“January, Julia F. Parker, Yosemite Visitors Center”
Photo by Jonas Kulikauskas.
Providing a top notch education in art and design requires an intricate ecosystem comprised of state of the art facilities, a driven and talented student body and, perhaps most of all, a broad body of skilled faculty members committed to engaging students and their own creative and professional practices in equal measure.
It’s no accident that Art Center’s faculty is comprised of working artists and designers, many of whom are game changing iconoclasts and leading innovators in their fields. In addition to being steeped in the most up-to-date best practices in any given field, Art Center’s faculty members offer incentive to students to continue pursuing their creative dreams.
But maintaining dual careers requires a surplus of passion and resources, both temporal and financial. To that end, Art Center’s Faculty Council has has marshaled funds to help out with the latter in the form of its annual Faculty Enrichment Grant program, which distributes up to $40,000 to faculty members actively pursuing projects “related to creative or professional development.”
Last month, the Council announced the seven recipients of its 2014 Faculty Enrichment Grants. Each will receive an award of up to $5000 to support their work outside of the classroom. The Dotted Line reached out to each of the seven recipients to learn more about their award winning projects. Here’s what we learned:
Ken Aguado (Film) is an independent producer whose recent film, “Standing Up,” was written and directed by DJ Caruso and was released in 2013. Aguado received his grant for his latest project, Miracle on 42nd Street, a documentary he’s executive producing about the history and impact of the Manhattan Plaza apartment complex in New York City, which was re-purposed as subsidized housing for people in the performing arts.
Adele Bass (Integrated Studies) received her award for her ongoing research for her documentary, The Serigraphy Poster Apprenticeship and Videography of Earl Newman. Earl Newman has been designing and printing Monterey Jazz Festival posters for the last 50 years. The Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC has recently acquired a complete edition of his numbered and signed collection of Jazz posters dating back to 1963. This is his last year making his posters for the festival and I am filming his process and unique lifestyle.
Marion Eisenmann (Art Center at Night, Illustration) has spent much of her career working in the entertainment industry, creating storyboards, characters and concept art for films, including the 2005 feature film Outlander. Her grant award will go towards her current project: Illustrations for a Healthier Nicaragua.
Gabrielle Jennings (Grad Art) received her grant award for the book project: Abstract Video, The Moving Image in Contemporary Art, forthcoming from UCPress, in 2015. Jennings served as editor on this multi-author volume, which examines abstraction in the field known as ‘video art.’ Made after 2000, moving image artworks that were made just after video proper went extinct when digital became dominant. The collection covers a range of instances of abstraction in moving image art including video art, new media, expanded cinema, visual music, video installation, net art and experimental film, while offering a wide variety of historical and theoretical positions from a diverse group of art historians, artists, curators and writers.
Joan Kahn (Integrated Studies) From January 17 through April 18, 2015, the W. Keith and Janet Kellogg University Art Gallery at California State Polytechnic University Pomona is hosting a Fifteen Year Survey Exhibition of her paintings. The Faculty Enrichment Grant from Art Center College of Design will in large part fund the printing of the catalog for this exhibition, which will contain an essay by renowned art historian and critic Betty Ann Brown, a curator statement by Quinton Bemiller, an introduction by the gallery director Michele Cairella Fillmore, her artist’s statement and biography, and color reproductions of many of her paintings in the exhibition. This catalog is important as documentation of the exhibition, and as a educational resource for interested visitors.
Jonas Kulikauskas (Art Center at Night, Photography) received his grant for his ongoing work on a project entitled, Yosemite People. Here’s how he describes the ideas informing this undertaking, which will ultimately take shape in an exhibition of large scale prints: “I’m using 35mm black and white film to document the community at Yosemite National Park. I’m photographing the workers, visitors, and residents who coexist with nature in this great valley. Apart from preserving our nation’s wilderness, the National Parks were meant to be enjoyed and used by people and this is what I want to capture. Remarkably, with Yosemite’s 75-year history, this type of photographic project has never been done before. My end goal is to produce beautiful silver gelatin prints for exhibition purposes.”
Dennis Phillips (Humanities and Sciences) is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry, including Navigation, Selected Poems 1985-2010 and a novel, Hope. His commentaries and poetry appear regularly in national and local literary journals. Philips plans to use his grant award to work on his translation of the Italian book of poems, The Embargoed Voice of Milli Graffi.
