Spring 2013 orientation week welcomes new students

This week, Art Center officially welcomes the Spring 2013 incoming class with a week of orientation activities organized by the College’s Center for the Student Experience.

“New student orientation sets the stage for the success of our students during their time at Art Center,” said Dean of Students Jeffrey Hoffman. “Helping students feel connected to each other and the College is critical.”

Here’s the lineup of what’s to come so new students get the most out of their education — in and out of the classroom.

Tuesday, Jan. 8

8–9 a.m.: New student orientation check in.

9:30 a.m.: Art Center President Lorne M. Buchman, Dean of Students Jeffrey Hoffman and Admissions Vice President Kit Baron welcome new students.

9:45 a.m.–noon: Campus tours, followed by a lunch with peer mentors (12–1:30 p.m.).

1:30–3 p.m. or 3:30–5 p.m.: Undergraduate students have the option of taking digital waiver tests.

2–5:30 p.m.: Graduate student orientation and course selections.

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Exhibit reveals secrets of Hollywood monster maker

Film fans have one more chance to meet one of Hollywood’s greatest monster makers.

Art Center alum Neville Page — who created on-screen beasts for Cloverfield, Piranha 3D, Super 8 and Prometheus — is the mind behind “The Beauty in the Beast: Crafting Creatures.”

The exhibition at the Oceanside Museum of Art, which closes Saturday, features Page’s design progression creating mythical anatomies from early sketches to full 3D models.

In addition to a last look at Page’s process, attendees will be entered to win signed prints of his work. Admission to the exhibition and closing reception (5 to 7 p.m.) is free for OMA members and for Art Center students and alum; $10 for non-members. Page will give a private tour of the exhibition from 2 to 4 p.m., which costs $20 and includes admission.

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CCS, Art Center mourn the loss of a visionary leader

Imre Molnar, who shaped designers as an administrator at Art Center and the College for Creative Studies, died on Dec. 28. Molnar had a heart attack while bike riding in California. He was 61.

Molnar joined Detroit’s College for Creative Studies in 2001 as dean and rose to the post of provost, overseeing the college’s faculty, curriculum and academic resources. He helped create an MFA degree and was instrumental in lifting the school’s transportation programs to world leadership levels, according to a statement from the school.

Born in Hungary and raised in Australia, Molnar earned a bachelor’s degree from the National Art School in Sydney, Australia, and a master’s degree from Art Center College of Design. He later returned to the college as a faculty member and director of education at Art Center’s one-time European campus in Vevey, Switzerland.

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Watch Lynn Aldrich install (and illuminate) Un/Common Objects

As a Graduate Art student at Art Center, Lynn Aldrich experienced a creative paradigm shift after realizing “that fine art was something philosophical and critical of the status quo and yet something that could be beautiful and pleasurable and generous to the viewer.” That philosophy has consistently to informed her body of work, constructed from the ephemera of domestic life (from Brillo pads to garden hoses), over the course of her twenty-plus year career as a celebrated sculptor whose work has shown in museums around the world and is featured in the permanent collections of both LACMA and MOCA.

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Williamson Gallery, LitFest host page-turner

In an era of e-readers and smart phones, Art Center’s Williamson Gallery and LitFest Pasadena have teamed up to celebrate the simple power of the printed page.

On Sunday as part of the gallery’s “Pages” exhibit, eight prominent Los Angeles writers will each read one page from a favorite author.

“Art, science, literature, these disciplines define Pasadena — increasingly so,” said Larry Wilson, LitFest artistic director and public editor of the Pasadena Star-News. “That’s why the ‘Pages’ show in the Williamson Gallery is the perfect place for LitFest Pasadena, which is growing way beyond an annual book fair, to have a reading by these celebrated writers.”

Readers include Los Angeles Review of Books Editor Tom Lutz; Altadena novelist Jervey Tervalon; young writer Andrew Ramirez; mystery writer Gary Phillips; Slake magazine Editor Laurie Ochoa; poet and young adult novelist Ron Koertge; painter and author J. Michael Walker; and poet Lisa Teasley.

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Happy Holidays from Art Center College of Design

Learn to create. Influence change. This is the mission of Art Center College of Design. For more than 80 years, we’ve achieved an international reputation for our rigorous, transdisciplinary curriculum, faculty of professionals, strong ties to industry and a commitment to socially responsible design. At Art Center, we prepare artists and designers to make a positive impact in their chosen fields—and in the world at large.

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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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Trustee’s ‘Red Tails’ nominated for NAACP Image awards

The action-adventure World War II film “Red Tails” was nominated for two NAACP Image Awards for outstanding motion picture and outstanding writing in a motion picture.

The high-flying feature, produced by George Lucas and Art Center Trustee Charles Floyd Johnson, was inspired by the heroics of Tuskeegee Airmen, America’s first all African-American aerial unit.

The film spent 23 years in development before premiering on the silver screen, and went on to earn $58 million at the box office.

“It’s a story that has resonance with a lot of people,” Johnson recently told Dotted Line. “These young men were not encouraged to fly for their country … but they triumphed over adversity” at home and abroad.

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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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‘To the Batmobile!’ The iconic car makes a victory lap

The Batmobile has undergone several on-screen incarnations — from the finned Lincoln Futura designed in 1966 in three weeks to 2012′s tank-like Tumblers that were five months (and reportedly millions of dollars) in the making.

All seven of the Caped Crusader’s rides — including the Batmobile designed by Art Center’s Tim Flattery — are on display through Dec. 14 as part of a free exhibit at L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles.

More of Gotham’s finest are also showcased, including costumes and props from the Batman film franchise, as well as art from a traveling DC Comic exhibit featuring work by Jim Lee.

Flattery’s stealth-looking Batmobile, featured in 1995′s “Batman Forever” with Val Kilmer at the wheel, was powered by a 25-gallon propane tank that could shoot a 25-foot flame from the rear exhaust.

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ArtCenter News

ArtCenter College of Design

Spring 2013 orientation week welcomes new students

Exhibit reveals secrets of Hollywood monster maker

CCS, Art Center mourn the loss of a visionary leader

Watch Lynn Aldrich install (and illuminate) Un/Common Objects

Williamson Gallery, LitFest host page-turner

Happy Holidays from Art Center College of Design

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

Trustee’s ‘Red Tails’ nominated for NAACP Image awards

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

‘To the Batmobile!’ The iconic car makes a victory lap