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ISSUE 10 - Proving the Power of Art and Artists Pg.16 - Magnet for Controversy VOL.10 310.665.6800 / OTIS.EDU Pg.20 09 14 22 28

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ISSUE 10 - Proving the Power of Art and Artists Pg.16 - Magnet for Controversy VOL.10 310.665.6800 / OTIS.EDU Pg.20 09 14 22 28 OTIS COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN MAGAZINE 310.665.6800 / OTIS.EDU in this issue: Non-Profit Org U.S. Postage Otis College of Art and Design PAID Spring 2011 No Finish Line 9045 Lincoln Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90045 Los Angeles, CA Permit No. 427 pg.10 ISSUE 10 - Proving the Power of Art and Artists pg.16 - Magnet for Controversy VOL.10 310.665.6800 / OTIS.EDU pg.20 09 14 22 28 A Foundation for the Future This issue of OMAG highlights the Foundation connected. Through the Foundation Integrated Otis prepares diverse students of Program, a beloved first-year educational Learning course, freshmen work with an art and design to enrich our world VOL.10 IN THIS ISSUE: SPRING 2011 experience that generations of Otis alumni have external, real world “site partner.” The site- through their creativity, their skill, credited for much of their success and penchant partner project focuses on sustainability and and their vision. for lifelong learning. Otis is the only college of the environment, and embodies another Foundation Development art and design on the West Coast that offers a tenet of Foundation: Knowledge carries with Founded in 1918, Otis is L.A.’s first 02 24 full Foundation Year curriculum. The program is it a responsibility to use it mindfully within independent professional school of Makers + Thinkers Mei-Lee and the Art of Legacy also unique in its approach to preparing students the community. visual arts. Otis’ 1200 students pursue for the competitive, fast-paced 21st century while Students share their first-year engagement BFA degrees in advertising design, continuing to honor time-tested fundamentals. within a learning community of 18 peers. architecture/landscape/interiors, College News Alumni Around the World Throughout Foundation, students learn Research shows that students are more creative, digital media, fashion design, graphic 10 26 Do it Now - Think Different: Profit, Chatard in Cannes aesthetic fundamentals, sharpen their visual motivated, and willing to stretch academically design, illustration, interactive product People and the Planet Akashi in Berlin acuity, develop their cultural and information when bonded with a cohort group. At the close design, painting, photography, Designing for Atheletes and the Planet literacy, begin a connection with the larger of Foundation, Otis students emerge as creative, President Hoi with NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman and James Irvine sculpture/new genres, and toy design. Foundation President and CEO, James Canales The Clay’s the Thing community as emerging artists and designers, skilled and collaborative individuals, ready MFA degrees are offered in fine arts, Splendid Entities: 25 Years of Objects by and hone the essential “thinking and making” to continue focused study in the upper levels. graphic design, public practice, and Phyllis Green Class Notes skills required for creative professionals who will Strong friendships with peers and faculty, writing. Otis has trained generations of 28 Dismantled Featured Alumni enjoy career success. The faculty—all of whom combined with the accomplishments of the artists who have been in the vanguard Figuration and Configuration: Alumni Connect are working artists and designers—serve as role past year, give them confidence that, after three of the cultural and entrepreneurial life Donghia Designers in Residence Doin it in Public models. Talented, passionate, and thoughtful more years of intensive and rewarding study, of the city. Nurtured by Los Angeles’ Nader Tehrani and Sharon Johnston Otis in the Art Scene professionals, they are accessible to students they will lead a fulfilling life as art and design forward-thinking spirit, these artists Proving the Power of Art and Artists of Southern California both inside and outside the classroom. professionals and engaged citizens. and designers explore the landscape Only the Beginning: The holistic and forward-looking philosophy An Otis education cultivates students’ capacity of popular culture and the significant Graduate Graphic Design that underlies Foundation is based on educational to reach their full potential. The Foundation Year impact of identity, politics, and A Magnet for Controversy: research. Through courses such as Critical provides the solid first steps on that path. social policy at the intersection of art Kent Twitchell (’77) Analysis and Semiotics, students learn both to and society. question everything and to see that everything is Samuel Hoi, President After the Fall: From Punk From Punk to Pornetration to ‘Let’s Be Facebook Frendz!! Editor: Margi Reeve, Communications Director Contributors: Rose Brantley, Fashion Design Chair; S.A. Bachman, Graduate Public Front cover: Lauren Barnette (’12), © Otis College of Art and Design Practice faculty member; Scarlet Cheng, Liberal Arts and Sciences faculty member; Co-editor: Sarah Russin, Assistant VP, Institutional Advancement Foundation Form and Space, Publication of material does not necessarily Linda Hudson, Foundation faculty member; Randy Lavender, Interim Provost; Meg “Meaning of Form” project indicate endorsement of the author’s viewpoint Photography: Photography: Kristy Campbell, Lee Salem, Linton, Ben Maltz Gallery Director; Kali Nikitas, Graduate Graphic Design Chair; Katie Back cover: Sarmista Pantham (MFA ’10) by Otis College of Art and Design FPO Artie and Kent Twitchell Phillips, Foundation Chair; Linda Pollari, Architecture/Landscape/Interiors Chair; Rush Otis College of Art and Design detail from Weekend Crafts poster Creative/Design: Mark Caneso (‘04) White, Foundation faculty member; Jackie Wickser, Fashion Design faculty member; Alexandra Pollyea, Media Relations Manager; George Wolfe, freelance writer OMAG 2 section: Feature Otis College of Art and Design Alumni Magazine Spring 2011 3 OMAG The FOUNDATION of MAKERS + THINKERS In the first semester, students take two drawing courses (Life Drawing, and Drawing and Composition) and I two design courses (Principles of Design, and Form and Space). They spend eighteen hours in these studio classes and nine hours in Liberal Studies classes each week. In the second semester, they continue in Life Drawing or select Creative Practices and Responses. They also choose an elective, which is based on one of the upper-division majors. In addition, students can also select the elective class to travel to Paris where they study French art, history, and culture during spring break. Students’ choices allow for varied experiences; a student who chooses creative practices and the sculpture/new genres elective will have a very different experience than one who continues with the core and takes an advertising design elective. Each choice helps to define a path of personal vision. In the spring, students take their first Integrated Learning (site- based team project) class. Because of the focus on sustainable practices in the professional world, most students work with community environmental groups such as Friends of Ballona Wetlands. In the Foundation year, students learn skill sets that support the informed making 1 I learned things I never thought I’d of art and design, as well as thinking skills have opportunity to, I tried things that for all visual arts. Very basic to the creation of art and design is “construction of Kelly Dawn Hopkins (’13) I never thought I would, and honestly, meaning.” Students learn that each visual I’ve turned into someone I never thought choice they make in constructing their work carries meaning. They ask what their I’d be. I went from being a distant choice means in the context in which it wallflower to being a bold, confident is meant to be seen or used. Why select a certain color? Why choose a jagged rather nutcase. The people I’ve met along the than a curved line? What does the choice way have been incredibly inspiring, of scale imply? unbelievably annoying, simply beautiful, and everything in between. OMAG 4 section: Feature Otis College of Art and Design Alumni Magazine Otis College of Art and Design Alumni Magazine DRAWING + FORM + COMPOSITION students blend information, SPACE blur boundaries, and expand domains SEMESTERS CREDITS STUDIO HOURS SEMESTERS CREDITS STUDIO HOURS Fall X 2.0 Fall X 2.0 6 hrs per week 6 hrs per week Spring X 2.0 Spring X 2.0 In Drawing and Composition, students Form and Space is a uniquely develop the ability to confidently challenging course for many I organize and construct a drawing F students because it focuses on (and drawing-driven painting) in three-dimensional design, or which spatial organization is supreme. They composition in-the-round, a method of visually communicate from a chosen point visual organization that manifests clearly of view and construct the perspective that from all angles and perspectives. This goes with it. By observation of increasingly demands visual sensitivity that counters complex still life set-ups, they develop today’s highly pictorialized experience. the ability to depict the three-dimensional Form and Space introduces students world in roughly three zones: foreground, sequentially to the exciting possibilities middle ground and background. On field of form-making. They investigate primary trips, they sketch and create mixed building blocks of Western form such as media drawings. Media experiences shift cubes, tetrahedra, and polyhedra as a basis from initial graphite line, to charcoal tone, for composition, use negative and positive pastel color, Adobe Ilustrator, and mixed volume interactions to activate forms and media water-based painting. In the final the spaces between them, and develop
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