Author Archives: Anna Macaulay

End of Term Reminders from Environmental Health and Safety

As we enter the final stretch of the summer term, please review the following Environmental, Health and Safety reminders.

Faculty, please take a few minutes to review the list with your students. ArtCenter is committed to providing you with a healthy and safe environment along with the tools and resources necessary for a successful end of term.

First Aid: contact Campus Security to report all first aid or medical concerns/issues.
Environmental Concerns: Please contact Campus Security ext 2211 (campussecurity@artcenter.edu) or Cynthia Quentin (ehs@artcenter.edu) to report any environmental or air quality issues.
Fire and Emergency Equipment: Do Not remove, cover, hang items from, modify or relocate any fire or emergency response equipment such as strobes, alarms, extinguishers, maps, exit signage, first aid kits, fire pulls, etc. NO EXCEPTIONS.
No Smoking: Please be mindful of ongoing hazardous and flammable chemical application. NO Smoking in the proximity of flammable fumes, high hazard areas, or outdoor dry brush areas. Please stay in designated smoking areas and be mindful of cigarette butt disposal.
Emergency Exits and aisles: Keep a 36” clearance in front of or exiting from all doors. Maintain 48” clean and clutter free aisle ways throughout all buildings. Trash and debris will be removed and disposed of daily.
Chemical Handling: Please read all labels and warning language prior to using any chemical. Focus on precautionary language (i.e.: highly flammable, corrosive, apply in well ventilated area, etc.) and recommended personal protective equipment (i.e.: respiratory protection, gloves, eye protection, etc.)
Chemical Application: Please use the designated shop spaces for mixing and/or application of hazardous chemicals. Always wear the recommended personal protective equipment appropriate to the chemical being applied.
Chemical Disposal: Please dispose of chemical saturated rags, napkins, paper or empty chemical containers in the red hazardous waste containers located in the shop areas. If you need assistance or guidance, please speak to your instructor or shop representative.
Respiratory Protection: Please wear your ½ mask respirator with cartridges when spraying or mixing chemicals; when applying chemicals or while sanding your projects. Keep your respirator clean and stored in a sealed bag when not in use.
Shared Shop Spaces: Drying Room, Composite Room, Spray Booths, 3D Labs, Laser Labs – please be respectful and mindful of your fellow students by keeping the rooms clean, free of trash, clutter, debris and stored materials.
Cutting Safety: Practice caution when using cutting tools, use appropriate table or desk location for cutting, dispose of all used or broken blades in appropriate receptacles located in the shop.
Stay Focused: Stay alert, focused and calm during these last two weeks of the term.

If you have any questions or are in need of additional guidance or clarification, please do not hesitate to contact Cynthia Quentin, Director of Environmental Health and Safety at cynthia.quentin@artcenter.edu , mobile: 626-485-3207 or send an email to ehs@artcenter.edu .

Thank you in advance for your support and cooperation.

ArtCenter Library Celebrates Zine Month

July is International Zine Month, and to celebrate, ArtCenter’s library is presenting a series of events promoting its circulating zine collection, which is very rare among libraries, and showcasing zines created by ArtCenter students and alumni. The library is hosting pop-up zine libraries throughout the month, a zine reading party and an exhibition in the library featuring risograph zines by Never Press (a printing company run by ArtCenter alumni and featuring many alumni works). There will also be a button making workshop on Monday July 31^st from 12-2pm at the South Campus Library.

Photo student makes the most out of study abroad opportunity

Photo courtesy of Maribel Barcena, from her summer travels

Maribel Barcena is a fourth-term student who took the study away course Berlin: A City as Portrait in the Spring term. Wanting to take advantage of her time in Europe after the class ended, Barcena had asked around to see what opportunities were available.

She got an assist from Ken Marchionno, one of our instructors and her Fine Art Photography teacher. Marchionno connected Barcena with the director of ArtMill, a non-profit near Prague, and Barcena is now starting her internship there, where she is setting up a darkroom for the mill and helping install a show about migration.

Because she had some time to kill between the Berlin class and starting at ArtMill, Barcenaasked the director if she knew of other opportunities, and as it turned out, they knew of two. The director helped Maribel land internships at ArtMap and Fotograf Gallery, a bookstore and gallery, respectively, both located in Prague. Her jobs varied from photographing books and events, to shooting some still life for the new issue of the magazine.

It looks like Barcena’s love for travel and eagerness to gain work experience have helped her land a pretty awesome summer.

Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography Announces the HMCT 2017 Educator Grant Awards

The Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography announced the recipients of the 2017 HMCT Educator Grants today. The HMCT Educator Grants invest in the professional and personal enrichment of ArtCenter faculty members to support research, workshops, seminars, conferences and other activities which augment their knowledge and benefit their teaching. Grant recipients are asked to investigate new opportunities and ideas in the area of language and typography, and to grow as creative artists, designers and educators. In turn, faculty members bring new and refreshed knowledge and experiences back into ArtCenter’s academic community, which enhances the quality of their teaching.

Educator Grants were awarded to the following faculty members:

Christina Aumann (Graphic Design): to produce letterpress printed specimen broadsides and a PDF booklet of the Archetype Press wood type collection
River Jukes-Hudson & Dante Carlos (Graphic Design): to produce a website and annotated digital image collection for Design Atlas, an online educational tool for teachers, students, and designers
Eva Forgacs (Humanities and Sciences): to present an academic research paper at the international conference on Russian Western Art at the University of Venice, Italy
Greg Lindy (Graphic Design): to attend the 2017 ATypI conference in Montreal, Quebec; and to develop the transitional serif family typeface, currently called “Burlington”
John David O’Brien (Integrated Studies): to create an artist book prototype with the poetry of Laura Mullen

ArtCenter Premieres Student Self Portrait Video Series

Product Design student Miguel Harry

ArtCenter has launched a new video series featuring student self portraits, providing a glimpse into the creative journeys of five of our students.

“In their process of researching colleges, most prospective students plan a campus visit, browse the website, or make an appointment with an admissions counselor,” said Kit Baron, senior vice president of Admissions and Enrollment Management for ArtCenter. “While these experiences are valuable and provide a great way to gather information, hearing directly from ArtCenter students to learn about their stories and their lives provides yet another deeper level of sharing. We’re often asked ‘What’s it really like to be an ArtCenter student?’ We hope the stories of these five talented individuals helps answer that common question and provide prospective students with a realistic glimpse into their world.”

Illustration Student Cristina Wilson

The five students were asked to share their creative journeys and reveal personal details such as their early inspiration, decision to attend art school, current projects and long-term goals. All production in the field was completed by the individual students, who were commissioned to spend 12 weeks meeting once a month to workshop their projects, from proposal through final cut, while undertaking the challenging process of capturing their own creative evolution in a professional quality video—all in addition to their demanding studio and academic course load. Light guidance was provided throughout the creative process by a small team of staff from Admissions and Marketing and Communications. The result is a series of video self-portraits that truly capture the student’s intimate voice, motivations and distinctive viewpoints.

Continue reading →

Admissions staffer Tom Stern publishes his second novel

Vice President of Admissions Tom Stern has just published his second novel, My Vanishing Twin and will be celebrating its launch at Vroman’s Bookstore in Old Pasadena on Monday, June 19 at 7:00 pm.

My Vanishing Twin tells the story of Walter Braum, who is pregnant with his own twin brother. It is an exceedingly freak manifestation of a rare medical condition called Vanishing Twin Syndrome. But it is also a sudden thorn in Walter’s psyche, bringing into question most everything he thought he knew about himself and his life.

We checked in with Stern about his book and his writing process on the eve of its launch:

Campus News: How do you have time to write when you have such a demanding job?

Tom Stern: For me, it’s the inverse. The time I invest in writing affords me the ability to navigate a demanding job and busy life. On my good days, I can even navigate them reasonably well, occasionally getting a thing—or even two—right. On my bad days, well… the time I carved out to write helps me keep some modicum of perspective

CN: The premise of your book, the Vanishing Twin Syndrome, is kind of an obscure medical condition. Is there a reason behind this choice? Was there a lot of research involved?

TS: The medical condition was a piece of information I must have quietly tucked away in the back of my brain. As the initial pages I was writing began to coalesce into what would become My Vanishing Twin, it dawned on me that I was about to write a book about a man who discovers he’s pregnant with his own twin brother who, once born, is obsessed with acquiring his MBA. A classic tale, I know… But as I puzzled over this direction, Vanishing Twin Syndrome surfaced in my thinking. I remembered having read articles about fairly unsettling instances of the phenomenon. So I dug back into these and other articles to sort of flesh out the concept, taking much poetic license with it, of course.

CN: Both of your novels are about regular guys with regular lives whose lives turn when faced with something extraordinary. Do you write yourself into your books? Are you headed for an extraordinary adventure? Or is writing your extraordinary adventure?

TS: I like that assessment a lot. I would tweak it a bit, though. I think that both of my books are about regular guys who discover something extraordinary in what they had considered banal about their own lives. I think my books are about people coming into self-knowledge in the way that most of us do: begrudgingly. They are confronted with realities that they cannot immediately accept, having built their lives on a belief in a contrary truth. In this regard, I think I’m no different than my protagonists. They just get to experience more poetic or metaphorical manifestations of this process than I do. That said, I think our personalities are quite different.

CN: Are you working on the next book? Any hints at the direction?

TS: I am always working on something. Right now I’m working on a few things that I think are shaping up into books. And I’m also writing some articles in support of the release of My Vanishing Twin. One essay that I’m really proud of will be published on The Los Angeles Review of Books Blog in July.

CN: Anything else you would like the community to know about your writing career?

TS: I’ve learned an incredible amount from experiencing the variety of ways that our various departments approach their creative disciplines. It has undoubtedly made me a much better writer.

Two ArtCenter faculty receive prestigious AIGA Fellow awards

Alum and Graphic Design faculty member Wayne Hunt of Hunt Design and Humanities and Sciences faculty Errol Gerson have been awarded the prestigious Fellow award for 2017 from AIGA Los Angeles.

The Fellow award program is a means of recognizing designers who have made a significant contribution to raising the standards of excellence in practice and conduct within their local or regional design community as well as in their local AIGA chapter. The areas of education, writing, leadership and reputation, as well as the practice of design are given equal consideration in measuring significant contribution.

The last current ArtCenter faculty member to receive this award was Petrula Vrontikis (2007). Former faculty Agustin Garza was named a Fellow in 2012. This is the first time that two ArtCenter faculty have received this honor in the same year.

They will be honored at a ceremony June 22 at the Millwick in the Arts District in Downtown L.A.

Alum Antoinette Adams Gives Back to Fine Art Students and Alumni

Antoinette Adams is the first to admit she’s not your typical art student. Just before her 50^th birthday, she made a life-changing decision to go back to school as soon as her youngest child was old enough to drive. The bold choice to enroll at ArtCenter seemed an impossible dream after a long career as an attorney.

With trepidation based on the 20-year plus age gap between her and fellow Fine Art majors, she persevered and happily established lasting bonds with a close-knit family of artists.

Forever moved by the thrill of stepping onto campus and the encouraging, yet brutally honest, community of artists she’s now firmly a part of, Adams is giving back to the college that changed her life forever. She recently donated $50,000 to fund scholarships and Study Away travel expenses for an annual art sojourn to Berlin, Germany.

“We’re grateful to Antoinette for this generous gift to help our talented current students cover their educational expenses as well as provide vital support to recent alumni with the launch of their careers as working artists,” said Tom Knechtel, chair of the undergraduate Fine Art department at ArtCenter College of Design.

The gift from Adams, who graduated with her degree in Fine Art in 2015, is set to fund two new programs that will benefit enrolled students and recent alumni of the Fine Art department. Adams is a resident of downtown Los Angeles and also has a home in Berlin.

Kicking off this fall (2017), the Antoinette Adams Alumni Award will provide a recipient with studio space in ArtCenter’s 35,000 square foot building at 870 South Raymond Avenue, a thriving collaborative nucleus for the visual arts. The alumnus, to be selected by faculty, will receive a $2,000 stipend for two 14-week terms. Additionally, the chosen individual, who will have been out of college for at least two years and no longer than 10, will curate an exhibition of student work, help seniors prepare solo shows and present a talk about their own work.

“We anticipate that when alumni with life experience come to work in our studios alongside current students, they’ll engage in useful conversations about life after ArtCenter,” said Knechtel.

The gift is also set to provide travel stipends to make a Berlin trip possible for several students and alumni through the College’s robust Study Away program. During the excursion, students and alumni will have the opportunity to experience the depth and excitement of the museums, galleries and cultural life of Berlin. Covering expenses such as airfare and museum passes will be a tremendous relief for ten artists in the Fine Arts community. Adams plans to host both “welcome” and “farewell” dinners for the group at her home in Berlin.

Spring issue of Dot magazine available on campus

The Spring 2017 issue of Dot magazine is now available. You can find copies at various locations around campus including the Library, CSE, the DCO, the Faculty Lounge, the President’s office and the Provost’s office. Magazines are also available at the security desk of each building. Dot magazine is published by ArtCenter’s Department of Marketing and Communications. Stories are published online throughout the year, and a print edition comes out twice a year.

ArtCenter is a community of bold imagination and innovative spirit, and the creative contributions of our alumni faculty and students inspire pride and energize our growth. As the College’s flagship publication, Dot magazine explores and celebrates their far-reaching influence within professional disciplines and on culture and society as a whole. The magazine’s wide readership includes alumni and donors; corporate and foundation supporters; industry, educational and cultural partner; and local officials.

What follows is President Lorne Buchman’s introduction to this issue.

“Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” That bit of dialogue from Casablanca, spoken by Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine to Claude Rains’ Captain Renault, is perhaps the most famous final line in cinematic history.

As you peruse this issue, you’ll encounter similarly recognizable works by ArtCenter alumni that have become part of our national, if not international, cultural fabric—from the silhouetted surfers of John Van Hamersveld’s Endless Summer poster, to the brightly hued world Kendal Cronkhite created for last year’s animated Trolls, to Ignacio Gomez’s striking poster for Zoot Suit, featuring El Pachuco looming large over Los Angeles.

Looking through this issue you’ll also discover work by several alums that have recently reached out to us. For example, the mesmerizing photomontage featured on the cover was sent to us by Wing Chan via Untold Stories, our website where all our alumni friends can share, in their own words, their stories and latest projects.

Additionally, much of the work highlighted in the 4 x 4 gallery—from Ranee Henderson’s highly textured painted portraits to Nora Shields’ mind-bending, site-specific sculptures—first appeared on our website’s Alumni Now page, a digital destination featuring timely updates from our graduates.

We couldn’t be happier with all the stories you’ve been sending our way, and it’s truly an honor to share them with both our community and to a wider audience.

Another collaborative project we’re proud to share with you in this issue is Create Change 2.0, ArtCenter’s strategic plan for the next five years. The plan was unanimously and enthusiastically approved by the Board of Trustees this past October and officially adopted earlier this year.

A natural extension of Create Change 1.0, the new plan focuses on how the College creates value for its students while realizing its mission. The plan was a major undertaking—assembling thoughtful input from multiple voices across ArtCenter over a period of 18 months—but the results are compelling and promise to have positive ramifications well into the future.

So sit back, enjoy this issue, and keep those submissions coming! Because, as Rick Blaine might put it, without your stories this crazy world wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans.