SVA Close Up http://blog.sva.edu News and Events From the School of Visual Arts Wed, 16 May 2012 16:17:54 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 SVA Alumnus ‘Painting for a Family Dinner’ in the Bronx http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/sva-alumnus-painting-for-a-family-dinner-in-the-bronx/ http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/sva-alumnus-painting-for-a-family-dinner-in-the-bronx/#comments Wed, 16 May 2012 15:13:18 +0000 kswitzer http://blog.sva.edu/?p=24834 SVA alumnus Alina Bliumis (BFA 1999 Computer Art) and her husband Jeff Bliumis are mixing art with dining to make new friends in the Bronx. For their project “Painting for a Family Dinner,” the couple meets with a family for dinner and creates a still life painting for them with the phrase “Thank You for Your Dinner!” in return. After the meetings, the families pose for a portrait, some of which are currently on display at the Bronx Museum of Art through June 4. “I think it’s a wonderful project and I love the focus on families,” Sergio Bessa, director of programs at the museum recently told the New York Daily News. “The Bronx has always been associated with blight and struggle but there is a huge mainstream community of working families here. And I think it’s wonderful to honor that.”

The Bliumis’s project is produced in collaboration with No Longer Empty, an arts organization that works to widen the audience for contemporary art by presenting high-caliber, site-specific public art exhibitions in the heart of communities. The project has allowed the Bliumises to visit families in the Riverdale, Castle Hill, Woodlawn, and City Island neighborhoods, among others, resulting in 13 family portraits. “You can see a lot, even in one photograph,” Alina Bliumis said in the article. “You can see the social and cultural differences. You can see the traditions. I think you can see everything about life in photographs.”

To learn more about “Painting for a Family Dinner” and the Bliumis’s other projects, visit their website.

]]> http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/sva-alumnus-painting-for-a-family-dinner-in-the-bronx/feed/ 0 Mark Kendall’s ‘Time Machine’ to Screen at Cannes http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/mark-kendalls-time-machine-to-screen-at-cannes/ http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/mark-kendalls-time-machine-to-screen-at-cannes/#comments Tue, 15 May 2012 15:53:33 +0000 kswitzer http://blog.sva.edu/?p=24816 Alumnus Mark Kendall’s (MFA 2011 Social Documentary Film) award-winning documentary The Time Machine continues to make its way around the globe. The film, which tells the story of Wilfredo Alvarez, a Honduran immigrant who works in a small watch shop in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal, will screen at the Cannes Court Métrage, or Short Film Corner, at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, May 16 – 27. From there, The Time Machine heads to Amsterdam to screen at the GRID International Biennial. In addition, La Camioneta, a film Kendall began while studying at SVA, recently earned him the Nashville Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Hispanic Filmmaker Award, and received an Honorable Mention in the documentary film category at the Nashville Film Festival. It will also screen at the Los Angeles Film Festival in the summer showcase series.

For more information and a full list of the films included in the Short Film Corner, visit Cannes Court Métrage.

]]> http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/mark-kendalls-time-machine-to-screen-at-cannes/feed/ 0 SVA Wins Third Consecutive ADC ‘School of the Year’ Award http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/sva-wins-third-consecutive-adc-school-of-the-year-award/ http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/sva-wins-third-consecutive-adc-school-of-the-year-award/#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 14:33:52 +0000 kswitzer http://blog.sva.edu/?p=24748 For the third consecutive year, SVA has won the Art Directors Club honor of “School of the Year.” SVA students in the BFA Advertising and Graphic Design Department received nine ADC Cubes to claim the top cumulative award honors, which is based on total points for the year’s winning work across categories. The cubes were for outstanding work in the Ambient/Environmental, Collateral, Press, Illustration and Motion categories, and represented a range of clients, from the American Red Cross to the MINI Cooper. SVA students also earned merit awards in the Illustration, Motion and Press categories, including a campaign for the Coalition to End Violence Against Women.

The Art Directors Club is the premier organization for integrated media worldwide. Founded in New York in 1920, the ADC is a self-funded, not-for-profit, global membership organization which serves as a hub for creative talent and leadership in visual communication.

The ADC Awards competition is judged by an international panel of the world’s most respected creative professionals to recognize the best work from around the world in interactive media, broadcast and print advertising, graphic design, publication design, packaging, photography and illustration. The winners were presented with the ADC’s coveted Gold, Silver and Bronze Cubes at a gala ceremony in New York City on May 9, and will be featured in the award-winning Art Directors Annual, the oldest and most respected compendium of outstanding work in the industry. Winning work will also be archived online at ADC’s website later this year.

The 91st Annual Awards Exhibition runs through May 31 at the ADC Gallery, 106 West 29th Street, New York City, before embarking on a national tour. Gallery hours are Monday – Friday, 10am  – 6pm and admission is free and open to the public.

Image: ADC Gold Cube.

]]> http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/sva-wins-third-consecutive-adc-school-of-the-year-award/feed/ 0 SVA Alumni Sweep Graphis New Talent Awards http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/sva-alumni-sweep-graphis-new-talent-awards/ http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/sva-alumni-sweep-graphis-new-talent-awards/#comments Fri, 11 May 2012 14:36:59 +0000 kswitzer http://blog.sva.edu/?p=24728 Seven alumni of the BFA Advertising and Graphic Design Department were recently named winners of the Graphis New Talent Annual Platinum Award, the largest showing of any college represented in the competition. Graphis is one of the world’s leading platforms for outstanding work in design, advertising and photography, and the award provides industry-wide exposure with a spot in the Graphis New Talent Annual 2012, a hard-cover print publication offering inspiration for creative talent worldwide.

Casey Espinoza (BFA 2011 Graphic Design), Eleni Georgeou (BFA 2011 Advertising), Bona Jeong (BFA 2011 Advertising), Bo Mi Jo (BFA 2011 Advertising), Jamie Kakleas (BFA 2011 Advertising), Jungho Katie Lee (BFA 2012 Advertising) and Dahee Song (BFA 2011 Advertising) took home honors for projects ranging from an Olympics logo customized for McDonald’s sponsorship to a wall clock designed for City Harvest, the New York City nonprofit serving New Yorkers in need of a free meal.

The Graphis New Talent Annual also honors the instructors and schools that shaped the winning students’ work. The distinguished faculty members behind SVA’s Platinum Award are Frank Anselmo, Sal DeVito and Jack Mariucci.

Anselmo is also the subject of an interview in the publication. Explaining his students’ multi-year winning streak Anselmo tells Graphis, “Most creatives copy existing ideas, but that’s the kiss of death. New ideas are what it’s all about. That’s the approach for my classes and clients.”

View the complete list of SVA winners at Graphis.com. A gallery of work created by SVA students is online here.

Image: Halls ad by Bo Mi Jo and Dahee Song.

]]> http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/sva-alumni-sweep-graphis-new-talent-awards/feed/ 0 In the Press: David Levi Strauss in ‘The Brooklyn Rail’ http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/in-the-press-david-levi-strauss-in-the-brooklyn-rail/ http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/in-the-press-david-levi-strauss-in-the-brooklyn-rail/#comments Thu, 10 May 2012 13:33:46 +0000 kswitzer http://blog.sva.edu/?p=24718 MFA Art Criticism and Writing Department Chair David Levi Strauss contributed an article on the role of art criticism as part of the Held Essays on Visual Arts series for the May edition of The Brooklyn Rail. With support from the Al Held Foundation, the Rail asks selected writers to explore the state of contemporary visual culture by taking a critical view of ideas relating to art and politics. For his essay “From Metaphysics to Invective: Art Criticism as If it Still Matters,” Strauss asserts that although there is much confusion about what exactly art criticism is, criticism is vitally important to culture. “Rather than a ‘crisis in criticism,’” he argues, “we are currently suffering a crisis of relative values that could be treated with criticism. Without criticism, the only measure of value in art is money, and that measure has proven to be both fickle and stultifying.”

Strauss began writing art criticism more than 30 years ago after studying in the famed San Francisco–based Poetics Program, which was modeled after Black Mountain College. The rigorous and generative education he received there in the early 1980s under poet Robert Duncan’s tutelage has influenced Strauss’s writing and thinking ever since. “I used to think that the plight of criticism was to be always the lover, never the beloved,” he reflected in the essay. “Criticism needs the art object, but the art object doesn’t need criticism. Now I agree with Baudelaire: ‘It is from the womb of art that criticism was born.’ Artists who disparage criticism are attacking their own progeny, and future.”

To read the entire essay, visit The Brooklyn Rail.

]]> http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/in-the-press-david-levi-strauss-in-the-brooklyn-rail/feed/ 0 Two SVA Alumni Finalists in 2012 Student Academy Awards http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/two-sva-alumni-finalists-in-2012-student-academy-awards/ http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/two-sva-alumni-finalists-in-2012-student-academy-awards/#comments Wed, 09 May 2012 15:40:18 +0000 kswitzer http://blog.sva.edu/?p=24700 Two SVA alumni have been nominated for the 39th Annual Student Academy Awards: Yue Liu (MFA Computer Art 2011 and BFA Animation 2008) for his animated short Shinobi Blues and Hanzhang Shen (MFA Social Documentary Film 2011) for her documentary Why Am I Still Alive. Winners will be flown out to Los Angeles for a week of industry activities and social events that will culminate in the awards ceremony on June 9 at 6pm at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.

The Student Academy Awards currently offer prizes in four categories: Alternative, Animation, Documentary and Narrative. Gold, silver, and bronze awards are given in each category, with accompanying cash grants of $5,000, $3,000, and $2,000, respectively. A separate award is given annually to a student filmmaker from outside the United States. To extend the impact and honor beyond the competition, a compilation presentation of the gold medal award-winning films is circulated each year free of charge to educational and non-profit organizations nationwide.

]]> http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/two-sva-alumni-finalists-in-2012-student-academy-awards/feed/ 0 Art for Kids at SVA http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/art-for-kids-at-sva/ http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/art-for-kids-at-sva/#comments Tue, 08 May 2012 19:26:11 +0000 kswitzer http://blog.sva.edu/?p=24681 Proud parents and family members are a common sight on the SVA campus this time of year. But during a recent April weekend, the crowds gathered weren’t visiting the College for graduation festivities—they were here to recognize the achievements of budding artists in kindergarten through ninth grade at the latest Art for Kids (K-9) exhibition. Art was fastened to walls, windows and chairs as parents had their first opportunity to see finished projects such as “Me, Myself and Portrait” (pencil and charcoal), “Art for Transportation” (scratchboard) and “Nature Hybrid Character Design Prints” (printmaking). Young artists posed for photos in front of their work while visitors admired the finished projects, the result of 10 weeks of classes.

The College’s Art for Kids (K-9) program has long been a well-kept secret. On Saturdays and Sundays, classrooms at SVA are full of young artists gaining fundamental art knowledge and working with a wide variety of materials to create works over 10-week sessions. One of the program’s biggest assets is its teachers, all SVA students or alumni and experienced in teaching art in private and public schools and various other professional educational settings. Each teacher has an academic and practical understanding of art education, loves teaching art to kids, and guides Art for Kids participants as they create autobiographical and imagination-based works that are displayed at the end of the semester in a gallery-like setting.

SVA provides these classes as part of its mission to meet the diverse needs of the larger community within which the College resides. Classes are $220 for 10 90-minute or two-hour classes, depending on the student’s age. For more information on Art for Kids (K-9), including the upcoming Summer program, visit www.sva.edu/special-programs/art-for-kids-k-9.

Photos (by Gayle Snible) of work created in classes taught by Ryan Armstrong (MAT 2011 Art Education), Lindsey Kammerer (MAT 2009 Art Education), Sara Lauth (MAT 2010 Art Education) and Miranda Small (BFA 1998 Illustration).

]]> http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/art-for-kids-at-sva/feed/ 0 Q&A with Alumnus Alonso Homs on Filmmaking, SVA and the Dustys http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/qa-with-alumnus-alonso-homs-on-filmmaking-sva-and-the-dustys/ http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/qa-with-alumnus-alonso-homs-on-filmmaking-sva-and-the-dustys/#comments Mon, 07 May 2012 15:30:08 +0000 kswitzer http://blog.sva.edu/?p=24649 With the 23rd Annual Dusty Film & Animation Festival currently in full swing (through May 9 at the SVA Theatre, 333 West 23 Street), SVA Close Up decided to check in with an alumnus who is quickly making a name for himself in the world of film. Alonso Homs (BFA 2008 Film and Video) has already racked up an impressive list of credits, including work on the new HBO series Girls and the 2010 movie Blue Valentine starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. Homs recently took some time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions for us via email.

What are you currently working on?
I just came back from Australia where I was the Stereographer on Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. The stereographer is the person responsible for the 3D on set. He/she deals with advising the director, the cinematographer and the rest of the crew on how to use 3D in the best possible way in addition to keeping continuity with the images in terms of depth and volume from shot to shot.

How did your experience at SVA prepare you for what you’re doing today?
At SVA I learned the basics in terms of camera and storytelling, and I learned all I know today about editing and sound equipment. But most importantly, it got me a job. Mark Pederson, who was my teacher at SVA, is the co-owner of Offhollywood, the company I now work for here in New York.

Any memories of the Dustys you’d like to share?
I had a great yet intense time trying to watch every single one of the shorts projected back when I graduated in 2008. It was the first year that we used the SVA Theatre for the Dustys. I remember being shocked by the quality of the projection.

Any advice to aspiring filmmakers/soon-to-be grads?
Yes. Don’t be afraid of just getting a job. If you haven’t figured out your skill set yet (other than Director/DP/Editor) figure that out now and get started. Learn to be an assistant editor or assistant cameraman or a company grip. There is a lot to be learned from just being on set. It takes years, so be patient and think positively and it will eventually pay off—you will eventually transition to your dream job.

Image: Alonso Homs on the set of The Great Gatsby.

]]> http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/qa-with-alumnus-alonso-homs-on-filmmaking-sva-and-the-dustys/feed/ 0 In the Press: Natasha Jen on the Cover of ‘Graphic Design USA’ http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/in-the-press-natasha-jen-on-the-cover-of-graphic-design-usa/ http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/in-the-press-natasha-jen-on-the-cover-of-graphic-design-usa/#comments Fri, 04 May 2012 16:02:30 +0000 kswitzer http://blog.sva.edu/?p=24633 Natasha Jen (BFA 2003 Graphic Design) graces the cover of Graphic Design USA magazine’s April 2012 issue. Jen joined Pentagram, the world’s largest independent design consultancy, in April, making her the firm’s youngest partner at age 36. During her studies at SVA, Jen was an intern at Eric Baker Design Associates and went on to work as a senior designer at Base Design, an art director at 2×4 and as a creative director at Stone Yamishita Partners.

In 2010, she established her own design studio Njenworks and created innovative campaigns for companies like Nike, Target, Kate Spade, and the Guggenheim and Harvard Art Museums. In addition to her internship at Eric Baker Design, Natasha worked as an intern on Paula Scher’s team at Pentagram, perhaps making her the first former Pentagram intern to become a partner in the firm’s 40 year history. For more info or to purchase the issue, visit Graphic Design USA.

]]> http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/in-the-press-natasha-jen-on-the-cover-of-graphic-design-usa/feed/ 0 Two Dozen SVA Students Selected for Society of Illustrators Exhibition http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/two-dozen-sva-students-selected-for-society-of-illustrators-exhibition/ http://blog.sva.edu/2012/05/two-dozen-sva-students-selected-for-society-of-illustrators-exhibition/#comments Thu, 03 May 2012 19:13:14 +0000 kswitzer http://blog.sva.edu/?p=24604 A total of 24 students from the BFA Illustration and Cartooning Department have been selected to exhibit their work in the Society of Illustrators’ 2012 Student Scholarship Competition, which opens on May 9 at the Society (123 East 63 Street). Works are chosen based on concept, quality of technique and skill of medium used. After reviewing 8,119 submissions, only 253 were selected for this year’s exhibition.

The students selected are: James Bascara, Ian Betram, Haeree Choi, Adrien Dacquel, Aldo Katayanaigi-Van Enck,  Becca Genne-Bacon, Boyoun Kim, Amanda Lanzone, Yuri Leonov, Joyce Li, Faith Lindley, James Lipnickas, Ryan Mauskopf, Brenda Montalvan, Melody Newcomb, Grzegorz Opalkinski, Matt Panuska, Joseph Perrotto, Andrew Ryan, Johnny Ruzzo, Anna Santaguida, Kayla Skogh, Kyle Stecker and Renshou Zhang. In addition, the following students will be awarded scholarships: Haeree Choi ($3000 Nancy Lee Rhodes Roberts Scholarship Award), Joseph Perrotto ($2500 Nancy Lee Rhodes Roberts Scholarship Award) and Kyle Stecker ($500 in Memory of Frances Means).

The Society’s scholarship competition has been recognizing and supporting up-and-coming student illustrators for over 25 years. The Society, as well as various other generous private and corporate donors, grant scholarships for stand-out work by students featured in the competition. Awards and certificates will be presented during the opening reception for the exhibition on May 18 at 6pm. A Distinguished Educator Award will be presented posthumously to SVA faculty member, Jack Potter. This prestigious award is presented to an educator who has made a strong impact on illustration as both a teacher and an artist.

For more information about the exhibition, which runs through June 2, visit the Society of Illustrators website.

Image: Conception by Adrien Dacquel.

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