Otis College of Art and Design Magazine 2009 Vol.6

OTIS C

OLLEG

E O

F AR

T AN

D D

ESIGN

MA

GA

ZINE

200

9 VO

L.6

Non-Profit OrgU.S. Postage

PAIDLos Angeles, CA Permit No. 427

Can

we Teach

Creativity? • G

reen D

esign

Misrem

emb

ering

the Fu

ture • D

igitizin

g N

aked Lad

ies

IN TH

IS IS

SU

E:

9045 Lincoln Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90045

Otis College of Art and Design

(310) 665 6800 w

ww

.otis.ed

u

OMAG 1

FEATURE

2 OMAG

FEATURE

OMAG 01

FEATURE

02 OMAG

FEATURE

Designer: Shaun Redsar

Over the last half century, mechanical functionality has been replaced by technological achievement, enabling designers to create things they could only once imagine. Change and opportunity go hand in hand, and it is very much in the spirit of Otis College to develop a new program to produce the hybrid designer for the 21st-century creative economy.

In the fall of 2004, the Product Design (PD) Department began as a career-focused program with the mission to produce a new type of product designer with vision, creativity, multidisciplinary design skills, and the ability to integrate information, technology and busi-ness strategies that address not only user needs but also complex, interconnected markets and industries.

The emphasis of the curriculum is on developing creative Thinkers who are self-inspired and capable of generating lots of ideas; creative Communicators who can effectively articulate their ideas in 2D, 3D, written, verbal, and multi-media presentation; and creative Integrators who can synthesize information, technology, materials and methods, and business strategies to design with intent and create innovative solutions that address cultural, social and marketplace needs.

The curriculum shifts away from the conventional industrial design approach of specific-industry focus and the development of specialized technical skills. Experience taught us that this approach

restricted the creative, aesthetic and career potential of the student, and rarely brought forth creative designers of importance. At best, it produced skillful technicians or super elves, and not the creative visionaries, strategic thinkers and design leaders who will lead industry and fuel the creative economy.

Product Design has enjoyed continuous growth of student enrollment since it began five years ago with 12 students. There were 80 students in 2008/09. The program boasts an average of over 87% placement of its students in internship positions in furniture design, fashion accessories, consumer electronics, design consultancies, shoe design, sports and medical equipment, home décor and enter-tainment. Graduates work for Apple, Guess, Wet Design, Disney Consumer Products, Disney Imagineering, Inter-Pacific Corp., Nectar Design, Warner Brothers Consumer Products, Lanard Toys, Target, and Anthropologie (among many others). Alumni have also entered graduate school as far away as the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands and as near to home as Cal State Long Beach. ➤

Communicators, Thinkers,

and IntegratorsBy Steve McAdam, Founding Chair, Product Design

We knew early on that we had the opportunity to create a unique program that leveraged the strengths of the type of student Otis attracts. These students use technology, but are not technicians or engineers; they are creators, artists and makers who thrive on diversity and engaging in design challenges. Designer:

David LeanDesigner: Nathan Woods

FEATURE

04 OMAG

FEATURE

OMAG 03

At no time in history have designers had the range of technologies, materials and information from which to create products. But thinking about product design today means thinking beyond the product and recognizing the complex issues of business, technology, sustainability and user experience.

Ultimately, we’re striving to create an educational experience in the program that achieves parity with the global professional world, but also to expand product design beyond products and market imperatives. We train our students to research, develop and design products for 5, 10, 15 years into the future rather than to become slaves of industry or trendsetters.

“ The Otis/LMU project allowed students to experience an environment that approximates the reality of business and partnerships. They learned that integrating their design skills with the skills of negotiation and mutual respect refined their vision of how success in the future will be measured.”

— Michael Kollins, Assistant Chair, Product Design

They work in wood, metal, ceramics, plastics and fabrics and the process of object design and development.

In the junior year, students “interpret” the world. Through sequential courses, they refine their studio skills to develop a personal vision, creative practices and design methodology. Students develop multidisciplinary design skills in two broad product categories: “soft-line” non-durable products (fashion accessories, shoe design and home decor items) and “hard-line” durable products (furniture design, consumer electronics, medical devices). Throughout the sequence, issues of sustainable design are considered.

In the senior year, students “revolutionize” the world. The emphasis is on designing for the future; preparing for their careers as profession-als and developing a thesis project that reflects the culmination of their training.

In fall of 2008, Otis product design students collaborated on a project with Loyola Marymount University Business School’s Entrepreneurial Department, with the goal of creating a synthe-sis of design and business to explore new business models that will drive innovation and

bring design solutions and services to a rapidly changing global market. Otis students took a university-level business and entrepreneurial class and jointly participated in a real-world experience of forming a product, business and media plan for a small company.

Engagement with the corporate community is an essential part of the student’s development in the program. Corporate sponsors collaborate with faculty and students to identify the design opportunity, define deliverables, deter-mine resources, and evaluate design outcomes. The emphasis in each project is on innovation. In a recent corporate-sponsored research project for HRI, the intra-group think tank of Omron, students were challenged to project what will be the potential products and services needed for society in 2025.

Where product design will go in the creative economy of the 21st century remains to be seen. Yet while many of the same ques-tions our students ask today about product design they will ask again as professionals, we as a faculty feel confident that their answers to those questions will always reflect their own unique creative voice and vision. ●

The program focuses on a holistic and simplified approach to product design, and focuses on the issues that are at the core of supporting user experience and therefore likely to withstand social forces, economic trends and technological invention over a long period of time.

In the sophomore year, students “decon-struct” the world to focus on developing a heightened sense of aesthetics. They learn to design with intent through the practice of applying the unifying principals of design and the aspects of color, surface texture and form.

The successful product designer of today must be multifaceted like a diamond. The larger number of facets, the more brilliantly it shines. This requires that the Product Design curriculum must continually be assessed and enriched with educational opportunities and real-world multidisciplinary experiences that will better prepare our students to be the design leaders of the future.

Designer: Rebecca Reisman

Designer: Joon Han Lee

Designer: Kevin Melchiorri

Designer: Arron Au da Silva

Designer: Michelle Pak

Designer: Jung Mi Na

Designer: Maxine Wong

Designer: Tyler Haggstrom

Designer: Judith Uribe

Designer: Joon Han Lee

Designer: Yoonah Bae

OMAG 6

FEATURED COURSE

7 OMAG

The Product Design student saunters along the library aisle, stopping to peruse the characteristics of green materials. She runs her fingertips along the cardboard shelf, the cellulose shelf, the copper shelf, and the cotton shelf, before hitting the Ds — dandelion?! She eyeballs the explorative display. Could she use the stems as part of a new composite building substance? Could she incorporate the flower’s ubiquitous yellow into a systemic design scheme?

She makes a beeline to the nearby research hub and quickly brings up a list of projects and resources related to dandelions and other weedy raw materials. She likes what she sees and prints out a few pages. She returns to the shelves, picks up the dandelion display, and eventually checks it out at the front desk.

Welcome to the brain of Christopher Paterno, who teaches the Materials and Methods/Green Design course. This is the future that excites him, and the present he offers his students each week. “I believe that tactile qualities of a material inspire ideas and design more than book or Internet research alone,” he says.

Meeting outside on the verdant lawn alongside the Ben Maltz Gallery is apt for his class. The students air eco-ethical examples culled from recent news: bio-based plastics and fuels … untapped uses for seaweed … bamboo paneling … elephant grass … hempy stuff … hay sugars compressed and made into furniture, etc. Fortunately, there is no shortage of innovation, and Paterno digs into the considerable questions:

What’s the real motive for jumping on the green bandwagon? It really doesn’t matter why they’re doing it as long as they are doing it. Green design becomes a bottom-line issue: businesses aren’t going to change ways just to save the world — mostly you have to design knowing how to source it out and do it in smart ways.

In the end, does going green really pay? Yes, but you’ll need to think of the whole system — how it’s made, distributed and disposed. That means you’ll have to consider the environment, the economy and the consumer. InterfaceFlor, a carpet company, was failing and was a toxic night-mare. The owner, after rethinking the way he did “carpeting,” went very green, redesigned his product into snazzy, eco-friendly interchangeable carpet tiles, and saved his company. In some ways green design can mean more expensive, but not always. Some companies just can’t see past the initial costs of re-tooling for long-term savings. For it to work, we’ve got to get beyond the mentality of: ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’

How are green-leaning, well-meaning designers supposed to work within the parameters of the corporate world, where there may only be the desire to portray a green image? Green Responsibility brings up the chicken or the egg question. Is it the consumers’ or the government’s responsibility to demand green products and manufacturing, or is it the manufacturers’ responsibiity to educate the consumer? If the designers know how to design green and save on materials and design to lower manufacturing costs, then they can infiltrate from inside. Greenies can see right through “greenwashing,” where suits may only want to appear green.

“ I believe that tactile qualities of a material inspire ideas and design more than book or Internet research alone.”

Materials and Methods/Green Design

By George Wolfe

FEATURED COURSE

Christopher Paterno, Instructor

Devin Week, 100% wood surfboard; no resins or fiberglass

Back in a boxy classroom, one of Paterno’s young conserva-tionistas presents his Powerpoint report on Earthships. He runs through the history of this anomalous species of predominantly Southwest living, and speaks to the gutsy, systemic approach begun by the movement’s founder, Mike Reynolds. Tires rammed with earth are the Lego-like building blocks of curvaceous walls; water gets re-used for various purposes (filtered rainwater for cooking/showering, gray water for interior gardens and toilets/showers, and black water is naturally broken down and output-ted to exterior gardens); the merciless desert sun provides a benevolent stream of solar energy to the south-facing abodes, which are partially embedded in the ground for maximum energy preservation. And, of course, tucked away out back is plenty of compost mentis.

Earthships go a long way toward showing that seeing green needn’t be dull — it can be sexy, too. The womb-like environs are uncommonly seductive. Some of the most effective and elegant re-designing begins with re-defining the basic assumptions and slaying a few sacred professional vows; it requires thinking out-side the vox populi.

“Sometimes, ending up with a question is as good as coming up with an answer,” adds Paterno, picking up on the exploration through crits and research. “And sometimes changing the name can alter your approach. Instead of ‘chair,’ try starting with ‘rest-ing place.’” Such a subtle difference can be tremendously liberat-ing: for the designer, the consumer, and the world. That’s how you end up with not just a house, but an earthship; not office furniture, but Herman Miller; and not a car, but a Tesla.

“But keep in mind that green design doesn’t just mean using natural materials,” adds Paterno, “it’s all about materials management. Some say Green Design is a trend or fad, but I think green design is synonymous with smart design, and smart design is always top design. Top designers create good, eco-conscious designs. I hope to create armies of designers that are aware of their actions, aware of their environment, and aware of good, smart design.”

Interruption of the waste stream is the ecocentric challenge facing these young men and women. But by truly confronting our bad habitats of waste and exploring new realms of consciously virescent design, and embracing our newfound Father Nurture role, we can all one day live in a material world — in the best possible sense. ●

Experience Design

What they have in common as products, or what they speak to as con-cepts, is the notion that the experience IS the design.

But where, exactly, is the line between the many other design disci-plines, and and product design (PD) in particular?

With “hard” products such as mobile phones and computers, there is certainly an interactive element. A car can be thought of as a manifesta-tion of interactive design (i.e., its responsiveness to the driver, or items like voice-responsive GPS screens), but does a car really meet the litmus test? What about a house (sure, maybe Bill Gates’ house, but what about grandma’s?)? And aren’t cities simply huge interactive products, with urban planners, architects, politicians and municipal agencies acting out roles as designers and shaping and revising their product’s features over many years and iterations? Good or bad design notwithstanding, people regularly engage with and experience these urban commodities.

And with “soft” products such as stuffed animals — say, Roger Rabbit or a Mimzy doll — their designs determine whether or not a kid will interact with it or leave it forever under the bed with rest of the dust bunnies. This is true for clothing and fashion, too. At their best, aren’t they ultimately about an intimate connection between the product and the wearer, or the effect of clothing on a runway model who has a responsive encounter with an audience? And what about a favorite couch or Laz-E-Boy recliner or auto-messaging chair that somebody practically develops a personal relationship with?

It’s Wednesday afternoon on the 5th floor, and the Experience Design students take turns explaining the musical instrument each is in the pro-cess of inventing and how each addresses the class criteria of interactivity. The theme of this particular semester is sound, partly inspired by MIT’s Tod Machover, who made a “hyperinstrument” specifically for Dan Ellsey (who suffers from cerebral palsy) so that he could write, perform and conduct his music, and to help others learn how to compose, too. Hyper-instruments are sometimes referred to as the “opera of the future.”

One student steps up and explains his concept: a DJ who spins and dispenses his music visually, creating an interactive dance floor. Another student presents a system for creating and amplifying ambient sound from falling raindrops upon various materials. A third speaks about her gesture-responsive belly dancing belt. There’s a drum set that’s off the beaten track of drumsticks and instead uses the tension of pressured metals and other distressed acoustic substances for maximum effect. Then there are Jangle Bangles™ that double as musical bracelets, necklaces,

and accessories (giving new meaning to the concept of Shaker design). “I try to get them to think in terms of the ecosystem of design,”

explains Hendrie. “Basically, the human experience of a product is made up of many facets, and these live together in a kind of ecosystem. Traditionally, product design has focused on the one-dimensional device design, but increasingly designers have to be able to conceptualize — or at least collaborate — on other facets of a product to make for an effective, integrated, branded user experience.”

Among those systemic components are: Device (e.g., home PC), Content (e.g., Facebook), Customer Support (e.g., carmaker Saturn), Inter-Operability (e.g., iPhone), and Service (e.g., Patagonia).

For a classic example of a more truly integrative design, look at visionary inventors like George Eastman, who intuitively understood the revolutionary value of Kodak’s “You take the picture, we do the rest” cam-paign. “It’s a superb example,” says Hendrie, “of understanding that user experience is a system of interrelated devices, products and services. He simplified and unified all of these, then crafted an elegant solution where ease of use trumps complex technology.”

Looking into the future, PD is expected to find fertile soil in fields like nanotechnology, where we increasingly design on the atomic and molecular levels, often with medical solutions for the human body as a goal. Then again, practicality is not always the end goal of future-leaning technological design. “Context and user-aware products don’t have to be all about things like cell phones,” says Hendrie. “Technology can be used to create inspiring art objects, like the electronic sensing jewelry from Philips Design.”

Despite the volume of new product designs, the human brain stands out for Hendrie as her choice for most ideal PD application. “Many other living creatures do a lot of basic things better than us — smell, run, reach, see, hear, echolocate, etc. — but the human brain is so responsive, so plastic and has evolved so dynamically that I’d say it is our central, special human attribute. How the brain works also reminds me of the creative design process: observe, deconstruct, understand, recombine, imagine and generate the new.”

That’s good, because after all is said and done in Hendrie’s class, her students will get a chance to put their own noggins to the test by going out into the world and creating smarter, more responsive, more ecologi-cally systemic products that truly enhance our user experience and blow our own minds. ●

OMAG 8

FEATURED COURSE

9 OMAG

FEATURED ALUMNI

Antikythera. Affordance. Iterations. Kodak. Design with intent. Personas. Portable defibrillators. Attentiveness. Nanotechnology. Hyperinstruments. These are just some of the products and concepts that Maggie Hendrie explores with her students.

Mastering Ikebana

By George Wolfe

Maggie Hendrie, Instructor

Randall Wilson (MFA ‘97) and Joan Takayama-Ogawa

What circumstances led to your Apple interview? I think most people would be shocked to hear that I applied to Apple online, for a job posting requiring a minimum five years of experience! The interview process was exhaustive, exciting and nerve-wracking. It felt like it took forever, but it was really more like two to three months. For the interview, they flew me to Cupertino headquarters. A few hours turned into an entire day of interviewing, and ended up continuing into a second day!

How were you able to get a job at Apple, which is highly competitive?Luck had a lot to do with it. I was what they were looking for, before they knew it. But it should be no surprise that, with hundreds if not thousands of applicants, competition does exist within the industrial design studio. One of my colleagues went through what he described as a six-year “interview” process! I was the first applicant in almost a decade to be hired straight out of college.

What do you think it was about you or your skills in particular?I think it was my energy and desire to learn. Much of what Apple does is highly specialized and unique, so an open mind was key. Most of the more experienced applicants were more entrenched in their ways and less flexible. Of course a strong, polished portfolio and a jam-packed resume helped a great deal.

In what ways did your training at Otis help you in your new position?That’s a difficult one to answer because it wasn’t any one specific skill or a specific class that I had taken. It was a combination of many things, more than I probably realize myself. I guess it comes down to the open-ended philosophy be-hind the program, which was still in its infancy. I couldn’t believe that students were given so much input into shaping the program, and yet I sensed this was crucial. But you only get out of the experience what you put in.

Tell us briefly about your years in the Product Design Program It has always been exciting to know that I was the very first to sign up for this brand new program in Product Design, and almost blindly since I did not do Foundation Year at Otis. A big milestone for me was participating in the NeoCon West Furniture Design Competition. We were just rookies, but ended up beating third-and fourth-year students from Art Center, UCLB, and Yale. We came in second, and our classmates came in first. I learned that being part of a new program was no excuse to aim low, and realized that we were destined for great things. Other memorable moments were presentations by Segway human transports, Sony’s robotics division, and other guest lecturers. Despite all the hard work, we had a lot of fun times too. ●

By Joan Takayama-Ogawa

Otis Product Design differs from many industrial design programs because it integrates creativity, aesthetics, philos-ophy, design principals, materials, and fabrication techniques along with entrepreneurial skills and business practices to produce a well-rounded designer. Senior Lecturer Randall Wilson (MFA ’97) epitomizes this approach in his sophomore Forms and Structures studio, which explores the vessel beginning with Ikebana (Japanese Flower Arrangement).

Students looked closely at Yokohama woodblock prints, studied the Japanese vase tradition, and observed a demon-stration by an Ikebana master. They made both wooden and ceramic Moribana vases, and, after a trip to the downtown L.A. Flower Market, completed their arrangements in an installation. ●

First up at Apple Ismael Basso

Editor’s Note: Ismael Basso (‘07) was a member of Product Design’s first graduating class. Chair Steve McAdam interviewed him about his journey to Apple and his beginnings at Otis.

“ It has always been exciting to know that I was the very first to sign up for this brand new program in Product Design.”

Randall Wilson

OMAG 10 2 OMAG

FeAture

11 OMAG

FeAture

“ The Department of Architecture/Landscape/Interiors (A/L/I) advances the orchestration of our material surroundings through sequential exploration and a synthetic realignment of the disciplines of architec-ture, landscape, and interiors. These three fields organize and shape the spaces and contexts for all our activities and relations.” — Linda Pollari, Chair

Technical Precision, Aesthetic Sophistication, & Conceptual Rigor

The Architecture/Landscape/Interiors curricu-lum offers courses in four major areas: Studio, Technologies + Ecologies, Digital Media, and History + Theory.Studio I immediately immerses students in the language of three-dimensional space (plan, section, elevation, and models), design process, and the fundamental issues of scale and struc-ture — and is fondly referred to as “boot-camp” (at least by the faculty!). While this course introduces students to three-dimensional forms and, most importantly, space, it also tests their interest in the necessarily and, to those most fit for the major, interestingly abstracted modes of thought and communication. Once empowered with the ability to communi-cate aspects of three-dimensional spaces and forms in Studio I, students are directed in the design of buildings, landscapes, and interiors in the following “site-based” Studios II through VI. The projects for these studios are set in real-world sites, which students visit, analyze and document. Most sites are in Los Angeles, except for Studio VI: Building and Landscape. Students visit this site on a class field trip.

Work in the site-based studios is supported by the knowledge and skills gained in the Technologies + Ecologies, Digital Media, and History + Theory “support” courses. Technolo-gies + Ecologies courses provide knowledge of the materials and methods of landscape, building, and interior construction. Each of these comprehensive technologies courses presents information that is typically located between

multiple courses in stand-alone architecture, landscape and interiors programs. For example, Technologies + Ecologies III: Building Technol-ogy introduces students to the materials and methods of building construction in wood, steel, concrete and unit masonry as well as basic structural principles of forces and resultants. This condensed delivery of knowledge empow-ers and enables students to produce both cred-ible as well as inventive designs in their studio courses across three disciplines, in only three years (sophomore, junior and senior).

Digital Media courses introduce students to computer software and skills in their first year in the program. Through selected software (AutoCAD, Rhinoceros, Adobe Illustrator and

Photoshop), students learn digital drafting, 3D modeling, rendering and fabrication; and the application and manipulation of images and type for use in design presentation boards. In these courses, students develop basic proficien-cy such that they are able to gain internships in architecture, landscape and/or interiors offices as early as the end of their first year in the program. History + Theory courses provide the cultural and intellectual framework neces-sary to produce informed and articulate design propositions.

This combination of coursework is designed to produce studio projects that exhibit technical precision, aesthetic sophistication, and concep-tual rigor. ●

Multiple Live-Work Apartments in Downtown L.A. Studio IV: Private/Interior Architecture(near left) Danny Phillips designed narrow one-storey apartments with rooftop gardens for the Wurlitzer Building. (far left) Billy Tam designed multi-level apartments with a continuous skylight for the Santee Alley Manufacturing Building. Instructor: Richard Lundquist

(above)Community Pool in Monteceito Heights Karin Silva developed an elegant, two-level scheme that took advantage of the natural topography of the site to provide pools on a lower level and a dramatic entry at street level. Instructor: Antony Guida

Student-designed and -built installation for Class of 2008 exhibition

was initiated in fall 2000, when Linda Pollari became Chair. Upon Ms. Pollari’s arrival, she revised the depart-ment’s existing curriculum, which had addressed product design as well as architecture and urban design. The newly renamed curriculum focused on the spatial design fields of architecture (buildings), landscape (the spaces between buildings), and interiors (the spaces within buildings). Ms. Pollari’s goal was to present the discourse and expertise of each discipline in preparation for professional practice, while simultaneously seeking synchronicities among those disciplines. Most importantly, the department’s focus was shifted from craft to design in order to empower graduates to be uninhibited by craft or material limitations, and able to collaborate with artisans and craftsmen working in any scale, material or technique.

“Unlike many other design fields,” says A/L/I Chair Linda Pollari, “the related disciplines of architecture, landscape, and interiors address forms and spaces that are much larger than the necessary representations of them. These fields convey instructions and intents through documents—through words and images—that are not the thing or product itself. Consequently, spatial design is invariably a mediated and abstracted practice, though one that has very real and material implications. Spatial designers are the directors of spaces and events, but generally not their producers or performers. In this way, spatial design exists as the organization, reconstruction, and dissemination of information in its broadest sense. The designer is responsible not only to ‘solve’ problems, but also to frame problems—even

to invent them. The broad scope of spatial design is directly related to its demands for communication and collaboration: with clients, engineers, product represen-tatives, contractors, craftsmen, and numerous other experts and constituencies. The study of architecture, landscape, and interiors at Otis does not address its fields simply as service industries but provides critical reflection on their activities and promotes speculation on alternative scenarios.”

Many A/L/I students work in professional architec-ture, landscape or interior design offices while training in the program, often as early as sophomore year. Graduates are working at the following firms, among others: Ellerbe Beckett, San Francisco; Bennitt + Mitchell, Los Angeles; GRAFT LLC, Los Angeles; Chang Jo Architects, Seoul; LIGHTING DESIGN ALLIANCE, Long Beach; Mansilla + Tuñón Arquitectos, Madrid; Richard Meier & Partners Architects LLP, Los Angeles; Shubin + Donaldson Architects, Santa Barbara; Clive Wilkinson Architects, Los Angeles; WOLCOTT ARCHITECTURE | INTERIORS, Culver City. Graduates are equally prepared to enter competitive graduate programs for Master of Architecture, Master of Landscape Architecture or Master of Interior Architecture degrees; in fact Otis A/L/I gradu-ates may enter several Master of Architecture programs with advanced standing, bypassing the first year of that three-year graduate curriculum. Graduates are studying or have completed Master of Architecture degrees from Princeton, Yale, UCLA, and USC. Two alumni began graduate studies in landscape architecture at Harvard. ●

Otis’ unique, multi-disciplinary Architecture/Landscape/Interiors curriculum

Entry for “Launch Your Career in Exhibit Design” Competition Studio III: Interior/Display/ExchangeJustin Kim designed linear galleries of continuous display surfaces for the walls, ceilings, and floors. Instructor: David Reddy

Urban Park, Venice, CA Studio II Landscape/Furniture Joem Sanez’s project exploited an existing disturbance in the urban grid of misaligned streets and topographies by interweaving and layering beach grasses and hardscape materials. Instructor: Margaret Griffin

SyntheticSpatialities

David Orkand’s

Cross-Cultural Pilgrimages

OMAG 12

FeAtured AluMnus

13 OMAG

FeAtured AluMnus

Keeping up with globetrotter David Orkand (‘04) is like trying to fixate on some solid shape while looking into a kaleidoscope, or trying to distill a singular taste from an everlasting Gobstopper, or merely taking a ride on a Mobius Loop.

Most recently he is the recipient of a Monbukagakusho Doctoral Research Scholarship, which means he’ll be jetting to Tokyo next fall to study with Yoshiharu Tsukamoto (from Atelier Bow-Wow) as a Fellow at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. This summer, he returns to a gig in Madrid, Spain, with Mansilla+Tuñón Arquitectos, which got put on hold for a three-month Assistant Instructor position at Princeton (where he did his graduate work). He touched down in Madrid in spring 2008, after a month in China. Before China, he spent six months in Tokyo, splitting his time working for Tezuka Architects and Atelier Bow-Wow. And that’s just the relatively pedestrian chunk of the last few years.

Before that, he really travelled around and had some con-sciousness-shifting adventures. He wandered — and wondered — with good friends through Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand (“hiking through rainforests, lying on beaches, and otherwise appreciating all that small communist countries have to offer”). He gallivanted through India and traipsed solo through the jaw- dropping, eye-catching Himalayas. (“India will undoubtedly have a great influence not just on my future work, but also as a model for a way of life. I saw how much my education has been dominated by western discourse.”) He rounded off his adventure by riding hoary camels though the jilted desert near Pakistan —“throughout all my travels, seeing as much exquisite architecture as I could.”

Consider all this Orkand’s panacea after seven straight years of college education, including being Otis’ valedictorian back in 2004. Or perhaps it constitutes a certain making-up for downtime prior to arrival at Otis …

“At the end of high school, while visiting prospective univer-sities, I came down with a severe case of pneumonia, which was quickly revealed to be a form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I was put on an intensive regimen of chemotherapy and radiation that would progress well over the course of a year. Up until this moment in my life I had a strong desire to become an artist, as I always found it easier to express my complex emotions though images rather than words.

“While undergoing my treatment, however, I found myself in excess of contemplative time and in absence of graphic stimuli, which enabled me to become intensely aware of my surround-ings. Spending weeks at a time in the same room and bed, I began to realize how effective space is in the conditioning of the individual. Formerly, I had viewed space as being neutral or pas-sive in the reception of daily life; now I began to see it as being charged with meaning and having an extraordinary potential as an artistic medium in its own right.

“Over a year after my diagnosis, having deferred my college acceptance, a hairless and disheveled version of my former self headed off to Otis. I was physically torn apart and uncertain of myself at this point, yet from the beginning I felt not only chal-lenged academically but, even more so, energized by the faculty’s belief in my capabilities. Faculty members like Parme Giuntini, who demanded that I be placed in all of the honors classes, pushed me to be critically minded and achieve things I could never have expected of myself.

“Up until this point I hadn’t realized how little effort I had put into my education, coasting through high school and never really giving much serious thought to the world around me. At Otis I also immediately took a liking to classes dealing with form and space, declaring my major in environmental design (now Architecture/Landscape/Interiors) shortly thereafter. I experienced the greatest degree of comfort and excitement I had ever felt in an educational setting, being engaged by the faculty, who opened me up to new lines of inquiry and modes of conception.

“The more immersed I became in the subject matter, the more my passion for architecture grew, and during my senior year, I decided to go to graduate school at Princeton, feeling it would best fit my desire to be involved in the profession of architecture at the level of practitioner as well as educator or theoretician.

While at Otis, my growing interest in the theoretical issues surrounding art and architecture was definitely marked by people like Bob Somol and Dave Hickey, and I feel privileged to have been given access to such incredible minds. Also, the financial support given to me by The GROUP, among others, made it pos-sible for me to continue on with my education beyond the walls of Otis, and I am greatly indebted to them.”

At Princeton, in addition to keeping up with his studio obliga-tions, Orkand indulged in “a long-neglected craving for an excep-tional liberal arts education,” eagerly opting for diverse classes, from media theory to the study of pirates. With a secret hankering for the high seas, it’s probably no wonder that he soon found

himself on a research quest, traveling to Iceland on a Butler Fellowship.

“Iceland had a tremendous effect on me, and my thesis proj-ect was definitely born of my experiences there. It was a surreal experience on a number of levels, and it challenged my usually rationalistic modes of production and expression. There is some-thing about a never-setting sun and an infinite expanse that can make any man go a bit crazy.”

How does Orkand not go crazy himself, with all the whipsaw cross-cultural transitioning that he’s done?

“For some reason it takes little coping on my part. I always find more similarities than differences between cultures, and the overwhelming generosity of the people I have met has made it all the easier. In general, I find that people who are desirous of more experiences and fewer things seem to really enjoy the world around them. There’s a lot of beauty out there and it’s not that hard once you’ve decided to throw yourself in the middle of it.

“I guess I would rather strive for the impossible, which seems to be inscribed in the education of an architect, going both broad and deep. An overriding interest in theories/concepts and rhetoric has definitely helped me mediate between these spheres though. I am always trying to find balance in my life, but for some reason I tend to operate at the extremes. I think it is in the moments when my obsessive desires confront the ‘everyday’ that the most interesting things happen — in the friction between fantasy and reality, between the real and the virtual.” ●

By George Wolfe

Top: Aerospace Museum outside Tucson Instructor: Wes Jones Bottom: Downtown L.A. Live-Work Housing Instructor: Richard Lundquist

Maddox believes in a research-based design approach that identifies and integrates a client’s DNA into tangible expressions and environments. Among her successes are interiors, environmental graphics, and/or strategic branding for DuPont, Haworth, Ogilvy and Mather, along with many healthcare clients. In her Otis public lecture, Maddox presented four major projects. At Chicago State University, she employed African-American symbols and African construction methods that were meaningful to the University community in her design for the student union. At the University of Cincinnati’s George and Helen Smith Athletics Museum, she was able to integrate academics and athletics. For Bank of America’s corporate headquarters, she faced the issue of changing workplace habits, including flextime and web commuting. Recognizing that all employees must be included in the brand strategy, she created a collaborative environment that celebrates community activity with a hub area that brings employees together in a social space. Over four years, her work with the office furniture company Haworth has resulted in award-winning interiors that reflect the company’s commitment to environmental sustainability. Haworth’s showrooms in L.A., Dallas, Chicago, D.C., London, Calgary and N.Y. all express the company’s interest in innovation and openness.

Donghia Master Class Design Brief In a global economy, each business, city, or entity has to put forth its unique attributes and value proposition in order to be able to compete for a slice of the global market share. An airport is the gateway to a city, a country, and a culture. In order to attract more visitors and transfer travelers, the airport has to be of ultimate functionality and a place where one would enjoy spending time. It should serve as a home- away-from-home with all the amenities needed by the modern traveler, accessible to everyone from every walk of life and of varied requirements. The airport character should be infused with local flavor and unique distinctive attributes from its location.

Three teams of three students each selected Mon-treal, Mumbai, and Morocco, and researched the culture, uniqueness, and global market value of each location. Ysamur Flores-Pena, Ph.D. (Associate Professor, Otis Liberal Studies), spoke about how cultural identity is manifested in design in Latin countries. Guest speaker Merry Norris spoke about the public art program for LAX. The teams mapped out the ideal experience of each visitor, creating a narrative that layered cultural signifi-cance with visitor “touch points” They then defined the brand/cultural message and components (pattern, color, symbols, cultural attributes and sensory experiences).

Eva Maddox

Designing for the Client’s DNA

As Design Principal of Chicago-based Perkins + Will Branded Environments group, interior designer Maddox begins every project with the question: What’s your organization’s DNA? An expert in designing work environments for a changing culture, she was the perfect choice for the Angelo Donghia Foundation’s first Designer-In-Residency at Otis in fall 2008. Eva directed a select group of Architecture/Landscape/Interiors students in the one-week Donghia Master Class and presented a public lecture.

OMAG 14

FeAtured visitinG desiGner

15 OMAG

FeAtured visitinG desiGner

In the Donghia Master Class, we learned to approach other cultures as

designers. The project challenged us to analyze, investigate, and research

theories for cultural and design problems. Students moved freely around

ideas throughout the course. The team-based method created a friendly

mood in the studio where students almost lived together during the

week. Although it was an intense, short-term program, the project offered

enough time to investigate, theorize, and present. The lectures from

other professors and artists were really valuable, and Eva Maddox made

me more “aware,” and introduced new skills and information.

Hakan Tung

Architecture/Landscape/

Interiors student,

Donghia Master

Class Participant

MumbaiStudents analyzed the Indian culture through the textures, colors and details that Indian residents use and see every day, and chose a pattern based on the lotus to organize systems for circulation and views. Their proposal for the Mumbai Airport Terminal con-sisted of four levels that overlapped and wove together to merge tourism with the commercial marketplace. The four levels were organized systematically and designed to weave their way down, sequentially merging the tourists, who arrived at the top level and then descended, into a busy Indian marketplace at the bottom. MoroccoAs one of the most modern countries on the continent, Morocco has raised its inhabitants’ quality of life over the last 20 years. The team determined that Morocco needed more educational opportunities, and created an interactive learning center to serve as a classroom for children and a museum for adult visitors. MontrealMontreal, as a city of innovation, a design capital, and a UNESCO “City of Design,” presented an ideal situation for exploration of an unconventional form of the airport terminal. Inspired by Montreal’s Cirque du Soleil, the team used acrobatic illusions and interlocking forms suspended over a pool that allows ice-skating as well as water shows. ●

The Donghia Master Class and Residency was enormously successful. Students enrolled in the course were fully engaged with the new design ideas and practices that Eva Maddox presented to them. She directed students through research and design, using the same steps used by her firm. Responding to her clear direction and sequencing, the the students produced and represented unique, creative proposals within a very short time. Linda Pollari, Chair, Architecture/Landscape/Interiors

Interior design for George & Helen Smith Athletics Museum,Richard E. Linder Center,University of Cincinnati

Alumni Around the world

omAG 26 27 omAG

Russia in Transition

We had a lovely Soviet-type apartment with two bedrooms, kitchen, living room, and bath, but the toilet was outside the apartment. During the day we spent some time in Red Square, the Kremlin, and Lenin’s mausoleum, and had tea in GUM, the famous shopping mall.

Our flight from Moscow to Ekaterinburg was four hours late, so when we arrived we were taken directly to the Ural Gorky University where we gave talks about our work to the students of visual studies. The conversation afterwards was more about how things are in the U.S. than about our work. All of this was done though an interpreter, who was one of the students.

At the conference, “In Transition: Cultural Identities in the Age of Transnational and Transcultural Flux,” I presented my work, and other presentations focused on issues such as a critique of multiculturalism as official ideology, the new post-Soviet citizen identity, and gender citizenship. For me the highlight was going to lunch in the student cafeteria with the graduate women students from the Germanic Languages department, who had simultaneously translated the conference talks. I wanted to find out about what it’s like to grow up in a post-Soviet era, where/how they live, etc.

Between 1924 and 1991, Ekaterinburg was known as Sverd-lovsk, after the Bolshevik leader Yakov Sverdlov. We stayed in the very nice Central Hotel for four nights. My most vivid memory will be of the suffocating heat in the room. Every indoor space in Russia, including the university, is heated to 80 degrees. Outside: 20-30 degrees.

On our last day in Ekaterinburg, we were taken on a tour of the city’s major monuments: the War Memorial, popularly known as the Black Tulip, and the famous “Church on the Blood,” on the site where the last Tsar, Nicholas Romanov, was executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918. Tsar Nicholas has now been canonized by the Orthodox Church, and is the object of renewed popular nostalgia and affection. ●

Editor’s Note: In October 2008, Graduate Fine Arts Assistant Chair and Professor Annetta Kapon spent six days in Russia to take part in the exhibition and conference “In Transition Russia,” in Ekaterinburg, October 16 – November 16. The exhibition was then shown at Moscow’s National Center for Contemporary Art, November 22 – December 22.

Annetta Kapon (’85)

I spent one night in London at (former faculty member) Susan Barnet’s flat and the next day we flew to Moscow where we were guests at the Center for Contemporary Art for two nights.

Blurring the Boundaries of Photography

We simply started working together because of our mutual curiosity in mixing each of our different skills. We hoped to invent a new aesthetic in photographic imagery. Our desire to see unborn and unseen imagery has lead us to experiment with combining photography with other mediums such as drawings, collage, hand-made props and computer graphics— the fusion here is one of photography and illustration, digital and analog. Such manipulation of images made us more optimistic about modern-day photography in that it is no longer only about capturing a moment of physical reality.

Our approach to the photography of images is always to leave room for creativity and for the subjects to remain in a real or unreal environment. By playing with the images and improvising with materials, we maintain spontaneity, which plays a key role in unlocking our fantasies. The image itself triggers our sense of freedom and allows us to see it from different angles, combatting our prejudices against any limited or fixed ideas of reality.

Visuals communicate with us, while awake, as they do when we dream. Dreams communicate with us beyond any possible verbal communication. They are beyond logic and often unex-plainable within our physical reality—we can’t recall the dream when we wake up. But, the feeling and the experience of the dream are quite real and make perfect sense.

When we re-shape and reinvent images, we blur the bound-ary of real and the unreal. The image no longer belongs to either of us. It becomes detached and independent, confronting us with unfamiliar feelings and territories, which exist only within ourselves. This combination of paradoxes, known and unknown, surrounds us constantly. ●

www.mi-zo.com

I have been based in Tokyo since 2002, working as a photographer with my partner, Zoren. We are known as Zoren Gold and Minori.

Alumni Around the world

TOKYO

Top right: Cover, Object that Dreams, published by Die Gestalten Verlag

Minori Murakami (’96)

MOSCOW/EKATERINBURG

17 OMAG

Scott: I remember you vividly in a lower-division drawing class I was teaching, even though it was years ago. What impressed me about you was how original you were from the very first assignment. Your drawing skills were excellent and your unique point of view was sort of “pre-installed.” The project result was far beyond a typical beginning drawing student. Can you account for this or maybe you don’t remember at all?Mario: I remember your drawing class like it was yesterday. You allotted the space for us to do anything we wanted to do. I made little action figures that were L.A. Mexican gangsters – about a year before the Homies came out. This was my first understanding that I could be onto something, that I could pull things out that were happening in the culture. It was a good way for me to gauge that my ideas were good. At first I was discouraged because those Homies came out and it was kind of “Oh, that was MY idea,” but then I gave it a second thought and realized “that’s cool, I’m still in school and that’s one idea, but I’m going to have a million ideas. But aside from having a million ideas, I want to find that one idea that makes me a million dollars. I haven’t gotten there yet, but I’m still working on it.

S: I’ve always had the opinion that a student’s attitude counts in teaching. What I liked about you was that you seemed to pick up what I was trying to teach you without a lot of difficulty. Is this true? M: You really were able to illustrate things in a manner that we young artists could understand, through metaphor and allegory. I remember a story that I ripped off and told my students – about intention. A Japanese screen painter’s intent was to paint 100 black crows in a snowstorm. He spent a long time painting these highly detailed crows and finally, when he was done, he splashed white paint all over the screen. Anyone who saw it would have thought that he ruined the screen with the big splashes of white paint. But his original intent was to paint those crows in a snow-storm, not just crows by themselves.

S: You had a really great attitude. M: They say that things that happen to you are 10%, and 90% is the attitude you have toward the 10% that keeps you going, and I think that I really wanted to learn. At that time in my life, ten years ago, I was receptive to new ideas, and that’s what school gave me. All these new ideas, things to learn, whether practical or conceptual, challenged me.

S: It really showed. The weird thing about the professor gig is that I can often tell who is marked to do well in the arts. There are students who come out of nowhere, and after some struggle do really great, despite indications to the contrary. I’ve learned that you can never take bets on who is going to do well. I guess what I’m asking is: What were your struggles, if any, after you left Otis? M: When I was in school, I thought of myself as the tortoise, taking my time and determined to finish the race. The biggest struggle for me was to wrap my head around all the things I was being exposed to all at once – the visiting artists, the instructors, etc. I thought: How could I take that info and make it my own? I always felt like I was a spy trying to steal information. My peer group was looking at things the same way.

S: That’s interesting because my next question is about the strong group of fellow students you were tight with. M: It was a tight group for a few reasons – it was competitive, and we were like dueling banjos or breakdancers trying to outdo each other. I’d see my friends, like Ruben Ochoa (‘97) and Gajin Fujita (‘97), working in the wood shop or library. When I saw Ruben’s name on a card in a library book, I would get mad because I wanted to be there first. It was like a competition of the nerds.

S: It seems to me that you and some of your peers broke the mold of a rather old and irksome idea of identity politics and culture wars. You went over, around or through a type of art world racial stereotyping. Is this true? M: At the old Otis campus there was a group called LASO (Latino Artists Student Organization), and they would do shows at the Luna Sol Café across the street. By the time we got out of school, we had done all the basic things we could do related to cultural identity, so that forced us to figure out what we were going to do on our own, to develop our own vocabulary and language. We couldn’t rely on Ruben’s gangster toilet or my action figures any more, so our work had to come from a more personal space. So we found diverse subject matters.

S: I have lived long enough to experience students who come back as teachers. I enjoy seeing that, aside from being reminded of how old I am. You have returned to Otis to teach. How’s that sitting with you?M: I think it’s fun to come back and teach. I’m on the other side of the looking glass from when I was a student. There are cats in trees, and walk-ing cards, and queens that cut off heads, but it’s navigable. I try to guide students into the looking glass world of being an artist, and help them to find their individual place in the other world, the art world. Outside the looking glass, around the corner, over the horizon – there are all kinds of places to fit in. It’s inspiring to see the students’ projects because they may be comic book artists or web designers – all these creative paths are open to them.

S: Thanks Mario, it’s been great talking with you. ●

OTIS MONITOR

OMAG 16

OTIS MONITOR

On the Other Side of the Looking Glass Scott Grieger interviews Mario Ybarra, Jr.

Editor’s Note: This is excerpted from the first in a series of interviews that Fine Arts Professor and Program Director of Painting Scott Grieger conducts with alumni he has taught during his 30 years at Otis. Read the full interview and see more of Ybarra’s work at www.otis.edu/alumni/outstanding_alumni/mario_ybarra_jr.html

“ I try to guide students into the looking- glass world of being an artist, and help them to find their individual place in the other world, the art world.”

Top: Sweeny Tate, 2007 installation at the Tate Modern, London

Bottom: (detail) Take Me Out . . . No Man is an Island, 2008 installation at the Art Institute of Chicago

What are the words a storyboardist like Derek Thompson (‘94, Illustration) dreads hear-ing most? Being on a small team at Pixar that churned out more than 157,000 drawings for WALL-E, you’d think those words would be: “Do it over again.” Not so.

“The very nature of the work is rooted in revisions,” says Thompson. “In the final analysis, a story artist has to be prepared for any kind of direction. We have to stay flexible throughout the production process. Our department probably has the most potential for revision and change, but there is an appeal for me in working this way. Still, there’s a point where there can be no more storyboarding, and other departments have to take over, but that tends to be pretty late in the game. A good deal of the ‘re-writing’ happens in the story reel, which becomes sort of a visual script by the end of the process.”

Having done the freelance lifestyle at Dark Horse Comics, Electronic Arts and Maverick Studios, Thompson now appreciates the col-laborative experience at Pixar (he’s been there since 2005) that much more, despite the fact that it’s fraught with a ton of directives and changes. He observes that being thrown into the mix fills each day with a sense of excitement in the uncer-tainty — the unknown factors. “The possibilities are limitless, and that makes work more exciting! As a freelancer, you get isolated and thus less stimulated. I’ve always found I grow more as an artist when I’m working at a studio.”

The roots of this appeal harken back to his academically intense and socially tempestuous years of the early ‘90s, when Otis was still at the MacArthur Park campus. “Ultimately, apart from strengthening my creative discipline and developing critical thinking skills, it’s the totality of the experience itself that I’m grateful for: the teachers, fellow students, the courses, and all the twists and turns.”

After graduation, Thompson picked up a slew of work in various disciplines, and he still appre-ciates each for what it taught him and for what it uniquely offers: “Comics are probably one of the purest of the art forms — very often what you draw is what’s on the final page. The potential freedom in content is very appealing, too. If you want to make your own stories, no one can stop you. It’s a slower process for me, though, and the pay wasn’t great relative to the workload and schedule. Illustration comes with its own variety of challenges, but I’ve enjoyed it. I liked spend-ing a long time on a single image. You have a whole different relationship with a piece if you’re spending 40+ hours on it. And development art for video games and feature films comes in so many forms it’s hard to judge it in its totality. I think the variety inherent in this work has been great for me and has allowed me to be involved in a wide range of subject matter.”

Thompson’s eclectic background led him to a dream job when he was invited to join Industrial Light and Magic as a concept/storyboard artist, which culminated in working on Star Wars: Episode III. He says that the biggest difference between ILM and Pixar corporate cultures comes from the nature of the work. “Pixar creates

feature films from the ground up, and therefore the sense of participation and creative reward is different than working at a visual effects compa-ny like ILM — work is relegated to the VFX parts. It’s not the total filmmaking experience. That’s not to say it wasn’t a satisfying and rewarding work experience, simply different.”

Having been obsessed since age five with drawing dinosaurs and monsters, Thompson really connected with boss Andrew Stanton’s description of storyboarding as “like a paleontological dig, where at a certain point you know you have a dinosaur but you don’t really know what kind of dinosaur you have yet. Finding out what kind of dinosaur we’re building is part of what making these things come to life is all about.”

“I consider storyboarding to be one of the ultimate hybrid art forms,” adds Thompson. “To be an effective and successful story artist, one must wear a lot of hats. The story artist has to think like a director, actor, editor, cinema- tographer, production designer, art director, and more. There needs to be consideration for all aspects of filmmaking, and then you have to be able to draw it all and communicate the ideas visually.”●

19 OMAG

Digging it at Pixar

“Art and design education promotes the flexible, adaptive, and panoramic thinking that fuels an economy in which boundaries between art and design and other professions are increasingly porous. The only constant is the importance of nourishing young talent.”

So began the meeting that launched the 2007 Report on the Creative Economy of the Los Angeles Region. Otis commissioned the report from the Kaiser Center for Economic Research at the LAEDC to define the universe of organizations that comprise the creative economy, and to begin tracking the industries’ influence (such as the large number of indirect jobs each creative job generates in the Los Angeles region). The goal was to commission the report annually, and to discuss the findings at a meeting of educational, business, governmental and civic leaders. The result would present a compelling case for valuing working artists and designers, as well as for funding art and design education from an early age.

In October 2008, the second Otis/LAEDC Report on the Creative Economy of the Los Angeles Region was released. This report found that the creative industries continued as one of the largest business sectors in the region, generating nearly $100 billion in sales/receipts in Los Angeles County and more than $3.8 billion in state tax revenue. It also offered nearly one million direct and indirect jobs in Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

The report also highlighted the fact that the creative industries are sometimes difficult to quantify in full; the location of self-employed creative workers, for example, can prove a challenge to even the best economists. However, there also are changes for the better, such as more precise data categorization and new data streams that get more to the heart of the creative workforce’s influence.

Last year also saw the first report from the United Nations on the global creative economy. In “Creative Economy 2008, The Challenge of

Assessing the Creative Economy: Towards Informed Policy-Making,” the U.N. researchers discuss the state of the creative economies worldwide, and suggest what might be done to better establish these economies in developing countries (such as fortifying their intellectual property laws).

Looking ahead to the third annual Otis/LAEDC Report on the Creative Economy of the Los Angeles Region in November 2009, it is interesting to note that the student body currently studying at Otis hails from more than 30 countries; as such, it serves as a microcosmic view of both these regional and global creative economic developments. When this diversity is combined with the rigorous departmental curricula that challenges these creative individuals to work individually and together in teams, it is clear how vital Otis’ environment is for sparking new ideas that have global reach.

In addition, Otis faculty members often extend the boundaries of studios and classrooms to provide real-world challenges. This semester, “Future Sensing,” a collaboration between the Human Renaissance Institute in Tokyo and Otis Product Design, asks students to research and forecast trends 15 years from now, considering individual and family lifestyles; community, corporate, educational, and environmental transfor-mations; and the impact of technology, the economy and sustainability on these factors.

Product Design also began offering a transdisciplinary course with Loyola Marymount University in 2008, teaming Loyola entrepreneurship students with Otis product designers to develop a formal business plan and end product. One such product is a wheelchair that enables the occupant to swivel the seat and face others without turning the whole chair. This foray into the more direct development of creative entrepreneurs has been well received by both students and faculty members at both institutions, and will continue next year.

It is an exciting time for art and design students, as well as for working artists and designers, to participate in the creative economy of the Los Angeles Region, and to spur the development of new creative economies worldwide. For those who work on behalf of the students at Otis — from faculty to industry mentors to fundraisers — it is increasingly more mean- ingful to enter the Colleges’ 91st year by actively nourishing the young talent who will fuel these creative economies in ways yet to be conceived. ●

Read the full report at www.otis.edu/08report

Creativity is Serious Business in Southern CaliforniaBy Beth Wooster By George Wolfe

OMAG 18

Editor’s note: On October 1, Otis released its second annual report on the creative economy, commissioned from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC). To discuss the findings, prominent leaders of creative industries and organizations joined President Hoi at a panel moderated by Val Zavala, KCET Vice President. Nancy Sidhu, Senior Economist, Kyser Center for Economic Research (LAEDC) presented the report and answered questions, and panelists included Michael Alexander, former Chair, California Arts Council; Robert Eckert, CEO of Mattel; Kelly McDowell, Mayor of El Segundo; Roger Wyett, President and COO of Hurley; and Laura Zucker, Executive Director of Los Angeles County Arts Commission. The event was supported by the California Community Foundation, Dept of Cultural Affairs, Arts for L.A., Mattel, and Nike.

“ Storyboarding… is like a paleontological dig, where at a certain point you know you have a dinosaur but you don’t really know what kind of dinosaur you have yet.”

“ The creative industries continued as one of the largest business sectors in the region, generating nearly $100 billion in sales/receipts in Los Angeles County and more than $3.8 billion in state tax revenue.”

Left to Right: Laura Zucker, Roger Wyett, Kelly McDowell, Robert Eckert and Michael Alexander

Derek Thompson

Top left: photograph by Debby Coleman Top right: Story art for WALL-E, 2008 © Disney/Pixar

Andrew Stanton, Director, WALL-E

OTIS MONITOROTIS MONITOR

COLLEGE NEWS COLLEGE NEWS

OMAG 20 21 OMAG

By Christopher Michlig

Collaborating with Catastrophe

Air Force Base and the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), which is responsible for space-related acquisition for the military. El Segundo’s coastal skyline consists of a Chevron oil refin-ery, Scattergood Power Plant and the Hyperion Treatment Plant.

The combination of high-profile industry, vital infrastructure, and the dramatic contrast between worker and residential populations makes disaster preparedness a top priority for the City of El Segundo. The Fire Department conducts seasonal CERT training courses, and continually fosters the development and training of fire personnel to meet the community’s evolving needs. The city views its partnership with Otis as an invaluable opportunity for critical inquiry and responsive design.

Engaging in a significant way with a site partner allows privileged access to a spectrum of information and resources. Rather than being limited to speculative or referential outcomes, students benefit from direct interaction with the city’s fire personnel via interviews, conversations and collaboration.

An excellent example was an open space analysis completed by student Christine Snelling. Christine Snelling (below, center). She responded to the city’s need to accommodate a large non- local population in the case of a catastrophic event by analyzing open space, and identifying and representing every green space greater than 45,000 square feet. This provocative analysis allowed for an immediate understanding of the difficulties faced when large populations must be swiftly

In line with projects such as the 2008 Post-Disaster Design Competition in which New York City sought innovative provisional housing proposals in anticipation of a catastrophic coastal storm, this project engaged in a site-specific, conceptu-ally dynamic approach to disaster design. Students considered pre-, mid- and post-disaster design potentials to achieve a diverse range of outcomes. Rather than focus on a particular type of disaster, they broadly responded to any catastrophic event that critically compromises basic city services, infrastructure, housing and transportation.

The City of El Segundo Fire Department was the site partner, and played a supportive role by providing access to privileged information, resources, and city personnel. Students engaged in a deep understanding of disaster design in relation to the particular characteristics of El Segundo.

In addition to a residential population of 16,000, the City of El Segundo is home to 90,000 daytime workers and several large aerospace companies including Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and The Aerospace Corporation. It is also home to the Los Angeles

in and around an abandoned warehouse on the Raytheon campus, the Fire Department responded with startling authenticity to a simulated dirty-bomb attack. As emergency vehicles arrived and firefighters began to flood the site, students wandered in shock, lay moaning in their assigned positions, vomited apple-cinnamon instant oatmeal, grasped for their dismembered limbs, and oozed packages of fake blood – all under the careful direction of the Fire Department. This exceptional experience effectively closed the gap between the speculative and the definite ways in which design mediates, facilitates, assists, or impedes such an event.

I was momentarily shaken by the thought that this scene has been and continues to arise as a reality for multitudes. How such catastrophes are prepared for, predicted, mitigated, stopped, or recovered from is dependent on design in its rawest and most exacting forms. Insofar as successful communication is contingent on successful collaboration and vice versa, the studio model implemented by Integrated Learning preemptively acquaints students with the dynamic level of interaction necessary to establish and sustain a compelling, legitimate design practice. ●

accommodated in urban contexts, and could easily be adapted for use by emergency service coordina-tors within the city.

During the course, students eschewed the conventional, received vernacular of disasters and emergencies, and gradually developed their own disaster design-related vocabulary. In one example, parochial terms such as “warning”, “danger” and “caution” were substituted with nuanced emoti-cons such as “(X_X)”, “(@_@)”, “(>_<)”, and “(-.-)zzZ”. Capitalizing on the communicative power of type and design, several of these terms were developed as stencils to facilitate emergency response and coordination in a disaster scenario, in the likely event of the failure of existing communication infrastructure.

Expanding on the standard function of emer-gency and first aid kits to heal, mend, and minimal-ly sustain basic needs, students integrated cultural and social comforts and amenities to expand the conventions of this disaster design niche. Students broadened their interpretation of first aid kits to include essential social and cultural comforts such as yoga mats and couture reinterpretations of spartan safety equipment. Productively broadening notions of survival, students reacted energetically to the notion that regardless of whether individu-als have a roof over their head or a door that can be locked during a catastrophe, many threats exist to psychological well being.

At the apex of the fall 2008 course, students participated as victims in a mass-casualty exercise organized by the El Segundo Fire Department. Set

Bottom left: Douglas Repetto, Fly Away (Not Going Very Far) Bottom right: installation view of “The Future Imaginary” with Deborah Ascheim’s Nostalgiain foreground

Emoticons

WARNING(X_X)

(@_@)

(>_<)

The Imaginary 20th Century is an archive as story; history fictionalized before, during, and after the curatorial fact. Influenced by notions of aperture and correspondence (already put to use in the interactive media novel Bleeding Through: Layers of Los Angeles by Klein, Kratky, and Rosemary Comella), we settled upon “the space between” as our working principle. The loose alignment of archive and story generates a navigational sense of chance and discovery. The user’s mental correspondences allow the aperture to create an organic rhythm. Streaming clusters of variously-sized images leave interstitial spaces that prod the user to puzzle out the historical contexts, fictional ironies, and what Klein calls “the misremembering of the future.” A flat, graphic interface integrates the various media elements of The Imaginary 20th Century. Users visually interact with the novel like they scan an illustrated magazine or newspaper. Our intention is to echo the dominant visual codes of the turn of the century, before cinema took over. Images slide in panels, like maps unfolding.

It was important, therefore, that we allowed differences in our personalities and collecting tastes to guide our collaboration. From Klein’s eclectic book collection, we gathered many of the database’s best oddities, “gag” images used to add punch to the episodic tale. Kratky’s taste for the ordinary photograph and stories about everyday life buried in daily newspapers brought narrative flexibility to the archive. My interest in social his-tory and illustration with a satirical edge deepened the archive’s historical focus and meaning. From our differences, we evolved four archival types: gag

objects; story objects; history objects; and objects with visual energy and complexity.

The objects themselves come from a variety of sources. We combed through private and public collections of postcards, stereocards, photo-graphs, and films; through illustrated magazines and newspapers, humor journals, comic albums, science-fiction, fantasy and utopian socialist novels, medical texts, and films; through books on industrial design, architecture, and urban plan-ning. Our research took us far beyond Jules Verne and H.G. Wells novels into hundreds of eccen-tric and even perversely ordinary sources. The emphasis on the ordinariness of material culture meant that we avoided the fine arts altogether. It was equally important to steer away from overly familiar objects that shouted “turn-of-the-century” or “la belle époque” (a retrospective nostalgic term coined after World War I). To put it another way, anything that a commercial database like Corbis International would be sure to have under these search terms was off limits.

Our attempt uses archive and the picaresque form of storytelling as a way of getting to the bottom of collective anxieties about the coming of the twentieth century. We mix fact and fiction to recount the adventures of a clinically depressed world traveler named Carrie and her quartet of fumbling admirers. The imaginary twentieth cen-tury wobbles on its axis. ●

Misremembering the Future at the Ben Maltz Gallery By Margo Bistis 2

2

Editors Note: Curated by Meg Linton, Ben Maltz Gallery Director, and Tom Leeser, Director of the Center for Integrated Media at California Institute of the Arts, The Future Imaginary featured work by eleven artists who responded to the new interac-tive DVD novel The Imaginary 20th Century by Norman Klein, Margo Bistis, and Andreas Kratky. The story is a journey into comic and perverse phantoms – factual, and at the same time, very fictional. It contains a double story: the story of the century that opened at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, and the story of a woman (Carrie), who in 1901, selects four men to seduce her, each with his own version of the new century.

Editors Note: In interdisciplinary teams, students

in Integrated Learning work with a community

organization, moving beyond the traditional

boundaries of the classroom to respond to commu-

nity challenges. This year, students have made

dramatic changes in K-12 sustainable education at

the Accelerated Charter Elementary School (ACES);

introduced students to real cultural diversity with

Homeboy and Homegirl Industries, and addressed

environmental and ecological concerns with The

Baldwin Hills Conservancy.

1

DANGER

CAUTION

1

34

3

OMAG 22 23 OMAG

Otis and Art Center co-hosted an Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD) symposium entitled, “Artists and Designers as Agents for Change” in early November for more than 80 faculty members from the 36 AICAD member schools. The goal of these symposia, organized annually by AICAD’s chief academic officers, is to share best practices and address emerging concerns in the education of artists and designers. Otis Provost John Gordon and Art Center Dean Mark Breitenberg organized a compelling array of presentations that explored a range of initiatives and practices that brought real-world issues to bear on the ways we understand, practice

and teach art and design. Presenters addressed sustainability, change, community, ethics, and empowerment, and suggested strategies from research and cross-disciplinary collaboration to relational thinking, systems-oriented approaches, and reflection and inquiry as ways to grapple with these issues in our classrooms. Patricia Moore, renowned gerontologist and designer, and Mel Chin, internationally-noted conceptual visual artist whose work springs from social, political and cultural issues, presented keynote addresses that were both memorable and exemplary. ●

KER

RI STEIN

BER

G

Associate Professor,

Liberal Arts an

d Sciences

PAR

ME G

IUN

TINI

Director of A

rt History,

Liberal Arts an

d Sciences

SAM

UEL H

OI

President

MA

RC

MER

EDITH

D

ean of A

dmission

s an

d Assistan

t Vice

President of E

nrollm

ent

Man

agemen

t

MIC

HELE JA

QU

IS A

ssistant Professor

and C

oordinator,

Artists, C

omm

un

ity &

Teachin

g Program

GW

YN

NE

KEA

THLEY

A

ssociate Provost

Educating Change Agents By Gwynne Keathley

Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, the art scene in Los Angeles was home to an exceptionally strong feminist art movement. I moved to L.A. to work within a major hub of this activity—the Woman’s Building (WB), a public center for women’s culture. It changed my life.

According to feminist activist and author Lucy Lippard, “The Woman’s Building was the capital of cultural feminism, where the spiritual and the political met and rowdily merged. It was an off-center center, defying the marginalization of women’s lives and arts.” It was the center of my world for eleven years, the space where I met, heard, and interacted with world-renowned artists, writers, and designers. Out of that community, my closest lifelong sister-friendships emerged. And, it was there that I met my life partner of 30 years. It was artmaking as adventure.

One day, I was riding in the back of a hearse followed by a motorcade—nine of us, transformed into 8’-tall figures completely draped in black. We each represented a victim of the Hillside Strangler. Somberly, we emerged from the hearse and pro-ceeded to the steps of City Hall. As shutters clicked and cameras rolled, one by one we approached the microphone and delivered our message: “In memory of our sisters, we fight back.” This was a new type of performance staged for the news media by Suzanne Lacy, Leslie Labowitz (’72), and Bia Lowe, as a public ritual of rage as well as grief.

Another day, I found myself naked on a hilltop in Malibu and, hours later, in a pile of rubble in downtown L.A., covered in mud, my head encased

in a papier mâché mask and huge headpiece. I was portraying the Venus of Willendorf for a gigantic video to be projected 12’ high over a church altar in Cheri Gaulke’s MOCA-sponsored performance piece. It took weeks for the bug bites to heal.

But one of my fondest memories is a project that Cheri and I dreamed up while in an altered state. Kate Millet had created several massive sculptures called “Naked Ladies” while an artist in residence at the WB. After the exhibition, all except one had found homes. It was just hanging around, taking up storage space. The structure that the WB rented was a beautiful three-story red brick building in a remote industrial part of downtown. We thought it would be fun to hoist that sculpture to the top of that building where she could serve as a beacon to women all over the city. Surpisingly, we convinced Leslie Labowitz, then PR Director, that it was a good idea.

Although made out of fiberglass, the sculpture was huge, unwieldy, and very heavy. Cheryl Swannack, who was great at construction, rigged ropes and pulleys and figured a method to secure it. We got Kate to agree, organized the women, and invited the press. It was absolutely terrifying to watch this massive sculpture rise up three stories, until it was finally tied there, leaning slightly out over the front door. Somehow it all worked. The event was covered by all the evening TV news programs, and on the L.A. Times front page.

By the late 1980s, the funding for artists’ organizations was drying up. In addition, the need for separate women’s organizations had subsided. When the WB announced its closure, I was working at Otis as Director of the Library. The Smithsonian Archives of American Art acquired all the WB documents and papers but they didn’t want the slide collection. I brought it to Otis with the intention of taking care of it until an appropri-

ate home could be found. Over the years, I have been able to obtain

some funding to support this archive. In 1997, as part of the “Faces of L.A.” Project, Getty funding enabled the digitization of 1500 slides that are now part of Otis Library’s Digital Collections Online.

Just this year, Otis received a grant from the Getty to help organize an exhibition about the WB for the Ben Maltz Gallery in 2012. As part of the Getty-sponsored “Pacific Standard Time,” Meg Linton will curate an exhibition about the impact of the Woman’s Building, and contextualize its artists, exhibitions, and activities within the devel-opment of the Southern California art scene. With grant funding, scholars in residence will consider the impact of the flow of artists and design-ers through various organizations and colleges, including Otis. For instance, Sheila de Bretteville taught in the first feminist art program at Cal Arts, went on to co-found the Woman’s Building, and then moved on to found Otis’ Communication Arts Program in the early 1980s. Cindy Marsh and Susan King were very involved in the WB, and later directed Otis’ Communication Arts and Book Arts programs (respectively). Suzanne Lacy participated in the earliest Fresno Feminist Art Program, and went on to CalArts where she met de Bretteville. Suzanne then founded the Performance Studies Program at the WB, and is now Chair of Otis Graduate Public Practice. Leslie Labowitz-Starus received an MFA from Otis, went on to work at the WB, and collaborated with Lacy on some of her major public projects.

The scholars include: Vivien Green Fryd, Art History, Vanderbuilt University; Alexandra Juhaz, Media Studies, Pitzer College; Jennie Klein, Chair, Art History, Ohio University; Michelle Moravec, History, Rosemont College; and Jenni Sorkin, Art Historian, Curatorial Associate at Yale who worked on MOCA’s 2007 exhibition “Wack!: Art and the Feminist Revolution.” Otis Faculty Advisors include Debra Ballard, Meg Cranston, Marlena Donohue, Parme Giuntini, Gwynne Keathley, Suzanne Lacy, Kali Nikitas, and Kerri Steinberg. ●

Digitizing Naked Ladies: My Experience in Feminist ArtBy Sue Maberry

“ Pink,” 1975 poster designed by Sheila de Bretteville, Founder, Otis Communication Arts Program

Provost John Gordon summarized the impact of this three-day gathering of AICAD faculty: “Dean Breitenberg and I were delighted with the focus and intensity of this year’s symposium, which was timed to immediately follow the U.S. election. Artists and designers may once have been relegated to the side-lines of the economy and our society, but this national symposium demonstrated clearly that our gradu-ates now have the opportunity to play key leadership roles in creating a more sustainable and equitable future for our nation and the world that we share with so many remarkable cultures and traditions. The “take-away” from this conference for both our faculty and our students was: “Aim High.”

The symposium was especially timely. Barack Obama won the election a few days earlier, and the belief in progress, hope, and change--Shepard Fairey’s call to arms in his now infamous poster triptych--was palpable. To my mind, the posters, the president elect, and the presentations were inseparable, representing a clear demonstration of the potential of artists and designers as catalysts for change.

Otis faculty and staff who attended the event shared the following thoughts about the conference and its potential influence:

Sustainability was a recurrent theme throughout the conference and one that art and design col-leges cannot afford to shortchange or pigeon-hole. Heidrun Mumper-Drumm’s presentation acknowledged the necessity of design education to incorporate sustainability by presenting both liberal arts and studio courses that move far beyond “recycle, reclaim, reuse.” They promote critical, reflective quantitative and qualitative research to reinforce every aspect of the design process from initial conception to fabrication, packaging, delivery, and retail.

Given Otis’ commitment to and leadership in community engagement in education, we served as an authentic locus for this AICAD exchange regarding artists and designers as agents of change. I was excited to hear the multitude of initiatives among diverse peer schools to advance art and design learning through projects of social change. The symposium has clearly affirmed today’s opportunities to expand the role of artists and designers in society.

For me, Mel Chin’s keynote presentation was THE highlight. He was funny and engaging — all while presenting sobering data about the plight of New Orleans. His Operation Paydirt is brilliant. The next time someone questions why art matters, I’m sending them straight to Mel Chin.

Attending the AICAD symposium re-energized my

practice as an artist, confirming my commitment

to making work that affects others beyond the

small art world. In addition, I was reminded that

the practice of teaching is inherently about creat-

ing social change, and I was inspired to continue

to encourage a sense of social responsibility in

my students.

Leslie Becker’s visual presentation and complemen-tary text convincingly argued that sustainability must include an ethical awareness of the role of the image in the landscape and culture of consumption. I was impressed with her argument that teaching students to think critically and comprehensively about the impacts of their work (in human lifestyles and the environment) may lead to an increased ability to posi-tion socially-relevant work at the center rather than the margin of design practices.

YSA

MU

R

FLOR

ES PENA

Associate Professor,

Liberal Arts an

d Scien

ces

I left with a set of provocative questions:How can cultural anthropology contribute to help our students make the linkages they need to transition between the studio and the academic field? How can Liberal Arts and Sciences be a platform to develop a dialogue between fields? Are there tools that can be applied cross-culturally to bet-ter equip our students to compete in the global arena? How can I inform myself on the philosophical issues posed in the studio worlds to make our courses more viable?

More information is at https://wikis.otis.edu/AICAD/index.php/Home

COLLEGE NEWS COLLEGE NEWS

The Woman’s Building was the capital of cultural feminism, where the spiritual and the political met and rowdily merged Lucy Lippard, Feminist Activist and Author

5

OMAG 24 25 OMAG

As artists and designers, we tend to think of creativity as particular to our domain. Creativity is primary to our way of thinking, making and producing, and basic to the success of any designer or artist. In reality, creativity is present, to a greater or lesser degree, in all humans. It is present in our genetic structure from the moment of concep-tion, and like all genetically based traits, can be enhanced by learning.

Creativity is the ability to solve problems with novel responses, to think beyond current informa-tion to construct new problems or re-contextualize current problems. It is creativity that allowed individuals in the history of our species to solve problems of everyday survival. Consequently, creativity evolved as a standard part of our genetic heritage. Although we share the ability to create with our primate relatives, the creative ability is far stronger in humans than in other primates, and it reaches into all areas of human behavior.

The creative instinct allowed Obama’s campaign team to solve problems in new ways via the Internet. Human creativity will allow us to become free from our dependence on fossil fuels, and creativity will enable us to design new ways of living on this crowded planet. It is important to keep in mind that humans can create for ill as well as for good and, in fact, all human endeavor is moved forward by our creative ability.

So creativity is far broader than its application to the arts. Almost by default, art colleges and university art departments have become leaders in teaching creativity and educating creative problem solvers.

Given the importance of creativity in human achievement, it is interesting to note that few disciplines are committed to enhancing creativity. While many disciplines now focus education solely on teaching analytical skills, the visual arts have

a tradition of teaching creativity. Since the early 1950s, artists and designers who are teachers have learned best practices from experience and genera-tions of teachers.

Research in psychology has also provided support in expanding our ideas about creativity. Researcher and synthesizer Robert J. Sternberg has developed the widely accepted Triarchic Theory of Human Intelligence, wherein he posits that analytical intelligence is only one part of human intelligence. In successful people, it is balanced by creative and practical intelligence. Each one of these abilities must be present for a person to function at a high level. For the first time, research equates creativity with analytical intelligence (such as that measured by traditional IQ tests).

Sternberg also believes “that to a large extent creativity is a decision.” One might think that students attending a college of art and design had made the decision to be creative. After all, 89.8% of incoming Otis students surveyed considered “creat-ing artistic work” an essential objective for their college experience.

Ah, if it was only that easy! As it turns out, Sternberg’s belief that “creativity is a decision” is based on the student’s decision to learn a con-fluence of skills, including new ways to acquire knowledge of their “chosen domain,” and to devel-op what Sternberg calls the intrinsic, task-focused motivation also essential to creativity. As Malcom Gladwell, a keen cultural observer, has pointed out: Few perform at high levels without the investment of approximately ten thousand hours of practice.

Teresa Amabile, in her article “Beyond Talent,” states that “people will be most creative when they are motivated primarily by interest, enjoyment, satisfaction and challenge of the work itself.” As educators in design and art, it is our job not only

to teach the discipline, but also to develop an edu-cational environment that supports learning and motivation, and challenges students to work hard to become their best creative selves.

To this end, last fall, faculty members Linda Hudson, Scott Grieger, and Andy Davis spoke at an informal colloquium about teaching and learning creativity at Otis. Excerpts from Hudson’s presenta-tion follow:

Can We Teach Creativity?

Creativity is the ability to solve problems with novel responses, to think beyond current information to construct new problems or re-contextualize current problems.

By Katie Phillips

After all, 89.8% of incoming Otis students surveyed consid-ered “creating artistic work” an essential objective for their college experience.

––– ♦ ♦ ♦ –––For many years, I’ve studied creativity; the

creative process, as a topic unto itself, an integral part of art and design, but not exclusively so.

Can creativity be taught? After witnessing the transformation that can occur when students discover that they can develop and hone creative practice skills, I began speaking directly to this issue at the Foundation (first-year) level. Five years later, I saw students integrating their newfound abilities to organize their thinking in a conscious way in order to dramatically change their way of looking at their methods.

Initially talking about thinking and creative acts can be difficult. The cultural myth of genius is one of the key reasons I believe that we talk around the topic of thinking or creating. Whether one believes that talent is God-given or lucky DNA, society has a tacit agreement that thinking and being creative happen naturally for some people and not for others.

We are wary to examine our thinking/creative process. Perhaps we fear that if we examine our own creative powers too closely, we might learn that we aren’t one of the chosen few! Or that if we are among the fortunate, looking at our abilities might jinx our chances for future innovation.

But once students do meta-cognitive exercises and see how this affects their thinking methods, most see that thinking about thinking can be benefi-cial — a skill to develop. Being a thinker conscious of the cognitive process helps students learn the distinctions, processes and types of creative think-ing awareness. Learning to recognize the distinct stages of the creative process, and the constant juggling and overlap of intuitive process — along with the constant juggling and overlap of intuitive processes with critical viewing and contemplation — brings home the idea that being creative is a process, not only an act.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,one of my favorite writers, has done research whereby his subjects ultimately attribute their achievements to their ability to enter their own creative space, and describe the challenge and pleasure they experience. These talented people have honed their abilities to learn to rely on their own creative practice. Taking this research to heart, many students understand that they too can cultivate habits and design situations to access their peak experience more quickly.

John Cage said: “Value judgments are destruc-tive to our proper business, which is curiosity and awareness.” We try to develop critical thought without becoming entrapped in judgment. ●

COLLEGE NEWS COLLEGE NEWS

Scott Grieger, Fine Arts Professor and Director of Painting, has developed these rules for teaching during his 30 years of teaching at Otis.

Magnificent Failure is as good as an “A”

Be on time every time

Give the answers (dispatch advice and tell it straight)

Laugh at them all the time

You’re going to get some on you

Be reliable

Come to do the job— nothing else

The job is to deliver reality

If it’s serious, walk and talk them around the block

Praise in public, admonish in private

Fool them intobecomingtheir betterselves

Let them know you are proud of them

Be straight

Pay attention

Practice compas-sionate humor

Show up over- prepared

Show, don’t tell

Teach by example

Buy them lunch if they need it

CLASS NOTES

ALUMNAEALUMNI ALUMNUSCLASS NOTES

OMAG 28 29 OMAG

Soloists, Entrepreneurs, Entertainers, Cool Designers, Award-Winners, In Print, In MemoriamSoloistsJohn Mason’57 Fine ArtsRecent Sculpture, Frank Lloyd Gallery, Bergamont Station, Santa Monica

Ken Price’57 Fine ArtsL.A. Louver, Venice

Lawrence Wallin’64 Fine Arts“Oceano Romantico,” Terminal One, LAX

Leslie Labowitz-Starus’72 MFA Fine Arts“The Performing Archive,” Akademie fur Bildene Kunst, Berlin, collaborative multi-media installation with Suzanne Lacy, Chair, Otis Public Practice. Founder: Foodology

Harrison Storms’72 MFA Fine ArtsJohns Canyon, PS Zask Gallery, Rancho Palos Verdes

John Taye ’72 MFA Fine ArtsFigurative Art, Runyan Gallery, Newport Visual Arts Center, Newport, OR

Larry Fodor’73 Fine ArtsKoan Boxes: Paintings by Lawrence Fodor, Lannan Foundation Gallery, Santa Fe

Michael Knight ’73 MFA Fine ArtsTAG Gallery, Santa Monica

Hilary Baker ’76 MFA Fine Arts“About Abstraction,” Guggenheim Gallery, Chapman University, Orange

Karla Klarin’77 MFA Fine Arts“Karla Klarin Paintings & Drawings,” Schomburg Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica Joe Potts ’77 Fine Arts“Mogility,” Side Street Projects, L.A.

Marcus Villagran ’77 MFA Fine Arts“Now & Then Sculpture by Marcus Javier Villagrán,” Art Space at AK Restaurant + Bar, Venice

Yoella Razili ’78 BFA, ’81 MFA Fine ArtsLA Artcore, Union Center for the Arts, L.A.

Stuart Arends ’81 MFA Fine Arts“Six A-Squares and One Large Wedge, New Aluminum Works,” Björn Ressle Fine Arts, N.Y.; Works 1997-2008, Studio Dabbeni, Lugano, Italy

Alison Saar’81 MFA Fine ArtsRochester Contemporary Art Center, Rochester, N.Y.

Mark Dean Veca’85 Fine Arts“Painting, Wall Drawings and Collaborations,” Art Gallery, University of San Diego

Elisabeth Condon’86 Fine Arts“Windows Project,” GrantPirrie Gallery, Sydney, Australia; Lesley Heller Gallery, N.Y.

Cindy Kolodziejski’86 Fine Arts“New Work,” Frank Lloyd Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica

Steve Roden’86 Fine Arts“Recent Works,” Susanne Vielmetter L.A. Projects, Culver City

Ann Gooding’87 MFA Fine ArtsLA Artcore, Union Center for the Arts, L.A.

John Kilduff ’87 Fine ArtsJancar Gallery, Chinatown, L.A.

Tim Biskup ’88 Fine Arts“O/S (Operating System) New Paintings, Sculptures & Prints,” Addict Galerie, Paris

Bari Kumar’88 Communication Arts“Foreign Bodies,” Bose Pacia Kolkata, Kolkata, India; “In Transit,” Grosvenor Gallery, London

Darren Waterston’88 Communication Arts“The Fourfold Sense,” Gallery 16, San Francisco; “Aurora,” Michael Kohn Gallery, Beverly Hills

Warren Keating ’89 Communication Arts“Overview,” M.J. Higgins Fine Art Gallery, L.A.

Chris Sicat’90 Communication Arts“Tag a Log,” Space 47, San Jose

Carmine Iannaccone ’93 MFA Fine Arts“Usable Histories,” Solway Jones Gallery, L.A.

Yong Sin’95 Fine Arts “This is the Same, but Different, Part II,” Andrew Shire Gallery, L.A.

Sandeep Mukherjee ’96 Fine ArtsSister gallery, L.A.

Ruben Ochoa’97 Fine Arts“Collapsed,” Peter Blum Gallery, N.Y.

Otino Corsano’00 MFA Fine Arts“4 Grids,” p/m Gallery, Toronto

Patrick Hill’00 MFA Fine ArtsDavid Kordansky Gallery, Culver City

Robert Dobbie, aka Bob Dob ’01 Communication Arts“New Paintings by Bob Dob,” Billy Shire Gallery, Culver City

Sabine Dehnel’01 MFA Fine Arts“Ailleurs/Elsewhere,” Galerie Esther Woedehoff, Paris

Cristy Thom’01 Fine Arts “Tacky Hawaiian Tourist Items,” Flazh!Alley Studio, San Pedro Wendy Given’02 MFA Fine Arts“No Man’s Land,” photographic installation, Solomon Projects, Atlanta

Vincent Ramos’02 Fine Arts“Motown Took Us There and Motown Brought Us Back,” Crisp, L.A.

Hazel Mandujano’03 Fine ArtsOtis Millard Sheets Library, L.A.

Timothy Tompkins’03 Fine ArtsDCKT Contemporary, N.Y.; “Temporal Arcadia - When the Past Becomes Present,” Studio La Citta, Verona, Italy

Nate Frizzell ’06 Communication Arts“Put on a Happy Face,” Cerasoli: LeBasse Gallery, Culver City

Michael Brunswick ’07 Fine Arts“In Motion,” Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica Kathrin Burmester’07 MFA Fine Arts“Tour,” Seeline Gallery, Santa Monica

Michelle Wiener’08 MFA Fine Arts“If I do what you tell me, will you love me?” with Tucker Neel (’07 MFA), Samuel Freeman Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica

EntrepreneursDick Termes ’71 MFA Fine Arts“Up Down and All Around,” Hands-On Partnership for Science, Literature and Art, S.D.

Susan Wesley ASID, CID’83 Environmental DesignOwner: Wesley Design Inc., high-end residential, retail and commercial interior design

Cynthia Hoey’88 Fashion DesignFounder/Designer: Cyn & Luca N.Y.

Mita Wardhana ’89 Fashion DesignOwner: Flush Floral, specializing in orchids, San Francisco

Nena Amsler’92 Fine ArtsOwner: Haus Gallery, Pasadena

Sonia Boyajian’01 Fashion DesignSonia Boyajian Jewelry, featured at Comme des Garcons guerrilla store, L.A.

Robert Apodaca ’03 Architecture/Landscape/Interiors, Owner/Designer, Fifth Floor Gallery, Chinatown, L.A.

Kristin DuCharme ’89 Fine Arts, ’05 MFA Fine Arts Owner/Instructor: Fireworks Studio, fine arts glass workshops, supplies and fundraising projects, L.A.

Vam Moua ’06 Communication ArtsFashion graphics “Origins,” featured at H.H.H. Metrodome, Minneapolis

Meggie White ’06 Fashion DesignOwner: Meggie boutique, Union Street, San Francisco

EntertainersRobbie Cavolina’87 Fine ArtsProducer/Director: Anita O’Day: Life of a Jazz Singer

Scott Holmes ’93 Communication Arts“Tooth-fairy” and “Wink” sequences from Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Dark Horse Entertainment

Ellen Hee-Jung Jin Over’96 Communication ArtsArt Director, Tinkerbelle and the Lost Treasure, Disney. Giant tea pot at “Pixie Hallow Meet and Greet,” Disneyland, Anaheim

Terrance Zdunich’98 Communication ArtsCo-Creator/Screenwriter and Actor: Repo: Opera, live show and film screened in L.A. and N.Y.

Manasi Patel Ashish’06 Digital MediaAssistant Coordinator, Avatar, James Cameron’s film releasing December 2009. Michael Tavarez’08 Digital MediaDirector: “Street Fighter” music video with Otis alumni crew: Assistant Director, Lauren Piper ’08 Digital; Lighting Director, Matt Stone ’09; Make-up/Wardrobe, Krysta Olson ’08 Fine Arts; and Lead Gaffer, Yanko Sanchez ’08 Digital Media

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, click on ONEWS at www.otis.edu/alumni To submit news and images, contact Sarah Russin, Director of Alumni Relations, at otisalum@otis.edu or call her at (310) 665-6937.

Cynthia Hoey (‘88 Fashion Design) Robert Dobbie (‘01 Communication Arts) Danh Tran (’06 Fashion Design) Yong Sin (‘95 Fine Arts)

ALUMNA

OMAG 30

Lincoln Smith’07 Digital MediaVisual Effects Supervisor: Side Effect, awarded Best Short Film, Oldenburg International Film Festival, Germany, and 2nd place U.K.’s premiere horror film festival “Dead by Dawn,” Scotland

In PrintJeffrey Vallance’81 MFA Fine Arts.Relics and Reliquaries, published by Grand Central Press

Judy Freya Sibayan’84 MFA Fine ArtsPublisher/Editor: Journal of Contemporary Art online publication

Tracy Cheney’85 Communication ArtsCo-author: The Pitiful Gardener’s Handbook: Successful Gardening in Spite of Yourself

Rich Morrison’85 Communication ArtsAuthor/Illustrator: Search for the Flying Fish: the Incredible Journey of Einstien, Aggro and Swoops, a children’s book published by CreateSpace

Hideko Takahashi’97 Communication ArtsIllustrator: The Peace Bell, Henry Holt and Company

Tofer Chin’02 Fine ArtsPhotographer: Vacation Standards, published by Rojo. Exhibition: “All That We Have Left,” Ghettogloss, L.A.

Barbara Maloutas’02 MFA WritingFirst place, Sawtooth Poetry Prize, 2008 for The Whole Marie, Ahsahta Press, Boise State University

C.S. Reid’03 MFA WritingFreelance writer, educator, and musician. Work featured in “Poems-For-All, The Truth About the Fact:” International Journal of Literary Nonfiction Anthology, Monkeybicycle, 1097 Magazine, Blue Fifth Review, Shadowtrain, Word Salad, Apt, and Raven Poetry: Online Poetry Journal; and a poetry chapbook, Walking Near the Precipice (Lily Press)

Annie Buckley’03 MFA Fine ArtsEditor in Chief, Artweek Magazine

Chin Ko’06 Digital MediaDesigner: Visual Development, PDI/ Dreamworks Feature: “The Making of Star Wars ‘The Force Unleashed’”

Michelle “Mia” Araujo’07 Communication ArtsFeature: “Emerging Artist: Michelle ‘Mia’ Araujo,” Juxtapoz Magazine

Wendy Park and Issac Choi’08 Digital MediaCover art and two-page spread, Axis Magazine, Toyko

Cool DesignersRey Aldaco’92 Environmental DesignSenior Architectural Graphic Specialist: P+R Architects for The Americana at Brand, Glendale, CA; Bella Terra in Huntington Beach; The Lakes at Thousand Oaks

Blaine Fontana’02 Communication Arts“In My Absence – An Emerald City Homecoming,” Vans Mural Project, Snowboard Connection, Seattle

You Sun Hwang and Sondra Wiener’03 Toy DesignDesigners: “Littlest Pet Shop,” Hasbro Inc, Pawtucket, R.I.

Krisztianna (Ecsedy) Ortiz ’03 Communication ArtsArt Director, BLT and Associates, Hollywood

Stephanie Burkart’06 Fashion DesignDesigner: Versace VJS, Italy. Former Assistant Designer: Akris, St. Gallen, Switzerland

Danh Tran’06 Fashion DesignHead Designer at Howe, Personal Jesus suit, available at Nordstrom, featured on an L.A. Times blog

Yu Kito’07 Communication ArtsDesigner: Big Machine Design, Burbank

Jesus Aguilar ’08 A/L/IDesign Assoc., The Los Angeles Design Group. Environmental Graphic Designer, “Surefoot N.Y.” flagship store

Bita Rad’08 Fashion DesignStylist/Designer for The Jonas Brothers

Kali Fontecchio’08 Digital MediaConcept Artist: John K. Enterprises (creator of Ren & Stimpy), Encino

Award-WinnersGayle Gale’81 MFA Fine Arts“Kids For Peace,” collabora-tive mural arts program and special project of the Dalai Lama Foundation. Winner of the 2001 Fete d’Excellence Gold Medallion of Excellence

Cindi Hron (Harper) ’87 Fine ArtsFellowship for Drawing and Works on Paper, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Harrisburg

Nick Fedak II’88 MFA Fine ArtsJuror’s First Award: “New York Photowork ’08,” curated by Donna Ruskin (ICP), Barrett Art Center, Poughkeepsie

Chris Oatey’06 MFA Fine ArtsDurfee Foundation Artist Resource for Completion grant. Press: NY Arts Magazine

Jesus Aguilar (‘08 Architecture/Landscape/Interiors)

Right: Top to Bottom

Richard Evans (‘45 Fine Arts)

Morgan Cuppet-Michelson (‘08 Fine Arts)

Ralph Bacerra ceramic piece

In MemoriamWalter Gabrielson’65 Fine ArtsCalifornia artist passed away at the age of 73. An obituary by Suzanne Muchnic appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

Alan Garrett’66 Communication ArtsPassed away on September 19, 2008 after a long battle against hemochromatosis. He is survived by his mother, Loa Jane Meyer of Oregon.

Clio Chafee’99 Communication ArtsPassed away on January 3, 2009. Funeral was held in Providence, R.I. She was a graphic designer for a Boston architecture firm. Her friends remember her as a brilliant woman and gifted designer.

Dominic Ambriz’02 Toy DesignPassed away in August 2008 from brain cancer. He had most recently worked as a Senior Designer at Mattel.

31 OMAG

In the Land of Retinal Delights: The Juxtapoz FactorCurated by Meg Linton, Director of Otis’ Ben Maltz Gallery, and Museum Director Bolton Colburn; Laguna Art Museum, June 22 – October 5, 2008. Artists: Richard Evans ’45, Anthony Ausgang ’83, Sandow Birk ’89, Tim Biskup ’88, Andrew Brandou ’90, Gajin Fujita ’97, Camille Rose Garcia ’92, Bari Kumar ’88, Masami Teraoka ’68, Jeffrey Vallance ’81, Mark Dean Veca ’85 and Peter Zokosky ’81

“ Influences: A Survey Exhibition of Contemporary Ceramics of Southern California,” dedicated to Ralph Bacerra (1938-2008), Beckstand and Walker Galleries, Palos Verdes Art Center, November 21, 2008 – January 11, 2009, included Keiko Fukazawa ’86, Jerry Rothman ’61, and Porntip Sangvanich ’87 and Paul Soldner ’57

Kathleen Ahmanson passed away in late December. A passionate supporter of Otis for over 35 years, she held the distinction of being the longest-serving Board member, having been appointed as a member in 1972. In the same year she was one of four founding members of THE

GROUP, an active support organization that continues to provide annual scholarships. Kathy was a steadfast supporter through the challenges Otis faced in the 80s and early 90s. When Otis separated from Parsons and became an independent, private college in 1991, the Board was restructured into the Board of Trustees and the Board of Governors. Kathy’s commitment was so strong that she chose to serve on both Boards, and continued as an active member until her health prevented her from regular participation. Her memory lives on each time our students, faculty, and staff pass under her name on their way in and out of the Kathleen Holser Ahmanson building.

“ When It’s a Photograph,” curated by Fine Arts Interim Program Director in Photography Soo Kim, Bolsky Gallery, Otis, L.A. November 1-25, 2008. The exhibition included work by three alumni: Morgan Cuppet-Michelson ’08, Yanina Spizzirri ’05, and Carly Steward ’03. The exhibition and catalogue were supported by the Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation, Nancy Berman and Alan Bloch.

CLASS NOTESCLASS NOTES

Lawrence Wallin

(’66 MFA)

CLASS NOTES

OMAG 32

The calendar year-end was an exceptional time for Otis. Like Lawrence Wallin, you probably received a letter from Kent Twitchell (’77 MFA) or a phone call asking you to support the O-Fund, Otis’ Annual Fund. The O-Fund is the foundation of all giving, supported by alumni, parents, and friends of the college, renewable on a yearly basis. Most gifts made to the O-Fund are unrestricted, which means they can be used where the need is the greatest; currently that need is in student scholarships and financial aid. Not only does the O-Fund help provide scholarships and financial aid, it also helps improve campus infrastructure, upgrade technology in our labs, and support the work of our acclaimed faculty.

We are happy to report that you, our generous alumni, parents, and friends heeded our calls and helped us set records never before seen at Otis! With your generosity through the mail and our phone outreach program we were able to:• Increase our alumni participation rate by a

staggering 500%! • Increase our leadership giving• Secure a match challenge slated to increase

our participation rate by another 500%! (see details in side bar)

On behalf of all the students at Otis College of Art and Design, thank you for your support and generosity!

However, we have some more work to do before the end of our fiscal year, June 30, 2009. You might be surprised to know that tuition does not cover the total cost of an Otis education; in fact, tuition covers 80% of what it really takes to educate one student at Otis. The rest is made up from individual contributions to the O-Fund, from supporters like you! Alumni gifts to the O-Fund are especially important because they also help improve our alumni participation rate.

When making their philanthropic support to colleges and universities across the country, corporations and foundations base their primary support decision on one important number: the number of alumni who give back to their alma mater. Every gift from an alumnus or alumna, no matter the size, helps us improve our participation rate. Yes, that means your gift of $5, $10, $20, $100 or more makes a significant difference each and every year!

If you haven’t made your gift yet, please visit www.otis.edu/givenow and make your gift on our secure online giving form and help shape Otis’ future.

For more information or to make your gift over the phone, please call Andre Khachtourians, Annual Giving Manager at (310) 665-6869 or ofund@otis.edu.

The ��� for ���k ChallengeWe are pleased to announce that alumni Dawn (Teitelbaum) Baillie (’86 Communication Arts), Sally (Merz) Layden (’89 Communication Arts), Nancy Newberg (’84 Fashion Design), Lowell and Wilda Northrop (’67 Fine Arts), and Cassidy Park (’88 Fashion Design) have been so impressed by the recent surge in giving that they have offered to give a combined gift of $20,000 to the O-Fund. In order for us to receive the challenge gift, we need to secure 200 new donors to the O-Fund! The 200 for $20k Challenge ends June 30, 2009! To make your gift, please visit our secure site: www.otis.edu/givenow. You can track the progress at www.otis.edu/200for20k.

PROGRESS BAR

When I went to Otis it was Otis Art Institute of Los Angeles County, and the tuition was very affordable. In the current economic situation, unless a student has a generous source of income, graduation means facing a large debt, making it difficult to take the time to find oneself artistically. I would like to help today’s students have the opportunity I had.

Last October, Otis celebrated its 90th anniver-sary at Homecoming Weekend (without the football). Alumni from the 1950s to recent grads, as well as parents and former faculty members, attended. Mark Dean Veca (’85 Fine Arts) created Phantasmagoria, a site-specific installation for the Ben Maltz Gallery and Bruce Yomemoto (’79 MFA) was commissioned to produce the video installation Simulations, which premiered during the weekend. Ed Engel (’88 Communication Arts) showed his enthu-siasm by traveling from St. Louis, and designed a 17-ft. nostalgic timeline. The community also enjoyed a preview of Art is What I Do: The Life of Ralph Bacerra, a documentary by Jo Lauria (’90 Fine Arts) produced by The Boardman Family Foundation in cooperation with Otis.

Look for more photos and video interviews at www.otis.edu/alumni in Events Archive. If you would like to share photos you took at the event, please contact otisalum@otis.edu or join the Otis Alumni Facebook Group and post images there.

Giving for the Future

1 Richard Daskas (’90 Communication Arts), Jim Rygiel (’80 MFA Fine Arts) and Raymond Zibach (’90 Communication Arts); 2 Otis 90th Anniversary banners lining Lincoln Blvd. 3 Kent Twitchell (’77 MFA Fine Arts) with his former student Mark Dean Veca (’85 Fine Arts) at Veca’s installation of Phantasmagoria at the Ben Maltz Gallery. 4 Kristopher Enuke (’85 Fashion Design) and his son viewing a special installation of 26 years of Fashion Show videos 5 World Premiere of Simulations a 24’ x 40’ video projection installation by Bruce Yonemoto (’79 MFA Fine Arts) commissioned by Otis to celebrate the 90th Anniversary. 6 Otis Designs Book Signing. 7 ”Draw Down!” Outdoor Group Drawing Extravaganza organized by faculty member Gary Geraths

1

2 3

4

6

75

180/200 donors as of April 20