News: August
• 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.
• Tara Donovan (1999 VCUarts MFA) has been awarded a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation "Genius" award. 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).
• Sculpture + Extended Media alumna Diana Al-Hadid (MFA 2005) received a 2009 New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Fellowship Award. This year, NYFA's fellowship grants award a total of $917,000 in unrestricted funding to 134 artists recognized for excellence in their given disciplines.
• Renowned Islamic calligraphy artist and VCUQatar Joint Advisory Board member Mohamed Zakariya was recently commissioned by U.S. President Barack Obama to create a gift of calligraphy for King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia.
• TheatreVCU alum Jason Butler Harner was recently featured in Richmond Magazine. Harner discusses his recent movie roles in The Changeling and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3.
• Sculpture students Nataliya Slinko and Ian McMahon have each been awarded a prestigious Javits Fellowship, two out of only six total arts fellowships awarded nationally for the coming year! VCUarts Sculpture currently has three additional Javits awardees in the process of completing their fellowships, as well: Angie White, John Blatter, and Sami Ben Larbi. Our congratulations to Nataliya and Ian!
• VCUarts Locker 50b was recently featured in the Education Life section of the New York Times.
Students and Alumni
• 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."
• Communication Arts student Stanley Rayfield is a shortlisted artist in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery's Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2009.
• Works by Communication Arts students Guy Parkhomenko, Geary Day, and Stanley Rayfield have been selected for inclusion in volumen 43 of CMYK Magazine under the category of illustration.
• Two works by Communication Arts student Geary Day have been selected by jury to be exhibited at the Salon International 2009, a project of the International Museum of Contemporary Masters of Fine Art, at the Greenhouse Gallery of Fine Art in San Antonio, Texas.
• Craft/Material Studies alumni Dave and Roberta Williamson (both received an MFA in 1976) will appear in the upcoming PBS documentary, Craft In America on October 7th at 8pm. Watch a preview on the Craft In America web site. The pair recently received a 2009 Ohio Arts Council Individual Artists Fellowship for $5000 and a $1000 Award of Excellence from THE BEST OF 2009 EXHIBITION, Ohio Designer Craftsmen, The Ohio Crafts Museum and Traveling. Both participated in the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show and The Smithsonian Craft Show in 2009 and have had pieces placed in the collections of The Philadelphia Museum of Art,The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and The Tacoma Art Museum. Dave and Roberta currently teach at Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, Ohio
• Younseal Eum, Craft/Material Studies MFA candidate, has been accepted into OPTIONS 2009 at Conner Contemporary Art in Washington, DC. Exhibition dates are set for September 17 – October 31, 2009. Anne Collins Goodyear, Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings at the National Portrait Gallery is the curator.
• Craft/Material Studies MFA candidate Hiromi Takizawa and Elizabeth Perkins, MFA, are featured in the exhibition BIGG: Breakthrough Ideas in Global Glass from July 10 - October 10, 2009 at Ohio State University.
• Recent Craft/Material Studies MFA recipients, Gabriel Craig and Jon Sutter will present sessions on ironwork and furniture, respectively, at The 17th Symposium on Architectural History and the Decorative Arts in November. Two of this fall’s eight speakers come from the Department of Craft/Material Studies at VCUarts.
• Travis Townsend, Craft/Material Studies MFA,was awarded a 2009 Virginia A. Groot Foundation grant. His work was published in Lark Books' 500 Tables and will be displayed at The Sculpture Center in Cleveland, Ohio later this year.
• Craft/Material Studies student Roberto Celis was elected as Vice President to the VCU Student Government Association of the Monroe Park Campus. Roberto was also awardeda series of awards and scholarships including one to attend Penland this summer, a $2500 License Plate Affinity Award, a $2500 Multicultural Diversity Award, and the Green Award at the Planet E(art)h exhibit in the Student Commons Gallery. Other Planet E(art)h winners include Kristina Totoritis (Dean's Award) and Elaine Butcher (Student Choice Award).
• Akiko Jackson, Craft/Material Studies MFA alumnus, was in the Australian Ceramics Triennale, Sydney 09 at the Sydney College of the Arts for the month of July and in the invitational exhibit, Young Guns, curated by Jan Guy also in Australia.
• Craft/Material Studies MFA alumni Matt Isaacson and Susana Almuina were accepted into the $250,000 ArtPrize competition in Grand Rapids, MI. They will show at the Old Federal Building affiliated with the UICA.
• Matthew Isaacson, Craft/Material Studies MFA alumnus, was a teaching assistant at Pilchuck for Rob Stern in August. He was also mentioned Ceramics Monthly for the exhibition that he curated at Columbus State University earlier this year.
• Arthur Hash, Craft/Material Studies BFA alumnus, was in the Stimulus Project at Sienna Gallery in Lenox, MA in June in which all of the works were less than $500.
• Lizzie Perkins, Craft/Material Studies MFA alumna, was juried into the Art of Fine Craft exhibition in the Elder Gallery at Nebraska Wesleyan University, Oct. 1-Nov. 8.
• Kent Perdue, Craft/Material Studies BFA alumnus, is currently working on his Windgate Fellowship and at his residency at Arrowmont.
• Jackie Brown, Craft/Material Studies MFA alumna, will be teaching in sculpture at Ursinus College in Collegeville, PA this fall and was recently offered a solo exhibition at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia.
Craft/Material Studies MFA alumna Alissa Davis published a review in Whitehot on Roxy Paine.
• Younseal Eum, Craft/Material Studies MFA candidate, has had her work selected for the OPTIONS 2009 biennial exhibition at one of DC’s most established contemporary art galleries, Conner Contemporary Art. The exhibition runs from September 17-October 31.
• Aaron McIntosh, Craft/Material Studies MFA candidate, will be exhibiting in "Fiber Artistry: Journey of the Imagination" at the Jacqueline Casey Hudgens Center for the Arts in Duluth, GA, September 24 – October 26. He received a full scholarship to attend the 2009 American Craft Council Conference, Creating a New Craft Culture, October 15 -18.
• Aaron McIntosh and Sarah Turner, Craft/Material Studies MFA candidates, were juried into the Art of Fine Craft exhibition in the Elder Gallery at Nebraska Wesleyan University, October 1-November 8.
• Hiromi Takizawa, Craft/Material Studies MFA candidate, will have a solo exhibition in NYC at the Heller Gallery opening October 29. Hiromi will also be in a group show, Young & Loving (Ung og Lovende), in Bergen, Norway in September.
• Roberto Celis, Craft/Material Studies BFA candidate, was the studio assistant for Hunt Clark in wood at Arrowmont this summer.
• Courtney Dodd, Craft/Material Studies MFA candidate, won "Best in Show" and "Third Place" for two separate pieces at the Spring Into Arts juried show in North Carolina.
• Adrian Blackstock, Craft/Material Studies MFA candidate, was in three exhibits this summer in Charleston, WV including one at West Virginia chapter of the Feminist Art Project and another at Buswater on the Boulevard.
• Gian Pierotti, Craft/Material Studies MFA candidate, was in the NCECA 2009 juried student show at the Tempe Center for the Arts. Just under 300 applicants applied with only 26 accepted into the exhibit.
• Music alumnus David G. Russell (B.M., '90)
provided music for the documentary "Farrah's
Story," which premiered in May on NBC. The
documentary, produced by NBC News, was also aired
on cable channels MSNBC, Bravo, and Oxygen. "Farrah's Story" chronicles actress Farrah
Fawcett's brave fight against cancer over a two
and a half year period. The documentary aired
again on the sad occasion of her passing June 26.
• Music's Joseph Martinez Barry (BM '10) had an article published in Soundboard, the magazine for the Guitar Foundation of America. His article is entitled "The Guitar Music of Carlo Domeniconi."
• 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.
• Photography and Film's Jamie Delgrosso (BFA Spring 2009) is a finalist in the FilmGo.net First Short Film Festival.
• Sculpture's Tara Donovan (MFA 1999) will have an exhibition at The Indianapolis Museum of Art from April 4 to August 1, 2010. To learn more about Tara Donovan: Untitled click here.
• Three TheatreVCU alumni have been cast in the musical Peter and the Wolf that will open at Imagination Stage in Washington, DC in January 2010.
• TheatreVCU alumnus John DeBoer (MFA, 2007) is the winner of the 2009 VASTA Clyde Vinson Memorial Scholarship. John is a first year faculty member at the School of Theatre and Dance at the University of Montana.
• 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 its second year.
• Theatre's Justin Scribner (BFA Stage Management, 2004) is stage managing the Broadway play The American Plan.
• Theatre's Vanessa Leuck (BFA, 2006) is designing costumes for Disney's national ice capades production.
• Theatre alumna Alanna Wilson (BFA, 2004) is shooting a film directed by Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
Faculty
• VCUQatar Fashion professor Sandra Bell Wilkins was the focus of a feature article in the July 2009 issue of Woman Today, Qatar's #1 women's magazine.
• Art Education's Dr. Pamela G. Taylor and her interdisciplinary research team, Dr. Joan Rhodes and Dr. Frances Smith (School of Education) and Jan Johnston (Department of Art Education) received notice that their proposal, “Research for eLASTIC: Electronic Learning and Assessment Tool for Interdisciplinary Connections among the Visual Arts, Reading, and Writing" has been awarded a $1,050,000 grant under the 2nd cycle of the Qatar National Priorities Research Program (NPRP). This proposal, along with 92 others from such prestigious institutions as Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers, Ohio State, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, University of British Columbia, University of Malaysia, etc.), was selected from 482 international submissions with an approximate 20% success rate.
• Craft/Material Studies faculty member Shay Church will be included in the $250,000 ArtPrize competition in Grand Rapids, MI. Check out this recent article on his work: http://www.mlive.com
• Jason Hackett, Craft/Material Studies faculty member, has been selected to exhibit in the IX Bienal Internacional de Cerâmica Artística de Aveiro 2009 in Portugal from October 3 to November 15 at the Museum of Aveiro.
• Craft/Material Studies’ Debbie Quick has been invited to join artaxis.org, a juried and invitational site for ceramics artists. She is in the great company many fantastic clay artists, such as Adelaide Paul, Jeanne Quinn, Paul Sacardiz, and Ayumi Horie, all of whom have been visiting artists at VCU.
• Susie Ganch and Natalya Pinchuk are in the Enamel Show at Velvet DaVinci in San Francisco from August 5 - September 6. The exhibit celebrates the publication of 500 Enameled Objects by Lark Books and is held in conjunction with The Enamelist Society Conference 2009.
• Susie Ganch, has a two film screenings of “Radical Jewelry Makeover: a traveling community mining and recycling project” (produced and directed by Dana Richardson and Sarah Zentz.) The first screening will take place outdoors at Binn’s Park in Lancaster, PA on September 4 at 8pm. The second screening will take place at the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC for the museum’s “Jewelry Study Day” on September 12 at noon. Radical Jewelry Makeover (RJM) is a community mining and recycling project that has been traveling since 2007 and is directed by Susie Ganch and Christina Miller. So far RJM projects have taken place in Richmond,VA, Lancaster, PA, San Francisco, CA, Penland, NC, and the next edition will be in Australia (summer 2010.)
• Craft/Material Studies’ Sonya Clark, was one of eight women from across the state of Virginia recognized as an Outstanding Woman in the Arts by the Virginia Commission on the Arts. An article on her work written by Lowery Stokes Sims, curator at the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC is in the September/October issue of Fiberarts Magazine. Reviews of Sonya’s group exhibit, Dress Codes: Clothing as Metaphor, at the Katonah Musuem of Art are featured in the Lower Hudson Journal news - West Harrison, NY and the New York Times
• Kinetic Imaging's Pamela Turner, along with visual effects artist Richard Winn Taylor, will co-host Infinite Animation: The Work of Adam Beckett in August at the
Linwood Dunn Theater
in Hollywood, CA. Infinite Animation is presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and honors influential animator and visual effects artist Adam Beckett (1950–1979) whose career straddled the line between art film and the special effects industry.
• Kinetic Imaging assistant professor Stephen Vitiello and alumna Molly Berg will release their CD, The Gorilla Variations in October 2009 with Smallfish Records.
• Music professor Bryan Hooten (trombone) and VCUarts student Dean Christesen (jazz drums) collaborate on their new album "Verbatim." The drum and trombone duo combines jazz, math-rock, metal, New Orleans music, and more into a creative amalgam from the explosively artistic city of Richmond. The album was recorded on June 26 at Spacebomb Studios in Richmond. The eight tracks are first takes, with no overdubs or splices, and were mixed in one pass. For more information, visit http://www.myspace.com/verbatimrva.
• Guitar professor Adam Larrabee was recently reviewed in Guitar Player Magazine for his work on the CD Eric Satie: Music from the House with Four Chimneys.
• Music's Bryan Hooten has recently released his CD Framing the Void by his quartet "Ombak," which features VCU faculty member Brian Jones (drums), VCU alumnus Trey Pollard (guitar), and former VCU student Cameron Ralston (bass).
• Music faculty member Dr. Patrick Smith has been named to the steering committee for the Seattle Julius Watkins festival, to be held in Seattle, WA in October 2009.
• An article on Sculpture + Extended Media professor Elizabeth King is featured in the July/August issue of Sculpture Magazine.
• TheatreVCU's Director of Costume, Toni-Leslie James, winner of a 2009 Village Voice OBIE Award for sustained excellence of costume design (special reference to WIG OUT, Vineyard Theatre), will be featured on With Good Reason during the week of August 15.
• Theatre Chairman David Leong has been elected to the National Theatre Conference, a cooperative association of distinguished leaders in American theatre.
