Art and Design Education that Matters

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Otis prepares diverse students of art and design to enrich
our world through their creativity, their skill, and their vision.
Art and Design Education that Matters
Through art and design education, Otis prepares talented students to enrich our future.
Communication Arts, highlighted in this issue,
exemplifies this mission. Kali Nikitas, Department Chair, sums it up well in describing the
new MFA Graphic Design Program: “Otis is an
institution that prides itself on reaching out to
the community and advancing culture through
art and design. (The curricula) speak directly
to educating conscientious individuals who
believe that design has the power to contribute
to and shape our world.” (see p. 4)
An Otis education combines the vision,
values, and skill sets that enable our graduates
to excel and make a difference in the 21st
century. First and foremost, Otis students
become artists and designers with a personal
voice. Essential to their artistic preparation are
elements of a well-rounded and contributing
life. These include
• a commitment to community well being on a local and global scale
• a conviction that art and design matters socially, culturally, and economically
• a fundamental appreciation of and
ability to navigate fluidly and resource-
fully in a complex and diverse world
• the capacity to communicate
and collaborate
• a hunger for experimentation and
innovation
Over its 90-year history, Otis has developed this pedagogical approach as an organic
response to its context – the unique phenomenon that is Los Angeles, the most futuristic of
all American cities. The characteristics described
above, innate to Otis, are gaining widespread
recognition in both higher education and
employment sectors as essential factors for
success in any field. Otis is proud to be a leader
in defining an art and design curriculum for the
21st Century.
The more we understand the past, the
further we can advance. As Otis contemplates
its future, the College and its faculty unabashedly embrace new technologies and emerging
disciplines. At the same time, historical knowledge and time-honored practices continue to
anchor teaching and learning. On campus, I am
always heartened to see students being equally
delighted by and adept at bookbinding and
computer graphics.
At Otis, art and design matters, and innovation springs from tradition.
Founded in 1918, Otis is L.A.’s first independent professional school of visual arts. Otis’ 1170
students pursue BFA degrees in advertising design, architecture/landscape/interiors, digital media,
fashion design, graphic design, illustration, interactive product design, painting, photography,
sculpture/new genres, and toy design. MFA degrees are offered in fine arts, graphic design, public
practice, and writing. Otis has trained generations of artists who have been in the vanguard of
the cultural and entrepreneurial life of the city. Nurtured by Los Angeles’ forward-thinking spirit,
these artists and designers explore the landscape of popular culture and the significant impact
of identity, politics, and social policy at the intersection of art and society.
2008 Vol.4 In This Issue:
02 Communication Arts
Ave Pildas
Kali Nikitas on Communication Arts
John White on Advertising
JT Steiny on Illustration
Alumni in the Professional World
Students Re-invent the Book
President Samuel Hoi with designers Isabel and Ruben Toledo
at Otis’ “Inside the Designer’s Studio,” March ‘08
14 Otis Monitor
Robert Irwin at San Diego’s MOCA
Alison Saar’s Harriet Tubman Sculpture
Meg Cranston on the Venice Biennale
Nothing Moments
–Samuel Hoi, President
Editor: Margi Reeve,
Communications Director
Co-editor: Sarah Russin,
Alumni Director
19
College News
Paul Vangelisti and Antonio Riccardi
Alex Coles on DesignArt
Nancy Chunn’s Media Madness
Rich Shelton on Collecting Plastic
“Transforma: New Orleans”
Scholarship Funding Expands
24 Alumni Around the World
Sabine Dehnel in Berlin
Alex Donis in Sri Lanka
Berton Hasebe in The Hague
28 Class Notes
Photography: Kelly Akashi (‘06), Brooklyn Brown
(‘07), Meg Cranston, Mara Thompson, Ave Pildas
Staff Writer: George Wolfe
Cover: Ave Pildas
Deep Space 2002
Creative: Intersection Studio
Design Direction: Greg Lindy
Design: Brooklyn Brown (‘07)
© Otis College of Art and Design
Publication of material does not necessarily
indicate endorsement of the author’s viewpoint
by Otis College of Art and Design
Otis College of Art and Design
Feature
Feature
Ave
Pildas
(That's “Dave”
without the “D”)
Ave Pildas has taught at Otis for 26 years, and served as Chair of the
Communication Arts Department from 2001 to 2007. In July, he will become
a Professor Emeritus. Alumni Relations Director Sarah Russin and Communications Director Margi Reeve asked him some questions about his time
at Otis, and the ensuing discussion included comments on topics ranging
from baseball to Dizzie Gillespie, and Mt. Washington stories to “The Wire.”
What got you started in the art and design field?
After high school, I enrolled in architecture at
The University of Cincinnati. The program was
very conservative and not very creative, so
I switched to design. Design seemed to me
like a team sport. I felt comfortable with that;
I had started playing baseball when I was six,
and had always believed in the importance of
team sports. Understanding the importance of
the team developed my ability to direct people
and projects.
Would you tell us about a current project?
The solar house I built in Santa Monica will
be ten years old next year; I’d like to build
another house using current sustainable materials and methods. This one will be a duplex
with newer technology—solar energy and a
grey water system.
I saw you with your camera last week in the
midst of Chris Burden’s “Urban Light,” an
installation of 202 street lamps at LACMA’s new
BCAM. Tell us about some of the photography
work you have been doing.
Last summer, I shot a series of photographs at
New York’s Museum of Modern Art (at left) of
people on the escalators in the new addition.
I am particularly interested in serial imagery
that combines people with ladders and stairs,
and I am continuing this investigation utilizing
local sites. I loved the new Chris Burden piece
as soon as I saw it, and have done a number of
shoots there. My Hollywood Blvd. star series
and Century City series are other examples of
sequential imagery that I did some years ago.
As a stringer for Downbeat magazine in the
1960s, I did a series of portraits of jazz musicians, including Dizzie Gillespie (at far left), Joe
Williams and Gerry Mulligan. Michael Solway of
Solway Jones Gallery is producing a portfolio of
ten of these in an edition of 40. This portfolio will
be exhibited at the Gallery later this year. I continue my “California Christmas” series, which
may become a book or another publication.
In your long career as a teacher, what was your
favorite class?
That would be PhotoGraphics, Photography and
Typography, in which students combined their
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photo and type skills to represent aphorisms
like “the early bird catches the worm.”
What are some of your favorite places in the
world?
I like to go on “camera safaris” and have visited
China, Argentina and Peru recently. I would like
to return to China to explore the Silk Road, and
to take my camera to India, Brazil (Brasilia, in
particular), and the underground churches of
central Turkey.
Nearer home, I love Death Valley, Stinson
Beach, Nipomo Dunes, the last-century tourist
attractions near Barstow and other little towns
on Route 66.
Everyone in L.A. is writing a screenplay. What’s
on your plate?
I own some property in Mt. Washington and
have had very colorful tenants over the years.
I’ve saved correspondence and notes about
them, and would like to write a sitcom
screenplay about these experiences. I like
interwoven stories, like the current television
series “The Wire.”
Do you keep in touch with former students?
Constantly. They are colleagues and friends.
Recently I went to the House of Blues with
Ray Sanchez, Turner Johnson, and Henry Escoto
(all ‘99) to see G.Love, a blues/rap/reggae group.
I am a gym rat, so I see alumni at the gym.
Or at galleries.
What advice do you give to young designers
and artists?
I believe that a design education doesn’t have
to result in only making design. Design is a
process of collecting, organizing, and disseminating information, and this process can translate into other fields. The links between design
and commerce are unlimited for someone
with an entrepreneurial spirit. Sitting behind
a computer all day may not pay enough to
get your kids into college.
Editors’ Note: During the 90th homecoming
weekend Oct. 10-12, join alumni in celebrating
Ave’s many years of teaching. ●
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Feature
Feature
Kali Nikitas
became Chair of the Communication Arts Department
in August 2006.
Special Initiatives
(added 4 years ago)
Curriculum
Forms of Production
Bookbinding, letterpress, sketchbooks, and silkscreen
Learning Lab for Technologies
Workshops on software, understanding the role of technology.
“Teaching students to teach themselves.” Programs come and
go but students must be confident in their ability to navigate
through technology, and be proficient in production skills.
This program has three individual themes or tracks from which students
elect to study: typography and type design, social responsibility of the artist in society, and advancing the discipline through theory and innovation.
Summer sessions are taught by core faculty, visiting lecturers, and visiting
artists who are recognized internationally and nationally in their design
and art practices. The curriculum includes project-specific assignments;
individual projects; liberal arts courses focusing on history, theory, and
criticism; and a thesis project.
Faculty
19 new faculty members
Several have collaborated with Fine Arts,
Architecture/Landscape/Interiors, and Interactive
Product Design to create event posters.
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Ogilvy &
Mather
Jung +
Pfeffer,
Germany
Schematic
April
Grieman/
Made in
Space
Adams
Morioka
72 and
Sunny
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Garza
Group
Graphic Design
Still
Room
Visiting designers
Picture
Mill
Editor's Note: In 2010, Kali and partner Otis
faculty member Rich Shelton will curate an
exhibition on the art and design of the album
cover at the Ben Maltz Gallery.
Hosted International Student Competition and Design Symposium, “What
Matters?” In collaboration with Interactive Product Design and Architecture/Landscape/Interiors, the event was sponsored by the Consulate
General of the Netherlands. Speakers affiliated with American schools
such as Cranbrook, Princeton, UCLA and European academies in Stockholm, Germany, and The Netherlands. Also hosted “Fifteen,” an exhibition
celebrating the last fifteen years of FontShop and a talk by internationally
recognized type designer, Erik Spiekermann.
3
Twin
Art
“180 degrees: U-turns from the Intersection
of Design and Culture.” In summer ‘08, Dutch type
foundry Underware will participate in this lecture
series at MOCA. ●
International collaboration and outreach
Select Internships & Professional Affiliations
Hello
Design
Community Collaborations
With AIGA/LA
Otis is an institution that prides itself on reaching out to the community
and advancing culture through art and design. The three tracks of this
MFA program speak directly to educating conscientious individuals who
believe that design has the power to contribute to and shape our world.
Two new faculty members, Jessica Fleischmann
and Ana Llorente-Thurik, designed the ‘07-‘08 Otis
undergrad viewbook (below)
Professional Experience
Local professionals are invited regularly to lecture, teach, critique and review students’ work. In turn, they frequently host
students for internships. Some of them have hired our students.
Several students are interning outside the U.S.
In San Francisco and New York City, students visited
top design studios, ad agencies, illustrators, and
museums and galleries. Two upcoming trips include
London and Minneapolis.
Poster by faculty member
Greg Lindy
John Boiler, LA
John Stein, LA
Savoy Hallinan, LA
Tony Luna, LA
Sophomores: Core skills/craft
Juniors: Major specialization and professional preparation
Seniors: Innovation and theory plus specialized interest
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Student Travel Excursions
Advertising
Courses that are offered with multiple sections are taught
simultaneously, offering collaboration, team-teaching, and
community-building opportunities
Beginning in summer 2008, a new MFA will be offered in
Graphic Design. Running for three consecutive eight-week
summer sessions in residence and two spring sessions of
mentored off-campus independent study, this 2 1/2 year
program provides a rigorous and challenging academic and
studio environment for candidates interested in enhancing
their current professional practice.
Yuko Shimizu, NYC
Kathy Bleck, Texas
Mark Murphy, San Diego
Joe Leadbetter,
(SILA Student group), LA
James Jean, LA
Advertising
Illustration
4
Launch of MFA in Graphic Design
Illustration
Graphic
Design
1
Sean Adams, LA
Caryn Aono, LA
Philippe Apeloig, Paris
Brad Berling, LA
Anne Burdick, LA, What Matters
David Clayton, LA
Sean Donahue, LA
Volker Durre, LA
Elliott Earls, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Adam Euwens, LA
Agustin Garza, LA
April Greiman, LA
David Grey, New Mexico
Erin Hauber, LA
Geoff Kaplan, San Francisco
Harmen Liemburg, Amsterdam
Harmine Louwe, Amsterdam
Henri Lucas, LA
Laurie Haycock Makela, Stockholm
Florian Pfeffer, Amsterdam
Erik Spiekermann, Berlin, Fontshop
John Sueda, LA
Rick Vermeulen, Rotterdam
Davey Whitcraft, LA
3 majors:
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Feature
Feature
Plugging
Away:
Evolution of the Advertising Major
Travis Swingler (‘07) advertising student project
“Let’s Go Bowling” Instructor(s): Elena Salij & Jim Wojtowicz
By George Wolfe
John White, head of the relatively new Advertising Design department—
a virtual Kindergartner in years in existence—has transitioned from the
hard-core business world to soft-sell academia.
After running his own ad company for 17 years in the rough-andtumble world of advertising (Paperplane, his studio, consisted
of more than 30 employees, and did $20 million/year), he now
spearheads a department that prepares students—over a more
luxurious four- year time period—to enter the business world
that’s so familiar to him.
For White, Southern California is home. He attended the
Art Center In Pasadena (though he claims to have been a poor
student) prior to working in advertising for nearly a decade, after
which he continued his “self-directed life path” and founded his
business. He says that about ten years ago he sometimes taught
but was “so whacked with the job during the day that I couldn’t
focus. You tend to be a bit relentless when you have a business.”
Now, able to really think about teaching as a main priority,
he has taken his lead from Kali Nikitas, the Communication Arts
Department Chair, who has overhauled the curriculum. In only his
second year of running the program, White has already achieved
many of the original goals and is in the process of creating bold
new ones.
Advertising Design is in a stage of rapid evolution as White
uses his real-world clout and muscle to build alliances with professionals in the field, gently hooking them into various roles that
include guest teaching, portfolio review and mentorships.
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“I ask for their opinions on our classes, too,” he says. “I sort of
have an outside board of directors [from these companies] who
advise me and with whom I keep up close relations. It works out
well for them, too—they become familiar with what our students
can do, and they’re positioned to get talented interns or to hire a
graduating student to fill their needs when the time comes.”
Having a mandatory intern program provides invaluable ties
to the outside, and having developed such close working relationships with his students, he’s in regular touch with them when
they graduate. Some have already placed with top ad agencies. In
general, he says that there’s been a large increase in number and
quality of placements. “Internships are really trial periods at low
pay, but my students take it seriously. It really is good just to get
in where you want to go, and work hard. Now I’m beginning to
bring back some of my students to tell their stories.”
With its emphasis on real-world relationships, a proactive
internship program and strong leadership, the department is
on course to develop much like the Fashion Department grew
by leaps and bounds over its 20-year history, with perennial,
strategic guidance from the top.
In terms of course structure, the program offers a unique approach that weds advertising and design: Essentially, two years of
design are followed by two years of advertising. “At first I thought
I had to quickly turn my students into ad people, but now I’ve
changed my mind. With my business, it was always better if an
employee had a graphic design background because they had a
more complete skill set.”
With the Foundation and design years as a base, in their
junior year students hit the ground, learning about more traditional advertising—but White says that the giant companies still
work that way, so it’s vital. Come senior year, they work more in
teams, pitching ideas to an agency and exploring other types of
advertising. For instance, a company like Quiksilver doesn’t spend
any money on advertising, so White sets up a scenario to grow
the company’s customer base by other nontraditional means.
Students deal with: What’s the message? The concept? How to
pitch? Then they might work with interactive product designers
and address various challenges: Who’s the audience? What will
the package include? How else to sell the brand and its products?
White covers online advertising, too, but notes that it’s a growing
but still relatively small piece of the pie.
White is impressed with the hard-working, down-to-earth
quality he finds in many Otis students. And, working also as an
advisor, and discussing students with other faculty, he sees a
diverse group that doesn’t sit and rest upon privilege. “There’s
not a lot of ‘Yeah, I’m on my second degree’ or ‘My dad pays for
my schooling’ etc. It’s more like ‘I work 15-30 hours per week,
drive an hour to and from school, and then there’s my regular
workload. I’d say 60-70% of the students are like that—I don’t
remember it being that way when I was in school. They’re a little
humbler, there’s less ego. I’d know ‘cause I remember when it
came to hiring, I’d run into the attitude: ‘I’m so hot you can’t touch
me!’ “At Otis, White sees a proper measure of humility combined
with the drive to work very hard. In the end though, he says that
in the advertising world, agencies hire based on the portfolio
and what it demonstrates about the designer’s ability to deliver
creative solutions in the business world.
Regarding the future of the department, White is clear on
wanting there to be “a waiting line for the students. I want them
all to have jobs ready and waiting for them when they get out—
and at the top agencies. I don’t want to have to cull through my
books and figure out how a particular company can give one of
my students a shot. I want the companies [willingly, hungrily]
coming to us, seeing all the things that Otis has to offer, and
snatching them up.”●
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Feature
Feature
Tricking Them
into Learning
Drawing Inspiration from
Illustrator J.T. Steiny
By George Wolfe
"Shut up, lighten up, and work hard."
That’s the bare-bones message—paradoxical and tongue-incheek as it may be—of professional illustrator, Otis alum (’84) and
teacher J.T. Steiny. Far from being harsh though, J.T. is an amiable,
approachable artist who was once named “Alumnus of the Year”
and now preaches his own brand of creative methodology to
students who enter his classroom.
Every morning, with newspaper and tea beside him at the kitchen
table, he dutifully goes through a first tier of self-imposed studies
in his craft (though sometimes it feels more self-inflicted). “I draw
lines, literally, and cross-hatchings, patterns, whatever,” he says
as he demonstrates, “mixing words with whatever images come
to mind. I work on the steadiness of my hand. It’s one page of
practice. I keep all these sheets bound together, and I often refer
back to them for later cleaning-up and refinement. These are like
conversations with myself. My students don’t always believe
me—at least at first—but creating the things that I do, e.g., an
illustration for the L.A. Weekly, is a practiced thing. I have to keep
up this process up to stay sharp. It’s like priming a pump to keep
the water coming.”
Likewise, J.T. gives out blank “junk books” to all his students
to carry around, 24/7, and doodle in. To him, it mitigates the pressure of producing perfectly finished work. “We all have our people who are staring at us or hanging over our shoulder, keeping
us from doing more original work.” Freed of that nagging presence, students become privy to and conscious of valuable core
ideas and imagery that they’d otherwise forget (e.g., the thoughts
that arise as you’re waking up from sleep). “I stress that there’s
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no ‘bad.’ But it’s hard to communicate that you have to make a
lot of crap and discard it. Students tend to think that it comes out
nice and tidy and polished.” All this becomes the creative fodder
for later brilliance, paying off with handsome rewards in the form
of final projects. Throughout the semester, however, J.T. reviews
each student’s book on a weekly basis.
J.T. is a strong advocate for a customized approach to teaching, leaving the more traditional approach, in general, to other
classes. “A lot of schools start by teaching from the outside in,
i.e., these are the materials … blue is cool, red is warm, etc. I like
to start on the inside, and work out from there. Even so, each
group of students is unique, and you have to custom-tailor your
methods to meet their particular needs. Essentially, I don’t believe
there should be any one set standard to teach to all students and
classes.”
Apart from being taught about mining their own psychological caverns, the students are given collective illustration assignments, in which they must solve real-world projects—say, a
magazine headline with an article—and must conceptualize and
execute a visual to go with it. Crits reveal the work and foster discussions about each student’s choices. “Sometimes,” says Steiny,
“there’s shyness or an unwillingness to open up. But I really try
to nudge them outside themselves, out of their shells or social
cliques, and get them to realize: ‘Hey, it’s not so bad, even to see
something fail and feel humiliated.’ In every part of my classes, I
try to make it feel like it’s not a chore. My ultimate goal is to trick
them into learning by virtue of it being a fun pastime.”
Self-promotion is another area where artists often feel discomfort. But marketing oneself becomes more of an issue as students
approach graduation. “At some point they’ll have to talk about
themselves,” he says, “which doesn’t always come naturally,
but it’s important. With clients, it’ll become essential. In our final
projects, they make all aspects of an actual book which becomes
part of their portfolios. It’s not just about making the book—we
venture into marketing and merchandizing those books, too, and
I get them to prepare postcard mailers adorned with postage
stamps with their own work on them, via services like Zazzle. At
the same time, I have the students build their own website. These
days, sure, you need to know how to draw to be an illustrator, but
that’s only 50% of it. Like it or not, marketing is key.”
The marketplace has certainly changed in the 20-odd years
since Steiny was a student. He perceives the trend whereby a lot
of illustrators cross over into other areas and become savvy working in various mediums. So there’s less separation now between
illustrators and other practitioners of visual arts (apart from fine
arts, which tends to be more exclusive). There used to be a lot of
newspaper work, but now a lot of it is filled in-house or through
clip art. In short, budding illustrators must be resourceful and
flexible, becoming conscious of their own style and voice—their
personal brand—in order to entice prospective employers to take
advantage of their skills. Another change is that now, more than
ever, things come and go much quicker. Ad campaigns, movies,
and publications come into being, then vanish just as quickly, so
students must learn to be responsive and act quickly.
Cutting through all of Steiny’s teaching work is the above-andbeyond-the-call-of-duty notion that he’s trying to develop, in a
gestalt-like way, in each student, “a sense of contentment within
themselves.” If only we all had someone nurturing us in that way,
we’d be truly richer indeed. ●
Above: J.T. Steiny (‘84) Grammy Poster
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Chris Diaz (‘05), Kustom Sandals
John McDonald (‘91), Decor Craft package design
CommArts Alumni in
Elftherios Kardamakis (‘94),
Lucky Magazine
Ed Engle (‘88), Budweiser Billboard
Robbie Buzus (‘02), Autry Museum
Sergio Leone Identity
Kio Griffith (‘86) Spiritual Garden cd packaging
Blaine Fontana (‘02), DirtBike
Hillary Jaye (‘90), Flyaway Bus
In Sung Kim (‘97), Chinatown Wayfinding
Amber Howard (‘03), “Seed And Sprout” web site
the Professional World
Heather Van Haaften (‘88), Butthole Surfers Album
Silas Hickey (‘91), United Nations
Lighting Project, Tokyo
Robert Fisher (‘89), Beck Album
Robert Fishe (‘89), Nirvana Album
Brian Jones (‘04) You Can’t Milk
a Dancing Cow illustrations
Graduates design web sites, billboards, environmental
graphics, catalogues, posters, album covers, wayfinding
graphics, magazines, packaging, and products.
Mark Leroy (‘93), Eminem Album
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Megan Morgan (‘04), MOCA Products
Mark Caneso (‘05), Geffen Playhouse
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1
Students Redefine the Art of the Book
Book: " writing-tablet, leaf, or sheet," meaning " tree with eatable fruit;" thought to be
etymlogically connected with the name of the beech-tree, suggesting that inscriptions
were first made on beech tablets, or cut in the bark of beech trees.
2
3
1
5
3
4
2
4
5
With funding from the Fletcher Jones Foundation, which supported faculty development through Otis’ Teaching and Learning
Center (TLC), Communication Arts faculty members Rebecca
Chamlee (‘85) Associate Chair Barbara Maloutas (‘02 MFA),
and Lab Press Manager Linda Dare attended the “Action/Interaction: Book/Arts” conference last June in Chicago at Columbia
College’s Center for Book and Paper Arts. Read Chamlee’s report
at http://tlc.otis.edu/Faculty%20Development/chamlee.html
1 Dark by Erin Fleiner (‘09)
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2 Aesop by Matthew Müller (‘07)
3 Andrew Lewicki by Brooklyn Brown (‘07)
4 Forming by Mike Pargas (‘09)
5 Luck by Erica Gibson (‘09)
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otis monitor
otis monitor
Dissolving Space with Light
Aiming High, Swinging Low in Harlem
Robert Irwin at San Diego's Museum of Contemporary Art
Alison Saar's Tubman Sculpture
By Scarlet Cheng, Liberal Arts & Sciences Faculty Member
By George Wolfe
California’s Light and Space Movement, like
many of the region’s creative exports, changed
the course of art in the 20th century. These artists
devoted themselves to exploring visual perception and phenomena. By minimizing the object
and maximizing its experiential qualities, they
sometimes dissolved space altogether. Robert
Irwin (‘50), one of the leaders of this seminal
movement, studied at Otis in the 1950s, when
the school was in downtown Los Angeles.
Recently the Museum of Contemporary
Art in San Diego (MCASD) honored Irwin with
a five-decade retrospective, “Robert Irwin:
Primaries and Secondaries”—or what Museum
director and exhibition curator Hugh Davies
likes to refer to as “a career survey.” Irwin has
lived in San Diego since 1990, and this is his
first show there. “We have been building a
very significant collection of Irwin’s work over
the last 30 years,” says Davies. “We feel he’s
THE founder of the California Light and Space
movement.” Davies maintains that Irwin’s early
now-famous discs—pieces mounted on the wall
from which light emanated or upon which light
was projected—“were already Light and Space
pieces.”(interview with the author, November
2007)
The show is a wonderful opportunity to
see some of Irwin’s early work. He started as a
painter, and upstairs in one of MCASD’s buildings are a dozen works from the late 1950s and
early 1960s. Several of these paintings reflect the
artist’s second-generation Abstract Expressionist
roots; paint is laid on thickly and energetically.
Soon he began moving toward a more reductive
aesthetic, making line paintings and dot paintings more in keeping with Minimalism. In particular, his series of large tonal paintings seem
a natural bridge to his Light and Space work. In
these paintings, he was already creating fields of
light, wonderfully meditative works that one can
lose oneself in while still being boundaried by
the confines of the canvas. Indeed, as Irwin says
in a recent interview (with the author, November
2007), “One day I looked around and I realized
that there are no frames in the world. You are in
this wonderful changing envelope.”
So he worked to get rid of the frames, and
has focused on sculptural and installation works
ever since. Among these early “unframed”
works is Untitled, 1969, a three-dimensional disc
of semi-transparent acrylic mounted onto the
wall at eye-level. A horizontal silver band runs
across the middle of this disc, which seems to
be glowing from within.
Once Irwin had abandoned the frame, he
began to experiment with dissolving space
altogether in large-scale, site-specific installations. Across the street in MCASD’s Jacobs
Building, a renovated Santa Fe Depot, are five
monumental installations. Four were created for
these dramatic spaces, and one, Who’s Afraid of
Red, Yellow & Blue3, is an expanded version of a
piece shown in 2006 at Pace Wildenstein Gallery,
N.Y. Here Irwin borrows honeycomb aluminum,
an industrial material fabricated to be rigid and
light, like cardboard. The work is made up of
giant enameled panels – three large squares
in red, yellow, and blue that lie on the cement
floor, paired with squares of the same, hung
about 16 feet above the corresponding pieces.
The title derives from an Edward Albee
play, which in turn is taken from that familiar
chant “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” in the
children’s nursery story. Davies points out that
in the mid-1960s, Barnett Newman gave himself
the challenge of using the primary colors, and
“Irwin is trying to acknowledge a similar concern.” The artist has placed “three planes of color
above the line of sight and three below the line
of sight,” creating what the curator thinks of as
“pure Platonic spaces.” These polished surfaces
reflect the surroundings, so that as natural light
pours into this cavernous room throughout the
day, the installation changes its appearance.
On the expansive north wall of the building,
Light and Space (2007) is an especially staggering piece, made up of two- and four-foot-long
fluorescent tubes. They are hung singly and in
pairs at right angles to one another, and the wall
glows with the blinding intensity of their collective lumens. Viewers feel like moths to a flame
before this monumental radiance.
Editor’s note: Irwin’s seminal influence as an
artist is undisputed. As an educator, his graduate students at University of California, Irvine
included Ed Ruscha, Larry Bell, Vija Celmins, and
Alexis Smith. As he explains, ”I helped them
figure out what they wanted to do. The misassumption is that we are going to educate them
as to what has been art, in the end we need
them to learn to be their own teachers, their
own taskmasters.” ●
Photography by Philipp Scholz Rittermann, courtesy of
San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art.
OMAG 14
Manhattan’s public art honors dogs more
frequently than it does women (and even then
mostly fictional women). How could artist Alison
Saar (‘81, MFA) resist the call for a project about
Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad?
Having been through the public art wringer
on previous jobs, Saar was hesitant to jump
back into that realm. Nevertheless, last fall,
some four years since the call went out for
sculptors to tackle the subject matter and pitch
proposals, Saar found herself putting the finishing touches on her Tubman sculpture in Harlem
(or “SoHa”/South Harlem, as they say), in what
is now referred to as Harriet Tubman Square
(though, technically, it’s in a traffic triangle).
Hard as it is to believe, Saar’s work represents
the first public monument in New York City dedicated to an African-American woman.
“What attracted me was her phenomenal
spirit,” says Saar. “We all know her as a person
who freed slaves, but she was also a nurse and
a spy, and she took responsibility for the people
she freed, creating a school for children and
creating retirement homes for ex-slaves. At first,
the budget sounded great—but you just don’t
figure it’ll take so many years of your life!”
Between 2003 and 2007, there were a dizzying number of issues to contend with from
various agencies, community members and
regional officials. Would the bronze roots coming off the lower portion of Tubman pose an
impalement or strangulation threat to neighborhood kids? How to design the sculpture so that
thieves wouldn’t be able to cut off and steal thin
portions of the bronze? What are the implications of Tubman facing the South (which is what
the triangular location suggested) or the North
(where there happened to be a jail)?
Saar claims that for certain intense periods
during the process, she’d have anxiety dreams: a
coral snake getting loose and chasing her; later,
a python slowly wrapping itself around her; and
still later, a tiger running amok—all manifestations of the Tubman project-related entities she
grappled with. But neither having artworld
parents (former faculty member Betye Saar, and
painter/art conservator Richard Saar) nor going
to art school could fully prepare her for all the
issues she would encounter along the public art
path.
“Only a handful of people do public art,” says
Saar, “because it takes so much out of you. Once
you do one project, though still daunting, you
know the ropes and it’s easier—until then, it’s
very difficult to get into that world.”
Saar cast Tubman in bronze, as the
Underground Railroad train itself, an unstoppable locomotive chugging hard and steady
all her 93 years. The cast sculpture, more than
13-feet tall and 12-feet long, shows Tubman
emerging from woods (oak trees) beside a river
(reconfigured subway grating) and coming on
full steam. The ruffle of her petticoat acts as a
cattle guard, pushing all resistance aside. The
torn roots behind her skirt symbolize both the
pulling up of roots by the slaves who had to
leave everything behind and Tubman’s uprooting
of the slavery system itself. From the surface of
her full skirt, small mask-like faces press through
the folds of the fabric, representing the more
than 300 people she led to freedom. The skirt is
also embellished with worn shoe soles, roots,
cowry shells and other items carried by the
slaves to the North.
The sculpture sits upon a granite ‘outcropping’ trimmed with bronze tiles that alternate
between geometric and biographical information. The geometric tiles depict traditional
patterns of the Freedom Quilts, believed by
some to have been used as signals along the
Underground Railroad. The biographical tiles are
done in an appliqué style, illustrating events in
Tubman’s life. Children and others visit the site
and make keepsake rubbings from the tiles.
Landscape designer Mark Bunnell transformed the mundane traffic median into a
handsome and tranquil refuge, utilizing richly
toned pavers and roughly hewn granite to create a natural setting. Plantings of species native
to both New York and Tubman’s home state
of Maryland represent the terrain traveled by
Tubman and her passengers. The plaza is framed
with granite seating and curbing that bears the
famous freedom spiritual words: We need not
always weep and mourn, O let my people go;
And wear these silvery chains forlorn, O let my
people go.
“Since I’m not exactly a representational
artist, I worried about how to present Tubman.
There are only a few known images of her from
when she was in her ‘70s or ‘80s. At one point,
someone on the arts committee encouraged me
to ‘do what you need to do; don’t compromise
on your image.’ That was nice: A lot of times
it’s the other way around. In the end, [Tubman]
was a mixture of how I envisioned her (within
my own style) and how she might’ve actually
looked.”
Given all the difficulties Saar faced, would
she take on more public art projects? “If there
was a call that was particularly interesting,
maybe, but I don’t really see a public art project
for me in the near future.” But in some ways
she understands it’s like childbirth: After enough
time passes, you forget all the pain, and the next
thing you know you’re at it again. “In hindsight,”
Saar says, sighing and smiling, “I was pleased
with how it ended up. The difficulties are all
relatively petty and silly when compared to what
someone like Tubman endured.” ●
15 OMAG
otis monitor
otis monitor
Art Together Now:
Right: Felix Gonzales-Torres installation
at the American Pavilion
Left: Meg Cranston at the American Pavilion
Why the Venice Biennale Matters
By Meg Cranston, Professor of Fine Arts
I was sitting at the rooftop restaurant of Venice’s
Hotel Danieli­—the nerve center for art world
luminaries who had come to the Biennale as
the first stop on the grand tour of last summer’s
mega exhibitions, including Documenta, the
Munster Sculpture project, and the Basel Art
Fair. One after the other, art dealers (with an
occasional millionaire artist) wandered onto the
terrace to eat and complain. On the day after the
opening, the verdicts were in: The show’s main
exhibitions in the Giardini pavilions were hohum, the group show in the Italian pavilion was
too conservative (read too much painting or too
much like Chelsea), and the Arsenale exhibition
was dull (read full of political art). All in all, these
self-anointed judges declared the 2007 Biennale
a disaster, and many were tickled to add that
they’d heard Documenta was “even worse.”
Dreary as that sounds, I took certain comfort
in knowing that the connoisseurs were as vigilant, cranky and hard to please as ever. If they
voted the show a unanimous winner, I’d be nervous. By being choosy, difficult and more than
a little mean, they were doing their important
time-honored job of being snobs. Their presence
(however unseen) assured the ordinary art-loving crowds—teeming into the vaporetti to pay
20 euros for Biennale entry—that they had come
to the right place. I, too, was invigorated by their
discontent. The gods were in their heaven and
disappointment was in the air!
Part of the success of the Venice Biennale
comes from this displeasure. It succeeds in
drawing large numbers of visitors despite the
often rather lackluster showing by individual artists, and it is generally a reliable predictor of an
artist’s standing and/or future success. Overall,
what the show lacks in masterpieces it gains in
indicating something of the general atmosphere
of art and its current place in the larger social
context.
The works themselves should not be judged
as they would be in museums or galleries. In
those contexts, we typically view the work as
relatively independent of its context (we don’t
usually judge a museum show based on what is
being served in the cafeteria), but in Venice the
surrounding has a profound effect on how we
understand the work. How we understand the
art at Venice and, to an even greater degree at
outdoor exhibitions like the Munster Sculpture
Project, is profoundly affected by how we
experience the city, the season and the crowd.
The big international exhibitions (especially on
the opening days) are total events where the
experience in one area colors one’s critique of
the next. They are not places for an isolated
contemplative artistic experience, but the chance
to have a collective experience in a highly
OMAG 16
structured context—to view art with the often
tired, hungry and impatient crowd.
Each exhibition in the Biennale should, then,
be considered in terms of how it addresses that
audience—how it functions as part of the greater
spectacle, the greater social (albeit temporary)
system which in turn models its effectiveness in
the “outside world.” The most effective artworks
in shows like the Venice Biennale, Munster or
Documenta are not necessarily those that provide the most profound artistic experience but
instead those that seem most sensitive to their
surrounding, those works that self-consciously
use the context to model the current potential
for art.
Using those criteria, I formed a very unpopular opinion that the best pavilion in the Biennale
was the American, exhibiting the work of Felix
Gonzalez-Torres. Some critics condemned the
selection of Gonzalez-Torres because they felt
that the pavilion should display work by one of
many deserving living artists. (Gonzalez-Torres
died in 1996.) Others objected to the curators’
distortedly meek version of Gonzalez-Torres’
work, asserting that the exhibition did a disservice to an artist associated with activism
and outrage.
Both criticisms have merit and are connected
to what made the American pavilion impressive.
Its relative modesty—a small number of works
in a fairly small building (a kitsch mini-version
of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello) made it significant in the context of a Biennale full of works
satirizing the hubris of the United States. In
cosmopolitan Europe, many view the USA as an
outsized monster set on destroying the world.
Gonzalez-Torres’ deceptively simple work
gave the United States Pavilion—and, metaphorically, the nation it represents—a quality
of frank plainness long associated with the
American character but sorely missing from its
current politics. With Gonzalez-Torres’ iconic
string of lights slung unceremoniously across
the entrance and, on the day I was there, a slight
drizzle in the air, the pavilion seemed slumped
in resignation. Adding to that general quality of
exhaustion were stacks of Gonzalez-Torres’ giveaway posters with the simple imprinted texts,
“Memorial Day Sale” and “Veterans Day Sale.”
Tourists in flip-flops grabbed the freebies
from stacks that were continually replenished by
dutiful gallery workers. Seeing the posters later
stuffed in trashcans along the leafy lanes of the
Giardini did little to allay the somber message
of the exhibition. Framed by current politics and
the fact that the artist was one of the hundreds
of thousands of Americans to die of AIDS, visitors got the rather heartbreaking feeling that
America is a nation worn out by illness, greed
and constant war. (I, and other Americans I
spoke to, got that feeling.)
The American Pavilion was effective not
because it hosted a great Felix Gonzalez-Torres
show but because the show was particularly
suited to its context. Its political message was
staged effectively (if inadvertently). The two
group exhibitions curated by Biennale director Robert Storr in the Italian Pavilion and the
Arsenale, though full of interesting works,
were less impressive because of their failure
to achieve the proportions suited to the mass
event.
Storr’s hanging of the Italian pavilion was a
mishmash. There was a lot of painting by very
prominent painters and various other seemingly “important” things tossed in willy-nilly. I
went through the show with artist friends. We all
sensed a familiar problem—a curator afraid to
be himself. Robert Storr is a painter, and clearly
painting is his great love. I wished he had more
courage to be what he seems to want to be—a
painter/curator with a great love of painters
of a certain time and place. Why bother having curators if they can’t be one-sided? Equal
opportunity curation is always a bore. I vote for
partisan curating 100%. If Storr wanted to stage
a battle of the painting titans (Richter, Polke, etc.)
he should have delivered on that and accepted
the consequences.
Perhaps paradoxically, Storr is also a
passionately political man, which led to his
selection for the Arsenale exhibition that some
described simply as bad news. Nearly every
work in the show referenced political and social
injustice somewhere in the world. The effect was
disorientating. There was so much bad news that
it had the disturbing effect of making some of
the somber works seem like parodies. A case in
point was a video of a young boy playing soccer
with a human skull. The jaded opening crowd
imagined a mash-up with Damien Hirst—a boy
playing soccer with a diamond-crusted skull.
Political work in the Biennale is there
because curators see the event as an opportunity to expose the greatest number of people
to urgent issues. The logic sounds good but
it doesn’t work. Political work is extremely
sensitive to location and to its surroundings.
The more the cacophony grows, the easier it
is to dismiss the message. Political art, like all
art, depends to some degree on the element of
surprise, but in the Arsenale, as work after work
hit the same note of alarm, viewers (like me)
became quickly immune to the message.
One suspects that few left the exhibition with
their minds changed on any topic. However,
that may not have been the goal. The works in
the Arsenale were, in a sense, endorsements
for a way of working—a trend in contemporary
art practice that Storr supports. What will likely
happen now is that the artists he selected for the
show will be given other opportunities by other
curators. As a result of their participation in the
Biennale, these artists will have the chance to
make their point elsewhere in smaller, more
focused exhibitions. That would be a successful
outcome for what appeared to be an unsuccessful exhibition.
Big international shows like the Venice
Biennale usually fall short of expectations.
The work of hundreds of artists strewn across
several acres doesn’t have the same impact as
a more narrowly conceived exhibition outside
the biennale context. Art doesn’t do particularly
well in a festival atmosphere. If asked, most
artists would rather not compete for the audience’s attention with the snack shop, especially
if it serves beer. Art is never shown to its best
advantage in that context, but the international
festival style shows are important. Although
they fail to do anything as specific as giving a
satisfying aesthetic experience, they succeed in
reminding viewers that having such an experience is truly important. All the people, all the
hassle, and all the complaints are necessary to
make that point. We make the journey and put
up with it all because it is a way to ritualistically
confirm that art matters. When 300,000 people
visit a show over three months, as happens in
Venice, the audience consecrates the site of art. ●
“Nearly every work in the show
referenced political and social
injustice somewhere in the world.”
17 OMAG
otis monitor
college news
Nothing Moments: Holding onto a Whale
Renewing
the Canon
Celebrating writing, art, and design equally
By Annie Buckley (‘03 MFA)
Sometimes, in the middle of a very long stretch
of writing, the process feels like trying to hold
onto a whale—elusive and too big to handle, but
filled with a curiosity and wonder that keeps me
going. Working with artists Steven Hull and Tami
Demaree (MFA, ’03) and designer Jon Sueda
on the art/literature/design hybrid, “Nothing
Moments,” was a similar experience.
What fascinates me most about this project
is its potentially impossible insistence on placing literature, art, and design on a level playing
field. Rather than position design in the service
of text, or art in the service of story, this series
of books and art seeks to celebrate writing, art,
and design equally within one whole; both
process and result are dependent on the ability to see beyond established boundaries and
hierarchies.
In the summer of 2006, I received an email
from fellow Otis grad, Tami Demaree. It read
something along the lines of “send me your
stories, now!!!” with the kind of enthusiasm
generally reserved for coveted concert tickets,
not unpublished fiction. I attached my manuscript, pressed send, and hoped for the best.
Later that summer, Tami replied that she
and Steven wanted to publish my stories and
explained the gist of the “Nothing Moments”
project. First, writers write fiction, then artists
make drawings inspired by the stories, and
finally, designers create an original book design
from these elements. I was intrigued and offered
to help read the mounting pile of manuscripts
submitted to the project.
Over the next few months, I collaborated
with Tami, Steven, and Jon on reading manuscripts, communicating with participants,
checking proofs, and found myself composing
my own emails to writers—filled with dates
and deadlines, if decidedly less flair. Slowly but
surely, the project came together.
What was originally conceived of as a few
books, inspired by the relay-like process of
Steven’s previous projects, eventually grew into
a series of 24 books that included the contributions of 101 writers, artists, and designers.
The size of the group added to the project’s
steadfast resistance to categorization by style,
discipline, or venue. You can find the project
on the ever-accessible Amazon as well as in a
gallery, and no one person or vision dictated the
type of fiction, art, or design to include. Rather,
the series is defined by the contributions of
all the participants, producing an amalgam of
options that would not likely be found within
a traditional editorial format.
The results challenge widely accepted
notions predicating a singular style or position
in favor of the more unwieldy and multifarious
chorus of voices. If it sounds utopic, it is in a
way, with attendant frustrations and imperfections; both participants and organizers gave up
a certain amount of control over the outcome.
But the push-and-pull of working with so many
people on one project created a multi-handed
organism—or perhaps a metaphorical whale—
for readers and viewers to determine how and
in what context to hold.
Editor’s Note: “Nothing Moments” consists
of 24 limited-edition books and more than 400
original drawings by 101 artists, designers
and writers. In October 2007, the project was
shown at Steve Turner Contemporary in L.A.
and launched at MOCA at the Pacific Design
Center. It has been shown in San Francisco
and Dallas, and will travel to Chicago. Other
Otis participants in the “Nothing Moments”
project are Graduate Fine Arts faculty members
Renee Petropoulos and Benjamin Weissman;
Communication Arts faculty members Yasmin
Khan and Penny Pehl; LAS faculty member
Marsha Hopkins (‘97, ‘04 MFA), and alumni
Jesse Benson: (’03 MFA), Tami Demaree (’03
MFA), Jacob Melchi (’03 MFA),and Colin Roberts
(’01) Rheana Rafferty now Wilson (’05 MFA
Writing), and Mary Younakof (’06 MFA). ●
Graduate Writing Chair
Paul Vangelisti interviews
Antonio Riccardi in October
2007, as part of the Graduate Writing Program's
Visiting Writers Series
1
Antonio Riccardi was born in Parma in 1962. He
graduated in philosophy from the University of
Pavia and went to work for Arnoldo Mondadori
Publishing in Milan, where today he is editor in
chief of Mondadori Libri, the company’s book
division. He is the author of two collections of
poetry, Il profitto domestico (1996) and Gli impianti del dovere e della guerra (2004), and is also
the editor of classic editions of Giordano Bruno’s
Candelaio and Cena delle Ceneri. Most recently, with
Maurizio Cucchi, Riccardi edited the anthology
of young Italian poets, Nuovissima poesia italiana
(2004), for Mondadori.
PV: Directly after finishing a degree in philosophy, you went to work in the publishing
1 Antonio Riccardi and Paul Vangelisti
2 Alex Coles
1
business for Arnoldo Mondadori, where you
have been for more than sixteen years. How
deliberate was this choice?
AR: Like many other lovers of literature before
me, I wanted to be intimately involved in the making and selling of books. So I had the opportunity
to start with Mondadori, and I have been there
ever since. I think my various duties with different
aspects of book publishing—for instance, directing the paperback great classics called the Oscar
series—have kept me close to my original passion
for writing. Sometimes publishers forget that the
primary reason they were compelled to take up
such a complex profession in the first place was
their personal love for literature.
PV: You have gone from editorial assistant to
editor in chief of one of the most prestigious,
and certainly largest, Italian publishing houses
while working at the poet’s craft the entire time.
What’s the difference between then and now?
AR: As a poet, there is not a lot of difference.
Writing poetry was for me in the early 1990s
about as impossibly difficult an undertaking as
it is now. As an editor, I have come to realize
that publishing, on the scale of a company like
Mondadori, is also a very difficult job, principally
because of the dynamic demands of literature and
business—which aren’t always easily reconcilable.
Publishing is, after all, a business, and one would
be irresponsible to ignore that. One, however,
remains optimistic of being able to influence and
ultimately steer business decisions in the direction
of what is significant and lasting in literature, not
just what is immediately marketable or novel.
2
PV: Defining or redefining a classic is a big cultural responsibility. Can you hazard a definition
of a ”classic”?
AR: It’s not simple, because a classic has basically
to do with a canon that is not so much determined
by a critic or publisher. The definition of a canon
is tied intrinsically to the sensibility of an age,
and it seems to me that the publisher’s job is to
give editorial substance to this sensibility. Each
generation reads literature in a different way, and
it can’t be denied that an age’s sensibility modifies the definition of the canon, demanding that
the publisher make available books of particular
significance for his or her own time.
PV: How important, in this respect, is
translation?
AR: Very much, extremely so. Mondadori’s Oscar
series, for instance, from its debut in 1965 with
Hemingway’s Addio alle armi (A Farewell to Arms),
has always paid close attention to translation.
We rediscover or replace translations when they
are obsolete: Editing translations is one of the
most critical and time-consuming aspects of our
publishing. I think that one of the main duties
of a large and important publishing house like
Mondadori is to take particular care of its catalog,
to offer new and older generations of readers the
most important books. Precisely because sensibilities change and translations are of vital importance, it’s only fitting that a publishing house is
constantly in the process of renewing itself. ●
DesignArt
Alumna Annie Buckley
interviews Fine Arts Chair
Alex Coles
2
Annie Buckley: You arrived in Los Angeles fairly
recently. What draws you to the city?
Alex Coles: I’ve visited LA numerous times in
the past. I think it was on my first visit in 1998
that I saw the work of Jorge Pardo. From there
I became interested in LA artists and visited a
number of times in the intervening years in order
to interview artists. In 2005, I wrote a book called
DesignArt (Tate Publishing, 2005) that focused on
the work of many of these Los Angeles artists. So
it was principally the artists, and the energy the
artists created in the city, that brought me here.
I had been looking to move here for a while and
this [Fine Arts Chair] seemed like the appropriate
job for me.
AB: So what attracts you to Otis in particular?
AC: Though it started as a fine arts school and
added design disciplines later, I was interested in
today’s reality, in the fact that this is a college primarily led by the design majors. With my interest
OMAG 18
19 OMAG
otis monitor
college news
Nothing Moments: Holding onto a Whale
Renewing
the Canon
Celebrating writing, art, and design equally
By Annie Buckley (‘03 MFA)
Sometimes, in the middle of a very long stretch
of writing, the process feels like trying to hold
onto a whale—elusive and too big to handle, but
filled with a curiosity and wonder that keeps me
going. Working with artists Steven Hull and Tami
Demaree (MFA, ’03) and designer Jon Sueda
on the art/literature/design hybrid, “Nothing
Moments,” was a similar experience.
What fascinates me most about this project
is its potentially impossible insistence on placing literature, art, and design on a level playing
field. Rather than position design in the service
of text, or art in the service of story, this series
of books and art seeks to celebrate writing, art,
and design equally within one whole; both
process and result are dependent on the ability to see beyond established boundaries and
hierarchies.
In the summer of 2006, I received an email
from fellow Otis grad, Tami Demaree. It read
something along the lines of “send me your
stories, now!!!” with the kind of enthusiasm
generally reserved for coveted concert tickets,
not unpublished fiction. I attached my manuscript, pressed send, and hoped for the best.
Later that summer, Tami replied that she
and Steven wanted to publish my stories and
explained the gist of the “Nothing Moments”
project. First, writers write fiction, then artists
make drawings inspired by the stories, and
finally, designers create an original book design
from these elements. I was intrigued and offered
to help read the mounting pile of manuscripts
submitted to the project.
Over the next few months, I collaborated
with Tami, Steven, and Jon on reading manuscripts, communicating with participants,
checking proofs, and found myself composing
my own emails to writers—filled with dates
and deadlines, if decidedly less flair. Slowly but
surely, the project came together.
What was originally conceived of as a few
books, inspired by the relay-like process of
Steven’s previous projects, eventually grew into
a series of 24 books that included the contributions of 101 writers, artists, and designers.
The size of the group added to the project’s
steadfast resistance to categorization by style,
discipline, or venue. You can find the project
on the ever-accessible Amazon as well as in a
gallery, and no one person or vision dictated the
type of fiction, art, or design to include. Rather,
the series is defined by the contributions of
all the participants, producing an amalgam of
options that would not likely be found within
a traditional editorial format.
The results challenge widely accepted
notions predicating a singular style or position
in favor of the more unwieldy and multifarious
chorus of voices. If it sounds utopic, it is in a
way, with attendant frustrations and imperfections; both participants and organizers gave up
a certain amount of control over the outcome.
But the push-and-pull of working with so many
people on one project created a multi-handed
organism—or perhaps a metaphorical whale—
for readers and viewers to determine how and
in what context to hold.
Editor’s Note: “Nothing Moments” consists
of 24 limited-edition books and more than 400
original drawings by 101 artists, designers
and writers. In October 2007, the project was
shown at Steve Turner Contemporary in L.A.
and launched at MOCA at the Pacific Design
Center. It has been shown in San Francisco
and Dallas, and will travel to Chicago. Other
Otis participants in the “Nothing Moments”
project are Graduate Fine Arts faculty members
Renee Petropoulos and Benjamin Weissman;
Communication Arts faculty members Yasmin
Khan and Penny Pehl; LAS faculty member
Marsha Hopkins (‘97, ‘04 MFA), and alumni
Jesse Benson: (’03 MFA), Tami Demaree (’03
MFA), Jacob Melchi (’03 MFA),and Colin Roberts
(’01) Rheana Rafferty now Wilson (’05 MFA
Writing), and Mary Younakof (’06 MFA). ●
Graduate Writing Chair
Paul Vangelisti interviews
Antonio Riccardi in October
2007, as part of the Graduate Writing Program's
Visiting Writers Series
1
Antonio Riccardi was born in Parma in 1962. He
graduated in philosophy from the University of
Pavia and went to work for Arnoldo Mondadori
Publishing in Milan, where today he is editor in
chief of Mondadori Libri, the company’s book
division. He is the author of two collections of
poetry, Il profitto domestico (1996) and Gli impianti del dovere e della guerra (2004), and is also
the editor of classic editions of Giordano Bruno’s
Candelaio and Cena delle Ceneri. Most recently, with
Maurizio Cucchi, Riccardi edited the anthology
of young Italian poets, Nuovissima poesia italiana
(2004), for Mondadori.
PV: Directly after finishing a degree in philosophy, you went to work in the publishing
1 Antonio Riccardi and Paul Vangelisti
2 Alex Coles
1
business for Arnoldo Mondadori, where you
have been for more than sixteen years. How
deliberate was this choice?
AR: Like many other lovers of literature before
me, I wanted to be intimately involved in the making and selling of books. So I had the opportunity
to start with Mondadori, and I have been there
ever since. I think my various duties with different
aspects of book publishing—for instance, directing the paperback great classics called the Oscar
series—have kept me close to my original passion
for writing. Sometimes publishers forget that the
primary reason they were compelled to take up
such a complex profession in the first place was
their personal love for literature.
PV: You have gone from editorial assistant to
editor in chief of one of the most prestigious,
and certainly largest, Italian publishing houses
while working at the poet’s craft the entire time.
What’s the difference between then and now?
AR: As a poet, there is not a lot of difference.
Writing poetry was for me in the early 1990s
about as impossibly difficult an undertaking as
it is now. As an editor, I have come to realize
that publishing, on the scale of a company like
Mondadori, is also a very difficult job, principally
because of the dynamic demands of literature and
business—which aren’t always easily reconcilable.
Publishing is, after all, a business, and one would
be irresponsible to ignore that. One, however,
remains optimistic of being able to influence and
ultimately steer business decisions in the direction
of what is significant and lasting in literature, not
just what is immediately marketable or novel.
2
PV: Defining or redefining a classic is a big cultural responsibility. Can you hazard a definition
of a ”classic”?
AR: It’s not simple, because a classic has basically
to do with a canon that is not so much determined
by a critic or publisher. The definition of a canon
is tied intrinsically to the sensibility of an age,
and it seems to me that the publisher’s job is to
give editorial substance to this sensibility. Each
generation reads literature in a different way, and
it can’t be denied that an age’s sensibility modifies the definition of the canon, demanding that
the publisher make available books of particular
significance for his or her own time.
PV: How important, in this respect, is
translation?
AR: Very much, extremely so. Mondadori’s Oscar
series, for instance, from its debut in 1965 with
Hemingway’s Addio alle armi (A Farewell to Arms),
has always paid close attention to translation.
We rediscover or replace translations when they
are obsolete: Editing translations is one of the
most critical and time-consuming aspects of our
publishing. I think that one of the main duties
of a large and important publishing house like
Mondadori is to take particular care of its catalog,
to offer new and older generations of readers the
most important books. Precisely because sensibilities change and translations are of vital importance, it’s only fitting that a publishing house is
constantly in the process of renewing itself. ●
DesignArt
Alumna Annie Buckley
interviews Fine Arts Chair
Alex Coles
2
Annie Buckley: You arrived in Los Angeles fairly
recently. What draws you to the city?
Alex Coles: I’ve visited LA numerous times in
the past. I think it was on my first visit in 1998
that I saw the work of Jorge Pardo. From there
I became interested in LA artists and visited a
number of times in the intervening years in order
to interview artists. In 2005, I wrote a book called
DesignArt (Tate Publishing, 2005) that focused on
the work of many of these Los Angeles artists. So
it was principally the artists, and the energy the
artists created in the city, that brought me here.
I had been looking to move here for a while and
this [Fine Arts Chair] seemed like the appropriate
job for me.
AB: So what attracts you to Otis in particular?
AC: Though it started as a fine arts school and
added design disciplines later, I was interested in
today’s reality, in the fact that this is a college primarily led by the design majors. With my interest
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college news
in artists who engage with design, I hoped that
Fine Arts could strike up a relationship, which it
had lacked in the past, with these other programs
in the college such as architecture and graphic
design. That was a big attraction.
AB: How do you see your interest in ‘designart’
influencing your decisions about curriculum and
faculty as chair of Fine Art?
AC: There are a number of things. The first was
that we introduced a new elective for Spring ’08
that has to do with the relationship of fine art to
design, principally 3D design. This will be the first
time at Otis that Fine Arts students will get to use
materials, processes, and technologies that have
previously been the province of design majors. It
will investigate the overlap between disciplines
thematically and theoretically, but practically as
well. We’ll do a series of workshops and lectures,
and I hope to establish this course as part of the
new curriculum. Photography, among other fine
arts, will actively pursue this engagement with
other disciplines, and I think those things will
constitute a shift in the department.
AB: Tell me more about what you mean by ‘designart’? Is it a fusion of art and design, a branch
of art history, or how do you see it?
AC: It’s been a number of things. What some
people have attempted to do is to make it a fusion.
For me, it’s something that practitioners from different disciplines can do together, gathering in a
think tank-type situation to pool their ideas, skills,
and resources, and from that to generate a new
form of practice. The result would emerge from
the various disciplines, but would not belong to
any one discipline in particular. About ten years
ago, designers interfaced with art as a fashion for
a while, and designers have just now created a
new fashion for arty-looking design. My hope is
that we won’t just repeat either of those things,
but generate something new.
AB: As art overlaps with other disciplines—
in particular those that rely on a marketable
product—there is a danger of losing the essence
of art, its independence and/or potential for
rebellion. For example, designers work for
clients whereas artists do not. How might you
help students navigate this tricky terrain?
AC: I think there’s a naïve supposition that artists
work freely and independently, whereas designers work for clients. But I think if you go back
to the Renaissance, that was not true, and it’s no
longer true today. For instance, an artist’s dealer
and collectors and curators are, in a way, the artist’s clients. It’s a more expansive definition of
what a “client” can mean. This connects with the
way that art is made too; the processes by which
much art is made are similar to design processes,
where things are designed on a computer and
sent off to a factory to be fabricated in an edition
— much the way design is produced. They are
different ultimately, but there are lots of parallels between the two disciplines and the way they
operate. What I’m interested in is exploring those
relationships.
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college news
AB: I read that you want to increase the number
of Fine Arts majors. Are you hoping to create
more parity between the programs, or what
motivates that goal?
AC: It would be nice if the numbers increased in
Fine Arts, to a certain degree, because this would
enable us to offer a greater diversity of electives
for the students, and also to bring in fresh faculty.
The department would benefit in that Fine Arts
would play an even more crucial role both within
the college and in the outward perception of
the college and its role in contemporary visual
culture.
AB: A lot of what we’ve been talking about is
how art students benefit from interfacing with
design and other programs. Do you have any
plans to see that collaboration go in the other
direction as well, for other students to benefit
from Fine Arts?
AC: At present, it’s focused more on the Fine Arts
department because that’s what I am able to do in
my position. But sure, it would be great to think
that the same spirit of collaboration would be
reciprocated.
AB: In this day and age, what’s the ideal art
student like?
AC: Um… I can’t really answer that — I’m not
sure. Let’s just say good skinny jeans and a moppy
haircut. [laughter]
AB: What advice would you give to a young
artist just graduating school now? How do you
envision integrating professional practice and
the curriculum?
AC: I think this is crucial, especially within today’s
marketplace. Fine art is big business. The role
played by the auction houses and the fairs over
the last few years has accelerated. What’s good for
the art student in relation to that is that there are
more possibilities than there were before to be a
successful commercial practitioner, and for the art
student to diversify and think of their practice in
an expanded way. By that I mean they might make
site-specific work, or work as a curator, or in an
education department, in a museum, or in a gallery. In other words, the professional roles available for someone who has graduated from Fine
Arts are widely expanded now. We’re offering a
new course in the spring for the seniors, which is
called Professional Practices.
AB: I’ve lived and worked in Los Angeles most of
my life, so I’m always curious to hear newcomers’ responses to the city. What is the thing you
love most about it so far? Anything driving you
nuts or making you homesick?
AC: What fascinates me most is people’s plastic
surgery. There is a fine art to people’s plastic surgery in this city that fascinates me. These doctors
have made the designing of people’s faces and
bodies into a fine art.
AB: [laughter] Well, let’s close with that. ●
Nancy Chunn's
Media Madness
3
Editors’s note:
Nancy Chunn, fall 2007 Jennifer Howard
Coleman Distinguished Artist in Residence, spent
six weeks at Otis teaching a master painting class,
conducting one-on-one student critiques with students, and installing and speaking about her exhibition, “Media Madness.” Chunn, a self-described
“political junkie,” creates work about geopolitics
and the power of the media. As she describes her
recent series Chicken Little and the Culture of Fear,
“I’m telling a story and I’m using silliness and I’m
using absurdity because I think that the world is
now so absurd that the only way I can deal with it
is through humor. And I hope that a lot of people
can get some enjoyment out of my work and
giggle and laugh and look at some of the issues I
am discussing.” These issues include global warming, contaminated food streams, terrorist threats,
species extinction, death and disease.
A catalogue of the exhibition with an essay by
Meg Linton, curator and Ben Maltz Gallery
Director, will be available in summer 2008.
Fine Arts student responses:
She helped me realize things that
were right in front of my face but
blocked by mounds of books and
theory.
3
She offered fresh ideas on a wide
range of media, not limited to
painting.
While there were concerns about
doing a group show without precedence, Nancy fully endorsed our
plan to do it in a totally unconventional way.
Nancy brought a practical point of
view as an artist working in N.Y.
She was very accessible and supportive about my future plans. She
exposed us to opportunities that
are available after school. She has
great energy and it was a pleasure
to have her on campus. ●
3 Nancy Chunn, Chicken Little and the
Culture of Fear, 2004-07. Acrylic on canvas.
21 OMAG
college news
Collecting
Pieces of
Plastic 4
By Richard M. Shelton
Otis faculty member
For the past 34 years, I have been an avid collector
of all genres of records. In addition to building
my personal collection, I have studied and taught
music history. When I arrived at Otis, I was
amazed to find an amazing collection of art
recordings in the Millard Sheets Library, including the likes of Henry Moore, John Giorno,
Joseph Beuys, Laurie Anderson, John Cage,
and Otis faculty members Carol Caroompas and
Joyce Lightbody.
Such recordings illustrate concepts; act as
forms of self-expression or self-reflection; document ideas and evidence performance. These
sound-bearing pieces of plastic have honestly
and directly chronicled the history of art through
freedom of authorship.
It has been a privilege to select and digitize
some of these significant and obscure recordings.
At times I may question my life-long commitment
to record collecting, but while cataloging Otis’
record library, I was reminded that music, music
history, poetry, and performance art have had a
significant and powerful influence throughout my
personal and professional life.
Link to Shelton’s podcast and interview with
Fine Arts Professor Carole Caroompas:
http://tlc.otis.edu/Faculty%20Development/
shelton.html
college news
Editor’s note: Many faculty members have created
podcasts that are posted on the Otis web site, on
Otis’ YouTube channel and at iTunesU. These
have been funded by a grant from the Fletcher
Jones Foundation, which supports faculty projects
that incorporate new technology for teaching.
Among the most viewed Otis podcasts and videos
are those on information literacy and identifying sources, an interview with celebrity fashion
designer and longtime mentor Bob Mackie, a
cross-contour drawing video, and demos of sewing an invisible zipper and creating a life drawing
from the model.
Below is an excerpt from a blog called
“Imagination Station” that responds to some of
these educational podcasts.
I’ve finally discovered podcasts, thanks to…
well, no one actually introduced it to me,
I was just trying to momentarily distract
myself from the exhausting ordeals of mara-
thon paper-checking when I figured out how it
worked. Thanks to the wonderfully free wire-
less internet access at the university, I’ve been able to download and listen to podcasts from BBC Radio and NPR, as well as lectures from
MIT, UC Berkeley, and Stanford. I’m currently “enrolled” in a Social Psychology podclass
from UC Berkeley, one on Information Literacy
from Otis College of Art and Design, and a
series on communications and media from
Stanford. I listen to at least one of them every
day, usually during my workout sessions or
while I’m doing my household cleaning. It
only makes sense, doesn’t it? Exercise the
mind while you exercise the body, and all that.
I love it. It’s glorious brain food.
—“Podclasses or, How I Learned to Stop Playing with Brain Food and Actually Eat It” Jan 21, ’08 6:22 AM ●
Transforma:
New Orleans
Jules Rochielle
Graduate student in Public Practice
5
I had never been to New Orleans until this visit.
I was living in Canada when Hurricane Katrina
hit the region, so most of my awareness came
through the media and research. Now, through
Otis’ Public Practice MFA Program, I participated
in a case study and site visit for a potential public
art project called the Transforma Project.
The Transforma Project is a multi-year initiative that will bring artists together with community members to address critical issues, from
housing to education. This will provide an ongoing vehicle for critical discourse that will nurture
cultural rebuilding efforts throughout the city.
As an aspect of this case study, one of the
projects we explored was the design of a public
artwork that pays tribute to Homer Plessy, of the
landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Plessy v.
Ferguson (1896), which upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation even in public accommodations (particularly railroads), under the
doctrine of “separate but equal.” This public work
will celebrate and honor his activism and courage
through memory. During discussions about this
public work, we met and worked with architects,
artists, and public art experts Rick Lowe, Mel
Chin, Jessica Cusack, and Sam Durant.
To increase our awareness of how the design
of this piece of public art could tie into the
5
political and cultural landscape, life-long New
Orleans resident Laverne Dunn gave us a tour of
the city. We spent time in the Wards, the French
Quarter, the Warehouse District, and the MidCity area. The territory we traveled through was
economically and physically diverse, yet the damage left behind by Hurricane Katrina was visible
everywhere.
My experience became more profound as I
traveled through the 9th Ward. One of the most
haunting images was an abandoned home with
the words “We’ll be back” spray-painted on it. In
some areas rubble and debris replaced what used
to be a neighborhood. Witnessing these emotionally charged images became a form of acknowledging the silent resistance, giving a presence to
people displaced through geographical, economical and racial marginalization.
When you are invited to visit what was once
someone’s home and listen to how they have
survived and continue to struggle to find a way to
return home, you begin to question if justice truly
exists.
During this trip, I thought about the importance of the artist’s role as a witness. A witness
is someone who gains firsthand knowledge of a
dramatic event through his or her senses (hearing,
touching, smelling, seeing). In my role as a witness, I can offer the space for other individuals to
express and communicate their social realities by
providing an opportunity or venue for storytelling. The information collected through this field
methodology can then be fed back into a public
discourse and design process. Becoming familiar
with the cultural and social terrain of a place and
listening to community stories can connect the
community to a public work of art because they
have been engaged in its design process. ●
Scholarship
Funding 6
Expands
Why do scholarships matter? Scholarships
recognize academic excellence, give low-income
students an opportunity, and help colleges to
attract and retain talent. But scholarships offer
something bigger, something deeper and more
meaningful. As Otis expands its partnerships
and projects to national and international levels,
students are exposed to issues beyond their textbooks and studios. They gain an understanding of
how their creativity, skill and vision can impact
issues such as poverty, healthcare, and the environment. Scholarships are an investment in the
next generation of problem-solvers and visionaries, in role models and risk-takers who will use
their talents and success to enrich the world.
• Five new, incoming students in fall 2007
have been selected to receive full-tuition assistance from funds from the National Endowment
for the Arts John Renna Art Scholarships, created
at the behest of the late John Anthony Renna.
Renna established this fund for talented visual
arts students who do not have the financial
resources to attend college, and Otis was one of
seven schools selected. The students come from
Charlotte, North Carolina; Miami; Lafayette,
Indiana; Bakersfield, and Philadelphia. As NEA
John Renna Scholarship winners, they will
mentor younger students through Otis’ outreach
programs, and vow to become exemplary leaders
in art, design and community activism.
• The Annenberg Foundation awarded
$125,000 in scholarship support for exceptionally
artistic and academically outstanding students.
• The The Price Galinson Collaborative Fund
awarded scholarship funding of $100,000 to support incoming freshmen.
• The Surdna Foundation awarded $150 K to
support Summer of Art scholarships to teenagers
of limited financial means, to increase outreach
to underserved communities, and to enhance the
Program’s quality and benefits.
• Nike and Hurley announced a joint five-year
endowment gift of $1 million for fashion design
scholarships. The gift provides scholarship support to the outstanding student talent who, upon
graduating, will have extraordinary opportunities to work with industry leaders such as Nike,
Hurley and other international companies. ●
4 Album cover for Professor of Fine Arts Carole Carompaas’ “Target Practice.”
5 Graduate Pubic Practice Chair Suzanne Lacy (center) with students in downtown New Orleans.
Graduate Public Practice student Ofunne Obiamiwe’s photograph of New Orleans neighborhood.
6
Three of five NEA Renna Scholarship
winners: Catarina Jacinta Gates, Vickie Thomas, and Forrest Michael Smith
(all 2011).
5
4
6
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Alumni around the world
Alumni around the world
BERLIN
SRI LANKA
Lacquer Paint & Hill Country Tea
Alex Donis ('94 MFA)
Role-Playing & Reconstruction
Sabine Dehnel (’01 MFA)
2007 was a very fast and full art year. When I think back, my inner eye zaps through many
different cities and places in Europe. Memories and pictures oscillate and overlap to form
a big, abstract urban landscape.
The journey started in January in my hometown of Ludwigshafen,
where I was invited to exhibit my work in the “Kunstverein,” via
Copenhagen, Berlin (my adopted home), then Leipzig, Cologne,
London, Amsterdam and Paris.
In my artistic work, I use next-to-new impressions—a kind of a
data bank of experienced moments captured by photographs. The
result is a conceptual way of working which includes painting,
photography and installations.
During my studies at Otis, my working process was scrutinized
and turned upside down. Of profound importance to me were
the different points of view and opinions that I experienced in
one-on-one meetings, group presentations and artist lectures. I
was engaged with the following questions: Why do I use photos
as a tool to create my paintings? Does making figurative paintings
today communicate a very nostalgic attitude? Can the medium of
painting question actual phenomena and social structures?
In a nine-part photo series, “Green Salon I-IX,” started in Los
Angeles in 2000, the curtain and the clothes were taken from
different photographs shot in California in the 1970s. The original
pictures were reprocessed, cut out of a beige-colored living room
OM A G 2 4
and placed in front of an undulating curtain in various shades of
green. The collage was then transferred, and the sitting couple
captured on canvas, as if time was inscribed layer for layer. The
painted picture was then reconstructed in the studio, and photographed and documented by the camera that was once captured
by the painting. Like a scene in a play or a sequence in a movie,
painting reconstructs a moment. To this end, I look for models
whose postures and physiognomies are similar to those of the
people in the original photographs. Then the props are prepared
on a three-dimensional stage and make-up is applied, in line with
the aesthetics and gestures of the painting. The models become
representatives of the couple who lived in Los Angeles at that
time. The whole piece is about role-playing and reconstruction.
Whenever I recall an experience, talk about it or reconstruct it
in pictures, I write or draw over a part of the original story. Memories are not authentic. They are not inscribed forever but change
with time. Psychologists speak of “reframing”—the re-interpretation of an experience. What a nice and comforting thought: A
picture kept in your memory can process a new frame, thus being
embedded differently in the story. ●
After the longest flight in the entire universe, my sister Lucy and I stepped off the plane at
Colombo International Airport. We finally arrived in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), the island at
the southern tip of India-of tsunami, Ramayana, and The Bridge on the River Kwai fame.
Although my sister and I hadn’t traveled together since 1996,
when we trekked through Nepal and India, we had heard great
things about Sri Lanka, and had always wanted to travel to this
primarily Buddhist country. Ever since the 2004 tsunami devastated much of this country’s coastal region, we knew we wanted
to help out through some kind of volunteer work. This led us
to contact the long-standing organization Volunteers for Peace
(www.vfp.org), that helped organize and place us with a local
school near the town of Hatton.
After soaking up the sun on the powdery beaches of Unawatuna, and leopard-spotting at Yala National Wildlife Reserve, we
arrived in the heart of Sri Lanka’s hill country, known for its mountainous terrain and manicured tea estates. Getting past several
unanswered cell-phone calls and missed pick-up points, we
arrived haphazardly at the town of Bogawantalawa. The Tientsin
Tamil School, a K-12 government school, perches high above the
tea plantations amidst low-flying clouds. My sister’s plan was to
teach English, and I intended to teach drawing and painting.
The day we arrived, we met our team leader Victor, who
enthusiastically greeted us with a warm embrace. He was originally from the region but had moved to India as a boy. A group
of South Korean high school and college students had arrived a
week earlier to do various volunteer projects around the school.
We met them in the principal’s office as they painted it a paler
shade of lavender. We exchanged many a vanucam, which means
hello and/or welcome in the Tamil language.
Later that evening, we hiked down the hill and met the local family hosts: Kala, her husband, and their three beautiful
daughters, along with grandma (whom I fell in love with) and
the mischievous servant boy, Tambie. They were a gracious Tamil
family who ran a local shop named ‘Sathiyas.’ Although the ac-
commodations weren’t exactly five-star, the early morning coldbucket showers were warmed by Kala’s sweet smile, milk tea and
delicious curries.
My first day of teaching was a bit of a shocker. To my surprise, the students all stood when I entered the class and did
not sit until I told them that they were allowed to do so. I’d like
to try this on a particular group of Westside 9th-graders (ha!). At
Crossroads School, where I teach in Santa Monica, I whine when
I get 15 students in a class. Here, I faced 40 students, plus all the
onlookers at the windows who wanted in on the class as soon as
they saw me passing out watercolor sets. I began with my staple
self-portrait lesson and had a sweet exchange with the students,
translating facial parts and colors into the Tamil language. After
the class was over, I was ushered to the science lab—past a group
of Korean students who were doing a an outdoor mural featuring hand-holding students in front of a globe with a ‘We love Sri
Lanka banner.’ “Poor kids,” I mused. “Murals are such a pain.”
I was introduced to the science teacher, a sweet lady in a
bright yellow sari, and she asked me if I was a “professional artist.” I assured her that I was, and thought to say, “Lady, please.
—I went to Otis!” but I figured that wouldn’t get too far in these
parts. She gestured toward the large wall at the back of the science lab, and said she needed a mural that the students could
learn from—an educational mural. “How ‘bout a Tamil Tiger and a
Sri Lankan soldier doing a Bollywood dance together?” I thought.
Probably not, Sri Lanka doesn’t need another civil war. After looking at several science books, we agreed on the cycle of life of a
tadpole turning into a frog, and the metamorphosis of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.
Never having done a mural, I pulled up my knickers, tied a
pencil to a long stick and thought to myself, “What would Gronk q
2 5 OM A G
Alumni around the world
do? Does Kent Twitchell ask for a contract? Would Judy Chicago
hold out for a press release?” Time to leave my ego at the bottom
of the hill and just do the work. Besides, there was a butterfly
in the making and possibly a lotus. I’d try to make Roy and Lari
proud.
Since the Korean students had used almost all the supplies for
their mural, there was very little paint left. Also, the lacquer paint
and the thinner had been left out in the rain, so I had to find kerosene and diesel fuel in order to salvage the remaining supplies.
They had forgotten to leave the brushes soaking overnight in
paint thinner, so I had to use some of the preschool brushes that
I had brought to donate.
I blocked in the mural using ground-up watercolor sets
mixed with the white latex paint that was used to whitewash the
classrooms. This got me started but sent the science teacher into
a flurry as she thought I was doing the mural with “water paint”
as opposed to “shiny” lacquer paint. “Chill, lady,” I thought, “I
know what I’m doing.” We soon got the supplies straightened out
and I was off and running, with many of the students poking their
heads in through the windows, sharing smiles and helping out
with a few brushstrokes.
Later in the week, on their last day, the Korean students gave
a cultural performance, complete with music, dance and fashion
show. The Tamil students also sang and performed traditional
dances. My sister and I were honored with flowered wreathes and
I was repeatedly called “the greatest artist ever.” Later that evening, we all gathered in the science lab and the Korean students
passed out many bottles of ginseng sake. Needless to say, I got
honorably sloshed.
During our last few days, exhausted by teaching, my sister
decided to help me out with the mural. The school also brought
in a local temple painter named Desh, who was very patient, and
had the best attitude when it came to all my requests. On our
last day at the school, I completed the giant butterfly that loomed
over the pond. The school gave us a farewell assembly with all
the students and faculty in attendance. We returned to the science
lab to share our last goodbyes, hear my sister sing a few Spanish
songs to the faculty (who knew she could sing?), and watch “the
greatest artist ever” dedicate his first mural “To the Children of
Tientsen Tamil School.” ●
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Alumni around the world
Hands-On
Typography
THE HAGUE
Berton Hasebe (‘05)
I can’t say that winter in The Hague has
been the easiest thing for me. As a Hawaii
expat, biking in zero-degree weather or
being surrounded by grey skies most of the
time is difficult.
However the city itself is great, the sky is becoming blue more
often, and weather-related concerns are a small factor compared
to how much I’ve enjoyed living, studying, and traveling in
the Netherlands.
I graduated from Otis in 2005 with a BFA in Graphic Design,
and in my junior and senior years, my interest in letterforms and
type design grew to a point where I knew I’d eventually like to
continue my studies. After working for about two years at Intersection Studio in Venice, I was accepted at the Type and Media
program at The Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (KABK).
There are several courses in the world that offer a type
design curriculum, however I was particularly interested in KABK
because of its great faculty and underlying curriculum. Although
research of historical type models plays a part in the curriculum,
teaching comes from a hands-on approach, where students
quickly begin drawing letterforms through an understanding of
basic structures. Through lessons in contrast, spacing and proportion, we analyze and draw letters based on an understanding of
construction rather than direct historical references.
The first part of the curriculum introduces type design through
a broad range of topics such as calligraphy, stone carving, letterform sketching, typeface software/production methods, Python
programming, and type history and theory.
The second part is devoted to an execution of a final project,
where the student focuses on a specific area of interest and designs a type family in this context. Intermittently throughout the
year are class trips outside of the Netherlands, which included
the Plantin Moretus museum in Antwerp and the Typo Berlin
Conference.
The ten students in the class come from Brazil, Canada, Italy,
Switzerland and Vienna. This diversity plays a strong role in the
class atmosphere, as each person’s background and perspective
contributes to a variety of coursework and design sensibilities.
Since the start of the course we have become quite close, acting
as a family with the same goals, rather than individuals competing against one another.
My girlfriend Yuko Sawamoto, who graduated from Otis in
2006 with a BFA in Graphic Design, will join me this spring in an
attempt to intern or work at one of the many design studios in
the Netherlands. With such a high density of studios and events, it
has been exciting to take part in such a lively community.
As much as I have enjoyed the course’s progression, I’m not
looking forward to its end. Through my amazing peers, teachers,
and environment, this year has had a major impact on me. I am
glad to have been given this opportunity. ●
2 7 OM A G
class notes
class notes
This is a small sampling of recent alumni accomplishments. To keep up with Otis’
ever-active alumni, and to see the fully illustrated digital newsletter ONEWS, click
on “Class Notes” at www.otis.edu/alumni. To submit news and images, contact
Sarah Russin, Director of Alumni Relations at [email protected]. Also, feel free to
call Sarah at 310.665.6937.
Claire Pettibone (‘89, Fashion Design)
Nate Frizell (‘06, Communication Arts)
Entrepreneurs, Cool Designers,
Soloists, Entertainers, Alumni In Print,
Award-Winners, In Memoriam
Entrepreneurs
Anne-Christine Pajunen
(’87, Fashion Design)
Designer/Owner, Minis (children’s
clothing and products store),
San Francisco.
Andrew Glazier
(’89, Communication Arts)
Website Owner and Video Producer,
Back Roads Wine.
Claire Pettibone
(’89, Fashion Design)
Owner, Claire Pettibone couture
bridal salon, Beverly Hills. Featured
on cover of Women’s Wear Daily,
October 30.
Carla Denker
(’93, Fine Arts)
Owner: “Plastica,”
8405 East Third Street, L.A.
Soyun Shin
(’93, Fashion Design)
Owner and Designer, Marlova,
L.A. Published in Daily Candy:
“Pull the Wool over Your Eyes,”
August 31, 2007.
Colleen Dowd Saglimbeni
(’94, Fashion Design)
Designer/Owner, Chaps and Chicks
childrenswear and products.
OMAG 28
Ric Allison
(’96, Environmental Design)
Furniture Designer, launching a
hollow-core wooden surfboard
prototype, Philadelphia.
Edgar Ibarra-Lepe
(’04, Fine Arts)
Co-owner: The Sphinx Studios and
Peach Gallery, Professional Tattoo
& Body Piercing, 438 S. Main Street,
Downtown L.A.
Cool Designers
Tom Recchion
(’79, Fine Arts)
Art Director, Capitol/EMI. Working
on CDs for Ringo Starr and propaganda for a Ringo For President
campaign. Featured in Cover Art By...
by Adrian Shaughnessy.
Michelle Frantz
(’94, Fine Arts)
Director of Design, Donna Karan
Collection Accessories, NY.
Vicki Sum
(’95, Communication Arts)
Senior Art Director, Trinchero
Family Estates, St. Helena, CA.
Designer for thirteen wine labels,
including Sutter Home.
Susannah (Nah-Hyun) Leam
(’01, Communication Arts)
Senior Graphic Designer, Autry
National Center, L.A.
Laurel Scribner
(’06, Communication Arts)
Graphic Design Associate, Walt
Disney Imagineering, Glendale, CA.
Tofer Chin
(‘02 Fine Arts)
Billboard design, International
Outdoor Urban Art Exhibition sponsored by J&B, Barcelona, Spain.
Mehran Azma
(’07, Communication Arts)
Graphic Designer, Guess, Inc. —
Men’s Fashion. Designer of t-shirt
graphics, fashion packaging, knits
and woven graphics, patterns for
Guess and LADA (Los Angeles
Denim Atelier).
Margaret Berg
(’04, Communication Arts)
Art Director, Art Machine. Art
Director/Designer/Illustrator,
Pan’s Labyrinth poster for Faction
Creative, owned by Otis alumnus
Bryan Allen (‘87). Nominated for a
Key Art Award.
Christopher Diaz
(’04, Communication Arts)
Graphic Designer, Billabong.
Terry Keating
(’04, Digital Media)
Graphic Designer, Roxy, Quiksilver.
Mark Monterroso
(’05, Communication Arts)
Graphic Designer, Old Navy (GAP
Inc.), San Francisco.
Charles Belak-Berger
(aka Chuck BB)
(’06, Communication Arts)
Black Metal graphic novel, Onipress.
Ismael Basso
(’07, Interactive Product Design)
3D CAD Modeler for Apple
Industrial Design Team.
Brooklyn Brown
(’07, Communication Arts)
Graphic Designer, Intersection
Studio, Venice, CA.
Ivan Canevero
(’07, Communication Arts)
Graphic Designer, New Media
Department, Warner Brothers
Records, L.A.
(Yee) Jeanie Chong
(’07, Communication Arts)
Graphic Designer, Intersection
Studio, Venice, CA.
Matthew Müller
(’07, Communication Arts)
Art Director, Spyder Paintball.
Casey Ryder
(’07, Communication Arts)
Graphic Designer, Studio Number
One, L.A., owned by Shepard Fairey
(OBEY). Designs for Ozzfest 2007,
OBEY clothing, Swindle Magazine,
Dewar’s Scotch and Guitar Center.
Travis Swingler
(’07, Communication Arts)
Junior Art Director, Foot Cone &
Belding, Irvine, CA.
Soloists
Billy Al Bengston
(’57, Fine Arts)
Patricia Faure Gallery, Bergamot
Station, Santa Monica.
Malcolm Lubliner
(’62, Fine Arts)
“Lens on L.A. Artists,” The
8 Gallery, San Francisco.
Judith Miller
(’69, MFA Fine Arts)
“New Paintings,” Cheryl Pelavin
Gallery, NY.
Joanne Julian
(’73, MFA Fine Arts)
“ Joanne Julian: Counterpoints,”
a 25-year retrospective exhibition,
Mike Curb College of Arts, Media,
and Communication, California
State University, Northridge.
Bruce Edelstein
(‘77, MFA Fine Arts)
Museo de los Pintores Oaxaquenos,
Oaxaca, Mexico.
Sharon Kagan
(’79, MFA Fine Arts)
“Dancing Girls Don’t Need Safety
Nets,” Los Angeles Art Association/
Gallery 825, West Hollywood.
Charles Belak-Berger aka Chuch BB
(‘06, Communication Arts)
Jeffrey Vallance
(’81, MFA Fine Arts)
“Reliquary Chapel,” De Vleeshal,
Middelburg, the Netherlands.
Publication: Third Edition (30th
anniversary) of “Blinky, the Friendly
Hen,” Smart Art Press. Review of
exhibition at Margo Leavin Gallery
by Annie Buckley (’03, MFA Fine
Arts), Artforum.
Peter Zokosky
(’81, MFA Fine Arts)
“The Order of the Primates,”
Koplin Del Rio Gallery, Culver City.
Gallery owned by Eleana Del Rio
(’89, Fine Arts ). “Artist Profile,” Art
Ltd. magazine, September 2007.
Lucas Reiner
(’85, Fine Arts)
“Portraits,” Carl Berg Gallery,
L.A.; “Trees,” Pocket Utopia,
Brooklyn, NY.
Elisabeth Condon
(’86, Fine Arts)
“New Paintings & Collages,” Ada
Gallery, Richmond, VA.
Steve Roden
(’86, Fine Arts)
New Works at Susanne Vielmetter
Berlin Projects, Berlin.
Bari Kumar
(’88, Communication Arts)
“Acceptance of Denial,” Bose
Pacia Gallery, NY.
Sandow Birk
(’89, Fine Arts)
“The Depravities of War,” Catharine
Clark Gallery, San Francisco, and
University Art Museum, California
State University, Long Beach.
Trine Wejp-Olsen (‘94, Fine Arts)
Bill Kleiman
(’89, Fine Arts)
“Stateline,” Jail Gallery, L.A.
Daniel Atyim
(’91, Communication Arts)
“Spoil Strain Release,” Cecelia
Coker Bell Gallery, Coker College
Department of Art, Hartville, SC.
James Thegerstrom
(’91, Fine Arts)
“Transits,” Los Angeles Art
Association/Gallery 825, West
Hollywood.
Camille Rose Garcia
(’92, Fine Arts)
“Escape to Darlingtonia,” Merry
Karnowsky Gallery, L.A.
Trine Wejp-Olsen
(’94, Fine Arts)
“Wild Things,” work by Trine
Wejp-Olsen and René Vasquez, Milo
Gallery, L.A. Gallery owner: Jennifer
Eckstein (’91, Fine Arts).
Ruben Ochoa
(’97, Fine Arts)
“A Recurring Amalgamation,”
Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles
Projects, Culver City. Performance
“DANCING PoPos,” installation
for Storefront’s series, Ring Dome
Pavilion, Petrosino Park, NY.
Koh Byoung-ok
(’98, Fine Arts)
“D-Sculpture,” Andrew Shire
Gallery, L.A.
Kim Fisher
(’98, MFA Fine Arts)
China Art Objects, L.A.
Joe Sola
(’99, MFA Fine Arts)
“The Buck Stops Here,” Bucket
Rider Gallery, Chicago, IL.
Otino Corsano
(’00, MFA Fine Arts)
“Ones,” Katharine Mulherin
Contemporary Art Projects, West
Toronto, Ontario.
Patrick Hill
(‘00, MFA Fine Arts)
“Forming,” Bortolami, NY.
Robert Dobbie (aka Bob Dob)
(’01, Communication Arts)
“Where Crows Die,” Luz de Jesus
Galley, L.A.
Mercedes Gertz
(’03, MFA Fine Arts)
“Contes de Fees et Object de Desir
(Fairy Tales and Objects of Desire),”
Catherine Niederhauser Gallery,
Lausanne, Switzerland. Exhibition
travels to Mexico and the U.S.
Timothy Tompkins
(’03, Fine Arts)
“New Paintings from the Leftover
Series,” Susanne Vielmetter Los
Angeles Projects, L.A.
Michael Brunswick
(’05, MFA Fine Arts)
“New Paintings,” Hunsaker/
Schlesinger Gallery, Bergamot
Station, Santa Monica.
Rashell George
(’05, Fine Arts)
“Blank Verse,” Project Room,
Hunsaker/Schlesinger Fine Art,
Bergamot Station, Santa Monica.
29 OMAG
class notes
class notes
Milford Zornes (‘27, Fine Arts)
Bruce Edelstein (‘77 MFA, Fine Arts)
Tofer Chin (‘02, Fine Arts)
Billy Al Bengston (‘57, Fine Arts)
Joey Santarromana (‘90, Fine Arts)
In Memoriam
Aida Klein
(’05, Fine Arts)
“Not Waving but Flailing,” Mary
Goldman Gallery, L.A.
Nate Frizzell
(’06, Communication Arts)
“Head in the Trees,” Project:
Gallery L.A., Culver City.
Kathrin Burmester
(’07, MFA Fine Arts)
“Peoplescapes,” Hunsaker/
Schlesinger Gallery, Bergamot
Station, Santa Monica.
Entertainers
Tyrus Wong
(’32, Fine Arts)
Exhibition: “The Art of the
Motion Picture Illustrator: Harold
Michelson, Bill Major and Tyrus
Wong,” Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills.
Dean Tavoularis
(’55, Fine Arts)
Production Designer. Exhibition of
collaborations with director Francis
Ford Coppola, Pavillon Populaire
de la Photographie, Montpellier,
France.
Alex Gibson
(’79, Fine Arts)
Music Editor for Live Free or Die
Hard starring Bruce Willis and The
Shooter with Mark Wahlberg.
OMAG 30
Hethur Suval
(’90, Fine Arts)
Senior Photo Editor, BLT &
Associates, entertainment industry
design firm specializing in theatrical
movie posters, television advertising
and home entertainment marketing.
Susan Matheson
(’92, Fashion Design)
Costume Designer, Semi-Pro with
Will Ferrell and The Kingdom
with Jamie Fox, Chris Cooper and
Jennifer Garner.
Scott Holmes
(’93, Communication Arts)
Animator, Double Negative, London,
England. Working on Hellboy 2.
Formerly with Sony.
Chris Rowland
(’00, MFA; ‘93 BFA Fine Arts)
Documentary Editor, Over the River:
Life of Lydia Maria Child, Abolitionist
for Freedom, narrated by Diahann
Carroll.
Laura Daroca
(‘03, MFA Fine Arts)
Cinematographer, short indie
film Westsider.
Review: www.badlit.com/?p=622.
Lindsay Thompson
(’07, Digital Media)
Animator, Rhythm and Hues, for
Alvin and the Chipmunks.
In Print
Award-Winners
Diane Gamboa
(’84, Fine Arts)
Chicana Art: the Politics of Spiritual
and Aesthetic Altarities, by Laura
E. Pérez (Duke University Press).
Also includes Patssi Valdez
(’85, Fine Arts).
Kerry James Marshall
(’78, MA Fine Arts)
Distinguished Visiting Painting
Fellow, San Francisco Art Institute
Lawrence Gipe
(’86, MFA Fine Arts)
Feature: Harper’s Magazine, August
2007.
Jennifer McChristian
(’92, Communication Arts)
Featured in Southwest Art
Magazine’s “Artists to Watch,”
November 2007.
Sam Watters
(‘02, MFA Fine Arts)
Author, Houses of Los Angeles,
1885-1919 and Houses of Los Angeles,
1920-1935 (2 volumes,) Acanthus
Press. Editor, American Gardens,
1890-1930: Northeast, Mid-Atlantic,
and Midwest Regions, Acanthus Press,
2006.
Natasha Lee
(’04, Digital Media)
Photographer. Cover story photography and spread featuring TV actress
Lindsay Price, Audrey Magazine,
December 2007/January 2008.
Frances Adams
(’07, Fashion Design)
Journalist and Editorial Assistant,
www.fashionwiredaily.com, Paris.
Elisabeth Condon
(’86, Fine Arts)
Pollock Krasner Foundation Award.
J.T. Steiny
(’86, Communication Arts)
Fine Artist and Award-winning
Cartoonist, LA Weekly.
Susan Mondt
(’87, Communication Arts)
Emmy Award, Individual
Achievement in Animation for
art directing “Squirrel Secrets”
segment for Cartoon Network’s
“Camp Lazlo.”
Johnny Coleman
(’89, Fine Arts)
Fellowship and Exhibition:
“Celebration of Creativity: OAC
Fellowships 1980-2005,” Riffe
Gallery, The Ohio Arts Council,
Columbus, OH.
Sherman Sam
(’90, Fine Arts)
“Inspire Curatorial Fellowship”
at the Hayward Gallery, London;
funded by Arts Council, London.
Contributing Writer, The Brooklyn
Rail and www.kultureflash.com.
Marco Rios
(’97, Fine Arts)
2007 Fellowship for Emerging
Visual Artists, California
Community Foundation, L.A.
June Muriel Watson Yuer (’52,
Fine Arts), artist and celebrated Tai
Chi teacher, age 90; died in October
from complications of Alzheimer’s.
“The Defiant Wait,” at Otis’ Helen
and Abe Bolsky Gallery at Otis in
March 2003, was curated by Molly
Corey (’01, MFA Fine Arts).
Norman Zammitt (’61, MFA)
passed away in November 2007.
His work is collected around the
world, including LACMA.
One can learn a lot about light and
color from watching the sun set over
the Pacific Ocean and filter through the
atmosphere. I was trying to understand what was going on up there in
the sky, and down here on my palette.
I wanted to unify them. To make light
with paint. – Norman Zammitt
Dorrie Dunlap (’72, MFA),
Professor of Art at Orange Coast
College for nearly 30 years, passed
away in October 2007 after a long
battle with cancer.
Carolyn Wong-Pfanner (’87,
Fashion Design) passed away
in November 2007 in a boating
accident. Christine Pajunen (‘87,
Fashion Design) posted thoughts
at www.otis.edu/alumni (Class Notes,
Dec. 2007)
Hector Soriano (’96, Fine Arts)
passed away in October 2007 after
suffering from liver and kidney
failure.
Miles Forst (1923-2006), legendary
faculty member at Otis, passed away
April 5, 2006. He was a student of
Hans Hoffman at the Art Students
League in the 1950s in New York
and was amongst the group of
young painters who achieved fame
as the New York School of Abstract
Expressionism. He taught at U.C.
Davis and at Otis, later returning to
Manhattan to teach at the School
of Visual Arts. Miles is remembered
with fondness by the alumni who
studied with him in the ’70s and
’80s at Otis.
Milford Zornes (’27, Fine Arts)
died in February in his Claremont
home at 100 years old. Born in rural
western Oklahoma, he studied at
Otis with renowned watercolorist
Millard Sheets, and developed the
plein air “California Style,” characterized by overlapping transparent
washes of watercolor that allow the
white of the paper to define shapes
and light. His subject matter was the
world around him – first, the rural
landscape of California but later, the
landscapes of China, Alaska, Mexico,
Ireland, Italy, Spain, and Hawaii.
Zornes taught watercolor painting workshops all over the world.
During the early 1930s, he worked
for the federally funded Public
Works of Art Project, producing watercolors to be displayed in public
buildings. He painted murals for
several U.S. post offices, including
the Claremont branch. His paintings
are represented in the collections
of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Los Angeles
County Museum of Art, the White
House, and the Library of Congress
Collection. He also created New
Deal murals for post offices in his
hometown of Claremont, California,
and in El Campo, Texas. Milford’s work was featured at
the Riverside Art Museum and the
Pasadena Museum of California Art
in March 2008. He gave his last art
demonstration for the public at the
Pasadena exhibition in January to
celebrate his 100th birthday.
“Humor Us,” Los Angeles Municipal Gallery,
Barnsdall Park, LA, September 14-December 30.
Featured Joey Santarromana (’90), Testuji Aono (’96),
Susan Choi (’97), Sandeep Mukherjee (’96), and
Byoung Ok Koh (’98). www.humorus.net
Norman Zammit (‘61, Fine Arts)
“SoCal: Southern California Art of the 1960s and 70s
From LACMA’s Collection,” October 1–March 30, Los
Angeles County Museum of Art, L.A. Featured work
by Robert Irwin (’50), Billy Al Bengston (’57), Ken Price
(’57) and Norman Zammitt (’61).
Ed Gomez (‘03, Fine Arts)
“Latitude,” a dual-venue exhibition that highlighted the
work of six contemporary L.A. Chicano artists included
Ruben Ochoa (’97), Ed Gomez (’03) and Mario Ybarra
Jr. (‘99), LA Artcore Center at Union Center for the Arts
and Artcore Brewery Annex, October 3-31.
31 OMAG
class notes
New York
In November, East Coast alumni gathered at the Jonathan Levine
Gallery in Chelsea to see the solo exhibition of Brooklyn artist
Mark Dean Veca (’85, Fine Arts). Recent graduates, new to the City,
enjoyed connecting with alumni from the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. The Alumni and Career Services Offices were on hand to meet the
ever-expanding community of New York alumni.
‘06 Fashion Alumni:
Marcus LeBlanc,
Karen Hieda, and
Mary Timmons
San Francisco
Alumni connected with each other at the second annual San Francisco reunion in
October. They met Sarah Russin and Mara Thompson, the Alumni Office team, as
well as Laura Daroca from Career Services. Alumni viewed the historic company
“vault” and were shown archival pieces by Levi’s archivist and historian. Thanks to
Jean Swift, Otis’ Sr. Director of Corporate Relations and our friends at Levi Strauss
& Co. for hosting this special gathering. Anne Christine Pajunen (‘87, Fashion Design),
Colleen Dowd Saglimbeni (‘94, Fashion Design),
and John McConnico (‘96, Environmental Design).
On-Line Self-Service
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Update your Address
and Email Ensure your
contact information is
correct (accessed by the
Alumni Office only).
Find a Classmate
Search for a friend by
first name, last name,
or class year.
Review your Directory
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information, if any, you
would like to share with
other alumni.
Jiberis
The headlines in this issue are set in Jiberis, a typeface designed
by (Yee) Jeanie Chong (‘07, Communication Arts). Each issue
of OMAG will feature a headline typeface designed by an Otis
student or alumna/us.
OMAG 32
Register for the Job
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07 OMAG