object will mean before they begin. Instead, making and arranging become forms of discovery. Relationships emerge through juxtaposition, repetition, scale, placement, material, and association. The resulting shrine is not the final artwork. It is an inventory of visual and conceptual possibilities from which the student will work. Shrine Inventory and Preliminary Studies | Alondra Olvera Olvera’s shrine, left, establishes a visual and symbolic vocabulary through contrasting black and white, corn fiber, and repeated triangular forms. Her preliminary studies, right, deconstruct and reorganize that vocabulary through experiments with pattern, movement, positive and negative space, and the emerging image of a snake. These investigations provide the bridge between the intuitive assemblage and the more resolved symbolism of the final composition. From Three Dimensions to Two Once the shrine has been constructed, students shift from intuitive assemblage to careful observation. They examine the setup from different positions and distances, looking for both its essence and its totality. What distinguishes this particular arrangement? Where do positive and negative spaces occur? Are there dominant diagonals, repeated shapes, patterns, or unexpected relationships? What happens when a small section is isolated from the whole? Students record these observations through a series of thumbnails. As in the earlier Planar Form projects, the thumbnail is not simply a miniature version of a predetermined final composition. It is a space for testing possibilities. Students may crop, enlarge, simplify, layer, abstract, or combine different portions of the shrine. Through this process, observation begins to move toward interpretation. Shrine Inventory, Preliminary Studies, and Final Project | Ella Hasek Ella Hasek’s project documents the transformation of a densely layered personal shrine into an increasingly focused visual vocabulary. Through her preliminary studies, Hasek selects and reinterprets recurring imagery—including butterflies, an eye, flowers, mushrooms, a figure, and celestial references—while experimenting with scale, color, positive and negative space, text, and juxtaposition. In the final composition, these previously separate elements are reconstructed into a unified moon-like environment organized around the question, “How far is the moon?” The sequence demonstrates how observation, selection, deconstruction, and experimentation can transform personal source material into an independent visual composition. Deconstruction and Reconstruction The Shrine project returns to a process students have encountered throughout the semester: taking visual information apart in order to understand what else it can become. In earlier projects, students extracted shapes from negative space, transformed observed information into planar forms, or physically fragmented previous paintings in Quilting Bee. Here, the process becomes more independent. Students determine what should be retained, eliminated, emphasized, altered, or combined. An object does not have to remain an object. Its contour might become a shape. A gap between objects might become a dominant negative space. A fragment of clothing might contribute texture or pattern. A personally meaningful object might be transformed into a metaphor rather than represented literally. The movement can be understood as: PERSONAL EXPERIENCE → ASSEMBLAGE → OBSERVATION → DECONSTRUCTION → INTERPRETATION → RECONSTRUCTION → MEANING Shrine Inventory, Preliminary Studies, and Final Project | Student Artwork This sequence documents the progression from personal assemblage to preliminary exploration and final composition. The student selects recurring imagery from the shrine—including polyhedral dice, fishhooks, circular forms, and reflective surfaces—and tests new arrangements through a series of thumbnails. In the final project, these elements are enlarged, abstracted, and reconstructed through color, texture, repetition, and changes in scale, demonstrating how visual information gathered in the shrine can be transformed into an independent composition. Symbol, Metaphor, and Significant Content The Shrine project also extends the investigation of symbolism begun in Slashing Symbols. Students work with imagery and objects that originate in their own experiences and decide how those materials can contribute to a larger idea. They may select a single symbol or metaphor from the shrine, combine several associations, or allow the overall character of the assemblage to become the conceptual basis of the final work. Meaning can emerge through representation, abstraction, material, texture, juxtaposition, or the relationships among forms. The goal is not to illustrate a personal story literally. Instead, students consider how visual decisions can carry meaning. This distinction is central to Significant Content: students move from learning how visual language operates to deciding what they want that language to communicate. Shrine Inventory, Preliminary Studies, and Final Project | Lily Pruitt This sequence traces Lily Pruitt’s development from a densely layered personal shrine through preliminary experimentation to a resolved final composition. Pruitt selects recurring colors, flowers, patterns, geometric forms, and linear motifs from the shrine and tests new combinations through her thumbnails. In the final work, these elements are deconstructed, abstracted, and reconstructed around a new central image, demonstrating how personal source material can be transformed rather than simply carried forward from one stage of the project to the next. Retrieving the Foundations Vocabulary Although this is the final project, students are not being asked to abandon the formal knowledge developed earlier in the semester. They are expected to retrieve it. Positive and negative space, line, shape, value, texture, repetition, movement, balance, scale, emphasis, and other principles remain available to them. Students intentionally incorporate emphasis and additional elements and principles of design, but they determine how those choices support the concept rather than treating them as isolated requirements. The mixed-media format expands those possibilities. Drawing media, India ink, paint, collage, gel medium, physical texture, and found material may be layered and overlapped within the final 18 × 24-inch composition. The complexity of the materials therefore parallels the increasing complexity of the thinking. Shrine Inventory, Preliminary Studies, and Final Project | Renee Carroll This sequence traces Renee Carroll’s development from a densely layered shrine through preliminary studies to a more abstract final composition. Carroll investigates contrasts already present in the shrine—dark and light, rough and smooth, muted and saturated, fragmented and whole—while repeatedly returning to torn book pages as both image and material. Through the studies, she tests different ways of reorganizing these elements before arriving at a final work that transforms the shrine’s physical textures and visual contrasts into a new composition. From Directed Application to Independent Retrieval Throughout ARTS 103, students encounter visual strategies in increasingly different contexts. Early assignments provide relatively explicit problems and constraints. Later projects ask students to retrieve those strategies without being told exactly how each one should be used. The Shrine Final represents an important point in that progression. Students have accumulated a vocabulary through drawing, collage, observation, abstraction, composition, and previous Significant Content projects. They now decide which parts of that vocabulary are useful to the problem they have created for themselves. The educational movement is therefore not simply from beginning skills to more advanced skills. It is a movement from directed application toward independent retrieval and adaptation. Students demonstrate transfer when they recognize that something learned in an earlier context can help them solve a problem that looks very different from the one in which that knowledge was first acquired. Shrine Inventory and Final Project | Khalon (Robert) Thompson This pairing shows Khalon Thompson’s progression from the collection and organization of personal visual material in the Shrine Inventory to the deliberate construction of metaphor and symbolism in the Final Project. In the final work, Thompson uses the mask, fragmented imagery, color, balance, and the figure to address presentation, disconnection, perfection, internal pressure, and opposing states. His reflection also points back to an earlier stage of the course: Thompson identifies the Planar Art Form project as the project from which he learned the most, noting that he now uses those concepts in his abstract sketches and finds them useful for understanding “abstraction, design, metaphor and symbolism.” Seeing, Thinking, Making, and Problem-Solving The Shrine project brings the recursive structure of the course together. Students discover possibilities through intuitive assemblage. They perceive relationships through observation. They interpret personal objects and visual associations. They construct the shrine and preliminary compositions. They deconstruct those arrangements through cropping, abstraction, selection, and experimentation. Finally, they reconstruct that information as an independent work communicating significant content. In that sense, the final project does not mark the end of a linear sequence. It demonstrates how the processes practiced throughout the semester can operate together: DISCOVERY → PERCEPTION → INTERPRETATION → CONSTRUCTION → DECONSTRUCTION → RECONSTRUCTION ↺ Seeing, thinking, making, problem-solving, and communicating are no longer separated into individual exercises. They operate simultaneously as part of the student's creative process. Student Artwork | Artist Study to Quilting Bee The original artist-study painting, left, becomes the source material for the Quilting Bee composition, right. After making high-quality copies of the painting, the student cut the reproductions into one-inch squares and reorganized the fragments into a repeat pattern with anomalies. Shapes, lines, values, and painted marks that originally described objects in the still life are removed from their first context and transformed into a new geometric visual system. The pairing demonstrates how students deconstruct, re-contextualize, and reconstruct their previous work to create new visual meaning. The Final Composition The final 18 × 24-inch mixed-media composition may be representational or abstract. Students layer drawing, ink, paint, collage, and intentionally created physical texture while considering the form, shape, surface, and organization of the composition as a whole. Most importantly, the final work must communicate a concept developed from the student's shrine and the process of investigating it. By this point, students have repeatedly encountered many of the same visual ideas under different conditions. The Final Project asks them to determine which of those ideas matter now, how they can be transformed, and how they can be used to communicate something personally meaningful. Foundational knowledge is no longer simply something students have learned. It becomes something they can retrieve, adapt, transform, and use independently. Student Artwork | Shrine Inventory and Final Project The student develops imagery first explored in the Shrine and thumbnails into a final mixed-media composition centered on a large green eye. Layers of collaged text, painted marks, repeated linear patterns, and contrasting fields of warm and cool color surround the eye, while areas of black interrupt and connect the composition. The final work demonstrates how imagery and visual information gathered through the Shrine process can be selected, transformed, and reconstructed into a new composition. The Assignment Sheet Click on the assignment for the full page to pop-up!

Quilting Bee asks students to deconstruct earlier paintings and reconstruct them as repeat patterns with an anomaly, transforming existing visual material through re-contextualization, metaphor, collaboration, and creative problem-solving. To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. FOUNDATIONS: ARTS 103 Quilting Bee: Deconstruction and Reconstruction by Dawn Hunter, Project Author and ARTS 103 Course Director “There is nothing wrong with having a tree as a friend.” —Bob Ross Quilting Bee asks students to reconsider artwork they have already made as material for new visual thinking. Using high-quality photocopies of paintings created during earlier artist studies, students cut their previous work into one-inch squares and reconstruct those fragments within an 18 × 18-inch grid. The resulting composition establishes a repeat pattern interrupted by an anomaly. At first glance, this project follows a predetermined format, but its conceptual meaning is much greater. Instead of describing a favorite tree literally, students use pattern, texture, repetition and variation as well as anomaly to metaphorically represent the tree. Marks and textures originally created in response to another artist are removed from their previous context and given new visual and conceptual functions. Student Artwork | Artist Study and Quilting Bee: Picasso The student created high-quality photocopies of paintings developed through an earlier study of Picasso's work and cut the reproductions into one-inch squares. By reorganizing fragments of value, texture, and painted marks within the grid, the student transformed material from the previous assignment into a repeat pattern incorporating an anomaly. Continued, Quilting Bee The project therefore operates through two related processes: deconstruction and reconstruction. Students physically dismantle earlier paintings while also reconsidering what their existing visual information can become. Progression figure, Quilting Bee: Deconstruction and Reconstruction. From left: Alberto Giacometti’s The Studio; a student artist-study painting interpreting Giacometti’s work; and the student’s subsequent Quilting Bee composition. The student photocopied the earlier painting, cut the reproductions into one-inch squares, and re-contextualized the fragments to create a repeat pattern with an anomaly. The sequence demonstrates how visual information developed in one assignment is retrieved, deconstructed, transformed, and reconstructed to address a new formal and conceptual problem. Re-contextualizing Previous Work Quilting Bee is sourced from paintings produced by students in earlier lessons of the course when studying the work of artists such as Picasso, Chagall, Mondrian and Matisse within the context of a specific assignment. In Quilting Bee these paintings are used as a source of marks, values, shapes and textures. Photocopying the individual paintings and then cutting them into one-inch squares of paint means that the brushstrokes originally used to draw a figure, object, branch or background are now re-worked as abstract units of value or texture. Once extracted from its original context, the fragment can be repeated, rotated, relocated, or combined with other fragments to perform an entirely different visual role. This process introduces students to re-contextualization: visual information does not have a permanently fixed function. Its meaning and formal role can change when its context changes. Student Artwork | Artist Study to Quilting Bee The original artist-study painting, left, becomes the source material for the Quilting Bee composition, right. After making high-quality copies of the painting, the student cut the reproductions into one-inch squares and reorganized the fragments into a repeat pattern with anomalies. Shapes, lines, values, and painted marks that originally described objects in the still life are removed from their first context and transformed into a new geometric visual system. The pairing demonstrates how students deconstruct, re-contextualize, and reconstruct their previous work to create new visual meaning. From Previous Knowledge to a New Problem Quilting Bee is intentionally dependent upon earlier coursework. Students cannot approach the project as an isolated exercise because its raw material already carries the history of decisions made in previous assignments. This makes the project an important point in the recursive structure of ARTS 103. Students retrieve previous work, identify useful visual information within it, deconstruct that information, and adapt it to a new problem. What was once a finished painting becomes source material for another creative process. The progression can be understood as: PREVIOUS WORK → SELECTION → DECONSTRUCTION → RECONTEXTUALIZATION → RECONSTRUCTION → NEW MEANING Students are therefore not simply repeating something they already know how to do. They are learning that previous knowledge and previous artwork can be transformed when the conditions of a problem change. Student Artwork | Artist Study to Quilting Bee The student’s artist study of Picasso, left, becomes the source material for the Quilting Bee composition, right. After reproducing the painting, the student deconstructed it into one-inch squares and reorganized the fragments into a repeat pattern with anomalies. Brushstrokes, shapes, lines, and passages of value that originally functioned within a figurative composition are re-contextualized as abstract visual information. The resulting work demonstrates how students retrieve material from an earlier assignment and transform it to address a new formal and conceptual problem. Pattern, Anomaly, and Visual Structure The one-inch grid provides a common structure for every student, but it does not prescribe the resulting composition. Within that structure, students must develop a repeat pattern using differences in value, texture, shape, direction, and visual density. An anomaly interrupts the repetition. Rather than functioning as an arbitrary decorative variation, the anomaly becomes a focal point and introduces difference within an otherwise predictable system. Students consider what happens visually when repetition establishes an expectation and a single element—or group of elements—breaks that expectation. The grid consequently operates as both a limitation and a generative structure. The same one-inch module can produce dramatically different compositions depending upon how students select, organize, repeat, and interrupt their source material. Using Formal Language to Communicate Metaphor The conceptual prompt asks students to describe a favorite tree without necessarily depicting a tree. Instead, students consider qualities associated with that tree: movement, stability, growth, memory, rhythm, density, fragility, strength, transcendence, or other personal associations. They then determine how those ideas might be communicated through the formal language available to them. Texture can suggest a sensation or atmosphere. Repetition can imply rhythm or continuity. Changes in value can establish movement or emphasis. An anomaly can signify disruption, individuality, transformation, or another idea generated through the student's metaphor. At this point in the course, formal elements and design principles begin to function as tools for communicating something beyond themselves. Pattern, texture, value, repetition, and focal point are no longer simply concepts to demonstrate; students use them to construct meaning. The Assignment Sheet Click on the assignment for the full page to pop-up! Collaboration and Brainstorming The project incorporates a collaborative brainstorming process inspired by the communal nature suggested by the title Quilting Bee . Students work with a partner to review their available photocopies, discuss possible metaphors, compare textures and marks, and generate different approaches to the repeat pattern and anomaly. Partners may exchange source material, but each student ultimately creates an individual composition. Collaboration functions as a means of expanding possibilities rather than producing a shared final work. Students are encouraged to ask one another how a mark might change when removed from its previous environment, which textures could support a particular idea, and how the organization of the grid might reinforce the intended metaphor. In this way, discussion becomes another form of experimentation. Why “Quilting Bee”? The title Quilting Bee reflects both the structure of the project and its origins in my own experience growing up in the rural Midwest. Quilting bees and the reuse of fabric were familiar parts of that environment. Scraps retained from earlier purposes could be cut, rearranged, combined, and transformed into something new. That process provided the conceptual foundation for this assignment. Instead of fabric, students work with fragments of their own previous paintings. Existing material is not discarded simply because its original purpose has been fulfilled. It becomes a resource that can be dismantled, reconsidered, and reconstructed. The analogy is especially appropriate to a Foundations curriculum because it emphasizes that creative development does not always require beginning again. Making can also involve returning, selecting, transforming, and rebuilding. Student Artwork | Artist Studies and Quilting Bee: Deconstruction and Reconstruction These student works demonstrate the progression from earlier artist-study paintings to the Quilting Bee project. Students photocopied their paintings, cut the reproductions into one-inch squares, and re-contextualized the fragments within a grid to create repeat patterns with an anomaly. Shown together, the works illustrate how previously created visual information can be deconstructed, transformed, and reconstructed to communicate new formal and metaphorical ideas. Deconstruction and Reconstruction as Transfer Within the larger sequence of ARTS 103, Quilting Bee represents a significant transition toward independent visual thinking. Earlier projects establish skills in observation, composition, positive and negative space, planar form, texture, repetition, and visual organization. Here, students must retrieve aspects of that developing knowledge and determine how to use them in a different context. The physical procedure mirrors the intellectual process. Students literally cut apart previous work, but they are also learning to dismantle their assumptions about what that work is and what it can do. A painting is no longer only a painting. A brushstroke no longer belongs exclusively to the image for which it was originally created. A fragment can become texture; texture can establish pattern; pattern can communicate metaphor; and an interruption in that pattern can create meaning. What students reconstruct is therefore not simply an image. They reconstruct their relationship to visual information.

Explore a visual narrative and a dedicated 'Tumblr' page showcasing the creative journey of South Carolinian artist, Dawn Hunter. Experience her past, present, and upcoming projects through this captivating photo essay Studio Visit A PHOTO ESSAY AND "TUMBLR" PAGE FEATURING PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE PROJECTS BY SOUTH CAROLINIAN ARTIST, DAWN HUNTER. Table of Contents Icons Currently highlightin work inspired by Santiago Ramón y Cajal, exploring neuroscience through drawing, painting, and archival research. Studio Practice + Teaching Practice Studio Visit offers a look inside my creative practice as both an artist and educator. The projects collected here move between my personal artwork, research, exhibitions, sketchbooks, and works in progress, as well as selected teaching portfolios that document the assignments, processes, and student work developed in my studio courses. For me, these two areas of practice are closely connected. The same interests in observation, experimentation, visual perception, interpretation, and creative problem-solving that shape my artwork also inform the way I teach. The portfolios below provide different points of entry into that ongoing exchange—some lead into my studio and research projects, while others open the door to my classroom and the creative processes I develop with students. I especially like “some lead into my studio…while others open the door to my classroom” for this page. It makes the repeater structure understandable without sounding like website instructions, and it fits the idea of a Studio Visit very naturally. EXPLORE PERSONAL ARTWORK EXPLORE TEACHING PORTFOLIO The Last Art School of the Living and Dead Personal Artwork: This painting has developed over time and remains a means of holding together the memory, experience and influence that it has embodied from the start. It was a painting about loss which has become a very complex, deeply layered and multi-layered work. The physical marks on the painting’s surface evolve from early explorations into marks and color, to more assured and complex uses of all of these in order to paint personal memories and the influences of earlier art. Portraits, shards and other symbols appear in the painting. Often they have been developed from a variety of sources and then reworked and recombined in non-linear fashion and, on occasions, returned to the surface of the painting at a later date in order to revisit an earlier experience or to reflect upon it. More Drawing Neuroscience Legend Pasko Rakic Personal Artwork: The Studio Visit above is a drawing of neuroscientist Pasko Rakic by Dawn Hunter at the Cajal Club Social at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego. Dr. Rakic, one of the leading researchers on the developing cerebral cortex, has maintained contact with the Club over the years. He was invited to join the Club by founder Wendell Krieg. In this Studio Visit Hunter drew the neuroscientist while Rakic discussed his early interest in art and how the drawings of cortical structures by Santiago Ramón y Cajal influenced his decision to become a scientist. The drawing shows the moment of conversation between the artist and the scientist, totally absorbed by what is going on while the artist is completing the work in one sitting. The drawing is more than a portrait of Rakic. It shows the artist’s position within the tradition of art and neuroscience and how his observation, memory and influence of Cajal’s visual approach to neuroscience is being extended to the contemporary scientific and artistic practice. More Atlanta Travel Drawings Personal Artwork: This studio visit highlights a recent sketchbook series made on a trip to Atlanta, where I carried my book everywhere and drew from life. At the High Museum of Art I made studies after two large acrylics by the celebrated South Korean painter Kim Chong Hak's works Autumn and Pandemonium . Responding to Kim’s luminous florals and mountain imagery, my drawings explore how line, rhythm, and simplified shape can translate the vitality of another artist’s vision while remaining unmistakably my own. Beyond the galleries, I turned to the people of Midtown. At the bar Politan Row, Colony Square, I worked rapidly, building pages of caricature-like portraits of the guests. One encounter became a sustained portrait: Kree, a young pregnant nursing student on a staycation with her boyfriend. The drawing slows the pace of the environment around her, describing calm poise amid the crowd. More Cajal Club Life-Time Achievement Awards Personal Artwork: I had the honor of designing the Krieg Lifetime Achievement Awards for the Cajal Club two years in a row—celebrating Dr. Charles E. Ribak in 2023 and Dr. Larry Swanson in 2024. Each award features two historic certificates, one signed by Santiago Ramón y Cajal and the other by Wendell Krieg, founder of the Cajal Club. Drawing on their shared legacy as neuroanatomical illustrators, I approached the project as a visual homage and narrative translation—combining historic symbolism, hand-rendered elements, and custom presentation cases to reflect the scientific and personal contributions of each recipient. More Dawn Hunter Art ® | Collected Works Personal Artwork: Welcome to the online portfolio collection of Dawn Hunter, an Associate Professor at USC, a Fulbright Scholar, and a passionate, prolific visual artist. With two decades under her belt, exhibiting her art at leading educational institutions and professional galleries, she's made a profound mark in the art world. In an effort to provide an effortless browsing experience and ensure her diverse portfolio themes are accessible, Dawn has curated a collection of specialized websites, each dedicated to a distinct theme and content. Consider this your gateway to a vast array of Dawn's creative endeavors and portfolios, each a testament to her extensive career and artistic evolution. More Cajal: Scientific Drawings and Landscapes Personal Artwork: Step into the world of Cajal's Scientific Drawings and Plein Air Landscape paintings of locations where he lived. Cajal's remarkable scientific illustrations are a testament to his keen observation and remarkable talent for visually conveying complex concepts. Inspired by Cajal's legacy, Dawn embarks on a creative journey by painting landscapes from his birthplace, interweaving them with rendered neuron imagery. Through this artistic fusion, she aims to capture the environment that fueled his scientific pursuits visually. More Artfields 10th Anniversary Exhibit Personal Artwork: "I am thrilled to announce that my artwork, The Darcy Inventory, has been chosen for this prestigious exhibition. In addition to preparing for the showcase, I've been keeping busy creating captivating Instagram Reels. The Darcy Inventory is a thought-provoking portrait installation I crafted in October. It explores, through visual art, profound themes such as race, identity, societal norms, and the intricate dynamics of our modern culture's daughter/mother relationship. Join me on this artistic journey and witness the power of visual storytelling at ArtFields! " ~Dawn Hunter More The Dance: A Cell Block Tango Biological Pun Personal Artwork: Unleash your imagination and explore the captivating connection between dancers and the intricate world of cells. Picture them gracefully moving at the center of the cell, akin to the nucleus—the very command center that orchestrates growth, division, and gene expression. Prepare to be enthralled by Dawn's latest painting series, a fusion of the mesmerizing "Cell Block Tango" dance and Santiago Ramón y Cajal's legendary neuron imagery. Through a blend of art and science, these figurative works unravel the narrative of a cell's function, weaving together the beauty of movement and the intricate workings of cellular life. Join this artistic journey where art and science harmoniously intertwine. More Portraits 2022 Personal Artwork: Immerse yourself in the world of Facetober, created by critically acclaimed illustrator Charly Clements. "I use the opportunity of this social media challenge to focus on the sub-theme of my daughter, Darcy. I experimented with portraiture, color, and patterns to create a warm and intimate atmosphere. Among this series, Darcy's favorite portrait, featuring blue braids and gold hoop earrings, exudes sophistication and mystery. These expressive images depict our evolving relationship, showcasing our collaboration and the joy we share." ~Dawn Hunter More SciArt September 2022 Personal Artwork: Embark on a journey of artistic discovery with SciArtSeptember, an enriching social media event in which Dawn has had the pleasure of participating in for the second time. What truly excites her is the opportunity to respond to thought-provoking prompts through her artwork, exploring various topics within science and art. This event catalyzes connecting with other talented artists, providing a platform to learn and grow together. She is grateful to Liz Butler (@liz_lagomorph ) and Glendon Mellow (@FlyingTrilobite ) for creating and hosting this annual SciArtSeptember initiative, fostering a vibrant community of creative minds. More Summer Drawings Personal Artwork: Welcome to the Summertime Drawing Board of Rodin's artwork! During this summer, Dawn's artistic focus revolved around historical subjects such as the Rodin exhibition at the Columbia Museum of Art and the picturesque scenes at the Riverbanks Zoo , which inspired her Plein air sketches. In a fusion of these experiences, her studio became a hub of creativity. This photo essay showcases a glimpse of the various artistic processes involved, including drawings of Rodin statues completed in Madrid (distinguished by an orange background) and her CMA Rodin drawings featuring either white or yellow backgrounds. Rather than simply a sketchbook, she prefers to refer to this collection as a "drawing board." Back in the studio, she had the opportunity to develop these artworks further, exploring new dimensions and possibilities. More Art of Neuroscience Personal Artwork: "I am thrilled to share that my artwork, "Dueling Cajals," received an Honorable Mention prize in the prestigious 2022 Art of Neuroscience competition out of the Netherlands. The jury was struck by this submission, which uniquely explores the history of neuroscience. The piece weaves together diverse periods of time from Cajal's life, emphasizing the cultural and historical influences on scientific image-making. The jury appreciated the meticulous research into the sources that influenced Cajal and recognized the artwork as a potent reminder for neuroscientists to acknowledge and understand the impact of history on their work." ~Dawn Hunter More Elected to the Cajal Club's Board of Directors Personal Artwork: "I am honored and proud to announce my election to the esteemed Cajal Club Board of Directors. Words cannot express my gratitude for the opportunity bestowed upon me to create their new website. The transition from July to August was filled with hard work, collaboration, and invaluable feedback from renowned Neuroscientists I have admired for years. The new website is live, representing an ongoing endeavor akin to a flourishing garden. Stay tuned for exciting updates and content. Explore the website by clicking the MORE button below." ~Dawn Hunter More The Jasper Project 10th Anniversary Exhibit Personal Artwork: The Jasper Project's 10th Anniversary celebration is a momentous event commemorating a publication that showcases and illuminates Columbia, SC's vibrant cultural landscape. Spearheaded by the visionary Cindi Boiter, the magazine keeps the Cola Community informed while delving into the lives of artists, performers, dancers, musicians, and writers through captivating interviews. More Studio Visit | Cajal Biography Personal Artwork: Welcome to Dawn Hunter's studio! Explore the Cajal Inventory artworks, a series inspired by Santiago Ramón y Cajal. They were most recently on display in a solo exhibition in Las Vegas. The works now adorn Dawn's studio walls. They continue to inspire her handmade Cajal sketchbook, a testament to her ongoing creative investigation into the father of modern neuroscience life. More Sketchbook | Riverbanks Zoo and Garden Personal Artwork: Discover the inspiration Dawn finds at the Riverbanks Zoo and Garden every year! Explore a portfolio of her sketchbook drawings featuring the zoo's ever-evolving attractions. Some changes have occurred, like the new White Rhino exhibit and the absence of elephants; she was prompted by these changes to include past highlight subject matter intermingled with the Zoo's present-day renovations within the portfolio "image essay." More In Line with Nature Teaching Portfolio: In Dawn Hunter's ARTS 103, The Fundamentals of Art class, students closely observe found natural objects, extracting shapes and textures through perceptual drawing before transforming those discoveries into a new mixed-media composition. The project introduces a recursive approach to learning in which visual information is carried forward, reinterpreted, and applied to increasingly complex creative problems. Students begin by selecting a found object from nature and perceptually investigating its textures, shapes, forms, and structures through a series of mixed-media drawings. They then advance the inquiry by considering format, context, and compositional hierarchy, creating a final drawing that places the observed object within a visual environment constructed from textures and shapes previously extracted from the object itself. Through this process, students carry visual information from one investigation into another, transforming close observation into an interpretive composition grounded in the perception and investigation of natural design. More Negative and Positive Space Teaching Portfolio: In the Negative/Positive space portfolio, students study positive and negative space through a series of observational drawings of a still life setup. They explore how to transform the given setup into high-contrast black-and-white compositions by removing the conventional outlines and excessive descriptive details from their drawings. They discover how to recognize and draw implied edges, and figure-ground relationships, and apply the principles of closure, and containment, as well as other Gestalt principles. This class project will extend the explorations that occur in class through students creating multiple pictorial windows in one composition of increasing complexity. The visual information that is generated through these drawings will be extracted and reconsidered in the following portfolio's Planar Form project (for the Abstract Composition). More Planar Form Project Teaching Portfolio: Deconstruction, Extraction, Interpretation, and Reconstruction: The Planar Form has students revisit their observational drawings from the Negative/Positive Space project and approach them with new eyes. The students deconstruct their earlier work by isolating individual planar forms and then in turn transform them through repetition, overlap, changes in scale, degrees of transparency, movement, balanced compositions and the addition of depth. Through analysis, manipulation, and reorganization of the extracted forms, students consider ways in which abstracted forms can suggest metaphor, content, and meaning. This new way of organizing and manipulating previously created visual information confirms the recursive nature of our approach to learning, using previously discovered knowledge and transforming it in order to address more complex problems in visual studies. More Significant Content Teaching Portfolio: Shrine Inventory: Deconstruction and Reconstruction asks students to move from personal experience to metaphor through a sequence of making, observation, and transformation. Students begin by constructing a mixed-media Shrine from objects, images, materials, and other visual information connected to their lives. Working intuitively, they establish a collection of imagery that becomes the source material for further investigation. Students then study their Shrines through a series of thumbnail compositions, selecting, isolating, combining, and transforming visual information as they develop ideas for a final mixed-media work. Rather than simply reproducing the Shrine, they use it as a springboard for a new composition in which formal decisions about emphasis, color, texture, shape, space, and other elements and principles of design support an independently developed concept. The project brings together skills developed throughout the semester while asking students to transform personal visual information into metaphor and meaning. More Contrast of Hue Teaching Portfolio: In Contrast of Hue, students explore one of the seven color contrasts of Johannes Itten through digital studies of color, painted color investigations and a final composition exploring how adjacent hues interact to affect issues of brilliance, form, space and visual perception. This project focuses on color as form and explores the initial studies of form made in Contrast of Hue in preparation for the following project, Contrast of Cold and Warm. More Cold-Warm Contrast Teaching Portfolio: Understanding Temperature: Students explore the contrast of warm and cool colors through a sequence of digital and physical studies leading to final compositions. Rather than emphasizing target composition, the project challenges students to create smooth chromatic transitions that move gradually from warm to cool. By working with hues of similar or equal brilliance, students develop sensitivity to temperature relationships and discover that a color can appear warmer or cooler depending on the colors surrounding it. From their previous Contrast of Hue studies, students can use their existing Contrast of Hue compositions as a springboard for their new Contrast of Temperature studies. The student will use the same composition but create new visual effects by changing up the color temperature in order to see how a change in temperature can affect perception of form, space, atmosphere, motion and feeling within a given composition while keeping the overall composition relatively constant. More Slashing Symbols Project Teaching Portfolio: Slashing Symbols introduces students to symbolism, iconography, and the ways visual meaning can emerge through an intuitive creative process. Working quickly with imagery, color, and text selected from popular magazines, students create collages without first determining what the finished work will communicate. After making, they examine their choices and consider how repetition, juxtaposition, color, scale, and familiar cultural imagery can generate associations and symbolic meaning. Positioned between the more formally structured projects and the increasingly independent work that follows, Slashing Symbols asks students to begin using the visual language developed earlier in the course to investigate meaning. Rather than illustrating a predetermined idea, students discover that the process of making itself can reveal unexpected connections and provide a starting point for interpretation, self-expression, and more conceptually driven artmaking. More Foundations Curriculum Arc Teaching Portfolio: Katlin Jeffcoat’s Foundations Curriculum Arc traces her development from observational drawing to sophisticated visual design. Beginning in ARTS 103, she transformed natural forms into structured compositions through studies of shape and texture. In ARTS 107, she deepened this inquiry using Johannes Itten’s color harmony theories to explore how hue and contrast shape perception and emotion. By ARTS 266, Katlin synthesized these foundations into a cohesive merchandise project—merging craftsmanship, conceptual clarity, and color design rooted in the same perceptual principles that first inspired her work. More Quilting Bee: Deconstruction and Reconstruction Teaching Portfolio: In Quilting Bee, students transform artwork created in earlier artist studies into material for a new visual and conceptual problem. After making high-quality copies of their paintings, students cut the reproductions into one-inch squares and reorganize the fragments within a grid to create a repeat pattern with an anomaly. Marks, textures, shapes, and values are removed from their original context and given new functions through deconstruction, re-contextualization, and reconstruction. Using their favorite tree as the basis for a metaphor, students move beyond the formal concerns of earlier assignments to consider how visual information can communicate personal meaning. The project demonstrates an important stage in the course: students retrieve knowledge and material from previous work, transform it, and apply it in an increasingly independent conceptual context. More Bridging Intuition & Analysis: Tactile Technology Teaching Portfolio: The course ARTS 107: Color, Technology, and Form teaches students to practice color theory as an active physical method which connects conventional artistic methods to digital artistic techniques. Students use the Adobe Ideas application on their touchscreen device to generate tactile "blobbies" through their body movements and touch pressure. The hand extends through technology to create new artistic possibilities which help students develop analytical skills and intuitive artistic abilities. Students develop their memory skills and perception abilities and creative problem-solving competencies through their work with structured color theory and unrestricted experimental activities. Students achieve complete control of color relationships and create their own visual style while learning to use digital tools with the same care as they would traditional artistic materials by the end of the semester. More

Students perceptually investigate found natural objects, extracting shapes and textures through observation. They then transfer and transform this visual information into mixed-media drawings that explore interpretation, composition, and visual problem-solving. To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. FOUNDATIONS: ARTS 103 In Line with Nature by Dawn Hunter, Project Author and ARTS 103 Course Director “The question is not what you look at, but what you see.” —Henry David Thoreau, Journal, August 5, 1851 ARTS 103, The Fundamentals of Art course, is a beginning level art class that sets the stage for inquiry while encouraging students to explore visual perception, material, and artistic design practices through the medium of art and design thinking. The four interconnected portfolios use a recursive process of discovery, perception, interpretation, construction, deconstruction, and re-construction to facilitate students’ transferable knowledge of visual practices. Throughout the course, students will apply knowledge from previous assignments to new problems and projects. Continued: Drawing, abstraction, multiple media, repetition, feedback and re-construction are strategies students learn to perceive, think, make, problem solve and communicate within various art and design situations. Students learn to make purposeful artistic and design decisions and eventually develop sufficient visual vocabulary and independence to meet future goals in various disciplines of art and design. Students who take ARTS 103 are majors and non-majors. This is a student work example by a USC School of Visual Art and Design BFA major, Jianna Schirmer: Image 1: Final project, In Line with Nature, Image 2: Thumbnails for In Line with Nature, Image 3: Texture Inventory, Iterative composition development (juxtaposition studies). Images courtesy of Jianna Schirmer. Visit my Mixed Media Drawing Adventure blog post to learn more about the project. Trusting One's Own Perception | In Line with Nature Sensory Perception and Interpretation: Students begin the In Line with Nature project by selecting a found object from nature. They proceed to perceptually investigate its textures, shapes, forms, and structures through a series of mixed-media drawing inventories and thumbnails. They then advance the inquiry by considering format, context, and compositional hierarchy, creating a final drawing that places the observed object within a visual environment constructed from textures and shapes previously extracted from the object itself. Through this process, students carry visual information from one investigation into another, transforming close observation into an interpretive composition grounded in the perception and investigation of natural design. Students who take ARTS 103 are majors and non-majors. This is a student work example by a USC McCausland College of Arts and Sciences, Psychology, BA Major, Khalon Thompson: Image 1: Final project, In Line with Nature, Image 2: Thumbnails for In Line with Nature, Image 3: Texture Inventory, Iterative composition development (juxtaposition studies). Images courtesy of Khalon Thompson. Visit my Mixed Media Drawing Adventure blog post to learn more about the project. Foundations in Practice: From Observation to Application In Line with Nature introduces a recursive practice, where the results of one investigation can become the starting point for another using the same or different visual information. The processes of close observation of natural forms, use of shapes and textures from those observations in their inventory drawings, and gradual development of those forms in complex compositions are of value to use in subsequent Foundation courses as well as in later upper division courses. The value of this process extends beyond a single Foundations assignment. As students progress into upper-division coursework, the visual strategies developed through observation, interpretation, iteration, and reconstruction can be retrieved and adapted to new creative problems. Former student Katlin Jeffcoat provides a particularly clear example. She transformed the leaf forms from ARTS 103 into a composition for In Line with Nature in addition to continuing to explore them in her upper-division design work. She continued to manipulate and transform the images through color, composition, etc. in order to continue to create within the boundaries of the visual language she had established in her Foundations work. What began as a means to learn how to see was able to be transformed into a visual language which she continued to grow and to make her own. Above, Kaitlin Jeffcoat's 1. Texture Inventory, 2. In Line with Nature Thumbnails, and 3. In Line with Nature Final work. Below, Kaitlin Jeffcoat's Merch Menu project from ARTS 266. Follow Katlin Jeffcoat's Foundations Curriculum Arc More Inspiration: From Thumbnails to Finished In Line with Nature Projects. Click on the carousel gallery below to engage with the images. If the gallery does not automatically load, please refresh the page. Pedagogical Lineage The Texture Inventory and Shape Inventory grew from inventory exercises developed by artist and educator Mary Stewart in Launching the Imagination. I have adapted these exercises to emphasize sensory perception and close observation, asking students to investigate a natural object and extract visual information from what they discover through sustained looking. Stewart's larger approach to Foundations similarly emphasizes visual thinking, problem-solving, and the application of knowledge beyond a single exercise. Student work in this section was completed by Angel Pel, a Biology BA major in the McCausland College of Arts and Sciences. Texture Inventory, left, and Shape Inventory, right, function as source material for the final In Line with Nature drawing. Both works are conté, graphite, charcoal, and ink on paper, 18 × 24 inches. The process of studying the fundamentals of art is always a part of an artist’s studio practice. I think of this in terms of the philosophical stance of Josef Albers. Instead of finishing a set of studies and then moving on to more complex work, the artist is always in Foundations. He views fundamental study as a way of learning to see, a process of direct observation, of experimentation, and of discovery by the artist. It is not a matter of following rules and doing work as Albers referred to it, but rather of finding one’s own way through study. Foundations pedagogy is also recursive and multi-generational. We as teachers inherit from our own teachers and from many other teachers and continued to adapt as we grow in experience, adapting these to the needs of our own students. In this way, students too, become part of this ongoing process. Their discoveries, their unique interpretations, their unexpected solutions to assignments I give, teach me in turn, how I continue to understand what I teach and how I teach it. This pedagogy is relational in nature, meaning that I as teacher shape the student’s learning but the student in turn shapes my ongoing understanding of what and how I teach. Josef Albers approached foundational study not simply as preparation for advanced work, but as an enduring way of learning to see. His emphasis on observation, experimentation, materials, and discovery continued throughout his teaching, and even advanced students returned to his basic courses. Albers believed that the lasting measure of education was not the work students produced in school but what they carried with them afterward, writing that “the best proofs are the results in later life.” Conclusion In Line with Nature demonstrates how close observation can become a foundation for continued visual inquiry. By carrying shapes, textures, and discoveries from one investigation into the next, students learn that creative work is not a series of isolated assignments, but a recursive process in which ideas can be revisited, transformed, and applied in new contexts. These habits of seeing, thinking, and making provide a foundation students can continue to draw upon throughout their studies in art and design. Student work in this section was completed by Angel Pel, a Biology BA major in the McCausland College of Arts and Sciences. Final drawing for In Line with Nature, conté, graphite, charcoal, and ink on paper, 18 × 24 inches The Assignment Sheet Click on the assignment for the full page to pop-up! Student work, Madi Rawlings, Final Project, In Line with Nature, graphite, ink and color pencil on paper, 18" x 24"

Slashing Symbols bridges formal design and conceptual thinking as students use intuitive collage, symbolism, iconography, and re-contextualization to explore how visual choices communicate ideas, associations, and meaning. To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. FOUNDATIONS: ARTS 103 Slashing Symbols: From Visual Form to Meaning by Dawn Hunter, Project Author and ARTS 103 Course Director “The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.” — John Berger, Ways of Seeing (1972) After exploring the elements and principles of design in the first portion of the ARTS 103 course, students can begin to explore how the formal choices that they have been employing in their artwork can have associations, convey meaning and more in the Slashing Symbols Workshop. In this workshop, students apply their knowledge of how to make effective compositions in order to explore how symbols function and how they can be used in artwork to explore concepts. Slashing Symbols. Student collage exploring how intuitive image selection and juxtaposition can generate unexpected symbolic relationships. Photographic figures, butterflies, fire-like forms, typography, pattern, and fragments of text are removed from their original contexts and reorganized into a new visual structure. The resulting composition demonstrates how formal choices can lead to associations and meanings that students identify and interpret after the making process. Continued, Slashing Symbols : We start the workshop with a fast and intuitive collage exercise using popular magazines, like Vogue, National Geographic, Architectural Digest etc. The students choose images, colors, shapes and text that attract them immediately and start building a composition within 25 minutes. No preliminary sketching or conceiving of a concept, students work with the visual material at hand and start to make meaningful relationships between the elements by using the knowledge of composition that they developed in the earlier projects. The Process First, students make a quick collage using images, shapes, and colors from popular magazines and then study their own work. Through lecture, class discussion, and plenty of examples from art, advertisements, popular culture, and historical imagery, the Slashing Symbols Workshop studies symbolism and visual language. Students will learn about how symbols are perceived in different cultures and how images of familiar objects can be given new meanings by being used in different ways such as by being appropriated, being placed beside other images, being layered on top of other images, and being placed in a different context. Slashing Symbols. Student collages exploring how familiar imagery can be transformed through intuitive selection, juxtaposition, repetition, scale, and re-contextualization. Photographic figures, patterns, typography, and objects drawn from popular culture are reorganized into unexpected visual relationships. Although formal decisions guide the initial construction of the collages, the resulting combinations invite students to consider the symbolic associations and meanings that emerge through the creative process. The Process continued: These concepts can then be applied to the student’s own work to look at symbolism, iconography, metaphor, appropriation, layering and re-contextualization. Archetypes will be discussed and how they originated from Carl Jung’s theories on symbolistic imagery. This will enable students to see that there are many different interpretations of symbols and that their meaning can stem from a variety of influences including from cultural and historical tradition, popular culture, personal experience and from the context in which they are viewed. Studying one’s own collage with different eyes: What images did one keep returning to? Which colors, figures, objects, words or shapes did one find most alluring? How did the relationships between separate, disparate images change after they were combined? How did issues of scale, repetition, hierarchy, cropping and placement affect one’s reading of the images? And most important, how did an image change when it was removed from its advertised context and placed within a new composition? Moving from making to interpreting, students see how an image originally created as advertising for a product can function quite differently when it is removed from its advertising context. A simple photograph, word, color, or familiar object can become funny, disturbing, unclear, metaphorical, or even personal when placed near other images. This also helps students realize that images communicate not only by themselves but also by their context, by how they are placed in relation to other images, by the visual relationships between them, and by the viewer’s interpretation of them. Slashing Symbols. Student collages exploring intuitive selection, juxtaposition, repetition, and visual organization. Images drawn from advertising and popular culture are removed from their original contexts and recombined through relationships of shape, color, scale, and proximity. The process allows formal decisions to guide the initial construction of each collage before students interpret the symbolic associations and meanings that emerge from their selections. From Formal Language to Conceptual Meaning The workshop for Slashing Symbols marks an important transition within the framework of the curriculum for ARTS 103. The purpose of students’ formal knowledge is shifted in the workshop as opposed to the earlier projects where students recognized and manipulated visual relationships such as how repetition can make a rhythm, how scale affects hierarchy, positive and negative space, and how one can direct attention within a composition. What did I emphasize? Why am I interested in this image? What does the repetition in this image say? How does the context of the image change when I change the image? Slashing Symbols. Student collage using repetition, scale, and a concentrated color palette to transform intuitively selected imagery into a visually unified composition. Repeated images of ravens, wings, flowers, and trees establish associations among nature, transformation, and symbolic meaning. The work demonstrates how recurring imagery discovered through the collage process can begin to suggest a personal visual language. The elements and principles of design therefore become more than criteria for organizing a successful composition. They become tools through which students can construct and interpret meaning. Shape can carry association. Repetition can intensify an idea. Scale can alter the significance of an image. Juxtaposition can create an entirely new relationship between otherwise unrelated forms. The formal and conceptual are no longer treated as separate concerns. The Assignment Sheet Click on the assignment for the full page to pop-up! Conclusion Slashing Symbols prepares students for the Tree and Final projects that follow, where they are asked to make increasingly independent decisions about imagery, metaphor, composition, and meaning. The workshop gives them an intermediate space in which to discover that they are already capable of making visual choices that suggest ideas—even when those ideas were not completely determined in advance. By working through a series of interpretations, the students are also able to better understand their own visual language and use it intentionally in their choices. So while Slashing Symbols prepares students for the subsequent metaphorical Tree and Final projects, where they will be making independent decisions about imagery, metaphor, composition and meaning, it first prepares them for the ability to utilize what they have learned to make decisions about content as well as form. In this section: Slashing Symbols. Student collage organized through a restricted palette of black, orange, red, and gold. Repeated circular and fragmented forms surround a central figure, demonstrating how color, repetition, contrast, and placement can unify independently selected images and suggest symbolic relationships.

Explore Johannes Itten’s Contrast of Hue and learn how distinct colors interact to create visual energy, emphasis, spatial tension, and expressive possibilities in art and design. To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. FOUNDATIONS: ARTS 107 Contrast of Hue by Dawn Hunter, Project Author and ARTS 107 Course Director “It is not enough to place colors, however beautiful, one beside the other; colors must also react on one another.” — Henri Matisse Contrast of Hue is the most direct and fundamental of Johannes Itten's seven color contrasts. It occurs when distinctly different hues are placed in relationship to one another, allowing the identity and character of each color to become immediately apparent. The effect is strongest when colors are used at high intensity and when the hues are clearly separated on the color wheel. Itten identifies yellow, red, and blue, the three primary colors in his system, as producing the strongest contrast of hue, while combinations of secondary and tertiary colors generally create progressively subtler effects. Although contrast of hue can be explored with only a few colors, changing the number, proportion, placement, value, or intensity of those colors can produce an enormous range of visual and expressive possibilities. Student work in this section was completed by Lauren Sokol, a USC Art History BA major. Contrast of Hue. Continued, Understanding Brilliance : Through a series of digital and physical studies leading to final compositions, students investigate the concept of color brilliance as defined by Johannes Itten. By arranging hues in deliberate adjacency, they analyze how variations in value intensify visual contrast and luminosity. The project cultivates sensitivity to chromatic interaction and teaches students how precise hue relationships can create dynamic optical effects within compositional design. Student work in this section by Lauryn Hopson: Contrast of Hue digital preliminary, left, and final composition, right, acrylic on paper, 5" × 8". Why is Contrast of Hue Important? Contrast of Hue : Introducing one of the key elements that comprise a painting, students learn how a color looks when it is experienced in the presence of other colors. How the visual character of a color is affected by the colors that are next to it and by the amount of space that other colors occupy in a composition. Strong, undiluted colors create works of art and designs that are energetic, bold, playful, dramatic or monumental. Reducing the value and/or saturation of the hues in a composition to create a softer, more atmospheric version of the same color relationships is also possible. The colors black and white have on other colors is also a factor in a painting. Studying Contrast of Hue moves beyond learning about the Color Wheel and how colors are organized. Students learn how colors in a composition affect each other with regards to visual hierarchy, space, unity, emphasis and expression. Students enrolled in ARTS 107 include both majors and non-majors. This student work example is by USC School of Visual Art and Design BA major Jessica Medina. Image 1: Digital preliminary study for the final painting, Contrast of Hue . Image 2: Physical preliminary study of pure forms, Contrast of Hue. Image 3: Final painting. The iterative process of exploring color first through a digital schematic and then through physical studies of pure form is essential to developing an understanding of color relationships before translating those relationships into a final painted composition. Images courtesy of Jessica Medina. Applying Contrast of Hue Using Contrast of Hue is often easier when studying simple compositions using clearly different colors such as in the examples of stripes, grids and fields of color. A simple composition makes it easier to study the relationships between the areas of color as opposed to getting caught up in the images themselves and the many shapes that would be found in them. Students can vary the number of hues, the proportions of the colors, their placement and the relative intensity of the colors. For example, one color can be more dominant than the others and the rest of the colors used as accents. Students can also vary the number of hues and have them occupy approximately equal areas of the composition. Adding black and white to the colors already being used can also be very insightful as to how they affect the luminosity of neighboring colors. Once students have applied these principles in a series of controlled studies, they can then apply them to more complex compositions using Contrast of Hue intentionally to create areas of emphasis, to lead the viewer’s eye, to better organize a composition, to express a certain mood, and to intensify the overall expressiveness of a work of art. Students who take ARTS 107 are majors and non-majors. Student work examples: USC McCausland College of Arts and Sciences BA Art major Naomi, Contrast of Hue : Octopus Tentacles in a Row of Shades, left; and USC College of Social Work BSW major Marjorie Jane Stephens, Checkerboard and Circles in Pure Colors, Tints, and Shades, right. Images courtesy of Naomi and Marjorie Jane Stephens. The Assignment Sheet Click on the assignment for the full page to pop-up! Student work by USC Studio Art, BFA Major, Maria Castro, Final painting: Contrast of Hue , acrylic on paper, 6" x 6" . Seeing Color as Form After Contrast of Hu e, we study Cold Warm Contrast in ARTS 107. In this "new" color contrast, we explore Seeing Color as Form rather than seeing Color as something to be applied to a form. Students are asked to reuse their designs from their Contrast of Hue project. However, the expectation is that the colors are organized according to the "rules" of Cold-Warm Contras t in a gradual transition of brilliance. Therefore, even if the design is mostly the same as before, the final composition can look very different. Some areas will advance, others recede. Boundaries between forms will become more or less visible. Paths of viewing will change. Forms that were previously most visible will become less visible than others. Student work in this section represents final compositions in Contrast of Hue , left, and Cold-Warm Contrast, right. Both works are acrylic on paper, 5 × 8 inches each. This comparison allows students to experience an important principle of color theory directly: color and form are inseparable in visual perception. Itten writes that in a pictorial work, the expressive qualities of form and color should be “synchronized,” so that each supports the other. He also emphasizes that a color must always be understood in relation to its surroundings rather than as an isolated phenomenon. The paired student works make these ideas visible. Changing the color relationships changes how the same or similar forms are perceived, demonstrating that color is not simply contained by shape—it helps determine how that shape functions within the composition. By repeating a design, the student’s focus is pulled from creating a new composition to observing and studying color. The first painting becomes a reference point for the student to compare with the second. By going through this process of iterating on a composition, students are able to better understand how changes in temperature, hue, value, and spatial relationships affect characteristics such as spatial depth, emphasis, movement, balance and expression. This exercise in reusing a design to connect two of Itten’s color contrasts helps to reinforce the greater point that color is a structural component in visual forms and that to understand color one must understand how it functions within visual compositions. Conclusion Contrast of Hue explores how color can continue to support visual investigation once initial forms have been generated. By further analyzing how different hues change in relation to each other and then using those relationships in a final composition based on preliminary studies, students discover that color can function as an active component of form as opposed to simply being applied to it. Through the process of experimentation, repetition and refinement, students are able to determine how color can establish emphasis, movement, and relationships within space and ultimately how color can affect the overall perception of a work of art. These new ways of perceiving, thinking, and creating with art will serve as the foundation for continued exploration of color as a dynamic visual language that can be revisited, modified and applied in a variety of new situations. Student work by USC Art History, BA Major, Ollie Williams. Final painting: Contrast of Hue, acrylic on paper, 6" x 6".

Explore Johannes Itten’s Cold-Warm Contrast through color temperature, value, and relational perception. Students investigate how warm and cool color relationships transform space, form, movement, and visual expression. To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. FOUNDATIONS: ARTS 107 Cold-Warm Contrast by Dawn Hunter, Project Author and ARTS 107 Course Director “The first movement of yellow is to advance toward the spectator.” — Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art Johannes Itten identifies Cold-Warm Contrast as one of the seven fundamental color contrasts. At its most extreme, the contrast exists between red-orange, which Itten identifies as the warmest color, and blue-green, which he identifies as the coldest. Between these two poles, however, color temperature is not absolute. A hue may appear warmer or cooler depending upon the colors placed around it. This relativity is essential to understanding Cold-Warm Contrast. Yellows, oranges and reds are considered warm colors, while greens, blues and violets are considered to be cold colors. However, this is also relative. A color can be perceived as warm when compared with a colder color and as cool when compared with a warmer color. This means that color temperature is perceived by us in comparison with other colors. Student work in this section was completed by Lauren Sokol, a USC Art History BA major. Cold-Warm Contrast. Continued, More Than Temperature : Itten’s use of the terms cold and warm is more complex than simple associations with physical temperature. He identifies a range of perceptions that are opposed to each other and which can be used expressively in art. These include: shadow/sun, transparent/opaque, airy/earthy, far/near, light/heavy and wet/dry. The artist shows how color temperature can greatly affect a perception of an image. Color temperature can have a powerful influence on the character of a picture. Cold-Warm Contrast thus has an influence on our perception of space and distance. Distant elements in landscapes appear cooler because of the air in front of them. Thus Warm and Cool relationships can indicate nearness and distance and are one of the means to create spatial and perspectival effects. Student work in this section by Lauryn Hopson: Cold-Warm Contrast digital preliminary, left, and final composition, right, acrylic on paper, 5" × 8". Isolating Cold-Warm Contrast To understand a particular color contrast clearly, Itten advocates controlling competing contrasts. In exercises devoted specifically to Cold-Warm Contrast , he recommends minimizing differences in light and dark so that variations in value do not overpower variations in temperature. The colors are to be compared at approximately equal lightness or darkness in order to study the perception of the warmer-colder-movement between two colors. Furthermore, Itten examines color modulation, or how a color can be gradually modified in order to become warmer or cooler by shifting it towards neighboring warm or cool colors on the color circle. He urges to keep the changes relatively small in order to still be able to recognize the basic color. A red-orange for example can be made warmer by modifying it towards the orange-yellow, and cooler by modifying it towards the brown. A green can be modified towards the yellow-green or the blue-green. This is particularly relevant to the preliminary studies in this assignment. Instead of listing colors in closed categories of ‘warm’/’cold’ and establishing clear borders between them, students can explore how a single color becomes warmer or cooler. This shifts focus from naming colors to exploring their relationships. Students enrolled in ARTS 107 include both majors and non-majors. This student work example is by USC School of Visual Art and Design BA major Jessica Medina. Image 1: Digital preliminary study for the final painting, Cold-Warm Contrast . Image 2: Physical preliminary study of pure forms, Cold-Warm Contrast . Image 3: Final painting. The iterative process of exploring color first through a digital schematic and then through physical studies of pure form is essential to developing an understanding of color relationships before translating those relationships into a final painted composition. Images courtesy of Jessica Medina. Why Is Cold-Warm Contrast Important? Cold-Warm Contrast teaches students that color is relational, not absolute. That means that a color can change in terms of temperature, intensity, spatial position and expression depending on the colors that are next to it. This principle has important implications for composition. Warm and cool relationships can create visual movement, establish emphasis, suggest atmospheric depth, and cause forms to appear to advance or recede. Itten therefore describes Cold-Warm Contrast as having considerable expressive possibilities and as an important means of producing spatial effects. Working within the framework of Cold-Warm Contrast allows students to look beyond simple categorizations of color such as red is warm and blue is cool. By asking whether a given color is warmer or cooler than the color which it is in contact with, students develop an increased awareness of color as it functions within a composition. Students enrolled in ARTS 107 include both majors and non-majors. Student work examples: USC McCausland College of Arts and Sciences BFA Graphic Design major Sydney Strause, Cold-Warm Contrast final composition, left, based on her non-central, non-objective design from Contrast of Hue ; and USC College of Social Work BSW major Marjorie Jane Stephens, Cats Juxtaposed with Stripes in Cold-Warm Contrast , right, created with pure colors, tints, and shades. Images courtesy of Sydney Strause and Marjorie Jane Stephens. The Assignment Sheet Click on the assignment for the full page to pop-up! Seeing Color as Form, Applying Cold-Warm Contrast Students begin with controlled digital and physical studies in which value and temperature can be examined independently. They create relationships among warm and cool colors at similar levels of lightness and darkness and then investigate how a single hue can be progressively shifted toward warmer and cooler temperatures. These studies are subsequently applied to a composition developed during the preceding Contrast of Hue project. By reusing an existing design rather than inventing a new one, students can concentrate on what happens when the forms remain substantially consistent but the governing color relationships change. Student work in this section was completed by Madison Hutto, a BFA Graphic Design major in the McCausland College of Arts and Sciences. Contrast of Hue , left, and Cold-Warm Contrast, right. Both works are acrylic on paper, 5 × 8 inches each. This comparison makes an important principle visible: changing color can change our perception of form. A shape that appeared dominant in the Contrast of Hue composition may become subordinate in the Cold-Warm Contrast version. Areas may appear to advance or recede, boundaries may become stronger or weaker, and the visual movement through the composition may shift even though its underlying structure remains recognizable. In this way, the assignment moves beyond identifying warm and cool colors. Students experience color temperature as a means of constructing space, emphasis, movement, atmosphere, and form. Conclusion In the Cold-Warm projects we explore further the function of color as form, space and as visual structure. Returning to previous works from the Contrast of Hue project we transform them by looking at them from the perspective of another color contrast, that of Cold and Warm. Here the students experience for themselves how temperature affects issues of spatial depth, emphasis, movement and as a whole how they perceive a composition. In this iterative process the students discover that decisions about color are not limited to being simply decorative. They can function as parts of a form’s overall structure. In carrying familiar compositions through a new color problem the students increase their knowledge of color in relation to other colors. They come to realize that the function of any given color is always relative to the other colors with which it is associated. Student work in this section was completed by Lauren Sokol, a USC Art History BA major. Cold-Warm Contrast.

Join Darcy on 'Dish with Darcy', , where culinary exploration comes alive. From whipping up delightful cupcakes as tokens of appreciation to diving into traditional Southern recipes like biscuits and baked chicken, Darcy invites you into her kitchen to share in the joy of cooking. Dis h w it h D arcy™ South Carolina Sunshine™ | Dawn Hunter's daughter, Darcy, takes you with her on cuisine adventures. Sometimes they are with friends or regional talent from South Carolina. Table of Contents Icons Scroll and click on an icon image below to go to the Dish with Darcy section you are interested in reading. Darcy's Universal Yums Experience Join Dish with Darcy as we embark on a delicious adventure with Universal Yums! Each month we sample international snack boxes filled with sweet treats, savory delights, drinks, chips, and candies. Explore our reviews and favorites from the tasty Baltic and Thailand boxes, and discover how you can enjoy snack surprises delivered right to your door! More Yayoi Kusama Pumpkin Pie Celebrate the art of Yayoi Kusama, the "Princess of Polka Dots," and Darcy’s inspired creations. Discover Kusama’s 'My Love for the Eternal Pumpkin' sculpture at the Hirshhorn Museum and explore Darcy’s creative journey, drawing and decorating her own pumpkins. The photo essay showcases images from Kusama exhibits, Darcy's art process, and her delicious homemade pumpkin pies, adding a culinary twist to the artistic tribute. This webpage blends visual and culinary arts, highlighting the influence of Kusama’s work on personal creativity and expression. Join us in this vibrant celebration of art, inspiration, and delightful treats! More White Bean Dip with Lemon and Rosemary Darcy explores the delightful world of simple and yummy snacks! The white bean dip photo essay highlights Darcy’s effortless and tasty dip, enhanced with lemon and her favorite choice of fresh herbs. This dip is a harmonious blend of tangy and savory flavors, making it the perfect partner for crunchy vegetables, assorted chips, or creatively sliced pita bread. It is super easy to create this wonderful dip in just a few steps and shine as a culinary star! Experience the excitement of cooking with Darcy’s lively and inviting style, exclusively on 'Dish with Darcy.' More Sour Cream Dip with Parsley and Dill Join us on 'Dish with Darcy' as we jump into the world of quick and tasty treats! This photo essay features Darcy's easy-to-make, delicious Sour Cream dip with parsley and dill. This dip is perfectly balanced in flavor and the perfect companion to fresh veggies, chips, or creatively cut pita bread. It's tangy, creamy, and crafted with love, making it an ideal recipe for tweens looking to explore their culinary skills. Whip up this delightful dip in mere minutes and become a kitchen superstar! Discover the joy of cooking with Darcy's fun, engaging approach only on 'Dish with Darcy.' More Teacher Appreciation Cupcakes "with" Dolly Parton Discover the joy of creative cupcake decorating! Witness the thoughtful and artistic gesture of Darcy, who intricately decorated unique cupcakes for her teachers as a token of appreciation. This fun and imaginative activity allows children to express their creativity and build connections while enjoying delicious treats. Adding an extra twist, Darcy incorporated a limited, 1st edition chocolate Frosting created by Duncan Hines and Dolly Parton . As a devoted Dolly Parton fan, this playful inclusion made the cupcakes even more special and personal. The connection to an esteemed celebrity like Dolly Parton added a touch of excitement and made the experience of creating and giving the gift more meaningful. More Homemade Soft Serve Ice Cream We are introducing our new ice cream adventure! We're thrilled to have acquired a stylish and affordable ice cream maker by Tasty, allowing us to unleash our creativity. Darcy personalized it with a sticker from her adored YouTuber, Moriah Elizabeth , who inspires her culinary creations on Dish with Darcy™. While attempting to make ice cream the traditional way using a plastic bag, Darcy encountered less-than-desired results despite her efforts. Seeking a more reliable approach, we opted for a recommended ice cream mix: Junket Ice Cream mix. With simple instructions and available ingredients in our kitchen, we finally achieved the dreamy, smooth soft-serve ice cream we craved after a few trial-and-error attempts. More Inspiration from Patz Fowle Welcome to our Lake City art excursion! Join us as we explore the inspiring Onward and Upward exhibition at the Jones-Carter Gallery . This mesmerizing showcase celebrates the artistry of Patz Fowle (1954-2021) and Mike Fowle. Our visit left us in awe, so much so that we couldn't resist the impulse purchase of Patz Fowle's exquisite clay artwork titled "Every Artist...Has a Story." This artwork is crafted with meticulous detail; the whimsical piece is composed of hand-sculpted stoneware, porcelain, oxides, underglaze, stains, and luster. It showcases references to iconic artworks by visionaries like Dali, Picasso, and Munch while incorporating significant readings of Art History. The tactile surfaces of this ceramic masterpiece rival the painted surface qualities found in Matthias Grünewald's renowned Isenheim Altarpiece (1512–1516), creating a truly awe-inspiring experience. More Lake City Re-Visited Discover the charm of Lake City, South Carolina, a delightful weekend destination that provided us with unforgettable experiences. Situated 90 miles east of Columbia, SC, and 60 miles west of Myrtle Beach, this picturesque city offers a diverse range of attractions. Indulge in the culinary delights of terrific restaurants, immerse yourself in the vibrant contemporary art scene at local galleries, and explore the serene beauty of the Moore Farms Botanical Gardens . And remember to visit our personal favorite, Baker's Sweets! Lake City becomes a hub of artistic excitement each spring as thousands gather for the renowned ArtFields and ArtFields Junior Competitions. This annual event showcases artists' exceptional creativity and talent from near and far, offering a truly enriching experience. More Mom's Baked Chicken Introducing a cherished recipe that holds a special place in the culinary repertoire in our kitchen. This delectable dish is a treasured creation of Darcy's mother, crafted during her culinary adventures at the tender age of twelve. Passed down to the next generation, it has become a favorite family mealtime tradition. The recipe is so ingrained in their cooking routine that measuring spoons has become obsolete, allowing creative freedom and personalization. Although Darcy has thoughtfully written down the recipe, embracing improvisation and adding personal twists to make it your own is highly encouraged. More Publix "Hamburger" Cake Welcome to a mouthwatering Memorial Day Weekend treat! As Darcy aptly puts it, "It's small, it's cute, it's from Publix, it's delicious - so go get it!" Indulge in the festive spirit with special edition holiday cakes from Publix, designed to elevate your celebrations. These delightful novelty cakes come in various summertime and Memorial Day themes, adding a touch of whimsy to your festivities. Not only are they reasonably priced, but they also offer a delectable taste experience that will satisfy every sweet tooth. These cakes are perfect for kids and those young at heart and promise a delightful and fun-filled treat for all More Darcy and the Donut Welcome to The Donut Guy , a delightful haven nestled in the heart of The Vista at 1215 Lincoln St, Columbia, SC. Indulge in the ultimate donut experience as we offer a delectable assortment of freshly crafted treats that are made with love and care right here. Step into our casual and friendly atmosphere, where you can choose to relax indoors or bask in the sunshine at our outdoor seating area. The Donut Guy is about creating a welcoming space to enjoy every bite. From classic glazed delights to innovative toppings like Fruit Loops, toffee, and melted chocolate, we have something to satisfy every craving and delight your senses. One of our popular picks is the strawberry icing sprinkled donut, a personal favorite of Darcy. More Darcy and the Cake Visit Baker's Sweets , a bustling culinary gem located at 129 E Main St, Lake City, SC. Known for its delectable lunch options and mouthwatering homemade cakes, this charming establishment is a must-visit in Lake City. Prepare to be enchanted as you feast your eyes upon the top of the display cases adorned with tempting slices of homemade cake. Inside, a delightful assortment of sticky buns, cupcakes, tortes, and cheesecakes awaits, each crafted with love and attention to detail. We succumbed to the irresistible allure of a torte and a triple chocolate cake during our visit. Indulging in each delectable bite, we found it impossible to pick a favorite, as both desserts were absolute delights to our taste buds. More St. Patrick's Day Rice Krispie Treats Get ready to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in style! As the festivities approached, Darcy embarked on a delicious adventure by creating mouthwatering Rice Krispies Treats™ for her Dish with Darcy "Tumblr." While the traditional recipe initially left her craving for more flavor, Darcy's ingenious twist took the second batch to new heights. She achieved perfection by adding a delightful touch of store-bought vanilla icing and a pinch of salt. Peruse the delightful photos that capture her recipe journey, showcasing each step of this delectable creation. Accompanied by a charming drawing by Darcy, the recipe comes to life, enticing you to embark on your culinary escapade. More Baby's Best Buttermilk Biscuits Simplicity meets classic charm in our kitchen with an old-fashioned biscuit recipe. We take a traditional approach by incorporating shortening into the biscuit base, but we add a delightful twist by spiking the mix with butter. We brush the tops with butter to enhance the golden goodness before baking. Maintaining the proper proportion of shortening to butter is critical to achieving the perfect balance of flavors. This ensures the biscuits retain their rich taste without overwhelming burnt butter notes. While you have the freedom to brush your biscuits with butter at any time, we recommend waiting until halfway through the baking process for optimal results. More Silver Jubilee Cookies Welcome to our cookie haven! We're here to spread joy with our beloved cookies all year round—our secret lies in the classic Silver Jubilee Cookbook Sugar Cookie Recipe, infused with a delightful twist. Adding 1/4 cup of flour and chilling the dough creates the perfect canvas for rolling and cutting. Our pantry is always stocked with cookie essentials to fuel our delicious adventures. Playdates often end with a vibrant cookie decorating fiesta, where each creation becomes a masterpiece as creative as an art class. The Silver Jubilee Cookbook is special in our hearts, offering more than just a coveted sugar cookie recipe. It is a trusted resource in our culinary repertoire, from basic cakes to expert meat, poultry, fish, and vegetable dishes. More

Explore Diana Farfán's whimsical ceramic sculpture, who often offers social commentary in her art. Learn about her impactful community role in our interview. To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. Artist Spotlight: Diana Farfán "My advocacy is something that I learned to use as I felt the need to implement strategies that elevate my Latino community and educate others about us." Featured in this section is a portrait of Diana Farfán in her studio taken by Will Cooks. A native of Bogotá, Colombia, our artist spotlight Diana Farfán's lifelong affinity for ceramic sculpture was sparked by pre-Hispanic figures and colonial architecture. After finishing her BFA at Universidad Nacional de Colombia in 1999, Diana expanded her horizons, gaining new perspectives at universities in Alaska and Taiwan. In 2010, she added an MFA from the University of South Carolina to her academic credentials. Now settled in the heart of Greenville, South Carolina, Diana expertly juggles multiple roles. She's not just a sculptor but also an instructor and a passionate advocate for Latino artists. From orchestrating art exhibitions to drafting strategic plans, she's got a lot on her plate but manages it all with aplomb. Known statewide for her community involvement, she's a Liberty Fellowship alumna and Aspen Global Leadership Network member. Diana's work, noted for its whimsical, thought-provoking figures, has received multiple accolades, including the Best in Show at the South Carolina State Museum's 30th Anniversary Juried Exhibition in 2018 and the First Place Award at the 2015 Pickens County Museum Artists Exhibition. Her installations, such as "The Dream Life of Broken Toys" and "The Toy Republic," revealed biting social and political commentary through seemingly innocent toys and puppets. Linthead by Diana Farfán Q & A with Diana Farfán Dawn Hunter: Diana, your work often features dolls, puppets, and toys with deep, meaningful narratives hidden beneath their playful exteriors. What initially inspired you to choose these forms as a medium for your social and political commentary? Diana Farfán: Since I can remember, anthropo-zoomorphic forms have come out of my mind and hands easily. At an early age, I perceived that I could create my stories and that my body was always available for anatomical references. I enjoyed making fabric and paper puppets that embodied my characters and staging short plays to parody family and friend situations. Bogota, where I grew up, experienced many social conflicts due to the civil war and the anti-narco battle in Colombia, so it was usual to hear hostile descriptions of violent events broadcast on the news. I remember playing with my toys, dramatizing scenes from those disturbances while giving a sense of the national and world chaos in those years with my playful characters. Years later, after finishing my BFA, I worked as an art teacher in public schools in Bogotá, Colombia, and I came across the reality of many children who came from families displaced from the countryside to the city, fleeing from social conflicts derived from those wars I used to hear from the radio. This experience redirected my gaze toward the issue of manipulation when observing these young lives in vulnerable conditions. In 2002, I began to develop a visual proposal based on marionettes, puppets, and ceramic dolls that served me well to exemplify the theme of reverie, innocence, and control. Consecutively my work was expanding in a more human-nature sense. In a capitalist and consumerist system, in which everyone is manipulated but also manipulative, we play the game of action and reaction, give and take, pull and push, victim and victimized. We are part of a social fabric with invisible strings that connect us. When our purposes are positive and collective, we are constructive and grow. When our goals are ambitious and selfish, sadly, we become destructive and obstructive. Although my social and political commentaries hold desperation and sadness, I intentionally leave traces to find light and hope in my sculptures. 1+1=3 by Diana Farfán Detail of Linthead by Diana Farfán Dawn Hunter: You've truly made a mark on the Latino arts community through your art and your advocacy work. Can you recall a specific moment when you felt your contributions really made a difference? Why does that memory stand out to you? Diana Farfán: In 2012 I joined Palmetto Luna Arts' Board of Directors, an organization based in Columbia, SC, whose mission is to foster an understanding of the Hispanic/Latino culture by promoting artistic creation and providing opportunities for cultural expression for the community in the state. It was my first experience working for a non-profit, and I needed a clear path to advocate for my community, but eventually, things started working well. I learned about cultural agency and how to use art as a tool to open dialogues among diverse groups. For example, we, Latinos, are often stereotyped as loud, colorful, party people who eat tacos, beans, and rice; and wear flower-printed clothes, braided hair, long mustaches, and sombreros. However, we are much more than that. There are 20 countries and 14 territories in Latin America, each with specific idiosyncrasies and a vast diversity of body looks, ideologies, traditions, folklore, heritage, and cultural expressions. To illustrate that, here are two examples. In 2016, 12 Greenville-area Hispano-Latino artists from 8 countries participated in Feeling Latino, an art exhibition held at the Metropolitan Arts Council whose purpose was the celebration of the different nationalities sharing the same language and territory. The opening night was a great hit, and the gallery was utterly packed with Latinos and people from elsewhere exchanging experiences regarding cultures, art, and life. Another successful event was Ecos (Echoes), conceived by The Citadel Oral History Program and orchestrated by PLA. In 2018, a group of nineteen artists from SC was tasked with listening to real stories of immigrants told by their protagonists to create artwork based on their interpretations. The creation process took approximately ten months, and every artist was asked to report the progress of their works before submitting the final pieces. I witnessed how the commotional stories profoundly touched every artist. I was surprised at the chain effect when the artists' relatives, friends, colleagues, etc., got engaged with the processes and felt identified by the works' narratives. The Columbia Arts Museum's Community Gallery was the first space to host Ecos, and once again, the opening reception was a big turnout. It was the first time for several of the attendees to visit a museum that day. It was significant for the artists' families, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc., to feel proud of their heritage and, most importantly, included in such an important art institution. Ecos was planned as a tour exhibition for two years, but until 2021 it was visiting cities in other states, including NC and OH. My advocacy is something that I learned to use as I felt the need to implement strategies that elevate my Latino community and educate others about us. Linthead Installation by Diana Farfán in the Mill District, Columbia, SC Dawn Hunter: Your body of work is quite diverse, ranging from your earlier creations to your recent series "Bread and Circus". How would you describe the evolution of your art and what has influenced this journey? Diana Farfán: My first pieces, during the last years of my undergraduate program, were based on my interpretation of Bogota's citizens and our way of navigating a chaotic society. Aesthetically, my ceramic pieces evoked armatures and shields, as if human bodies were unearthed or hidden and protected by an impenetrable breastplate. They were large-scale with an industrial look and earthy colors, possessing a nostalgic urban presence. Then, while I worked as an art teacher for the public school system in my hometown, my ceramic production was based on my student's lives. I used babies and child-like shapes to make them articulated puppets and marionettes, joined with rusty nuts and bolts, hung from strings with movable armatures, conveying a fragile but resilient look. I wanted these ceramic bodies to communicate control, manipulation, and hope. I felt the need to speak about my home country's social and political situation, Colombia, which also reflected what was happening globally. During my graduate program, I intended to communicate my thoughts more efficiently, playfully, and poetically with casted shadows, soundtracks, built stages, and display devices such as rusty metallic swings, stools, and sandboxes made from found steel machinery or disposed of wooden components. My original puppet style branched into many toys that gained a dramatic and powerful dimension, narrating childhood innocence and the intrinsic and complex possibilities of adulthood in politics, religion, and education. The meaning of toys as objects or channels of entertainment, training, and learning is what I felt compelled to use. More recently, the human anatomy I used in my figures comes back and forth. I create specific anatomical measurements for my characters depending on the story I want to pursue, where the use of the body ranges from the classic cannon to abstract and conceptual representations. My latest ceramic production involves my concerns about the human relationship with animals and the environment and my preoccupation with overpopulation and our unstoppable consumerism. Pursuit of Happiness by Diana Farfán Dawn Hunter: Your artwork is absolutely unique and full of character. I'm curious, what does your creative journey look like? How does an idea in your mind transform into one of your distinctive sculptures? Diana Farfán: Before I start a body of work, an installation, or a singular piece, the content and physicality are the elements I define first. I enjoy exploring techniques, materials, and styles and combining different approaches to create my figures. My daily experiences are the portals to stimulate my mind, create projects, transform clay into shapes, and adjust my figures. I find inspiration in occurring that enables me intellectually and emotionally. The stories of the people around me, news of my home country, international affairs, art, a song, a movie, a conversation, a memory, and many other subjects touch my soul. For instance, my love for animals led me to volunteer for the Greenville Animal Shelter in 2019. Still, I learned quickly about the sad side of inhumane animal treatment in my area, in SC, and beyond, such as unregulated animal breeding for profit and the cruel dog and cock fights. I needed to educate myself and the kids on animal issues to prevent animal injustice in my community. That journey taught me about a particular field called Humane Education, which is an action-oriented field of study that draws connections between human rights, animal protection, and environmental sustainability. I got excited to know that HE is taught as a subject and curriculum in various US states, but unfortunately, not in SC. So, I decided to use my two preferred art mediums, ceramic sculpture, and education, to address my concerns and advocate for the voiceless. My recent body of work -Conversation Starters, Constellations, and Pursuit of Happiness- is oriented to speak out about humans' scary impact on nature, the environment, and all living creatures. I need to externalize my concerns because it burns inside if I don’t do it. Dawn Hunter: You've been recognized with several awards and exhibited at numerous prestigious venues. What would you consider your proudest moment as an artist so far and why? Diana Farfán: To be recognized is something I don't think about. However, when I achieve a goal, an award, or any accomplishment, I take it as an opportunity to grow, educate others on ceramic art, and practice to be humble. Perhaps my proudest moment achieved as an artist was my MFA graduation day because my parents flew from Bogota, Colombia, and my sisters with in-laws came from far to celebrate with me. My family and husband, all my most loyal supporters, felt my graduate degree was a mutual effort. They knew how challenging it was for me to successfully culminate three years of an academic program as an international student when I had to improve my English, develop a cohesive body of work, cultivate relationships, learn how to navigate a new city, and adjust to the American culture, all together at "the speed of light." Diana Farfán's Website dianafarfan.com Share this interview! Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Artist: Diana Farán| LOCATION: Greenville, SC Title: The Last Kiss. 2023 Competition Year. The Last Kiss by Diana Farfán