Otis College of Art and Design Magazine 2008 Vol.5

16 26

Otis is 90!As the Otis community celebrates the College’s

90th anniversary in Fall 2008, we can be proud

that we have lived up to our mission—Otis

prepares diverse students of art and design to

enrich our world thorough their creativity, their

skill, and their vision.

Otis holds the distinction of being the first

independent professional school of art in Los

Angeles, and has grown from a small training

school for artists in 1918 to a nationally recog-

nized and innovative college of art and design

in 2008 (see Otis’ historical highlights in the

centerfold timeline).

Celebrations marking the 90th milestone

are multi-faceted, including publications, ex-

hibitions, art commissions, alumni reunions,

and, of course, parties.

Otis’ great alumni successes are captured

in Otis: Nine Decades of Los Angeles Art and

Otis Designs. The former volume, document-

ing achievements in fine arts, was published

in 2006 in conjunction with the very successful

and widely seen exhibition at the Los Angeles

Municipal Art Gallery. Otis Designs, released

for the 90th Anniversary homecoming (see pgs

pg. 3), celebrates achievements in design. These

publications are a testament to the depth and

reach of Otis’ distinguished alumni, who have

propelled art and design movements, reflected

social history through art, and created icons

such as the Oscar statuette, the animatronic

IZ MP3 player, classic animated characters,

award-winning visual effects, high fashion,

and popular sports apparel.

The insights and wisdom of many out-

standing alumni are being captured for

posterity through the Otis Legacy Project

(see pg. 14-15). In aggregate, they tell an

inspiring message that passion for creativity

is life-long.

Galleries are collaborating with Otis to

present our faculty and alumni work this year

in “Otis Across L.A.” (see pg. 30-31). The an-

niversary festivities culminate with a Home-

coming Weekend celebration in October which

includes an alumni exhibition opening and

world premiere (see pgs. 6 and 12 ).

We can look back at almost a century of

influential art and design education that has

nurtured compelling artistic voices, shaped

the cultural landscape, and driven the creative

economy in Southern California and beyond.

Otis’ future is even more promising. The

Otis of 2008 continues to evolve its academic

programs to meet the needs brought about by

social, aesthetic, economic, and technological

shifts. The creative impact of Otis alumni and

faculty will continue to radiate concentrically

from the Los Angeles epicenter of 1918 to the

global community.

—Samuel Hoi, President

President Hoi with (from left) teaching assistant Amanda McGough (‘08), Summer of Art Program Director Kathleen Masselink-Valenzuela, and instructor Marcie Kaufman.

Cover: Mark Dean Veca (‘85) Imbroglio, installation at Jonathan LeVine Gallery, 2007

Inside back cover: Tim Biskup (‘88)Asylum #5Cel Vinyl Acrylic on Wooden Panel, 36 x 24 inches

CLASS NOTES

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23 04

Editor: Margi Reeve,Communications DirectorCo-editor: Sarah Russin, Alumni Director

Photography: Al Bello/Getty Images;Sheldan C. Collins, Whitney Museum of American Art; Morgan Cuppet-Michelson (‘08); Wayne McCall; Lee Salem

Staff Writer: George Wolfe

Creative: Intersection StudioDesign Direction: Greg LindyDesign: (Yee) Jeanie Chong (‘07)Font design: Jiberis, by (Yee) Jeanie Chong (‘07)

Contributors: Howard N. Fox is Curator of Contemporary Art, LACMA

Carole Ann Klonarides is a freelance curator

Meg Linton is Director, Ben Maltz Gallery and Public Programs

Carlo McCormick is Senior Editor, Paper magazine

Lisa Melandri is Deputy Director for Public Programs, Santa Monica Museum of Art

Christopher Michlig is guest instructor, Architecture/Landscape/Interiors

Mohammed Sharif is Assistant Chair, Architecture/Landscape/Interiors

Joan Takayama-Ogawa and Perri Chasin are faculty members, Liberal Arts & Sciences

Otis prepares diverse students of art and design to enrich our world through their creativity, their skill, and their vision.

Founded in 1918, Otis is L.A.’s fi rst independent professional school of visual arts. Otis’ 1200

students pursue BFA degrees in advertising design, architecture/landscape/interiors, digital media,

fashion design, graphic design, illustration, interactive product design, painting, photography,

sculpture/new genres, and toy design. MFA degrees are offered in fi ne arts, graphic design, public

practice, and writing. Otis has trained generations of artists who have been in the vanguard of

the cultural and entrepreneurial life of the city. Nurtured by Los Angeles’ forward-thinking spirit,

these artists and designers explore the landscape of popular culture and the signifi cant impact

of identity, politics, and social policy at the intersection of art and society.

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2008 Vol.5 In This Issue:

Celebrating 90 Years

Otis Monitor

College News

Alumni Around the World

Class Notes

Practicing in Public:

The San Joaquin Valley Project

What is Chicano Art?

Vernon Becomes the Factory

Omage ’08: Otis Artists, Designers,

and Writers at Track 16 Gallery

First Step onto the Fashion Runway

Keith Puccinelli’s Wondercommon

H2O + Forward-Thinking Terrestrials

25 years in the City of Light

Otis’ New Website

River Montijo in Qatar

Sojung Kwon in Amsterdam

Otis Across L.A.

Publication of material does not necessarily

indicate endorsement of the author’s viewpoint

by Otis College of Art and Design

© Otis College of Art and Design

Otis College of Art and Design

The Art of Design

Five Titans of Design

Marc Dean Veca’s Hallucinatory Spaces

At the Heart of Kung Fu Panda

A Place where all Dreams Come True

2008 Meeting of the Minds

1918-2008 (timeline)

OMAG 2

FEATURE

The Art of Desigexcerpts from the essay by Barbara Isenberg for

Otis Designs, " a history of design at Otis published

to celebrate the College's 90th anniversary

"

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FEATURE

Twelfth Street byy Cyynthia Vincent

Since I was six, I wanted to go into the fashion design. I wanted d to go

toward the creative end. Otis definitely prepared me for the real world.

MyMy first job in LoLondon was a great exampple. Thhere ee werer a lot of incrc edibly

talented and creative designers but when it came to oo actually knowing

the calendar, and how to put garmem nts together—the functionality and

eweweararababbilililititityy—thththhatattt ss shohoh wewed dddd meme hhhhowow m mucuch hhhh I II hahahhh d dddd lelell ararnened.dddd”””””

“

Wee ddooo aa loott oof moottioon gggraappphiccss,, weebb ssitteee dddeeesssigggnn,,, mmooovviieee pppooosssttteeerrrsss, aaannndd gggrraappphhiicc ddeessiigggnnn rrraaannngggiiinnnggg fffrrrooommm ttt-ssshhhiiirrrtttsss tttooo cccaaarrr aaaiiirrr fffrrreeessshhheeennneeerrrsss. OOOtttiisss ooopppeeennneeeddd dddoooooorrrsss fffooorrr mmmeee. III wwweeennnttt tttooo aaa sssccchhhoooooollltthhaatt hhaaadd aa ggrreeaatt rreepputtaattiioonn. WWWhhheenn III mmeeeettt aa yooung artttiiisttt fffrom OOOOtiis, II ffeell lliikke hhe’’s iin my triibe. AAlll the ffreelancers who wwwork for me arrre from Otis.”

—Chevon Hicks ((’95), , President and Creative Director, ,, Heavenspot

“

Otis planted the seed that art is everything—it’s the integrationof visuals. Innovation is always driven by the idea. If films didn’t push the envelope in terms of effects and looks, tttechnologywould probably be 10 years behind. With almost every film I have embarked upon, we went in having no idea of how we were ever going to accomplish some of the things we intended. But put a bunch of brilliant and creative artists and scientists together, and it’s magic!”

—Ji—Jim Rm Rygiygiel el (‘8( 80),0) ththreeree-ti-time me OscOscar ar winwinnerner fofor r the Lord of the Rings trilogys

“

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FEATURE

Otis tauggght mmmee howw to think as a ddesssigner, annddd hooow designwas not a ccccraft but rather a framework thhhrouggggh which I couldsee poossibility. That’s guided me throughout my whhole career,even as I switched from being an illustrator to a designer, and from print to digital.”

For 90 years, Otis has provided students with

the basic skills and knowledge for art making

as well as the confidence and contacts to take

that training in unlimited directions. Expanding

its offerings as the design world itself grew and

changed, Otis has trained generations of artists

not only to draw and paint but also to design

everything from billboards and apparel to toys,

games and websites.

Khoi Vinh (‘93) is now the creative director

for NYTimes.com. Cassidy Park (‘88) was hired

by Mattel’s Barbie design group as a senior de-

signer, later becoming vice president of Barbie

product design. The animatronic MP3 player,

IZ, created by Kris Paulson (’03) and colleagues

at Big Monster Toys, was listed as one of Time

magazine’s inventions of the year in 2005.

Vinh, Park and Paulson join a tradition of

artists taught to honor their creative instincts.

Alumni George Maitland Stanley sculpted the

“Oscar” won later by costume designer Dorothy

Jeakins (’36), and, more recently, special effects

wizard Jim Rygiel (’81), three-time winner for the

Lord of the Rings trilogy. Production designer

Dean Tavoularis, a student in the ‘50s, took home

his Oscar for set design on Godfather II.

Otis alumni rosters have long boasted art direc-

tors, sketch artists, animators, and costume

and production designers at MGM, Paramount,

Warner Bros., Universal and elsewhere. Recently

featured in an exhibition at the Academy of Mo-

tion Picture Arts and Sciences were Tyrus Wong

and fellow alum William Major, who produced

illustrations for such films as The Ten Command-

ments and Dick Tracy.

Students often hired one another at the

studios and elsewhere. As far back as the 1940s,

pottery designer Margaret Mears Gabriel hired

classmate Wong to paint dinnerware for her

company, Winfield Pottery. “Otis is part of the

Otis Designs

With over 125 illustrations, this 180 pg.

publication chronicles alumni contribu-

tions to the design world from the 1920s

to the present. Lush images of posters,

theme park design, book illustration,

animation, architecture, photography,

production design, toys, fashion design,

and exhibition design are included. An

essay by noted writer Barbara Isenberg

accompanies the visuals.

Otis Designs is a companion piece to

Otis: Nine Decades of Los Angeles Art,

which documented the fine arts exhibition

at the Los Angeles Municipal Gallery at

Barnsdall Park in 2006.

Order by Mail

Include a check payable to

Otis College of Art and Design:$25 for one; $40 for the pair

(Includes tax and shipping)

Sarah Russin, Alumni DirectorOtis College of Art and Design

9045 Lincoln Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90045

310-665-6937

ign

03 OMAG

FEATURE

—Khoi Vinh (‘93), Creative Director, NY NYTimTi es.com

“

continuity of design education in Southern

California,” says Bill Stern, Director of the

Museum of California Design. “Teachers are

one generation, students are another, and

each influences the next. Otis is pivotal in our

design lineage.”

Executives at prominent global corporations

refer to the diversity of the student body at

Otis, the most diverse independent art and

design school in the country, as well as its abil-

ity to blend technology and creative thinking.

These attributes are particularly important in

cutting-edge areas of study such as Otis’ Digital

Media Department, which President Samuel

Hoi describes as “the first of its kind in the

region to address motion graphics, special ef-

fects and other emerging digital art forms.”

“Otis students have a strong foundation

in the arts, and don’t just focus on the techno-

logy,” observes Jack Lew, manager of global art

talent resources at Electronic Arts, the world’s

largest developer and publisher of video

games. “We are looking for technical skills,

but beyond that we’re also looking at creative

problem solving. The work we see from the

students at Otis has a good balance of both.”

Otis College of Art and Design approaches its

centennial with such thoughts in mind, says

President Samuel Hoi. “When Otis was primar-

ily a school that focused on the fine arts, many

of our graduates entered the design field to

earn a living,” he says. “For them, it was the

application of art in the marketplace. Many

of our graduates now approach design as a

creative act in itself with rewards that are per-

sonal, social and cultural as well as financial.” ●

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FEATURE

When teen-age Tyrus Wong enrolled at Otis, he

was a talented young man with more dreams

than dimes. Arriving in the U.S. from China with

his father in 1919, he was so poor he used water

and newspaper for his calligraphy instead of ink

and paper. He supplemented his Otis scholar-

ship with work as a busboy in a Chinese restau-

rant, and he and fellow student Dorothy Jeakins

pooled their money to pay for meals.

They didn’t have to scrimp for long. Soon

after graduating Otis, Wong was exhibiting

watercolors and by 1938, he had a job at the

Walt Disney Studios where, among other

achievements, he later drew the iconic forest

scenery for Bambi. In 2004, a retrospective exhi-

bition of Wong’s work was held at Los Angeles’

Chinese American Museum, filling galleries with

his achievements in painting, drawing, motion

picture scenic design and kites.

Jeakins also fared well. Not long after

graduation, she applied her Otis specialty

of line drawing at Disney as a cel painter on

animated shorts. She was soon designing

costumes for both stage and screen and,

according to her obituary in Daily Variety, not

only received 12 Oscar nominations for cos-

tume design but won Oscars for Joan of Arc,

Samson and Delilah and Night of the Iguana.

Later in her career she was also curator of

textiles and costumes at LACMA for a decade.

TYRUS

WONG

('35)

DOROTHY

JEAKINS

('36)

Five Titans of DesignIn the 20s and 30s, Otis produced several titans

of design. Some went on to work for Disney; others

won Oscars, one became costume curator at

LACMA, and one sculpted the Oscar statuette.

, ,

Excerpted from Barbara Isenberg's

The Art of Design" from Otis Designs"

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FEATURE

In the late ‘20s, George Maitland Stanley was com-

missioned to sculpt the 13.5-inch-tall, 8.5-pound,

gold-plated Oscar designed by MGM art director

Cedric Gibbons. It has maintained its form for the

last 80 years. Stanley and other sculptors created

the Astronomers Monument at Griffith Observatory

in the mid-’30s, and in 1937, he received his land-

mark commission: the Hollywood Bowl’s celebrated

entrance fountain.

Stanley took a sculpture class at Otis with

Harwell Hamilton Harris, who was also study-

ing sculpture. By the time Harris completed his

studies, his interests had shifted to architecture,

and he later worked with pioneer Los Angeles

architect Richard Neutra. Architectural historian

Thomas Hines observes that Harris “revived

and continued aspects of the arts and crafts

tradition in mid-20th century architecture.”

And through Harris’ teaching at the University

of Southern California—where he was an

important influence on such students as Frank

Gehry—and later at the University of Texas and

elsewhere, the one-time sculptor left his mark

on generations of future architects.

Around the same time, Otis attracted another

young scholarship student, John Hench. He

later began his 64-year career at Disney by

serving as a sketch artist on Fantasia. Later, he

painted backgrounds on Dumbo, provided color

and styling for Peter Pan, and was the “official

portrait artist” for Mickey Mouse. Before mov-

ing onto Disney Imagineering, Hench won an

Academy Award for 20,000 Leagues Under the

Sea. At Disneyland, he designed attractions

for Tomorrowland, including Space Mountain.

“Other than Walt Disney himself, no one sym-

bolizes the Walt Disney Company more than

John Hench,” said Martin Sklar, Vice Chairman

of Walt Disney Imagineering. ●

GEORGE

MAITLAND

STANLEY

('20)

HARWELL

HAMILTON

HARRIS

('23)

JOHN

HENCH

('28)

AboveStanley at left, Harris at right

OMAG 06

FEATURE

By Carlo McCormick Excerpted from Juxtapoz Magazine, March 2006

Mark Dean Veca's Hallucinatory Spac e

Veca (‘85) uses space as a deceit upon which to fool our senses and subsume our experience of art. Sifting the visual tropes of trompe l’oeil through the shifting perspectives of biomorphic psychedelia, Veca’s art inhabits and envelops the mind’s eye to at once contort rationality and create an internal logic by which we can navigate the impossible chaos of being. When he’s working in the predeter-mined architecture of a specific commission, confines create ideas, obstacles dictate illusions, and the proliferation of optic information ignites a kind of brain-searing explosion. Mark’s paintings are so damn smart, the only wonder is that

no one else was stupid enough to think of them before. It’s simple,

really; you just have to look at complexity as elemental and basic.

The premise is posited on the surface itself. It is as old as decoration

and as new as the spectacle we live in, the sum of indistinguishable

signs rendered as mesmeric repetition.

Simultaneously a minimalist and maximalist, Mark Dean Veca

works with the arcane language of pattern. Specifically, in his case

it comes from toile de jouy, an 18th century French textile pattern

that he saw on his mother-in-law’s bathroom wall. More generally,

however, the virtue and vice of pattern are that it implies infinity with

the barest redundancy of a recognizable code. That is, once you learn

to read Veca’s art as not having a beginning or an end, you can see

how his draftsmanship is the cause to an effect, the imagery a hal-

lucinatory clause to a defect. This is how space remains ever-shifting,

running hither and fro between postive and negative, pushing back

and pulling forward on the two-dimensional plane to create depth

as a hypothetical construct.

Micro and macro, Veca makes even the most casual gaze do

impossible gymnastics and baffles the imagination with the most

logical of equations. It’s a kind of autonomy that borders on the

biological, but it’s also pure math. It’s hard not to love the context—

a pop-culture melee of cartoons, art historical references, cinema,

advertising, and photography skewered along stream of con-

sciousness genre themes like westerns, sex and violence, science

fiction, and nostalgia—but the concept itself is ultimately as

dangerous as it is disturbing. ●

Editor’s note: Join McCormick, Jamie O’Shea and Veca in conversation on Oct 29 at 7:30 in the Ben Maltz Gallery. Veca’s installation in the Ben Maltz Gallery, Oct 29 “Phantasmagoria,” continues through Dec 6.

Boogey Faruor installation at PS1, N.Y., 2000

07 OMAG

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es

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Veca creates patterns with black ink that make found compo-sitions within which he can improvise. He comes from a family of New Orleans jazz musicians, and likens his work to a jazz musician’s: improvisation with a predetermined chord progres-sion (pattern) and key (color palette) using free-form (abstrac-tion) as well as sampling (found images). These found images (e.g., photo-based, cartoon, art historical, logos) are both personal and universal, and create ambiguous reverberations. Veca creates both installations and studio-based paintings.

In February 2008, he had a solo show in Switzerland, and has

been working recently on a project at the Contemporary Arts

Center in New Orleans. His friendship with graffiti legend/

entrepreneur/sneaker designer Stash began when their children

were nursery school classmates. Stash showed Veca’s work to

Nike CEO Mark Parker, who invited Veca in 2005 to do an in-

stallation and product series called ”Pulsation.”

Veca’s inspirations are animated cartoons like Popeye,

Warner Brothers, Disney, and comic books like MAD Magazine,

Zippy the Pinhead, The Freak Brothers, and Heavy Metal,

M.C. Escher, Skateboard Graphics, artists like Ed Ruscha*,

Franz Kline, Warhol, and Philip Guston,* Rick Griffin, Carroll

Dunham, R. Crumb, Giger, Picasso, George Herriman, and

Dr. Seuss. ●

*all-time favoritesBackground: “Imbroglio,” installation at Jonathan LeVine Gallery, 2007above right: “Pulsations” for Nike, above left: Veca in his studio

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FEATURE

At the Heart of Kung Fu Panda By George Wolfe

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Raymond Zibach (’90), Art Director for such films as The Road to El Dorado and Production Designer for Kung Fu Panda, started on his professional path by receiving a BFA in Illustration. “Really losing yourself in a painting and jamming till it was done is something that started at Otis, and when it happens now I feel like a kid again. [But] design, composition, color, traditional painting ability, the drive to complete assignments in creative ways (and be your own worst critic) were all key to landing a job in animation. From that point on I found my own way.

“Now, it’s a different world than the one I

started in. Features are almost strictly CG, 2-D

or traditional animation is scarce. Everybody

wants to be a Vis Dev artist and the competition

is fierce. I’d say that the same rules still apply for

the artists we look for in animation: super-strong

layout or design skills, some decent rendering

ability, and a great color sense and versatility of

style are key to landing a job.”

After getting his foot in the animation door

of DisneyTV, Zibach would eventually leave it,

despite hearing from all of his colleagues that he

was crazy to do so. But at the time—in the early

‘90s—he had an impulse to work on a cutting-

edge new show called Ren and Stimpy. Once

there, he found his groove working with two

fantastic animators (Bill Wray and Scott Wills),

and it led to a period of tremendous learning. In

hindsight, he understands that, ironically, it was

one of the best decisions he ever made.

Logging numerous jobs as a background

artist, stylist, and key background painter, Zibach

steadily worked his way up, over three decades,

and became the head of the feature background

paint department at DreamWorks Animation.

From there, he transitioned the department to

a hybrid of digital and traditional (in this case:

acrylic) painting. While working on El Dorado,

he was promoted to Art Director when the

previous AD left to art direct another film.

One constant in Zibach’s career has been the

continuation of studies in the more traditional

mediums of drawing and painting, mixing that

with industry-leading CG techniques to create

new stylistic hybrids that mesh with the particu-

lar aesthetic of film or TV projects. These include

Space Jam, Star Wars: Clone Wars, and Sinbad:

Legend of the Seven Seas.

The culmination of that pursuit found matu-

ration in the critical and box office success of

Kung Fu Panda, praised by The New York Times

as “striking,” “visually arresting,” and “visually

different from most mainstream American ani-

mations.” Time magazine raved that the picture

“provides a master course in cunning visual

art.” And Chinese director Lu Chuan questioned:

“When can the Chinese animation industry

make such a good movie? From a production

standpoint, the movie is nearly perfect. Its

American creators showed a very sincere at-

titude about Chinese culture.”

Most of the film uses modern computer ani-

mation, with bright, offbeat colors to evoke the

natural landscape of China, yet the beginning

and end sequences also feature hand-drawn

characters and still paintings in the background.

How was it possible for an American crew to

produce a film about another culture that had

such a distinct quality to it, even as it became

DreamWorks Animation’s biggest opening for a

non-sequel film? Isn’t it the role of art directors

and production designers to focus on the techni-

cal aspects of their jobs, and not to be deeply

engaged in discussions or work on the “heart”

of a film?

“The film was created over 4 ½ years,” says

Zibach, “And I was on the film the entire time.

Along with being responsible for the way it

looks, I was never kept from voicing my opinion,

and the “heart” is something I cared about quite

a bit. I always wanted a more sincere film for

Panda, from the way it looked to the way the

story played. I think that’s why the visuals can

be called elegant or authentic, because I really

wanted it to feel like Chinese art does: It’s not re-

alistic but you “feel” what the artist is depicting,

and that’s what makes the world believable.” ●

Kung Fu Panda ™ & © Dream Works Animation LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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FEATURE

By Carole Ann Klonarides

A Place where all Dreams Come True

Disneyland is there to conceal the fact that it is the real country, all of

the real America, which is Disneyland . . . Disneyland is presented as

imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact

all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but

of the order of the hyperreal and of simulation. It is no longer a question

of a false representation of reality (ideology), but of concealing the fact

that the real is no longer real, and thus of saving the reality principle. Simulations by Jean Baudrillard

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FEATURE

To celebrate its 90th anniversary, Otis commissioned Yonemoto

to produce and premiere a new installation titled “Simulations.”

The title is a nod to French philosopher/theorist Jean Baudril-

lard (1929–2007), and his influential 1983 essay, published by

Semiotext(e)’s new Foreign Agents Series. Yonemoto agrees with

Baudrillard that we live in a world where Disneyland exists to

make us believe that reality is outside the fantasy park, when

in fact, America is a Disneyland. In writing about “Simulations,”

Yonemoto describes his desire to recreate a childhood icon as “a

hyper-real representation of Disneyland’s Matterhorn thus finally

making Disney’s mountain the allegorical referent, the “real”

Matterhorn of our collective memory.”

Yonemoto’s Japanese ancestry, upbringing in California as

part of the baby boom generation, and graduate school years

at Otis in the late ‘70s all had a profound effect on his art. The

second of four sons of Japanese American Nisei (second-gen-

eration) parents whose families were incarcerated during the

war, Yonemoto was raised, paradoxically, with an embrace of

the American ideal as evidenced on TV during the ‘50s. He grew

up far from Hollywood and Anaheim in Santa Clara, California,

which over the last fifty years has transformed from an agricul-

tural economy (his father grew carnations) into Silicon Valley,

the center of high-tech software production. The family enjoyed

taking car trips to see the tourist sites of the West, and Yonemoto

most vividly remembers going to Disneyland as a young boy and

his awe of the Matterhorn Mountain, situated between Tomor-

rowland and Fantasyland, 147 feet tall, exactly 1/100th size replica

of the real mountain in Switzerland (it opened to the public on

June 14, 1959). He writes, “thinking back to my family’s 2-day car

trip from Santa Clara to Anaheim before the major freeways, you

can imagine the excitement of seeing the top of the Matterhorn

Mountain jutting through the orange groves. It meant that we had

finally reached our destination—Disneyland, a place where all

our dreams came true. Now, fifty years later, as an art professor

driving down to UC Irvine, I can barely glimpse the once solitary

mountaintop. Hotels, shopping malls and freeway overpasses

make it almost impossible to see my symbol of arrival.”

Educated at Berkeley during the radicalized ‘60s, with summer

travels throughout Europe, followed by studies in photography

and printmaking at Sokei Bijitsu Gakko in Tokyo in the early ‘70s,

Yonemoto returned to the States to finish his graduate studies in

fine arts at Otis. At this time, the arts benefited from state and fed-

eral funding, resulting in programs of international exchange and

the exploration of new genres such as video and performance

art and the birth of the artist-run alternative space. The faculty

included Wanda Westcoast, one of the original Woman House

artists, who was head of the Humanities Division and a professor

in the graduate studio arts program. The internationally acclaimed

critic and curator Germano Celant was invited to teach about

conceptual art being made in Europe. He helped coin the phrase

Arte Povera, bringing world-wide attention to the work of a select

group of artists living and working in Italy, which had a major

impact on art being made in the States. This, coupled with the

many forward-thinking exhibitions organized by Hal Glicksman,

the director of the Otis Art Gallery (1975-1982), and the extensive

resources of books, videos and programs of the Otis Library (due

largely to the efforts of librarian Joan Hugo), had a profound ef-

fect on Yonemoto.

Peer collaboration was thriving at Otis, and Yonemoto liked

the role of producer. Along with Wenden Baldwin (’79, MFA Fine

Arts), he helped organize the infamous Exit Show (1978), a week

of performance art at the student gallery and other alternative

spaces in downtown LA. It included performances by Baldwin,

sound composer Tom Recchion (’79, Fine Arts), the Kipper Kids,

Black Randy and the Metro Squad punk band. A highlight was

media artist Gary Lloyd (’70, MFA Fine Arts)’s performance with

a fax machine. Another attraction was John Waters’ actress/actor

Divine, who performed live with a steak between her legs. Many

who performed that week would become collaborators and/or

actors playing themselves in Yonemoto’s master thesis video,

An Impotent Metaphor, and in the many video productions

that followed.

Accustomed to the dislocation of reality, the inevitability

of change, and a love of artifice in the processes of production,

Yonemoto was attracted to the ephemeral and manipulative

qualities of video. With his brother Norman (who studied film

making at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles), he began

to create independent films and videotapes under the name of

their production company KYO-DAI. Their cast and crew and over-

all production talent came from the downtown art community,

many having studied at Otis. Their videos combined the aesthet-

ics of Hollywood film and the contemporary art world, resulting in

a pastiche of deconstructivist video making and a restructuring of

collective memory. One such video, Blinky the Friendly Hen, was

made in collaboration with three acclaimed Otis alumni: Jeffrey

Vallance (’81, MFA Fine Arts), Jim Rygiel (‘80, MFA Fine Arts) and

Tom Recchion. In 1977, Vallance produced a book called Blinky the

Friendly Hen about making a pet out of a frozen fryer purchased

at the local grocery store, and giving it a proper burial. Yonemoto

recalls that at the time he thought it would make a great tele-

novella. On the ten-year anniversary of this publication, Blinky

the Friendly Hen, the videotape, was made to finally answer the

question, how did Blinky die? Before the popularity of the televi-

sion show Six Feet Under, Blinky was disinterred and an avian

necropsy conducted on video, all to Recchion’s musical score.

In an animated sequence created by Rygiel, Blinky’s soul ascends

to the Heavens. Blinky is immortalized and at peace in Heaven.

At Otis, Yonemoto found a place where dreams are visualized

and made.●

Bruce Yonemoto (’79, MFA Fine Arts) has long been on a quest to re-present the reality borne out of a multitude of fictions experienced through the filters and layers of mass media. His single-channel videos, installations and photographic works consistently explore issues of representation and identity, and the fabrication of memory.

OMAG 14

FEATURE

2008 Meeting of the Minds

By Joan Takayama-Ogawa and Perri Chasin

15 OMAG

FEATURE

Working in multidisciplinary teams, Otis students researched,

interviewed, videotaped, edited, and produced a series of oral

histories of distinguished alumni. Featured alumni include

painter Milford Zornes, animator Tyrus Wong (‘35), artist Diane

Gamboa, video artist Bruce Yonemoto (‘27), artist and scientist

Tom Van Sant (‘84), curator Jo Lauria (‘90), muralist Kent

Twitchell (‘57), and sculptor Alison Saar (‘81).

These intergenerational interactions between alumni and

students cannot be quantified, for the memories and connec-

tions have less to do with formal education than art and design

exchange. Students, moved by meeting these masters, made

connections to their studies, while the alumni enjoyed sharing

their experiences and offering advice to future generations.

In fall 2007, an unexpected theme “on aging well” emerged.

As the years passed, Milford Zornes painted every day using a

magnifying glass to compensate for diminishing sight. Zornes,

sadly, passed away at 100 years-old, months after the student

research team interviewed him. “Meeting Milford Zornes was

not a class assignment,” said Interactive Product Design senior

Elise Preiss. “It was a gift, a life-changing experience, the essence

of education, and my team did a good thing by preserving the

history of a dedicated and humble painter who refused to be

called an artist. I saw a life lesson bigger than any textbook could

have taught me, for I did not see a 100-year old man sitting in

front of the camera. Instead I saw a young, adventurous man.”

Legendary Bambi animator Tyrus Wong, 97, was honored by

the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his efforts.

While the students examined his career, they gained an under-

standing of Los Angeles’ Asian-American immigrant history. On

the day of filming, faculty member and expert draftsman Gary

Geraths was thrilled to meet Wong, whose work he long admired.

Known for his elaborately designed kites, Wong and his family in-

vited the entire class to fly kites near the Santa Monica Pier. Wong

reminded the students about life’s priorities when he insisted that

his greatest achievements were his three daughters, grandchil-

dren, great grandchildren, nieces, and nephews.

Over dinner, Chicana artist Diane Gamboa shared stories

about the “wild and crazy days” on the original Otis campus as

well as her life experiences. Fine Arts senior Kaitlynn Redell found

researching Diane Gamboa was inspiring.

“Today, the world is so heavily focused on technology and

manipulation of the real that original sources are harder to dis-

tinguish from altered versions,” Redell later wrote. “To learn the

tradition of oral history is not only to maintain cultural history,

but to stabilize a younger generation that has begun to lose itself

to a technologically altered world.”

Legacy students clamored to meet and interview acclaimed

video artist and University of California, Irvine Art Department

Chair Bruce Yonemoto, who compared his experiences at Otis

when video art was emerging in the 1970s with video’s ubiquitous

presence today. Students, now well-versed in Asian American

history after researching Tyrus Wong, extended their knowledge

when Yonemoto described the Japanese-American Relocation

Camps during World War II and post-War television stereotypes

of Asians as “the inscrutable enemy.”

In spring 2008, a theme of “innovation” emerged. Students

described artist and scientist Tom Van Sant, whose career has

ranged from public artist, sculptor, architect and engineer to

photographer and conceptual artist, as a “Renaissance Man.”

They were intrigued by his career path from a Stanford University

football player to an art major, a military officer and a distin-

guished artist. His work connecting art and science appears in

the Academy Award-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth.

Serendipitous connections between alumni occurred when

curator Jo Lauria attended Tom Van Sant’s taping. Wowed by his

unique perspective, Lauria arranged to interview him for the

Smithsonian Archives of American Art. Sayla Ike, Interactive

Product Design senior, learned that Lauria’s position with LACMA

allowed her to organize one of the largest American ceramic exhi-

bitions, and led to the publication of the first of her six books.

“Working on the project taught me a lot about not only the

history of Otis artists, but also interviewing and writing,” Ike said.

“Jo Lauria was inspiring because she conveyed a positive and

determined attitude about what had driven her work as a ceramic

artist, and resulted in curating and filmmaking.”

Innovative approaches to public art were provided when

muralist Kent Twitchell described his multistoried works, which

grace the Los Angeles skyline. Graphic Design senior Erika Dang

and Interactive Product Design senior Nathan Woods called

Twitchell “an American hero, who devoted years of his life to

restore the beauty in communities all over the U.S.”

According to them, Twitchell is living his dream and express-

ing himself by turning the sides of buildings into pieces of art.

And in doing so, he has become the very person he seeks to

become in one of his murals. For them, Twitchell is someone

who sacrifices, has respect, does a lot for the community and

is a great citizen.

Alison Saar invited the class to join her at the opening of her

tour de force exhibition at LA Louver Gallery, a fitting conclusion

to the project. Graphic Design Yass Nassiri and Fashion alumna

Jessica Mead wrote, “One would think that as an artist your

greatest achievement in life would be fame. However, Alison Saar

has proven otherwise. We believe that Alison Saar’s legacy will

uphold her values and morals which she eloquently states as

love and caring, passion and devotion.”

Following the death of acclaimed ceramic artist and Otis

faculty member Ralph Bacerra in the summer of 2008, the Otis

Legacy Project and The Boardman Family Foundation recorded

31 interviewers in a posthumous tribute, which will premiere

during Otis’ 90th birthday celebration.

The old cliché that most of what you learn in college takes

place outside of the classroom is not the case when describing

the Otis Legacy Project. Otis students, poised to enter the art and

design worlds, have had the opportunity to meet alumni who

live their own dreams, accomplish excellence in their fields, love

what they do, and give advice freely to future generations. The

alumni enjoyed seeing the students’ innovative work, reflecting

on their lives, interacting with them, and answering questions

and comments with informed curiosity, in a modern-day Meeting

of the Minds.

For more on this project, visit

http://wikis.otis.edu/otishistory/index.php/Legacy_Project. ●

“Meeting of the Minds,” a television talk show that featured important historical figures in a conversational format, was broadcast on PBS from 1977-1981. The Otis Legacy Project, a Liberal Arts and Sciences Integrated Learning course, provided a similar opportunity.

(Left) Students interview Milford Zornes

OMAG 16

17 OMAG

December 23, 1916General Harrison Gray Otis, L.A.Times publisher,

donates his spacious Wilshire Boulevard home, known

as the Bivouac, to Los Angeles County to be used

“continuously and perpetually for the Arts and

advancement of the Arts.” The Otis Art Institute of

the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art

September 1918Otis opens its doors as the first independent pro-

fessional school of art in Southern California, with a

three-year course in drawing and painting, a two-year

course in illustration, and another two-year course in

design and applied arts. Tuition is $80 a year. Life draw-

ing classes are separate for men and women, but by

1919, the restriction is abandoned.

From the beginning, Otis had outstanding faculty. E.

Roscoe Shrader was with the school from 1918 until

he retired in 1949 as Director.

A Glimpse of the Past 1922Otis, as the largest art school west of Chicago, with

350 students, begins to chart the course of art in

Southern California.

1928Students publish El Dorado, a book of California’s

history, with illustrations by Benji Okubo, John Hench,

Charles Morimoto, and Hideo Date.

1930sDuring the Great Depression, many students are

forced to drop out. Otis Art Institute

1940sThroughout the ‘40s, Norman Rockwell spends his

winters as an artist-in-residence, painting many of his

famed Saturday Evening Post covers, and occasionally

using Otisians as models.

December 7, 1941Pearl Harbor. 30 students drafted within a month.

February 1942An auction of student art work benefits servicemen.

Early in the war, all West Coast Japanese-Americans

are ordered to internment camps. Among them are

Benji Okubo and Hideo Date, who teach art classes

at the Heart Mountain Camp.

1943In 1943, tuition for 12 weeks is $60. The Alumni

Association establishes a scholarship fund for

students who served in the war.

1954A new name, Los Angeles County Art Institute, is

adopted. Students and alumni still consider it Otis.

Millard Sheets becomes Director, and during the ‘50s,

he restructures the academic programs to offer BFA

and MFA degrees. The curriculum is designed primarily

to train college-and university-level art teachers.

(Otis’ Library was named for Sheets in 1997.) Otis

becomes home to the California ceramics revolution

when Peter Voulkos joins the faculty in 1957. “Peter

Voulkos was already legendary, but he was also coming

out of recent encounters at Black Mountain College

with John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg and Merce

Cunningham, and meetings with a lot of Abstract

Expressionist painters,” observes art dealer Frank Lloyd.

“He brought that exposure to avant-garde ideas of the

time to Otis, where a vigorous group of students was

attracted to work with him.”

1957 New campus facilities, including studios, a gallery,

and ceramics studio replace the Bivouac.

The Ferus Gallery in Venice becomes a magnet for

aspiring L.A. artists who attract national attention.

Director Walter Hopps selects Otis students Ken Price,

Billy Al Bengston, John Altoon, John Mason, and

Robert Irwin—all students of Peter Voulkos—to exhibit.

1985Brookl7n, later known as Otis Design Group (ODG), an

in-house design studio, is started by seven faculty mem-

bers and students, spearheaded by Sheila deBretteville

and Ave Pildas. More than 200 students join this studio

during its 22 years. Their non-profit clients include the

Lulu Washington Dance Company, L.A. Dept. of Cultural

Affairs, Plaza de la Raza, and the Chinese Cultural and

Community Center.

1988 Otis awarded a Presidential “private sector initiative

commendation” for its MacArthur Park work.

1991Otis becomes independent of Parsons as

Otis School of Art and Design In 1993, it changes its

name to Otis College of Art and Design. Neil Hoffman

becomes President.

Otis Leaders

1918 Channing P. Townsley, Director

1922-1949 E. Roscoe Shrader, Director

1949-1952 Gaylord Richmond, Director

1954-1962 Millard Sheets, Director

1962-1974 Andreas S. Andersen, Director

1974-1976 Gurdon Woods, Director

1976-1979 Peter Clothier, Acting Director

1979-1983 Neil Hoffman, Director

1985-1993 Roger Workman (President, 1991)

1993-2000 Neil Hoffman, President

2000-present Samuel Hoi, President

1978In 1978, the County of Los Angeles discontinues public

support of the College as a result of Proposition 13.

The County Board of Supervisors votes to merge Otis

with Parsons School of Design in New York, creating

a private institution, Otis Art Institute of Parsons

School of Design.

Fashion Design, Communication Arts, and Envi-

ronmental Design majors are added, and Continuing

Education evening classes are offered.

1983The first scholarship benefit fashion show of student

designs is held at the Hard Rock Café.

1984Adolfo Nodal, writer and curator, becomes director

of the Otis Art Gallery. He strengthens Otis’ relationship

with the city by renovating MacArthur Park’s band shell,

commissioning art, and establishing a variety of com-

munity programs. Alumnus Kent Twitchell, working

with Otis students, creates freeway murals for The

Olympic Games. More historical images can be found at otis.edu/archives

1997Otis relocates to Westchester to an IBM research

facility designed by Eliot Noyes. The renovated

building, named Kathleen Ahmanson Hall, is the

central facility of the Elaine and Bram Goldsmith

Campus. Toy Design and Digital Media majors

launched. Fashion Design occupies one floor of

the California Market Center in downtown’s

fashion district and Graduate Fine Arts studios

are in nearby El Segundo. Degree student

enrollment is 726.

2000Samuel Hoi becomes President.

Graduate Writing Program launched.

2001 The Bronya and Andy Galef Center for Fine Arts

opens with studios for fine arts students and a

professional exhibition space, the Ben Maltz Gallery.

2003 The U.S. Dept. of Education awards a five-year, $1.8

million grant to develop two new degree programs:

Interactive Product Design and Advertising Design,

and a new area of emphasis in teacher training:

The Artists, Community and Teaching Program.

2007The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of

Teaching designates Otis among the inaugural group

of 76 colleges and universities cited for their commit-

ment to “Curricular Engagement and Outreach

& Partnerships.”

MFA in Public Practice begins.

Otis commissions and releases a report on the L.A.

region’s creative economy from the Los Angeles

Economic Development Corp.

More than 6,000 visitors, including representatives

of design firms and arts institutions, to attend the

Class of 2007 Exhibition.

The New Media Consortium awards the Otis Library

a Center of Excellence Award for its achievement

in applying technology to learning, as in its podcast

channels on YouTube and iTunesU.

2008MFA in Graphic Design enrolls its first class.

Nike/Hurley team up to create a $1 million scholarship

endowment for fashion design students.

Student enrollment reaches 1200.

Otis celebrates its 90th anniversary.

The Present2004John S. Gordon is appointed the College’s first Provost.

Student Learning Resource Center opens to provide

tutoring, ESL assistance, counseling and workshops.

“Mexican Otis” exhibition at the Mexican Consulate,

near the original campus, includes work that spans

seven decades by alumni artists of Mexican heritage.

2005

Interactive Product Design major established.

Otis Speaks public lecture and programs

series launches.

2006New identity introduced.

Integrated Learning multidisciplinary site-based

curriculum initiated. Partners include Watts Labor

Community Action Committee, Westchester

Senior Center, Friends of Ballona Wetlands,

and Homeboy Industries.

Otis: Nine Decades of Los Angeles Art exhibition

and catalogue showcase the work of more than

80 fine arts alumni.

The Scholarship Benefit Fashion Show breaks

the $1 million mark in scholarship funds.

OMAG 18

OTIS MONITOR

In 2007, when the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

selected Otis as the only art and design college for the Community

Engagement classification, the College was poised to expand its com-

munity reach. The challenge of finding creative solutions to some of the

vast and growing problems facing the San Joaquin (Central) Valley region

was the impetus for a $150,000 planning grant from the Ford Foundation.

Such issues are numerous and broad: the environment (some of the

worst air quality nationally), poverty (some of the highest poverty and

school drop-out rates nationally), economics of food production (especial-

ly with ever-increasing energy prices), and loss of farmland (which also

impacts housing).

In August 2008, Otis students traveled to Laton, a rural community in

the San Joaquin Valley. The group was led by Suzanne Lacy; noted artist,

author, and Chair of Otis’ Graduate Public Practice Program. Lacy, born

and raised in the San Joaquin Valley area (the daughter of a working-class

electrician), was familiar with both its problems and its opportunities.

Consuelo Velasco, Manager of the Graduate Public Practice, grew up in

Laton and has focused her master’s research for USC’s Public Art Studies

program on art in rural contexts. Otis students, accustomed to life in a

large metropolitan area, found themselves examining global issues in an

unfamiliar rural setting.

What is the role of an art and design college in public service? Says

Lacy, “Through experiential programs like this, we’ve been able to teach

students to do a more careful analysis of social situations. They’ve learned

how to address complex social relationships in a more intelligent way—

after all, creativity is an important part of community development.”

Is Otis overstepping beyond its core areas, or is it responding to

increasing demands of social responsibility that involve institutions

focused on creativity? “Art isn’t discipline-specific,” says Lacy, “but is

composed of thinkers who try to link various fields, making observations;

they’re essentially explorers, and they provide a framework for students

to be able to get a sense of that, too. It’s the position of artists in society.

In fact, there’s a long history of creative problem-solving, and artists’ work

with communities goes way back—decades anyway. At different points

in time, art institutions are more or less responsive to current societal

themes. At this time, they are responsive in the broader art world in terms

of contextual analysis and sociopolitical analysis. And with the design

world, it involves integrated skills and collaboration. These projects are

actually very appropriate for Otis students.”

Participating students headed back to school early. In ethnographic-

focused workshop intensives over a three-day period in mid-August,

they began to understand the dynamics of urban/rural relationships

that would become the focus of their practical experiences. They then

made a field trip to the San Joaquin Valley. Otis students had previ-

ously done fieldwork in Appalachia but this project was of a different

scale and complexity.

The Integrated Learning class for undergraduate seniors, led

by Marlena Donahue and Sammy Flores-Pena, provided a classical eth-

nographic look at several families from the Central Valley region, very

complex in terms of class and ethnicity (e.g., Portuguese and Japanese

mixed with predominant Latinos and other Europeans).

Junior undergrads in the Integrated Learning class with Rogan

Ferguson and Sandra de la Loza worked with sixth-graders, using

mapping and photography to develop new perspectives on their com-

munities. The students saw birds-eye views of their towns when they

worked with a man who used kites to take photos.

Lacy’s grad students supported these two undergrad student

groups and expect to develop long-distance, long-term possibilities

with the community. They will return for three days every month,

through the close of the project in January 2009.

Lacy is committed to the powerful effects of the project: “I love that

the first experience of incoming grad students to MFA Public Practice

is not theoretical, not classroom-based, but a direct plunge into a real-

life situation. In San Joaquin, we’ve got a community of 1,200 or so

—a manageable size, and a scale that worked well with the incoming

students. On other hand, the social problems affecting this area are

profoundly complex and global in nature.

“Learning how to analyze, how to understand,” says Lacy, “and

how to make observations, find out what the community needs, and

discover how that relates to each student’s personal life is fantastic.

Plus, working collaboratively to build an effective team, and making a

commitment over time—these are fundamental skills that are difficult

to teach in a classroom and impossible to learn from a book. I firmly

believe that this will profoundly shape the next three terms of their

work, during which time they will select their own sites, their own

projects, and work toward a final thesis project.” ●

Practicing in Public: The San Joaquin Valley Project

A Portrait of Laton, collage image created by Lynn M. Quan

By George Wolfe

19 OMAG

The program offered good insights into how the artists and the curators viewed the art and the exhibitions. By and large, the artists in Los Angelenos: Chicano Painters of L.A.: Selections from the Cheech Marin Collection are first-generation Chicano artists who came of age during the Mexican-American political, cultural, and labor movements of the late 1960s and ‘70s. Their art reflects an impassioned sense of cultural assertion, political self-empowerment, and ethnic pride. By contrast, most of the artists in Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement are from the generation that emerged dur-ing and beyond the late 1990s. They tend to avoid ideas of identity that are rooted in ethnicity, race, or national heritage, instead seeing themselves as having nuanced, even shifting identities—reflected in their art’s eclectic sources in popular culture, music, movies, and global art practice.

—Howard N. Fox

Editor’s note: In late July, approximately 100 alumni attended a program at LACMA in conjunction with two exhibitions, which included work by Carlos Almaraz (’74), Diane Gamboa (’84), Pattsi Valdez (‘85) with ASCO, Ruben Ochoa (‘97), Marco Rios (‘97), Mario Ybarra,Jr. (‘99) Eduardo Sarabia (‘99), Eloy Torrez (‘77), and Juan Capistran (‘99). The three exhibition curators spoke with three of the artists about their work and whether they consider themselves Chicano artists.

3 Chon Noriega and Eloy Torrez Torrez spoke of the late ‘70s at Otis, when he

enjoyed collaborating with fellow student

musicians. He explained that there were only

500 students but five bands. “I experienced the

Beatles and pop culture, not Chicano culture,”

Torrez insisted. During his time at Otis, he had

no awareness of Chicano studies. As a child in

Albuquerque, Torrez was inspired by the art in

churches. He sensed the magic in these paint-

ings and began to understand that making art is

like a revelation, and artists are magicians. His

autobiographical murals and paintings combine

landscape and portraiture. Torrez closed the

program by expressing his interest in the kinds

of art young artists, such as the members of

OTEAM (Otis’ program for at-risk high school

students) in the audience, would produce. ●

1 Rita Gonzalez and Eduardo Sarabia Sarabia, born in L.A., divides his time between

Guadalajara (where he moved six years ago)

and Berlin. One of his best-known projects is the

Tequila Bar, which he created for curator Anton

Vidokle’s Unitednationsplaza, Berlin. It exempli-

fies a fascination with secret rooms, closets,

and cataloguing. The warehouse style of display

grew out of his observation that work by ceram-

ic artists often ends up in storage, out of sight.

After reading Lewis Hyde’s The Gift, Sarabia

decided to open up the warehouse and invite

visitors inside. One of the projects he discussed

is his own Gift, a “Skymall” catalogue created

for the Whitney Museum Biennial. This spoof, a

survey catalogue of his work, displays mermaid

tails, horse heads, banana boxes and decorated

Chinese vases with written descriptions.

What is Chicano Art?

OTIS MONITOR

2 Howard Fox and Juan CapistranIn his conversation with Fox, Juan Capistran

spoke about “hijacking” or “pirating” art history

to make it his own. He described a a perfor-

mance piece of break dancing on a Carl Andre

floor piece; “White Minority,” a painting he

called a “reverse Frank Stella” that alludes to

whites overcome by Hispanics and blacks; and

his own Richard Serra—a house of cards made

of Led Zeppelin records. Born in Guadalajara,

Capistran came to L.A. where he developed an

affinity for black culture and hip hop. He had

never heard of minimalism until he got to Otis,

thinking he was going to be an “AbEx tortured

artist.” Building close relationships with instruc-

tors opened up a world of other sources for him.

Capistran emphasized that he has never been

interested in or invested in Chicano art.

1 Eduardo Sarabia Treasure Room, 2007–8 Ceramic tiles mounted on plywood and painted ceiling. Courtesy of the artist and I-20 Gallery, New York Photo © 2008 Museum Associates/LACMA

2 Juan Capistran The Breaks, 2000 Giclée print 40 x 40 in. Courtesy of the artist

3 Eloy Torrez It’s a Brown World After All, 2006 Oil on canvas 60 x 60 in. Collection of Cheech Marin

OTIS MONITOR

OMAG 20

Under the leadership of Architecture/Landscape/Interiors faculty member David Fletcher and guest

public artist Chris Michlig, Integrated Learning students participated in a site-based project in the

industrial city of Vernon, southeast of Los Angeles. They researched the infrastructure, land use,

zoning, history, historic geology and hydrology, culture, industry, land values, architecture, brown

fields and contamination to develop interpretive networks, chose individual sites, and proposed

interpretive interventions.

Driving through Vernon today is an inimitable experience. On the surface, the history

of the city is subtly defined by curved buildings that hug the turning radii of railroad spurs, the

stench of meat rendering, the utter lack of landscape and vegetation, and the relentless congestion

of trucks and service vehicles. The types of business have changed, but the buildings for the most

part have remained the same since the 1980s. The result is akin to a child wearing his fathers’ suit

to school—it is a little too big and not entirely appropriate for the occasion. Vernon’s most popular

restaurant is Joe K’s, a ‘50s Googie-style diner whose clientele and staff appear straight out of that

decade. According to pre-eminent L.A.-ologist Norman Klein, the diner “could pass as a movie set

for a Tarantino film.” On their outside sign, in small letters under the restaurant’s name is their

motto, which could serve as a Vernon’s motto too: “Just a little bit better.”

From the 1930s to the 1950s, Vernon’s industrial landscape grew to consist predominantly of

steel factories and meat processing plants. For example, Farmer John Meats, based in Vernon and

begun in 1931, is now the largest pork processing company in America. Vernon’s incessant meat

production earned the city the reputation of exuding an extremely pungent aroma that could be

smelled from miles away.

Predictably, the mass exportation of the U.S. manufacturing sector in the 1980s brought the

hammer down on Vernon’s prosperous industrial economy. In December of 1982, Bethlehem Steel,

Vernon’s largest steel manufacturing business, laid off 2,000 workers. Dial Corporation packed its

bags and left. Oscar Meyer also laid off hundreds of workers. Vernon quickly adapted and took

advantage of L.A.’s changing manufacturing needs. By the mid-1980s, the garment industry was

flourishing and the low-wage sector involved 8,000-10,000 new jobs along with the opening of

more than 100 garment plants.

Most recently Vernon’s available real estate is being gobbled up by the “general merchandise”

industry. These businesses, while they acutely reflect the Post-Fordist global economic landscape,

are not ideal residents for a city that profits from offering discounted power rates to its tenants.

The warehouses are staging grounds filled with a plethora of goods standing by for shipping

and distribution.

The convalescent state of Vernon’s dynamic web of railroad spurs, in combination with rising

fossil fuel costs is a potentially ideal condition for a profitable rehabilitation of the rail system to

transport goods to local ports. That Vernon remains exclusively industrial is absolutely essential to

its identity; although, what qualifies as “industrial” will require increased scrutiny and analysis by

the city. Nevertheless, Vernon is now becoming a factory more than ever before. ●

By Christopher Michlig

Vernon Becomesthe Factory

By Lisa Melandri

OMage'08:Otis Artists, Designers

and Writers at

Track 16 Gallery

In light of the inaugural Omage exhibition at

Track 16 Gallery in Santa Monica in 2006, the

extraordinary Otis: Nine Decades of L.A. Art

shown in 2006 at the Los Angeles Municipal Art

Gallery, and the contribution of the hundreds of

artists and designers who have passed through

its doors, no one could possibly doubt the

profound and lasting impact that Otis has had

on the landscape of Los Angeles. And through

the deep and varied talents of its faculty, this

impact has certainly infiltrated far beyond our

local geography.

From fine art to fashion design to graphic

design to digital media and from undergraduate

to graduate programs, the exhibition demon-

strates the full range of instruction that Otis

has to offer—and the incredible array of people

providing that education. More than 60 faculty

members are represented in this exhibition, and

the result is a multifaceted fabric interwoven

with markedly different aesthetic, theoretical,

and functional threads. ●

Trap by Barbara Maloutas, Kristallnacht by Jim Starrett

President Hoi with Marlena Donahue, exhibition organizer and faculty member, Liberal Arts & Sciences

Erin Leverkus, proposal for Vernon River Fish Incubators

COLLEGE NEWS

21 OMAG

Amé Austin Max was one of three alumi who returned to Otis this year to serve as fashion design mentors. Others were Rod Beattie (’88) for LaBlanca, and Devon Burt (’87) for Nike. They worked with the students to create unique fashion looks for the annual Scholarship Benefit Fashion Show, which honored Brad Globe, President of Warner Bros. Worldwide Consumer Products, and Anne Globe, Head of Worldwide Marketing and

Consumer Products for DreamWorks Animation. These industry leaders, two of the foremost enter-tainment marketing, merchandising, and licensing executives in the film industry, received the 2008 Creative Vision Awards. Featured on the runway was fashion designed by juniors and seniors under the direction of mentors: Gilly Hicks for Abercrombie & Fitch; Amé Austin Max (’95) for Max Studio with Cotton Inc.; Marcus Brown for Nordstrom; Devon Burt (’87), Todd van Horne and Roger Wyett for Nike; Lynne Koplin and Joey Rodolfo for Tommy Bahama; Melanie Owen for ROXY; Rod Beattie (’86) for La Blanca; Ivy Ross for Disney Store; Johnson Hartig for Libertine; Monique Lhuillier ; Trina Turk; and John Varvatos for Converse. In his popular syndicated column, internation-al fashion critic Mr. Blackwell wrote, “The 2008 Otis College of Art and Design scholarship benefit and fashion show was a smash. I appreciated the fact that I was watching the future of the fashion industry unfold its wings and prepare to fly.”

I thought that my memories of the chal-

lenges of student life had been erased by

years of professional work, but my first

step into the Otis fashion design studio

brought them all back—both the process

of learning new things and the elation of

accomplishing them. I saw in the students’

faces a desire to journey with me into new

and unfamiliar territory.

—Amé Austin Max (’95) , design mentor for Max Studio project with Cotton, Inc. ●

First Step onto the Fashion Runway

Keith Puccinelli'sWondercommon"

1commo

2e alu

s fashion

the way

1 Installation view, Keith Puccinelli’s The Wondercommon at Ben Maltz Gallery

2 Mentor Amé Austin Max of Max Studio (second from left) with fashion design student Annika Schader and models.

By Meg Linton

Artist Keith Puccinelli’s recent exhibition The Wondercommon at the Ben Maltz Gallery provoked a sense of wonder about the inexplicableness of what it means to be human, to be alive, and to be mortal. Through the use of drawings, sculptures, video, and an interactive installation, Puccinelli brought forth thoughtful musings on the personal and the political—topics such as aggression, passivity, accumulation, expulsion, fear, security, aging, fragility, incapacitation, and decay. This carnival of sorrows lured us with tantalizing puns, farce and whimsy like an old P.T. Barnum circus while, at the same time, commenting on the conflict between the preciousness of life and man’s disregard for such life in times of war. It was a wunderkammeren, or “cabinet of curiosities,” that entwined lofty poetic themes with Puccinelli’s penchant for collecting, tinker-ing and attraction to nature’s detritus (twigs, leaves, wood, mud, bone, chicken guano, and feathers) that he found on his avocado ranch in Ventura. This eclectic body of work juxtaposed humble materials that created a sense of humor while also emphasizing the serious or the tragic. Muddied Hand (2005), part of the exhibition, is a perfect example of Puccinelli’s ability to mix absurdity and thoughtfulness. The work contains an oversized, outstretched stylized-hand made of mud rising out of or sinking into the earth. Is this about where we come from or where we are going? Or is it about being confused or mired in something inappropriate? Or is this gesture meant to symbolize a laborer grasping in vain at

"

his rights or a TV movie monster clawing its way up from the grave? It can mean all of these things or none of these things. His interactive installation also accomplished the same thing. Morgue was filled with hundreds of interesting objects that allowed viewers to touch, arrange and examine themselves. The title of the piece is also indicative of Puccinelli’s passion for wordplay. In this case, “morgue” was used in the same way a journalist or illustrator’s archive of ideas and stories versus the usage by a coroner. The Wondercommon was one man’s collection of disparate observations, ideas, and questions that try to convey the difficulty in balancing the human and the animal, the mind and body, instinct and intellect. It displayed, with humor and regret, the visual manifestations of Puccinelli’s exploration of life’s meaning and allowing the audience to embark on a similar journey at the Ben Maltz Gallery. To purchase the 76 pg fully-illustrated catalogue, call (310) 665 6905. ●

2

COLLEGE NEWS

OMAG 22

3

25 years in the City of Light

By Mohamed Sharif

H2O + Forward-Thinking Terrestrials

sea water and temporary habitat for marine life and a frame for hydrological and geothermal power generation.” Students have used Daalder’s information-research exchange portal to regularly post their work and participate in an invigorating multi-school community to cross-pollinate ideas and methods. See some of their solutions at http://spacecollective.org. ●

Architecture/Landscape/Interiors “New Fluidities” Topic Studio focused on the relation-ship between cities and water in the future. Team member Danny Phillips’ observation that water’s “unpredictable flux, its increasing toxification, in some cases its scarcity, in others its overabun-dance” set the tone for a collaborative design of a utopian floating city infrastructure between Taiwan and mainland China. Seizing the opportunity to pluck political reconciliation from the jaws of imminent natural catastrophe, the team imagined a mega-city/water relationship. Their proposals were inspired by Dutch filmmaker, cultural critic and studio insti-gator Rene Daalder, founder of Space Collective, a website where “forward-thinking terrestrials exchange ideas and information about the state of the species, their planet and the universe.” Daalder is particularly fascinated with “the appeal of the impermanence of nature’s su-spended animation.” The buoyant metropolis virtualized by the students was a network of armatures that resemble oil rigs, built along opposite shorelines in response to rising sea levels. In their scenario, terra firma was overcome by water and humanity has to migrate above water to reconcile with and initiate a new form of post-nationalist symbiosis with the sea itself. The network would eventually evolve over time into what Phillips described as “hubs for emergent forms of commerce and trans-portation, providing filtration for contaminated

When the forty students board the plane for Paris in March, it will be 25 years since the first Foundation students spent their ten-day spring break studying art, architecture, and design in the City of Light. Faculty members Bill Eckert, Joan Hugo and Michael Schrier, Chair of Foundation, led the first group in 1984. With his extensive knowledge of European art, architecture and design as well as his love for Parisian culture and history, Michael guaranteed the success of the trip over the years. Schrier’s Parisian friends act as guides and interpreters, and are hotel and res-taurant owners. Their efforts help make the trip financially accessible to all students, since many of them are traveling outside of their home state for the first time. Every day, students attend lectures in the muse-ums and buildings of Paris that cover not only a chronology of the art and culture of the Western world, but context and provenance whenever possible. Much of the rest of the time they spend drawing from the museum collections or the city in their sketchbooks, recording their emotional responses and reflections.

For 25 years, students have returned to Otis,

completely exhausted, overwhelmed, and

excited by all they have learned and seen.

The trip immerses them in a culture that has

historically valued and preserved the best art

and design of each age as well as voraciously

collected art from every part of the world. This

culture, so different from their own, changes

them forever, and they are universal in their

appreciation.

—Katie Phillips, Chair, Foundation

The trip would never have happened without Michael Schrier. It required his vast educational, historical and organizational skills. It required his passionate leadership. Otis’ association with Parsons in Paris was instrumental in introducing us to their campus, neighborhood, hotels and the city itself. The late Otis librarian Joan Hugo lived in Paris for a number of years and married a Frenchman after World War II. Her invaluable command of the French language, art history and literature enriched the program. I brought my background in art his-tory, literature and European history combined with my fine art apprenticeship with the New York realist Jack Beal, an authority on the Renaissance guild system.

Michael produces a wonderful, illuminating

adventure that exposes students to amazing

and overwhelming insights into art and cul-

ture. They return to L.A. with a sense of art that

informs and enriches their work, and affects

them on a deep level. Ultimately, the program

has enriched Otis students, faculty and the

greater Los Angeles community.

—Bill Eckert, faculty member

Editor’s note: Other faculty members who have participated in the Paris trip are Parme Giuntini, Marlena Donahue, Tracy Colby, and Frauke Von der Horst.

4the

ht

oard the plane fos since th

Digital renderings by studentsMahetzi Hernandez, Danny Phillips (’08),Monica Ruiz, and Billy Tam

3

COLLEGE NEWS

23 OMAG

Otis' New WebsiteThe new site, launched one week before fall term began, was designed by hello design in Culver City, where many students have interned.

from sketchbook by Saskia Darnell, 2007

5

4

ALUMNI AROUND THE WORLD

OMAG 24

Education City in the Gulf

Welcome to Qatar. Neither as cartoonish as Dubai, nor as austere

as Saudi Arabia, Qatar is poised to be the first knowledge-based

economy in the Gulf. There you will see racing camels ridden by

robot jockeys, Bedouin herders chatting on cell phones, and

high- rise towers casting shadows over old-style souks.

In January 2007, I became Registrar for Virginia Common-

wealth University in Qatar, an emirate located on the eastern

coast of Saudi Arabia. The Emir of Qatar, H. H. Sheikh Hamad Bin

Khalifa Al-Thani, has created a unique opportunity for his people;

Education City is an amalgam of branch campuses from U.S. insti-

tutions, each offering their most prestigious programs. VCUQatar

provides degrees in Graphic Design, Interior Design, and Fashion

Design to 188 women and five men from 26 countries. Students

range from very conservative, traditional women who wear face

coverings called naqab to high-fashion urbanites from the Levant.

Life in Qatar is a fascinating blend of Arabian tradition and

western consumerism. Religion is of paramount importance,

and influences all aspects of daily life; there are more mosques

per capita in Qatar than anywhere else in the world. At the same

time these values mingle with western influences to produce

a unique culture: women wear the black abbaya, but trimmed

with Swarovski crystals; men wear the white thobe (long-

sleeved, floor-length dress) accented with diamond cuff links

and Rolex watches.

River Montijo (‘78 MFA)

What country is flatter than the Netherlands, hotter than Las Vegas, and perched above 6% of the world’s natural gas reserves? More importantly, what country has a leader who names education as his number one priority?

Qatar has been an interesting experience for my son, Joaquin.

He works at the Qatar Falcon Center assisting the veterinarians

with procedures such as repairing flight feathers. After work, we

can attend horse races or watch dancers and musicians at the

Souk Waqif. On the weekends we can go “dune bashing”

or spend some relaxing hours at the Inland Sea.

What are some of the surprises that I’ve encountered? Well,

despite reports to the contrary, life in this part of the Middle

East is extremely safe. Many people leave their houses and

cars unlocked. In fact, before some of our students headed for

an exchange semester in the U.S., I had to lecture them that

they couldn’t leave their cell phones, laptop or purses

unattended in the classrooms, nor walk alone after dark in

downtown Richmond, Virginia.

Another surprise was that the VCU Qatar students are better

informed about life outside Qatar than most Americans seem to

be about life outside the U.S. Contrary to what the media would

have us believe, the women in naqab do not see themselves

as repressed and are often the most outspoken of the students.

In fact, both the salutatorian and valedictorian this spring were

covered women.

Living in Qatar has been an invaluable experience and an

amazing adventure. http://www.qatar.vcu.edu. ●

QATAR

25 OMAG

A Flying White Cube in Amsterdam

He mounted his bike composedly, and set off into the rain. His

reddish frozen cheeks and very kind eyes stayed with me. This

first personal contact on my first day in Amsterdam led me to

assume that people in Dutch paintings from the 15th century to

the present—like those I saw in gorgeous museums like Kröller-

Müller, Rijksmuseum and Museum De Pont—have reddish cheeks

and ride their bikes in rainstorms. I want to say “Dank u” to the

bicyclist who seemed to me the quintessential Dutchman!

I participated in a three-month residency as part of an

exchange fellowship between the Sandberg Institute and Otis.

Rather than group studies, classes or full-time instructors, each

Sandberg student has individual voluntary meetings with guest

instructors, who are usually invited to teach for three to six

months. Along with its MFA program, Sandberg has hosted the

international art fair “De Kunstvlaai Amsterdam” since 1997,

which attracts approximately 12,000 visitors. As part of my fel-

lowship I curated a group show for the fair, and invited six Los

Angeles artists: Kathrin Burmester, Anthony Carfello, Eric Medine,

Chris Oatey, Matt Warren and Bree Yenalavitch. They made the trip

to Amsterdam at their own expense, and showed an astonishing

energy and enthusiasm for the show. During my stay, I wanted

to work with Amsterdam artists. I produced an 8”x12”x8” white

cube, a miniature art gallery that hovered five meters up in the

air, suspended with helium balloons, and invited seven artists I

met in Amsterdam to design work for my flying gallery, “Flying

White Cube.” The only way to see the inside of the gallery was

to use either binoculars or a closed-circuit surveillance camera.

Organizing a show abroad had more than its share of obsta-

cles. The venue, previously used as a gas factory, was constructed

in 1883, so there were numerous restrictions on installation

methods. We only had two days to install the work, so that when-

ever possible work had to be prepared offsite. Luckily Sandberg

provided most of the electronic equipment, as well as a wood and

metal shop to build the pedestals and hanging hardware. A few

of the artists arrived well before the opening, which helped with

the preparation. Amazingly enough, the easiest thing was hang-

ing the show—a twenty-minute conversation among the artists

mapped out the space and relationships of one project to another.

In spite of the vicissitudes of this trip, I miss Amsterdam

already. The crowds all wearing orange, like burning incenses

on Queen’s Day; listening to the unfamiliar undulating hum of a

crowd as I am alone in a cafe drinking genever shots with very

thin clear glasses in a 400-year-old café with the other artists in

the Kunstvlaai exhibition; many windows with crouched cats doz-

ing inside; the clouds conspicuously close; and a gorgeous tiny

hat shop on a corner of the gallery district—all these memories

stand out much more clearly than the hectic haze of what I am

told was a successful and engaging art exhibition. ●

In mid-March, the rainstorm and pouring hail made the umbrella useless. As I struggled to read my dampish map, my hat blew away. A middle-aged gentleman in a suit, riding a tall bike in the other direction, turned around, dismounted, caught my hat and returned it to me.

Sojung Kwon (‘07, MFA)

ALUMNI AROUND THE WORLD

AMSTERDAM

(Left) Installation view, Flying White, (Right) “Rolling Ball” project

CLASS NOTES

OMAG 26

EntrepreneursThomas R. Field (’77 MFA Fine Arts)Owner: Thomas R. Field Antiques, South Pasadena. Director/Curator: SoPas Gallery, South Pasadena Chamber of Commerce.

Ken Hurbert (’85 Fine Arts)Fine Art Services (fi ne art installa-tion, packing, shipping, crating and delivery services), L.A.

Joey Santarromana (’90 Fine Arts)Owner: “System Yellow Inc” video art publishing/distribution business.

Kristin duCharme (’89 Fine Arts, ’05 MFA Fine Arts) Owner: Fireworks Studio, fi ne arts glass workshops, supplies and fund-raising projects, L.A.

Mark Leroy (’93 Communication Arts)Owner: silverECHO, L.A., strategic services, print and online services.

Alex Maloutas (’00 Communication Arts)Owner: New Puppy Gallery, L.A. opening exhibition featuring Henry “Niller” Garcia (’00).

Entrepreneurs, Cool Designers, Soloists, Entertainers, Alumni In Print, Award-Winners, In Memoriam

Tony Bailey (’01 Communication Arts)Owner: Thumbtack Press. Featured spotlight, Wired Magazine, March 2008.

Robert Apodaca (’03 Architecture/Landscape/Interiors) Owner: Fifth Floor Gallery, Chinatown, L.A. Press: “Find,” Home Section, Los Angeles Times, April 10.

SoloistsMartha Underwood (’58 Fine Arts)“Honoring the Artist,” Chaffey Community Art Association Museum of Art, Rancho Cucamonga.

Robert Glover (’60 Fine Arts) “Space,” W. Keith & Janet Kellogg University Art Gallery, Cal Poly Pomona University, Pomona; Edenhurst Gallery, Palm Desert.

Bas Jan Ader (Bastaian Johan Ader) (Deceased) (’65 Fine Arts)Documentary: Here is Always Somewhere Else: The Life of Bas Jan Ader, Telic Arts Exchange, Chinatown, L.A.

John Lees (’67 MFA Fine Arts)Betty Cuningham Gallery, N.Y.

Larry Fodor(’73 Fine Arts) “Stochastic 2,” Duane Reed Gallery, St. Louis, MO.

Bruce Yonemoto(’79 MFA Fine Arts)“Bruce Yonemoto,” photographs exploring the representation and fetishism of the American Civil War, Alexander Gray Associates, N.Y.

John White(’69 MFA Fine Arts)Performance: “John White’s Back,” featuring The Shrimps, Sylvia White Gallery, Ventura.

Masami Teraoka (’68 MFA Fine Arts)“The Cloisters Confession,” Samuel Freeman (formerly Patricia Faure Gallery), Santa Monica.

John Taye(’72 MFA Fine Arts)“The Quiet Art: A Drawing Retrospective,” Visual Arts Center, Boise State University, ID.

Kim Jones (’74 MFA Fine Arts) “Year of the Rat,” Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Kim Gordon (’77 Fine Arts)Artist, musician, founder of Sonic Youth. “Sway: A Way In,” Glaspaleis in Heerlen, The Netherlands.

Alison Saar (’81 Fine Arts)“Hither,” LA Louver, Venice.

Jeffrey Vallance (’81 MFA Fine Arts)“Blinky the Friendly Hen 30th Anniversary Exhibition,” Track 16 Gallery, Santa Monica.

Sheila Newmark (’84 MFA Fine Arts)“Sheila Newmark,” James Gray Gallery, Santa Monica.

Sonia Kasparian (’85 Fashion Design) “Alter,” Butters Gallery, Portland.

Lucas Reiner (’85 Fine Arts) “Los Angeles Trees,” Galerie Biedermann, Munich, Germany.

This is a small sampling of recent alumni accomplishments. To keep up withOtis’ ever-active alumni, and to see the fully illustrated digital newsletter, click on ONEWS at www.otis.edu/alumni To submit news and images, contactSarah Russin, Director of Alumni Relations, at otisalum@otis.edu or callher at (310) 665-6937.

Tim Biskup (’88 Fine Arts)

CLASS NOTES

27 OMAG

Elisabeth Condon (’86 Fine Arts)“Seuss Dynasty,” Dorsch Gallery, Miami.

Lawrence Gipe (’86 Fine Arts)“New Paintings,” Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Santa Monica.

Alan Nakagawa (’86 Fine Arts)Performance: Grand Opening of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM) at LACMA, with Steve Roden (’86) and Kio Griffi th (’86).

Anne Bray (’87 Fashion Design)“Irwindale,” TAG Gallery, Santa Monica.

Tim Biskup (’88 Fine Arts)“The Artist in You,” Jonathan LeVine Gallery, N.Y.

Darren Waterston (’88 Communication Arts)“Last Days,” Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle.

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

Joe Shlichta (’89 Fine Arts)“New Paintings,” Fetherston Gallery, Seattle.

Andre Brandou (’90 Communication Arts)Exhibition: “Mind Manors,” Milieu Gallerie/ArtSpace, Bern, Switzerland.

Ron Reihel (’90 Fine Arts)“The Presence and Absence of Light,” East West Gallery, Santa Barbara.

James Goodwin(’92 Fine Arts)“Nostalgic Subterfuge,” Track 16 Gallery, Santa Monica.

Elizabeth Craft (’94 Fine Arts)“Three Sculptures,” Patrick Painter Gallery, Santa Monica. “Breaking all the Rules in Bronze,” Los Angeles Times, June 6

Dana Montlack (’94 MFA Fine Arts)Solo Exhibition: Joseph Bellows Gallery, La Jolla.

Sandeep Mukherjee (’96 Fine Arts) “Spell,” Nichols Gallery, Broad Center, Pitzer Art Galleries, Claremont. Review: Holly Meyers, LA Weekly, April 2.

Kim Fisher (’98 MFA Fine Arts)“Kim Fisher,” Jim Connelly Presents, N.Y.

Eduardo Sarabia (’99 Fine Arts)“History of the World,” LA Louver, Venice, CA

Steven Bankhead(’01 MFA Fine Arts)“Battery,” Circus Gallery, L.A.

Molly Corey (’01 MFA Fine Arts)“Live Like Him!,” University Art Gallery, UC Irvine.

Tami Demaree (’03 MFA Fine Arts) “Half an Inch of Water and I Think I’m Gonna Drown,” Steven Wolf Fine Arts, San Francisco.

Kate Harding (’03 Fine Arts)“Whiskey Creek,” Track 16 Gallery, Santa Monica.

Rachel Portenstein (’04 Fine Arts)“Sailing for Vengeance,” LMAN Gallery, Chinatown, L.A.

Jessica Minckley (’05 Fine Arts)“Jessica Minckley,” Carl Berg Gallery, L.A.

Tucker Neel(’07 MFA Fine Arts)“Confabulations,” Commissary Arts Gallery, Venice, CA.

Cool DesignersRick Owens (’81 Fine Arts)Press: “Elegant Monsters,” The New Yorker, March 10. Fashion Designer, Paris.

Rod Beattie (’86 Fashion Design)Swimwear Designer: LaBlanca; Mentor, 2008 Otis Scholarship Benefi t Fashion Show.

Rowan Moore-Seifred (’86 Communication Arts)Creative Director: DoubleMRanch Design, Everson, WA.

Devon Burt (’87 Fashion Design)Design Director Sportswear, NIKE. Mentor, 2008 Otis Scholarship Benefi t Fashion Show.

Marco Menendez (’99 Fine Arts)Textile Designer: Mossimo Men’s, Target, Minneapolis, MN. Exhibition: “Bike Art III,” Altered Esthetics Gallery, Minneapolis.

David Bornoff (’02 Fine Arts)Director of post production, Speedshape, Venice, CA. Editor: “Why Push,” GMC commercial aired during Superbowl 2008.

Trang Chau (’02 Fine Arts)Fashion Designer. Press: “Le Sang des Betes: Bloody Beautiful,” California Apparel News, Jan. ’07

Michael Brittain(’03 Communication Arts)Senior Print Designer, FX Network, Beverly Hills, CA

Melissa Bumstead(’04 Communication Arts)Owner/designer new business, “Smitten Invitations;” formerly environmental graphic designer, RTKL.

Chika Ito (’04 Communication Arts)Designer: Lehrer Architects, L.A.

Maria Troconis (’04 Communication Arts)Art Director, Off-Air, Mun2, NBC Universal/Telemundo.

Jessica Minckley (’05 Fine Arts) Hao Cui (’06 Digital Media) Emil Brandle (’02 Fashion Design)

CLASS NOTES

OMAG 28

Luisa Greenfi eld(’93 Fine Arts)Fulbright Grant, Berlin, Germany,

Ruben Ochoa (’97 Fine Arts)Guggenheim Fellowship 2008. Press: “Lessness,” by Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker, March 17, 2008.

Hao Cui(’06 Digital Media)“Best Downloadable Game,” Game Developers Conference. Art Director, PS3 game fl Ow.

Laurie Nickerson (’06 Communication Arts)Local Gold Addy for Black Marker logo. Art Director, RR Partners.

Chuck Belak-Berger(’06 Communication Arts)Will Eisner Comic Industry Award, 2008.

Lindsay Thompson (‘07 Digital Media) Emmy, student category, for “The Look of Love” animation.

In PrintSally Warner (’71 MFA Fine Arts)Author and Artist. Novel: It’s Only Temporary, Viking Children’s Books.

Judy Freya Sibayan(’84 MFA Fine Arts)Publisher/Editor: Journal of Contemporary Art.

Eduardo Lucero (’89 Fashion Design)Palm Springs Life Magazine editorial, March 2008.

Patrick Atagan (’97 Environmental Design)Illustrator: “Tree of Love,” third volume in the Asian Folktale series Songs of Our Ancestors.

Andrae Gonzalo (’99 Fashion Design)Illustrator: “Forgotten Fashion: An Illustrated Faux History of Outrageous Trends and Their Untimely Demise,” by Kate Hahn, TOW Books.

Annie Buckley (’03 MFA Fine Arts)Fine Artist and Art Writer: Op-Ed on art and activism in light of MOCA exhibition “Black Panther: The Art of Emory Douglas,” Artweek; reviews in Los Angeles “Critic’s Picks,” Artforum.com.

Amber Howard (’03 Communication Arts)“Emerging Talents,” Step Magazine (number 18), spring 2008.

Natalija Grgorinic (‘05 MFA Writing) Author with Ognjen Raden: 69, 70; currently being serialized in Predicate literary journal.

Jessica Hoffhines (’05 Fashion Design)Assistant Menswear Designer: Rock & Republic, Culver City.

Jessica Raddatz (’05 Communication Arts)Designer: Interactive Department, Saatchi & Saatchi, N.Y. Apollo Crowe (’07 Toy Design)Toy Designer: Uncle Milton, Westlake Village. Shaun Redsar(’07 Interactive Product Design)Designer: Nectar Product Development, Long Beach.

EntertainersRichard Daskas (’90 Communication Arts)Visual Developer: DreamWorks Animation SKG. Upcoming Project: Monsters vs. Aliens, 2009.

Raymond Zibach(’90 Communication Arts)Production Designer: Kung Fu Panda, DreamWorks Animation SKG.

Scott Holmes (‘93 Communication Arts)Featured digital work: Hellboy 2, “Tooth-fairy” sequences and “Wink” shots.

Derek Thompson (’94 Communication Arts)Concept Artist: WALL·E, Pixar. Publication: The Art of WALL·E, Chronicle Books, June 2008.

Charlene Shih (’95 Fine Arts)Documentary Film: Super Pigs, National Geographic Channel in 166 countries. Artist residency: Grass Mountain Artist Village, Taipei, Taiwan.

Emil Brandle (’02 Fashion Design)Featured Contestant: Project Runway, Bravo. Co-owner: “Smoke & Mirrors.”

Jinnie Choi (’04 Architecture/Landscape/Interiors) Designer: Carter Can, HGTV, Season 3.

Naomi Valdivia (’04 Communication Arts)Artwork featured on TV show The Real World Hollywood.

C.J. Pizarro and Aaron Philip Clark (’08 MFA Writing)In production: Soul Phuziomati, a spoken-word jazz album with guest appearances by Otis alumni, including Ryan Thomas Riddle (‘08 MFA Writing), students, and Grad Writing Chair Paul Vangelisti.

Award-WinnersBruce Yonemoto (’79 MFA Fine Arts)2008 Creative Capital Grant for Visual Artists.

Camille Rose Garcia (’92 Fine Arts)“Stars of Design 2008,” Pacifi c Design Center, West Hollywood.

Lindsay Thompson (‘07 Digital Media) Devon Burt (‘87 Fashion Design) Michael Phelps in NIKE “Medal Stand” warm-up suit

CLASS NOTES

In MemoriamRobert McChesney (’37 Fine Arts) passed away at the age of 95 after an active life as an artist. He began his career as a WPA muralist in the late ’30s.

Rob Sexton (’72 Fine Arts) passed away at the age of 62 after a battle with cancer. He was a painter and respected graphic designer active in AIGA. One of Rob’s last wishes was to start an Otis scholarship fund. Alumni and friends interested in contributing can send donations in Rob Sexton’s name to: Institutional Advancement, Otis College of Art and Design, 9045 Lincoln Blvd, LA CA 90045.

Ron Griffi n (’72) a Los Angeles artist, passed away this spring. He exhibited with Alonzo Davis’ (’73) Brockman Gallery.

Gloria Bohanon (’73) passed away at the age of 69. She was an artist and served as for-mer Chair of Art and as the Director of ADAPT (Accommodated Disabled Arts Program and Training) at Los Angeles City College. Early in her career she exhibited at the Brockman Gallery with Alonzo Davis (’73)’s Brockman Gallery.

Mentor Rod Beattie (‘86) with fashion design students at DreamWorks Animation

Greg Dominguez (’00 Toy Design) passed away at the age of 31 after suffering from brain tumors. He worked as a toy de-signer at MGA in the boys division.

Jaime Bermudez (’06 Fine Arts) a young fi ne artist, passed away at the age of 29 from cancer. Family and friends are invited to contribute to the Jaime Antonio Bermudez Scholarship Fund by sending donations in Jaime’s name to: Institutional Advancement, Otis College of Art and Design, 9045 Lincoln Blvd, LA CA 90045. Otis thanks LisaAnne Spies (’04) and Mary and Ben Spies for the generosity of their fam-ily foundations: “Barrett Family Charities” and “Speezracing: Spies Family Foundation”.

Ralph Bacerra Otis mourns the passing of the former Chair of Ceramics (1983-1996). A documentary, featuring interviews with former students at both Chouinard and Otis, is in production.

Sally Nichols The College is saddened by the news of Sally Nichols’ passing after a long battle with cancer. She taught with Rosemary Brantley in Fashion Design since 1988 until recently. Sally’s family suggests a donation to the City of Hope Hospital.

29 OMAG

Whitney BiennialThis exhibition of work by 81 artists (Whitney Museum, March

6 - June 1), the most important survey of contemporary art in the

U.S., included work by Eduardo Sarabia (’99), Ruben Ochoa (’97),

Mario Ybarra (’99,) and Patrick Hill (’00 MFA).

Installations by Sarabia at (bottom) and Ochoa at (top)

On-Line Self-Service If you haven’t yet joined, contact alumniupdate@otis.edu

to register with the online community!

Update your Address and Email Ensure your contact information is correct

(accessed by the Alumni Offi ce only).

Find a Classmate Search for a friend by fi rst name, last name, or class year.

Review your Directory Profi le Select the contact information,

if any, you would like to share with

other alumni.

Register for the Job Board New features include résumé and

image posting, and job search tracking

Academic Transcript Print out an unoffi cial copy.

CLASS NOTES

CLASS NOTESCLASS NOTESNOTCL

OMAG 30

Mark Dean Veca: Phantasmagoria” October 11– December 6 Site-specifi c installation by ’85 alumnus Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, 9045 Lincoln Blvd.

Curator: Meg Linton, Director of the Ben Maltz Gallery

and Public Programs.

Sponsored by The Samuel Goldwyn Foundation

(see pg.6)

Westchester

Ken Price (’57) October 10 – November 1 L.A. Louver, 45 North Venice Blvd.

Tofer Chin (‘02): VividSeptember 13 – October 25 Commissary Arts, 68 N. Venice Blvd.

Ken Price’s Seven High, 2008. Courtesy L.A. Louver, Venice, CA.

Mark Dean Veca Debacle, 2003. 99 x 32 x 6 ft, Bloomberg space, London

Venice

These special exhibitions and events honor the 90th anniversary of the fi rst independent professional school of art in the city of Los Angeles.

Otis Across LA

Apodaca explains, “Architecture/Landscape/Interiors shared the Ahmanson Hall 5th fl oor with Toy Design and Product Design, so the name recalls a time when I was im-mersed in both my own studies but also the work of all the other departments at Otis. I intend to infuse this interdisciplinary thought into all that I show at Fifth Floor. The space features hand-made and limited edition works of art and design, many by Otis alums, including Andrew Lewicki’s (‘07) 200-pound concrete paintings, sewn machines by Jen Grella (‘07), Andrew Armstrong (‘00)’s eco-friendly doggie dwellings, laser-cut plexi bracelets by Aida Klein (‘05) and Andrew Lewicki.

Outside the Big-Box” October 4 – November 2 Handcrafted and limited edition art and design not available at your neighborhood big-box store.Fifth Floor Gallery, 502 Chung King Court, Chinatown.

Owner/Curator: Robert Apodaca (’03)

Chinatown

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CLASS NOTESLASS NOTES

31 OMAG

Kerry James Marshall (’79): “Portraits, Pin-Ups and Wistful Romantic Idylls” September 6 – October 25 Koplin Del Rio Gallery, 6031 Washington Blvd.

Owner: Eleana Del Rio (’89),

Culver

City

Nate Frizzell (’06) Solo Exhibition

November 8 – 29 Project Gallery, 8545 Washington Ave.

Kate Harding Whiskey Creek (spring), 2008Found leather garments, thread, grommets, steel hooks

Kate Harding (’03): “Whiskey Creek” September 6 – October 4 Track 16 Gallery, Bergamot Station

Carlos Almaraz (’74) Solo Exhibition,

September 6 – November 1 Patricia Correia Gallery, Bergamot Station

Kerry James Marshall (‘79), John Punch, 2008, acrylic on PVC panel, 29 x 24 in. An important forgotten fi gure, John Punch was the fi rst in history to be condemned by a United States court to a life sentence of slavery in 1646.

Santa

Monica

A Prodigal Reality” September 28 – October 25 Meltdown Comics, 7522 Sunset Blvd.

Group exhibition: Andrew Brandou (’90),

Bob Dob (’01), Anthony Ausgang (’83),

Mia Araujo (’07), Gideon Boomer (’06),

Hazel Mandujano (’03), David Magdaleno

(’03), and Mark Dean Veca (’85)

Curator: Anthony Ausgang (’83)

Logo design by Andrew Brandou (’90). Curator Ausgang states, “Comics are an important channel of information that is more appealing than separate text and images. Comics are the thinking man’s television.”

Hollywood

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CLASS NOTES

Annie Buckley (‘03): “Hybrids” October 11 – November 8

Carl Berg Gallery, 6018 Wilshire Blvd.

Mid-City

Kavin Buck (‘87): Paintings and Sculptures” October 4 – November 4 LA Contemporary, 2634 S. La Cienega Blvd.

Otis at 825” October 4 – 10 Gallery 825/L.A. Art Association, 825 N. La Cienega Blvd.

Guest Curator: Eleana Del Rio (’89)

In the Round” October 3 – 25 Group Exhibition: Andrew Shire Gallery, 3850 Wilshire Blvd, #107

Andrew Armstrong (’02), Steven Bankhead (’01),

Jesse Benson (’03), Annie Buckley (’03), Juan Capistran (’99),

Ginny Cook (’01), Carla Danes (’01), Shelly George (’05),

Ed Gomez (’03), Luis G. Hernandez (’03), Matt MacFarland (’03),

Ruben Ochoa (’97), and Mike Rogers (’96)

Curator: Ed Gomez (’03)

Multiple Feeds” October 27:30 pm Screening of time-based and new media work by alumni, with panel discussion in partnership with L.A. Art Association/Gallery 825

Democracy Forum, National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, 111 N. Central Ave.

Kathrin Burmester (’07), Bianca D’Amico (‘02),

Wendy Given (’02), Flora Kao (08), Annetta

Kapon (’85), Sojung Kwon (’07), Krysta Olson

(’08), Suzanne Oshinsky (’05), Joyce Park (‘08),

Joseph Santarromana (’90), Mika Soma (’07),

and Bree Yenalavitch (’06)

Curator: Erika Suderburg

Three alumni curators brought together ten pairs of artists representing different generations, creating a redux version of their successful inaugural show in 2004.(Jenée Misraje, Renée Fox and Kate Harding)

Annie Buckley Stephanie Sycamore, 2008Digital photographic collage, 82x42”

Reclaiming: Inter-generation” October 3 – 5627 S. Carondelet St. (former Otis administration building), MacArthur Park

Multi-generational group exhibition including

Bas Jan Ader (’65), B&T (’02), Steven Bankhead

(’01), Renée A. Fox (’02), Gajin Fujita (’97),

Bob Glover (’60), Phillip Guston (attended ‘30),

Kate Harding (’03), Samantha Harrison (’88),

Sara Hunsucker (’02), Flora Kao (’08), Jessica

Minckley (’05), Joseph Mugnaini (’42), Sandeep

Mukherjee (’96), Kenneth Ober (’01), Tracy Powell

(’02), Steve Roden (’86), Timothy Tompkins (’03),

Jeffrey Vallance (’81), and Holly Williams (’03).

Curators: Renée A. Fox (’01), Kate Harding (’03)

and Jenée Misraje (’90)

Downtown

OMAG 32

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