Category Archives: General Interest

Big Picture Lecture Series: Dale S. Wright

Don’t miss today’s Big Picture Lecture Series featuring Dale S. Wright, who will speak on Buddhist Wisdom and the Foundations of Ironic Humor is Zen.

Wright is the David and Mary Gamble Professor of Religious Studies and Asian Studies at Occidental College. His areas of expertise are Buddhist thought, particularly Chinese and Japanese, and modern continental European philosophy. Among his publications are Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism, The Six Perfections: Buddhism and the Cultivation of Character and a series of Oxford University Press books on the history of Zen Buddhism.

And don’t forget—podcasts of the lectures are up at Art Center’s iTunes U site.

Big Picture Lecture Series: Dale S. Wright
Monday, November 8, 1 pm
Ahmanson Auditorium

Meet Ronald J. Llanos

Metro’s Exposition Line connecting downtown to Culver City (and eventually Santa Monica) may not be up and running yet, but when it is, it’ll be impossible to miss the work of Illustration alum and Art Center at Night instructor Ronald J. Llanos.

Metro has commissioned the Art Center alum and Art Center at Night instructor to create Ephemeral Views: A Visual Essay for its light rail station being constructed at Western Avenue, and the 24 mosaic panels (each one standing 8’ x 3’) that comprise the work are being created right now.

Much of Llanos work captures the everyday moments of life in the greater Los Angeles area—whether it’s a visual documentation of downtown’s Toy District or an homage to Manet at Hot Dog on a Stick—so it’s not surprising that his Expo Line work inspired by the vibrant characters that make up the city’s street life.

Llanos work has been shown at Wax Poetic, Black Maria Gallery and Ghettogloss and he was the featured artist in Draw the Line, a recent group show at Cactus Gallery in Eagle Rock. We caught up with him to ask him about his favorite artists and teaching at Art Center at Night.

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Let’s All Eat Cake!

In addition to teaching at Art Center, product and environmental designer Krystina Castella has another rather interesting pursuit: writing cookbooks. Her latest, A World of Cake, has just been released to rave reviews.

Join Castella at a book signing this afternoon to celebrate this tasty new book inspired by the Art Center community. She’ll talk about her book as well as how you can get your own book published, too. Best of all, cake will be served!

Krystina Castella
Thursday, November 4, 1:30 p.m.
Art Center Hillside Campus
Library

Be sure to check out Castella’s great website for the book and the video trailer from the new book below. Are we the only ones getting hungry?

In Case You Missed It

Bruce Heavin and Lynda Weinman

As you know, there’s always something going on when it comes to Art Center alumni, students and faculty. Some of the latest:

  • Did you know that Lynda Weinman and Bruce Heavin of Lynda.com met at Art Center?  Socaltech.com
  • Professor Krystina Castella’s yummy new cookbook focuses on cake. Winnipeg Free PressPasadena Star-News visits ENERGY in the Williamson Gallery. Pasadena Star-News
  • Student Tomoko Ogino’s concept for Peet’s Coffee. The Dieline
  • Interview with alum Anders Warming, director of exterior design at BMW.  BMW Blog
  • A review of alum Christopher Russell’s show at Luis de Jesus (runs through November 27). Culture Monster

Big Picture Lecture Series: Sandra Ball-Rokeach

Don’t miss today’s Big Picture Lecture Series featuring Sandra Ball-Rokeach, who will speak on The Seeds of Civic Engagement in Contemporary Urban Communities.

Ball-Rokeach is a communication and sociology professor at USC and principal investigator of the decade-long research program, Metamorphosis: Transforming the Ties that Bind.

The author and editor of six books, her latest, Understanding Ethnic Media: Produces, Consumers and Societies, will be published this year. She served as co-editor of Communication Research from 1992 to 1997, currently is a fellow of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and the International Communication Association.

And don’t forget—podcasts of the lectures are up at Art Center’s iTunes U site.

Big Picture Lecture Series: Sandra Ball-Rokeach
Monday, November 1, 1 pm
Ahmanson Auditorium

Celebrating Autumn, Art Center Style

Yesterday Art Center students, faculty and staff celebrated autumn at the ACSG Hillside Harvest. The event featured a barbecue lunch, pie-eating contest, trunk sale, e-waste recycling drive and more.

Enjoy this slideshow of photos of the fun:

Magonelli: The Long, Strange Trip from Gas Pump to Tank

“You are going to spend your entire career in a wind tunnel.”

Magonelli

This was Lisa Magonelli’s words of advice for those in attendance of her talk for Monday’s Big Picture Lecture Series. Magonelli was referring to the accelerating pace of change in the world, and how we are will have to innovate at a pace about three times the speed of the industrial revolution just to keep up. She noted that things are going to change so rapidly that “it will be powerfully disorienting.”

Margonelli directs the energy policy initiative at the New America Foundation, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. She spent four years following the oil supply chain to write Oil on the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank, published in 2008. Recognized as one of the 25 Notable Books of 2007 by the American Library Association, Oil On the Brain also won a 2008 Northern California Book Award for general nonfiction.

Her talk Monday was a cautionary tale. She spoke about America’s dependence on oil, and how that shapes our communities and lives—as well as the challenges we will face as we move away from oil dependence.

Margonelli on gas pump design: “Gas pumps are now designed to look and feel like ATM machines because studies have shown that we feel warmly towards them. As consumers, we want to feel better about buying gasoline.”

On our dependence on oil: “We are creating this very lasting and complicated relationship with the Middle East.”

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Big Picture Lecture Series: Lisa Margonelli

Don’t miss today’s Big Picture Lecture Series featuring Lisa Margonelli.

Margonelli directs the energy policy initiative at the New America Foundation, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. She spent four years following the oil supply chain to write Oil on the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank , published in 2008. Recognized as one of the 25 Notable Books of 2007 by the American Library Association, Oil On the Brain also won a 2008 Northern California Book Award for general nonfiction.

And don’t forget—podcasts of the lectures are up at Art Center’s iTunes U site.

Big Picture Lecture Series: Lisa Margonelli
Monday, October 25, 1 pm
Ahmanson Auditorium

Celebrating the Creative Spirit Through Scholarships

On Saturday, October 16, the College celebrated its 80th anniversary with a special event raising money for scholarships.

Art Center at 80: Celebrating the Creative Spirit commemo­rated Art Center’s distinguished 80-year history and celebrated the ingenuity and integrity of our many students, alumni and faculty.

The inaugural Creative Spirit Awards were awarded to four extraordinary alumni—industrial designer Yves Béhar, introduced by David De Rothschild; automotive designer Frank Stephenson, introduced by David Gooding; blockbuster filmmaker Zack Snyder, introduced by Graduate Broadcast Cinema Department Chair Robert Peterson; and contemporary artist Pae White, introduced by Jeffrey Deitch.

The funds raised from the event will be used to create named scholarships in recognition of the honored alumni, as well as support general scholarships for students in Art Center’s undergraduate, graduate and Public Programs. This support will enable our students to fully realize their potential, regardless of their financial means.

Enjoy the slideshow of images from the event below.

ENERGY: From Natural Forces to Human Emotion

The L.A. Times Culture Monster blog has a nice story today on the ENERGY exhibit at Williamson Gallery.

From the article: “Although ‘beautiful’ and ‘mesmerizing’ are words not often used to describe energy, this exhibition reveals the beauty within various energy sources while exploring the contentious nexus of science and art.”

ENERGY investigates how natural forces shape not only material things, but affect our emotions and intellect.

As part of the Williamson Gallery’s mission, students in Art Center’s Design for Sustainability 2 class will use a section of the gallery as their studio, studying and displaying their exploration of the question, “Where do energy and design intersect?

If you haven’t already seen the exhibit, stop by the Williamson Gallery and check it out. The gallery is open Tuesdays through Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. and Fridays noon to 9 p.m.