Category Archives: Alumni Relations

Ready! Set! Graduate!

HILL_121015_586cc“April hath put a spirit of youth in everything. (Sonnet XCVIII)”William Shakespeare

This Saturday, following a sometimes exhaustive, always intensive, memorably vigorous and astonishingly creative commitment to making and learning, ArtCenter is going to release a new crop of youthful graduates into the world.

As the day approaches, let’s celebrate these creative and talented individuals who are about to take on the world. Here’s the lowdown for the week:

Thursday, April 20: Graduation Show Preview, MDP Receptions and Grad Art Open Studios, Fine Art Exhibition

Thursday activities start in the morning, when students get to meet select potential employers during Recruitment Open House. In the evening, industry leaders, employers, corporate partners, donors and alumni get the first look at the Spring term’s graduating artists and designers at the invitation-only Graduation Show Preview, held from 6–9 pm.

Undergraduate candidates from Advertising, Environmental Design, Film, Graphic Design, Illustration, Photography and Imaging, Product Design and Transportation Design will be showing at Hillside Campus. Graduate Environmental Design, Graduate Film, Graduate Industrial Design and Graduate Transportation Systems and Design master’s candidates will also have work on display at the Hillside Campus.

Graduate Media Design Practices and Graduate Art will be holding a reception and open studios at the 950 Building at South Campus and Undergraduate Fine Art students will have an exhibition at the 870 Building at South Campus. The South Campus locations will be open from 7–10 pm.

Saturday, April 22: Graduation

ArtCenter’s Spring graduation ceremony begins at 10 a.m. at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

Following welcoming remarks by President Lorne Buchman, the baccalaureate and master’s candidates—along with faculty, staff, family and friends—will hear from this term’s Student Leadership Award recipient. The Student Leadership Award is given out each term to a student who exemplifies standout leadership qualities and accomplishments. This term, a committee of students, faculty, and staff affirmed the values of this award by selecting to Product Design major Jeff Smith. Faculty member Fridolin Beisert, in nominating Smith, said “I have had the distinct pleasure of seeing Jeff mature into a leadership role where he is guiding and inspiring student across disciplines, genders and cultural backgrounds. To me he represents the ideal candidate for this important award.”

Those assembled at the Civic Center will also hear from valedictorian Eliot Eames Saarinen, who is graduating with a degree in Fine Art. Fine Art Director Mitchell Kane noted that, “Eliot is a meticulous maker and thinker of objects with visionary tendencies tempered by real world practicalness.”

Following the student awardees, special guests Janice Feldman and Story Musgrave will be bestowed with honorary degrees (Doctorate in Fine Arts) from the College and Musgrave will present the graduation address. Feldman and Musgrave, two diverse individuals whose work is informed by their sense of “space,” spoke with President Lorne M. Buchman before a select audience as part of a Full Circle event on Thursday night.

Trained artist and interior designer Janice Feldman is the founder and CEO of JANUS et Cie, an industry leader in residential, contract and hospitality design. A visionary in the field of sustainability and material innovation, Feldman opened her first JANUS et Cie showroom in the Pacific Design Center in California in 1978, and has since transformed the company into a full-service design resource with extensive and varied collections.

Graduate Industrial Design faculty Story Musgrave, a NASA astronaut for more than 30 years, has flown on six different spaceflights. He performed the first shuttle spacewalk on Challenger’s first flight, was a pilot on an astronomy mission, conducted two classified DOD missions, was the lead spacewalker on the Hubble Telescope repair mission and, on his last flight, operated an electronic chip manufacturing satellite on Columbia.

Saturday, April 22: Graduation Show

After the ceremony, Graduation Show opens to the public at both Hillside and South Campuses from 1–6 p.m., where work by the newest ArtCenter graduates will be on display. The show features student projects from major fields of study at ArtCenter, including Advertising, Environmental Design, Film, Graphic Design, Illustration, Photography and Imaging, Product Design, Transportation Design, Graduate Film, Graduate Industrial Design and Graduate Transportation Systems and Design at Hillside Campus. Work from Graduate Art and Graduate Media Design Practices graduates will be on display at the 950 Building and Fine Art graduates will be showing at the 870 Building at South Campus.

ArtCenter Alumni Notes: November 2015 through January 2016

Diana Thater, A Cast of Falcons, 2008. Four video projectors, display computer, and two spotlights. Installation Photograph, Diana Thater: The Sympathetic Imagination, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. ©Diana Thater, photo ©Fredrik Nilsen

Diana Thater, A Cast of Falcons, 2008. Four video projectors, display computer, and two spotlights. Installation Photograph, Diana Thater: The Sympathetic Imagination, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. ©Diana Thater, photo ©Fredrik Nilsen

With the holidays behind us and election season upon us for the foreseeable future, this is the perfect time to divert our attention to the edifying pursuit of creative fulfillment. And what better way to do that than with this extra bulky edition of ArtCenter Alumni Notes.

NEWS

Guy Bove (BS 96 Product Design) was recently featured in a Tatler Magazine Hong Kong article about watch design. Hong Kong Tatler

Edward Eyth (BS 85 Product Design) was on a panel discussion for his concept designer work on Back to the Future Part II as part of the Toyota Mirai premier event. Toyota Newsroom

Continue reading

MLK Day shines a light on the enduring and symbiotic relationship between civil rights and creativity

Freedom is as hard to quantify as it is easy to take for granted. But without freedom of expression, there is no creativity. And ArtCenter, as a community of artists and designers, owes its enduring culture of innovation, influence and impact to the strides made by the struggle for civil liberties, both in the distant and recent past.

MLK Day offers an opportunity to recognize our debt to the original civil rights pioneers as well as to the new generation of #blacklivesmatter student activists who have laid the groundwork for generations of iconoclasts, innovators and change makers of all persuasions to continue to create a more just, equal and artful world.

Look no further than Illustration alum, Emerson Terry, for the living embodiment of that first-wave pioneering spirit and integral relationship between freedom of expression and creative fulfillment. Terry, at age 90, is one of the College’s first African American graduates whose, um, illustrious career included award-winning work for the entertainment and aeronautics industries. The above video pays tribute to Terry’s creative and cultural legacy, fittingly produced by current ArtCenter Film student, Amadu Haruna, with assistance by fellow Film student Matthew Plaxco and Photography alum Edward Cushenberry.

In a more contemporary iteration of the spirit of protest that inspired this holiday, Illustration student, Kayla Salisbury, voiced her own questions about our collective responsibilities in this courageous essay exploring the ways in which ArtCenter community might better support its students of color and begin to foster an honest and meaningful dialogue around human rights.

Indeed, the conversation around social justice takes many shapes at ArtCenter. Humanities and Sciences faculty member and accomplished entertainment attorney, Michelle Katz teaches a course entitled The Evolution of Civil Rights, which examines the greatest civil rights threats and champions and the ways in which artists have been instrumental to the march toward a more egalitarian society.

 

LACMA celebrates graphic design with a show featuring alums Alvin Lustig and Elaine Lustig Cohen

Alvin Lustig, The Man Who Died, 1947. Book cover published by New Directions. (Image courtesy of LACMA)

Alvin Lustig, The Man Who Died, 1947. Book cover published by New Directions. (Image courtesy of LACMA)

Eye on Design recently and rightly hailed LACMA’s vow to incorporate more graphic design exhibitions into its programming. The museum kicked off this new series of shows with Vitality of New Forms: Designs by Alvin Lustig and Elaine Lustig Cohen, an expansive exhibition, on view through July 4, 2016, featuring 56 works by a pair of influential and innovative designers who also happen to be ArtCenter alums.

The move to celebrate and elevate the work of talented designers is just the latest sign that LA’s signature cultural institution has also become its most dynamic and nimble, further fortifying its growing reputation as a world-class museum and one of LA’s most vital cultural resources.

This decision to feature the work of ArtCenter alums in the inaugural show in this series is a huge endorsement for College’s contribution to the field of design. And as Diana Thater: The Sympathetic Imagination continues to draw crowds and critical raves, LACMA is making a strong statement about ArtCenter’s contribution to our creative landscape, both locally and globally.

 

 

Illustration alum and legendary Star Wars poster artist Drew Struzan on the awakening of his own creative forces at ArtCenter

Illustration alumnus Drew Struzan (center) receives the Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award at ArtCenter's Fall 2015 graduation ceremony. Photo: Ross LaManna

Illustration alumnus Drew Struzan (center) receives the Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award at ArtCenter’s Fall 2015 graduation ceremony. Photo: Ross LaManna

It’s not hyperbole to say that billions of people around the globe have seen the work of Illustration alumnus Drew Struzan (BFA 70).

As “the man behind the poster,” the 68-year-old Struzan has created iconic imagery for the Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Muppets and Harry Potter series of films. Other instantly recognizable works of his include posters for Coming to America, The Goonies, First Blood and The Thing.

And though he’s retired from the entertainment industry to focus on his studio work, he recently lent his deft hand to a poster for Batkid Begins, the documentary about the boy who became Batman for a day thanks to the Make-a-Wish Foundation, and a D23 convention exclusive poster for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which opens in theaters today.

This past weekend at ArtCenter’s Fall 2015 graduation, Illustration chair Anne Field presented Struzan with the ArtCenter Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award. After eliciting a standing ovation from the crowd inside the packed Pasadena Civic Auditorium, a visibly moved Struzan asked Field with a laugh, “Does this mean my life is over?”

After the ceremony, I met with the living legend and he was kind enough to share memories of his time at ArtCenter in the mid-to-late 1960s, when the College was located at Third Street in the Hancock Park Neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Continue reading

World-class design education, delivered digitally: Meet the online learning innovators behind The Skool

Chris Do and Jose Caballer, co-founders of The Skool. ArtCenter photo by Jennie Warren

Chris Do and Jose Caballer, co-founders of The Skool. ArtCenter photo by Jennie Warren

The business of online learning is booming. Just ask lynda.com co-founders, former ArtCenter faculty member Lynda Weinman and alumnus and Trustee Bruce Heavin (BFA 93 Illustration), whose company was acquired this year by LinkedIn for $1.5 billion.

Inspired and mentored by these pioneers, Graphic Design alums Jose Caballer (BFA 96) and Chris Do (BFA 95) represent a new generation of innovative education entrepreneurs. Together the two have co-founded The Skool, an online learning resource for designers.

Continue reading

Fox green-lights Film alumnus Saman Kesh’s feature film, Controller

Saman Kesh, director of the upcoming feature Controller. Photo: Jennie Warren

Saman Kesh, director of the upcoming feature Controller. Photo: Jennie Warren

In late 2012, Film alumnus Saman Kesh (BFA 10) went to Taiwan on an assignment to write and direct a short to promote a forthcoming massively multiplayer game in the vein of World of Warcraft.

What Kesh ended up making over the duration of a two-day shoot was Controller, an eight-minute science fiction short film about an imprisoned young woman with psychic powers who takes physical control of her boyfriend to facilitate her rescue.

What does the former have to do with the latter? Other than two Chinese hanzi characters that appear at the 7:45 mark—since the game was developed for the Chinese market—absolutely nothing.

Continue reading

Persistence, perseverance and Pixar paved the path to The Dam Keeper’s Oscar nomination

Alumnus Robert Kondo, co-director of Tonko House's short The Dam Keeper. Photo: Jennie Warren

Robert Kondo, co-director of Tonko House’s short The Dam Keeper. Photo: Jennie Warren

In the 2015 Academy Award-nominated animated short The Dam Keeper, a young pig selflessly operates a windmill to keep a poisonous cloud from destroying his town.

Keeping imminent disaster at bay doesn’t seem to be an issue for Illustration alumnus Robert Kondo (BFA 02), who co-directed the film along with Dice Tsutsumi, the first project to emerge from their Berkeley-based animation studio Tonko House.

Take, for example, the story of how Kondo landed his first job. He recalls feeling sick one day during his final term at ArtCenter, walking out of class and heading to the parking lot to recuperate in his car.

Continue reading

Watch legendary artists create OUTSIDEIN: The Ascendance of Street Art in Visual Culture

ArtCenter’s OUTSIDEIN exhibition, on display at both campuses through January 10, 2016, was inspired in part by the mural Keith Haring painted at the College’s Hillside Campus in 1989, commemorating the World Health Organization’s second annual AIDS Awareness Day. That piece, which took two days to paint, was Haring’s last completed work. Three months later he died of AIDS.

To commemorate Haring’s legacy as well today’s celebration of the 28th anniversary of AIDS Awareness Day, the above video traces the origins of ArtCenter’s longstanding relationship to street art and the insurgent role graffiti-based street murals have played in embedding social and political messages in an emerging, evolving and now mainstream form of creative expression. Combining in-depth artist interviews and time-lapse footage of their creative process, this piece provides a rare glimpse inside the creative process, connecting the dots between the legacy of this subversive art form to its current role as an arbiter of pop culture aesthetics and an access point for popular engagement with the arts.

Continue reading

Blazing a luminous trajectory: Doug Aitken, Jen Rosenstein, Mark Ryden and Lawrence Carroll

Doug Aitken, Station to Station

Doug Aitken, Station to Station. Courtesy Regen Projects.

1. Since graduating from ArtCenter nearly 25 years ago, Doug Aitken (BFA 91 Illustration) has blazed a luminous trajectory. From his breakout Electric Earth video installation at the 1999 Whitney Biennial, to the nomadic Station to Station (2013), the Southern California native creates multimedia works at once monumental and ephemeral.

Continue reading