All posts by amt

From the Vault: Zina Saunders interviews Illustration Dept. Chair Steven Guarnaccia

From the Vault, General Info, Illustration Faculty, Interviews, , , ,

saunders portrait of SG

Earlier this year, illustrator Zina Saunders interviewed Illustration Department Chair Steven Guarnaccia as part of her ongoing interview series with illustrators, which features artists talking about their work, as well as a portrait created on-the-spot by Zina herself. Here’s an excerpt from her talk with Steven:

Whenever anybody asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, I told them I wanted to be an artist. But I never wanted to be a fine artist; I never fantasized about being a gallery painter. I wanted to do the stuff that gave me the most pleasure and the stuff that gave me the most pleasure was popular culture, comics, animation, so that’s what I figured I would end up doing. I only had a very brief crisis about the fine art/commercial art thing when I was in college at Brown University and I took classes at RISD and the kind of seriousness and dedication that the RISD students demonstrated made me think that maybe that was what being a real artist is.

But the reality of the situation was that my essential self really was not like them. I took a class as a little kid in the back of an art store, painting in oils, and I didn’t like the smell of it and I never liked getting my hands dirty. The other thing was, that my favorite fine artists in high school were Paul Klee and George Grosz and they were guys whose work looked more like my work than Monet and Picasso. Seeing Paul Klee painting in a suit, to me, seemed to make perfect sense. I was not interested in wiping painted hands on baggy blue jeans. That just wasn’t who I was.

Read the complete text of Steven’s interview here and check out more from Zina at her Drawger site.

James Sturm gives a preview of Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow

General Info, Illustration Industry, Interviews, Publications, , , ,

sturm’s paige sample

James Sturm, illustrator and head of The Center for Cartoon Studies, is offering a fantastic preview of his upcoming work Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow. You can look at illustration drafts, see sample pages from the finished work, and read an interview with Sturm. Here’s an excerpt:

How did you settle on Satchel Paige as a subject?

Satchel Paige was the suggestion of Brenda Bowen who was the instigator of this series of books. I love American history and Paige’s life certainly highlights several compelling and tragic aspects of the American experience. I’ve always been fascinated by the Negro Leagues and the obstacles that those players faced on and off the ball field.

Rather than present a straightforward biography of Satchel Paige, the book creates a story about Emmet Wilson, a Black Alabama sharecropper of the 1930s, for whom Satchel Paige becomes a major touchstone. What made you decide to take this approach?

Paige did a great job of mythologizing himself and it was hard to separate the facts of his life from the fiction. And in the end, I didn’t want to. What was important to me, and what I decided I wanted the book to be about, was the impact he had on society and those that followed his career.

Read the complete interview here and also stop by Drawn!, who gave us the heads up about this exciting resource.

(Image by James Sturm)

Last Reminder: Reception at Design Within Reach tonight!

Events, General Info, Illustration Dept. Events, Illustration Faculty, Illustration Industry, , , , , ,

bellini chair specs

Re-Imagining the Chair

Opening Reception
Wednesday, December 12, 7-9pm
DWR West 14th Studio
408 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10014
Phone: 212.242.9449

Just in case you’ve forgotten what all the excitement is about:

Parson’s design students deserve a sitting ovation!

Once again, Parsons’ students have raised the bar with their well-tapped imaginations and fearless style. Incorporating materials of their choosing, students from Parsons’ Illustration department will exhibit their own inspired interpretations of the simple yet virtuous Bellini Chair by Heller. Using the Bellini as a blank canvas, students started with an idea on paper and finished the project fabricating a full-scale prototype. The students will join us for a reception at the West 14th Studio to share with you the fruits of their labor.

The “re-imagined” chairs will be critiqued by an esteemed panel of judges, including Alan Heller of Heller and floor covering designer Sandy Chilewich. Chairs will be exhibited in Studio through the month of January. Refreshments will be served!

Don’t miss this exciting event! Reception is open to all. Hope to see you there!

From the Vault: Illustration Alum Jill Bliss Rallies to Keep Gocco Alive!

From the Vault, General Info, Illustration Alumni, Illustration Industry, News

save gocco!

Back in October, an article in the New York Times discussed Parsons Illustration Alumna Jill Bliss and her efforts to revive production of Gocco printers. What is Gocco, you ask? According to Jill’s site…

In the 1970’s Noboru Hayama, a printer and the japanese inventor of the “print gocco” system, wished to develop a quick and easy household color printing system. cleverly combining the basic priciples of screenprinting and rubber-stamping, “print gocco” is a clean, easy, and fully self-contained compact system that exposes and prints all in one unit.

And here is an excerpt from the New York Times article, written by Rob Walker:

Turns out that Print Gocco is both better known and somehow cooler than it has ever been here. And this is almost certainly because in late 2005, the Riso Kagaku Corporation, now an international and largely digital business, announced that Gocco was dead.It was this surprise announcement that inspired Jill Bliss to start a Web site called Save Gocco, which became a centerpiece of a product-fandom community (or at least a cult). Bliss, who used a Gocco machine she bought on eBay in her handmade stationery business, Blissen, says she threw together the site “on a whim.” She handed out some press packets at the Bazaar Bizarre craft fair in Los Angeles, and soon SaveGocco.com became ground zero of Gocco-withdrawal angst. The site ultimately collected more than a thousand names of enthusiasts, in a show of strength that the signers hoped might inspire some entity to start making the product again. It also carried news of Gocco art shows that started to pop up, and it listed retail resources. Wang says interest in the process among artists and crafters was already gaining momentum when word got out that the device was going to disappear. “Then there was just this urgency,” she recalls, “to find a Gocco.”

Read the rest of the article here. Visit SaveGocco.com for more information about Gocco printing.

If you live on the West Coast, don’t miss Jill Bliss’s show, currently at Giant Robot in Los Angeles. See more of her work and wares at her personal website.

(image from SaveGocco.com)

Reminder: Reception for Illustration’s Collaboration with Design Within Reach

Events, Exhibitions, General Info, Illustration Alumni, Illustration Dept. Events, Illustration Faculty, Illustration Industry, , , , ,

bellini-copy

The New School’s Weekly Observer included a write-up of Bellini chair creative project that Illustration Department students have been working on over the course of the semester. Here’s an excerpt:

Re-imagining the Chair is a semester-long project of the Beyond Editorial course, taught by Parsons faculty member and alumna Kenna Kay. The course explores the ever-expanding realm of illustration, going beyond the traditional boundaries of the printed page to look at toys, animation, clothing, skateboards, and food packaging. The project was developed with Bradford Shane Shellhammer, the studio proprietor and blogger for Design Within Reach, who is also a student in Parsons’ AAS program.

For the project, students were asked to reexamine an everyday object, the chair, taking into account the experience of sitting, the usefulness of the object, the human form, social conventions, style and culture. The design could be personal, political or fanciful, as long as it makes the viewer think about the chair “in all its chairness.”

Read the rest of the article here, as well as the other write-ups on this blog, located here & here. Additionally, don’t forget the opening reception which happens in just a couple of days!

Re-Imagining the chair
Wednesday, December 12, 7-9pm
DWR West 14th Studio
408 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10014
Phone: 212.242.9449

West Coast Alert–Illustration Faculty Jordin Isip Show in LA

Events, Exhibitions, Illustration Faculty, , , , ,

isip for la luz

“Blue Tangle (The Ungluer)”, 5″ x 5″, mixed media on panel

La Luz de Jesus Gallery, which showcases mainly figurative, narrative paintings, and unusual sculpture, presents a show featuring Illustration faculty member Jordin Isip. La Luz de Jesus features exhibitions that are considered post-pop; the art content ranges from folk to outsider to religious to sexually deviant. The gallery’s main objective is to bring underground artists and counter culture to the masses.

JORDIN ISIP
Red Tangles (Wishful Thinking)
December 7 – 30, 2007

Opening Reception Friday, December 7th, 8 – 11 pm

La Luz de Jesus Gallery
4633 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90027
323.666.7667
www.laluzdejesus.com

Illustration Faculty Bob Sikoryak hosts Carousel

Events, Illustration Alumni, Illustration Faculty, Performances, , , ,

carousel 12-13

CAROUSEL

Cartoon slide shows & other projected pictures presented by a glittering array of artists, performers, graphic novelists, & other characters. Since 1997, Carousel has been presented around NYC at Dixon Place, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Makor, MoCCA Art Fest, and NY Comic Con, as well as at the San Diego Comic-Con, Small Press Expo, and the Blue Met Festival (Montreal).

Hosted by Illustration Alum and Faculty member R. Sikoryak

Featuring:
Robbie Busch
Megan Montague Cash
Danny Hellman
Michael Kupperman
Jim Torok
Lauren R. Weinstein

Thursday, December 13
8 pm (doors open at 7:30 pm)

Dixon Place
258 Bowery, 2nd Fl, between Houston & Prince
NY, NY

Tickets: $12 or TDF; $10 student/senior

You can by advance tickets & find more info at www.dixonplace.org or by calling (212) 219-0736.

Illustration students written up in Design Notes

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rej ahmed bellini chair

A Commentary on Laziness, Rejwan Ahmed

There’s a great account of the collaboration between Parsons Illustration’s Bellini chair project and Design Within Reach in the most recent issue of DWR’s newsletter, Design Notes, which reaches a whopping 400,000 readers. Bradford Shellhammer discusses the genesis of the project and how it all plays out. Here’s an excerpt:

The class took some time to warm up to the chairs. Skateboards are instantly recognizable by undergrads, but most had yet to even purchase a new chair. [Kenna] Kay, who works by day as a creative director for TV Land, instructed them to research the history of the chair and follow up with a design statement. Steps were mapped out: Move from statement to sketch to model to final design. During each stage we met for a classroom critique. We talked openly and honestly about each idea and encouraged students to refine and better articulate their designs.

The first round of sketches included such diverse ideas as covering the chair in cushions and peacock feathers or attaching a bent spine to the chair to illustrate the negative impact a seated position can have on the human back. Some ideas were political and thought provoking, others were purely decorative. Some students had impressive concepts from day one, while others grew stronger and stronger with each passing week. Some ideas stuck (the chair with the spine) and some fell by the wayside (sayonara, peacock feathers), but all have remained truly original. The designs are as diverse as the students who created them.

Read the entirety of Bradford’s account, as well as see more images of the students’ work, in Design Notes and don’t forget about the exhibition of the completed chairs, which opens with a reception on December 12th and continues through January 20th.

From the Vault: Spraygraphic interviews Illustration FT Faculty Nora Krug

From the Vault, General Info, Illustration Faculty, Interviews, , ,

 

krug-bush
Bush by Nora Krug

Back in October, Spraygraphic Apparel interviewed Illustration FT Faculty Nora Krug for their blog. Spraygraphic strives to highlight artists and designers that create culturally conscious, socially active and politically provocative work. Here’s an excerpt from Nora’s interview:

Describe your working process when creating a new work.

NK: I easily get bored once I notice I’m using similar concepts, compositions and media and I try to always explore new themes and ways of working. When working on a personal piece the process can be really torturing. I can get very deeply involved and forget where I am. Every time it feels like I’m starting at the very beginning, like a puzzle with thousands of parts, and no reference image on the cover. I take a long time for sketches and I often have no idea what the final piece will look like. Every line I draw can be a struggle. But when I’m done and happy with the way it looks I feel extremely fulfilled. It’s a completely different story with my commercial work. I work much faster there and have a good sense of what the final piece will look like.

What kind of things do you do when you get blocked or find it hard to create something?

NK: I get very annoyed and angry and can’t stop thinking about possible solutions. It takes me an hour or so of socializing and thinking of something else until I emerge on the surface again. Usually the only way out is continuing to draw and redraw until it works. Sometimes it also helps me to distract myself while I’m working, because then the whole focus isn’t only on my fear of not being able to create what I want. I love listening to BBC Radio 4 and 7 online.

Where are you currently finding your inspiration?

NK: In everything. People, films, music, books, other people’s art. I’m also very inspired by peoples’ lives that have nothing to do with the arts.

Make sure you read the rest of the interview here for more insights about Nora’s work and interests.

Also, you can access the archive of other fantastic artist interviews by Spraygraphic here.

Congratulations, Nora!

Illustration & Design Within Reach Collaborate!

Events, Exhibitions, Illustration Faculty, Illustration Industry, News, , , , , ,

bellini chair specs

Students in Kenna Kay’s Beyond Editorial class have teamed up with Design Within Reach to produce their own renditions of a design icon–the Bellini Chair. Here’s the official announcement about Design Within Reach’s celebratory reception, which takes place next week:

______

Parson’s design students deserve a sitting ovation!

Once again, Parsons’ students have raised the bar with their well-tapped imaginations and fearless style. Incorporating materials of their choosing, students from Parsons’ Illustration department will exhibit their own inspired interpretations of the simple yet virtuous Bellini Chair by Heller. Using the Bellini as a blank canvas, students started with an idea on paper and finished the project fabricating a full-scale prototype. The students will join us for a reception at the West 14th Studio to share with you the fruits of their labor.

The “re-imagined” chairs will be critiqued by an esteemed panel of judges, including Alan Heller of Heller and floor covering designer Sandy Chilewich. Chairs will be exhibited in Studio through the month of January. Refreshments will be served.

______

Congratulations to all the students involved and thanks to Design Within Reach (and especially Bradford Shellhammer) for approaching the Illustration Department with the offer to participate in this fantastic project!

Re-Imagining the chair
Wednesday, December 12, 7-9pm
DWR West 14th Studio
408 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10014
Phone: 212.242.9449
Directions