Communication Studies Ph.D. Candidate Commits to Keep Austin Beautiful

Valerie Thatcher, a second year PhD candidate in Communication Studies with an emphasis on Rhetoric and Language Studies, has identified herself as an artist ever since she was a little kid. With more than 30 years of experience as a graphic designer she continues to do freelance graphic design work in her spare time when she’s not busy with her graduate studies and TAing.

Valerie Thatcher,
Communication Studies
Ph.D. candidate

In addition to her graduate studies, Valerie heads up the Robertson Hill Neighborhood Association, which she started two years ago in response to rising crime in her neighborhood. “As soon as the semester’s over, I’m starting a neighborhood association,” declared Valerie after she became a victim of crime herself. Valerie has lived in the Robertson Hill neighborhood, a traditionally African American community, for ten years. During that time, she’s seen the neighborhood change: “a lot of young professionals and creatives are moving in to the neighborhood,” said Valerie, who also noted that the population has become more diverse with a balance of ethnicities.

In order to inspire community pride and beautify the neighborhood, Valerie applied for and won a $1,000 Neighborhood Beautification Grant through Keep Austin Beautiful, which will transform vacant houses within the Robertson Hill neighborhood into artistic landmarks through a community art mural project. Now through Oct. 2, the Robertson Hill Neighborhood Association, headed up by Valerie, is accepting sketches from local artists, neighborhood residents, and children or neighborhood residents. There is even a mural slated for a local middle school art project. The finalists’ winning sketches will be announced at the neighborhood’s National Night Out on Oct. 6 and the completed murals will be installed on Dec. 11.

A home in Austin’s
Robertson Hill neighborhood.

The Keep Austin Beautiful grant not only holds a personal significance to Valerie because she lives in the Robertson Hill neighborhood, but also because the grant is an outlet for her to explore her current research interest, visual rhetoric, through the project’s theme: How do you visually interpret being a part of the Central East Austin community?

When she was introduced to the concept of visual rhetoric, Valerie says that a light bulb went off in her head and she realized that she could use her 30 years of experience as a graphic designer to further explore this new field. “There aren’t a lot of theories in visual rhetoric,” notes Valerie, “there are a lot of macro-theories, but not a lot of micro-theories.” Valerie hopes to explore color as a micro-theory in visual rhetoric. There has been a lot of research on the psychology of color, but she hopes to research how color is rhetorically persuasive.

Her work on the Keep Austin Beautiful grant will allow her to explore several themes within her research interest of visual rhetoric: how the neighborhood will be represented as a visual narrative (will it stay with the old narrative of African American, blues, and jazz focused or will a new narrative be created from the increasing diversity of the neighborhood), how the artists use colors and patterns to represent the community, and the collective theme of the murals.

Currently, Valerie hopes to focus on the rhetoric of color for her dissertation, but it depends on where her research will lead her—whether it is color or another area where she finds a richer body of research opportunities. Valerie has written several papers on the intersection of visual rhetoric and environmental communication.

Valerie chose The University of Texas at Austin for her graduate studies because the Communication Studies program is a top-ranked program in the country and because of the vibrancy that Austin lends to her area of study. According to Valerie, Austin is still a little oasis of cool in a very conservative state and has a very laid back vibe; the music and art scenes attract a lot of creatives (including Valerie 27 years ago!).

More information on Valerie’s Keep Austin Beautiful grant is available.

— Angela Obolsky