Monthly Archives: March 2012

If You Don’t Root for Art Center, The Bad Guys Win

Tomorrow night, Friday, March 16 from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m., student teams from Art Center, Caltech, Le Cordon Bleu, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pacific Oaks College and Pasadena City College will vie for top honors in the third annual Pasadena Collegiate Field Tournament at PCC’s Jackie Robinson Stadium.

Admission is free and open to the public and everyone is invited to attend and root for their favorite teams. (But you better root for Art Center.)

Art Center Collegiate Field Tourny Team 2010

For the inaugural Pasadena Collegiate Field Tournament in 2010, the Art Center team based their uniforms on the College's first president, Tink Adams.

The field tournament is a somewhat wacky event comprised of challenges derived from the participating schools’ areas of expertise. Challenges in this year’s tourney include the Amazing Russet Race, Monster Croquet, Frisbee Touchdown Toss, Lego Car Design Challenge, Minute to Win It Marathon, Pandora’s Box and the School Spirit Competition.

  • The Amazing Russet Race – This is inspired by the fact that Le Cordon Bleu students hone their craft by learning how to slice and dice many foods, including potatoes. In this challenge, teams will be divided into “stuffers” and “pickers” who must fill uniforms with potatoes. The first team to amass 500 pounds of spuds will win the challenge.
  • Frisbee Touchdown Toss – This is a tribute to the fact that Frisbee golf was invented in Pasadena and the first Frisbee disc course was constructed and is still in operation here. (who knew?) Each team will have three opportunities to throw Frisbees into the end zones of the stadium while team members attempt to catch them. The team with the most points will win the challenge.
  • Lego Car Design Challenge – This pays homage to Art Center’s legendary Transportation Design Program. Using creativity and innovative design solutions, each team will race to assemble a Lego car where function meets style. Cars will be judged on design and speed.
  • Minute to Win It Marathon – A nod to the popular TV show, Fuller Seminary will lead competitors through obstacles such as Bobble-head, Hut-Hut-Hike, and Going the Distance.
  • Monster Croquet – Each team will select members to hit a giant beach ball with a mallet through balloon arches that serve as wickets. The team that succeeds in getting their beach ball through all the wickets the fastest wins.
  • Pandora’s Box – This challenge plays homage to each school’s area of expertise.  Multiple relays will test strengths of feat, faith, design, taste buds and more as competitors play the expanse of the football field–end zone to end zone.
  • School Spirit Competition – There’s absolutely nothing uniform about Pasadena’s superior institutions of higher learning, but uniforms for each team will be designed expressly for this competition by the schools they represent. The best team uniform based on attractiveness, originality and thematic connection to the school’s learning focus will win this challenge.

Free parking is available in Lot 5 at the corner of Del Mar Boulevard and Bonnie Street. Jackie Robinson Stadium is located on the south side of the PCC campus near Del Mar Boulevard between Hill and Bonnie avenues. [map]

The Pasadena Collegiate Field Tournament is sponsored by the City of Pasadena. For more information call 626.744.7216.

Meet the Woman Behind the “Girls of ID” Student Organization

Laura Jonason started the Girls of ID student organization about three terms into her studies in the Transportation Design program at Art Center to connect all the women in the department. She wasn’t surprised to be part of a very small minority but she thought, after growing up a tomboy and working for 8 years in a myriad of jobs before coming to Art Center, she wouldn’t find it to be a problem. After a few terms being the only woman in her class, however, she began to feel a little isolated and wanted to reach out to other women in her major. “It is hard for men and women to be friends with each other in the same way they are with their own gender and it can be lonely being the only girl in a class full of guys.” Laura founded the student organization so that women in industrial design majors who are similarly grappling with that kind of isolation have somewhere to go. The Girls of ID offers these women a place to find camaraderie.

The Girls of ID. Courtesy Laura Jonason

It’s not the first time Laura has looked for ways to connect women. Prior to Art Center, while working at Circuit City, Laura founded a similar group for women who wanted to pursue leadership positions. One of the things they would talk about is that as a woman you can’t act the same way a man does and get the same reaction. They used an analogy about how to react in boiling water – you don’t want to be a carrot that gets limp and soft and you don’t want to be an egg that hardens – you want to be coffee because it mixes with the boiling water and becomes something good.

On women in Transportation Design:

“We need female car designers. Everybody has a unique design perspective and adding gender into that mix can only help. Today’s woman really wants something La Femme Nikita – we want to be powerful and sexy.”

About the Girls of ID mentor, Product Design Department Chair Karen Hofmann:

“Karen  is awesome. It is really great to have a teacher and mentor who is a woman. You can go to her with questions about what it is like as a woman to work in a male-dominated industry. Currently there are no female Trans teachers so it is really wonderful to be able to go to her.”

About being a mentor:

“People come to me and tell me about someone who could use the support of our group. Trans faculty will let me know if they see a female student who is struggling and some of the men will also let me know if there is a girl in their class who looks like she could use a friend.”

About automotive interior design:

“Before coming to Art Center I was interested in designing interiors – how long have cars been around and we still don’t have a place to put a purse? After starting at Art Center, however, I fell in love with form and now I’m focusing on exteriors.”

The Girls of ID meet three times each term. At the beginning of the term, they have a picnic or potluck that includes students and alumni from Art Center as well as Cal State Long Beach and Cal Poly. Sometime around midterms they get together in a classroom with snacks and drinks to work on projects and socialize. At the end of each term they go out to dinner.

For more information about the Girls of ID and any other student group, see the Center for the Student Experience.

Art Center Alumni Reminisce About Mike Kelley in the “L.A. Times”

Last month, the Art Center community was stunned at the news that legendary artist Mike Kelley, who had taught in Art Center’s Graduate Art program from 1992—2007, had died.

At the time, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, Chair of the Grad Art program at Art Center, said, “Recognized as an important artist almost from the very beginning of his career, Mike kept teaching as long as he could before the pressures of being very famous indeed made it simply impossible for him to come to school with any regularity at all. He was, both in general and as a colleague, a brilliant combination of passion regarding art and a sense of humor… He has left us devastated.”

While much of the news following Kelley’s death focused on his cultural impact on the international art world, Sunday’s L.A. Times featured Art Center alumni reminiscing about their former teacher, who was “generous, patient, sometimes harsh but above all, eager to engage and share with fellow creators.”

Art Center would like to acknowledge our alumni–all celebrated artists themselves–and thank them for taking the time to share their thoughts with the L.A. Times.

To read the article in its entirety, please click here.

From the Art Center Archives: Faculty critique work by Steve Roden GART '89. Pictured (L to R) circa 1989: Laurence Dreiband, Richard Hertz, Sabina Ott, Stephen Prina, Mike Kelley and Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe. Image (c) Art Center College of Design/Steven A. Heller

UPDATE (3/15/12): Steve Roden, the student whose work was being critiqued in the above picture, recently blogged about seeing this photograph in the Los Angeles Times.

Grad Media Design 2012 Research Resident Announced

The Graduate Media Design Program is proud to announce that London-based designer Ilona Gaynor–currently Ridley Scott’s artist-in-residence–will be our 2012 Summer Research Resident. Gaynor will spend seven weeks in GradMediaDesign’s Wind Tunnel studio at Art Center’s South Campus, working with a team of MDP student research interns to develop Under Red Carpets, To Snatch Solid Golden Cages, part of her ongoing research into “the idea of ‘design’ as a role to plot, to hunt, to scheme, to concoct, using craft to be crafty and to simulate.”

Under Red Carpets was selected by a jury that included author McKenzie Wark, designer, writer and activist Rosten Woo, architect and MDP core faculty Tim Durfee, and critic, historian, and MDP thesis advisor Molly Wright Steenson.

Each summer, the Media Design Projects track hosts a variety of research projects by faculty, guest researchers, and post-graduate fellows. The results for 2012 will be presented at an event on Wednesday, August 15.

The residency theme for 2012 is Public Display, a look at how social media, ubiquitous computing and satellite mapping are redefining public and private space. MDP’s AMP Studio, headed by Tim Durfee, will create an exhibition, symposium, and publication on this theme in 2012-13.


Under Red Carpets, To Snatch Solid Golden Cages

A plot to rob a casino. Using actuary methods, architectural conjecture and cinematic speculation.

The project I am proposing is a meticulously calculated casino heist. Exploring the use of space in which the architectural context is the obstacle between you and what you’re looking for. Through utilisation and maniplation of the surrounding public space and it’s occupants to surreptitiously co-assist in this plot.

“…satellite mapping [is] redefining public and private space”

I ask: What if social media tools could assist in one the biggest heists in history. Could the future of criminality be invisibly crowdsourced? Could a cartographic intentional digital error be used as a ruse or distraction to occupy civilian or police attention?

—Ilona Gaynor

ArtNight Pasadena!

Enjoy a free evening of art, music and entertainment as Pasadena’s most prominent arts and cultural institutions swing open their doors tonight, Friday, March 9. Last fall, 14,000 people experienced the excitement of ArtNight Pasadena. Don’t miss the fun this time!

Begin your journey at any one of the 12 participating cultural institutions, where free shuttles will be waiting to transport you to your next destination.

Art Center is featuring The History of Space Photography, the most comprehensive exhibition of its kind ever organized, in the Williamson Gallery. The student gallery will also be open, where you can glimpse the future and see visionary works by our young artists and designers. There will also be a special rehearsal of John Cage’s 4’33”
(no. 2) (0’00”) by the Southwest Chamber Music at 7 pm in the Williamson.

Other participating venues are Alliance Française de Pasadena, the Armory Center for the Arts, artWORKS, Lineage Dance, the Norton Simon Museum, the Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena City College, the Pasadena Museum of California Art, the Pasadena Museum of History, Shumei Arts Council, and the Side Street Projects.

ArtNight is an ongoing partnership among many cultural institutions and the Cultural Affairs Division of the City of Pasadena. The event is sponsored by the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission with support from the following: Pasadena Department of Transportation Transit Division; Los  Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority; Pasadena Center Operating Company.

FREE SHUTTLES
Free shuttles will loop throughout the evening with stops at each venue. Park at any one venue and ride to the others.

ARTS BUS
Pasadena ARTS Route 10 runs along Colorado Boulevard and Green Street until 8 p.m.
For more information about the Arts Bus, see cityofpasadena.net/artsbus.

METRO GOLD LINE
Attend ArtNight by taking the Metro Gold Line to Pasadena. Check metro.net for information.

ARTNIGHT BICYCLE TOURS
For more information, visit cicle.org.

For information on ArtNight, please call the ArtNight Pasadena Hotline at 626.744.7887 or visit artnightpasadena.org.

“Bad Weather” T-Shirts Offered This Friday During ArtNight Pasadena

Proceeds from the sale of the "Bad Weather" T-shirt directly benefit Pasadena's Bad Weather Shelter.

In addition to The History of Space Photography, which explores the beauty, mystery, science and meaning of images depicting our planet and worlds beyond, and a free dress rehearsal of John Cage’s 4′33″ (no. 2) (0′00″) in preparation for Saturday’s performance by Grammy Award-winning Southwest Chamber Music, visitors to Art Center’s Hillside Campus during ArtNight Pasadena this Friday, March 9 from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. can support the ”Friends of the Bad Weather Shelter” by purchasing a T-shirt for only $20.00.

Bus shelter poster designed by alumnus Patrick Hruby to create awareness of "Friends of the Bad Weather Shelter."

In the Fall of 2011, due to budget restraints and the recent economic downturn, local and federal funds were cut considerably, negatively impacting the Bad Weather Shelter, which provides numerous services to Pasadena’s homeless during the winter months. In response, Rebecca Huang, a local high school senior, started a creative program that encourages 100 local businesses and/or individuals to become “Friends” of the shelter for only $600 a year, which would offset the funds lost due to budget cuts and enable the shelter to continue to provide this important humanitarian service.

Soon after Rebecca launched her campaign, Art Center’s Designmatters and Illustration Departments partnered with the City of Pasadena to develop an effective campaign to create awareness of the program. In January of this year, the City of Pasadena implemented three posters art directed by Ann Field (Chair, Illustration Department) and illustrated by recent alumnus Patrick Hruby (Illustration, ’10) on 20 bus shelters throughout the city.

As a continuation of that campaign, proceeds from the sale of the “Bad Weather” T-shirt directly benefit the Pasadena Bad Weather Shelter. So far, the entire campaign has raised roughly $15,000 from local businesses and individuals.

Irene Vermeers, Art Center’s First School Photographer

Irene Vermeers, circa 1936. Gift of Irene Vermeers PHOT '37.

Guest post by Art Center Archivist Robert Dirig

This week for Women’s History Month we spotlight one of Art Center’s earliest students and the College’s first school photographer, Irene (Gutterman) Vermeers.

Irene was a Photography major who graduated from Art Center in 1937.

Working as the school photographer to help pay tuition, Vermeers documented Art Center’s faculty, students, student work and classes across all academic departments.

A number of her images appeared in the 1937 catalog, including her portrait of a man, which can be seen on this page from the 1937 catalog showcasing Photography Department student work.

1937 Art Center catalog (click to enlarge).

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Art Center Announces Acquisition of New Property and Partnership With Michael Maltzan Architecture

Art Center College of Design will expand its educational reach and resources with the acquisition of a former U.S. Postal Service property in Pasadena, Art Center President Dr. Lorne M. Buchman announced today. The purchase of the vacant property was made possible through gifts from alumni. President Buchman further announced that the College has selected award-winning firm Michael Maltzan Architecture as its partner in fulfilling and expanding its academic plan through the re-imagining of existing spaces, and the forward-looking design of new ones, at both of the College’s campuses.

Dr. Buchman said, “This is a pivotal moment not only in Art Center’s history, but in art and design education, given the growing impact of the creative professions on the economy and on our world. This new property enables expansion and development of our programs and infrastructure and enhances our capacity for teaching, learning, creating and collaborating to ensure that we are able to fulfill our mission to educate students, now and into the future.

“The overwhelming support of alumni for this acquisition signals their commitment to future generations of Art Center students. They want these students to have access to the same opportunities they had—opportunities afforded by rigorous, professional instruction in a supportive, creative, cutting-edge environment,” Dr. Buchman continued.

Art Center Board of Trustees Chair Robert C. Davidson, Jr., added, “The availability of the property adjacent to the College’s South Campus was serendipitous, and it came on the market just as we finalized our strategic plan. The Board and I are exceedingly proud to be part of setting the vision for Art Center and its leadership at this time of transformation. Thanks to thoughtful planning and the generosity of our alumni, the College now renews its commitment to providing the finest education for our students. Further, we are poised to expand to meet future challenges and even higher standards of excellence.”

South Campus Aerial View

Existing South Campus property at 950 S. Raymond, outlined in blue, and new property at 870-888 S. Raymond, outlined in red.

George Falardeau, Sr. Vice President of Real Estate and Operations for Art Center, stated that the new property is at 870-888 S. Raymond Avenue in Pasadena, immediately adjacent to the College’s existing South Campus at 950 S. Raymond. The acquisition will allow the College to create three centers of learning—an expanded South Campus, a renovated Hillside Campus (1700 Lida Street, Pasadena) and a virtual campus—each optimized for the particular needs of promising artists and designers, while at the same time fostering new collaborations among disciplines. This expansion also includes opportunities to strengthen engagement with and connection to diverse communities because of the proximity of South Campus to public transportation and the continued presence of Art Center’s Public Programs at that location.

Commenting on the selection of Michael Maltzan Architecture for the project, Dr. Buchman said, “Following an intensive, year-long process, Michael emerged as the best partner for Art Center as voiced by our students, faculty and alumni, especially given his deep understanding of the way artists and designers learn, think and make. We couldn’t be more enthusiastic to have him on board to fulfill our vision for tomorrow’s classrooms and studio spaces.”

Michael Maltzan added, “Art Center’s continued leadership in art and design education comes from the culture of innovation and inspiration that thrives there. An important part of that legacy is the innovative and useful architecture that the school has built over the years to help foster and sustain that culture. It is enormously exciting to be able to participate with Art Center in developing buildings and spaces that will continue to capture the spirit of the school, provide for changing and emerging programs and help imagine its future.”

Art Center alumni responded to the possible expansion in an unprecedented manner, donating $5 million for the acquisition of the new property. Significant gifts include three, seven-figure irrevocable bequests, one made by Art Center alumnus and award-winning environmental designer Richard Law (Graduate Industrial Design ’58). Another gift was from Art Center alumnus and kinetic sculptor Steven Rieman (Product Design ‘74) and his wife, Ruth, and a third was from Art Center alumnus Bruce Heavin (Illustration ’93) and his wife, former Art Center faculty member Lynda Weinman, owners of the innovative online learning company, lynda.com.

“This is exactly what Art Center should be doing,” Mr. Law said. “The property, in an urban environment on the edge of Old Pasadena where all the action is, as well as public transit, is a great example of renewing older areas, creating a vital, energetic place.  In today’s culture, this is exactly how a campus should be.”

“We aren’t as interested in a new building as we are in the education inside that building, and in recognizing the excellence of Art Center students and the critical importance and impact of what they do,” the Riemans said of their bequest. “The type of work that could happen there, such as full-scale prototyping, is just one way students would benefit. It’s clear to us that Art Center is serious about broadening students’ opportunities and experience by embracing new technologies and new ways of collaborating and creating in new spaces.”

Mr. Heavin said, “When I first visited the property, I immediately saw a great natural extension of the South Campus that would accommodate students’ educational needs.”

Ms. Weinman added, “As a former faculty member, it has been great to reconnect with Art Center’s high standard of excellence and quality and to commit to upholding it through thoughtful expansion.”

The College’s expansion plans are in direct response to Create Change, a five-year strategic plan that reflects the collective vision of the entire Art Center community in shaping the College’s core values into a new model for art and design education in the 21st century. The plan identifies Art Center’s “conservatory” approach to education, wherein students undergo intense and practical career preparation guided by expert faculty, and the role that rich intercultural and transdisciplinary collaborations play in providing students a contextual understanding of the world around them. The plan identifies the need to enhance and improve its physical spaces and educational technologies in order to foster and extend such collaboration.

A Special Invitation to “Syd Mead: Progressions” [Updated with image gallery and "2019" video]

"Hypervan-Profile" (2005) by Syd Mead.

Currently on view at the Forest Lawn Museum in Glendale, Syd Mead: Progressions is a retrospective that spans more than 50 years of artwork by legendary visual futurist and Art Center alumnus Syd Mead TRAN ’59.

The exhibition—which includes paintings of everything from extraterrestrial vehicles to interplanetary resort destinations—is a spectacular opportunity to get an up-close-and-personal view of Mead’s work and to appreciate his uncanny ability to translate contemporary concepts into believable visions of the future.

To help celebrate Progressions, Art Center College of Design and Forest Lawn are co-hosting a special presentation at Forest Lawn Museum next Thursday, March 8, from 7–10 p.m. Mead will speak about his work at 8 p.m. and a book signing will immediately follow.

If you’re interested in attending, please RSVP to alumni@artcenter.edu.

Forest Lawn Museum is located at 1712 South Glendale Ave., Glendale, CA 91205.

Head past the jump for a gallery of additional images and the featurette “2019: A Future Imagined,” in which Mead reflects upon the nature of creativity and how it drives the future.

Continue reading →

Explore “The History of Space Photography” and the Music of John Cage in Art Center’s Williamson Gallery

The Aurora Austalis, as photographed from the International Space Station. Photo courtesy of NASA.

Now open in the Williamson Gallery, the exhibition The History of Space Photography explores the beauty, mystery, science and meaning of images depicting our planet and worlds beyond.

Guest curated by Jay Belloli—the director of gallery programs at the Armory Center for the Arts from 1990 to 2010—the exhibition presents an extraordinary variety of astronomical photographs created since the development of photography, and will feature a number of the most important scientific photographs ever created.

From the earliest black and white documentation of the Moon, solar eclipses, and stars through the most recent color images of the early history of the Universe, The History of Space Photography is the most comprehensive exhibition of its kind ever organized.

Continue reading →