The Department of Fashion Design & Merchandising has received $49,700 in project funding by Cotton Incorporated through the 2008 Cotton Student Sponsorship Program.

Junior and senior design students will use cotton to develop a line of children’s and young adult’s sleep apparel in two versions.  One version will be developed and produced for patients in the pediatric oncology unit at VCU Medical Center.  These garments will be designed with adaptations for medical requirements that the students will research through interviews with doctors, nurses and patients. The alternative line of pajamas and gowns will be produced as regular garments and sold from an internet site to raise funds for ASK, the philanthropic, non-profit unit supporting the pediatric cancer ward on VCU’s medical campus.

The funding will also support field trips to Cotton Incorporated’s NYC library and Cotton’s Cary, NC offices with regard to the use of technology as well as departmental student scholarships and annual fashion show.

Cotton Incorporated, funded by U.S. growers of upland cotton and importers of cotton and cotton textile products, is the research and marketing company representing upland cotton. The Program is designed and operated to improve the demand for and profitability of cotton.

The Department of Communication Arts received a contract for $11,000 from Philip Morris USA for 18 pieces of artwork to be produced by students for installation at its offices in Glen Allen, Virginia by December of this year. Work is intended to inspire innovation in the workplace and is not tobacco-related.  Funding received will be dedicated to student and program needs.

Untitled, 2003, Paper Plates, Glue 3 1/2'(H) x 4'(W) x 9'(D) Ace Gallery Los Angeles, 2005

Tara Donovan (American, b. 1969) is known for working with commonplace manufactured materials such as tape, Styrofoam cups, or drinking straws to create abstract sculptural installations that often take on a biomorphic feel or resemble topographical landscapes. For a new work conceived specifically for this exhibition, the artist will use Mylar tape to create a wall-mounted installation that encompasses the entire gallery. Through a vast accumulation of webs of metallic loops, laboriously assembled, Donovan will transform the space into a unique phenomenological experience for the viewer. This exhibition is the fourth in an ongoing series featuring the work of contemporary artists. See an article on Tara and this show in the November 2007 issue of Vogue magazine.

Rob Tregenza, PhD, has joined the faculty of VCUarts as the Cinema Program Director.  The Cinema Program degree focuses on narrative feature and short films and offers international opportunities including the Cannes Film Festival.

Tregenza has written, directed and photographed three award-winning independent feature films: Talking to Strangers (1988), The Arc (1991) and Inside/Out (1997).  His films have been screened at the Cannes Film Festival in the "Certain Regard" category and the Berlin Film Festival in the Panorama section. Over the years, his films have also appeared at the festivals of Toronto, Sundance, Rotterdam and Edinburgh.

His work has been positively reviewed in The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times and by such prominent critics as Vincent Canby, David Kehr, Jonathan Rosenbaum and Roger Ebert. A retrospective of his feature films was shown at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. in 1999. But perhaps the highest recognition has been the attention of one of the most important European directors of the 20th Century, Jean-Luc Godard, who hand-selected Tregenza's Talking to Strangers to screen again at the 1996 Toronto International Film Festival. Godard describes passages in Tregenza's films as, "remarkable and at times astonishing, that is, softly imbued with the marvelous." He further explains that in Tregenza's cinematic world, "reality walks hand in hand with fiction."

The essay, "Cinq Lettres a et sur Rob Tregenza" (Five Letters to and about Rob Tregenza) appears in the book Jean-Luc Godard: Documents, published in 2006 by the modern and contemporary art institution of Paris, Le Centre Pompidou.

Tregenza has also had an award-winning career as a television commercial director and cameraman for clients like IBM, DuPont, CSX, Blue Cross Blue Shield and numerous non-profits and has worked as a Director of Photography for other independent filmmakers such as Bela Tarr and Alex Cox.  He has shot extensively in Africa, South America, Asia, Eastern Europe, Spain and the United Kingdom. He received his PhD from UCLA and is Founder and Director of the Tampa International Film Festival.

For more information on the cinema program at VCUarts, please click HERE.

VCU Jazz alumnus and guitar faculty member Kevin Harding and his group Quatro na Bossa have been offered a record contract by the Japanese label "Venus Records." A CD was recorded in Manhattan in August and is due for release early next year. Along with Kevin, the musicians on the recording include singer Laura Ann Boyd, bassist and VCU Jazz alumnus Rusty Farmer, Brazilian percussionist Adriano Santos, and Brazilian flautist and saxophonist Rodrigo Ursaia. The record will feature a variety of samba and bossa nova tunes.  Harding, along with vocalist Laura Ann Boyd, founded the group in 2003.

Guitarist Kevin Harding earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Jazz Studies from VCU’s Department of Music. He has played in clubs in Chicago, Boston, Ottawa, Berlin, Zurich, and Vienna. In 1997 he was a guest performer at the Eighth Festival de Guitarra in Lima, Peru. He has played on six occasions at the Kennedy Center with the Great American Music Ensemble, and with that group, has played a two-hour, live, international radio broadcast from National Public Radio studios in Washington. In 2002, he spent three weeks in the Gambia, West Africa living with the family of Alhaji Papa Susso and studying the Mande kora (a spiked harp-lute). In 2005 he lived for two months in Rio de Janeiro where he studied with guitarist Bilinho Teixeira.

Taylor Baldwin, MFA Sculpture + Extended Media major at VCUarts, is a recipient of the 2007 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award presented by the International Sculpture Center (ISC). 
This year's award program attracted a record number of nominees. From a pool of 339 nominees from over 140 schools, the jury comprised of Allyson Baker, Executive Director of Socrates Sculpture Park Long Island City, New York; Tom Csaszar, an artist and writer from Philadelphia, PA; and Steven Siegel, a sculptor from New York, selected 21 winners and 12 honorable mentions.

The ISC honored this year’s winners at its annual awards presentation and private reception showcasing their sculpture works at the Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ. The show will run from October 6, 2007 to April 27, 2008. Winners will receive a biographical profile and photograph of their work featured in Sculpture magazine; a chance to win a Residency in Switzerland to study with distinguished sculptor Heinz Aeschlimann; inclusion of their award-winning sculpture works in a color Fall/Winter exhibition catalogue sponsored by the Grounds for Sculpture; and a free one year membership at the ISC.

For more information on this award and ISC, please click HERE.

News and events from VCU School of the Arts in Qatar is now available through the Qatar Foundation's community newsletter, Awraq, which is now available online.

VCUQ offers students the opportunity to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design, Fashion Design or Interior Design, through a comprehensive four-year curriculum.  VCUQ is the only fully accredited design program in the Middle East.  The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD), and the Ministry of Education in Qatar accredit VCUQ.  The combination of all these elements has allowed VCUQ to establish an enviable reputation as a university of excellence with a distinct identity.

The VCUQ experience is one of cultural, as well as, academic discovery.  The University's multicultural environment cultivates artistic expression as well as individual growth.  The presence of VCUQ within an Arab/Islamic environment enables students to foster a critical outlook towards the globalization of visual cultural and its impact on design.  VCUQ is distinctive as it foresees, distinguishes, and catalyzes design as the currency of our time.  Studies at VCUQ incorporate traditions that define design in past centuries and embrace emerging models that illustrate design for the future.

Please click HERE for general information on the program.

For news and information on VCUarts, please visit ester, a new interactive website featuring awards, shows, guests and other VCUarts news.