Campus News NewsWire |
ART CENTER NEWSWIRE - May 29, 2002
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 email to requests@lists.artcenter.edu and in the body of the mail type "subscribe newswire" (without quotes). We highlight some of the newsmakers in our Art Center community monthly.
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(626) 396-2394; fax (626) 683-9233.
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
Daily Breeze
If the projects on the planning tables of today's most notable designers and architects are any indication, Los Angeles is growing up. The city that created mini-malls and movie studios is now looking to build refined public spaces that are on par with long admired private homes. According to developer Ira Yellin, "In the historic framework of cities, L.A. is an adolescent. It's just now beginning to build its historically permanent buildings and we have an opportunity to do it with excellence." These projects include the Disney Concert Hall, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and the Los Angeles Museum of Art. Behind these efforts are movers and shakers, including Yellin, President Richard Koshalek, former Mayor Richard Riordan and billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad, who are pressing for major civic projects and calling for leading architects to design them. And the architects are answering the call. Frank Gehry is behind Disney's project and Spanish architect Jose Rafael Moneo is directing the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels' enormous, angular echo of the California missions. Architect Thom Mayne says that the "miniature Renaissance" that Los Angeles is experiencing will be used as a yardstick for other major cities. The projects are providing "a real push as the city makes the next giant leap in development and sophistication," he said.
AWARDS & RECOGNITION
The Toronto Sun
Transportation student Nick Malachowski won the top prize of $10,000 in the first World Automotive Design Competition, organized by the Canadian International AutoShow (CIAS). Students from five design schools were invited to submit solutions for a "shared mobility" vehicle that addresses the big city problem of ever-increasing traffic volumes. Nick's winning design is a fuel-cell powered commuter car available for shared use. It was called a "stylish, practical, economical, and virtually emissions free solution to the challenge with a clever nesting component to minimize storage space."Los Angeles Architectural Awards
Art Center's Sinclaire Pavilion was awarded an award of excellence in the New construction-Institutional / Public Use category. The Los Angeles Business Council gives awards honoring outstanding architecture and design projects that significantly enhance the Los Angeles community's urban environment.San Gabriel Valley Daily Tribune
More than 40 artists from Southern California brought their canvasses and palettes to the Huntington Botanical Gardens to participate in the annual Invitational Paint-Out, hosted by the San Marino League. The artists were scattered over the 207 acres of gardens, creating over 150 paintings that would be sold the following weekend. Proceeds from the sales will go to the artists, the Huntington Japanese Garden Endowment Fund and the Fine Arts Scholarship program at Art Center.San Marino Tribune & San Marino News
The Pasadena Art Alliance, a nonprofit organization founded in 1956 to support contemporary art, recently awarded $127,750 in grants to 15 Los Angeles County nonprofit arts organizations. The recipients included Art Center College of Design. The school received $20,000 in scholarship funding as well as underwriting for six proposed exhibits.
ILLUSTRATION
Korean Quarterly
Bucking the traditions of "lawyer or doctor," alumnus Andy Park decided to follow his heart and dive into the world of comic books. Not reading them, but drawing for them. Since taking a makeshift portfolio to an annual comic book convention and showing it around seven years ago, he has been drawing for Image Comics, one of the giants in the industry. In 1999, he was assigned the job of transferring adventurer Laura Croft from video games to comic books. In 1999, the highly anticipated Tomb Raider became the top selling comic book of the year and was later made into a movie starring Angelina Jolie. Andy doesn't consider himself a role model for Korean Americans, but instead as an example of a person pursuing his passions and dreams, despite the odds.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Picturemagazine
"I'm putting my book together." Often heard words referring to the portfolio that helps define an artist's work. For Photography student Clarke Tolton, Art Center was the place to polish his portfolio while refining his skills. "Paul Jasmin (an instructor at Art Center) has significantly influenced my photography," says Tolton. "He has introduced me to many photographers who have shaped the modern photographic world. He is constantly pushing me to create images and to trust my instincts." Tolton is in the process of completing his seventh of eight terms at Art Center and has a client list that includes Dazed and Confused Magazine and Intersection Magazine.Photo District News
Hollywood-based photo equipment rental house PIX is a true 24/7 enterprise. Says graduate and owner Chris Ford, "We opened the doors 12 years ago and literally have not been closed since. It's a service photographers know they can depend on." The working space of 6,000 square feet offers a highly skilled full-time staff of 20 and a wide range of rentals from traditional cameras to top-of-the-line lighting gear, backdrops, blimps, booms and wind machines. The pros that rely on PIX include Steven Meisel, Annie Leibovitz and Mark Seliger. Says Ford, "If we don't have what a photographer needs, we'll get it. And the fact they can call on us anytime helps tremendously. They can return equipment when they're done instead of paying an assistant to watch it. Photographers don't work nine to five and neither do we."Picturemagazine
Alumna Karina Taira is quickly becoming one of the most sought after female shooters in the business. She is an accomplished fashion photographer and commercial director. At 19, she was attending Art Center and working as a professional photographer. After completing her first year at the college, she took time off to go to Japan where she assisted and got her first freelance jobs. She returned to Art Center with a complete portfolio and continued working in L.A. "I was super driven at Art Center," she says of her time at the Pasadena campus. "I knew the moment I got out that my work had to be up to the moment and I wanted to get a head start." Since graduating, Taira has worked for Diesel Fragrance, Christian Dior, Boucheron Perfume and Evian. After several years as a successful fashion photographer, she decided to pursue her dream of becoming a film director. The transition from photography to film was difficult and expensive, but she applied the same discipline in learning photography to learning about film. Her first love remains photography, however. "My film (career) is moving quickly for me," she says. "I had to really pay some serious dues for my photo career, which I've been doing now for ten years. I've only been doing film for three. But, my years of photography have helped my film career because they developed my eye, my universe, what I want to say and who I am."
PRODUCT DESIGN
Business Times
After graduating from Art Center, Rita Damore discovered that she wanted to start her own business. Damore Johann Design Inc., is a full-service design agency specializing in branding, packaging, identity and collateral. Though the decision to start her own business was easy, implementing it was hard. "I had to learn how to find clients, I had to learn bookkeeping, how to write proposals. I had to learn how the business side of design worked. I bushwhacked for a lot of years; a lot of it was trial and error," she says. Now in their 13th year, Damore Johann enjoys revenues in excess of $1 million.Los Angeles Times
Alumnus Elliot Handler and his partner Harold "Matt" Mattson revolutionized the toy industry with the creation of their toy company Mattel (Matt and Elliot). Their products included dollhouse furniture, cap guns, and the beloved "Chatty Cathy" doll. However, an idea of Elliot's wife, Ruth, may have made the biggest impact on society. Her design of a three-dimensional doll was introduced in 1959 and was a monster smash. "Barbie Teen-Age Fashion Model" had a girl-next-door quality and a lifelike figure and posture. By the early 1960s, Mattel had annual sales of $100 million, due largely to Barbie. Though Barbie has been attacked over the years for everything from sporting an unrealistic figure to promoting unattainable goals for young girls, the doll has retained her popularity. Ruth and her husband left Mattel in 1975. After being diagnosed with breast cancer and having a mastectomy, Ruth discovered the lack of realistic prosthetic breasts in the marketplace and started a company to make them. The Nearly Me prosthetic breast was made so that "a woman could wear a regular brassiere and blouse, stick her chest out and be proud," she said. She aggressively promoted the product, appearing on talk shows and fitting former First Lady Betty Ford after her mastectomy. By 1980, Nearly Me had sales surpassing $1 million. Ruth sold the company to a division of Kimberly-Clark in 1991. She died on Saturday, April 27 at the age of 85.The News & Observer, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Though people spend a hundred times more on their cars than their clothes, most don't know who designed their favorite mode of transportation. The popularity of affordable, uniquely designed automobiles may be changing that, however. Car manufacturers like Chrysler are taking the designers of today's most popular vehicles, like alumnus Bryan E. Nesbitt who designed the PT Cruiser, and introducing them to the world. General Motors recruiter Sheryl Garrett says, "Car designers are getting their momentthey're a highly visible profession now." Fellow alumnus J Mays, VP of Design for Ford and formerly with Volkswagen, was instrumental in the creation of the New V W Beetle. His work is part of an upcoming exhibit planned at L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art. According to Brooke Hodge, MOCA's curator of architecture and design, "This exhibition makes it possible to treat Mays-designed cars as design objects in their own right." Car manufacturers are looking for degreed individuals to bring into their stables. Art Center College of Design is one of the most widely recognized and highly rated schools available to get a degree in transportation design.The Philadelphia Inquirer, Northwest Herald
General Motors is bidding a somewhat fond farewell to the raked plastic cladding seen on GM cars in recent years. Instead, GM Vice Chairman Robert A. Lutz unveiled retooled Sunfire and Bonneville models at the recent Chicago Auto Show. Revitalizing Pontiac and Cadillac are his top priorities, Lutz declared, and insists that the process of stripping down the Pontiacs will reveal a beauty that was there but hidden. "Over the last few years the identity has depended too heavily on side moldings and looked crude and cheap, not adding to the image GM wanted," said Geoff Wardle, an automotive design instructor at Art Center. "They always looked a bit toylike. Now they look more solid, more refined and just as sporty."Los Angeles Times
CTEK meaning creative technology uses technology in developing products. Their projects are challenging, they are constantly rethinking and tweaking existing technology and combining it with their superior craftsmanship. The fabricate innovative products for major artists such as Frank Gehry and Liz Larner and developed the new Ford thunderbird body kit. Art Center faculty Doug Malewicki, Len Stobar, Bob Schurman, and Joe Valencic are currently working on an energy efficient motorcycle the "C2C" (Coast to Coast). In addition to industrial design projects CTEK has also produced sculptures including an 8 ft high statue of Mary, bronze doors for the Franklin Delan Roosevelt monument in Washington, laminated safety glass boulders that light up the recently remodeled Dome theater on Sunset, and 40 foot Disney characters for theme parks.