Campus News |
ART CENTER NEWSWIRE - January 8, 2001
PASADENA, CA, USA | To keep abreast of the exciting and innovative ideas, people and projects at Art Center College of Design, the media and general public can subscribe to Art Center's news digest by sending a blank email to: newswire-on@lists.artcenter.edu. We highlight some of the newsmakers in our Art Center community twice a month. To report news or obtain more information, contact Jan Kingaard, tel. (626) 396-2394, fax (626) 683-9233.
BREAKING NEWS
A major player in the global sphere of influence on transportation design, Art Center College of Design has an exhibit at the Auto Show at the LA Convention Center. Once again, the extraordinary design think tank challenges the status quo to transport visitors beyond cars, SUVs and trucks into the larger world of "mobility." The exhibit is open to the public for free in the Convention Center's West Hall Lobby from Saturday, January 6 through Sunday, January 14, 2001.
DIGITAL MEDIA
Daily Review (Haywood, CA), Daily Reflector (North Carolina)
The use of digital technology as a learning tool is becoming more and more popular. With universities like the University of North Carolina and the University of Colorado offering virtual classrooms, students from around the globe can connect via the Internet.Linking learning to an experience, even a simulated experience, may help students better remember the material. According to alumnus Tobey Crockett, "They're building a memory of an event that is far more crisp and engaging" than in a traditional classroom.
FILM
Hollywood Reporter
"Distorted Images," a college-level short film directed by Art Center student Calixto Hakim, has been chosen as one of 11 finalists in the Angelus Film Festival.His film is one of 203 entries from 81 film schools and universities.
ShootAlum Kri Shakar, a.k.a. Sister Kri, has signed with the recently launched Sanctuary, a Hollywood-based production house. Described by Sanctuary's founder Charlie Alvar as a "visual storyteller and stylist," Shakar has enjoyed a career in the arts that has included dancing, choreography, and advertising.
FINE ART
San Francisco Examiner
Though California art is capturing substantial sums in America's auctions housesas was demonstrated with the recent sale of a piece by Los Angeles sculptor Charles Ray for $2.2 millionEuropean galleries have been slow to recognize this rich new resource.Savvy East coast collectors travel to the West to keep a watchful eye on the blossoming artists, many of whom are graduates from four of the nation's leading art schools: the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of California at Irvine, Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and Cal Arts in Valencia.
Pasadena Star NewsA reception in honor of deceased alumnus and former instructor Richard Bunkall was held by Diane Nelson, a Laguna Beach gallery owner who launched a new venture in Old Town Pasadena.The DNFA Gallery opened with a gala preview reception honoring Bunkall who was known for his paintings of locomotives, steamships and grand architectural elements.A percentage of all sales during the six-week exhibition will be donated to Project ALS in memory of Richard Bunkall.Said Nelson, "Richard's work represents man's desire to construct monuments to the human spirit."
ILLUSTRATION
Burbank Leader, Foothill Leader (Glendale), Glendale News Press
Alum Keith Kaminski is celebrating his fortieth birthday with the launch of a new exhibit at the Burbank Creative Arts Center Gallery."40 @ 40" is a retrospective of Kaminski's most distinctive work.
Glendale News PressGraduate Bep Hogen-Esch was the guest demonstrator for a meeting of the Burbank Art Association.She demonstrated how to model a head with clay.
Capistrano Valley NewsAward-winning alum Kevin Short captures landscapes before they disappear.The California native says that he wants people to look at his work and say, "I remember when it was like that."He spends his time studying the beauty in his environment, trying to uncover and reveal its pristine, uninhibited qualities, while also capturing people and objects in unique character.His work has been featured at the Plaza At Gallery in San Juan, Hillcrest in Costa Mesa and in Laguna Beach at the Festival of Arts.
PRODUCT
Design/Build Business, Today's Homeowner
Price Pfister named the top three winners of its "Pfaucet of the Pfuture" contest, conducted as part of its 90th anniversary celebration.Art Center students Silas Beebe and Shane Koo took first and third places respectively.Beebe's design "Water Go" is a bathtub faucet and handle with an organic modernism, meaning every element of the design is derived from nature.Koo's "Chameleon" is a temperature sensitive bathroom faucet that visually notifies the user how hot or cold the water is and provides a cascade of water from a faucet head resembling a waterfall.
Los Angeles TimesDesigner Ron Solomon is not ready to sit on his laurels, enjoying the popularity of his most recent creationa children's secret journal that kids write in using a special invisible ink that can only be seen under a black light.According to Art Center instructor Steven M. Montgomery, Solomon's restlessness to see what new idea he can come up with is not unusual."Designers I know... get kind of bored quickly with things so they always want to think of the next new thing."Montgomery offers a variety of tools to help get the "creative juices" flowing.At Art Center, he teaches his students to set aside their first good idea and immediately think of something else that might work, thereby preventing an attachment to an idea that might not turn out to be the most effective.Another key is research.According to Montgomery, good research can help students make the necessary creative leap."We don't deduce [ideas] from what people are doing" with a product now, but "we use what is more inductive logic, where we try to see what might work better for them in the future."
TRANSPORTATION
Observer (Oregon)
After graduating from Art Center in the early '80's, Chris Ito thought his "all nighter" days were behind hiuntil he saw a contest in a car magazine for a redesign of the Ford Mustang.So in the middle of a job switch from California to Michigan, he stayed up all night designing and writing, ultimately winning the grand prize:A 1992 Ford Mustang convertible that he still owns.Ito remembers his Art Center days as a culmination of years of boyhood fantasy."I was just completely blown away," he says of the work of his fellow students.He now heads the design center at Trim Systems, a subsidiary of ASC."Some people would say, 'They're boring products,'" says Ito of the work he now does."But design is design, and there's a lot of opportunities in this market."
Financial TimesArt Center's Director of Corporate Relations Geoff Wardle, responding to an article on car emissions entitled "An exhaustive Californian pipe dream or reality?" questioned the Californian Air Resources Board's decision to mandate that 10% of cars sold in the state be zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) by 2003.In a letter to the editor, Wardle argued that no vehicle is truly emission free and perhaps a better solution would be to mandate that 100% of vehicles sold be nearly pollution-free, which would be an achievable goal.
WILLIAMSON GALLERY
Pasadena Star News
In an editorial about the rebirth of the Norton Simon Museum, it was noted that its collaboration on the "Radical Past" celebration with other top Pasadena institutions, including the Williamson Gallery, aided in bringing the museum "fully back to life."