Winter 2009/2010 issue - The University of the Arts

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WINTER09
No. 3
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WINTER09
LETTER
FROM THE
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
When a painting is 17 feet wide, or a sculpture is composed
of glowing yellow, green and orange neon, the objects are
difficult to overlook. Their creators, on the other hand, have
remained virtually invisible for the better part of five decades.
While Pop Art icons such as Andy Warhol have endured in
the public spotlight – his estate earned $8 million dollars in
licensing fees in 2009, 27 years after his death – the movement’s women artists have been pushed to art history’s dim
periphery. In this issue of Edge, we examine the reasons for
that long oversight, and look ahead to a major University of
the Arts exhibition, “Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists, 1958 – 1968,” which aspires to reclaim some of the lost
legacy of Pop’s female contingent.
In a companion piece, University Professor of Humanities
and Media Studies Camille Paglia looks at women in the arts
in general, and why even today there may exist a “stainedglass ceiling.”
As always, we appreciate your thoughts on Edge and your
responses to the articles presented in these pages. We invite
you to stay up-to-date on the many events and activities at
the University of the Arts by subscribing to the University’s
monthly e-newsletter, Verge. You can do so by going to
uarts.edu/verge and clicking on the “Subscribe to Verge” link.
Paul F. Healy
Vice President of University Communications
The University of the Arts
www.uarts.edu
4
WOMEN OF POP ART
4
Reclaiming a movement’s lost legacy
VERBOTEN
How art helps us
speak of the unspeakable
contentS
22
ILLUSTRIOUS ILLUSTRATORS
The University’s Illustration program
is on quite a roll.
14
12
TURNING UP THE HEAT
IN CHILE
‘PROFESSOR’ P!nk COMES
HOME TO PHILLY
Ballet and jazz dancers perform
in Santiago Metro Station.
Grammy-winning superstar and
songwriting partner give on-campus
master class.
THE MAN FROM
THE MOUNTAINS
PREPARES
TO RETURN TO
HIS ROOTS
Influential graphic artist
and professor
Hans Allemann retires
20
LETTERS 3
Alumni notes 56
faculty/STAFF notes 36
in memoriam 71
featured alumni 52
development NOTES 74
Alumni events 45
FROM THE ARCHIVES 78
WINTER 2009
EDGE
1
Sean T. Buffington President
Paul F. Healy EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Vice President of University Communications
Kevin Kaufman
ASSISTaNT DIRECTOR OF UnIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
Jessica Frye ’02,’03 (Illustration, Art Education)
Art Director
James Maurer
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Contributing Photographers
Cassie Gardner
Dave Jackson
Misa Martin
Karen Mauch
B. Proud
Andy Oster ’00 (Photography)
Contributing Writers
Laura J. Armstrong
Amanda Black
Marc Dicciani ’75 (Percussion)
Mara Jill Herman ’07 (Musical Theater)
Camille Paglia
Dana Rodriguez
Damien Shembel ’07 (Musical Theater)
Lindsey Stevens ’12 (Dance)
Ashleigh Whitworth ’11 (Dance)
Zachary Wolk ’12 (Writing for Film and Television)
Cover IMAGE
Tom Gigliotti ’10 (Multimedia)
Still from motion graphics video profile of Jimmy McMillan ’09 (Multimedia)
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Edge c/o University Communications,
The University of the Arts, 320 S. Broad St., Philadelphia, PA 19102
Edge, Volume 1, Number 3
Edge is the magazine of the University of the Arts. Readers are encouraged to submit ideas for
original articles about University students, faculty and alumni; advancements in arts and arts
education; and visual, performing and media arts. The submission of artwork for reproduction
is also encouraged. Please include contact information when submitting art.
Unless requested, artwork will not be returned.
2
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WINTER 2009
DAVE JACKSON
Letters or comments on any topic are welcome and can be sent to
Edge c/o The Office of University Communications, The University of the Arts,
320 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102; or can be emailed to [email protected].
Walk Cycle II
Faculty member Laura Frazure
WINTER 2009
EDGE
LETTERS TO
THE EDITOR
I
love Edge. The vibrancy of student
and faculty work is really incredible!
I also love reading news from my fellow alumni. However, I graduated 40
years ago and am having a hard time
connecting to the energy of the young
students. I find myself wondering how
to engage with the school—particularly as a part of its future and not just
the past? What is my role? It would
be nice to see an article that speaks
to this, or at least something that addresses the issues of your more senior
graduates. But overall, congratulations
on a great piece!
“T
he Art of Living Your Dreams.”
Just thinking this would be a good title
for the Alumni updates?
I have dedicated my life to my craft
and have spent many hours mentoring
students encouraging them to follow
their dreams. Assuring them that they
can make their passion a “career.”
Thank you to you and your staff for
telling the stories of those who have
done just that! I always feel so good
reading the success stories from my
creative peers. Keep them coming!
Amanda Jaron ’93 (Metals)
Anita Lovitt ’70 (Illustration)
Naples, FL
Delray Beach, FL
E
dge is a very exciting publication
for the University of the Arts. The
articles are wonderful and in-depth.
Seeing the UArts community actively
creating and putting heart into their
work is a great feeling. Edge brings
me back to my days as a student and
those were the best days of my life. I
am very proud to be a graduate of the
University of the Arts and always look
forward to seeing the next addition of
the Edge!
Megan A. Borderieux ’02 (Ballet)
Philadelphia, PA
Rory Mahon, Paper Wasp (above)
Please send all comments, kudos and criticisms to EDGE c/o
University Communications, Letters to the Editor, 320 South
Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102 or email [email protected].
WINTER 2009
EDGE
3
features
WOMEN
OF POP ART
A MAJOR UNIVERSITY EXHIBITION
RECLAIMS A MOVEMENT’S LOST LEGACY
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WINTER 2009
FEATURES
A GLASS CEILING,
no matter how aesthetically pleasing, is still a glass ceiling. It is one of
the enduring conundrums of the arts: art history is
written overwhelmingly in the masculine voice, with
far more pages and classes dedicated to male artists
than to women.
A clear—and complex—example of that dynamic is
the Pop Art movement of the late 1950s and 1960s.
Emerging in the United States and Britain, this visual
art movement explored new territory by breaking
with the structures and conventions of its contemporary art styles, taking its imagery from mass culture.
(above, left to right)
Marisol, John Wayne
Idelle Weber, Munchkin
(opposite)
Chryssa, Ampersand
Beginning as a reaction against the Abstract Expressionism that had been the dominant form since the
1940s, and informed in significant ways by the earlier Dadaist movement, Pop reveled in a reverence
for mass culture and consumerism. Artists focused
on the banal; everyday items such as soup cans,
comic strips, hamburgers and other mundane objects
became their subjects, and in some cases were themselves physically incorporated into the artwork.
The names that comprise the Pop pantheon are
easily recognized: Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Claes
Oldenburg. As is the case with most periods in art
history, the pre-eminent artists of the Pop movement are all men. The MSN Encarta Encyclopedia
article on Pop Art provides a salient example: the
entry is almost 700 words long and cites a total
of 16 important Pop Art figures. Not a single one
is female. Similarly, the “Pop Art” entry on Wikipedia names 45 influential artists; just five are
women.
That these two reference resources are anything
but scholarly texts actually reinforces the irony of
Pop’s legacy: one of the most accessible of visual
art movements, its women artists—Pauline Boty,
Rosalyn Drexler, Marisol, Faith Ringgold and
others—remain all but invisible to the mass audience that has embraced Warhol and its other male
luminaries.
Often emphasizing kitsch and slyly satirizing popular
culture, Pop was a radical departure from Abstract
Expressionism. Its works were far more easily comprehended—and therefore accessible—to a general
public whose quotidian symbols it simultaneously
celebrated and pricked.
WINTER 2009
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FeatureS
Seductive Subversion
Arguably more than those in any other post-World War II art
movement, female Pop artists have been relegated to the margins of history. But an upcoming major exhibition at the University of the Arts aims to rediscover this “lost generation.”
“Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists 1958-1968” runs
from January 22 to March 15, 2010 in the University’s Rosenwald-Wolf, Hamilton, Arronson and Open Lens galleries.
The show is the first to investigate in-depth the contributions
of women who were involved with the Pop Art aesthetic during its heyday. A two-day symposium is also planned for February 5 and 6, 2010.
“Seductive Subversion” features major works including Marisol’s “John Wayne” sculpture, commissioned by Life magazine for an issue about movies; “Black Rosy,” an eight-foottall sculpture exploring the role of women by French sculptor,
painter and filmmaker Niki de Saint Phalle; and Rosalyn
Drexler’s paintings “Chubby Checker,” based on the movie
poster for “Twist Around the Clock,” and “Home Movies,”
which is broken into frames from old gangster movies.
Also included is a 17-foot long triptych by Idelle Weber and
“Ampersand,” an illuminated Plexiglas cube by Chryssa, who
was one of the first artists to utilize neon in her work. Also
included in the show are paintings and sculptures by Pauline
Boty, Vija Celmins, Dorothy Grebenak, Jann Haworth, Kay
Kurt, Yayoi Kusama, Lee Lozano, Mara McAfee, Barbro Ostlihn, Faith Ringgold, Martha Rosler, Marjorie Strider, Alina
Szapocznikow and Joyce Weiland. Artwork is being loaned
for the exhibition by the National Gallery; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, D.C.); Neuberger
Museum (Purchase, N.Y.); Moderna Museet (Stockholm,
Sweden); and major private collectors.
For the University’s director of exhibitions, Sid Sachs, it was
a 2002 Yvonne Rainer retrospective at the Rosenwald-Wolf
Gallery that sparked his interest in unacknowledged women
Pop artists.
“After the Rainer show, I wondered where the rest of this
generation of female artists was,” Sachs says. “There was an
entire generation of women that was missing. This exhibition
came out of pure curiosity about what really happened, and
the result is very exciting. Many of these artworks have not
been shown in four decades.”
The lingering question is “Why?”
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WINTER 2009
‘WHY HAVE THERE BEEN NO
GREAT WOMEN ARTISTS?’
In 1978, one of her students asked Nancy G. Heller “Have
there been any women artists?” Back then, O’Keeffe and Cassatt were the names that leaped to mind; the art historian and
University of the Arts professor of Liberal Arts says that today
you can also toss Frida Kahlo into that bucket, but few others have the kind of “top-of-mind” recognition of a Warhol or
Rauschenberg.
The question, again, is “why?” Heller, author of Women Artists: An Illustrated History and Women Artists: Works from the
National Museum of Women in the Arts, points to several contributing factors, including the general lack of scholarly scrutiny given to Pop Art. She sees the nature of the Pop Art movement as a major reason for its neglect relative to other visual-art
movements such as Minimalism and Abstract Expressionism.
“Pop is too irreverent, too accessible, often too amusing, and
therefore has been considered not ‘serious enough’ to invite
significant scholarly attention,” she says. “The fact that it was
far easier for the contemporary public to understand than the
multi-layered, intellectual Abstract Expressionism that preceded it has worked against it in terms of academic focus.
“Actually, Pop Art was quite radical for its time, even though it
was accessible,” Heller adds. “To put commonplace things that
you walk by every day in a fine arts context was unheard of.”
Women Pop artists’ rise to prominence also faced a pervasive
obstacle in the form of the society in which they worked. America of the late ’50s and early ’60s reflected the lingering cultural
structures of the Eisenhower era, the male-dominated, consumerist society portrayed so vividly in the popular “Mad Men”
television series.
In her 1971 essay, “Why Have There Been No Great Women
Artists,” noted scholar and art historian Linda Nochlin saw
societal forces as the primary answer to her own provocative
question. She posited that artistic genius is not a static essence,
but is rather “built up minutely, step by step, from infancy
onward” and that both the development of the artist and the
making of art “occur in a social situation, are integral elements
of this social structure, and are mediated and determined by
specific and definable social institutions.”
Nochlin and Ann Sutherland Harris curated a groundbreaking
1976 exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
“Women Artists 1550 – 1950,” and increased attention has
been paid to women artists since then, Heller says, but the impact was not immediate and advances have been slow in coming.
CIRCULAR LOGIC AND
ENERVATING INERTIA
Today, women make up more than half of the students in
American art schools, yet in a 2006 study by the feminist collective Brainstormers, less than a third of the solo shows in New
York City’s Chelsea galleries—more than 100 venues—featured
women artists.
Helaine Posner, curator of the Neuberger Museum, wrote in her
book After the Revolution: Women Who Transformed Contemporary Art that in the 1970s, 11.6 percent of gallery shows
were by female artists; in the ’80s, 14.8; and in the ’90s, 23.9.
But the average total since 2000, according to Posner, is 21.5
percent—a reversal of the trend. Why?
ence in the ’60s don’t mean much to the public today. That
may contribute to the relative lack of attention paid to it, and
specifically to its women artists now.
“I hope scholars, artists and the general public re-evaluate
Pop Art as a result of this exhibition,” she adds. “Every movement is comprised of many more influential artists than can
be crammed into a textbook, and I hope this reminds people
that there were very significant artists in Pop who were female.”
Heller says it’s important to remember that for galleries, curatorial decisions are a combination of the artistic and the economic, and that in itself can become an impediment to change.
“In the ’80s, Mary Boone Gallery in New York City was one of
the art world’s most influential dealers,” she says. “It was run
by a woman, but they almost never showed work by women.
Her stated reason was that it didn’t sell. Of course if you never
show it, it won’t sell. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the
fact that it was a decision made by a woman made it profoundly disappointing.”
A NEW LOOK AT ‘OLD’ SYMBOLS
Heller hopes the Seductive Subversion exhibition will introduce
both Pop Art and its long-neglected women artists to a generation that wasn’t born when the movement was at its apex.
(above, left to right)
Pauline Boty, The Only Blond
in the World. 1963
“How many 20-year-olds today have any idea what a reel-toreel tape recorder was, or even a wooden clothespin? Some of
the symbols of the movement that resonated with a mass audi-
Evelyne Axell, Le Mur du son. 1966
WINTER 2009
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7
features
Q & A with
Camille Paglia,
University Professor
of Humanities and
Media Studies AT
THE UNIVERSITY
MISA MARTIN
OF THE ARTS
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WINTER 2009
FEATURES
womEn and art:
a stained-glass
ceiling?
Camille Paglia, author of the groundbreaking feminist opus Sexual
Personae; Sex, Art and American Culture; and Vamps & Tramps, and
a regular columnist for Salon.com, is one of today’s most prominent
social critics. Edge asked her to offer some insights into the historical
context of women artists and challenges they face.
Edge: Is there a “glass ceiling” in the art world that has held women
back? If so, how has it changed over time?
Paglia: The issue of discrimination, past and present, against women in
art became a major point of controversy during the 1970s. It was powered by the resurgence of an organized women’s movement in the late
1960s, after the long dormancy of feminism since American women
had won the right to vote in 1920.
One immediate big target was H.W. Janson’s massive and erudite, History of Art, which after its publication in 1962 had become the standard text for art history survey courses nationwide. But this magisterial
study, extending from prehistory to modernism, contained not a single
woman artist! Feminists claimed that women had been excluded because of sexism and that there were suppressed and unknown female
Michelangelos out there who would soon be rescued and added to the
list of great artists of the Western canon.
WINTER 2009
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FeatureS
Janson’s book was subsequently revised to include more
women’s names. Unfortunately, despite confident feminist
expectations, no unknown women artists of the rank of
Michelangelo, Delacroix, or Picasso have ever been identified. Second- or third-tier artists like Artemisia Gentileschi, Mary Cassatt, Romaine Brooks, Tamara de Lempicka, Georgia O’Keeffe and Frida Kahlo now have vastly
more visibility, which is excellent. But the bleak truth
is that, except for Emily Bronte in the novel and Emily
Dickinson in poetry, no woman artist that we know of
created a major, revolutionary new style. And even with
Bronte and Dickinson, those isolated figures had no immediate impact on the work of others—which is one way
we measure degrees of greatness in the history of the arts.
Have women been held back in their practice of the arts?
Certainly—and especially so in art forms, such as sculpture, which require access to expensive materials and
apprenticeship for years in a master’s studio, which was
once a very unsafe place for young women to be. In modern times, there was a clear hierarchy, for example, in the
hip world of abstract expressionism, where the men had
much more cachet and media visibility than did the women. But was it due to sexism or to the tendency of women
to gravitate toward “pretty,” ethereal effects as opposed
to the men’s more assertive and architectonic statements?
Helen Frankenthaler, for example, had great influence in
staining untreated canvas, but her work, however gorgeous, never reached the stunning, stratospheric level of
that of Jackson Pollock or Mark Rothko.
In the performing arts, women were held back by the perception that acting or dancing onstage was not respectable and was the province only of women of easy virtue.
This is why no women appeared onstage in Shakespeare’s
time; all of his great female roles were performed by boy
actors. Right up to the mid-twentieth century, the New
York Social Register dropped the name of any man who
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WINTER 2009
had married an actress. Things have changed radically
since then; top performers in the U.S. now have the rank
of royalty.
In music, middle class women have had access to a home
piano since the 1790s. So it is puzzling why there have
been no great women composers of the rank of Chopin,
Wagner, Debussy, or Stravinsky. Today, there are few
barriers to women composers being taken seriously—as
witness Philadelphia’s own brilliant and super-productive
Jennifer Higdon. Most city orchestras seem eager to perform new works by women.
Edge: Are women conforming to the societal “norms” of
being caretakers and therefore putting their passion for
creating art to the side? Is it sexism or something else?
Paglia: While the roles of wife and homemaker were indeed the societal norms during the conformist 1950s, that
is no longer the case in the
U.S. On the contrary, young
middle class women are
ONE HAS TO BE WILLING TO
exposed to pressure from the
SACRIFICE TO CREATE AN
opposite direction. They’re
expected to pick a career and
ALTERNATE UNIVERSE
be as ruthlessly competitive
as men for status and power.
Women who want to have children in their late teens or
early 20s (customary worldwide until our own time) are
painfully berated for “wasting” their talents.
There is no doubt that single or childless women have
infinitely more time to devote to their artistic or intellectual pursuits. Mothers have other, perhaps higher responsibilities to their children—an instinct which most new
mothers spontaneously feel. For biological reasons, the
burden of pregnancy and infant care falls far more heavily
FEATURES
on women than on men. Women are very torn about this
dilemma, but at its root, the inequity comes from nature,
not society.
Beyond that, most women do seem, for whatever reason,
to be more empathic and less aggressively confrontational
than most men. Attacking the establishment and trying
to topple and destroy cultural idols is more a male than
female style. (I do it, but you have to have an innate,
high-adrenaline zeal for Amazon pugilism to survive the
brutalities and insults of the public arena.) In general,
most women seem to prefer harmony to conflict and often
seem oversensitive to criticism, which can be vicious in
any realm.
except for soloists, do their work in the vibrant extended
family of the ensemble. Women are now well-integrated
into world-class orchestras, but they still have a long way
to go in jazz. Women have been virtuoso vocalists since
Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, but they have rarely
been instrumentalists in a combo, with its magic brotherhood of male bonding.
When I was first hired by the Philadelphia College of
Performing Arts (now the University of the Arts) in 1984,
a prominent male composer took me aside and asked
if I could explain a phenomenon that had baffled and
frustrated him over his decades as a teacher. He said that
some of his most gifted composition students had been
women but that, despite every encouragement and support from their faculty mentors, they had all drifted away
from careers into marriage and motherhood.
I replied that, in my view, fewer women than men are
drawn to the self-limiting or even self-mutilating obsession that artistic careers often demand. I think women in
general are more secure in their identity and do not need
the art work as the objective completion of their selfhood. In many ways, art is a beautiful delusion. One has
to be willing to sacrifice everything to create an alternate
universe.
Performing artists, as opposed to composers or painters,
are not so afflicted by the compulsory seclusion or monasticism of the individual creator. They have a direct, communal relationship with a responsive live audience and,
WINTER 2009
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11
TURNING up THE HEAT in chile
Jazz and Ballet majors perform in refurbished Santiago Metro station;
faculty members teach master classes, meet with cultural
and educational institutions about eXchange programs
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FEATURES
“International tours play a part in the global education
of our dancers,” said School of Dance Director Susan
Glazer. “The dance curriculum reflects a diversity of
dance styles, therefore it is a natural and logical extension of the program to take the students to various cultures as well as to bring cultural ideas here.”
And so it was that six students from the University’s
School of Dance found themselves performing tango-influenced choreography in (of all places) a subway station
in Santiago, Chile, in October. The invitation to perform
came as the result of Glazer’s travel to South America in
October 2008 to develop contacts with institutions that
would be interested in international exchanges of faculty
and students, as well as guest residencies that might lead
to the creation of new choreography.
The School of Dance decided to select a work of American jazz dance to perform and asked assistant professor
Wayne St. David and Dance history lecturer and assistant to the School of Dance director Maria Urrutia
to choreograph and teach. Jazz Dance majors Tiffany
DeAlba, Shadou Mintrone, Michael Konderwicz and Allison Sale, and Ballet majors DJ Smart and Jeffrey Sousa
were chosen to make the trip from among 96 auditioning
dancers.
St. David’s tango-based, sensual “Passionate Rhythm”
was the highlight in a program that included seven Chilean professional and university dance companies. The
performances took place in the newly refurbished theater
in the Quinta Normal Metro station as part of a new
“Danza en el Metro” program. More than 500 spectators each evening enthusiastically applauded “La Escuela
de Danza de la Universidad de las Artes de Filadelia.”
“The School of Dance has had the study of world dance
as part of its core mission for more than two decades,”
Glazer said. “Dance is an international language of communication and, as such, relies on a non-verbal vocabulary understandable to all. In placing the School of Dance
in a global context, it exposes students to the larger picture of what dance is as an art form.”
In addition to the performances, St. David and Urrutia met with administrators at cultural and educational
institutions about possible exchange programs. A meeting at Santiago’s Universidad Mayor—the only Chilean
university accredited by the Middle States Commission
on Accreditation, the same group that accredits the
University of the Arts—included the school’s director of
Dance Vicente Ruiz and International Relations Director Rene Lasa, the latter of whom has been the president of the Chilean Northamerican Dance Committee
for 20 years.
St. David and Urrutia also talked with officials at ProJazz, a large independent jazz school in Santiago, about
the development and implementation of a dance program paralleling the University’s, to facilitate an exchange between the institutions. The University’s School
of Music has also been involved in faculty exchanges
with ProJazz during the past few years.
Karen Connolly, dance professor at Universidad Mayor
and a well-known advocate in Santiago whose television career spans two decades, hosted the University
contingent. She runs her own studio, Instituto de Artes
Escencias, based in Santiago’s Bohemian Barrio Bellavista, and manages the Compañía Karen Connolly. St.
David taught two jazz dance classes at Connolly’s studio and Urrutia, a native Cuban, led a traditional folkloric Cuban Rumba class.
“The dancers from the University of the Arts, Wayne St.
David and Maria Urrutia were wonderful,” Connolly
exclaimed. “I’m still receiving wonderful felicitations
about their performances. Wayne and Maria’s classes
were incredible. All of our students enjoyed them and
wanted more.”
“The tour to Chile was part of an ongoing effort to
identify countries that have strong dance traditions and
that are enthusiastic about the prospects of, and have
the capacity to develop international exchanges,” Glazer says. “Chile has both.”
WINTER 2009
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FeatureS
‘PROFESSOR’ P!nk
COMES HOME TO PHILLY
THE Grammy-Winning Superstar and
her songwriting partner Billy Mann
Give AN On-Campus Master Class
Pop music superstar P!nk returned to her hometown
in early October to present a songwriting master class
for students from the University and the High School
for the Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA). Her
long-time songwriting and producing collaborator
Billy Mann—EMI President, International-New Music and a CAPA graduate—joined
P!nk on stage in the University’s
Levitt Auditorium for the hourTHAT IF I’D BE long event attended by more than
300 students.
I ALWAYS THOUGHT
ACCEPTED ANYWHERE,
IT WOULD BE AT THIS SCHOOL.
“Why am I here today? A high
school dropout teaching college
kids?” she said with a smile. “We
want to see what the younger kids are up to and
share a little bit of our experience. I always thought
that if I’d be accepted anywhere, it would be at this
school.”
P!nk (born Alecia Moore) and Mann spoke to the
group about their intensely personal songwriting
process, from where she draws her inspiration and
what she overcame to reach super-stardom. She took
questions from the audience and sang “The One That
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WINTER 2009
Got Away” (which she and Mann co-wrote) from her
2006 album “I’m Not Dead,” with Mann accompanying her on acoustic guitar.
“I’ve received great feedback from our students about
how much they enjoyed and learned from Alecia and
Billy,” said Marc Dicciani ’75 (Percussion), director
of the University’s School of Music. “They felt inspired and energized. It was a great day not only for
our students, but for the entire University. It says a lot
about who and what we are when you consider the
range of voices, perspectives, ideas and opinions that
we present to our arts community on a regular basis.
It’s partially through this rich diversity that students
learn about art, expression, tolerance and honesty.”
P!nk, who grew up in the Philadelphia suburb of
Doylestown, Pa., was touring in support of her latest
album “Funhouse,” and played a sold-out show that
evening at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia. Since
exploding on the scene in 2001 with her debut album,
she has sold 23 million albums, won two Grammy
Awards and five MTV Video Music Awards.
B. PROUD
FEATURES
WINTER 2009
EDGE 15
in the(sight)
LINE OF FIRE
aRmEd WITH HER caNoN camERa aNd a RIfLE, aNd dEckEd
ouT IN dESERT
ESERT camoufLa
L GE, ERIN kIRk-cuomo Wa
WaS
aS THE oNLy
NL
WomaN IN IRaQ IN THE maRINE’S comBaT
a camERa uNIT
aT
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WINTER 2009
ERIN kIRk-cuomo
fEa
fE
aT u RE
RESS
United States Marine Corps Corporal
Erin Kirk-Cuomo, a 2006 University
of the Arts Photography graduate,
had one career goal: combat photography. But like anything worthwhile,
reaching her goal wasn’t easy.
“I applied for every job around the
world that would get me to Iraq, Afghanistan or Africa,” she said. “But
no one took me seriously. And I suppose I couldn’t blame them. If you
had a 5’-6” tall woman weighing in
at 120 pounds walk into your office
for a job to go to Iraq, you’d probably
laugh at her too.”
So at 25, she enlisted in the Marine
Corps, landing herself the assignment
of a lifetime—in Al Anbar Province in
western Iraq in the midst of the war.
Armed with her Canon camera and
a rifle and decked out in desert camouflage, Kirk was the only woman in
Iraq in the Marine’s Combat Camera,
a unit that includes photography, videography, reproduction (printing) and
graphic art.
“I wanted to go to Iraq and I had
to fight for it,” she said. “They are
sometimes reluctant to send female
photographers where they are more
willing to send female graphic artists
and photo reproduction specialists.
Erin kirk-cuomo
COURTESY
FEATURES
Photographers and videographers
have a higher percentage of getting
hurt and they try to keep the female
casualty levels to a minimum.”
Kirk’s tour of duty ended in October
2008 and she married long-time boyfriend Jacob Cuomo (a chief petty
officer in the Coast Guard) in May
2009. She and Cuomo now reside in
Washington, D.C., but she still shoots
for the Marines, traveling the world
with and documenting most every
move of Commandant of the Marine
Corps General James T. Conway, the
Corps’ highest-ranking officer and
member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Entrenched in western Iraq from December 2007 to October 2008, Kirk
spent her days snapping frames of
“military brass,” V-22 Osprey aircraft, or Iraqis rebuilding their infrastructure. On any given day, she
might go from taking ceremonial images of Commanding General John
F. Kelly and Deputy Commanding
General Martin Post to action images
of Marines from Regimental Combat
teams One and Five, based out of
Camp Pendleton in California.
“I do miss being out in the dirt with
the boys sometimes,” she admits.
“But I get to go back every few
months with the Commandant. I’ve
been back to Iraq four times and
Afghanistan three times, along with
many other countries. I have definitely done things that I never thought I
would ever do in my life. And I have
no regrets whatsoever.”
A few of Kirk’s images from her
time “in country” were published in
Time magazine in the story “A Female Security Force in Iraq,” about
the “Daughters of Iraq,” an extension of the U.S.-sponsored “Sons of
Iraq” program, which dramatically
improved security throughout large
swaths of the nation.
“I like telling stories, and it doesn’t
matter if it’s about people, or buildings that have fallen down. Anything
has a tale to be told,” she said.
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Whitney Thomas
HASSAN SMITH
FeatureS
RECENT MUSIC ALUMNUS
CLAYTON REILLY TRAVELS THE WORLD,
NOW TOURS WITH JOHN LEGEND
Clayton Reilly ’06 (Trumpet) has been hooked on jazz since
his childhood, when he listened to big band records with his
grandfather and learned the names of that era’s trumpet players. He started playing trumpet in fourth grade, and made up
his mind right then and there: he was going to see the world
as a working, touring musician.
Reilly met that goal by the age of 25, having played in China,
South Korea and Dubai. He is now a full-fledged member of
the John Legend Band, the 10-piece ensemble that backs up
neo-soul singer John Legend. Reilly is still out on the road,
playing to packed concert venues in the United States and
abroad in support of Legend’s third album, “Evolver.”
“John was one of my favorite artists before I even started to
play with him,” Reilly told The Morning Call (Pa.) this summer before a pseudo-homecoming gig at the Mann Center for
the Performing Arts. “So to play with someone that I look up
to musically and to learn what he stands for and means to the
community, it makes the whole dream that much better.”
Reilly said that while he was at the University, School of Music faculty members Dennis Wasko ’79 (Trumpet) and Bill
Pusey ’74 (Trumpet) helped him become a better trumpet
player and offered guidance about how to position himself
for a successful career, as a trumpet player and in other aspects of the music industry.
“I had good guidance from teachers,” Reilly said. “They really helped me find my place in the industry as far as seeing
different areas I could go into. They told me to go out and
find what I want to do.”
While in school, he rubbed elbows with the city’s best musicians through various gigs throughout Philadelphia. After
graduating, Reilly capitalized on those connections, landing
steady work with R&B and hip-hop artists Natalie Cole, Patti
LaBelle, Diddy, Maya, Teddy Pendergrass, Music Soul Child,
Kanye West, T-Pain and Estelle.
Bailey Rae in 2007 really raised his profile. Reilly became
friendly with the members of Legend’s band, and last year he
got the call to join their ranks.
Legend has been promoting “Evolver” around the world
since its release more than a year ago. Reilly has enjoyed being along for the ride, appearing on television in the United
Kingdom and on “Late Night with David Letterman,” “The
Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and “Ellen” in the U.S. He’s
played Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall.
In one two-week stretch in February, Reilly played the pregame show at Super Bowl XVIII and the halftime show at the
NBA All-Star game. Most recently, Reilly was on a promotional swing through South Africa with Legend.
“It’s been a dream,” he says, realizing full well how his hard
work has paid off.
Frenetic touring and promotional schedules aside, Reilly
has managed to start his own production company, Phatboi
Productions. Along with partners Allen “BizKit” Arthur and
Keith Justice, Reilly has written and produced songs for local and national acts, including songs with Legend and his
brother, Vaughn Anthony.
“Clayton had outstanding musical skills, but what really
made him an exceptional student, and eventually a successful
professional, was the innate sense he possessed as a creative
thinker and entrepreneur,” said Marc Dicciani ’75 (Percussion), director of the School of Music. “He was able to synthesize many different skills—composition, performing, improvising, sound and recording, and business—and combine
those with great communication and interpersonal skills, all
packaged with an exceptional work ethic in creating a successful career.”
What’s next for Reilly? Maybe some more producing, songwriting and definitely more touring with John Legend.
Playing in the band touring the U.S. (and opening for Legend)
with Grammy-nominated British singer-songwriter Corinne
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aTTuRE
REd
d aLum
umNI
NI Wo
WoRk
chris Gauvain ’09 (Illustration)
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courtesy
Christian Wesp
FeatureS
THE MAN FROM THE MOUNTAINS
PREPARES TO RETURN TO HIS ROOTS
(Sooner or later)
Life often gets in the way of plans. Just ask Hans
Ulrich Allemann. When the native of Switzerland
came to the United States in the 1973 to take a
Graphic Design teaching position at the Philadelphia College of Art (PCA), he didn’t intend to stay
for more than five years.
The next year, at Kelly’s request, Druckrey implored
Allemann to join the KCAI faculty and this time, he
couldn’t refuse. After 12 English lessons from an
Oxford University-educated teacher at the Berlitz
School, Allemann lit off for America with little more
than his overseas trunk and two suitcases.
Somehow, five years turned into nearly 40 and he’s
now ready to return to his homeland. He retired from
teaching in May, and in June he stepped aside as a
full partner of Allemann Almquist & Jones (AAJ),
the graphic design firm he founded with Dana Jones
and fellow faculty member (and former student) Jan
Almquist ’81 (Graphic Design).
Early on, with Druckrey as his interpreter, Allemann
suggested pedagogical changes to Kelly based on his
Basel experience. He believed the teaching methodology of giving students an assignment in one class
and critiquing them in another was flawed. This disjointed approach, he felt, often led to poor results
that were only confirmed in the critique. To improve
this process, he developed a rigorous routine of inclass work, a shift that the students embraced, much
to his surprise.
Allemann has dreamed for years of spending the
last chapter of his life back among the mountains
of Switzerland. Growing up in the farming village
of Laupersdorf, he craved the experiences of other
cultures and in 1967, he got his first opportunity.
Two years after graduating from the famed Basel School of Design, he was working in Zurich at
Agency Halpern, a medium-size firm specializing in
advertising. His Basel mentor and teacher, Armin
Hofmann, presented him with an opportunity: Rob
Roy Kelly was looking for teachers for the fledgling
graphic design program at the Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI). But the timing was bad and he didn’t
know any English, so he passed the opportunity on
to his co-worker and former classmate Inge Druckrey, who took it eagerly.
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A stranger in a strange land, the 23-year-old Allemann came to enjoy the States, calling it “an amazing time for me.” At the end of the year, Allemann
signed another one-year contract to teach at KCAI.
After that second contract expired, Allemann returned to Switzerland and stayed there for four more
years. But in time, he realized that he didn’t like the
direction the advertising industry was taking. So he
made plans to return to the States—to investigate
teaching again.
FEATURES
“There was something about the U.S. that was pulling me back,” he said.
for himself and his students. Integrity and passion
are two traits he’s not short on.”
By coincidence, in late spring 1973, he received a
call from Basel alumnus Ken Hiebert about teaching
at PCA. The chairman of PCA’s new Graphic Design
program, Hiebert had just lost a key faculty member
and needed a replacement. Hiebert was transforming
the program from its advertising design-oriented curriculum into one based philosophically on the Basel
model. Druckrey, who had just accepted a graphic design teaching position at Yale, had served on the PCA
faculty from 1971 to 1973 and further infused the
Basel aesthetic into the curriculum. She returned to
the University in the 90s as an adjunct faculty member and eventually became a full professor.
Once word spread of Allemann’s retirement, several
Graphic Design juniors approached him about staying on for “just one more year” so they could finish
their time at the University before he left.
“Sure, I could have continued teaching,” Allemann
said about when to pull the retirement trigger. “But I
had wanted to retire from teaching and the business
once I turned 65.”
“I didn’t really know Hans at Basel, but it didn’t
take long for the word of his subsequent teaching in
Kansas City to travel our way in Philadelphia,” Hiebert said. “He turned out to be the perfect replacement. I was glad that he resisted the temptation to
go to New York, where he would have been another
sensation. Instead, he gave himself to exemplary
teaching and practice in Philadelphia.”
As it all turns out, Hiebert, along with Druckrey
and Allemann, is largely responsible for introducing
the Basel design aesthetic to America. He maintains
that it was never his goal to replicate a Basel program in Philadelphia, but states that “key aspects in
the teaching of design process within a sequentially
structured program were the special province of Basel graduates of that era.”
Allemann went on to chair the department from
1977 to 1980, and then relinquished his full-time
appointment in 1984 to launch Allemann Almquist
& Jones. He remained as an adjunct faculty member and taught senior level courses. In 1977, he
and Druckrey created a curriculum for the senior
Design Studio class and the degree project. For the
past 12 years, one of his visiting critics for that class
has been Philadelphia-based graphic and information designer and University adjunct professor Joel
Katz.
“Over these 30-some years I’ve known Hans, I’ve
come to realize that he cares so much about his students,” Katz said. “He has incredibly high standards
courtesy
“It was a dream position,” said Allemann. “I really
admired what Ken and the faculty had achieved. It
was shaping up to be a very coherent and sequentially structured program. I just couldn’t walk away
from the opportunity.”
The only obstacle to his return to the Land of the
Alps now is his three-story walk-up in the Fairmount
section of Philadelphia that is packed with years of
memories—not to mention books, lots of books.
“I’m not going to put stress on myself now,” he said
about his laid-back attitude about moving back to
Switzerland. “I’m just going to let it evolve; chances
are it’ll take another year and that’s just fine because
I don’t have anywhere to be.”
(opposite) Before and After:
Basel classmates Hans Allemann, Chris Zelinsky
and Inge Druckrey rest in front of a church in
Siena, Italy, in 1966; and sometime later,
on the front steps of Hamilton Hall.
(above) Senior Portfolio Workshop 2009:
Allemann advises
Vanessa Beah ’09 (Graphic Design).
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FEATUREs
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f E aT u RES
illustrious
illustrA
illustr
Ators
A
tors
The University’s Illustration program is on a roll. Work by Illustration faculty and alumni has been featured on the cover
of Time magazine, in The New York Times, on marquees
on the Great White Way and in bookstores, among myriad
other places. Alumni and faculty have been honored for their
work by a number of illustration-focused associations, and
students create award-winning and attention-garnering work
at a prodigious rate.
“The department is a hotbed of talent and energy,” department Chairman Mark Tocchet says. “Our faculty work for
some of the biggest media venues in the industry or create
viable, new and exciting opportunities for themselves. Illustrators are entrepreneurs so no one is standing still.”
arnold Roth, Hockey Cheats
(opposite, top)
The cover of Jerry pinkney’s new telling of aesops’s The Lion & the Mouse
(Little, Brown)
(opposite, right)
Tim durning, illustration for
The New York Times (opposite, left)
Tim o’Brien, Rugby Scrum
(above)
Alumnus Arnold Roth ’50 leads the parade. His illustrations
and cartoons have appeared in nearly every major American
magazine from Time to Sports Illustrated to The New Yorker
for the past 50 years. For his “distinguished achievement in
the art of illustration,” he was inducted into the Society of
Illustrators Hall of Fame in June. Throughout his career, the
native Philadelphian has created iconic cartoons, advertisements, album covers and book jackets. He wrote and illustrated six books from 1966 to 1998, created book covers for
John Updike, and illustrated books by George Plimpton and
William F. Buckley Jr., to name a few.
On the same evening that Roth received the highest lifetime
recognition for an illustrator, adjunct professor Tim O’Brien
earned the Society’s Hamilton King Award, given for the best
illustration of the year by a Society member. His winning piece, “The Scrum,” was
created for a billboard advertising World
Cup Rugby in Ireland.
A month earlier, Time magazine called
upon O’Brien to deliver a cover portrait
of then-Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor for the magazine’s June 8, 2009,
issue—in 24 hours. O’Brien, who has been
creating Time covers for 20 years, used
various pieces of photographic reference to
complete the image.
In November, The New York Times Book
Review named The Lion & the Mouse
(Little, Brown), the latest book by Jerry
Pinkney ’60 (Illustration), one of the 10
Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2009,
the fourth time Pinkney’s work has been so
honored.
Tocchet’s illustration “Lovers’ Pass,” featured in the inaugural issue of Edge, was
selected from among 1,300 entries for the
39th annual University and College Designers Association’s (UCDA) design competition, to be displayed at the UCDA 2009
exhibition. The illustration also received an
UCDA award of excellence.
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Master lecturer Al Gury published Alla Prima (WatsonGuptill) about the history and practice of direct painting methods. The book contains tips about color mixing, underpaintings, glazing and master copies.
Senior lecturer Jon Twingley’s first illustrated novel,
Badlands Saloon (Scribner, 2009), features 42 illustrations and is a story about a young man and his restless
and life-changing summer spent in a small North Dakota tourist town.
“The faculty are a rare blend of driven, successful,
working creatives who also have a deep commitment
to arts education,” says Tocchet. “That our faculty
are successful artists and outstanding educators is a
unique combination. Everyone in the department feeds
off each other,” Tocchet adds. “The quality of our students, program and overall educational environment is
no secret. We have some of the best illustrators teaching
here because of that.
“But the best of what we do comes out of faculty making deep connections with students,” Tocchet continues. “The learning experiences are intense and intimate,
a one-on-one sharing of minds. Our students and recent
grads genuinely appreciate who we are.”
Tim Durning ’08 is one such recent graduate who’s
benefited from that one-on-one interaction. Durning
created an illustration of a golfer teeing off in the direction of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline that appeared in the sports section of the The New
York Times in August.
“It’s the combination of dedicated faculty and the students and alumni who really want to be successful illustrators,” says Daniel Fishel ’09 (Illustration), who is
working toward his MFA in the Visual Essay program
at the School of Visual Arts. “We’d come to class excited to work, show our pieces in critiques, and then work
on it more to make it a finished illustration. The faculty
are always available. After class or through email, I’d
ask for advice on personal works/experiments I was doing; they continue that commitment after graduation
with career advice along the way. If you work hard,
try a bunch of things and share them, you’ll reap the
rewards.”
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Work by some of the program’s most illustrious graduates has been exhibited on campus this year. Shows have
included the work of Richard Amsel ’69, who created
the original “Raiders of the Lost Ark” movie poster;
Roger Hane ’61, who worked with C.S. Lewis on his
Narnia series; and famed children’s book illustrators
Pinkney, Jan and Stan Berenstain, and Charles Santore.
Appreciating the program’s remarkable history is important, but most prospective students want to know
what we’ve done lately, ” Tocchet explains.“That’s not
to say that they aren’t impressed that we have successful
alumni, but ultimately, they can’t really appreciate what
being an Illustration major is all about until they’ve been
in the program for a couple of years. It’s the seniors who
begin to realize the history that they are now a part of,
and their charge as Illustration grads to change the face
of the industry. Being a part of that lineage is the real
selling point.”
And continuing that lineage is where a group like the
Autumn Society (theautumnsociety.com) comes in. Cofounded in 2006 by University Illustration alumnus
Joseph Game ’07, the Autumn Society is a Philadelphiabased illustration collective with over 100 members, including many Illustration grads. Game, who goes by the
moniker Chogrin, is a bi-lingual Ecuadorian native and
self-described “geek who loves to draw things and characters that inspire me.” He serves as the organization’s
editor-in-chief and gallery coordinator. The Autumn
Society continues to gain momentum in the Philadelphia gallery scene and beyond. The Society has staged
First Friday exhibitions like “8-Bit & Beyond (A Video
Game Show)” that included works inspired by classic
(Super Mario Bros.) and present-day (HALO) games at
Brave New Worlds Comics; and a “Dia de los Muertos” show at Proximity Gallery that included works
based on the Mexican Day of the Dead holiday. The
Society has more than a dozen shows lined up for 2010,
among them one at the University’s von Hess Illustration Gallery and another at the popular Gallery 1988
in Los Angeles.
Joseph Game, co-founder
of the Autumn Society
Illustration Collective
(above left)
Joseph Game, Toro Rojo
Luchador tribute
(above right)
Daniel Fishel, Dreamer
(opposite page)
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FeatureS
92-year-old alumna
MaRie ULMER
Overcomes Long Odds
For Enduring
Creative Career
Ninety-two-year-old Marie Ulmer was never given much of a
chance to have a normal life, let alone become an artist with a
prolific portfolio of work that spans more than half a century.
Plagued by anxiety and depression as a child and even labeled
a “vegetable” by a family doctor, Ulmer pursued her artistic
passion anyway, becoming an Illustration graduate in 1941.
The exhibition “Tell All,” staged at the University’s Gallery
817 this fall, introduced her collection to the art community
and represents a lifetime of dedication to the arts.
Never married, Ulmer has entrusted the preservation of her
estate to Candace Karch ’89 (Photography) and Janel Rivera
Frey ’02 (Printmaking). The pair has begun to catalogue Ulmer’s massive body of work and co-curated “Tell All.” Karch
runs the Bambi Gallery in Northern Liberties and Frey operates the Proximity Gallery in Port Richmond.
“She has made an exceptional lifetime commitment to her
work,” Karch said. “This show will give the art community
an opportunity to understand Marie’s passion and persistence
to her craft. Her inherent ability to overcome crisis and tragedy throughout her life is a testament to her natural inclination to solely produce art.”
Growing up in the Kensington/Fishtown section of Philadelphia, Ulmer showed flashes of artistic brilliance, but her
mental health issues led her to escape into the world of her
imagination. Due to their modest means, her stepmother and
father could not support her undeniable talent, and because
of her emotional health, she was initially denied a scholarship
to art school.
Eventually though, a family friend who was a psychologist
convinced Ulmer’s father to allow her to pursue her dream.
She enrolled at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Design (now the University of the Arts) and graduated
in 1941 with a degree in illustration. The bohemian Ulmer
worked as an illustrator with the Philadelphia Free Library
for more than 30 years. All the while, she continued to create
art in a variety of mediums, culminating in her recent exhibition.
Marie Ulmer, Self-portrait (top)
Fireside (bottom)
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FEATURES
Continuing Studies
Programs Named
‘Best of Philly’
The University’s Division of Continuing Studies (CS) earned another feather
in its cap when Philadelphia magazine
named CS the region’s Best Adult Classes in its annual “Best of Philly” issue.
instructors guide students through everything from screen-printing to torchfired enamel jewelry design.”
“The Continuing Education program at
UArts isn’t exactly a time tunnel back
to your carefree college days, but you
will feel that old rush of excitement (a
world of possibility!) when presented
with the chance to see if you might be a
poetry genius or a budding Ralph Lauren,” the commendation reads. “And
should you realize after a couple of
classes that you’re not, at least this time
you’re not blowing through the dough
Mom and Dad worked years to save.
Choose from any number of courses
and weekend workshops-encouraging
“Some of that is certainly attributable
to this fine distinction,” Elman continued. “We are proud of the programs we
offer and it feels wonderful to be acknowledged publicly in this way.”
Philadelphia magazine annually selects
“the best of the best” in a wide range
“We are thrilled with this citation by of categories, from restaurants and art
‘Philadelphia’ magazine,” says Con- galleries to landscaping companies and
tinuing Studies Dean Erin Elman. “The romantic first-date venues, from TV
fact that it was listed under the ‘Enjoy’ meteorologists to hotel spas.
section really brought the issue of lifelong learning into its proper context— With the addition of five certificate
education should be a pleasure and a programs and dozens of new courses
joy—and that is what we strive to do. taught by master artists, technical speThis is an endorsement of the hard cialists and seasoned educators, it’s no
work that has gone into refreshing this wonder CS enrollment is up by 20 percent as compared to fall of 2008.
well established program.”
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FeatureS
{ the envelope please... {
Alumnus Pryor, faculty member McClendon winners at 15th annual Barrymore Awards
Ira Brind School of Theater Arts alumnus Pete Pryor
’90 (Theater Arts) and Adjunct Assistant Professor
Forrest McClendon both came away winners at this
year’s 15th annual Barrymore Awards for Excellence
in Theater. Named after Philadelphia’s legendary
Barrymore family and sponsored by the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia, the awards have recognized and celebrated Philadelphia theaters and artists
since 1994.
Pryor won for best direction of a musical for his
work in the world premiere of “Cinderella.” An
original panto—a rowdy British comedy form that
invites audiences to respond as the show plays out—
“Cinderella” was staged as the family holiday show
at the People’s Light and Theatre in Malvern, Pa.
McClendon took home the award for outstanding
supporting actor in a musical for playing Roscoe in
the 11th Hour Theatre Company’s a cappella version of “Avenue X” about two young men who want
nothing more than to sing at Brooklyn’s legendary
Fox Theater.
Brind School faculty and alumni earned nearly a dozen Barrymore nominations. Ben Dibble ’00 (Theater
Arts) garnered two nominations in the outstanding
leading actor in a musical category for his turn as
the title character in “Candide” at the Arden Theatre
Company, and as Leo Bloom in “The Producers” at
the Walnut Street Theater. Brind School Senior Lecturer Scott Greer also earned two nominations: outstanding lead actor in a play for his role as Dale Wiston in the Best Play-winning “Something Intangible”
(Arden Theatre Company); and outstanding leading
actor in a musical for his portrayal of Voltaire/Pangloss in “Candide.”
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Other alumni nominees included Erin Weaver ’02
(Theater Arts) for outstanding supporting actress in
a musical for her turn as Invasia Loosestrife in “Cinderella,” and Megan Nicole O’Brien ’04 (Theater
Management and Production) for outstanding direction of a musical for “Avenue X.” Faculty member
Jennifer Childs ’90 (Theater Arts) was nominated for
outstanding new play as one of the writers of “This is
the Week That Is: The Election Special!” (1812 Productions).
Faculty who earned nominations included Theater
Arts Assistant Professor and Dance Adjunct Assistant Professor Dr. Patricia Raine for outstanding
direction in a musical for “Thoroughly Modern Millie” (Media Theatre); Dance and Theater Arts Adjunct Assistant Professor Karen Cleighton ’04 (Dance
Education) for outstanding choreography/ movement
for “Thoroughly Modern Millie”; Theater Arts Senior Lecturer Eric Ebbenga for outstanding musical
direction for “Grey Gardens” (Philadelphia Theatre
Company); and Pre-College Acting instructor Lisa Jo
Epstein, who directed “Anna Bella Eema” (Gas &
Electric Arts).
The awards covered 27 categories and went to winners of productions at nine theater companies. Nominations were spread among more than 140 actors,
directors and designers representing 25 companies
and over 33 productions. Each year, over 100 productions, produced by local professional theatres, are
reviewed by the Barrymore voting committee.
Forrest McClendon in “Avenue X” (top left)
Ben Dibble ’00 in “The Producers” (top right)
Pete Pryor ’90 (opposite center) won the Barrymore for best
direction of a musical; and Erin Weaver ’02 (opposite left) was
nominated for best supporting actress in a musical for
“Cinderella”at The People’s Light & Theatre.
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FEATURES
Caretakers of the Past
Reflect on Their
History and Future
This spring, the University celebrated the 100th
anniversary of the first class in curatorship at the
Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art
(PMSIA, a predecessor institution of the University
of the Arts) in 1908. The event coincided with the
2009 annual meeting and expo of the American Association of Museums, held in Philadelphia.
As part of the festivities attended by Museum Studies students, faculty and alumni, the University honored former faculty member and museum pioneer
Portia Hamilton Sperr (above) for her commitment
and contributions to museum studies, museum education, early childhood education and advancement
of the museum field. The founder of Philadelphia’s
Please Touch Museum as well as the Greene Towne
Montessori preschool, Sperr was instrumental in
creating the University’s Museum Education Program and spearheaded the innovative Philadelphia
program “Museums in the Life of the City.”
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In addition to a broach created by Crafts Professor
Sharon Church, the University bestowed an honorary doctorate of fine arts on Sperr. Pennsylvania
State Representative Babette Josephs honored Sperr
with a citation for her dedication to the education
of young children, and for creating and growing
multiple cultural/education institutions that have
had a critical impact on Philadelphia and Pennsylvania.
Marjorie Schwarzer, chair of the John F. Kennedy
University Museum Studies Program, gave the
presentation “Heart, Soul, Passion: A Brief Tour
of Museum Studies and How It Came To Be.”
Schwarzer authored Riches, Radicals and Rivals:
100 Years of Museums in America, which was the
basis for a nationally-broadcast public television
program. In her talk she paralleled the growth of
museum studies with the growth of children’s museums in the United States, and highlighted some of
the women who spearheaded the movement.
FEATURES
MARK BEYERLE, SPECIALTY PRODUCTIONS
“We cannot understand where we are going if we don’t know where we have
been,” said Museum Studies Associate Professor Polly McKenna-Cress. “The
museum profession has grown by leaps and bounds in the past 10 to 15 years.
We are not reinventing the wheel but we do build on the experiences and contexts created by others before us. To be truly progressive, we need to understand
the giants on whose shoulders we stand.”
MUSEUM STUDIES
CELEBRATES
ITS CENTENNIAL
Please Touch Museum outgoing president and CEO Nancy Kolb proudly recalled how the museum started and where it is today. Sperr started the institution in a small room on the second floor of Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural
Sciences in 1976; it now resides in Fairmount Park’s grand Memorial Hall and
boasts 38,000 square feet of exhibition space.
Sperr followed Kolb and talked about how her work is not complete, nor is
that of museum practitioners as a whole.“We need to keep pushing and making
museums relevant to all audiences, not just the highly educated or privileged
groups,” she said of the cause to which she has dedicated her life.
For the University, a focus on museum studies began in 1908, when Sara Yorke
Stevenson began the school’s “Training for Curators” program. A need arose,
she believed, because “the rapid accumulation of collections in universities, in
colleges in general, in special museums, and in private possession has created
a demand for competent directors, curators and assistants.” The course focused
on developing powers of observation; training in scientific accuracy; materialshandling, equipment and classification; labeling; presentation; and others—“in
short, the practical conduct of a museum and its wise administrative economy.”
After helping found the Egyptian and Mediterranean section of the Free Museum of Science and Art at the University of Pennsylvania (today’s University
of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology), she served for
15 years as its curator. An “armchair” archeologist, she resigned from Penn in
1908 and became a faculty member and assistant curator at PMSIA. Stevenson
taught classes until her death in 1921.
(above)
Portia Hamilton-Sperr received
an honorary doctorate
as part of the University’s
Museum Studies
Centennial Celebration.
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NEWS
“I’m excited by all three of these challenges,” says Savoie, an A.B.D. doctoral candidate at New York University’s
Tisch School of the Arts. But it’s the
international education / study abroad
part of his new position that really has
him intrigued. “International education has always been an extraordinary
passion for me,” he said. “I think that
seeing a different part of the world is
imperative for the education of our students – that means that both students
and faculty should be spending time
outside of this country.”
During what Savoie termed his “discovery year,” he plans on getting to
know the University’s faculty and students. He wants to have a meaningful
conversation with each of the full-time
faculty members before the end of his
first year. “Every faculty member has a
different story and I like to know what
that is because that’s what’s brought to
the classroom and the studio.”
At Philadelphia University, Savoie
served as a member of the school’s
academic council and the its senior
strategy team for academic programs.
He managed all strategic initiatives for
program assessment and international
education and oversaw academic support programs. Prior to working at
Philadelphia University, Savoie was the
director of academic services at New
York University’s Tisch School of the
Arts, where he managed faculty affairs
and all academic advising programs
for school’s 12 departments and 3,000
undergraduate and graduate students.
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B. PROUD
new
faces
James Savoie has been named associate provost, responsible for the University’s graduate programs, student
learning assessment and international
education/study abroad. Most recently,
Savoie was the assistant vice president
for academic affairs at Philadelphia
University, an institution he served in
various academically related roles for
nine years.
“The University of the Arts is at a very
powerful moment in it is history,” he
says. “I believe in the vision President
Buffington has for the institution and I
am excited to be a part of the transformation of the institution—to take all
of the amazing things that are done at
this institution to the next level.”
Savoie earned his master of arts degree
from the University of Maine’s Department of Theatre and Dance in 1989
and his bachelor of arts degree from
Department of Communications and
Theater at the University of St. Thomas (Minn.) in 1985. He is a member
of several national academic associations, including the American Council
of Academic Deans, the Association
of American Colleges and Universities, and the Association of Theatre in
Higher Education, among others.
WINTER 2009
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to enter the profession with the latest
technology training, innovative approaches and traditional pedagogical
skills essential for their success.”
“Beth is well regarded in music education circles, where she is known as a dynamic leader and innovator,” College
of Performing Arts Dean Richard Lawn
says. “Her frontline public school experience ensures that our students will
be well prepared for a career in music
education. She will equip our students
“My interest in higher education is an
evolution of my love and passion for
music and teaching,” she says of her
transition to higher education. “My
teaching experience gave me the opportunity to develop curricula, design and
implement new programs, and provide
professional development opportuni-
As a learning coordinator for the arts
in the North Penn School District, she
developed and revised curriculum and
assessments, coordinated campus visits
from guest artists, was responsible for
keeping art and music labs’ technology
up to date, and established a diverse
summer professional development program for teachers. From 1994 to 2005,
Sokolowski worked as a concert band,
wind ensemble and jazz band teacher,
and small ensembles coach.
ties in areas that teachers felt would
strengthen their skills and knowledge,
and thus benefit students.”
Sokolowski is a member of the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association,
Music Educators National Conference,
Technology Institute for Music Educators, and the Association
for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
She is a graduate of
Temple University with
a bachelor’s of music
in music education and
earned a master’s degree
from the St. Joseph’s
University Educational
Leadership and Educational
Administrative
and Supervisory program.
B. PROUD
Phillip Van Cleave has been named vice president for
facilities management and operations. An accredited
Facilities Management Administrator (FMA), Van
Cleave most recently served as a regional operations
manager for the facilities management division of
the Wayne, Pa.-based Crothall Services Group. Van
Cleave has more than 25 years of facilities management experience at healthcare facilities across the
country, including Hahnemann University Hospital,
Virginia Commonwealth University Health System
and St. Louis University Hospital (both part of ARAMARK Management Services), and ServiceMaster
Management Services in Downers Grove, Ill.
“Phil is an accomplished facilities management executive who will play a critical role on the University’s
senior staff team,” says University President Sean T.
Buffington. “He has a proven track record of making significant contributions to facility operations
and implementing improved efficiencies.”
Van Cleave will be responsible for facilities maintenance and repair, campus security, housekeeping services, and supervision of more than 75 full
and part-time campus operations employees. The
COURTESY
Beth Sokolowski has been named the
head of the Music Education program
in the School of Music. Sokolowski
most recently served as a music educator and learning coordinator for the arts
for the North Penn (Pa.) School District
Educational Services Center, a position
she held for five years. Sokolowski will
help implement several School of Music
initiatives, including its low-residency
Master of Music (MM) degree in music
education. A three-summer undertaking designed for certified music educators already engaged in the classroom,
the curriculum affords them the opportunity to earn an advanced degree
while still working.
University of the Arts campus sits on Philadelphia’s
Avenue of the Arts and comprises nearly one million
gross square feet in 10 buildings—six academic and
administrative buildings and four residence halls.
With Crothall Services Group, Van Cleave was responsible for facility operations in eight Midwest healthcare operations that totaled 4.5 million square feet
and $3.5M in revenue. He implemented Web-based
computerized maintenance management systems with
PDA technology; established document-management
systems to meet the requirements of various government agencies; conducted quarterly program audits
of regulatory compliance; and set in place low- and
no-cost energy-saving initiatives. Crothall provides
specialized hospital housekeeping services, management in laundry processing, patient transportation,
hospital facilities management and medical equipment repair to 1,500 clients in 43 states.
Van Cleave earned a bachelor’s degree in business
administration from the University of Iowa and an
MBA from Golden Gate University. He is a member
of the American Society of Healthcare Engineers and
the International Facilities Management Association.
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commentary
BITING THE HAND
THAT FEEDS?
Recording Industry Pushes for ‘Performance Tax’
on Radio Stations
If radio is providing advertising for recordings, then what the RIAA is asking radio to
do is pay record companies and artists to
promote their product. In this bill, much of
the money would be paid directly to record
companies, with many of the artists never realizing any of this income.
This controversial legislation, approved by the
House Judiciary Committee in mid-May, has 45
co-sponsors to date and the support of record labels and music groups like the Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA) and musicFIRST
(Fairness in Radio Starting Today). As of press
time, there is no full House vote scheduled and
hearings have not been held on the Senate version
of the bill, S. 379, sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.).
The bill purports to “support creativity,” but
may serve as a roadblock for new artists to
receive airplay. There would be no incentive
for stations to risk playing new music and
artists, and would likely play the most established and popular songs and artists. This
would further reduce choice and diversity on
the airwaves.
Dave jackson
If you listen to the radio, you might have heard
about H.R. 848, the Performance Rights Act
(PRA), introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D.,
Mich.) last February. The bill would amend the
current copyright law, requiring terrestrial radio
stations to pay royalties to artists whose music is
played over the air.
The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), which advocates
for local radio, leads the opposition to H.R. 848, and the Local Radio Freedom Act, a resolution opposing the PRA tax, has a growing
backing of 251 House members and 25 Senators.
Edge asked School of Music Director Marc Dicciani how the PRA
would affect University students, faculty and alumni.

The PRA would require radio stations to pay performance royalties
in addition to fees they already pay to songwriters and publishers.
The purpose of the bill is a good one—an attempt to compensate
the performers of a recording when it is played on radio.
Stations playing jazz, classical, folk and other
non-mainstream music may be forced to reduce their play lists drastically and/or time
they spend playing recordings. Some may
even abandon playing music, switching to
the popular talk format. That move would
only serve to reduce career and earnings opportunities for many musicians, including our
students, faculty and alumni. If radio play
lists become more homogenized, much of the
great artistic and musical diversity we enjoy
as a culture could be compromised or lost.
For many years, the performing rights organizations American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), Broadcast
Music, Inc. (BMI) and Society of European Stage Authors and
Composers (SESAC) have collected fees from the licensing of broadcast and public performances of songs. This money is distributed
to those people and organizations that hold the copyright to the
song—mostly the songwriters and publishers, but not necessarily
the singers, band and record companies. At first glance, this bill certainly seems fair, and something that’s probably long overdue.
There seems to be growing bipartisan opposition to this bill, where many members of
Congress are not in favor of any new performance fee, tax, royalty or other charge
on radio for music airplay, and feel that this
bill may also unfairly divert money from local communities and direct those funds primarily to the large record labels. Recently 22
Congressional Democrats stated so in a letter
to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.).
Radio and the record labels have had a long, complex, and not completely symbiotic relationship. Radio has served as promotion for the
labels and recording artists, and, consequently, labels and their artists
have benefited tremendously from having their songs played.
We all want performing artists to make a living creating music, but many now doubt this
is the bill that can make that happen, and
may even have the opposite effect.
The views expressed in this commentary are the opinion of the author and
do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of the Arts.
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NEWS
Student Financial
Services Center
Simplifies Money Matters
CASSIE GARDNER
Convenience, efficiency and an increased focus on customer
service: the three main reasons why the University created a
new Student Financial Services Center. The Center combines
the former offices of Financial Aid and Student Billing into a
unified, student-centered “one-stop shop.” Opened in January and located on the second floor of Hamilton Hall, the
Center is part of the Division of Enrollment Management,
along with the Office of Admission.
“One thing I always heard from students is how much they
don’t like getting the runaround when they need to do something or have a question about finances,” says the office’s director, Chris Pesotski. “The Student Financial Services Center
has received excellent response to the space and the fact that
students can now conduct all of their business in one area.”
By combining the financially related functions under one division, the University is able to provide students and their
families a personalized, student-centered experience from the
day they first contact the University. Students are assigned a
dedicated Student Financial Services counselor, enabling students and families to build long-term working relationships
to help them navigate the complexities of grants, scholarships, loans, work-study and alternative means of funding
their education.
“If we can’t help, we find out who can and make an appointment with that individual,” adds Pesotski. “We work more
closely with students and develop better relationships, which
heads off many problems before they start and hopefully
makes students more comfortable when asking for help.”
The idea for the Center developed from student conversations
during “Pizza with the President” sessions, and was a year
in the making. Two offices, which were located next to each
other, were physically combined and re-imagined. So instead
of a cramped room with thick glass panes at the service windows that separated the employees from the students, the new
space is open and bright, with student artwork adorning the
walls.
“Retention is up, balances are down and complaints have been
far fewer,” boasts Pesotski. “Those are all positive signs.”
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COURTESY
FACULTY/staffnotes
Media Arts Master Lecturer Kathy Rose’s ’71 (Film) video “She” had its world
premiere at the 16th annual Il Coreografo Elettronico at Museo Madre in Naples,
Italy, in June. The three-minute video is “an insectoid fantasy with a sound track
by C.P. Roth, re-interpreted on video from a live performance, with Rose’s signature of vivid colors and multiple rhythmic images.” The video screened throughout the summer at various festivals, including Motion Pictures ’09; the 7th annual
mini-fest of dance on film and video at the Prince Music Theater; American Dance
Festival’s 14th annual Dancing for the Camera: International Festival of Film and
Video Dance; and Delaware Valley Arts Alliance’s DIGit Exposition 2009.
Rose screened two videos at DANCE:FILM 09 in May in Edinburgh, Scotland. As part of the “Dance with Camera”
category, the three-minute “Kabukimenko,” “begins in silence before entering a choreographic fantasy in which rhythms
combine with figures moving singly and progressively in group formations, overlaid with decorative floral patterning and
intensive colors. A regal percussion resounds, returning to the empty-eyed figure, her formal robes and a quieter world, as
if ending a ceremonial performance.” Her three-minute “City of Lost Moons” was featured in the “Is It Dance?” category
and is “a poetic vision of the self and the moon, carpeted with voices; a ritual of the mind.” “City” also screened at Il
Coreografo Elettronico.
Rose also premiered a performance with video called “The Cathedral of Emptiness” in July at the Ingenuity Fest Cleveland. Using projections on veils in the performance, hands and figures floated eerily around the performer and she emerged
from a rich landscape of delicate branches, transformed into another being.
“Things counter, original, spare,” the
latest photography exhibition by Eileen Neff ’72 (Painting), an adjunct
professor in the University’s summer
MFA program in Ceramics, Painting
and Sculpture, received a positive review in the June/July issue of Art in
America. Her images of found and
altered nature were a continuation of
her work in photographic construction. In “Things counter, original,
spare,” Neff’s photographs reflect
upon and occasionally pull imagery from one another. The layering
and repetition of images encourages
cross-referencing and offers multiple
readings of individual photographs
and of the installation as a whole.
The show ran at Philadelphia’s Locks
Gallery February 27 – April 4. Reviewer William Pym stated, “Neff’s
precisely weighted technological
sleights make us open our eyes wide,
and prime them first to look and then
to relish the time it takes to make
sense of what we see.”
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“Without Words,” a photography
exhibition featuring the work of fulltime Media Arts faculty members David Graham ’76 (Photography), Alida
Fish and Harris Fogel, and part-time
faculty Susan Arthur, John Carlano
’78 (Photography), Melissa DiGiacomo, Jeannie Pearce, B. Proud, Lindsay Sparagana ’06 (Photography) and
John Woodin ran in President Buffington’s office suite this summer.
Animation instructor Andy London’s
London Squared Productions, which
he runs with his wife Carolyn London, screened “The Lost Tribes of
New York City” at Animation Block
Party this summer in New York. In
the three-minute “Lost Tribes,” urban anthropologists focus on the
stories of some of New York City’s
more overlooked citizens by meshing interview audio over commonly
found, anthropomorphized items
such as telephone booths, newspaper
honor boxes and manhole covers.
Screening the world’s best animated
shorts, including winners from Sundance and Cannes as well as new
films, Animation Block Party is part
of Brooklyn’s annual BAMcinématek
Animation Weekend.
PORETT
BROWN
FACULTY/staff
NOTES
Foundation master lecturer Emily
Brown staged the two-week solo exhibition “Paper Holds Water” this
summer at Isalos Fine Art in Stonington, Maine, where she mounted
the gallery’s first one-artist show in
2003. The show ran concurrently
to her serving on the faculty at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in
Deer Isle, Maine, teaching drawing.
A former Pew Fellow, Brown creates large-scale black and white images on paper, often derived from a
closely observed piece of landscape,
whether a water surface or tangle of
branches. She uses traditional Asian
techniques in a loose, contemporary
style to explore the rhythms and patterns of nature. She also participated
in group shows at Aucocisco Gallery
in Portland, Maine, and Philadelphia’s Gallery Joe.
SHARON GUNTHER
College of Performing Arts Dean
Rick Lawn, a seasoned jazz composer, musician and author, was the
subject of a Q&A interview posted
to the Live Arts & Philly Fringe Festival blog. The interview covered the
genesis of Dean Lawn’s love for jazz
(high school band director), his inspiration (Chuck Mangione), favorite
composition he’s written (“Mirrors:
Four Reflections in Jazz or Dance”)
and the University’s recently founded
10-piece resident faculty ensemble,
the Power of Ten.
Kathy Rose (opposite, top)
Eileen Neff,
After the WInter Before, 2009
(opposite, bottom)
Emily Brown, Trues’ Woods
Tom Porett, Young Woman at
Mummer’s Parade
Eileen Flanagan
(above, top to bottom)
Photos by College of Art and Design
faculty members David Graham ’76
(Photography) and Tom Porett were
included in the “Streets of Philadelphia: Photography 1970-1985”
exhibit this fall at the Print Center.
The show is the first overview of
street photography made in Philadelphia during a time that was critical
in forging the city’s contemporary
identity. Capturing an era that began
with jubilant preparations for the Bicentennial and ending with the tragic
MOVE bombing in 1985, the show
reveals a distinctly different city than
today. Graham’s featured photos included the chromogenic color photographs “Shirley Temple,” taken
at the 1983 Mummers Parade, and “Bee Beard” from
Fairmount Park in 1985. Porett contributed two photos
from the 1975 Mummers parade—one of a female impersonator and another of a woman watching a brigade
perform—and a DVD of images from the era.
As the College of Art and Design continues to celebrate
its 50th anniversary, it cast a spotlight on the wide array
of work of its own faculty in a two-part exhibition at the
University’s Rosenwald-Wolf and Arronson galleries and
Solmssen Court. The first part, staged in August and September, included work by 19 Design, Film, Photography,
Illustration, Museum Studies and Art Education faculty.
Part two in September and October featured work by
24 faculty members from Book Arts, Crafts, Drawing,
Foundation, Painting & Sculpture and Printmaking.
Liberal Arts faculty member Eileen Flanagan’s recently
authored The Wisdom to Know the Difference: When
to Make a Change – and When to Let Go (Tarcher/
Penguin), a spiritually based self-help book based on
the Serenity Prayer. In the book, Flanagan draws on her
Quaker faith, as well as other religious and spiritual traditions, to help readers transform the things they can in
their lives—and to understand when to let them go. Focusing on the famous last lines of the Serenity Prayer,
Flanagan guides readers to discover “the wisdom to
know the difference.” The Dalai Lama weighed in on the
book, saying, “‘The Wisdom to Know the Difference’ is
about being able to change. What is important is that
we can make a change and transform ourselves into better, happier people.” Flanagan recounts her own experiences as wife, mother and religious seeker, and tells of
the experiences of individuals hailing from a variety of
backgrounds and faiths. Through these anecdotes, she
reveals how individuals knew when to take action and
when to practice acceptance, including the former director of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy in South
Africa; the mother of a United States soldier who died in
the Iraqi conflict, who talks about the power of forgiveness and her work to end the war; and a family therapist
who shares what he learned about accepting the things
he cannot change after a car accident left him paralyzed.
WINTER 2009
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FACULTY/staff
NOTES
Multimedia Assistant Professor Jeremy
Beaudry (above) presented “Designing Social Media for Social Change”
at this summer’s 15th International
Symposium on Electronic Arts (ISEA)
in Belfast, Northern Ireland. ISEA is
an international non-profit organization fostering interdisciplinary academic discourse and exchange among
culturally diverse organizations and
individuals working with art, science
and emerging technologies.
Beaudry’s ongoing design research
project seeks to re-imagine civil discourse in the context of social media and networked communication
through the design of environments
that accommodate divergent perspectives, mediate disagreement and encourage civil debate.
Part of the presentation was the
NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard)
board game (at right) that challenges
players to plan a city in such a way
that the quality of life for all players
is maximized. Players need to make
difficult decisions and compromises
in order to place a range of urban
elements—parks, factories, a casino
and a convention center, among others—so there is no disproportionately
negative affect on any one neighborhood. By virtue of the geography of
the board and core objective of the
game, the fate of the players is bound
together so that self-interest must be
balanced by the common good in
order for the game to be won. The
game represents the culmination of a
first phase of research and design.
“As we started to deal with the
civil discourse and social media,
we quickly discovered that we had
to understand the social dimension
before we could get into the media
part,” Beaudry says. “What we have
learned from working on the game
becomes the foundation for the next
phase of work that will deal more
explicitly with media and communication technology.”
The College of Media and Communication’s Philadelphia Applied Research
Lab funded the project, on which Beaudry is collaborating with Jethro
Heiko and Nick Jehlen of the strategic
design studio Action Mill, as well as
Multimedia seniors Ona Krass and
Hunter Augeri and recent Industrial
Design graduate Alie Thomer ’09.
Crafts faculty member Mi-Kyoung Lee, MFA ’96 (Book Arts/Printmaking) staged the exhibition “Bound Lines,” a portrait of her recent awareness of human connections as a
mother, at the Craft Alliance in St. Louis.
“Giving birth to a child was a significant experience in realizing how human beings
exist and where we all come from,” she says. “There has been a deep appreciation to
our lives and respect for nature. We are connected to one and another, and that is a universal virtue. My questions concerning all human nature and its complicated existence
allows for the creation of this body of work.”
Jeremy Beaudry
(top)
Mi-Kyoung Lee
Bound Lines (right)
Nimby Game,
Jeremy Beaudry
(opposite)
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Lee, who also gave an artist’s talk, hosted the creation of a site-specific installation and
gave a workshop about surface manipulation and transformation as part of the exhibition. She sees the process of connecting small threads together as a metaphor of human
existence and expresses her respect for the complexity of human life with the process
of making countless knots, one after the next. Each form consists of many cellular lines
and textures like human skin and natural surfaces. The detailed microscopic images
are reflected in the construction of these objects.
“Bound Lines” featured four different groupings in terms of material and process:
material drawings using materials such as human hair, wax, paper towel and thread;
two large organic-shape sculptures composed of pipe cleaners; a relief piece on the wall composed of tying short individual
threads, as a blanket of spider webs; and minimal relief forms made out of wool felt and wax. “Bound Lines” was held in
conjunction with “Innovations in Textiles 8,” a biennial collaborative event that investigates the state of contemporary textile arts. Over 20 non-profit and private arts organizations joined forces to present exhibitions related to fiber art created by
national and international artists.
WINTER 2009
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FACULTY/staff
NOTES
Continuing Studies staffer and alumna Sarah B. Pohlman ’05 (Printmaking), who was Aspire Arts’ spotlight
artist of the month in July, participated in two two-person shows over
the summer: “Stray Light and New
Dimensions” at Smile Gallery in May
and June and “Life Soup” at Gallery
Twenty-Two in June and July. At the
“Stray Light” show, Pohlman utilized
a series of light boxes that “explored
very specific moments of clarity in
my life,” she says. “They are rare
and inexplicable, but extraordinarily
humbling and beautiful instances
when the world seems to make sense.
They are moments of light that follow me everywhere. Throughout this
work, I began experimenting with
the use of light in combination with
collaged paper. The textures and layering of paper take on new qualities
when back lit, expressing the moody
interplay of stray light in these vivid
experiences.” Pohlman is also pursuing an MAT in Art Education at the
University.
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Liberal Arts Adjunct Professor Dr.
Martin Novelli and his collaborator,
Kean University History faculty member Dr. Frank J. Wetta, have written
a series of essays on the depiction of
war in film. “On Telling the Truth
about War: World War II and Hollywood’s Moral Fiction, 1945 – 1956”
was published in Why We Fought:
America’s Wars in Film and History
(University of Kentucky Press, 2008);
and “Good Bombing, Bad Bombing:
Hollywood, Air Warfare, and Morality in World War I and World War
II” was published in Organization of
American Historians magazine (Fall
2008).
Sarah B. Pohlman,
Willow Meadow (below)
Jennifer Levonian
You, Starbucks and
Smells Like English Boxwood
(opposite, top and center)
Regina Barthmaier,
Industrial Barbie
(opposite, bottom)
FACULTY/staff
NOTES
A member of the University’s Academic Support Services staff, Jennifer Levonian took some time to find her passion, and her wait has paid off. The painter turned animator earned a 2009 Pew Fellowship in the Arts and its $60,000
award in the “Media Arts” category. Pew received nearly 400 applications for
this year’s awards—the largest such grants in the country for which artists can
apply—in media arts, works on paper, and fiction and creative nonfiction.
In 2006, while finishing her MFA in painting at the Rhode Island School of
Design (RISD), Levonian, whose work has been influenced by William Kentridge, Karen Kilimnik and Charles Burchfield, shifted the focus of her work
to animation. She spent her first year at RISD making a series of narrative
paintings, but found that she wanted to give her narratives a pace and soundtrack. She enrolled in a six-week winter-session animation class and, “I was
hooked,” she says.
Levonian’s most recent work includes cut-paper narrative animations using
watercolor paintings and collages that explore the ambivalence of everyday
life, with the goal of bringing into focus unnoticed events and transforming
them into bizarre and uncanny ones. “The work is satirical in tone and it has
a slightly awkward, homemade quality that I think complements my painting
style,” says Levonian.
College of Art and Design staff member Regina Barthmaier ’89 (Printmaking)
MA ’03 (Art Education) participated in “Heroines and Harlots: Women in
History” at the Da Vinci Art Alliance’s annual juried exhibition in September.
Barthmaier’s “Industrial Barbie” is a non-silver print that she created by placing found objects on a copy camera, and enlarged them to make the negative
for printing. The work is representative of her interest in recycling found objects, especially as they relate to her blue collar background. Barbie, celebrating her 50th birthday, is a fashion model doll that has become a cultural icon.
Barthmaier dressed Barbie using found objects from construction sites, and
outside the frame included lines from Proverbs 31: “Who can find a virtuous
woman? Her price is above rubies. Strength and honor are her clothing; and
she shall rejoice in time to come.” The prints on the outside frame where chosen because they are the colors of the earth, sky and sea.
WINTER 2009
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FACULTY/staff
NOTES
DECLINE OF THE DIVINE LORRAINE
Media Arts Senior Lecturer Matthew Hollerbush ’94 (Photography) exhibited his images of Philadelphia’s iconic yet run-down and uninhabited Divine
Lorraine Hotel this fall at Group M Designers and Consultants in Northern
Liberties. To Hollerbush, the hotel represented the “opportunity to visit a
time capsule. I like the sublime, the subtle suggestion or clue of what or who
once was. It’s the essence versus the obvious.”
Hollerbush gained access to the building in 2006 and 2007—both times at
his own risk. In 2006, the hotel, first built in the 1890s for the nouveau riche
and later run by the “progressive” Universal Peace Mission Movement, was
surprisingly intact. It was as if the tenants had just left. He found rooms with
furniture and personal belongings. He was most struck by the well-preserved
architectural detail. The lower floor contained the reception, lounge and dining areas, “old school luxury with the patina of age and changing uses,” he
noted. The top floor featured a gigantic sanctuary with theater seats and
another dining area. “From the glass block sections of the roof to the ornate
bar, the sense of what was once was inspiring,” he added.
When he returned in 2007, he found an entirely different scene, where everything including the floor boards had been salvaged for resale. The formerly grandiose Divine Lorraine “had been stripped of the luxuries and details but still held the essence of past grandeur and clues of its inhabitants
and history.”
(opposite and above)
Matthew Hollerbush,
Divine Lorraine Hotel
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CASSIE GARDNER
alumniNEWS
FROM THE
Front steps
Change is everywhere and for creative
thinkers, change is exciting! Each day, I
arrive in my office inspired by the incredible alumni community I serve. While I
agree we still have a long way to go in
some areas, let’s not miss the forest for
the trees. Look how far we have come
in just two years. We have doubled the
number of our regional events. We have
created and implemented two extraordinary reunion weekend events. We have
increased Alumni Council membership.
And we have redesigned and released
Edge magazine, this incredible piece you
have in your hands today, just to name
a few.
For this issue, I’ve decided to use my
director’s message to make a unique call
—to step up and participate. Whether
you love what we’ve been doing, have
suggestions for where to go next, or concerns not yet resolved, it’s time to make
your voice heard. The most dangerous
thing for an alumni association is passivity. Yes, we’re all busy people, and in this
challenging economy, time is even more
valuable. But likewise, a smart investment in your future can generate even
greater returns.
I am asking you to invest in your alma
mater.
Volunteer on your local regional chapter
board. Host a reception at your home
for prospective students. Write a “letter
to the editor” for Edge. Send new ideas/
suggestions to the Alumni Council.
Support current students by making a
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donation to the annual fund. Join us at
an alumni event in your area. There are
over 15,000 of us out there, so just imagine the positive impact we could have if
everyone decided to act.
If big picture is more your style, I am
thrilled to announce that the alumni office will be sponsoring a series of regional
roundtables designed to incorporate the
alumni voice in shaping the future of the
institution. President Buffington has set
an ambitious plan for these visioning
sessions and has already begun to involve
faculty, staff and students in strategic
discussions. Look for more information about this unique opportunity this
spring.
Remember, you are the life of our community and every voice matters! I look
forward to seeing you on campus or in
my travels sometime soon.
Warm regards,
Laura J. Armstrong
Director, Alumni Relations
ALUMNi
Los Angeles Summer Send-Off
COURTESY
Each year Admission and Alumni Relations staff collaborate on at
least one summer event designed to send incoming students off to
Philadelphia in style. The location varies based on how many students are admitted from a particular area. In 2008 we held our first
event in Atlanta, Ga. This year we held our “send-off” event in Los
Angeles, Calif. Five new students and their families joined alumni
at the home of Mary Norris Dembo ’85 (Graphic Design) in Pacific
Palisades for an afternoon of food, conversation and Philadelphia
novelty complete with Tastykakes and soft pretzels. If you are interested in hosting a send-off event at your home next summer,
please email Laura Armstrong at [email protected].
Young Alumni Happy Hour –
Triumph Brewery
COURTESY
The Philadelphia Chapter of the Alumni Association welcomed the
Class of 2009 at our annual Young Alumni Happy Hour this past
June. Over 40 alumni joined recent grads for an evening of fun at
Triumph Brewery in Old City, Philadelphia.
Martha’s Vineyard Summer Soiree
Live on the Vineyard? Off-Islander with a summer home? Just
looking for a weekend get-a-way? Then you should have joined us
for our first Martha’s Vineyard Summer Soiree! Linda Hughes ’75
graciously hosted dinner at her home for UArts alumni and friends
this past July.
SANTE FE
(top to bottom)
Susan Gordon ’70,
Mary Dembo ’85 and
Doshonna Bell ’08 at the
LA Summer send-off
New students with alumni and Tim
Ford (Admission) at send-off.
Alison and Ivan Barnett ’69 (right)
BILL SANDOVAL
ALUMNI RECEPTION – SOFA
On June 14, Alison and Ivan Barnett ’69
(Illustration) hosted our first alumni event in
the beautiful southwest at their gallery in Santa
Fe, N.M. The event was held in conjunction
with the gallery’s 10th anniversary celebration
and was timed to coincide with SOFA West
(Sculptural Objects & Functional Art) conference at the Santa Fe Convention Center. Right in
the heart of the historic district, Patina Gallery
(patina-gallery.com) provided the perfect location for our small brunch reception. The event
was a tremendous success with alumni joining
us from as far as Albuquerque and Colorado.
Rumor has it SOFA will be back in Santa Fe in
2010, so mark you calendars. We can’t wait to
see everyone again next June!
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ALUMNI
CHEERS 2009!
to Reunion
In October, the University welcomed over 250 alumni back to campus for a weekend full of engaging presentations, receptions, tours,
exhibits, performances and social gatherings intended to showcase
the best the University has to offer. Alumni reconnected with old
friends and made new ones, visited professors, observed classes,
and celebrated the University’s storied history. Fifty years ago
(1959), the Philadelphia Museum School of Art received formal
accreditation by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and changed its name to the Philadelphia Museum College of
Art (a milestone in its own right!), and shortly thereafter (1964)
become the Philadelphia College of Art. So for this Reunion, in addition to showcasing the best of the University’s performing arts,
several signature events were added to make graduates from those
eras proud.
Illustration Lecture
“Roger Hane: Art, Times & Tragedy”
Roger Hane ’61 (1939-1974) came from a rare class of illustrators and was remembered by friends and fellow artists as “eloquent, an artist beyond his time, a person on a
plane above.” Over Hane’s 13-year professional career, he
produced over 300 published illustrations for major publishing houses, magazines and record companies. Robert
C. Hunsicker ’63 (Advertising Design), the book’s author,
offered an engaging presentation showcasing the high
points in Hane’s professional career: from 1961, when
he graduated from the Philadelphia College of Art until
his untimely death in June of 1974, shortly after being
named artist of the year by the New York Artist Guild.
The University’s von Hess Illustration Gallery hosted a
Hane retrospective from October through January in an
exhibition that featured magazine images, book covers,
record jackets and advertisements. A special exhibit opening, book signing and reception were held following the
lecture in CBS Auditorium.
Graphic Design Event
“A Conversation with
Hans Allemann”
Reunion images courtesy of Dave Jackson
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Over 150 alumni, students, faculty members, friends and
graphic design professionals joined us in celebrating the
illustrious career of recently retired Graphic Design adjunct professor Hans Allemann (see story on page 18), cofounder of the design firm Allemann Almquist & Jones.
After an engaging conversation with esteemed information and graphic designer Joel Katz, Allemann warmly
greeted friends and colleagues during a relaxed and informal wine reception.
Helen Wallace ’10 (Animation)
greets guests at registration
(above)
Bob Hunsicker ’63 signs books after
his presentation (center left)
Hans Allemann in conversation
with Joel Katz
(bottom left)
In a Dream panel (opposite, top)
David Lebe ’70, Jeannine Pearce
(opposite, second down)
School of Music Jazz Clinic
(opposite, third down)
Graphic Design classmates
Michele Barnes ’84, Olga Lavie ’84,
Mary Morris Dembo ’85 and
Luzette (Scattolini) Lehman ’83
(opposite, fourth down)
Do Bop Dolls perform at Golden
Arts Luncheon (opposite, bottom)
Keynote Presentation
“In a Dream”
The University offered a screening and related panel discussion of “In a Dream,” the
new documentary about renowned Philadelphia mural artist Isaiah Zagar, directed
by his son, Jeremiah Zagar, and produced by Jeremy Yaches. The panel (photo top
right) was a multidisciplinary look at the film from the creative and production
perspectives. Jonah Birns ’02 (Multimedia), who designed the film titles and much
of the print advertising and DVD packaging, joined Jeremiah Zagar and Yaches for
the panel discussion. Isaiah and Julia Zagar, MFA ’74 (Community Design) were
also in attendance.
SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS
The Silver Star Alumni Award Exhibition formally opened during Reunion Weekend 2009 with nearly 200 attendees attending the Saturday evening reception. The
motivation for the Silver Star Alumni Award Exhibition was to enhance the documentation of the work of the award recipients, specifically for the College of Art
and Design. And since the University was already celebrating the 50th anniversary
of becoming a college, this year seemed to be the perfect time for such an exhibition. The Silver Star Award recognizes the sustained career achievements of alumni
artists, designers, and educators, as well as alumni in positions of leadership related
to art, design and education fields. The exhibition catalog is the first comprehensive
documentation of the work and biographical information of the recipients. The
award was first given in 1955, when the late photographer Irving Penn ’38 and
fashion designer Tina Leser were so honored. Most recently, animators Stephen and
Timothy Quay, and illustrator Richard Amsel—all three graduated in 1969—were
honored. Work from nearly 60 award recipients was included in the show that was
staged in the Rosenwald-Wolf and Hamilton galleries.
Hamilton Hall also hosted “Meeting Notes,” featuring 50 years of sketches by Robert McGovern ’56 (Illustration), and an Emeriti Faculty exhibition with work from
Jane Bedno, William Daley, Kenneth Hiebert and Richard Stetser ’60 (Sculpture)
during reunion.
ACADEMIC OPEN HOUSES
As part of the Reunion Weekend celebration, academic departments featured alumni work ranging from Animation and Photography to Foundation and Craft. Each
department opened its doors to alumni and parents for a series of open houses on
Friday afternoon. Attendees could visit special lectures like the one by photographer
David Lebe ’70, or a jazz clinic in the School of Music, or special presentation of
Chilean dance in the Terra studios. We were also pleased to share two student performances with alumni later that evening—one highlighting some the University’s best
musical ensembles and the other highlighting our theater students in a performance
of “To Kill a Mocking Bird.” It was a wonderful time for alumni to reengage with the
creative energy of the University’s faculty and students.
GOLDEN ARTS LUNCHEON
One tradition that always finds its way into Reunion festivities is the Golden Arts
luncheon, an exclusive event for those alumni from the 50th Reunion year and
higher—the golden arts society. This year, the Class of 1959 was celebrated and attendees traveled to campus from as far as Florida and Texas. Memories were shared,
stories told, and a wonderful time was had by all.
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(above left to right)
President Sean Buffington giving
the State of the University address
Alumni discuss current issues at
the Town Hall Meeting
Alumni enjoying Big Shot photos
from the past (left)
ALUMNI SERVICE AWARD PRESENTATION
The University’s Alumni Relations program would not be successful without the dedication and loyalty of its alumni community. With
this in mind, the University is excited to announce a new series of alumni recognition awards. These awards are unlike any others
(Silver Star awards, Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, various donor recognitions) and are designed specifically to honor alumni who
have volunteered their time, talent and energy to the school at the highest level. Each award will be named for an alumnus or alumna
who embodies inspirational service and leadership and will be presented to a volunteer who matches those ideals.
Three service awards were created: the Distinguished Alumni Service Award, Young Alumni Service Award and Regional Chapter
of the Year Award. The Distinguished Alumni Service Award and Regional Chapter of the Year Award were formally named and
then presented to their first recipients at Saturday evening’s closing dinner during Reunion. The Young Alumni Service Award will be
named and presented in 2010.
The Regional Chapter of the Year award was established to recognize and honor the
alumni association chapter that hosts the most outstanding programs, activities and/
or services in support of the university’s mission. Regional volunteers are truly the eyes
and ears of the alumni community. They help in recruiting prospective students in their
region, planning events, welcoming new grads and keeping the alumni network alive in
cities across the country.
In naming this award, we looked for an individual who steadfastly champions regional
events regardless of location; has worked one-on-one to re-engage friends and classmates; whose heart and soul support the alumni community; and who has attended
alumni events in nearly every city we have held them in ranging from Los Angeles and
New York City to Philadelphia and Miami. He has also been a consistent lobbyist for
alumni issues and concerns to the University Board of Trustees on which he serves. From
this point forward, the Regional Chapter of the Year Award will be named the “Thomas
M. Miles” Regional Chapter of the Year Award. During the closing ceremonies, Mary
Norris Dembo ’85 (Graphic Design) accepted the first Thomas M. Miles Regional Chapter of the Year Award on behalf of the Southern California Chapter.
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The Distinguished Alumni Service Award is open to alumni
who graduated 20 or more years ago and honors a graduate
who has demonstrated continued engagement with the University of the Arts through long-term volunteer activities. Service
may be reflected in the leadership roles that the individual has
assumed, or through the unique contributions made by the person as a part of his or her service to the institution. Consideration is given to the length, depth and impact of the individual’s
contribution. Since this is the inaugural year for the award, it
was named in honor of its first recipient, William G. Krebs ’66
(Interior Design).
Bill has been involved in every iteration of alumni association leadership we could find record of over the past 40 years
and is also a current member of our alumni council. He was
nominated to the University’s Board of Trustees in the spring
of 1984 and continued to serve as an active member for 23
years. During that time, he served as chair of the alumni affairs committee, consistently advocating for alumni needs and
concerns. In 1998, he was awarded a Silver Star for his work in
interior design. Given the breadth and depth of his experience,
he is frequently referred to as the “senior senator in the room”
by fellow alumni council members. He has been a tremendous
positive support, a sounding board and a wonderful mentor.
The inaugural William G. Krebs Distinguished Alumni Service
Award was presented to Bill in recognition of his more than 20
years of service to the Alumni Association, Board of Trustees,
Alumni Council and University community.
Lastly, while this presentation was not a formal service award,
the Reunion steering committee felt it was important to recognize Joseph Krush ’39, who represented the most senior class
in attendance at Reunion Weekend 2009. Krush was happily
celebrating his 70th reunion year and delighted many attendees
with his stories and the intensity of his love for his alma mater.
At the end of dinner, he received a framed picture of the historic
Broad and Pine building and a well-deserved standing ovation
from his fellow alumni and friends.
(above, top to bottom)
Lisa (Potter) Oster ’99 (Dance Education)
presenting an award
to Joseph Krush ’39 (Illustration)
Laura J. Armstrong congratulates
Bill Krebs ’66 (Industrial Design)
Bill Krebs shows off his
Distinguished Alumni Service Award
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ALUMNi
NEW ALUMNI COUNCIL LEADERSHIP
Kantorski is an architect in Philadelphia and has been a member of the Alumni Council since 2005. Before attending the
University of the Arts to study architecture, he studied ceramics and photography at Alfred University. After completing
his BS in Architectural Design in 1985, he attended graduate school at Syracuse University where he taught drawing
and modern architectural history. Following graduate school,
Kantorski returned to Philadelphia to pursue his career with
architecture/interior design firms in the area. In order to expand his career and experiences but still use his architectural
education, he chose a unique opportunity with the leader in
counter-current swimming pools, first in sales and then as director of technical services. The experience he gained there,
along with his education, led to employment with General
Electric in its modular building division and most recently
with Teknion, LLC in its architectural products division.
Kantorski and his partner Conrad live in a renovated home
in the Queen Village section of Philadelphia with their yellow
lab.
The University of the Arts would like to offer a special note
of thanks to Sophia Bilynsky ’79 (Graphic Design) for her
amazing service to the council over the past two years. During her time as chair, she brought a wealth of new ideas and
energy to the council and truly set the stage for the face-paced
growth the organization has seen since 2007. We could not
be more grateful.
andy oster ’00 (Photography)
Oster has been an arts/non-profit administrator for the past
nine years and a member of the Alumni Council since 2005.
Upon completion of her BFA in Dance Education from University of the Arts in 1999, she taught dance and creative
movement for Young Children’s Center for the Arts and Ballet des Jeunes as well as interned with the Philadelphia Dance
Alliance. From 2000 to 2005, she managed several prominent
programs for the Arts & Business Council of New York, a division of the national advocacy organization Americans for
the Arts. In 2006, she moved to Montreal to pursue a graduate degree in non-profit administration at the John Molson
School of Business at Concordia University. From 2007 to
2008, she was employed as a program officer for the J.W.
McConnell Family Foundation, which provides grant money
and other assistance to charities in a variety of sectors across
Canada. Oster and her husband Andrew Oster ’00 (Photography) live in Media, Pa., with their son Nathaniel.
andy oster ’00 (Photography)
The Alumni Council is thrilled to announce its new leadership for the coming year. Please welcome Lisa (Potter) Oster
’99 (Dance Education), as the new council chair and Adam
Kantorski ’85 (Architectural Design), as chair-elect.
Current Council Members
Lisa (Potter) Oster ’99, Chair (Dance Education)
Sophia Bilynsky ’79, Past Chair (Graphic Design)
Andrew Cantor ’81 (Illustration)
Mark S. Cooperstein ’79 (Graphic Design)
Mary Norris Dembo ’85 (Graphic Design)
Marc Dicciani ’75 (Percussion)
Mark Donnolo ’85, (Graphic Design)
Adam Dotson, MFA ’07 (MEPD)
Harriet Feinstein ’62 (Fibers)
Christopher Gee ’89 (Graphic Design)
Apryl Grasty ’00 (Dance)
Kimberley Gray ’85 (Industrial Design)
Adam Kantorski ’85, Chair-Elect (Architectural Design)
Kyle A. Keene ’05 (Voice)
Bill Krebs ’66, Past Chair (Interior Design)
Vincent Matyi ’01 (Multimedia)
Susan Nicodemus Quinn ’91 (Theater Arts)
Jordan Rockford ’00 (Photography)
Yuri Rozman ’94 (Industrial Design)
Jaime Salm ’01 (Industrial Design)
Nicole Tranquillo ’08 (Voice)
Lisa (Potter) Oster ’99 (Dance Eduction)
(above left)
Adam Kantorski ’85 (Architectural Design)
(above right)
Reunion Big Shot (opposite)
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51
ALUMNIPROFILE
COURTESY OF ABC MEDIANET
It all started for KaDee Strickland ’98
(Theater Arts) when she was waiting
tables one afternoon at the Marathon
Grill near Rittenhouse Square. She approached a table at which four gentlemen were talking about filming locations
and she struck up a conversation with
her gentle Southern accent. One of the
men at the table was Philadelphia filmmaker M. Night Shamaylan, who ended
up casting Strickland as Visitor No. 5 at
a wake in his 1999 breakout hit “The
Sixth Sense.”
KADEE STRICKLAND
sTEADILY UPWARD
Fast forward 10 years and that minor
part has led Strickland to a major role
on a network series. For three seasons,
Strickland has portrayed Charlotte King
on the ABC medical drama “Private
Practice,” a “Grey’s Anatomy” spin off.
Strickland’s character is the chief of staff
at the fictional St. Ambrose Hospital
in Santa Monica, Calif. The show also
stars Kate Walsh, Emmy-nominated Tim
Daly and multiple Tony Award winner
Audra McDonald. The show’s third season premiered in October and cracked
the Nielsen top 20, with 11.6 million
viewers. The show came in second in
the women 18-34 category, right behind
“Grey’s Anatomy.”
For Strickland, it all comes back to
where she got her education.
“Most of the acting teachers are working actors, something you don’t get in a
lot of places,” the 2006 College of Performing Arts Silver Star Award honoree
says. “You get to see the lifestyle and
it prepares you for becoming a professional in a way that a lot of programs
don’t.”
Following “The Sixth Sense,” Strickland
appeared in minor roles in several movies, including “Girl, Interrupted” with
Angelina Jolie. But her big break came in
2003 in the Woody Allen romantic comedy “Anything Else” with Jason Biggs
and Christina Ricci. She followed that
up as Paul Michael Glaser’s girlfriend
in “Something’s Gotta Give,” also starring Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton,
and “The Stepford Wives” with Nicole
Kidman. Strickland landed her first lead
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role in a motion picture after producer
Doug Belgrad saw the dailies of her
scene from “Something’s Gotta Give.”
Impressed by her work, he cast her in
the jungle-set horror film “Anacondas:
The Hunt for the Blood Orchid,” the sequel to 1997’s “Anaconda.” She played
Sam Rogers, an accomplished research
scientist who travels to Borneo as part
of an expedition team searching for a
species of plant that is rumored to have
life-extending properties.
Strickland followed that with a role
in 2004’s “The Grudge,” a project
that would change her life forever, but
not because it would earn her a small
bronze statue. She worked with director
Takashi Shimizu and actors Sarah Michelle Gellar and Bill Pullman, but the
best thing to happen to Strickland on
the set was meeting co-star Jason Behr.
He proposed on Strickland’s birthday in
2005 and the couple married in 2006.
She followed “The Grudge” with “Fever Pitch” starring Drew Barrymore
and Jimmy Fallon in 2005, “American
Gangster” with Denzel Washington and
Russell Crowe in 2007, and Tyler Perry’s
“The Family That Prays” in 2008.
“KaDee was always pointed towards
the future,” said Theater Arts Professor Johnnie Hobbs Jr., who directed
Strickland in the campus production of
“Comeback to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.” “She brought
a depth of humanity to her work. I remember her as hard worker with an
ease of manner—attributes difficult to
teach and even harder to refine in this
challenging industry. However in the
hands and will of KaDee Strickland, I’m
predicting a wonderful, successful and
long-lasting career.”
ALUMNI PROFILE
MATT salacuse
SIOBHAN VIVIAN
Siobhan Vivian ’01 (Writing for Film and Television)
writes “young adult” novels. That’s her story and she’s
sticking to it. And why not? With three novels in three
years and another coming out in 2011, Vivian has found
her niche.
After graduation, Vivian was selected for the Academy
of Television Arts and Sciences mentorship program and
worked in Fox Kids programming department. Later, she
was a writer for Playhouse Disney’s “The Little Einsteins.”
The progression to writing books seemed natural to her.
“I got into teen books after working in kids television development for a few years,” said Vivian. “I always gravitated to teen stories, but the ideas I kept coming up with
were a little more in-depth and more dramatic than the
stuff that was airing on TV.”
Her first young adult novel, A Little Friendly Advice (Scholastic PUSH), about protagonist Ruby’s 16th birthday and
her flood of emotions about her heretofore trusted friends,
long-lost father and, of course, a new boy, was released in
March 2008 to positive reviews.
“Vivian’s first novel deftly probes the often confusing intricacies of friendship,” read a Publisher’s Weekly review.
“Readers will find themselves and their relationships reflected in Ruby’s story for better and worse.”
Her 2009 novel, Same Difference (Scholastic), is loosely
based on her 1996 experience at the University’s Summer
Institute. The book received a starred review from Kirkus
and was hailed as “a stunning new novel that goes straight
to the heart of a teen girl’s search for identity.” The book
follows Emily, who leaves her stale hometown for the
excitement of a summer art institute in Philadelphia. She
seeks the balance between life and art, and which is more
important when push comes to shove.
Keeping it young
Evidence that Vivian’s writing speaks directly to its readers can be found with Upper Dublin (Pa.) High School
students Hannah Ehlers and Ciani Welch. After reading
Same Difference, the juniors created a video report based
on the book and posted it to YouTube. Once word of the
video reached Vivian, her publisher and the University, the
young women were offered and accepted scholarships to
the Summer Institute.
Vivian spent this summer working on her new, as yet untitled book. Her writing process ebbs and flows, depending on how well the project is coming, sometimes typing
(definitely not writing: “my handwriting is horrible,” she
admits) up to 14 hours a day. “Other times, I’m lucky to
get in a solid hour,” she said. “Ideas and inspiration are the
easiest things to find. The most challenging part is taking
those ideas and expanding them into novels that feel rich,
full and honest. I don’t try to limit myself by only writing
things I’ve personally experienced, though my life definitely colors the narrative. I try to find the underlying emotion
behind why a person might act a particular way.”
The new book hits the shelves next fall and follows three
high school girls as they engage in their first sexual relationships. It deals with feminism, female friendships and
how different girls manage the power that can come from
their newfound sexuality.
“This is huge, formative stuff in the lives of teen girls,”
Vivian concludes. “I’m dealing with a range of girls, some
of whom are overly sexualized and maybe don’t exactly
understand why they do what they do.”
Check out what Vivian is up to at siobhanvivian.com.
(above left) Jacket design: Elizabeth Parish
Cover photo: Pascal Broze (RF)/Getty Images
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ALUMNI Profiles
Looking for a fresh challenge, Schiavone
enrolled in the University’s Summer
MFA program in Sculpture in 2006. “I
just didn’t know how hard I would be
pushed and challenged,” she says. “It
was unnerving at first, but eventually I
fell into rhythm with the high intensity
the program required.”
She experimented with concepts and
materials outside of her comfort zone
and tried new things, but also avoided
materials and techniques from her studio practice. “I really wanted to go out
on a limb,” she adds. It was a risk, but
one that paid off. In 2008, Schiavone
was awarded one of only a handful of
Joan Mitchell Foundation grants for
outstanding contemporary visual artists
in sculpture and painting.
Schiavone’s work strongly emphasizes
water. “My environmental identity is
linked to water after growing up on the
Atlantic,” she recalls. “I find myself examining water’s characteristics by creating interactions between sculptures
and natural bodies of water. I live in the
Susquehanna River Watershed and am
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The second of her projects, “Give and
Take,” utilizes objects to create a meeting between people and initiate communication through art. The first installation took place at the York (Pa.)
Township community yard sale, where
she set up a table similar to the other 85
there. If someone took interest in an object, they were told it was free but asked
to draw it in her sketchbook. Conversations ensued. Its second installation
recently finished at a gallery at York
College of Pennsylvania, where 70 items
were hung on the gallery wall. Visitors
could take objects after drawing in the
book provided. The documentation of
interactions is an accordion book filled
with drawings of the objects.
Schiavone teaches printmaking and
sculpture at York and runs her studio
practice out of a 1850s bank/barn next
to her house. “The balance feels right,”
she says. “A flow had developed: teaching, exhibiting and creating work circles
around my study of local waterways
and my communities. Hopefully, the art
will reflect my thoughts on ways of living in community in connection to our
natural systems.”
JOANNE SCHIAVONE
Schiavone has started working on two
projects for 2010. “Doily” is the nextgeneration idea from her graduate
school crocheted plastic shopping bag
work. Through a local church, Schiavone invited together those interested
in crocheting. A dozen or so people
gathered in her studio to crochet plastic shopping bags, chat and bond. She
wanted to create a piece so large that
one person couldn’t handle it alone. The
group began creating a 50-foot diameter
crocheted doily to float through local
waterways.
JOANNESCHIAVONE
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
KAREN MAUCH
After graduating from Delaware, Schiavone took two years of printmaking
and book arts courses at the University
of the Arts. During the next 15 years,
she worked as a studio artist, designing screen printed, paste paper folding
screens for commercial and residential clients and producing hand-bound
books for galleries and stores.
learning to develop a sense of place and
sense of community in this new environment. I want art to be the interacting dynamic tie.”
JOANNE SCHIAVONE
What exactly gave JoAnne Schiavone,
MFA ’08 (Sculpture) her creative start?
Was it her dad’s “magical” darkroom?
The summer camp where she mixed and
poured plaster into a plastic mold? The
sewing machine her uncle gave her that
helped her apply her creative energy to
making clothes? The design course she
took her freshman year at the University
of Delaware? Whatever “it” was, Schiavone has found a way to incorporate all
of these influences into the art that has
become her life.
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NI Wo
WoRk
Roger Hane ’61 (Illustration) Advertisement, de Beers
WINTER 2009
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55
alumninotes
1940s
Lila Oliver Asher ’43 (Advertising
Design) moved to Washington, D.C.,
in 1946 and established a studio for
painting, sculpture and prints. She
taught art at Howard University from
1947 to 1951 and at Wilson Teachers
College from 1953 to 1954 before
returning to Howard University in
1961. She was promoted to assistant
professor in 1964, associate professor in 1966, and professor in 1971.
Since 1991, she has been professor
emeritus and continues to work in
her studio. She also published the
book Men I Have Met in Bed, about
men she helped while they were in
the hospital from 1943
to 1946.
PHOTOS courtesy of RESPECTIVE ALUMNI
A multi-talented trio
of University graduates
collaborated on the
first single freestanding
monument of Harriet
Ross-Tubman on the
banks of the Delaware River in Bristol,
Pa. William Smith ’44
(Illustration) was responsible for drawing
the original prototype,
while Joe Sagolla ’72
(Art Education) drew
a concept of what the
completed work with
it surroundings would
look like. Sagolla also
submitted a rendering for the structure and foundation. As president of
the African American Historical &
Cultural Society of Bucks County, Sid
Taylor ’57 (Art Education) ensured
that the project came to fruition and
also contributed the concept design
of the monument pedestals with the
pillars and slabs that surround it.
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EDGE
1950s
Charlie Pickel ’52 (Art Education)
earned his master’s degree at Rutgers
University after graduation. He is
now a retired teacher and is drawing
WINTER 2009
editorial cartoons for The Wave, a
paper in Bethany Beach, Del. Earlier
in his career, he was a technician at
Douglas Aircraft and design draftsman at Packard Bell.
Hank Richter ’53 (Advertising
Graphics) has devoted himself to fine
art painting and sculpture since graduation. He has won many awards
and has work in many museum, corporate and private collections. Most
recently, he won the gold medal for
watercolor at the San Dimas (Calif.)
Festival of Arts. Two of his watercolors have been added to permanent
collections in Arizona. “I look back
on my PMSA life with great admiration and gratitude for the faculty that
made so many great fellow artists
and friends for me,” he said. Richter
would love to hear from his classmates. Email [email protected] or
visit artofthecowboy.com.
Samuel G. Thompson ’53 (Illustration) continues to teach free watercolor classes in Boston-area libraries.
His contribution was noted in The
Boston Globe.
In September, Berny Brownstein ’57
(Advertising Design) was elected to a
two-year term as chair of the AntiDefamation League’s (ADL) Eastern
Pennsylvania/Delaware
Regional
Board. Since 1913, ADL has been a
leading organization in promoting
civil rights and fighting against antiSemitism and other forms of prejudices, hatred and bigotry through positive
action in the community. ADL Regional Director Barry Morrison said
the ADL will benefit
from Brownstein’s passion and commitment
and looks forward to
the achievements the
organization will make
under
Brownstein’s
direction. Brownstein
is also founder and
chief creative officer
of Brownstein Group
Brand Communication, a successful
business of 45 years.
Herb Snitzer ’57 (Photography) received the Pioneer Social Justice
Award for his anti-war and social/
racial justice work. The award
was given at Studio @620 at a gala
dinner in June in St. Petersburg,
Fla. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), actor
Susan Sarandon and historian Dr.
John Hope Franklin were the other
recipients.
George Krause ’58 (Advertising Design/Photography) recently held an
exhibition at Philadelphia’s Plastic
Club.
Idaherma Williams ’59 (Illustration)
won the printmaking best in show
and president’s award at Ellarslie
Mansion in Cadwalader Park, the
Trenton (N.J.) City Museum.
1960s
Joe Winston ’60 (Dimensional Design) was invited to send six pieces
of his ceramic work to the Jack Lenor Larsen Long House Reservation
in Long Island’s East Hamptons for
the invitational garden container
exhibition “Planters: ON & OFF
the Ground.” P. Allen Smith served
as the judge for the outdoor garden
show held in June.
ALUMNI NOTES
H. Edward (Ed) Goldberg ’68 (Industrial Design) just completed the design of a 150,000 sq. ft complex with
one four-story and two one-story
structures in Pasadena, Md. He has
been hired by Bentley Inc. to write a
book on their Bentley Microstation
Architecture software. Goldberg has
also designed the new Autodesk Revit curriculum for the ITT Technical
Institutes’ Architecture program. He
will be publishing his Autodesk Revit
2011 book this spring. Goldberg, who
is a registered architect and industrial
designer, headed Towson University’s Industrial Design department
from 2000 to 2003 and publishes the
monthly newsletter “Ed’s Independent Voice” at www.hegra.org
1970s
J. Stacy Rogers ’71 (Illustration) continues to create the newsletter “On
the Easel,” which chronicles her
works and works in progress. Over
the summer, Rogers completed the oil
paintings “Redemption” and “Suzy,”
which were accepted into the June
2009 Artsbridge show.
(opposite left)
William Smith
(opposite right)
Joe Winston
(top) Carol Smith
(right)
Deborah Willis
Carol Lynn Smith
’73 (Graphic Design) is the founder
and president of
Creative
Source,
Inc., an integrated
marketing
communications firm.
The company has
been in business
in Manhattan for
25 years. Some of
her credits include the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority’s Metro
Card, American Express, IBM, Cotton Incorporated, Deutsche Bank,
YMCA of Greater New York and
Girl Scouts of the USA.
Ric Kidney ’75 (Photography) has
produced some hit movies with A-list
stars. His most recent productions
include “Imagine That” with Eddie
Murphy and “Salt,” which stars An-
gelina Jolie and is set to be released
next summer.
The book Posing Beauty by Deborah Willis ’75 (Photography) was
recently published by W.W. Norton
& Company and inspired an exhibition of the same name at New York
University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
The book and exhibition explore the
contested ways in which African and
African American beauty have been
represented in historical and contemporary contexts through a diverse
range of media including photography, video, fashion and advertising.
Karen Ackoff ’77 (Illustration) was
promoted to a full professor at Indiana University’s Ernestine M. Raclin
School of the Arts in July 2008. She
will also be presenting at the Guild of
Natural Science Illustrators Annual
Conference 2009 at the University of
Maine at Fort Kent, and Calligraphy
Connection at Saint John’s (Minn.)
University. Ackoff also exhibited and
has prints in the permanent collection
of Contemporary Museum of Calligraphy in Moscow, Russia.
program. Prior to joining Quinnipiac,
Simon worked as a freelance video
producer, editor, photographer and
computer graphics designer in New
Haven, Conn. He spent 22 years at
Yale University working as managing editor of the Center for Advanced
Instructional Media, director of the
Department of Biomedical Communications, and director of operations
for Web design and development at
the Yale School of Medicine. He also
earned his master’s degree at Wesleyan (Conn.) University in 2000.
Peter Olson ’77 (Photography) is a
location photographer based in Philadelphia. He has been hired to shoot
both still and video for two pharmaceutical companies in the United
Kingdom, Belgium, France and Germany. He chronicles his work at
olsoncorp.blogspot.com.
An Oscar-nominated animator who
worked on “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Antz,” Gary
Schwartz ’79 (Animation) has been
helping conduct a volunteer weeklong animation camp for students at
the Liberty Street Robot Store & Repair in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Leslie (Cohen) Rogalski ’78 (Illustration) has been creating jewelry making tutorials at for the Beading Daily
Web site at beadingdaily.com.
Phillip Simon ’78 (Printmaking) has
been appointed director of the graduate online interactive communications
program at Quinnipiac University in
Hamden, Conn. In his new position,
Simon will be responsible for overseeing the graduate interactive communications program, including program development and assessment,
student recruitment and advising. He
will also teach several courses in the
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ALUMNI NOTES
1980s
Anna Fine Foer ’80
(Fibers) has used her
childhood fascination
of maps and collages in
work since graduating.
She continues to work
in collage, creating
work that explores religious, spiritual and scientific themes. In addition, she creates custom
Jewish-themed pieces
including ketubot, or
wedding contracts, and
collages for bar and bat
mitzvahs depicting each
child’s Torah portion.
Her work has appeared
at the Indianapolis
Museum of Art, Maryland Governor’s Mansion and Israeli
Embassy; one of her pieces is in the
permanent collection of Israel’s Haifa
Museum of Art. She was awarded
the Encouragement of Young Artists
prize for work exhibited in the Artist’s House in Jerusalem and received
a Maryland State Arts Council grant
for individual artists in 2008.
Jan Almquist ’81 (Graphic Design)
and Shari Almquist ’81 (Jewelry)
were featured in an article in the
“Home & Design” section of The
Philadelphia Inquirer for their renovation of a two-story, 1915 building
in Swarthmore, Pa.. The couple, who
met while at the University, acted as
their own general contractor during
the renovation, using their shared
design knowledge to turn the former
town telephone exchange into a contemporary and energy-efficient home.
Jan Almquist, a graphic designer and
a partner in Allemann, Almquist &
Jones, an Old City Philadelphia design and communications firm that
specializes in brand strategy and visual identity for companies and organizations, served as the architect, preparing all of the drawings himself. He
also did some of the finish carpentry.
Shari Almquist lent her artistic eye as
a metalsmith and gemologist to help
design the interior spaces.
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EDGE
WINTER 2009
Ann Forbush ’81 (Photography) and
her artistic collaborator Kathy Lobo
’83 (Jewelry) had one of their artist’s
books added to the collection of the
National Museum for Women in the
Arts in Washington, D.C., this summer. Ten Tips for Tomorrow’s Artists is a wall-mounted book featuring pamphlet-style pages. Forbush, a
printmaker, and Lobo, a bookbinder,
have been working on books together since 2001. Their artist’s books
include one-of-a-kind books, limited-edition book sets, an edible book,
and a 32-page “walk through” installation where oversized book spreads
were used as sign posts around an
outdoor fountain. Their whimsical
books vary in materials and subject
matter and have been exhibited in
both Australia and the United States.
The two have received grants from
the Massachusetts Cultural Council
and Watertown Community Foundation to help fund their projects.
Works by Ellen Soffer ’81 (Painting)
were featured throughout most of the
summer in the exhibit “Point of View”
at the Cerulean Gallery in Dallas.
Signe Sundberg-Hall ’81 (Painting)
showed in a group exhibition at Peter
McPhee Fine Arts in Stone Harbor, N.J.,
from August through October. She has
received awards from the National Arts
Club of New York City, Franklin Mint,
Villanova University, Milford (Conn.)
Fine Arts Council, and Artist’s Guild of
Delaware Valley.
Work by Hratch Babikian Atelier ’83
(Metals) was exhibited in the Pittsburg (Kan.) State University Gallery
in August and September. The show
included metals, wood and stone.
He had a solo exhibition from June
through October 18 at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary
Arts in Wilmington, Del. He has
also exhibited at Philadelphia’s Art
Alliance and Samuel S. Fleisher Art
Memorial; the National Ornamental
Metal Museum in Memphis, Tenn.;
Thomas Mann Gallery in New Orleans; Deutsches Goldschmiedhaus
in Hanau, Germany; and Electrum
Gallery in London. Babikian’s work
was included in the White House collection of President Bill Clinton.
Randal Crawford’s ’84 (Fibers) piece
“Alphabet Nights” was the centerpiece of the Northwood University
Gallery’s 2009 fall show, which ran
from August 28 to October 17.
While in Boston, Amy Garcia ’85
(Graphic Design) was invited to learn
computer graphics animation for television and post-production at a local
NBC affiliate. In 1991, she moved to
Seattle to become art director and animator for the local Fox affiliate. Seven
years later, she took a position as art
director for the NBC affiliate in Seattle. In 2004, she re-located to the San
Francisco Bay area to pursue a career
in fine art. Her fine art has been exhibited and received on the East and
West coasts, as well as in Canada and
Australia. She has earned nine Emmy
nominations, best of show at San Jose’s Tapestry Art Festival, first place
for John Muir’s exhibit, a Broadcast
Designer’s Association Gold Medallion Award for print design, and four
Broadcast Designer’s Association
Awards for television graphics. Garcia has co-chaired the ArtsWest Artist
Association in Seattle, is Artist Rotation Coordinator for Las Juntas Artists in the San Francisco Bay area, and
a member of Arts Benicia in the Bay
area. Her paintings reflect her passion
for movement, love of color, texture
and form.
After graduation, Greer Reed-Jones
’86 (Dance) completed a two-year
ALUMNI NOTES
(opposite left)
Anna Fine Foer
(opposite right)
Hratch Babikian
Atelier
(right)
Matt LIddle
certificate program at the Alvin Ailey
American Dance Theater and was accepted into the Ailey II Company. She
then auditioned with 200 other dancers for the Dayton Contemporary
Dance Company and was one of two
to make it into the company. After a
10-year long career, she returned to
Pittsburg and began to teach. She is
now the artistic director of Dance Alloy Theater and August Wilson Dance
Ensemble, which is her fellowship at
the August Wilson Center for African
American Culture.
Marc Cote ’87 (Illustration) was
elected to his second term as chair
of the Art and Music Department at
Framingham State College in Massachusetts. He was also elected president of the Boston Printmakers.
Joe Kulka ’87 (Illustration) received
an award on August 10 in Washington, D.C., from the U.S. Forest Service
for his work in the big book Story of
Smokey Bear. Kulka illustrated the
book that was unveiled at Smokey’s
65th birthday party. The book is part
of the U.S. Forest Service’s effort to introduce a new generation of children
to Smokey Bear and his fire safety
message. The oversized book is designed to stand on its own, acting as
an easel showcasing the illustrations
to the children that are being read to.
Kulka has previously worked with
the Forest Service as illustrator of
the children’s book Woodsy’s ABC’s.
Kulka is an author and illustrator of
the award-winning children’s book
Wolf’s Coming!, The Rope and the
upcoming Dinosaurs Back from Vacation, which is scheduled for release
in fall 2010.
Judie Clark ’88 (Dance) founded Rebound, an independent dance festival
in New Haven, Conn. She auditioned
dancers, choreographers and companies for places in the festival’s fifth
annual show that took place in November and the sixth annual show in
April 2010. Inquiries for the shows
can be sent to jclarkdance@hotmail.
com.
Katie Trinkle-Legge ’88 (Illustration)
had en exhibit at the Artists Association of Nantucket (Mass.). Most of
her pieces were still life paintings of
fruit she personally picks. She has
also exhibited at Old Spouter Gallery
(Mass.) and has paintings for sale at
Nantucket Looms.
Laura BenAmots, MFA ’92 (Book
Arts/Printmaking) had a solo show
from this spring at the Abecedarian
Gallery in Denver, Colo. Her career
has included exhibits at Bookworks
Gallery in Chicago, historic Print
Club in Philadelphia, Edge Gallery in
Denver and DotFiftyOne in Miami.
In November 2008, the San Francisco-based Last Gasp Publishers, together with Smokemuse, released a
hardcover book of BenAmots’ erotic
paintings entitled Eros on Canvas:
the erotic paintings of Laura BenAmots.
LaVonne Strand ’89 (Industrial Design) was featured in the “Career Exploration” section of the spring 2009
edition of Motivos magazine. Strand
shared his experiences as an industrial designer and as the head of his
own design company, STRANDesign.
He informed young people of what
it means to be an industrial designer
and encouraged them to consider careers in his chosen field.
1990s
Matt Liddle, MFA ’91 (Book Arts/
Printmaking) received the Western
Carolina (N.C.) University Board of
Governors’ College of Fine and Performing Arts Teaching Award. Liddle
teaches print and book arts at that
university’s school of art and design.
His publications include the Journal
of Artists’ Books and The Bookmaking Handbook. He has exhibited his
work at Arrowmont School of Arts
and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tenn.,
American Museum of Papermaking
in Atlanta and in the biennial faculty
exhibition at the Western Carolina
Museum of Fine Art, among other
schools and galleries.
Gary Joseph Cohen ’92 (Photography) recently had one of his photographs and an article chronicling his
2007 travels through China translated into Chinese and published in
the culture/travel magazine World
Vision. Additionally, his review of
poet Sebastian Agudelo’s book To
the Bone appeared in the fall issue of
Lana Turner: A Journal of Poetry and
Opinion. He also recently returned
from a six-week trek through China
and Tibet with University alumnus
Seth Grossman ’92 (Photography),
funded by the Calhoun School in
New York City, where he teaches to
support the development of his art
history course “Art Attack.”
Edmund Smith ’91 (Photography)
was featured in an article from the
Everett, Wash., Daily Herald for his
dual career as a photographer and a
chemical dependency counselor. The
tragic death of Smith’s half-brother
from substance abuse inspired him
to create the photo collection “Portraits in Recovery,” which focused on
the expressions of people in recovery.
The photos were coupled with quotes
from each subject and were exhibited at the Lincoln Theatre Gallery in
Mount Vernon, Wash., this summer.
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ALUMNI NOTES
After six months of intensive work
writing “Platero and I”, 15 pieces for
piano, Sandrine Erdely-Sayo, MM
’92 (Piano) recorded on June 15 for
Arabesque Recordings. Recording
took place in New York on a concert grand Fiazoli and was produced
by Nobel Art Group. Platero and I,
138 poetic stories written by the Juan
Ramón Jiménez, Nobel Prize winner
for Literature, is a lyric portrait of
life and the little donkey Platero in
a remote Andalusian village. ErdelySayo’s recording, which illustrates 15
of these beloved poems, was released
by Arabesque in July.
Jesse Lenat ’93 (Theater) has played
at Farm Aid the past two years alongside artists such as Willie Nelson and
John Mellencamp. Over the summer, he released two new CDs on
CDBaby and iTunes, and is working
on another with his brother. Lenat’s
CD “Field Songs” was recorded in
fields, on mountains, in apartments
and caves as he traveled around the
country. In addition to his music career, Lenat has performed
in various theater productions around the country,
and was an original cast
member in the musical
version of “Rent.”
ABC medianet
Ana Ortiz ’93 (Theater),
who stars on the hit ABC
television show “Ugly
Betty,” recently graced the
cover of New York Family
magazine with her daughter Paloma, who was born
in June. In the article, she
spoke about her life as a
new mother and the balance between work and
her daughter.
Lea Antolini-Lid’s ’94 (Voice) new
project is teaching an acting class at
the up-and-coming, not-for-profit
equity company the Centenary Stage
Company. Classes ran through the
fall. She also received her master’s
degree in acting from Brandeis University (Mass.). She is an associate
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WINTER 2009
professor of theatre arts at Centenary College in Hackettstown, N.J.
Marie Sivak ‘94 (Sculpture) participated in the Evergreen State College
guest artist lecture series in Olympia, Wash. Her lecture “Structures
of the Ephemeral” was a reflection
on her interdisciplinary sculptural
installations of the past 10 years.
She is also participating in “Your
Documents Please,” an exhibition
which has traveled to Japan, Slovakia, Hungary, Germany and Mexico.
Sivak is the lead faculty member of
the sculpture program at
Portland Community College in Portland, Ore., and
a member of AIR Gallery
in Brooklyn, N.Y.
thing that they have not seen before.
He has done a variety of things involving theater in his career, but teaching
is his greatest passion. He is teaching
theater at East Brunswick (N.J.) High
School. His latest production, “How
It Works” ran in August and included
University student Samantha Tower
’10 in the cast.
Bernardo Morillo ’95 (Film) recently
had an exhibit of his photography at
the Pagus Gallery in Norristown, Pa.
illustration alumna receives
honorable mention
Susan White, MFA ’94
(Book Arts/Printmaking)
staged her exhibition “Disorder” in Philadelphia at
the Crane Arts Center in
January and February and
at the Print Center from
February through May.
White also participated
in the exhibition Paper
Works! at Philadelphia’s
City Hall as part of the Art
in City Hall program. The
exhibition ran from October through January.
Catherine (Kate) Garchinsky’s ’97 (Illustration) first picture book manuscript, Time to
Fly, was awarded an honorable mention by
the Society of Children’s Book Writers and
Illustrators (SCBWI) for the 2009 Barbara
Karlin Grant competition. Between providing freelance creative services to her clients,
she is co-producing and providing art direction for “Indie for Kids,” a new division of
the independent label American Laundromat
Records. The inaugural release, “Sing Me to
Sleep,” is a compilation of Indie artists covering lullabies for a children’s cancer charity. In addition to acquiring musicians, she is
building the “Indie for Kids” brand and will
be illustrating and designing all packaging
and marketing collateral.
Shene Coates ’95 (Dance)
opened her own dance
academy in the Washington, D.C., area. She now has two
dance companies: St. Martin’s Children’s Dance Liturgical Ministry and
her adult company, New Creations.
Her choreography has been seen all
over the Washington metropolitan
area. She has choreographed numerous works for Expressions Dance
Theatre, DC Youth Ensemble and
Let’s Dance Dance Studios.
Jeffery Alan Davis ’95 (Theater) is
the co-founder of Chimera Productions, a theater company in Princeton, N.J. The company has produced
four plays since opening in 2005 and
wants to show the audience some-
Dan Zank ’95 (Music Performance)
was one of the arrangers on an original piece of music that won an Emmy
for Outstanding Original Music and
Lyric. The piece was the opening musical number with Hugh Jackman and
Anne Hathaway at the 81st annual
Oscars. Zank works for Yessian Music and has composed for other A-list
clients such as Morgan Stanley, CocaCola, Ford Motor Company, Disney
and Unilever.
Hannah Tsapatoris ’96 (Musical
Theater) performed in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival in “Passion: An
ALUMNI NOTES
Evening with Lili Bita,” a retrospective of Lili Bita’s Fringe work over
the past 12 years. Also, B. Someday
Productions’ education program “Of
Mythic Proportions,” through which
Tsapatoris works as a primary teaching artist, was nominated for a Barrymore Award for Excellence in Theater
Education and Community Service
this year.
Maria Aponte ’97 (Photography) was
profiled in a fashion article on examiner.com. After graduation Aponte
got her start in the industry lugging
equipment to and from shoots, but
when she discovered she would need
surgery on her wrist, she decided to
shift to a career in styling. Aponte described her jump from photography
to styling as “seamless.” Since the
change, Aponte has styled celebrities
ranging from hip-hop artist Freeway
to Donald Trump.
Phoebe (Miller) Kelly ’98 (Dance) is
speaking with HBO about her show
“Nobody Suspects a Butterfly.” She also
worked with Dante Puleio ’99 (Dance)
at the Puleio Dance Festival in May.
Seth Monahan ’98 (Composition) is
an assistant professor of music theory
at the University of Rochester (N.Y.).
He received his M.S. in music theory
from Temple University in 2002, and
in 2008 earned his doctorate in music theory from Yale University. From
2005 to 2007, he taught at Yale University. His lecture, “Inescapable Coherence and the Failure of the NovelSymphony in the Finale of Mahler’s
Sixth” was published in 19th-Century
Music.
(opposite left)
Ana Ortiz
(right)
Heather Mae Erickson
Antonio (Carlos) Scott ’98 (Modern
Dance) retired after 15 years and pursued a new career in public education. He earned master’s degrees from
Brookledge College and Shenandoah
University (Va.). After teaching for a
while, he was promoted to assistant
principal at Whetstone (Md.) Elementary. He has been happily married to
Dianna for 13 years and is blessed
with a 6-year-old and a 2-year-old.
He credits the University’s College of
Performing Arts for helping him in
his many successes and life goals.
herst, Va. Endstation just produced
the second annual Blue Ridge Summer Theatre Festival, which included
a three-show season and a playwright’s intensive. This fall, he began
splitting his time between Virginia
and Florida, as he was named the director of theatre at Daytona State College in Daytona Beach, Fla.
Garrett Lee Hendricks ’99 (Acting)
performed as one of 12 actors chosen for the “ABC Diversity Talent
Showcase” on September 10 at the
Acorn Theater, NYC. Along with 11
other actors, he performed six scenes
for ABC casting directors, agents and
other industry members.
Andrew Lipke ’00 (Composition) had
a show at Philadelphia’s Tin Angel
in September. He has produced two
albums, “The Way Home” (2007)
and “Motherpearl and Dynamite”
(2008).
Cornelius Jones ’99 (Musical Theater) completed his run of “FlagBoy”
at the 2009 Capital Fringe Festival
in Washington, D.C. “FlagBoy” was
recently featured on National Public Radio and played the 14th Street
Playhouse in Atlanta in October and
November during PRIDE Atlanta
week. Following the Capital Fringe
Festival, Jones participated in a twoweek intensive study abroad in conjunction with New York University
and Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the
Oppressed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
He recently became a NewingtonCropsey Fellow, which is a year-long
fellowship granted to artists of the
visual and performing arts concentration.
Brad Loekle ’00 (Musical Theater) is
entering into his second year on TruTV
network’s hit series “The Smoking
Gun.” He produces and hosts the longest-running and most popular weekly
comedy show in Midtown Manhattan
on Sunday nights and tours the country playing clubs, colleges, resorts and
casinos. He has just signed on to be
one of the lead voices in “Project: Blue
Ghost,” a feature-length video game
slated for release in fall 2010.
Seth Meicht ’00 (Saxophone) brought
his Big Sound Ensemble to Philadelphia to play at the University’s
Caplan Recital Hall in September.
Known for its impressive improvisation, the eight-piece group is based in
New York City.
2000s
University Ceramics faculty member
Heather Mae Erickson ’00 (Crafts)
is teaching at the School of Art and
Design, New York State College of
Ceramics at Alfred University. She
was selected as the Robert Chapman Turner Teaching Fellow in Ceramic Art. Alfred was named the
top Ceramics MFA program in this
past year’s U.S. News & World Report rankings. She also exhibited in
“On the Verge: Contemporary Ceramics” in August and participated
in a discussion about the exhibit at
the Wichita (Kan.) State University’s
School of Art and Design in May.
Morgan Miller ’00 (Film) and Daniel
Wiener ’00 (Film) worked on the major motion picture “The Wrestler.”
Miller also created animation shown
on YouTube’s Holcombs channel.
Geoffrey Kershner ’00 (Acting) is the
artistic director and founder of the
Endstation Theatre Company in residency at Sweet Briar College in Am-
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ALUMNI NOTES
Jen Woodhouse ’00 (Musical Theater) partnered with the company
Kickstarter to fund her fall tour,
which took her from the East Coast,
to the Midwest, and finally to Japan.
Emily Calabrese
’01 (Theater) owns
Spotlight Ovations
Performing Arts
in California. She
teaches acting and
circus to San Diego
elementary, middle
and high school
students.
Dusky Diana ’01
(Musical Theater)
is living in Germany and performed
throughout October. Her company
has a featured article in the German
magazine West Deutsche Zeitung
and she’s working on a mini-tour of
Budapest for the upcoming year.
Brendon Gawel ’01 (Theater) is a
puppeteer for PBS KIDS Sprout, the
first 24-hour preschool network created for children ages 2-5 and their
parents and caregivers. He is also
part of the Eastern European performance art cabaret act Tempo Dello
Spuntino. Gawel is co-artistic director for the Commedia dell’arte-style
OMBELICO mask ensemble.
Celeste Giuliano ‘01 (Photography)
has been creating pinup photography for clients. Giuliano began her
specialization in pinups in 2003
while working to expand her portrait portfolio. She pitched the idea
of a pinup calendar featuring the
winners of “Philly’s Hottest,” a contest run through the “Preston and
Steve” morning drive time program
on Philadelphia’s WMMR 93.3
FM. While the calendar was never
printed, Giuliano’s work was posted
on the show’s Web site (prestonandsteve.com) and she has been able to
continue shooting pinups for local
women ever since.
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Christopher Haig ’01 (Theater) is
performing in a production of “Seussical.” He is also working on his
master’s degree in arts administration at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Haig was nominated for several
board positions including president
of the Dramateurs, Inc. at the Barn
Playhouse, a 75-year-old community
theatre in suburban Philadelphia.
Katherine McNamee’s ’01 (Musical Theater) recent credits as assistant company manager include the
Broadway staging and national tour
of “Legally Blonde,” “Wicked” in
Chicago, “Mamma Mia!” on Broadway, and “The Wiz” at Encores! in
New York City.
Lucas Steele ’01 (Musical Theater)
appeared in a new musical reading
of “The Kid” in September. Scott
Elliott directed the invitation-only
reading, which featured a cast of
Broadway veterans.
Erin Threlfall ’01 (Theater) was involved in production management
and devising theater in New York,
then traveled to Africa and finally
settled in South Korea, where she
teaches theater.
Matt Watier ’01 (Illustration) recently published his second book, The
Secret Magiks of Maine. His first
book, ANTS: Another Nice Tasty
Sweet, was published in Hebrew and
English in 2004 by Marhwood Press.
Watier’s illustrations have won online awards (DeviantArt.com) and
been hung in various gallery shows
throughout the East Coast, including
the “Maine Lobsterman Art Show”
at the Penobscot Marine Museum in
Searsport, Maine. He works in Web
illustration and design in the Washington, D.C., region.
Cristina Marie Aloe ’02 (Musical
Theater) is busy raising her 4-yearold daughter. Since graduating, she
has appeared in five motion pictures and a commercial for Sheetz
Smoothies. In addition, Aloe worked
with Matt Morgan on his U.S. tour
and played Keeley Smith to Patrizio
Buanne’s Louis Prima. While taking a
break from performing without representation, she has been recognized
in the world of social media and was
invited to attend the Voices That
Matter Web Design Conference as a
guest of Joel Postman, author of SocialCorp: Social Media Goes Corporate. She wants to continue building
Cristinella, Inc. Studios, and hopes
that someday she will make Rick,
Neal and Charlie proud.
Larry Hamilton ’02 (Musical Theater) recently staged his first New
York City solo show, “Let Yourself
Go” at the Laurie Beechman Theatre.
Brad Greer ’09 (Musical Theater)
was one of the backup vocalists.
Michael Drolet ’02 (Musical Theater) played the role of Boq in the
Los Angeles cast of “Wicked” last
year, was featured in the 2009
“Wicked” calendar and was the subject of a full page spread in the book
Around The World In One Short
Day. He is creating the role of Shel
in a workshop of “The Nutcracker”
with Center Theatre Group and is
set to perform in 2010 at the Mark
Taper Forum in Los Angeles. It is a
new whimsical-surrealist experimental theater version of “The Nutcracker,” where a cast of nine singing, dancing and acting clowns tells
the story in an Eastern European
“Cirque-du Soleil Clown” manner.
Daren Herbert ’02 (Musical Theater)
is playing 12 different roles in the Canadian premiere of “The Toxic Avenger,” which opened in Toronto on Halloween night. He also landed a role in
“2012,” the motion picture starring
John Cusack, Woody Harrelson and
Thandie Newton. He participates in
an emotional crying scene and a stunt
sequence. He also finished shooting
the movie “Hot Tub Time Machine”
with John Cusack and Craig Robinson, which is scheduled for release
next year. Herbert appeared in the
motion picture “Dream Girls,” as
ALUMNI NOTES
(opposite left)
Katherine McNamee
(below)
Melanie Greene
(right)
L’Tanya Mari’
well as the popular television series
“Kyle XY” and “Smallville.”
Mindy Juntti ’02 (Crafts) began developing an arts and crafts program for
special needs adults and children over
10 years old. The program, “Jubilation Creations: The Joy of Creativity
without Limitations,” is a division
of Jubili Beads and Yarns, located
in Collingswood, N.J. The program
is planning an exhibition of student
works and is researching more avenues for funding and the possibility
of becoming a non-profit.
Chip Klose ’02 (Musical Theater)
directed a reading of the new musical “The Extraordinary Ordinary.”
The invitation-only event in October at Dreamlight
Theatre Company
featured the cast
of Jason Danieley, Lisa Howard,
Logan Lipton and
Gaelen Gilliland.
Vanessa
Sonnon
’02 (Musical Theater) recently completed her run on
the National Tour of “Spamalot.”
Alumni authors Christine Coppa ’03
(Communication) and Christine DeLia ’03 (Writing for Film & Television) returned to the University campus for a book reading and signing in
April.
Michael Drobish ’03 (Saxophone),
MAT ’04 works at a high school
music program in Bensalem, Pa., five
years after graduation. He is responsible for giving woodwind lessons to
students in grades 6-12 and leading
the high school’s jazz, concert and
symphonic bands. He also works
with the 100-member Mechanicsburg
(Pa.) marching band.
Sienna Freeman ‘03 (Photography)
has exhibited in many places since
graduation, including the Last Drop
Café, Urban Outfitters, the State Mu-
Courtney Ryan Law ’03 (Acting) is
producing television commercials,
Web sites and videos exclusively for
Victoria’s Secret, Lucky Brand, Neutrogena, Lubriderm and DSW. She has
also set a wedding date of September
5, 2010, and will be married in Liberty State Park overlooking downtown
Manhattan. She resides in New York
City with her fiancé Mike.
seum of Philadelphia, and Space 1026
Gallery and Studios. Her most recent
show was from May through September at Philadelphia’s City Hall.
Melanie Greene, MAT ’03 (Visual
Arts) launched her new Web site
melaniegreeneproductions.com
in June.
Josh Lamon ’03 (Musical Theater) is
playing the role of Hubert as a tribe
member in the hit Broadway revival
of the Tony Award-winning production of “Hair.” Lamon has been a
cast member since the show opened
in March; he participated in the
new cast recording and in the Tony
Awards presentation. While in San
Diego, Lamon performed at San Diego Junior Theatre, Moonlight Stage
Productions and Starlight Theatre.
Lamon also played Boq in the national tour of “Wicked.”
Fred Ross ’03 (Musical Theater) is
appearing in
the “12 Irish
Tenors”
in
Branson, Mo.
He
recently
shot his scenes
for
Season
Two of “Drama Queenz”
and a commercial for Sharp
MFP copiers.
In January, he
will appear in
“Godspell” at
the Tampa Bay (Fla.) Performing Arts
Center.
L’Tanya Mari’ (aka L’Tanya Lumpkin-Rivas), MM ’03 (Jazz) released
her debut CD, “A Teardrop of Sun,”
this summer. The album received
glowing reviews from jazz sites
across the Web, all of which praised
the alumna’s superb vocal style.
This summer, STICK IT!: 99 D.I.Y.
Duct Tape Projects, written by Teresa
L. Bonaddio ’04 (Printmaking) was
published by Running Press Book
Publishers. A D.I.Y. guide complete
with folders and step-by-step directions, the book leads readers through
99 different duct tape craft projects,
from wicked wallets to wild wearables, and is for levels from “Dude,
my 5-year-old sister could do that”
to “Don’t even think about operating
heavy machinery.”
Dana Michael ’03 (Musical Theater)
is living in Philadelphia and studying
drug and alcohol counseling at Villanova University.
Nick Palmisano ’03 (Communication) and Brendan Jerome ’03 (Communication) opened the Atlantic
City, N.J., advertising agency 11th
Floor (named after the 11th floor of
Terra Hall, which houses the University’s Communication program).
They have been commissioned by
the Pier Shops at Caesar’s and Brigantine’s Marine Mammal Stranding
Center (MMSC). The MMSC video
earned a Bronze Award for Creative
Excellence at the 30th annual Telly
Awards. Their clients also include the
Shore Memorial Health Foundation,
HERO Campaign for Designated
Drivers, Stone Concrete and William
Ris Gallery, among others.
Lorraine Cink ’04 (Musical Theater)
recently became a member of Milk
Can Theatre Company as its casting
director. Her newly penned play “The
River” received a workshop this fall.
Recently, she co-formed the comedy
improv group JM Clams, which won
second place at the Shotgun Comedy
Festival in New York City.
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ALUMNI NOTES
A feature profile of Daniel Dejesus
’04 (Illustration) was published in the
spring edition of Motivos magazine.
The profile focused on Dejesus’ roots
in art and his achievements, such
as winning a contest sponsored by
Concilio and Philadelphia’s Hispanic
newspaper Al Día. After winning
first prize, his paintings were printed
as posters for mass distribution.
Jeremiah Downes ’04 (Musical Theater) was just cast as Perelli in Lyric
Theatre (Okla.) OKC’s production
of “Sweeney Todd,” starring Emily Skinner as Mrs. Lovett. Downes
graduated from Oklahoma City University with his master’s degree in
music in December.
After graduating, Avery Moss Howlit
’04 (Music Theater) spent 10 months
touring with the Missoula (Mont.)
Children’s Theatre. She moved to
New Jersey where her creative background led her to a career as a human
resources specialist. She is a nationally certified food safety manager and
certified to teach the National Food
Certification course with a certificate
in management from Cornell University. Howlit lives in Guam and was
recently married. She is looking into
new performance opportunities and
may sing with the Guam Symphony
Orchestra in the near future.
Abby Schmidt ’04 (Crafts) exhibited
in “Waxed” at Philadelphia’s Area
919 in June and July. “Waxed” was
a show about the lifestyle of children
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WINTER 2009
fostered by the intersection of the
economy of food and politics of war.
The pieces comprised melted wax
on backlit acrylic panels and framed
plywood and painting assemblage
on plywood.
Dara Stevens ’04 (Dance Education)
had choreography shown in Stuttgart, Germany, in March at an international dance festival. She also
received the Audience Choice Award
and prize money. The ballet will tour
Germany, Switzerland and Finland.
Elyce Abrams ’05 (Painting) had
her third solo exhibition in April
and May at Philadelphia’s Bridgette
Mayer Gallery. Abrams’ work was
selected by New York Magazine art
critic Jerry Saltz for the prestigious
2007 Miami University Young Painters Competition. Abrams has shown
in Philadelphia at the Museum of
Jewish Art, Tierney Communications, and Painted Bride Art Center;
in Harrisburg at the State Museum
of Pennsylvania and Whitaker Center of Art & Science; and in Wilmington, Del., at the Delaware Center
for the Contemporary Arts, among
others.
Derek Dressler ’05 (Writing for Film/
TV) and his wife Miranda (Webber)
Dressler ’06 (Illustration) are living
in California and working
for Disney. Derek Dressler is
a staff writer on a new animated show “Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil” on
Disney XD, and Miranda
Dressler is an apprentice
character designer.
Jonathan Rodriguez ’05
(Musical Theater) was recently in the Las Vegas production of “Jersey Boys.” He also
was chosen to be in the Las Vegas
group from “America’s Got Talent”
and was featured in the September 5
episode.
Megan Webb ’05 (Crafts) made an
extraordinary discovery at the Tel
Dor excavation site on Israel’s Mediterranean coast. As a thriving seaport
in ancient times, Tel Dor was host to
Greeks, Persians and Romans. Today,
the site is strewn with artifacts left behind by those ancient peoples. In July,
Webb flew to Tel Dor with about 25
other students to work as an archaeologist. During her work there, Webb
uncovered a 2,300-year-old carnelian,
a semiprecious, reddish-brown gemstone, which had been carved into a
portrait of Alexander the Great. No
more than 30 such stones are known
to exist in museums around the
world.
“Decorative Resurgence” was a juried
exhibition at the Rowan University
Art Gallery in April and May focused
on contemporary metalwork and jewelry inspired by historical ornamentation and decoration and includes work
from Crafts alumni Aliyah Gold ’06,
Tricia Lachowiec Harding ’96, Trish
Ramsay ’93, Anthony Tammaro ’04
and Stephanie Tomczak ’07.
Jordan Baumgarten ’06 (Photography) is a documentary photographer
who most recently created a collection of home foreclosures in New Jersey in 2008. He also began his MFA
at the Rhode Island School of Design
in August.
Over the summer, Daniel Bell ’06
(Writing for Film and Television) finished his graduate degree in special
education from Trinity (Texas) University. He is a middle school special
education teacher at the Kihei Charter
School in Maui, Hawaii.
ALUMNI NOTES
Laura Catlaw ’06 (Musical Theater)
played Barbara in “Avenue X” with
11th Hour Theatre company and attended the Barrymores as a nominee
in the Best Ensemble category. Catlaw
just closed “The Ibsen Project” for
MasterBuilder Productions, playing
the role of Norina. The production
will be remounted in March.
Robyn Cohen ’06 (Jazz Dance) trained
Michael Jackson’s back up dancers in
Pilates floor work in advance of the
King of Pop’s “This Is It” 2009 London-tour. She lives in Burbank, Calif.,
where she is a certified Pilates trainer
and instructor on mat and equipment at two studios. In addition, she
is trained in the new neuromuscular
workout ActivCore, the American
version of the original Norwegian
workout methodology Redcord. She
was featured in an article on this topic
in the June issue of Pilates Style magazine. She was chosen to be a dance
model for Nickelodeon’s cartoon series “Penguins of Madagascar” for
the character of King Julien. She is also a member
of the contemporary Hart
Pulse Dance Company
(hartpulsedance.com).
(opposite,
top to bottom)
Abby Schmidt
Laura Catlaw
(above)
Walter Plotnick
(right, top to bottom)
Kelli Barrett
Mary Scholz
Brandon D’Augustine ’06
(Theater Arts) performed
with the Brooklyn-based
band Tough Slutting in
2009, co-starred in “Nature Mature” (2008 New
York Underground Film Festival finalist), starred in “The B.B.G.” (2010
release), and co-starred in “Public
Hearing” (2010 release). He has
moved from the streets of New York
and backwoods of Maine in order to
find more adventure in Chiang Mai,
Thailand. He teaches English as a second language at a rural elementary
school and studies muay thai at local
camps. He has future plans to return
to New York.
Kathryn Lyles ’06 (Musical Theater)
played Cielia in the Villanova University presentation of “As You Like” in
November. She is pursuing her master’s degree in theater.
barrett makes
broadway debut
Kelli Barrett ’07 (Musical Theater) made
her Broadway debut as Gwen Cavendish
in “The Royal Family” at the Samuel J.
Friedman Theatre this fall. She has recently
performed as Sherrie in the Off-Broadway
production of “Rock of Ages,” as Maddie
Coleman on “As the World Turns” and
as the talking mannequin/Hugh Dancy’s
phone bidder (“Woman In Black”) in the
film “Confessions of a Shopaholic.” Her
upcoming film credits include Jessica Nilson in “The Baster” and Tyler’s Girl in
“Remember Me.” Her other recent theater
credits include “Knickerbocker Holiday”
(Tina Tienhoven) at York Theater in New York City; “The Last Goodbye”
(Juliet) at Joe’s Pub in New York City; Gypsy (Louise) Westchester Broadway Theater in Elmsford, N.Y.; ACE (Ruth u/s, Ensemble) Old Globe, Cincinnati (Ohio) Playhouse, St. Louis Rep; and Bright Lights, Big City (Amanda/dance captain) at the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia. Barrett can
be spotted in a national Nuva Ring commercial.
Loza Maléombho ’06 (Animation)
has broken into the New York City
fashion scene. Her collection was
shown during Fashion Week 2009 in
New York and is described as “African street chic fashion.” She mixes
trendy looks with ethnic textiles.
Mary Scholz ’06 (Musical Theater)
played at Philadelphia’s World Café
Live in September, in an evening featuring other up-and-coming talents
in the pop/acoustic rock world. She
spent the early summer touring the
East Coast and promoting her second album “The Beauty of It All,”
the first release on her self-started record label Ringlet Records. While on
tour, she appeared at the Florida Music Festival on the same bill with Paul
Doucette of Matchbox Twenty. Over
the summer, Scholz’s performance
schedule included shows at Six Flags
Great Adventure in New Jersey, as
well as a special
acoustic showcase in Trenton,
N.J., presented
by the online radio show “Cool
Vibes Acoustic
Diner.” She is
looking forward
to getting back
on the road in
early 2010.
Walter Plotnick, MFA ’06 (Painting)
won the Viewer’s Choice Award in the
United Creators ZeitGeist 2009 Competition. His work is being shown in
Bang & Olufsen showrooms in New
York, Frankfurt and Istanbul. He is
co-coordinator of the Fine Art department at Montgomery County (Pa.)
Community College (MCCC) and is
also director of its visiting artist lecture series, “Exposing Possibilities,”
a grant-funded program that introduces career opportunities in the arts
to students from underserved areas of
the county. Plotnick received the 2009
MCCC Diversity Initiatives Grant and
runs a Diversity Design Workshop
that involves graphic design students
designing posters for programs and
initiatives offered within MCCC that
raise awareness of diversity..
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65
ALUMNI NOTES
Richard Smith-Beverly ’06 (Composition) recently released his album
“Earth Elements” exclusively on
iTunes. He is also working on a book
to help teach children music theory.
Smith-Beverly teaches piano and
voice at the Napoli School of Music
and Dance in Ardmore, Pa.
Lifelong friends Rob Stein ’06
(Trumpet), MAT ’07 and Harrison
Horowitz ’06 (Trombone), MAT
’07 returned to their high school to
teach. Taking over for Tom Juzwiak,
the director who was there when they
graduated, Stein was named band director and Horowitz was named assistant director. Stein teaches music
at the Ethel McKnight and Perry L.
Drew elementary schools in New Jersey and has been the band director at
those schools also. He owns Standing ‘O’ Marching, a company that
offers services for marching bands,
including musical arrangements and
consultations. His clients have been
high schools as close as Marlton,
N.J., and as far away
as Missouri. Horowitz works as a substitute teacher in the
East Windsor (N.J.)
Regional
district,
and is certified as a
K-12 music teacher
in New Jersey and
Pennsylvania.
Ginny Wehrmeister
’06 (Musical Theater) performed in
“No Sex Please,
We’re British” at
Sierra
Repertory
Theater, in Sonora,
Calif. Next, she will
begin rehearsals for
“Educating
Rita.”
Wehrmeister received
East Bay Shellie Award nominations
for her performances as Ulla in “The
Producers” at Diablo Theater Company in Pleasant Hill, Calif., and
Melody in “Bleacher Bums” at Town
Hall Theatre in Lafayette, Calif. She
won the 2008 Shellie for Outstanding
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WINTER 2009
Actress in a Play for her portrayal of
Cherie in “Bus Stop.”
Rutherford Witthus, MFA ’06 (Printmaking/Book Arts) was selected to
show his work “Crumpling a Thin
Sheet” in a touring juried exhibition
of fine press, fine binding and artists’
books curated by the Guild of Book
Workers. Witthus’ original images
exercised John Cage’s mechanism for
using chance-determined selection in
their creation. The show opened in
May 2009 at the Minnesota Center
for Book Arts and will travel around
the country through March 2011.
Chanee Davis ’07 (Musical Theater) finished filming lead roles in
both “End Game” and “Between
Us, Love” right before leaving for
a winter tour through the United
Kingdom.
Adam R. Deremer ’07 (Acting) is
acting and living in New York City
and is a resident acting teacher with
the Children’s Aide Society. In New
York, he has appeared in the productions “Alice in Wonderland” (New
Acting Company); “The Toilet”
(New Federal Theater); “Make It
So!” (Theater for the New City); “A
Midsummer Night’s Dream” (REV
Theater Company); and “Life on the
Spectrum” (LaMaMa, e.t.c). Deremer has also appeared in “As You Like
It” and “Twelfth Night” with Teatro
delle Due in Italy.
Alex Eckman-Lawn ’07 (Illustration),
who co-created the graphic comic
Awakening (Archaia), one of 2007’s
most talked about projects, was recently interviewed on the “Graphic
Novel Reporter” Web site about his
work. Awakening takes the standard
“zombie attacks a remote town”
theme and turns it around, making
it more about the investigation of
hard-living detective Derrick Peters.
The hardcover Volume One contains
the first 10 issues and is available at
local comic shops, bookstores and
amazon.com.
Mara Jill Herman ’07 (Musical Theater) is putting the finishing touches
on MaraJillHerman.com and would
appreciate feedback. In September,
she appeared in “Cutrell & Cohorts”
at the Laurie Beechman Theatre and
sang at the New East Side Nursing
Home in New York City. Next, she
will appear in a fashion cabaret at
Janice Orlandi’s movement studio.
Herman recently appeared as Susan
in “The Full Monty” with ReVision
Theatre and recorded for “The Battery’s Down.”
Iquail Saheed Johnson ’07 (Ballet) and
his dance company Dance Iquail! had
its first performance of the 2009 season in October at the Ailey CitiGroup
Theater in New York City where the
ALUMNI NOTES
company celebrated the voice of male
choreographers.
Alex Keiper ’07 (Musical Theater)
is appearing in “Little Shop of Horrors” with Philadelphia’s 11th Hour
Theatre Company. During the show’s
brief hiatus, she will appear in a reading of “Austentatious.” Keiper also
performs in “The Rock Tenor,” which
is set to travel to the Bahamas, with a
possible long-term tour in the works.
Jeremy Lardieri ’07 (Musical Theater)
performed his hip-hop cabaret “What
I Have Learned.” He performed in
“Hello, Dolly!” in Ocean City, N.J.,
and the New York City Fringe Festival’s presentation of “The Unlikely
Adventure of Race McCloud, Private
Eye.” He teaches at St. Joseph’s College in Brooklyn,
continues to teach
at dance studios in
Queens for competition, and was promoted to the birthday manager at the
Brooklyn
Heights
location of the New
York Kids Club. He
plans to complete
his dance concert
inspired by Kanye
West’s
“Graduation” within the
next two years. He
also continues to
support community
theater in Queens,
and serves as an acting and vocal coach
for children in the
Brooklyn/Queens areas.
(opposite left)
Ginny Wehrmeister
(opposite,
top to bottom)
Adam R. Deremer
Mara Jill Herman
(above right)
Jeremy Lardieri
Andre Myers ’07 (Musical Theater)
booked the Ashley Tisdale “Crank It
Up” music video. He is also working
with agents in TV/film and commercial/print.
Damian Shembel ’07 (Musical Theater) played the lead role of Mogs
McCallister-Itch in the rock musical
“My Illustrious Wasteland” in the
New York Musical Theatre Festival.
Alex Bechtel ’08 (Musical Theater)
just closed “Fatebook” with New
Paradise Laboratories in the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival. Next up is
“This Is the Week That Is: The New
Administration” with 1812 Productions, Philadelphia’s all-comedy theatre company.
New Networks, which will distribute
episodes on a new Web network it
plans to launch. Delaney also started
a second company, BitByte, which
is working on a uniquely interactive iPhone recipe app. Delaney has
also been approached by a publisher
about a book deal and by the Food
Network to be a host on TV.
James Branagh ’08 (Musical Theater) was just cast in “The Eclectic
Society” at Philadelphia’s Walnut
Street Theatre as Loren Bishop and
will soon receive his equity card.
Amanda DeMarco ’08 (Theater
Management & Production) is now
a Fellow at Hedgerow Theatre in
Media, Pa., where she directed the
children’s show “The Adventures of
Toad & Company,” a musical adaptation of “The Wind & The Willows.” She also was the assistant
director for “There Goes the Bride”
and “A Christmas Carol.” Away
from Hedgerow, DeMarco directed
the world premiere of “Spring Tides”
by Melissa Gawlowski for Philadelphia’s Cardboard Box Collaborative
Theater Company and was the assistant director and a performer in
“Home Opener,” an original Commedia dell’arte- inspired comedy
about the home opening game of the
Philadelphia Eagles that debuted in
Arezzo, Italy, at the International Theatre Festival. In addition to her work
as a director, DeMarco is a reader for
Philadelphia Young Playwrights and
PlayPenn, and is a counselor/teacher
for AmeriCorps in a North Philadelphia elementary school.
A first-time tri-athlete, Ashleigh Brodhead ’08 (Jazz Dance) was part of
the Team in Training program at the
fifth annual Philadelphia Insurance
Triathlon. The Team in Training program raises funds for the Leukemia
and Lymphoma Society. Brodhead
clocked in at a better-than-expected
time of 2:56:11, and contributed
$3,100 in pledges to the group’s total
donation of $800,000. She competed
in honor of friend and co-worker Liz
Supple’s mother, Terry, who died of
leukemia in 1997. Brodhead’s mother
Tommi is a breast cancer survivor.
Mat Burrow ’08 (Musical Theater)
sang in “Rated RSO: The Music of
Ryan Scott Oliver” as part of the
New York Music Theatre Festival in
October with Katie Thompson, Nick
Blaemire, Natalie Weiss and more.
Burrow also appeared with Rickety
Stares at Janice’s Movement Studio
in October. Burrow has also created
a new Web series with Dante Russo
called “Weiner & Weiner,” which
premiered in October.
Marcy Gordon ’08 (Musical Theater) is
working at Artists Entertainment Agency and now lives in New York City.
Brian Gore ’08 (Theater) directed a
production of “Seussical the Musical” for Youth Beaches Arts Guild in
Jacksonville Fla., then moved to Chicago where he lives and performs on
a consistent basis. He is an ensemble
member/writer for Half Naked Productions, where he has performed in
“HSP4: Come Hell or Heil Water”
and “Deal or New Deal.” “HSP4”
moved to Second City’s Donny’s Skybox, where Gore performs a weekly improv show based on the old
Daniel Delaney ’08 (Multimedia)
launched the Internet series “VendrTV” to great success. He is traveling the U.S. (and eventually the
world) to “eat the street.” Delaney is
a 23-year-old entrepreneur, designer
and foodie who first fell in love with
street food while studying at the
University. While in Philadelphia, he
explored the effects of branding and
identity on street carts. Vendr.TV
has recently signed a deal with Next
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ALUMNI NOTES
Choose Your Own Adventure books.
He has also formed his own theater
company and produced “Line” by Israel Horovitz. He is now advancing
in the improv conservatory at Second City and developing an improv
form called “The Improv Store,” in
which members of the audience will
enter the theater and buy various
characters, symbols, set pieces, props
and plot twists to be incorporated in
a fully improvised 30-minute play.
Don’t like where the play is going?
Buy a new character or add a new
prop at any time. Love the show?
Buy extra time!
Phil Jackson ’08 (Photography) won
the “Event” category of the 2009
photo contest sponsored by Vice
magazine and car company Scion,
with his entry “Product Toss, Camp
Woodward, Pennsylvania 2007.”
Jackson took the image, which also
earned him a $1,000 prize, while
serving as a counselor at a skateboard camp in central Pennsylvania.
It was taken during a “product toss”
after a demo when pro skateboarders
were throwing stickers and t-shirts
out “into a crowd of rabid teenagers who trample each other for free
stuff.” Portrait and fashion photographer Ben Ritter served as the category judge.
Emily Kirkwood ’08 (Musical Theater) performs as Sarah Connor in
the “Terminator II Live Stunt Show”
at Universal Studios Hollywood.
Daniel Lesinski ’08 (Industrial Design) worked as the exhibit designer
for “Bicycle: Ideas and People in
Motion,” which was on display in
the Galleries at Moore College in
Philadelphia in October. He is also attending the University of Leeds in the
United Kingdom to pursue his Masters degree in sustainability.
Lauren Palmeri ’08 (Musical Theater) will appear in “Frank, Sammy,
and Dean” at the Fallsview Casino
and Resort in Niagara Falls, Canada. Palmeri recently performed at
the Tropicana Showroom in Atlantic
City, N.J., where she sang songs including “And Then He Kissed Me”
by the Crystals, and closed a ’60s
revue with Dublin Worldwide Entertainment. In November, she began
a U.S. tour of “The Spirit of Christmas” with the same company.
Christina Perri ’08 (Communication)
moved to Los Angeles when she was
just a year shy of graduating from
the University, where she studied film
and video. Perri has started Maneater Productions with her husband Jed
James. Maneater, which makes commercials and music videos, recently
worked with South Philadelphia native Rob McElhenney and his wife
Kaitlin Olson, who co-star in “It’s
Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” on a
commercial for Boarding for Breast
Cancer.
Check out work by Dustin Ream ’08
(Photography) at dustinream.com.
Alee Spadoni ’08 (Musical Theater) is
the associate producer for a new play
“Bully to You,” last seen at Williamstown (Mass.) Theater Festival and
now playing at Soho Rep. Spadoni is
also producing “Dutchess of Malfi”
in October for New York City’s
art.party.theater.company, a small
up-and-coming not-for-profit company. Spadoni is writing a musical
with the company’s artistic director
Mary Birnbaum and Adam Deremer
’07 (Acting) based off the Little Miss
Perfect Pageants. Spadoni performed
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in a cabaret and variety show at Actor’s Movement Studio for New York
Artsweek in the Fashion District alongside many other University talents.
Max Vasapoli ’08 (Musical Theater)
was a dance captain with the Opera
Company of Philadelphia’s “Turandot.” Vasapoli was in a reading in the
Painted Bride’s “Bridal Salon” series.
He lives in Philadelphia and is pursuing a casting internship.
Justin Viggiano ’08 (Film) presented
his feature “Cold by Nature” at the
inaugural Philadelphia Film Market
this summer. Viggiano also unveiled
the “Scala,” an elevator-dolly gizmo
that he and his father invented.
Carl Clemmons-Hopkins ’09 (Musical
Theater) is appearing in “Little Shop
of Horrors” as the dentist and in the
ensemble with Theatre Horizon/11th
Hour Theatre Company. His cast of
“Avenue X” received a Barrymore
nomination for Best Ensemble.
Jenna Paige Gagliardo ’09 (Musical
Theater) worked as an assistant director at Frenchwoods Festival of the
Arts, a performing arts summer camp
in New York. She directed “Pippin,”
“Hair,” “Footloose,” “Toad and
Frog,” and “Amadeus.” In addition,
she directed a pop singing troupe and
cabaret troupe that performed a medley of duets.
Aubrey Grant ’09 (Musical Theater)
appeared as an extra/understudy in
“Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” at the Walnut Street Theatre with Kerri Rose ’07
(Musical Theater), Molly Walsh ’06
(Musical Theater) and Ben Dibble ’00
(Musical Theater).
Brad Greer ’09 (Musical Theater)
recently appeared at the Duplex in
“Monday Nights, New Voices,”
hosted by Scott Alan and Brandi Burkhardt, and sang original music by
Katie Thompson. Greer is going on
tour as Mark in “Altar Boyz” and will
travel to Canada and the Midwest.
ALUMNI NOTES
The photograph “Kyle” by Julia Mead
’09 (Photography) was shown at the
2009 Pingyao International Photography Festival
in
Pingyao,
China, in September. Her
photograph
was one of
100
chosen
out of approximately 450
applicants.
Yuko Nishigaki ’09 (Illustration) recently
had three of
her prints purchased by celebrity Reese
Witherspoon,
who was in
Philadelphia
filming the asyet-unnamed
James
L.
Brooks movie.
Nishigaki’s prints are on sale at Mews
Gallery in South Philadelphia, where
Witherspoon discovered the works.
Mews is planning a show of Nishigaki’s works for the spring.
Emma Orelove ’09 (Musical Theater)
played Elsie in the Parallax Theatre
Company’s Philadelphia Live Arts/
Fringe Festival production of Jamison Foreman’s ’09 (Musical Theater)
original work “Realm of the Unreal:
A Vivian Requiem.” Orelove also
appeared in a 1940s music revue at
the Andrews Sisters for the Goodwill
Theatre in Binghamton, N.Y. Ms.
Orelove is planning to move to New
York in the upcoming months.
(opposite)
Lauren Palmeri
(above,
top to bottom)
Kerri Rose
Brad Greer
(right,
top to bottom)
Emma Orelove
Ryan Touhey
Nicholas Park ’09 (Musical Theater)
is in the ensemble and understudies for the roles of Angel and Mark
in “Rent” at the John W. Engeman
Theater in Northport, N.Y. The cast
recorded a rock/pop version of “We
Wish You a Merry Christmas,” and
Park was chosen as a featured soloist
(Look for the CD this winter). Park
also played Nathan Leopold, Jr. in
the Philadelphia-based Mauckingbird Theater Company’s production
of John Logan’s “Never the Sinner:
The Leopold and Leob Story.” The
production ran in August on the
Adrienne Theater’s main stage in
Philadelphia.
Janet Rowley ’09 (Musical Theater)
finished the “Fabulous 40s Cabaret”
at the Goodwill Theatre Company in
New York. She also played Ellie in
the Media (Pa.) Theatre’s production
of “Show Boat.”
Ryan Touhey ’09 (Musical Theater)
spent his summer producing the first
show in his theatre company’s inaugural season. Parallax Theatre Company presented “Realm of the Unreal:
A Vivian Requiem,” an original musical by Jamison Foreman ’09 (Musical Theater) at the 2009 Philadelphia
Live Arts/Fringe Festival. Rosey Hay
directed the production,
which featured a number of
University students. In December, Parallax presented
a reading of a new play
called “The Last Hour of
Saint Joan.” While producing “Realm,” Touhey also
musically directed a 1940s
music revue at the Andrews
Sisters for the Goodwill
Theatre in Binghamton,
N.Y. Touhey was the understudy for the role of Scripps
in the Philadelphia premiere
of Alan Bennett’s “The History of Boys” at Arden Theatre Company, which ran
from September through
November.
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69
ALUMNI NOTES
Ambe Williams ’09 (Musical Theater) performed in Paul Newman’s
Fandango Benefit Gala at the Hole In
the Wall Gang camp in Connecticut
with Kelli O’ Hara, Laura Benanti,
and Jane Krakowski. She also appeared at the Mandarin Oriental
Hotel with the same company in the
Big Apple Circus Halloween Bash in
New York City.
Melissa Zetts ’09 (Painting and
Drawing) was recently included in
the exhibition “My Face in Your
Space” at Nexus Gallery in Philadelphia. Designed to mimic social
networking Web sites, the exhibition
replicated an online social network
using portraits. The exhibition ran in
September and October.
alumni and former faculty featured at
philadelphia museum of art
“Common Ground: Eight Philadelphia Photographers in the 1960s and 1970s,” a show at the Philadelphia Museum of
Art, features the work of former faculty member Ray K. Metzker, and alumni and former faculty members David Lebe
’70 (Photography) and Sol Mednick ’39 (Advertising Design), the latter of whom established the University’s Photography program in 1953. The September through January show explores the city’s photography scene during the time
period and reveals the University’s place in that history when many photographic artists began to teach in Philadelphia’s
art schools, bringing with them experimental approaches to the
medium.
Mednick was part of a generation of Philadelphia-trained photographers that included Arnold Newman and Irving Penn,
who in the 1930s studied at the University of the Arts (then the
Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art) with legendary
magazine editor Alexei Brodovitch. A successful commercial
photographer, Mednick not only mentored his younger peers
—including Metzker, whom he hired to teach at the school in
1962—but enthusiastically absorbed their innovations. Lebe
began his undergraduate studies at the University (then the Philadelphia College of Art) in 1966 and taught at the University
from 1972 to 1990. Although their formal concerns and strategies sometimes overlap, Lebe, Metzker and Mednick produced
strikingly different work. Metzker and Mednick explored multiple- or time-lapse exposures, while Lebe combined experimentation with personal and sometimes provocative content that
reflected the times. A number of prints are included from Lebe’s
“Scribble” series, sometimes referred to as light drawings, in
which the figures are outlined by a handheld flashlight and seem
to radiate erotic energy.
Untitled, (Photogram of a Woman), Late 1950s, Sol Mednick
(American, 1916 – 1970), Gelatin silver print, 11 x 10 3/8 inches
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of Miriam Mednick Rothman, 1982
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IN MEMORIAM
Influential Photographer,
Alumnus Irving Penn Dies at 92
Alumnus Irving Penn, one of the most prolific and influential photographers of the 20th century, died October 7, 2009, at his Manhattan home at the age of 92. A 1938 graduate of the University
of the Arts (then the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial
Art), Penn was best known for his portraiture and fashion photography for Vogue magazine.
“One of the wonderful things about the arts is their ability to
place in an everyday context many different currents of contemporary culture,” said Associate Professor of Photography Harris
Fogel, who is the director of the Sol Mednick Gallery and Gallery
1401. “The invisibility of that effort is often what places a few
great artists at the top of their field. In that light, Irving Penn was
surely such a giant.”
Studying under Alexey Brodovitch, Penn graduated with a degree
in design laboratory. He was the inaugural recipient of the Silver
Star Alumni Award from the College of Art and Design in 1955.
A native of Plainfield, N.J., Penn started shooting for Vogue in
the 1940s. As a designer in the magazine’s art department, Penn
was asked to shoot a magazine cover after the staff photographers
questioned his unorthodox layout ideas. That image, a still-life of
a brown leather bag, beige scarf, gloves and fruit stacked into a
pyramid, ran on the cover of the October 1, 1943, issue.
More magazine photos resulted from that single image. During a
time when most fashion photography was heavy with props and
set against busy backdrops, Penn developed a style that called for
models and fashion accessories to be set against a clean one. His
style brought more attention to the models and clothing, and it
made him a rising star.
After a stint in the military in Italy and India in the mid-40s, Penn
returned to the United States and found his niche: portraiture. He
photographed famous actors, musicians and politicians, including Miles Davis, Spencer Tracy, Georgia O’Keeffe, Pablo Picasso,
Martha Graham, Marcel Duchamp, Igor Stravinsky and Marlene
Dietrich, among others.
Detail from PCA newsletter, Spring 1982.
tools of their occupations. The images were taken in Paris, London and New York in 1950-51 while on assignment for Vogue.
Penn also found still-life photography fascinating. He shot a large
range of images that challenged the popular conception of “beauty,” including cigarette butts, decaying fruit, discarded clothing
and trash.
“Penn’s career spanned over six decades. Throughout the years,
Penn’s body of work seamlessly traveled between genres, goalsand projects. I can think of few subjects that Penn’s restless and
rigorous creative spirit didn’t explore in fully realized terms.
From fashion to still-life, documenting workers in varying trades,
or his extraordinary ‘Worlds in a Small Room’ project, the consistent theme of his work is that of an extraordinary aesthetic
response to the assignment with absolute mastery of process,
coupled with a profound respect and connection for the humanity he portrayed,” Fogel added.
Penn was married to fashion model Lisa Fonssagrives, who passed
away in 1992. He is survived by a son, designer Tom Penn.
He also photographed everyday people. The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles is hosting the exhibition “Irving Penn: Small
Trades” through January 2010, featuring Penn’s largest body of
work—tradespeople dressed in work clothes and carrying the
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71
in memoriam
Thomas V. Lefevre, 90, former Chairman of the
University’s Board of Trustees and retired head of UGI, a
Fortune 500 energy distributor, died of complications from a
stroke June 29, 2009, at the retirement community Beaumont
at Bryn Mawr, where he had lived since 2001. Mr. Lefevre
joined the University’s Board of Trustees in 1982, serving as
its chair from 1986 to 1989, following the 1985 merger of
the Philadelphia College of Art and the Philadelphia College of
Performing Arts. In 1996 he was elected a Trustee Emeritus. He
became a UGI director in 1973, was named president and CEO
in 1979, added the title of chairman in 1984, retained only the
title of board chairman in 1985, and left the board in 1986. He
earned his master’s degree in taxation at Harvard Law School.
A Rosemont, Pa., resident from 1961 until 2001, Mr. Lefevre
grew up in St. Petersburg, Fla., earned his bachelor’s degree
in 1939 from the University of Florida, and graduated from
its law school in 1942. He joined the Marines and served as
a captain in the 14th Marine Regiment, 3rd Battalion, seeing
action on Iwo Jima, Kwajalein, Saipan and Tinian, and was
discharged as a major. Mr. Lefevre began his law career with
the Manhattan firm of Sullivan & Cromwell. After working
for the Detroit office of the IRS in 1948 and 1949, Mr. Lefevre
joined the law firm of the former U.S. senator from Florida,
Claude Pepper, and then the Washington firm of Paul, Weiss,
Rifkin. In 1955, he joined the Philadelphia firm of Morgan,
Lewis & Bockius, where he became partner in 1956 and served
as chairman of its tax section. As chairman of its executive
committee, he headed the firm from 1971 to 1975. In 1966, he
became chairman of the United Way campaign in Montgomery
and Chester counties. In July 1967, the Greater Philadelphia
Chamber of Commerce named him its Man of the Month “for
his contributions in working for an equitable tax climate in the
business community.” In 1976, he was elected to the chamber’s
board of directors. Mr. Lefevre served at various times on the
boards of the Franklin Institute and the Philadelphia Zoo. He
was also chairman of the board of trustees of the Agnes Irwin
School. Besides his son Nick, Mr. Lefevre is survived by his
wife, Lillian; a son, Eugene; daughters Margot Sunshine and
Sherry Lefevre; eight grandchildren; and a great-grandson.
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Marguerite R. Spillman ’27 (Advertising Design) passed away
on June 8, 2009, in Gwynedd, Pa. Born in 1905 in Fallsington,
Pa., Spillman was a longtime resident of Wayne. She attended
the Westtown School, Philadelphia Museum School of Art and
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She served as a volunteer
for the Junior League Service Board and Wayne Women’s Exchange; she and her husband Arnold were active members of
the Wayne Presbyterian Church and St. Davids Golf Club. She
was predeceased by her husband, and is survived by her children James, Richard and Barbara; five grandchildren; and 11
great-grandchildren.
Olga Maxine Kuryloski Zaums ’39 (Fashion Design) passed
away on September 3, 2009 at the age of 91. Though her husband died in 1993, the couple had a long and happy marriage
of 53 years. After graduation from the Philadelphia Museum
School of Industrial Arts, she owned and operated Olga’s Antiques with her husband. She also loved volunteering at the Ladies of Charity and the St. Francis Assisi Kitchen where she and
her husband helped open a used clothing store.
George C. Bretherton, Jr., ’49 (Interior Design) died July 28,
2008, in Dumfries, Va. Born June 16, 1921, Bretherton was
an interior designer who collaborated with greats Raymond &
Lowey, Copeland, Novak & Israel, and Allied Stores Corp. He
enrolled at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art, but joined
the Coast Guard in 1941. After serving for five years during
World War II, he resumed his education and graduated in 1949.
He was a member of the Pascack Art Association in New Jersey,
where he exhibited his watercolor paintings. Bretherton is survived by his wife of 43 years, Helena; children Helena Bretherton Hay, George C. Bretherton III, Christine Bretherton Torrento; grandchildren Dylan and Madeline Torrento; and sisters
Betty Tussey and Marion Gerber. Bretherton was buried at the
Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C.
William L. Goldberg ’51 (Illustration) passed away at the age of
82 in Philadelphia on May 23, 2009. He was a graduate of the
Philadelphia Museum School of Art, as was his wife, Rose Mangano Goldberg. He was a designer and illustrator. He and his
wife owned the graphic design studio Goldberg & Mangano.
Goldberg also studied mural paintings in Mexico, and painting
at the Philadelphia Art Museum and Barnes Foundation. He
was also a World War II veteran.
IN MEMORIAM
Eileen Neff, Horizon, 2009
Julie Baxendell ’56 (Illustration) died August 17, 2009. She was
a self-employed artist and former innkeeper. She often painted
tranquil scenes of Sussex County where she lived, but her series
of Key West, Italy and Portugal are equally as striking. As an
accomplished talent, she received a 2002 Artist Fellowship from
the DDOA and a 2003 Fellowship from the Mid-Atlantic Arts
Foundation. Baxendell was an extremely joyful and generous
individual, donating works for the benefit of such organizations as the Children’s Beach House, Wilmington Music School
and AIDS Delaware. She is survived by her partner of 25 years,
Mary Ann Benyo; children Becky Baxendell, Lauren BaxendellDeLecce and David Baxendell; sister Melora Freeland; and
grandson Zachary DeLecce.
Lana “Lucky” Goldberg Braverman ’64 (Painting) entered into
eternal rest on the morning of November 13, 2008. Mrs. Braverman was born August 28, 1942 in Philadelphia, Pa. The daughter of Max Goldberg and Bertha Menkowitz Goldberg, she was
a graduate of Philadelphia College of Art and retired as an art
teacher. Braverman was also a member of Beth Elohim Temple.
She is survived by her husband, Dr. Wayne H. Braverman, of
Charleston, S.C.; sons Max Braverman of New York City and
Serge Braverman of Atlanta, Ga.; brother Dr. Daniel Goldberg
of Philadelphia; and sister Renee G. Saul of Philadelphia.
Paul McVickar ’64 (Industrial Design) of Chester Springs, Pa.,
passed away on April 23, 2003, at his home. McVickar grew
up in Cynwyd, where he attended Lower Merion schools. Later,
he graduated from Philadelphia College of Art and received a
master’s degree from Temple University. An artist all his life,
McVikar worked mostly in sculpture, especially in outdoor
pieces. He taught art at West Chester Friends, Westtown School
and Upper Merion High School. McVickar was married to his
soulmate, Clarita Osterhaus McVickar, for 47 wonderful years.
He is survived by his beloved brother Arthur and sister-in-law,
Jinny. Their children are Gary (deceased), Sherry, Laurie, Jamie
and Judy, all of whom filled him with pride. He loved his sonsin-law Bard and Richard, and his daughters-in-law Anita and
Cheryl, as if they were his own. His grandchildren Miranda,
Eric, Kinzie, Skylar, Becca, Wyatt, Elissa, Evelyn, Trevor, Seth
and Scout brought him much joy, as did his great-grandchild,
Finnian.
Frank Delano ’67 (Graphic Design) passed away on February 15, 2008. He owned his own consulting agency, which he
opened in 1947. His legacy includes the creation of iconic brand
names including Ford’s Taurus, Nissan’s Pathfinder and Quest,
GMC’s Yukon, Oldsmobile’s Intrigue, Pfizer’s Zoloft, GlaxoSmithKline’s Ceftin, Red women’s fragrance, Polaroid’s Captiva
camera, and Primerica Financial Services. Delano wrote two
books on powerhouse brands, The Omnipowerful Brand and
Brand Slam. Brand Slam received praise from some of America’s most prominent CEOs. Delano has been featured in Forbes,
The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles
Times and Financial World, among other international business
publications.
Maury Letven ’78 (Wood) of South Philadelphia, a craftsman
and co-founder of an innovative import company, died at the
age of 59 of a heart attack on September 18, 2009 while swimming in the ocean on a vacation with his wife in Barnegat Light,
N.J. In 1994, the couple established Mariachi Imports to market
lead-free Talavera pottery, glass and other items from Mexico.
In the late 1990s, they began Sweep Dreams, a business based
in Thailand selling eco-friendly items such as whimsical brooms
made of sorghum and bamboo, and Mad Mats, colorful rugs
made of 95 percent recycled plastic. The business allowed them
to travel the globe and indulge their passion for exotic cultures,
food and beaches. After graduating from the Philadelphia College of Art, Letven and friends started Heartwood Craftsmen,
a cabinet and furniture-making shop in North Philadelphia.
Letven was known for the parties he threw at the Ruba Club
in Northern Liberties and for his encyclopedic knowledge of
music. In addition to his wife of 22 years, PCA graduate Amy
Kimmich, Letven is survived by his mother Florence, brother
Edward, sister Barbara, and nieces and nephews.
Timothy Bishop ’83 (Film & Animation) passed away on August 11, 2009. After moving to California after graduation, he
opened XTremeline Design, a graphic design business with a
motorsports clientele. He is survived by his wife Bonnie, daughters Brandyna and Danielle, mother Joan, sisters Bonnie Davis
and Susan Cicchini, and numerous nieces and nephews. As a
loving husband, father, son, brother, uncle/Tio and friend, “the
nicest guy” will be deeply missed.
Jonathan Phelps ’88 (Modern Dance) passed away at home on
January 10, 2009, of complications from recent heart surgery.
Phelps was best known for his dance artistry and critically acclaimed choreography. Phelps spent years touring the U.S. and
the world with the Ailey American Dance Theatre. Phelps performed leading roles with the New York City and Philadelphia
Opera companies and has numerous off-Broadway performing
credits. His television credits include the Emmy Award-winning
“A Hymn for Alvin Ailey” and a European tour of “The Dancing Man.” Phelps was also a founding member of Walker/Dance
of New York City. Most recently, Phelps had been working on
the jazz and musical theater teaching staff at Jacob’s Pillow in
Beckett, Mass., and served as adjudicator for two Dance America regions. Throughout his career, 26 of his ballets were selected
and presented in regional Dance America festivals. In 1998, he
was a recipient of the coveted LOEW Fellowship by the Society
of Stage Directors and Choreographers. Phelps also received the
renowned National Choreographic Award.
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DEVELOPMENTNOTES
DEVELOPMENT
HITTING THE
LINKS FOR A
GOOD CAUSE
Golf Outing
Raises $100k
for Scholarships
The University’s fourth annual golf outing on
August 24 at Stonewall Links in Elverson, Pa.,
raised more than $100,000 for the University’s
Promising Young Artists Scholarship Fund. Established in 1994, the Fund has assisted more
than 5,000 students through approximately
$100 million in scholarships. More than 60
golfers competed in a full scramble on Stonewall’s two Tom Doak-designed courses. The
foursome from D3 Development (Jaime Bentley, Gabe Canuso, Greg Hill and Tom Melvin)
won the North Course. Fastrack Construction
won the Old Course with the foursome of Del
Markward, Joe Wolf, Lew Bilker and Brewer
Kershner.
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DAVE JACKSON
The University extends special thanks to sponsors Archer and Greiner; Ashton; Becker and
Frondorf; Coastal Communications; CRW
Graphics; DiBruno Brothers; DoubleTree Hotel;
Fastrack Construction; Franklin Institute; GrantThornton; Healthcare Administrative Partners,
LLC; Heavy Water; Independence Blue Cross;
Josh Bach; Lexus of Cherry Hill; Liberty Property Trust; Lima; Marsh/Mercer; Parc Brasserie;
Philadelphia Management; Philadelphia Orchestra; Please Touch Museum; Stonewall; Trevdan
Building Supply; TD Bank; Union League; Vesey
Capital; W.B. Mason; and Willis HRH.
DAVE JACKSON
Chaired by University Trustee James P. Vesey,
the event committee included Trustees Roger
L.. Bomgardner, Ronald L. Caplan, Eleanor L.
Davis and Ronald J. Naples,; and Joseph Garbarino, Nat Hamilton, Jr. ’07, University Vice
President of Finance and Administration Bill
William Mea, and Joseph A. Tammaro Jr.
ENT
donor applause
Tom ammoN
d EVEL
N o TES
LauRIE BEEcHmaN mEmoRIaL ScHoLaRSHIp
(opposite, top to bottom)
Jim Wenke of sponsor march/
mercer takes a shot at the
green from the middle of the
fairway at Stonewall Links.
Trustees Ira Brind, dr. Russell
kaufman and Ron Naples
(chair) find their stroke on the
practice green.
(above) The 2008 Laurie
Beechman memorial Scholarship recipient matthew Burrow
’08 (Theater Arts) flanked by
mrs. dolly Beechman Schnall
(left) and dr. Nathan Schnall.
This past spring marked the 10th anniversary of the
University’s awarding the Laurie Beechman Memorial Scholarship. Established in 1998 by Mrs. Dolly Beechman Schnall and Dr. Nathan Schnall, this
scholarship provides financial assistance to Musical
Theater seniors. Each year, the top junior students
from within the Ira Brind School’s Musical Theater
department audition for the award. A faculty panel
selects the recipient based on talent, academic progress within the theater department, and the actor’s
personal commitment and initiative toward his or
her craft.
Through the following 10 years, Beechman continued to battle cancer while maintaining a successful career. Her shining moment was an inspiring rendition of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” that
closed President Bill Clinton’s 1997 inaugural gala.
Although her treatments were ongoing, Beechman performed until just a few months before her
death in 1998 at the age of 44. In addition to the
scholarship named after her, Mrs. Dolly Beechman Schnall and Dr. Nathan Schnall also generously supported the renovated Laurie Beechman
Cabaret at the University’s Art Bank.
A native Philadelphian, Laurie Beechman enjoyed a
remarkably diverse performing arts career. As an actor, she was known for her Broadway performances in
“Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,”
“Cats” and “Les Misérables.” During her career,
Beechman was named “Broadway’s longest running
Grizabella,” the “Glamour Cat” in the musical production “Cats,” and to this day remains well known
for her memorable portrayal of the character.
If you would like to contribute to this scholarship or learn about establishing your own award,
please contact Mira Zergani, Director of Development, Major Gifts at 215.717.6505 or mzergani@
uarts.edu. Additional information is available at
uarts.edu/giving.
In addition to her Broadway work, Beechman also
led a solo career as a cabaret performer and a recording artist. In 1988, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. After months of treatment, she bounced
back and continued to work on and off Broadway.
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DEVELOPMENT
NOTES
University Honors
Trustee Emeritus
Sam McKeel
with Naming of
Promising Young
Artists Fund
DAVE JACKSON
Life Trustee Sam McKeel has provided
more than three decades of leadership
to the University, and that dedication is
being recognized through the naming
of one of the school’s most important
scholarships in his honor.
Sam McKeel (far right) with University trustees
Dorrance H. Hamilton and Dr. Noel Mayo ’60
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At a dinner honoring McKeel’s long
and distinguished service to the University on October 12 at the Villanova,
Pa., home of Trustee Ronald Caplan,
President Sean Buffington announced
that the University’s 15-year old Promising Young Artists Scholarship had
been named in honor of McKeel.
Established in 1994, the fund has assisted more than 5,000 students through
approximately $100 million in scholarships. The first recipients of the Sam
McKeel Promising Young Artists Fund,
which assists nearly 80 percent of all
University students, will be announced
in September.
One of the chief architects of the 1985
merger of the Philadelphia College of
Performing Arts (PCPA) and Philadelphia College of Art (PCA) that eventually led to the formation of the University of the Arts in 1987, McKeel served
as chairman of the Board of Trustees of
PCA from 1976 to 1984. The Gladwyne, Pa., resident received an honorary
doctorate of fine arts from the University in 1987.
“As one of the people so instrumental
in guiding this University to where it is
today, it is only fitting that the scholarship that assists most students is named
for Sam, one of the visionaries whose
hard work and dedication brought
forth the institution as it is today,” said
President Buffington.
The former chairman and publisher of
The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily
News from 1986 to 1989, McKeel has
served on the boards of Greater Philadelphia First Corporation, Philadelphia
Convention and Visitors Bureau, Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce and
Jefferson University Hospital.
FEATUREd
FEATURE
dA
AllUMNI Wo
WoRk
© Julia Mead ’09 (Photography)
Barn Owl, Strix varia
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from the
archives
FROM
THE ARCHIVES
Philadelphia Museum
College of Art:
Snapshot, 1959
This year marks an important anniversary in the history of the College of Art
and Design at the University of the Arts. In 1959, the Philadelphia Museum
School of Art received accreditation from what is now called the Middle States
Commission on Higher Education. Founded in 1876 as the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, the art school had awarded diplomas since
1878 and bachelor’s degrees since the 1940s. The school had received state certification in 1939 and dropped the word “industrial” from its name in 1938 in
anticipation of this achievement. Completing the much more rigorous process
of accreditation was a milestone worthy of yet another name change, and the
school became the Philadelphia Museum College of Art (PMCA).
(above)
Department directors answer parents’
questions at Open House, 1959
(opposite, top to bottom)
Students excitedly view the work of their
faculty members in the annual
“Meet Our Instructors” exhibition, 1959.
PMCA catalog cover, 1959
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What was going on at Broad and Pine in the 1959-60 school year? The school
was still part of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (they would separate in 1964);
Emmanuel M. Benson was dean of the school; Bill Daley was president of the
faculty council; George Bunker, who later served as dean, was the director of
General Arts (later called Fine Arts); Sol Mednick was the director of photography; Jerry Gilton was president of PMCA Student Council; the Advertising
Design students had an Advertising Club; students held a talent night, a spring
formal and a spring picnic; the Beaux Arts Ball was held in the school’s courtyard, under the direction of faculty member Sol Calvin Cohen; New York photographer Elbert Budin was hired to take color photographs of the evening (Do
you have a photo of this event? Contact University Archivist Sara MacDonald
at [email protected] if you do); student Ruth Fine was in charge of the
student drama club and theatre workshop; the school faculty gave a play reading of “Queen after Death” by Henri de Montherlant; John William Brown ’50
was president of the alumni association; the Class of 1935 held a 25th reunion
dinner dance on March 5, 1960 (tickets were $6); Joe Carreiro was the director
of Industrial Design; and tuition and fees totaled $450 per semester.
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from the
archives
IMAGES COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS ARCHIVES
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DAVE JACKSON
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