Category Archives: Illustration

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.

Gloria Fowler’s AMMO-nition

The cover of the new Edward Weston monograph, published by AMMO Books.

On campus, Gloria Fowler ‘87 may be best known as a beloved Environmental Design instructor who has taught at the College for the last 20 years, helping students explore their creative potential. But equally impressive is her work off-campus, where she runs the thriving boutique art-house publishing company AMMO Books with her photographer-turned-publisher husband, Steve Crist, and business partner Paul Norton.

Launching a specialty book business is a risky venture, even more so in today’s age of declining book sales. But AMMO, which is based in Pasadena and Santa Barbara, Calif., has succeeded where others haven’t, publishing a number of coveted titles including the limited edition monographs Gonzo and Charley Harper, mid-priced options like Locals Only and Spike Lee: Do the Right Thing and a children’s line of board books, puzzles and more. Enviable press coverage and robust sales have followed.

The Dotted Line recently sat down with Fowler to discuss several new AMMO releases just in time for the holidays, as well as her experience running AMMO and working with emerging talent straight from the studios of Art Center.

Is there a story behind the name, AMMO?

When Steve and I decided to break out on our own and launch a new publishing house [he previously worked as a photo editor at Taschen], we realized that there weren’t that many visual-arts publishers based in the U.S. We also wanted to celebrate American artists and designers. So we came up with AMMO, which is short for American Modern Books. But we do publish international artists/designers as well.

What’s new at AMMO this holiday season?

We recently published a limited edition, coffee-table size monograph on the photographer Edward Weston in celebration of his 125th birthday. Weston is a hero of Steve’s and one of the most important photographers of the 20th century. Steve worked with the Center for Creative Photography in Arizona, which manages Weston’s archive, to choose 125 of Weston’s most iconic photographs. The book was beautifully printed in Italy and comes in an exquisite European gold cloth slipcase. Then we have Alexander Girard, edited by Todd Oldham. Girard was a seminal and prolific midcentury designer who produced work in so many disciplines—textiles, typography, graphics, illustration, furniture and architecture. He was a contemporary of Eames who, for whatever reason, hasn’t received the same recognition. We hope this book will change that. It’s massive—672 pages and 15 lbs(!)—and it’s at the level of Charley Harper in that the book is a very comprehensive overview of Girard.  And in conjunction, we’ve released some children’s products featuring Girard’s designs—a memory game, giant floor puzzles, a board book and more on the way.

Catch a glimpse of the new Girard book here:


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Taschen Publishes Mark Ryden Retrospective

A spread from Taschen's limited edition Mark Ryden "Pinxit" Retrospective.

Looking for the perfect holiday gift for the Mark Ryden fan in your life?

Venerable art book publisher Taschen has worked closely with the pop surrealist pioneer and Illustration alumnus to create a limited edition retrospective of his work titled Pinxit, which is available for pre-order now.

Taschen promises that Pinxit, whose title refers to the Latin word meaning “painted by,” is the ultimate retrospective of Ryden’s fine art career. And it’s easy to see why. The 366-page Collector’s Edition volume is limited to 1,000 signed and numbered copies, and includes more than 100 paintings, dozens of drawings, a new essay by culture critic Kristine McKenna and collected essays by artist Yoshitomo Nara and curator Carlo McCormick, among others.

In its review of Ryden’s show The Gay 90′s: Old Tyme Art Show, The New York Times wrote that the artist’s “zany pictures hint at what creepy psychic stuff might pullulate beneath the sentimental, nostalgic and naïve surface of modern kitsch.”

More hints of “creepy psychic stuff” after the jump.

Don’t Miss Design Runway This Friday

Environmental Design student Belle Shang will present her BeWild winter accessories at Design Runway.

This Friday, Art Center College of Design will hold its annual Design Runway show at the College’s Hillside Campus. The show, which is free and open to the public, focuses on how industrial design and visual art students are expressing themselves through apparel design.

“This is a runway show unlike any other,” said Design Runway instructor Justine Parish of the event which marks the culmination of the course of the same name. “Apparel design at Art Center is less about fashion than it is an outlet for students from all departments to explore a new medium for their creativity. As a result, we have Product Design students creating performance sportswear for space travel, Illustration students creating jewelry, Transportation Design students creating high fashion shoes and everything in between.”

Continued after the jump.

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Tricks and Treats by Alumnus Mark Ryden

"Girl Eaten by a Tree" (2006) by Mark Ryden

A day filled with ghoulish treats seems as good a time as any to delve into the surrealistic work of Art Center alumnus Mark Ryden ILLU ’87.

Ryden recently debuted a new painting, The Meat Shop, at the Frieze Art Fair in London, and beginning November 4 he’ll have a new drawing, Sacred Heart, on display at La Luz de Jesus Gallery’s 25th anniversary group exhibition La Luz de Jesus 25.

Head past the jump for a few more paintings by Ryden.

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In Case You Missed It

Still from the upcoming film "Lost and Found in Armenia," directed by Gor Kirakosian FILM '06.

There’s always something happening when it comes to Art Center alumni, students and faculty. Sometimes there’s almost too much happening!

  • Alumnus Gor Kirakosian FILM ’06  directed the upcoming Lost and Found in Armenia, which stars Jamie Kennedy (Malibu’s Most Wanted, TV’s The Jamie Kennedy Experiment) as an American in Armenia who is mistaken for a Turkish spy. Speaking with Fresno’s Fox affiliate KMPH-26, the film’s producer Vanessa McCaffrey said the movie, which releases early next year, is “My Big Fat Greek Wedding meets The Hangover.”
  • “I was a rookie, and it was one of my first arrests. I saw someone had forged their registration tag — I noticed it was the wrong typeface. You can’t fool an artist.” So says alumnus and Pasadena cop Victor Cass ILLU ’89 in the Pasadena Star-News, who has been chosen to help launch an art-inspired campaign for Door of Hope, an agency that helps transition families from homelessness to permanent housing.
  • Alumnus Roberto Chavez PHOT ’06, a photographer and a member of the Whittier Cultural Arts Commission, has reportedly saved Pictures of Children’s Stories, a mural by ceramic artist F. Carlton Ball that had been tucked away in a corner of the Whitwood Branch Library, from being either dismantled or destroyed.
  • The E-bike, the first-and-last-mile brainchild of alumnus Garbriel Wartofsky TRANS ’09 is heading into the final stages of pre-production. Wartofsky, who has been working on the project since his days at Art Center, describes E-Bike a “compact, lightweight, intuitively-folding electric assist bicycle designed to get you seamlessly from point A to B utilizing the city’s existing infrastructure.”
  • Scars by alumnus and film director Woo-Seong Lim FILM ’01 opened in Seoul, South Korea last week. The film, starring Park So-Yeon and Jung Hee-Tae, is based on a story by novelist Han Kang, and chronicles a destructive love affair between a perfectionist news anchor and a children’s book illustrator.

If you have any Art Center-related news items you’d like to share with the community, send us an email at editorial at artcenter dot edu.

In Case You Missed It

Ana Serrano's "Salon of Beauty" installation at Houston's Rice Gallery. Photo: Nash Baker.

There’s always something happening when it comes to Art Center alumni, students and faculty. Sometimes there’s almost too much happening!

If you have any Art Center-related news items you’d like to share with the community, send us an email at editorial at artcenter dot edu.

Drew Struzan: The Man Behind the Poster [UPDATE]

Struzan's "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" (1984)

Do you like movies? Did you grow up in the ’80s?

If you answered “yes” to either of those questions, then you’re probably already intimately familiar with the work of Art Center alumnus Drew Struzan ILLU ’70.

In the ’80s, Struzan created iconic movie posters for films like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Back to the Future, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Big Trouble in Little China and The Thing.

More recently, he has leant his deft touch to posters for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Hellboy, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and AMC’s The Walking Dead.

At next week’s New York Comic Con, a portion of the nearly completed documentary Drew: The Man Behind the Poster, which features interviews with Struzan and the Hollywood talent with whom he’s worked, will be screened on Thursday, October 15 at 9 p.m. at the Jacob Javitz Center, Room 1A24.

UPDATE: The Los Angeles Times‘ “Hero Complex” blog recently ran a story on Struzan’s forthcoming 250-page retrospective Drew Struzan: Oeuvre from Titan Books. (10/20/11)

Film trailer after the break.

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Remembering Kevyn

Wallace

It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of beloved Art Center Illustration alumnus and Broadcast Cinema student Kevyn Wallace. Wallace passed away last week due to injuries suffered from a car accident several weeks ago.

Wallace graduated from Art Center’s Illustration Department in 1990. Professionally, he worked as a layout artist on such films as The Simpsons Movie, Home on the Range, Tarzan and The Land Before Time franchise. In recent years, Wallace returned to Art Center to study entertainment design concepts in the College’s Transportation Design Department. Soon afterward, he decided to focus on the narrative aspects of storytelling, and joined the graduate Broadcast Cinema program. As a graduate Broadcast Cinema student, and with the approval of Walt Disney Animation Studios, Wallace had been working on a documentary about the history of Disney’s African American animators.

Please join the Wallace family, and members of the Art Center community, at a memorial service for him this Friday evening in the Ahmanson Auditorium at Hillside Campus. A light reception will take place in the Faculty Dining Room immediately following. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the L.A. County Burn Center. Send a check (payable to “CARES” with “L.A. County Burn Center” noted in the memo field) to: CARES, 1200 N. State Street, Room 1900, Los Angeles, CA 90033.

If you have any questions about the memorial service, please contact India Dunnington at 626.396.2408 or india.dunnington@artcenter.edu.

Remembering the Summer of Punk

© Steven A. Heller/Art Center College of Design

Guest post by Art Center Archivist Robert Dirig

During the summer of 1986, Art Center students relived the era of punk through an Illustration Department workshop, Punk Is Not a Fashion Statement, organized by former Illustration Chair Phil Hays. The workshop focused on journalistic illustration, with various punk scenes acted out as students recorded them via drawings and paintings.

In addition to the workshop, students heard lectures on the history and significance of punk from a wide variety of speakers including Malcolm McLaren, the manager of the Sex Pistols.

Do you remember this Summer of Punk at Art Center? We want to hear your memories!

To visit Art Center’s Archives or to donate materials, contact Art Center Archivist Robert Dirig at 626.396.2208 or robert.dirig@artcenter.edu.

© Steven A. Heller/Art Center College of Design