Tag Archives: James Lemont Fogg Memorial Library

Grad Art alumnus and library staffer George Porcari receives prestigious Tiffany Foundation Award

Art Center alumnus and acquisitions librarian George Porcari (MFA 87 Art) was one among 30 recipients of the 17th biennial Tiffany Foundation Awards, which may or may not have arrived wrapped in a little robin’s-egg blue box with a white bow.

Officially announced last week, a series of monetary grants are issued every two years to unsung American artists and craftspeople by The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation. What separates the award from other prestigious grants is that artists aren’t able to apply, and funds are unrestricted. The 2013 winners were selected from a pool of 137 nominees proposed by the Foundation’s trustees, artists, critics, and museum professionals throughout the United States. A seven-member jury then reviewed the submissions. The 2013 jury included art world luminaries Phong Bui, Chrissie Iles, Kathryn Kanjo, Charles LeDray, John Perreault, Cindy Sherman and Robert Storr.

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New librarian Mario Ascencio disrupts the bookish stereotype

 

Mario Ascencio named new librarian. Photo by Jason Hornick

New college librarian Mario Ascencio. Photo by Jason Hornick

As a first-generation library user (and son of immigrant parents from El Salvador) Mario Ascencio possesses an evangelical zeal for his work. A native Angeleno who grew up in South L.A.’s Huntington Park, Ascencio has become a fierce advocate for the equity of information for all. And as of Monday, May 12, 2014, the dedicated, nationally recognized leader will apply his passion for information science to Art Center’s James Lemont Fogg Memorial Library, where he was recently named librarian and managing director.

“I’m excited to return to my native city of Los Angeles,” he said, adding that he always insisted that he would only return to his hometown if the ideal position was offered by the ideal organization. “After almost 15 years living in D.C., I’m thrilled to join Art Center because of its mission, ‘Learn to Create, Influence Change.’ It’s at the core of my personal beliefs that the library and the staff have the power to help students explore and discover themselves as artists and designers, and to ultimately create a positive impact on their learning.”

Ascencio is keenly aware of the important big-picture issues faced by institutions and the role of the library in supporting overall goals and objectives. Looking ahead as the College continues its South Campus expansion close to downtown Pasadena, Ascencio envisions engaging with his colleagues to discover new opportunities to better serve the Art Center community.

Ascencio’s defining library moment occurred at age 17, when he helped an illiterate woman get her first library card. This empowering experience helped him realize how libraries can impact people’s everyday lives, particularly when it comes to the disadvantaged. A leader in promoting library services to Latinos and Spanish-speakers, he was named a Mover & Shaker by Library Journal in recognition of his commitment to improving and promoting library services at the national and international level.

Getty Foundation Awards Multicultural Internship to Art Center Library

Internships can create powerful futures. Just ask Rachel Wen-Paloutzian. In 2009, she held a summer internship at Art Center’s James Lemont Fogg Memorial Library, supported by a grant from the Getty Foundation as part of its Multicultural Undergraduate Internship program. The internship proved to be a critical step toward her current career as special collections librarian at Loyola Marymount University’s William H. Hannon Library.

Rachel-WP

A Getty Foundation grant to Art Center made it possible for Rachel Wen-Paloutzian to intern in our library.

“Art Center was where I came up with the ideas that led to my master’s thesis at UCLA and where I first learned about metadata and digital collections,” Wen-Paloutzian explains. “Today I enjoy working with historical materials and rare books, as well as encouraging academic communities to come discover the hidden treasures of the Library. The Art Center internship was an important milestone for me.”

This summer will be the 10th year that the Foundation has awarded an internship grant to Art Center. The internship program provides full-time summer work opportunities for outstanding students who are members of groups currently underrepresented in museums and arts organizations. Since the program’s founding in 1993, 150 local arts institutions and museums, as well as the Getty Center and the Getty Villa, have hosted over 2,800 internships, exposing these students to career possibilities in the arts.

For Art Center students, faculty and staff, the opportunity to work with individuals from a broad range of backgrounds and perspectives enriches the Art Center experience. Diversity and inclusion are among the College’s six governing values and principles and broadly represented throughout Art Center’s strategic plan, and the Getty Foundation grant is helping to expand the College’s efforts in this area.

For Vanessa Samaniego, a senior at the University of Notre Dame, last summer’s Multicultural Undergraduate internship was similarly transformative. “I’m grateful to have learned so much about the Library and the College,” she says, “and to have discovered a whole new field of interest — design.”

Samaniego’s library responsibilities included digitizing images, developing library materials, helping curate student work for an exhibit, cataloging children’s books, planning and promoting library events and color-editing a fashion magazine. “After being surrounded by so many entrepreneurial design students,” she continues, “I went back to school and was able to implement design concepts in an entrepreneurial course this past fall.”

The Getty Foundation fulfills the philanthropic mission of the Getty Trust by supporting individuals and institutions committed to advancing the greater understanding and preservation of the visual arts in Los Angeles and throughout the world. More information about the Foundation’s grant-making is available online at getty.edu/foundation.

Related:

Art Center Receives NEH Grant to Preserve Industrial Design History

The Librarians Have Landed! And They’re Coming to Art Center

In Search of Textured Stories: An Illustration Student Explores Children’s Books by African-American Illustrators