Category Archives: Fine Art

For Art Center at Night director Dana L.Walker, “Diversity is really about all of us.”

Dana L. Walker, Photography and Imaging alumna and Art Center at Night director. Photo: Ken Merfeld.

Many students who end up studying at Art Center are first introduced to the College through Art Center at Night (ACN)—Art Center’s continuing studies program headquartered at South Campus. And chances are that at some point many of those students also came into contact with Photography and Imaging alumna Dana L. Walker (PHOT 1995). Walker serves as both the director of ACN and the managing director of Public Programs, Art Center’s suite of programs that also includes Art Center for Kids (grades 4–8), Saturday High (grades 9–12) and Summer Institute for Teachers (for K–12 educators).

In addition to her Public Programs duties, Walker is also co-chair of Art Center’s Council on Diversity and Inclusion, which the College created in 2011 as part of its Create Change Strategic Plan. She’s also a board member of the 120 Group, an ethnically diverse, alumni-based organization that promotes educational and career opportunities in art and design for underrepresented minority populations.

We sat down recently with Dana to talk about diversity, her work as an artist and what it’s like to be a student in her own program.

Dotted Line: You’re on the College’s diversity council. How do you define diversity?

Dana Walker: I don’t define it. In fact, one of the things we’ve done on the Council is purposely not define it. Because once you define it, it becomes a quantity rather than a quality. Diversity is not just about race, ethnicity or religion. It’s also economics, geography, gender and more. In fact, diversity includes so much that it’s really about all of us. And that’s what makes it challenging. To become a better artist or designer, you need to understand the world that you live in and the people who live in it. Whether it’s learning about another culture or learning how to work with different people, you can’t design for the world if you don’t understand large parts of it.

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Sustainable solutions: by bike, on a plane or by hand

Pop quiz:

What do the following design concepts have in common: a streamlined re-design of in-flight meal preparation and service that reduces air-travel waste; a bicycle for tourists that collects environmental data as cyclists explore the city; and a human-powered washing machine and spin dryer for families living on $4 to $10 per day?

a. They were all designed by Art Center students.
b. They reflect the growing awareness of sustainability within art and design.
c. They are the winning concepts of the 2012 Denhart Family Sustainability Scholarship Prize.
d. All of the above

Too easy? The answer (d) shouldn’t surprise anyone who is familiar with the cutting-edge role Art Center students are playing in environmentally and socially responsible art and design. This year’s Denhart Prize winners, chosen from a highly competitive pool of undergraduates from Fine Art, Film, Photography, Illustration, and Industrial and Environmental Design, represent some of the year’s top design ideas in sustainability at Art Center.

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Think you can’t change the world with a Fine Art degree?

Art Center artists show how their majors—and the scholarships that support them—can be powerful investments in creating community.

Control Room

Graduating from Art Center, Fine Art alumni Evelena Ruether FINE 09 and William Kaminski FINE 09 didn’t want to lose track of the many remarkable artists they had met here.

“So often, once you leave school everyone disperses to pursue their individual careers,” Ruether explains. “We wanted to stay in touch with the community we’d created at Art Center. At the same time, we felt that many of our peers were doing work that was as good, or better, than what we were seeing in commercial galleries, and we wanted to create a place for them to exhibit their work.”

In this way was born Control Room, an artist-run gallery occupying part of their live-work space on Seventh Street in downtown Los Angeles near the L.A. River. In its first years, the gallery offered a sense of community and networking opportunities for Fine Art graduates during the important early post-college years.

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Adding value to the world: Art Center at Night student Julienne Johnson

Artist Julienne Johnson in her North Hollywood studio. Photo courtesy of the artist.

“Her work impressed me with its own combination of raw confidence and formal strategy,” said art critic Peter Frank of artist Julienne Johnson. “She knows how to put together a painting, even as she puts herself right in the middle of its fabrication.”

Frank edited Johnson’s first art book Ashes for Beauty, which documents the artist’s collection of the same name, which was the subject of two solo exhibitions at Santa Monica’s TAG Gallery in 2010 and 2011.

Johnson has taken several courses at Art Center at Night over the past few years and she credits the College’s continuing studies program with dramatically changing her work as well as her approach.

“I learned that the making of art is of great value to the world,” said Johnson. “I already knew how immensely important it was to me, but it was through Art Center that I felt empowered to proclaim it boldly.”

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Forty years of making fine art matter: Ramone Muñoz chats with outgoing Fine Art Chair Laurence Dreiband

Fine Art Chair Laurence Dreiband (L) and instructor Ramone Muñoz. Photo: Chuck Spangler

After more than four decades of service to Art Center, Laurence Dreiband, chair of the College’s undergraduate Fine Art Department will be retiring at the end of this month.

Dreiband leaves the College with an impressive roster of accomplishments: a robust program with increasing enrollment and plans for future growth; an impressive list of distinguished faculty and alumni; plans for Artmatters, a new area of emphases in public art and social engagement; and, most significantly, a dedication to the importance of the fine arts in the life of the College and of the culture at large.

To mark the occasion, Art Center alumnus, instructor and former chair of Foundation Studies Ramone Muñoz recently sat down with Dreiband to discuss the outgoing chair’s legacy, their beginnings at the College’s Third Street campus, and what the future holds.

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Designer Simon Johnston on Factory Records, Q-Tips, lawyers, self-destructing magazines

Simon Johnston with his work "Investigation" at the "PAGES" exhibition opening. Photo: Chuck Spangler

Students recently packed an overflowing Los Angeles Times auditorium for 3×3*: Type Guys, an event that featured three presentations and a lively Q&A with three individuals that have crafted the way we see, understand and interact with typography.

Previously we shared highlights Kyle Cooper‘s and Jeremy Mende‘s presentations. Today we focus on Art Center’s own Simon Johnston.

Johnston was educated at Bath Academy of Art in England and the Kunstgewerbeschule, Basel, Switzerland. In England he founded the design practice 8vo, as well as the influential typographic journal Octavo. Since relocating to Los Angeles in 1989, he has run his own design office, Simon Johnston Design, with a particular emphasis on typography, especially book and catalog work for museums and galleries.

Johnston has taught typography and design at Art Center for 20 years. He is currently faculty director of the print area of emphasis in the Graphic Design department. In addition to his teaching and design practice, he works on his own art and photography projects.

At the event, Johnston touched on a variety of topics, including the importance of typography, working with some of his idols and the minefield of registered trademarks.

Here are just a few of the highlights:

On typography:
There’s an old joke: It’s the scene of an accident, a crowd is gathered around an injured person, and from the back of the crowd a voice is heard, “Let me through! I’m a typographer!” Typography may not be a matter of life and death, but as visible language, it is the key means through which we communicate as a society, and as such it’s the spine that runs through the body of graphic design practice.

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Metro Expo Line Opens This Weekend, Alumnus Ronald J. Llanos’ Work Featured at Expo/Western Station

An illustration by alumnus Ronald J. Llanos; his work has been installed at the Expo/Western station.

The much-anticipated Metro Expo Line opens this weekend and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is celebrating by throwing a party. From 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 28 and Sunday, April 29, everybody can ride the new light rail line connecting the Westside to Downtown L.A. for free.

And while Metro is touting that it will only take 30 minutes to travel between Culver City and Downtown, they’re encouraging everybody to make multiple stops this Saturday to partake in a number of celebrations–Latino jazz band Double Gee Ninenet at the 7th St./Metro Center Station are one of many offerings–from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m..

Alumnus Ronald J. Llanos.

And on both days, riders should be sure to disembark frequently as each station features new commissioned permanent work by a different local artist, including Tom LaDuke, Samuel Rodriguez and Jessica McCoy. Near and dear to our hearts at Art Center is the Expo/Western Station, which features Ephemeral Views: A Visual Essay by Fine Art alumnus and Art Center at Night and Saturday High instructor Ronald J. Llanos.

More than four years in the works, Ephemeral Views consists of 24 mosaic panels, each one 8′ x 3′, that feature Llanos’ trademark translucent watercolor impressions of the vibrant characters that make up the everyday street life of the greater Los Angeles area. For some behind-the-scenes snippets of what to expect to see at Expo/Western, check out Llanos’ blog here and here.

“You might call me a ‘visual journalist’ or an ‘urban realist.’ My images are inspired by people, and by places I travel to or frequent,” reads Llanos artist’s statement on the Expo Line website. “I feel that if I search within myself for that which I find interesting about the places and people of those areas, I might be able to communicate with people across time.”

For more on this weekend’s Expo Line grand opening festivities, visit Metro’s website.

Illustrations by Ronald J. Llanos; his work captures the vibrant street life of the L.A. region.

Art Center Alumni Reminisce About Mike Kelley in the “L.A. Times”

Last month, the Art Center community was stunned at the news that legendary artist Mike Kelley, who had taught in Art Center’s Graduate Art program from 1992—2007, had died.

At the time, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, Chair of the Grad Art program at Art Center, said, “Recognized as an important artist almost from the very beginning of his career, Mike kept teaching as long as he could before the pressures of being very famous indeed made it simply impossible for him to come to school with any regularity at all. He was, both in general and as a colleague, a brilliant combination of passion regarding art and a sense of humor… He has left us devastated.”

While much of the news following Kelley’s death focused on his cultural impact on the international art world, Sunday’s L.A. Times featured Art Center alumni reminiscing about their former teacher, who was “generous, patient, sometimes harsh but above all, eager to engage and share with fellow creators.”

Art Center would like to acknowledge our alumni–all celebrated artists themselves–and thank them for taking the time to share their thoughts with the L.A. Times.

To read the article in its entirety, please click here.

From the Art Center Archives: Faculty critique work by Steve Roden GART '89. Pictured (L to R) circa 1989: Laurence Dreiband, Richard Hertz, Sabina Ott, Stephen Prina, Mike Kelley and Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe. Image (c) Art Center College of Design/Steven A. Heller

UPDATE (3/15/12): Steve Roden, the student whose work was being critiqued in the above picture, recently blogged about seeing this photograph in the Los Angeles Times.

Art Center for Kids Students Imagine Life on Mars

Art Center for Kids students get up close and personal with a Mars Rover model.

This August, NASA’s Mars Rover Curiosity will land on the surface of the Red Planet. Armed with a geology lab, cameras galore and a rock-vaporizing laser, Curiosity’s mission will be to find conditions favorable for life.

This Spring, all students enrolled in Art Center for Kids—Art Center College of Design’s program for students in grades 4–8—will have a special opportunity to work with Curiosity engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to imagine what a future community on Mars might look like.

It’s all part of the Imagine Mars Project, an interdisciplinary program sponsored by NASA and the National Endowment for the Arts—and of which Art Center is a proud partner— that takes kids on a virtual mission to Mars and brings them back with a new outlook on community, science and the arts.

Art Center for Kids students in "Architecture from the Inside Out" design buildings suitable for the environment on Mars.

Every Spring term for the past six years, all Art Center for Kids classes focus on one common theme: imagining a future life on Mars. In these classes, young artists and designers, in cooperation with scientists and engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, translate this theme through a variety of disciplines.

“Here on Earth we take certain things for granted, like gravity,” says David J. Delgado, Art Center alumnus and Lead on the Imagine Mars Project for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who says the main skill Imagine Mars students develop is creative problem solving, “We ask the students to dig into their imagination and come up with things that have never been seen before.”

Delgado says the wide array of disciplines taught at Art Center for Kids means those ‘things that never seen before’ take on infinite variations—whether they’re group projects built in Architecture from the Inside Out (“How do you design buildings to fit into the environment on Mars?”), constructing narratives in Cartooning Technique (“What kind of people will live there? What will they do?”) imagining how pets would survive on Mars in Animal Sculpture (“The students have come up with some really fun spacesuits for their animals.”) or capturing images of life on Earth in Photography to remind residents on Mars of their roots.

Delgado also points out that the lessons learned in class go far beyond simply learning about Mars, “The instructors at Art Center for Kids use Imagine Mars as a jumping-off point to get really creative. Not only are the students learning about Mars, but they’re also learning skills for their specific medium, say photography. And they’re not just learning how to take a photograph, but they’re also learning about how tell stories through pictures. All the classes do a really good of that.”

Art Center for Kids Spring classes begin February 19; register today!

David J. Delgado, lead of the Imagine Mars Project at The Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Be Part of Pacific Standard Time

Grad Art Faculty Member Seeks Bodies to be Part of Performance Art Event This Sunday

Grad Art core faculty Lita Albuquerque is creating a large scale performance for the Pacific Standard Time Public Art and Performance Festival and is looking for students, faculty and alumni from the Art Center community to sign up to participate this coming Sunday, January 22nd at noon at the Baldwin Hills Scenic Outlook in Culver City.

Spine of the Earth, Lita Albuquerque, 1980. Ephemeral installation at El Mirage Dry Lake Bed, CA. Lita Albuquerque © Lita Albuquerque Studio, 1980.

As described on the Pacific Standard Time website, Spine of the Earth 2012 is taking place this Sunday and is a recreation of Albuquerque’s 1980 Spine of the Earth, where the artist created a land based work at the bed of the El Mirage Dry Lake. The piece created a giant “geometric pattern over six-hundred feet in diameter” and turned the Earth into a artist’s canvas. In Albuquerque’s recreation twenty two years later, she won’t be painting the earth but will be making a “performative sculpture” that requires at least five hundred people.

As part of the open call to artists, designers and the general public, Albuquerque is looking for students, faculty and alumni from the Art Center community to participate in the performance. Sign up is easy at spineoftheearth2012.com. According to the site, participants will be involved in a very simple walking based movement (choreographed by LA-based choreographers WIFE) and will receive a signed, limited-edition artifact of the performance.

Kyle Fitzpatrick, who blogged about the upcoming event, wrote that he received the following details after signing up to participate:

  • The event is this Sunday between 12PM and 2PM. If you are participating, you need to be on site no later than 8AM.
  • This actually will not be in the desert (phew), but in Baldwin Hills Scene Overlook in Culver City, between Jefferson and La Cienega.
  • All participants will be involved in a very simple walking-based movement that will take place outdoors
  • What will you be wearing? A red jump suit! You should wear dark clothing and “comfortable walking shoes” in neutral colors to go underneath, though. You’ll also be keeping your red jumpsuit, which Lita will be signing as a thank you for participating.
  • Don’t bring your kids: all participants must be 16 and over.
  • Bring food money, as they will have food trucks there for eating. You’ll also be getting free coconut water!

The piece is a part of Pacific Standard Time’s Performance and Public Art Festival, which begins Thursday, January 19, continuing through Saturday, January 29. Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-80 is a collaboration of cultural institutions across Southern California coming together to celebrate the birth of the L.A. art scene.