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Art Center to host first all faculty-focused summit

Art Center College of Design will host its first faculty-organized, all-faculty conference Saturday, Oct. 27 from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the South Campus Wind Tunnel Gallery.

Faculty Commons, designed for adjunct and full-time faculty, will include free workshops, panels and guest speakers to discuss the complex issues related to teaching at Art Center.

Topics for debate will include available campus resources, practical classroom approaches and how to best educate artists and designers in the 21st Century.

The event will also include a 30-minute lunchtime tour of Art Center’s newly purchased Post Office Building, located next to South Campus.

In the afternoon, attendees can attend one of four workshops. Sujects include creating learning communities, the blurring disciplines at Art Center and in the workplace, technology pitfalls in the classroom and the educator’s role at Art Center.

The event will conclude with a rooftop faculty appreciation party at 5 p.m.

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Williamson Gallery’s ‘Pages’ attracts artists of all types

Suvan Geer stands next to her piece "Loose Ends."

From hair curled inside a book to notes on a soon-to-come bridge, page-centric pieces from more than 20 artists are on display through Jan. 27 at the Art Center’s Williamson Gallery.

The aptly titled “Pages” exhibition, which was recently featured in the Los Angeles Times, was 18 months in the making and features on array of objects, books and papers honoring the page’s seminal role in crafting culture and knowledge.

“You can look at a book as if it’s a body,” said artist Suvan Geer of her 1999 piece “Loose Ends,” which pairs an open book with human hair. “When someone dies, their hair and nails keep growing … When you close [a book], where does it go? How do you know when something’s alive?”

Faculty member Simon Johnston took a seemingly obsessive-compulsive approach with “Investigation.” The 1997 piece is comprised of 256 individually framed pages from “Philosophical Investigations,” Ludwig Wittgenstein’s influential book about the shortcomings of language, with all of the words omitted except “this.”

“Words act as signals that take you to a thing, except ‘this.’ It’s a black hole of language,” he said.

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Alums compete for potential $25,000 prize in Lexus Ignition Project

From left: Conscious Commuter and SpnKiX M

A pair of alums’ bike-like designs are competing to win up to $25,000 as part of the Lexus Ignition Project.

Conscious Commuter, co-founded by Gabriel Wartofsky, and spnKiX, co-founded by Peter Treadway, are finalists in the online contest. Users can vote via Facebook to determine which start-up project best blends “high-tech and high-style” and wins the funding.

Conscious Commuter — part bike, part scooter — is crafted from lightweight carbon fiber and features an electric motor with speeds of up to 20 mph.

SpnKiX M — a folding electric scooter — let’s riders sit or stand while traveling up to 15 mph, and has room for a basket and perhaps another passenger, at least according to the product’s video.

Users can cast their votes once per day Oct. 15 to 21.

The monthlong contest started Sept. 24 and pits a pair of similar products against each other each week with the fan favorite winning $25,000 to move into production.

Prior winners include UrbanFidelity Speakers, which mix artwork with eco-wood construction, and SolarPOP, a solar-powered charger for smart phones and tablets.

Which scooter would you buy? Vote here.

Star illustrators, Bob Peak’s son discuss design evolution

From left: Aaron Smith, Tom Peak, Paul Rogers and Josh Cochran

A pair of star illustrators and Art Center alums Paul Rogers and Josh Cochran, as well as Tom Peak, son of late, legendary illustrator Bob Peak, swapped stories of how broke beginnings turned into landing major ad and editorial campaigns.

“I was eating Ramen, and my girlfriend was buying gas,” Cochran said of his early days as an illustrator.

“I had a plan to make $500 a month … and my girlfriend worked in a restaurant, so I thought I’d be good with food,” added Art Center faculty member Rogers.

The hour-long discussion, moderated by faculty member Aaron Smith, took place Tuesday evening at the Hillside campus, and was capped off with a book signing and drinks.

Peak kicked off the conversation by revealing his father’s first paying gig as an artist. “At 17, he lied about his age and joined the Navy, and during his downtime, he drew portraits” for a fee, he said.

In the 1940s, Bob Peak attended Art Center where he studied illustration while working as the school’s cook, groundskeeper and janitor. “My mother was an art student, and she and my dad met in the cafeteria while he was busing trays,” Peak said.

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Designers give for a living at L.A.-based VeryNice

Matthew Manos, the philanthropic founder of VeryNice

It seems nice guys can finish first — even in the competitive world of design. Founded by Art Center alum Matthew Manos, VeryNice has a unique (and successful) business model rooted in social responsibility instead of profit margins.

The design consultancy, which was recently featured in Forbes, donates half of its time for free to nonprofits so volunteering is part of the job instead of an after-hours pursuit.

“Cleaning up a beach is great … but creative people especially want to contribute with the skills they have,” said Manos. “This is a way to do that.”

Manos started the business at the age of 19 with the goal of doing only pro-bono work. But as the startup and bills grew, he found a way for the company to make money while still giving back.

“It’s sort of a joke, but if we take on twice the amount of projects a regular design studio would, we have more bandwidth,” said Manos, who graduated from Art Center’s Media Design Practices program in 2012.

Film student’s photography nominated for Lucie Award

Eric Chang's "Time-Trap" was nominated for a Lucie Award.

Art Center College of Design Student Eric Chang has been nominated for a Lucie Award for “Time-Trap,” a photo series that could soon adorn Elton John’s walls.

The 22-year-old is among the eight nominees in the Discovery of the Year category — which recognizes emerging image-makers in editorial, advertising, fine art and other photo-centric industries — and carries a $5,000 prize.

Winners will be announced Oct. 8 at the 10th annual Lucie Awards, presented by the Lucie Foundation, which works to cultivate the craft of photography worldwide.

The gala dinner and awards presentation at the Beverly Hilton hotel will feature stars from both sides of the lens, including Jessica Lange, Aisha Tyler, Ryan Murphy and Joel Meyerowitz, who will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement award.

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In Conversation: Richard Law, raising the profile of a great college

Art Center President Lorne Buchman, left, and alum Richard Law (Industrial Design ’58)

Art Center alumni are playing a growing role in helping to implement the College’s community-generated strategic plan, Create Change, with philanthropic support across a broad range of areas. Among the most talked about during the past year were gifts totaling $5 million to enable Art Center to acquire a former U.S. Postal Service property in Pasadena. The new property will effectively double the size of South Campus, transforming it from a “satellite” location to a fully-realized campus, with extensive benefits for students and faculty and for local residents.

Richard Law (Industrial Design ’58) is one of the visionary alumni donors who made the purchase possible. He generously offered his thoughts about investing in Art Center at what many are calling a pivotal moment in the College’s history.

Art Center: Can you lead us through your process of making your gift to Art Center? Was it a difficult decision?

Richard Law: It was always important to me to do something with my resources that made a difference in other people’s lives. When I saw the building for purchase, adjacent to the existing South Campus, I thought: This is fabulous. This is what Art Center should be doing. 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.

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‘Little Miss Sunshine’ directors talk filmmaking from script to screen

From left: Instructor Lee Rosenbaum, Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton. Photo: Chuck Spangler

“Little Miss Sunshine” directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris spent Wednesday afternoon with Art Center College of Design students recounting their 30-year career, which spans directing the first round of music videos in the early 1980s to the 2012 feature film “Ruby Sparks.”

The husband-and-wife directing duo kicked off the conversation on the Hillside campus with advice for students getting their foot in the door.

“Right now you guys are really cheap to hire and that’s a great entry into the business,” said Dayton, wearing jeans, jacket and his signature fedora.

“Lie, cheat, steal, do whatever you can to get your movies made,” Faris added, quoting her former UCLA professor, renowned filmmaker Shirley Clarke.

The pair made their directorial debut with the R.E.M. music video “Wolves Lower” in 1982 when MTV was first launching.

“There was this new form of filmmaking, and there were no experts and no money,” said Faris, donning a blue button up paired with yellow sneakers.

The couple went on to direct videos for ’90s grunge darlings Jane’s Addiction, Soundgarden and Smashing Pumpkins.

Dayton and Faris shared cinematic secrets behind the 1996 Smashing Pumpkins video for “1979,” including putting cameras in unusual places: inside a Ziploc bag and tossed into a pool and strapped inside a rolling tractor tire.

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Faculty member Uta Barth named 2012 MacArthur fellow

Photographer and Art Center College of Design faculty member Uta Barth is among the 23 recipients of the prestigious and lucrative “genius grant” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Each of the 2012 fellows will receive $500,000 over the next five years. Recipients range from a geochemist probing the earth’s crust to a pediatric neurosurgeon treating intra-cranial diseases.

Winners in the fields of art and design include documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, whose work explores the consequences of military conflict; and social services innovator Maurice Lim Miller, whose design projects track and reward self-sufficiency in low-income neighborhoods.

Barth was born in Berlin in 1958 and now resides in Los Angeles. She’s been an adjunct faculty member at Art Center since 2001.

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‘Pages’ opening reception part of ArtNight Pasadena

Mark Twain's notes on "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." Credit: The Huntington Library

Art Center College of Design will host on Friday, Oct. 12 from 6 to 10 p.m. an opening reception for the upcoming “Pages” exhibition as part of ArtNight Pasadena, an evening of free art, music and entertainment across the city.

“Pages” will open Saturday, Oct. 13 and run through Jan. 13 at the Art Center’s Williamson Gallery.

Eighteen months in the making, the exhibition features on array of objects, books and papers that honor the page’s seminal role in the progression of culture and knowledge.

Works on view will include Albert Einstein’s 1896 high school certificate; Mark Twain’s handwritten revisions to “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” the short story that brought him international attention; as well as Suvan Geer’s 1999 piece “Loose Ends,” an open book altered with human hair.

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