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SEEKING WAYS of EXPRESSION a Thesis Presented in Partial SEEKING WAYS OF EXPRESSION A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree Master of Fine Arts in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University by Ryuji Noda, B.A. ***** The Ohio State University 1995 Master's Examination Committee: Approved By Richard Harned Ruth King Todd Slaughter Department of Art Copyright by RyujiNoda 1995 To My Parents Shizu and Hideo Noda To My Late Grandmother Katsu Yakuwa To My Sister MikaNoda and To My Late Sister Rie Noda ii VITA March 31, 1964 Born - Tokyo, Japan Spring 1987 B.A., Japanese Culture, Musahi University, Tokyo, Japan Spring 1987 National Qualification of Museum Administration, Musashi University, Tokyo, Japan Spring 1991. Completion of Post-graduate Course, Tokyo Glass Art Institute, Kanagawa-ken, Japan Summer 1994 Scholarship student, The Pilchuck Glass Center, Stanwood, Washington 1993 - Present.. Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Art, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio PUBLICAnONS None FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Art iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ii VITA iii LIST OF PLATES v CHAPTER I Exploring My Limitations 1 1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 First Work 1 II A Sense of Value and of Inscrutability 4 -2.1 Fusion of a Spirit and Things as Materials 4 2.2 Collection of Materials 6 2.3 Fusion 7 2.3.1 To the Field - Earth Work and Feedback From It.. 7 2.3.2 Experiment of Fusion 8 III On the Thesis Show 11 3.1 Introduction of the Thesis Show 11 3.2 To Present Vagueness 11 3.2.1 No. 1 (Plates XXIV - XXVI) 11 3.2.2 No. 2 (Plate XXVII) 13 3.2.3 No. 3 (Plates XXVIII & XXIX) 14 3.2.4 A Property of Visual Arts - to Present Vagueness 16 3.3 Power of Association 17 3.3.1 No.4- (Plates XXXV - XXXVII) 17 3.4 Conclusion 23 LIST OF REFERENCES 25 PLATES 26 iv LIST OF PLATES I. Balance 27 II. Balance (from different angle) 28 III. Untitled 29 IV. Into Nature 1 30 V. Into Nature 1 (from different angle) 31 VI. Balance (Image of fungi 1) 32 VII. Untitled (Image of ant's nest) 33 VIII. Untitled (Image of ant's nest, detail) 34 IX. Untitled (Image of bird's nest 1) 35 X. Untitled (Image of bird's nest 2) 36 XI. Untitled (Image of fungi 2) 37 XII. Study of Vines 38 XIII. Study of Vines (detail) 39 XIV. Improvisation Works in Nature 1 40 XV. Improvisation Works in Nature 2 41 XVI. Improvisation Works in Nature 2 (from different angle) 42 XVII. Improvisation Works in Nature 3 43 XVIII. Improvisation Works in Nature 4 44 XIX. Improvisation Works in Nature 4 (detail) 45 XX. Improvisation Works in Nature 5 46 XXI. Improvisation Works in Nature 5 (detail) 47 XXII. Improvisation Works in Nature 6 48 XXIII. Improvisation Works in Nature 6 (detail) 49 XXIV. In Thesis Show No.1 50 XXV. In Thesis Show No. 1 (detail 1) 51 XXVI. In Thesis Show No. 1 (detail 2) 52 XXVII. In Thesis Show No.2 53 XXVIII. In Thesis Show No.3 54 XXIX. In Thesis Show No.3 (from different angle) 55 XXX. Different Styles of Japanese Hearses 56 XXXI. Shinto Style Funeral 57 XXXII. Buddhist Style Funeral 58 XXXIII. Forms of Shinto Celebrations 59 XXXIV. Wake at Japanese Funeral 60 XXXV. In Thesis Show No.4 61 XXXVI. In Thesis Show No.4 (from different angle) 62 XXXVII. In Thesis Show No. 4 (detail) 63 v CHAPTER I EXPLORING MY LIMITATIONS 1.1 Introduction When I started making my art here, I was eager to recognize my physical limitations of creative activity. I thought it was necessary to know the amount of work I could do without any assistance in planning and executing an art work. Of course a big motivation was that I was curious in how large I could expand myself in art. In particular, I had been feeling limitations of scale while using glass as an artistic material. I wanted to free myself from these limitations of scale. 1.2 First work However simple it may have been, I used my body and soul plus my expertise to complete the work (Plates I & IT). I completed this first work. With the completion of this first art work, I had conflicting feelings. I could feel a sort of power which was created only from a certain large scale work. Moreover, I felt my art work affected its environment due to its scale. I also felt that I had explored my physical limitations. At the same time, I also felt I lost something essential to express my art. Therefore I began to feel that my work was separated from my mental state and spirit. Furthermore, I was currently in the worst depression in my life, mainly because of my lack of English comprehension and my confusion and doubt due to cultural differences. I began to notice an existence of a basic sense of value which leans toward something explainable than toward something unexplainable. I often felt that people in America feel uncomfortable about something unexplainable; therefore, they tend to ignore it or value it 1 2 less than in my Japanese culture. I feel it is no problem or even has higher value sometimes. Verbal expression is the most important and common way of expressing things in American culture. Many art works here also seem to be accompanied by verbal presentations such as an artist's statement and critiques. I feel it is uncomfortable and shallow sometimes. There were several matters about myself I couldn't elucidate not only because of my poor English comprehension but also other reasons. One thing I couldn't explain was my creative desire. Strangely, when I was in a bad spiritual condition, I didn't want to quit making art, rather I sought an expression appropriate for the bad situation. Strong curiosity, which is almost uncontrollable sometimes, and the spirit of inquiry are the core of my creative desire. I have no idea why I have such curiosity and an inquisitive nature. Itis not because of some special reason but just my nature. I cannot go deeper into the reasons of my creative desire other than to state what mainly drives me, and I feel it is not necessary to do so. Frustrations and stresses caused by incomplete communication and cultural differences were accumulating. A feeling of powerlessness began to amplify so that I was becoming conscious about the smallness of my existence. Because of that, I suspected I lacked something essential to complete this fIrst work. I felt the work might make a negative contrast of my smallness against the large scale work. I vaguely recognized this first art work did not reflect the expressor's mental state and spirit. I obscurely felt there was an uncertain direction or way of expressing my work. I wanted to express my art work by considering the opposite of the way I felt about this first work. Thinking opposite, if I could make the relationship of those two agreeable - the art work and the expressor's mental state - without incompatibility, then that was the way I wanted to express my art. I also felt there is a way of art expression along my context, which I feel comfortable with. In my context, I felt comfortable in withholding verbal 3 presentations and also felt comfortable with vagueness, even though I had not fully recognized this comfortableness yet. CHAPTER II A SENSE OF VALUE AND OF INSCRUTABILITY 2.1 Fusion of a Spirit and Things as Materials While I was under the feeling of powerlessness and smallness I experienced a very strange situation, like a regression that I have never experienced before. I was like an elementary school child then an infant then not like a human being but like an animal and an insect. My mind was beginning to consider and become comfortable with nature's creations such as marks and trails of animals and insects, remnants of leaves after being eaten by insects, insect tracks, forms of nests and cocoons, natural forms like canyons .r shaped by the erosion of water, wind and heat from sunlight, rocks become round in the flow of a river, and the shapes of clouds. They were evidences of time, which was creating certain forms by the process of simple accumulation, from continuity of gradual actions and/or motions, and without processes which are called skill and not under the control of consciousness. I can feel eternity, mystery, and sublimity, which are really strong not from surfaces and appearances but from nucleuses. I felt a depth which cannot be felt using a brain but can be felt using a body. These "unconscious actions" remind me of strange and inscrutability feelings and why they are so comfortable, interesting, and magnificent to me. A part of me is strange and inscrutable. For instance, I cannot elucidate with certainty as to why I have certain tastes. My volition on making art has a chaotic and ambiguous attribute also. I have something uncontrollable in myself ... nature, I have nature in myself. That is why I am attracted to nature. 4 5 I tried to make several pieces in which I wished to fuse myself into nature because of a misty, hazy consciousness to pursue my comfortable expression. How can I approach nature? How is that human being's hands take an essence of nature in an art work? Although I didn't have a convincing idea, I experimented on making a process and a skill simple in the manner of nature showing the following: Simple and Primitive Processes - Stuffing cotton into glass pipes (plates IV, V, & VI), stuffing moss into glass pieces (plate IX, X & XI), and lumps of broken cork into glass pieces (Plates VII & VIID.
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