Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Nalaboff on the set of “Hard Sell”
After wrapping a 19-day movie shoot near his hometown in Long Island, alumnus Sean Nalaboff, who graduated in 2012 with a BFA in film, is moving forward with gusto. Mentored by fellow Art Center alumnus, acclaimed photographer-director Matthew Rolston, Nalaboff has attracted a lot of attention to his nascent filmmaking career, even as he toils in a dark edit bay putting the finishing touches on his directorial debut, Hard Sell.
Alumnus Stuart Fingerhut on the Toyota Live stage at the L.A. Auto Show.
Stuart Fingerhut, associate creative director at George P. Johnson experience marketing firm, is gushing over the thrill of seeing people engage with his first big car show exhibition for Toyota and Scion. We caught up with him during the L.A. Auto Show media preview days leading up to today’s public opening. “This is like completely bonkers for me,” he says. “As a designer, it feels like the pinnacle.”
“We’re telling the story of the brand in a physical space,” the Art Center Environmental Design alumnus explained about the design that will travel to other car confabs including Detroit, Frankfurt and Tokyo in 2014.
In her quest to transform the known into something curious and unexpected, Los Angeles-based artist Lynn Aldrich makes a habit of scouring hardware stores such as Home Depot for materials she re-fabricates into colorful new constructions reflecting playfully on domestic architecture.
“By making these sorts of archaic physical objects that one has to walk around in reality and be near to experience,” says Aldrich, “I’m attempting to call attention to your physicality in a world that is more and more in a cloud of information.” Out of Ink, In the Dark might at first glance be mistaken for an assemblage of pads of the digital era, instruments of that very cloud. Instead, it’s a classic Aldrich “object,” as sly as it is seductive. Made of old-school ink pads, the piece sold the same day we caught up with the artist while she was installing a two-decade retrospective exhibition of her work, Lynn Aldrich: Un/Common Objects, on view through January 2014 at the Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery. The San Francisco gallery where Out of Ink was on display called to tell her that an East Coast collector had just purchased it.
The exhibition opens Friday, October 11 in celebration of ArtNight Pasadena. The opening night reception on Thursday, October 17, from 7 to 9 p.m., is free and open to the public. RSVP by sending a note to events@artcenter.edu.
Guest co-curators of Un/Common Objects are Christina Valentine, faculty member at Art Center College of Design and G. James Daichendt, Ed.D. associate dean and professor of art history at Azusa Pacific University.
by Wendy McNaughton
This is the third in our three-part Dotted Line series covering “The New Professional Frontier in Design for Social Innovation: LEAP Symposium,” hosted by Art Center College of Design Sept. 19–21, 2013.
Overheard (Random quotes from the day)
Mind-blowing Ideation session at LEAP. Photograph by Teri Bond
Practical tools, next steps and taking action were the focus of the third and final day of the LEAP Symposium presented by Designmatters, the College’s social impact department. A key aim expressed by many attendees was to bring the valuable new tools they gained during the confab back to their home base organizations to help establish solid career pathways for young design talent and clarify the direct link between great design and success.
The last day was choreographed in three parts. First, working groups who had self-organized in to small thematic clusters, spent a few hours finalizing proposals that were later displayed on giant poster boards all around the student dining room, taking a page from grade school science fairs. Then, a spokesperson for each project pitched it to the larger group.
Performing their song, “The Road I Walk,” at the gallery are from left, Marlon “Mr. Stranger,” Kevin “Lil’ Krazy aka Ghetto Boy” and Lorenzo “Mr. L.A.”
The road I walk every day, it’s no game,
I try to make my way.
People see what they want to see.
But that person is not me.
Look at me, look at me…
I might surprise you.
Who am I?…
Lyrics by Kevin Lil’ Krazy aka Ghetto Boy from the song The Road I Walk
The assignment for the first term Graduate Media Design Practices Field students was to use design to tell a story that reframes preconceived ideas of homelessness. One of the results was a powerful collaboration that asks viewers to “step into my shoes” to explore homelessness through stories told by youth who have been there.
In partnership with Jovenes, Inc., a nonprofit organization that provides housing and support services for homeless youth in Boyle Heights, three Art Center student teams got to work.
The Annenberg Foundation has awarded a grant of $75,000 to Art Center College of Design’s Photography and Imaging Department for an ambitious examination of the current state of the medium, the profession, emerging cultural and technical issues and opportunities for innovation in photography education.
“We are honored that the Annenberg Foundation, a leading advocate for and supporter of the field of photography, has recognized the timeliness of our investigation into the future of photography education,” says Lorne M. Buchman, president of Art Center. “We share a deep commitment to the profession and the art form. We are grateful for the Foundation’s invaluable support.”
Alumnus Jim Root, art director at Cramer-Kasselt, was featured in the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel.
From fuel efficiency standards changing the look of your car to top ranked film schools, from Gibson Guitartown to backyard beehive designs – here’s where you can catch up on any Art Center news you may have missed with our latest media roundup.
The Hollywood Reporter, “The Hollywood Reporter Unveils the Top 25 Film Schools of 2013” July 31, 2013: Art Center moves up from #23 to #15 in annual film school ranking.
The New York Times, “Carlab Mixes Natural Gas and Gasoline for More Efficient Vehicle” July 9, 2013: Transportation Design instructor Eric Noble featured throughout the Wheels blog about rethinking the size of the natural gas tank.
Formula-E Best in Show winners, from Beijing University of Technology
Champagne flowed as winners and challengers celebrated after a long road of trial and error in the annual Formula-E race at Art Center on August 8, 2013.
Teams from three Southern California colleges and two universities in China were sweating it out as their remote controlled, rubber band-powered cars zoomed around the tracks for five hours in the afternoon sun.
The top award, Best in Show, was presented to team Final-E from Beijing University of Technology. The talented team members Sui Hao, Xuan Jinran and Zhang Han also placed in three other race categories. The only other competitor to do the same was Art Center’s team Tensegrity, consisting of Renee Mascarinas, Kun Huang and Jecky Chow. (See below for more race results.)
Drawing of Christina Yang at work by Madeline Ocampo
Christina Yang began attending Art Center when she was 12 years old. But hold off on calling her the Doogie Howser of the design world. She simply followed her passion for visual arts through every phase of the College’s curriculum, from its public programing for underage artists to full-fledged matriculation.
She began her journey with Art Center for Kids courses. She then continued her studies in the College’s Saturday High program while attending Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA) before being recently accepted as a full-time student in the degree program. She starts Fall 2013 as an Entertainment Design major.
Dotted Line: Why did you choose Art Center?
Christina Yang: My father went to Art Center, so attending the Kids program felt natural. But I also kept returning chiefly because of the high quality instruction I received. While other children’s programs were rather loose and directionless, Art Center instructors taught me core skills with a great deal of structure balanced with encouragement. My age never mattered. The teachers were never condescending. We had the privilege of being exposed to Art Center’s disciplined, focused, rich learning environment, which helped us begin to take ourselves seriously as artists.
It’s innovative engineering inside and out. And it’s all the work of students.
A next-generation Mazda concept vehicle, designed by Art Center College of Design student Fredrick Naaman and engineered by a team of Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR) automotive engineering students, was revealed in Traverse City, Mich., today during the Center for Automotive Research Management Briefing Seminars.
The official unveiling marks the completion of the Deep Orange 3 Mazda-sponsored vehicle, the third-generation Deep Orange vehicle prototype, which is a completely new vehicle, inside and out.
Derek Jenkins, design director for Mazda North American Operations, said that to be part of a college program of this caliber that focuses not just on one aspect of a vehicle, but the vehicle as a whole, is really an automaker’s dream come true.