May 2009
Student Awards + Recognition
-The Art and Design department is pleased to announce the winners of this year's Pougialis Fine Arts competition.
All submitted works were of a high standard and the show was testament
to Fine Art as a thriving major within A+D at Columbia College. E.J. Hill
won first place in the competition with an expertly carried out
performance in front of a large audience at the A+D gallery. The second
place winner is Jessica Hoekstra, who impressed the
judges through her poetic and visually arresting video projection
entitled 'Water'. Congratulations to all participants for their
outstanding work!
- Interior Architecture major Sarah Mina Bassett was recently awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to travel to and study in Mongolia during the 2009-2010 academic year. She graduates at the end of this semester, spring 2009. “This opportunity to embark upon the Fulbright Scholarship will be an essential step towards accomplishing my goal of working in architecture and design, concentrating on sustainable community development for indigenous populations. Once finished, I plan on compiling my research into a large-format photographic essay that can be further used as documentation for graduate school and a future in human rights efforts.”
- Five Fashion Design seniors were chosen to participate in a
fundraiser fashion show event on May 15, 2009, sponsored by Richard
Driehaus. Students from five area schools will compete for cash awards.
These schools include Columbia College Chicago, School of the Art
Institute of Chicago, International Academy of Design & Technology,
Illinois Institute of Art, and Dominican University. Columbia's
students are Anna Brown, Athanasia Elipoulos, Amy Fenderson, Tara Reich and Reginald Valdezco.
Congratulations to Grace Lewis, sophomore in Fashion Design, for receiving a $10,000 President's Club Scholarship, awarded over two years at $2,500 per semester. The President's Club Scholarship supports students with exceptional promise, proven academic achievement, creative innovation or special accomplishment in their major, and demonstration of financial need. It began in 2005 and this year was awarded to ten Columbia students who had completed a minimum of 60 credits by the end of the Spring semster. Kudos to Grace for being one of the recipients this year!
- Brandi Lewis, a 2007 BFA graduate of Art and
Design, has been awarded a $12,000 Follett Fellowship to enter the
Master's program in Education at Columbia for the fall 2009 semester.
Congratulations, Brandi!
Faculty/Staff Awards + Recognition
- Craig Jobson has been selected as full-time faculty recipient for the Columbia College Excellence in Teaching Award. This is a very prestigious honor bestowed to one full time and one part time faculty member each year. Craig has been teaching graphic design and fine art courses such as "Publication Design" and "Typography and Letterforms" in the Art and Design department since 1997. He worked for many years as a Design Director and Art Director and in 2001 founded Lark Sparrow Press, which specializes in limited edition artist books and fine art printing. The committee was impressed with the level of professionalism in Craig's classes and the highly effective critique that students provided for each other's work.
- Art History faculty member Dr. Amy M. Mooney was awarded one of our nation’s most esteemed honors, the Smithsonian Post-Doctoral Fellowship. Her book proposal, Portraits of Noteworthy Character,
was selected from more than 1,800 applicants nationwide and she is
among the 8 honorees for 2009-2010. As part of its mandate for "the
increase and diffusion of knowledge," including the diverse ideas,
skills, and cultures of our nation, the Smithsonian Institution pursues
scholarship like that of Dr. Mooney to promote cultural diversity and
awareness. She will have a nine-month appointment in Washington D.C.
with full access to resources at the Smithsonian Museum of American
Art, the National Portrait Gallery, and the National Museum for African
American History and Culture. Additionally, Dr. Mooney will have
research privileges at the Archives of American Art and the Library of
Congress. Applicants are evaluated on their academic standing,
scholarly qualifications, experiences, the quality of the research
project or study proposed and its suitability to Smithsonian
collections, facilities, and programs. This opportunity not only
supports research and writing, it facilitates publication, exhibitions,
and collaboration. Support from the Office of the Dean of Fine and
Performing Arts will also permit Dr. Mooney to prepare her manuscript
for publication and lay the groundwork for a national exhibition.
General News + Announcements
- Fashion Design faculty Arti Sandhu’s recent artwork was featured on the blog Masala Chai, a visual arts blog that features South Asian Art and Design.
- Joan Giroux, full-time Fine Art faculty
member, received a Faculty Development Grant to support the production
of two new works. The piece "to see, without reproach" is a kit of
navigational instruments, to be produced in a multiple edition of 100.
It is the second work in Compassionate Action Enterprises’ ongoing
interactive series: "jasmine; what is it that calls forth the need and
ability to bloom out of season?" The spatial installation "spunk and
pluck, commended to grace" combines elements of drawing, stitching,
text and other forms of mark making with transparent sculptural
constructions akin to furniture. These works will be exhibited in the
fall in "Three Women" at the College of New Rochelle's Castle Gallery in New Rochelle, New York.
- Fine Art faculty Adam Brooks and Matt Wilson (Industry of the Ordinary) have been invited to produce a new work for the grand opening of the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago
on May 15. They are the only US-based artists so invited. This duo has
once again been recognized as outstanding and significant practitioners
of performance art, and we eagerly look forward to their provocations
at this landmark event.
- Fred Nelson, full-time Illustration faculty, has contributed much of his time and energy to help the organization Aid Africa's Children.
Fred's generous support and wonderful art direction to create Aid
Africa's Children's logo, corporate identity package, brand marketing
products, and most recently, their newly designed brochure, has helped
raise their profile tremendously. ABC7’s Bill Campbell, "Sonja D" of
"HBO's Def Comedy Jam" and Fred recently joined forces in hosting the
Aid Africa's Children's "Smiles Across the Miles" benefit.
- Product Design faculty Tao Huang was elected
to serve on the Columbia College Executive Committee. This is a very
important forum where some of the most central and pressing issues of
the college are discussed and resolved. It is an honor for us to have
Tao serving the entire college in this capacity, and further evidence
of Art and Design’s visibility throughout the Columbia community.
- Graphic Design faculty George Thompson was
invited by the Adobe Corporation to be a Beta tester for their newest
OpenType Foreign Language fonts. Additionally, George wrote an article
on the history of type for the Chicago Artists Coalition Newsletter. The article included a photo of Art and Design student Emma Larsson’s project from his Advanced Type Class.
- Fine Art faculty Anna Kunz was nominated to
serve on the 2009 Illinois State Committee of the National Museum of
Women in the Arts (ILNMWA). She is also looking forward to her
Skowhegan Summer Artist Residency, in Skowhegan, Maine. The residency
is an intensive nine-week summer program for emerging visual artists
that was established in 1946. Skowhegan brings together a gifted and
diverse group of individuals who have demonstrated a commitment to art
making and inquiry to create the most stimulating and rigorous
environment possible for a concentrated period of artistic creation,
interaction and growth.
- Fine Art faculty Friedhard Kiekeben has written a new article on polyester plate printmaking for NontoxicPrint.com. He has also contributed to the Italian book Incisione Sostensibile by Francesca Genna, which was recently released.
- Product Design adjunct faculty member Jim Morrow, of Morrow Design, has won a silver award in the Appliance Design magazine’s Excellence in Design competition.
- Sabina Ott, full-time Fine Art faculty,
began her three-year term as a member of the Services to Artists
Committee of the College Art Association (CAA) at the 2009 CAA
conference in Los Angeles, CA. Additionally, she has been serving as a
Regional Representative for the Programming Committee for the 2010 CAA
conference in Chicago. Sabina recently returned from Grinnell College,
where she lectured about her work and served as a juror on the
College’s annual student exhibition. Her curatorial proposal for the
exhibition "because the night" was accepted by the Guggenheim Gallery of Chapman University, City of Orange, CA, and will take place in mid-October, 2009.
Exhibitions + Announcements
- Anna Kunz has been selected to show her work in the Art + Design Department’s Faculty Exhibition in the A+D Gallery this coming August. Her work will also be featured at Silas Marder Gallery in Bridgehampton, New York beginning this month of May. She will be curating the Chicago Artists Month’s Abnormal Formal in October 2009, and is currently involved in the site-specific installation with Paige Cuningham at the Dance Center at Columbia College Chicago.
- Friedhard Kiekeben has current work in a show of miniature works at Chicago's Murphy Hill Gallery. His new cycle of intaglio Prints "Loop Orange" will go on show at Gallery Arte Giani in Frankfurt in June 2009.
- Bohdan Gernaga, Interior Architecture adjunct faculty, is having an opening reception for Science as Art on Saturday, May 16, from 5–9:30 pm at Gallery 203 in the Flat Iron Arts Building in Wicker Park. Gilda’s Club Worldwide, whose efforts help the fight against cancer, is sponsoring this building-wide event.
Bohdan’s work is based on reclaimed materials and combines pastels with mixed media and acrylic paints. The exhibition will continue through May 31st.
- Adjunct Fine Art faculty Fern Valfer's painting “Synthesis” was selected for exhibition at the Koscielak Gallery
through March 2009. Fern has been invited to show new work for a
two-person exhibition in December 2009, also at Koscielak Gallery.