Tag Archives: Student Work

Art Center Grads Participating in Jeunes Talents

Two recent alums from Art Center’s Photography and Imaging Department, Christie Hemm and Maeghan Henry, are among eight artists who recently completed the fifth annual Jeunes Talents photography program. This cultural tourism initiative combines tourism and the arts, photography and real-life experience, travel and inspiration, and American and French sensibilities to show life in France today.

Neither Hemm nor Henry had been to France before the program. Watch the videos below to hear their thoughts on their upcoming adventures:

Be sure to follow along with Christie, Magehan and the other artists at Jeunes Talents.

Student Work on Display at Milan Furniture Show

Brooke Woosley at work in her booth at the Salone Satellite

The New York Times has a great article on last week’s International Furniture Fair in Milan, where several Art Center students and alumni were exhibiting their work.

For up-and-coming designers, “Milan is something else: a gateway to an international reputation, the place where a prototype might be snapped up for production, or a chat at Bar Basso (the watering hole that is to ambitious designers what Les Deux Magots was to expatriate writers in Paris) might lead to a job in a renowned studio. Mixing with the throngs of manufacturers, distributors and buyers are legions of young designers who aspire to global recognition and the important money that goes with it.”

The article highlights alumna Brooke Woosley, who was at the fair exhibiting two designs: Chloros, a faceted display case and Bundle, a dangling lamp.

From the article:

By noon on the fair’s opening day, Ms. Woosley had already begun to regret her brown leather boots with their cruel wooden soles. In 2007, she had helped design the booth at the Satellite occupied by her classmates at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif. This was her second trip to the fair. Had she forgotten that sensible shoes, even in this capital of style, aren’t a fashion crime, but preventative therapy? And speaking of discomfort, what was she planning to do if someone ordered, say, 100 Chloros?

View student designs on display at the fair, and check out additional coverage on the fair and Art Center students exhibiting designs there:

Art Center’s International Furniture Fair Site
Otto: Milan 2011: Salone Satellite
Emerge By Caren: Vanessa Choi, Tandu (wooden stool) and Kevin Sethapun, Arch; Art Center College of Design, SaloneSatellite 2011

Students Examine Graying of AIDS

Scientific advances in recent decades have meant that HIV and AIDS are no longer a death sentence. People with AIDS are living longer today than ever before, and by 2015 half the people in the U.S. with HIV or AIDS will be 50 or older.

A current Illustration Department/Designmatters student project is underway examining the graying of AIDS. It is being conducted as a corollary to the current Williamson exhibition, Graphic Intervention, and is on display through Sunday.

The Pasadena Weekly has a wonderful article today on the topic. Carl Kozlowski writes:

In an attempt to educate the public about this increasingly important issue for the nation’s senior community, Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design presents “The Graying of AIDS Exhibition: Off the Wall,” part of the larger “Graphic Intervention: 25 Years of International AIDS Awareness Posters” exhibit at the college’s Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery through Sunday.

“Our project tries to address ageism and living with HIV/AIDS among older adults,” says Brian Rea, an instructor with the Art Center’s illustration department who teaches the school’s Off the Wall installation-art course. “Often they’re seen as statistics, so the students really took it upon themselves to address that, and take the most powerful things being said and make them the most accessible for those who might view the piece.”

Rea first learned of the project after being approached by Art Center’s Educational Department, which aligns students and faculty with outside organizations to produce art and design that can affect social change. Rea’s Off the Wall course, housed in the Illustration Department, teaches experimental image-making and installation work as they apply to illustration and design.

It’s Here: Week 14

Art Center, we’re already halfway through Week 14, and you know what that means—tons of events culminating in Graduation on Saturday.

Rest up and prepare for:

Wednesday, April 20, 6-10 pm: 4 Hours Solid (South Campus)
Wednesday, April 20, 7-9 pm: Experience Art Center at Night (South Campus)
Thursday, April 21, 6 pm: Graduation Show Preview and Alumni Reception (invitation only)
Saturday, April 23, 2:30 pm: Faculty Reception (faculty, special guests and College leadership)
Saturday, April 23, 4 pm: Spring Term Graduation (Hillside Campus, and webcast live)
Saturday, April 23, 4-10 pm: MFA Open Studios (South Campus)
Saturday, April 23, 6 pm: Graduation Show (Hillside Campus)

It’s a jam-packed few days. But don’t worry—there’s still time to sneak in a nap before the fun begins!

4 Hours Solid: April 20

Art Center’s newest tradition is back for its second year. Join us for 4 Hours Solid, an annual showcase of work and ideas from Art Center’s graduate programs in Art, Broadcast Cinema, Industrial Design and Media Design. Enjoy four jam-packed hours of exhibitions, screenings, installations, presentations, food trucks and more. The event will be held at South Campus. You won’t want to miss it!

4 Hours Solid
Wednesday, April 20, 6-10 p.m.
South Campus

Meet Meliné Khatchatourian

Meliné Khatchatourian didn’t always know she was going to enter the arena of transportation design.

Khatchatourian

In fact, she never even took a fine art course until her senior year as a communications major at the University of California, San Diego.

“I was surprised to discover that I not only enjoyed those [art] classes, but I excelled in them,” Khatchatourian says. “I knew that I had discovered a path I had to pursue.”

She soon enrolled in Introduction to Product and Transportation Design at Art Center at Night (ACN). Khatchatourian vividly recalls the first day her class focused on transportation studies when her instructor used her car as a teaching tool. “My car was dissected and explained as a work of functional art,” she says. “I remember thinking, ‘I need to learn as much about this discipline as I can.’”

So Khatchatourian met with ACN Director Dana Walker, who suggested courses to prepare her portfolio for the College’s Transportation Design program. And the rest is ACN history.

Read her full story.

Ready to make history yourself? Then come to Experience Art Center at Night, April 18 through 20, 7to 9 p.m., a three-evening event where you can explore ACN’s broad range of courses.

Registration for ACN’s Summer Term is now open; courses begin May 16.

Reflecting Back at 80: A Department is Born

Guest post by Art Center Archivist Robert Dirig

The year was 1931. Nevada legalized gambling. The Empire State building was completed. And Art Center created its Photography (now called Photography and Imaging) Department.

Pictured: Advanced Photography students shooting dancers outside, 1949 (photographer unknown)

Initially led by Will Connell, the department offered coursework in amateur and professional photography.

By 1935, there were 12 faculty members and in addition to the core classes, there were specialized courses in portraiture, color photography, 16mm cinematography, and composition and lighting.

Ansel Adams joined the growing program’s faculty in the early 1940s, joining such faculty members as Fred Archer, Otto Halmer, Edward Kaminski, Albert King and Charlie Potts.

In this photograph from 1949, advanced photography students are shooting dancers outside. Do you recognize anyone in the photo?

What are your memories of our Photography Department? To visit the Archives, or if you recognize anyone in the photo, contact Art Center Archivist Robert Dirig at 626.396.2208 or robert.dirig@artcenter.edu.

Ducha Halo at the 2011 NCIIA Open Minds Conference

The following post is reprinted from the Designmatters blog.

Bright and brilliant minds gathered at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History on Saturday, March 26, for Open Minds 2011, the student exhibition organized by the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) in conjunction with the organization’s 15th Annual Conference, Open: Catalyzing Innovation. The conference was attended by more than 380 faculty and students throughout the country who share NCIIA’s vision and benefit each year from its mission: “to support technology innovation and entrepreneurship in universities and colleges to create experiential learning opportunities for students, and successful, socially beneficial businesses.”

NCIIA was established in 1995 with the support of The Lemelson Foundation, legacy of prolific inventor Jerome Lemelson. NCIIA provides student start-ups with early stage funding, business strategy development training, mentoring, and investment, as well as provides staff and faculty with funding for courses and programs, opportunities for recognition, and entrepreneurship education training and networking. Since its founding, NCIIA has funded 325 experiential courses and new programs throughout hundreds of universities around the country and has leveraged more than 140 million dollars in additional funding, helping propel projects that have resulted in more than 100 new businesses.

Jessica and Narbeh at the NCIIA Open Minds event.

The Safe Agua “Ducha Halo” team, Jessica Yeh (ENV) and Narbeh Dereghishian (PROD) were selected among the innovator teams of the Open Minds exhibition and were one of 3 teams whose video of their social innovation was chosen as a top finalist by public vote as part of the 2011 Open Minds video competition.

The weekend also served as a valuable opportunity for students to network and seek out potential investors and collaborators who can help advance their ideas. “I can’t believe we had the opportunity to meet these wonderful people that are just as passionate about their projects as much as we are about ours. I have never met so many social impact innovators and bright minds in one setting. I learned so much and gained a different perspective about the whole business side of the project. I am still in the process of trying to soak all of it in! It was a really great experience and we did get some business cards and good questions that definitely challenge us to push the Ducha Halo forward,” reflects Yeh.

For the Art Center faculty engaged in 2 distinct NCIIA -funded projects through Designmatters, NCIIA was an important opportunity to be part of panel discussions and paper presentations. Safe Agua lead faculty Dan Gottlieb, Penny Herschovitch (ENV) and Liliana Becerra (PROD) attended as well Steve Montgomery (GRAD ID), who along with Becerra (PROD) taught the Creating Social Value through Design TDS in 2010.

Continue reading →

Ducha Halo Up for Open Minds Award

Last month we told you that Ducha Halo, a low-cost, portable shower designed by Art Center students Narbeh Dereghishian and Jessica Yeh in 2009’s Designmatters Safe Agua studio, was in the running for the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA)’s Open Minds video competition.

The top three teams have been chose by a judging panel and the general public—and Ducha Halo has placed in the top three!

They will travel to Washington, D.C., where the winners will be announced March 26 at the Open Minds event, held at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Congrats, Narbeh and Jessica, and good luck!

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