News: March
• The 2009 US News & World Report Visual Arts and Design rankings have been released and VCUarts is once again ranked as the #1 public university school of arts and design in the country. Click here for our ranking information.
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Tara Donovan (1999 VCUarts MFA) has been awarded a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation "Genius" award. Read about her in the New York Times. Ms. Donovan is the third VCUarts graduate in five years to receive this prestigious award. The others are Teresita Fernandez (2005) and Daisy Youngblood (2003). Congratulations!
• The 2009-10
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship Awards have been announced; 20 of the 33 recipients have ties to VCUarts! Congratulations to the departments of Photography and Film (6 connections), Painting and Printmaking (5 connections), and all individual Fellowship recipients on this tremendous honor!
Fellowship Award recipients in the VCUarts community include:
Professional Awards:
Sonali Gulati, film/video
Heather Harvey, sculpture
Paul Ryan, painting
Heide Trepanier, painting
Hilary Wilder, painting
Graduate Awards:
Sam Hunter, mixed media
Carolyn Porter, art history
Lana Waldrep, painting
Undergraduate Awards:
Joshua Bennett, sculpture
Shane Butler, photography
Ashleigh Hobson, photography
Meagan Jenigen, sculpture
Grace Johnston, sculpture
MyungSun Lee, drawing
Patrick Phillips, photography
Charles A. Ponticello, sculpture
Melanie Seeger, crafts
Arlie Trowbridge, photography
Rachael Wheeler, mixed media
Janpim Wolf, photography
• The Department of Photography and Film is pleased to announce that graduate student Richard Robinson's film "The Beekeepers" will be screened at the Sundance Film Festival in the Frontier Shorts section. Read recent article here. "The Beekeepers" will also appear in the Experimental Shorts category of the 2009 Atlanta Film Festival in April.
• Sculpture Chair, Amy Hauft was recently hailed "Queen of the Hill" in a
Richmond Times-Dispatch article celebrating the accomplishments of VCUart's Department of Sculpture + Extended Media.
Students and Alumni
• The 2009 Theatre VCU senior class presented their annual acting showcase in NYC in March. Agents and casting directors showed immediate interest, sending a number of students out for film, TV and theatre auditions.
• Theatre's Dr. Tawnya Pettiford-Wates along with a number of Theatre Performance majors received excellent reviews for the presentation of Uncle Tom Deconstructed at the New Orlean's Fringe Festival.
• Theatre Performance student Charlie Raintree received the 1st place award and $1,000 at the regional competition for the National Society of Arts and Letters. He will compete at the national competition in Washington, DCon May 15th.
• Alumnus Jason Butler Harner (BFA, Theatre Performance) recently starred in the smash hit The Changeling with Angelina Jolie. Harner will also share the screen with Denzel Washington and John Travolta in the upcoming film The Taking of Pelham.
• Theatre alumnus Court Watson received rave reviews for his scenic design of The Foreigner at the John Engeman Theatre in Northport, New York. He also served as the Assistant Costume designer for the 2008 Tony Award winning Broadway musical South Pacific. Watson is the assistant scenic designer for Elton John's Austrian production of AIDA and Frank Wildhorn's production of Jekyll and Hyde in Germany, as well.
• Theatre alumnus Gerold Solomon is in the acting ensemble of the 2008 Tony Award winning Broadway musical South Pacific, now entering it's second year.
• Theatre's Justin Scribner (BFA Stage Management, 2004) is currently stage managing the Broadway play The American Plan.
• Theatre alumnus Andrew Wallace has been accepted into Yale School of Drama's MFA program in scenic design. Alumnus Justin King has been accepted into the MFA program in lighting design at New York University.
• Theatre's Vanessa Leuck (BFA, 2006) is designing costumes for Disney's national ice capades production.
• Theatre alumna Alanna Wilson (BFA, 2004) is currently shooting a film directed by Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
• Art History undergraduate students Isabella Jost, Kelly Cloutier, Jessica Ferey, and Varia Degtiarenko spoke to an audience at the Virginia Association of Museums during association's session "The Future of Museums: What Does the Next Generation Want in a Museum?" They were invited to participate based on outstanding papers they wrote for Professor Margaret Lindauer's class, "Museums in the 21st Century."
• Art Education students spent spring break in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala with the Richmond nonprofit, Highland Support Project and their sister organization in Guatemala, the Asociacion de las Mujeres del Altiplano (The Women's Association of the Highlands) to perform arts based service-learning. Students worked alongside a Mayan teacher and provided her with culturally sensitive and unique art lessons that will become part of an ambulatory arts education program serving five additional schools. Time was also spent on a school beautification project and artistic exchange.
• Communication Arts alum
Philip McKenney was featured in the Richmond Times Dispatch for his collection of sports-inspired art. McKenny's work will be on display at Jarret Thor Gallery in Colonial Beach on March 13.
• Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar students have been chosen by
the Qatar Racing and Equestrian Club
to design trophies for the Qatar Prix de l’ Arc de Triomphe and the Qatar Arabian World Cup, two of the Club's most
prestigious
events. The creators of winning designs will receive certificates of recognition and will be promoted through event material.
VCUQatar will be awarded scholarship from QREC for designing the trophies as well.
• Diana Al-Hadid, Sculpture + Extended Media alumna (MFA 2005), will be featured in the Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York City. The exhbition runs from March 12-April 5, 2009. Al-Hadid was recently named an Artist to Watch in ART News.
• VCU Dance alumna Leslie Kraus (BFA 2003) was chosen in January as one of Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch" for the coming year. Her image recently appeared on the cover of the New York City Center's "Fall for Dance" festival program, as well. Kraus dances with Kate Weare Company.
• Photography and Film undergraduate students Marion Glass, Arlie Trowbridge, and Megan E. Wagner have been selected as finalists in the Photographer's Forum 29th Annual College Photography contest.
• Undergraduate Photography and Film students Marion Glass and Arlie Trowbridge have photographs featured in the 2008 volume of Studio Visit. One of Trowbridge's pictures is featured on the back cover as well.
•
Jason Horowitz, Photography and Film graduate alum, received an Individual Photographer's Fellowship from the Aaron Siskind Foundation. The Foundation offers a limited number of fellowship grants of up to $7,000 each for individual artists working in still photography and photo-based art.
• Michelle Van Parys, Photography and Film MFA alumna, will have her book, The Way Out West published in March 2009 (University of Chicago Press, distributed for the Center for American Places, Columbia College Chicago). Michelle's work will also be featured at VCUarts Anderson Gallery this summer.
• Art History's Samantha Best (BA '08) has published a review of two exhibits in London in the upcoming issue of the Royal Academy of Arts Magazine, available on news stands in March 2009.
• Craft/Material Studies faculty member, Natalya Pinchuk, has organized a VCUarts booth at the American Craft Council Show in Baltimore, the premier craft exhibit in the nation. The VCUarts booth will include work by current students and recent alumni: Olivia DeSoria, Keaton Freeman, Holly Clark, Danielle Stevens, Nathalie David, Carol Sauer, Amy Weiks, Kent Perdue, Brenna Rondeau, Cari Freno, Marisa Barbara, Keith Mendak, Younseal Eum, Andrea Donnelly, Meg Roberts, Mary Fray, Hiromi Takizawa, Jeremy Dunn, Gabriel Craig, Amanda Costello, Carlene Bermann, Britanny Felter, and Devin Trom. Nanda Soderberg, MFA, will have glass work featured in the special Searchlight Section of ACC-Baltimore, as well.
• Cynthia Myron, Craft/Material Studies MFA, will have her work included in "Decorative Resurgence" at Rowan University during the annual Society of North American Goldsmiths Conference (April 20 - May 28, 2009). Cynthia and her work graced the cover of the James Renwick Alliance's Quarterly Magazine.
•
Craft/Material Studies students Susana Almuina, MFA candidate, and Nicole Bauman, MFA, have work included in "New Waves 2009" at the The Contemporary Art Center of Virginia (CAC) in Virginia Beach. The exhibit will be at the CAC through March 15 and has been juried by Josée Bienvenu, founder and director of Josée Bienvenu Gallery in Chelsea, New York and Brian Holcombe, founder and director of Saltworks Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia.
• Hiromi Takizawa, Craft/Material Studies MFA candidate, has work at See Line Gallery in Santa Monica, CA through February 28. Hiromi is a NICHE 2009 student award Finalists in Glass. His work can be found at California State University, Fullerton's Grand Central Art Center 10th Anniversary Exhibition though April 11, and is also featured in Glass Review 31, published by the Corning Museum of Glass in NY.
• Senior Sculpture student Tim Rusterholz appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch for being chosen to display one of his sculptures at the 2009 NCAA Convention in Washington. Rusterholz is one of twenty student-athletes from across the country chosen to display work at the convention. His work also will appear in the NCAA's Champion magazine.
• Ra Jang, a senior fashion design student, and Shannon Kesler, a junior fashion design student, were selected as two of the three North American finalists for the REMIX 2009 International Fur Trade Federation’s (IFTF) 2009 International Fur Design Competition. Jang and Kesler are among hundreds of design students from 21 countries who have participated in this annual competition since its inception in 2003. The final produced garments will be presented in Milan, Italy in March of 2009 for a runway showing.
• Graphic Design alum Justin Dickinson has been invited to become a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon beginning in the June 2009. He will be teaching computer literacy skills to high school students.
• The Drip program, curated this year by Lissa Gibbs, Associate Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tucson, featured numerous outstanding entries from VCUarts Kinetic Imaging students. Winning entries included: Emily Wormly's The Anti-Story Machine, Eric Neff's Glimpse, Joe Reckley's Emotional Displacements..., Joseph Ryan's Abraham and Empire Down, Mauricio Escamilla's Eyes or Ears, David Crooks' Unbread, Antoine Allen's Black Noise, Rinny Wilson's The Day Ferguson Fell, and Kirk Zamieroski's Eisenhower.
• The VCU Horn Choir will travel to Cullowhee, NC in March to perform at the Southeast Horn Workshop, sponsored by the International Horn Society. The Horn Choir will perform three sacred works by Robert Kauflin, transcribed for the choir by Dr. Patrick Smith and Tom McFadden '09. Numerous members of the horn choir will also compete in the undergraduate solo horn competition and mock high and low horn orchestral auditions. Roxanne Baer '12 was selected to perform in a master class with Jeff Nelsen (horn, Canadian Brass). Roxanne O'Brien '09 was chosen to perform in a master class with Wendell Rider (former Principal Horn, San Jose Symphony).
• Congratulations also to Music's Commonwealth Singers Alumni Chorus. The group's February concert drew over 300 people and raised more than $4,000 for the Friends of VCU Music.
• Music's Ben Heemstra '12, Richmond Jazz Society's 2008 Kennedy Scholar, shared the stage in January with the Society's guest artist, trumpeter Tom Browne.
• Percussionists
Kevin Estes '09 and Peter Soroka '10 were awarded an Undergraduate Research Grant for their proposal to collaborate with students from the Sculpture and Graphic Design departments to create an artwork that will serve at once as public sculpture and as a musical instrument. Faculty mentors include Professors Kris Keeton and Brian Jones.
Faculty
• Theatre faculty member Toni Leslie James' costume designs will be featured in the musical Finian's Rainbow, playing now at Carnegie Hall. The Carnegie Hall musical series features productions that are
frontrunners for upcoming Broadway productions.
• Theatre Chairman David Leong is now in preproduction for the off-broadway play Things of Dry Hours, directed by Tony Award winner Ruben Santiago Hudsen and starring Delroy Lindo. Leong continues to maintain and supervise the fight choreography for the current smash hit Broadway musical Billy Elliott.
• Music's Rex Richardson recorded his newest album, Jazz Upstairs, Volume 2 , in Athens, Greece in mid-March. The
live recording took place at the Bar Guru Bar, the same venue used for Richardson's last live jazz release, Jazz
Upstairs: Live at The Bar Guru Bar (Summit; 2006). For more information and current news on Rex Richardson visit his website at www.RexRichardson.net.
• Photography and Film assistant professor Jake Dodd's film Nunna Mia e la Barca has been selected for competition and screening at the 31st Big Muddy Film Festival in Carbondale, Illinois.
• Craft/Material Studies faculty members Susie Ganch, Jack Wax and Sonya Clark were mentioned along with alumni, Kiara Pelissier and Hyun Kyung Yoon in the article "We Learned About Craft Education in Richmond" in the James Renwick Alliance's Quarterly Magazine. Images of Susie Ganch's and MFA Kazue Taguchi's work were highlighted as well.
• Craft/Material Studies assistant professor Susie Ganch's work is included in the exhibit "Soul's Journey: Inside the Creative Process : 22 Contemporary Object Makers from the Southeast" at the Center for Craft, Creativity, and Design (CCCD) in Hendersonville, North Carolina. The exhibit runs January 23 - April 25. A two-hour documentary of the artists and their work is included.
• Music professor Sonia Vlahcevic has been chosen to give a lecture recital at the International Conference of the College Music Society in Zagreb, Croatia in June of 2009. Prof. Vlahcevic will present on the solo piano music of Andrzej Dutliewicz, composer and Director of Contemporary Music at the Chopin Institute in Warsaw, Poland.
• Music's Darryl Harper toured the Western Caribbean Sea with the Regina Carter Quintet and led his own "Onus Trio" on a tour to Madison, Wisconsin in November. Professor Harper is completing a film score for a documentary to be released in 2009 on the anthropologist Melville Herskovits.
• Music faculty member
Dr. Patrick Smith has been invited to present a lecture/recital on the performance styles of jazz hornist Julius "Phantom" Watkins at the 41st International Horn Symposium at Western Illinois University in June. He will lead attendees through a guided lesson on the chorus of Watkins' original piece, Linda Delia, and will perform the work with the WIU Jazz Orchestra. Dr. Smith has also been named to the steering committee for the Seattle Julius Watkins festival, to be held in Seattle, WA in October 2009.
• The Department of Music's Dr. Alice Lindsay (viola) and Tom Lindsay (violin) will perform with pianist Philippe Entremont in the 9th annual Santo Domingo Music Festival in five concerts during the first two weeks in March.
• Director of Jazz Studies, Professor Antonio Garcia, boasts a number of recent accomplishments, including co-hosting the 62nd annual Midwest Clinic, a band and orchestra conference which attracts 14,000 visitors. He conducted the Kansas All-State Jazz Band, and the Missouri State University Jazz Band's 2008 CD release, "Tank!" features his composition "Cha Cha con Sabor." Garcia was also featured in recent editions of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Commonwealth Times, and Music Pro Magazine.
• On February 21st, VCU Strings hosted the first annual Cellopaloosa featuring internationally acclaimed cellist Bonnie Hampton from the Juilliard School of Music. Cellopaloosa was a gathering of cellists from across Virginia, Maryland, and Washington D.C. – younger, older, professional, and amateur. Over 75 cellists attended the workshop and classes during the all-day event. This was the largest gathering of cellists on one stage in the state. Cellopaloosa was organized by cello instructor Dana McComb.
