Go Cry About It!

<p>I have always been a crier. I have always felt deeply and intensely. Goodbyes, heartbreak, joy, and empathy—I’m grateful to feel it all, even when it hurts. My artwork often investigates vulnerable topics through making the personal public using self archival and diaristic elements. Inspired by my familial and romantic relationships, I explore my connections to other people and how I memorialize and honor them. My painted works often depict ephemeral objects, establishing their value through the use of oil paints while my sculptures are often exaggerated, oversize forms, emphasizing the passage of time.</p> <p>From January 1st to December 31st of 2024, I kept a record of every time I cried in a spreadsheet. My thesis explores the emotional release and absurdity of crying through the unpredictability of ceramics. Tracking emotions through cold, hard data negates the gravity of those feelings while contrasting them with bulbous, illustrative images of tears brings back the human touch. The subtle themes of grief—of people, relationships, and time itself—highlight the ways repressed emotions find their way out. The physicality of my thesis work specifically demands attention from the viewer by entering their space physically, screaming for someone to recognize the absurdity of such a display. I hope to inspire embracing vulnerability and appreciation of tears as a necessary bodily function required for emotional release as opposed to an embarrassment.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Visual Art

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Graduate School of Art

Year dc:date.available

2025

Author dc:creator

• Ryder, Grace C

Contributors dc:contributor

• Joe deVera
• Arny Nadler
• Jamie Adams

• crying
• tears
• ceramics
• sculpture
• grief
• absurdity
• self-quantification
• diaristic
• dataset
• self-archive
• Art and Design
• Fine Arts

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/mfa_visual_art/29

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:openscholarship.wustl.edu:mfa_visual_art-1032