Paul Thulin, coordinator of Graduate Studies for VCUarts Department of Photography and Film, has received the Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellowship Award for Photography. Artist Fellowships are awarded on a rotating basis to Virginia artists in recognition of creative excellence and to support their pursuit of artistic excellence.

Thulin received a BFA in Philosophy from VCU as well as an MFA in Photography. His areas of specialization are fine art and digital photography. Thulin’s work has been exhibited nationally in solo and group exhibitions and has been published in exhibition catalogs and art publications. He has been the recipient of several photographic prizes and awards including a 2001 TPI National Graduate Fellowship. His imagery explores the social constructs of history and the nature of performance, personal identity, memory, and myth. He has professional experience as a commercial photographer and a freelance graphic designer.

The Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University’s Museum of the Arts, is pleased to announce the Winter 2007 Exhibition: Gerald Donato: Reinventing the Game, curated by Amy Moorefield, Assistant Director and Curator of Collections at VCUarts Anderson Gallery. This exhibition will open on January 26, 2007 with a reception from 7 until 9 pm and will be on view until March 4, 2007. Gerald Donato is a prolific artist whose work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Gerald Donato: Reinventing the Game will showcase his work by featuring over forty years of this celebrated artist’s paintings, drawings and prints. Through his trademark emblematic icons, “Mr. Man”, “moon face” and other mysterious images, Donato pulls the viewer into his out-of-kilter world with an always-inventive approach. “Donato tempts us in his work through savvy and satirical mechanisms from familiar cartoon imagery and nonsensical sources creating a unique pictorial language. He then pumps up the volume by employing a sly layering device, giving the viewer brief glimpses alluding to darker contemporary issues as race relations, religion, doubt and dislocation. The end product is a familiar, yet strange, palimpsest,” says Amy Moorefield, exhibition curator. Donato, who was born in Chicago, received his MFA from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and taught in VCUarts Department of Painting and Printmaking for 38 years. He has also lived and worked in Paris and New York. Donato has had numerous solo exhibitions in Richmond and New York and his work was featured in Un/Common Ground: Featuring the Work of Twelve Virginia Artists at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. He has also exhibited internationally in group shows, including in Belgium, Peru, and Moscow. His work is in several private and public collections including the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Virginia and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. He is a beloved fixture in the Richmond arts scene - as a teacher, an exhibitor, a supporter, and a champion of his students and their work. Admission to the Anderson Gallery is free. The Gallery is open to the public Monday through Friday from 10 am to 5 pm and Saturday and Sunday from 1 pm to 5 pm. For more information, please visit the Anderson Gallery’s website at: www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/artweb/gallery.

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VCU alumnus Robert B. Killian received a first-place award from Washington Book Publishers as the designer of the book Temple of Invention: History of a National Landmark by Charles J. Robertson. Killian received a BFA from VCU in Art History/Studio in 1981 and an MA in Art History/Museum Studies in 1986. He is now Publications Designer for Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Washington Book Publishers’ Book Design & Effectiveness Award Competition, held annually, presents the D.C. area’s most prestigious book awards. The goal of the competition is to recognize, celebrate, encourage, and learn from examples of excellence in book-making in the Greater Washington, D.C., book publishing community. The judges represent the spectrum of publishing and evaluate the excellence of an entry’s design as well as its effectiveness in achieving the publisher’s goals and meeting the reader’s needs.

Temple of Invention: History of a National Landmark traces the story of one of Washington, D.C.'s oldest public buildings—the Patent Office. Named a National Historic Landmark in 1965, the building today houses two Smithsonian museums, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. Killians’s other work includes designing and producing the journal American Art as well as exhibition brochures and other publications for the Museum. He assisted in designing eight books in the Treasures from the SAAM series. He was the primary designer for Bottlecaps to Brushes, a children’s activity book; Masters of Their Craft, and African American Masters, before doing Temple of Invention. Killian and his wife Linda have two sons George and John who, like their father, were thrilled when the Cardinals won the World Series. Robert and George are pictured here as they support their team.

Kendall Buster, associate professor in the Department of Sculpture + Extended Media, is the recipient of the 2006 Kreeger Museum Artist Award. The Kreeger Museum Artist Award was established to honor Carmen and David Kreeger's generous commitment to the arts in Washington, D.C. in 2004, on the tenth anniversary of the museum which bears their name. An independent, nationally distinguished, five-person jury selects the recipient based on demonstrated consistent artistic excellence, and significant influence and contribution to the Washington arts community. The jury included Andy Grundberg, Milena Kalinovska, Robert Lehrman, Jim Sanborn and Sarah Tanguy. Buster first studied microbiology and received a BS in Medical Technology at the University of Alabama before pursuing an education in art. She earned a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC and an MFA in sculpture from Yale University, as well as participating in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in New York City. Her work has been exhibited at the Hirshhorn Museum, the Washington Project for the Arts, Baumgartner Gallery, and Fusebox in Washington, DC, Franklin Furnace and Diane Brown Gallery in New York City, and the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, PA. Recent large scale 'biological architecture' projects have included installations at the NSA in Durban, South Africa, the Bahnhof Westend in Berlin, the Kreeger Museum in Washington, DC, the Kemper Museum in Kansas City, MO, and Artists Space in New York.

Undergraduate students who want to learn filmmaking will have another option at VCUarts beginning Fall 2007, pending final approval by SCHEV. The new Cinema Program, led by Dean Richard Toscan, will offer a Bachelor of Arts degree, and full-time majors can graduate after three years.

The program builds on the success of the School’s graduates and will emphasize narrative feature and short films. It complements the BFA offered by the Department of Photography and Film, and the Department of Kinetic Imaging BFA. For additional information, visit www.vcu.edu/arts/cinema or e-mail cinema@vcu.edu

A new law has made it easier for donors to make charitable contributions from their IRA accounts. The Pension Protection Act of 2006 allows individuals to make tax-free, no-penalty contributions from an IRA account directly to a charity.  Donors age 70 ½ and older can contribute as much as $100,000 per year.  The distribution will not be included in taxable income, so individuals will not be able to claim a tax deduction for the charitable contribution.

VCUarts is pleased to accept such gifts which support a variety of initiatives including student scholarships, visiting artist programs, equipment purchases and more. “This legislation offers an excellent opportunity for alumni and friends to create a new endowment fund or add to an existing endowment at VCU,” said Thomas C. Burke, executive director of the VCU Foundation.  “It is important to note that this is a time-sensitive options for charitable giving.” The provision expires at the end of 2007, so act quickly.

For additional information about making a gift from your IRA, contact Jacquelin Crebbs, Associate Dean for VCUarts, at 804-828-0129 or jwcrebbs@vcu.edu  or Tom Burke at 804-828-3958 or tcburke@vcu.edu.  Information is also available on-line at www.vcuf.org by clicking on Ways to Give and then Planned Gifts.