Category Archives: News

Meet “Student of the Month” and your new Jr Rep, Arta Ajeti!

Current Students, Interviews, News
Illustration by Ryan Florez
Illustration by Ryan Florez

Ryan: The big question everyone should have an answer to: Why are you an illustrator? What inspired you or made you decide that this was a lifestyle you’re most interested in?

Arta: Well I’ve always drawn from a young age. I think maybe it’s to do with my name because I have art in my name, haha. Yeah, from a young age I was always like I’m going to be an artist. Initially I was going to go into Fine Arts, but then realized it wasn’t really me.

Ryan: Who’s your favorite illustrator and why?

Arta: This is a tough one… I really like Moonassi. I got really into his work; his use of negative and positive space, and I think that sort of shows in my work actually. He’s my favorite at the moment, but I have quite a few random inspirations that I find. There’s one guy, Owen Gent, who paints really beautifully and I really want to paint like him, so I’m gonna try next semester to do more work kind of in his style.

Ryan: What do you always have with you (despite the essentials: phone, wallet, etc.) that you can’t leave home without?

Arta: I have a fish eye camera that I take. I don’t really take photos with it often, but when I really want to use it I do and I make a point of taking it with me. I’m getting back into photography, because I was really into it when I was sixteen, but it sort of fizzled out. I make a point of doing it now.

Ryan: Weirdest thing you’ve ever drawn or put into your sketchbook?

Arta: Haha, let me think about this… I use to have a scrapbook that I put random things in. I should do that again actually, because that was fun. I just have random nights out and stick things in there, like tickets and memorabilia.

Ryan: It’s 3am in the morning, you know you’re gonna have to pull an all-nighter to get your project done for critique that day and you just had your seventh cup of coffee; in your delirious state of exhaustion you hallucinate the ghosts of Illustration past, present, and future. Who would these ghosts be and what would they say to you?

Arta: Quentin Blake would take me back to when I was a kid reading Roald Dahl, and first realising I wanted to be an artist. He would remind me of a time where making art was a care-free experience. Our very own 3D teacher Glenn LaVertu would probably be the ghost of the present, because Glenn. He would say ‘why are you using the wrong glue?’. The ghost of illustration future would be the finished assignment, telling me I can complete it in time. At that point I would notice I was hallucinating and probably make a note to call a psychiatrist the next day.

Ryan: Which do you relate more to and why? Edvard Munch’s The Scream or Salvador Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory?

Arta: Oh definitely the latter, haha. I mean I love surrealism and Dalí is my man. I don’t know I’m less expressionistic; I like the surreal and weird. His (Dalí) mind is always fascinating to me.

 

New York Comics & Picture-story Symposium – November 3, 2015

Events, Illustration Dept. Events, Illustration Industry, News, Talks/Lectures

Marvin Sackner
on this new book,
The Art of Typewriting

Join Marvin Sackner for a celebration of the publication of his new book, The Art of Typewriting (Thames and Hudson) co-authored with his late wife, Ruth. Marvin Sackner will describe the genesis of the project, the process of assembling the book and his wonderful discoveries within the realm of typewriter art.
The book presents over  600 examples of work produced by the world’s finest typewriter artists — from late 19th century ornamental works produced by secretaries to recent works of typewriter art — the book highlights the unique position of the typewritten document in the digital age.

Marvin Sackner is a Word Art collector based in Miami, Florida. Today the Sackner Archive of Visual and Concrete Poetry, created over four decades with his wife Ruth Sackner, is the world’s largest collection of its kind, housing tens of thousands of pieces from hundreds of artists and writers from around the world.

WHEN

November 3, 2015 at 7pm

WHERE

The 133rd meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2015 at 7pm atParsons The New School for Design, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public.

Special Guest Lecturer, Animator Ru Kuwahata 11/5

Illustration Dept. Events, News, Talks/Lectures
Ru Kuwahata

Ru Kuwahata

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parsons alum, Ru Kowahata will be returning to Parsons to share her experiences as an animator. As a part of the Tiny Inventions duo, Kowahata uses a unique system of 3D models that are integrated into digital animation. Her expertise in mixed media visuals has contributed to her successes in a multitude of film festival awards, publications and contracted work for an assortment of clientele.

Any and all students interested in pursuing a career in production, animation and storytelling are encouraged to join us for this incredible opportunity to get intel on the industry as an independent animator.

The lecture will be held on November 5th at 12 pm at 66 West 12th St., room 407

New York Comics & Picture-story Symposium – October 27, 2015

Illustration Dept. Events, Illustration Industry, News, Talks/Lectures

Matthew Sontheimer
on
Flat Conversation

Matthew Sontheimer will discuss his drawings: The role text and images play in his works, and his continued exploration of  “conversational drawings.”

Matthew Sontheimer received a BFA from Stephen F. Austin State University, in Nacogdoches, Texas, and an MFA from Montana State University, in Bozeman, Montana. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing in The Department of Art and Art History at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. His work is represented by the Talley Dunn Gallery, in Dallas, Texas, and the Devin Borden Gallery, in Houston Texas, and can be found in the collections of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York.

WHEN

October 27, 2015 at 7pm

WHERE

The 132nd meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2015 at 7pm atParsons The New School for Design, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public.

The Parsons Pop Up

Call for Entries, Events, Illustration Dept. Events, News

Screen Shot 2015-10-14 at 1.56.21 PM

Parsons Pop Up Print Shop & Show

Coinciding with 2015 Print Week, the Parsons Pop Up Print Shop will showcase the printed form from fine art prints, illustrations and graphic designs to zines and book arts. Join us for a showcase of the printed form and printmaking workshops.
Are you a Parsons student, faculty or staff member who makes printed matter?

The deadline for entry is 25 October. Read the guidelines and Submit your work to this show! 

Sept. 29th! The New York Comics & Picture-Story Symposium

News

Kathryn A. Smith on Crafting the Old Testament in the Queen Mary Psalter:  Image, Text, and Contexts in Early Fourteenth-Century England.

 

[above] Scenes from the lives of Saul and David, Queen Mary Psalter, c. 1310-20 (London, British Library Royal MS 2 B VII, fol. 52).

 

Ms. Smith will speak on one of her current projects — an unusual captioned Old Testament picture cycle in a lavishly illuminated psalter made in England c. 1310-20

Kathryn A. Smith is Professor of Medieval Art in the Department of Art History, New York University.  She is the author of Art, Identity, and Devotion in Fourteenth-Century England (2003), The Taymouth Hours: Stories and the Construction of the Self in Late Medieval England (2012), and numerous articles, essays, and reviews on early Christian and late medieval art.  She is currently working on several projects concerning image-text relationships in medieval manuscripts and the roles of images, including manuscript illuminations and sculpture, in late medieval religion and culture.

 

WHEN

September 29, 2015 at 7pm
Please note: There is no meeting on Sept. 22nd.

WHERE

The 128th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2015 at 7pm at Parsons The New School for Design, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public.

NEXT WEEK The New York Comics & Picture-Story Symposium

News

Marc Moorash on Bringing Art Young Back to Life

On Publishing the Previously Unpublished Types of the Old Home Town and Rediscovering the Legacy of the Dean of American Cartoonists

Art Young (1866 – 1943) was the best known political cartoonist in the first half of the twentieth century, but you’ve likely never heard of him.  If you have, you’ve likely never seen much of his work.  Sadly, he’s been mostly forgotten – and the story behind this, as with most Art Young tales, is quite remarkable and unfortunate.  He’s a cartoonist almost legendary, yet nearly become myth.
Yet, let’s jump ahead to the beginning of 2015 and the serendipitous publication of a long-lost manuscript – a collection of images some unpublished, some which appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in the mid-1920s.  A publication in handmade art-book form.  Let’s also throw in that in April of this year we held the first gallery exhibition since 1939 of Art’s works.

Marc Moorash, curator of The Art Young Gallery (housed one mile from where Art built his gallery in Bethel CT in 1928) will talk about publishing Types of the Old Home Town,the handmade book process of making Types, Art’s history and legacy in American cartooning, and show slides of a number of images and photographs that haven’t been seen in public for decades.  In addition, on display will be a number of Art’s original cartoons from his newspaper Good Morning (1919 – 1921), drawings of Helen Keller and Eugene Debs, as well as original illustrations from Types of the Old Home Town.

WHEN
September 15, 2015 at 7pm
WHERE
The 127th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015 at 7pm atParsons The New School for Design, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public.

 

 

NEXT WEEK The New York Comics & Picture-story Symposium

News, News

Nik Kowsar on Political Cartooning in Iran

Nik Kowsar is an Iranian-Canadian cartoonist, journalist, and blogger, currently living in Washington DC, US. Kowsar was also a reformist candidate for the second term of city council of Tehran in 2003, an election won by the conservative candidates of Abadgaran.
He studied Geology in the University of Tehran, and joined Gol-Agha, an Iranian political satire magazine as a cartoonist in 1991. He worked forHamshahri from 1992 to 1998, and was a member of Newspapers such asZan, Aftab-e Emrooz,  Sobh-e Emrooz,  Akhbar-e Eghtesadi,  Azad,  Bahar,  Bonyan,  Doran-e Emrooz,  Nosazi,  Hayate No,  Abrar-e Eghteadi,  Hambastegi,  Farhang-e Ashti. Most of these papers were banned by Saeed Mortazavi. He was arrested in Feb. 2000 for drawing a cartoon and spent 6 days at the Evin Prison in Tehran.
Kowsar has been sentenced to prison for his cartoons in absentia. After moving to Canada, he worked in a dry-cleaner’s for a while before joining MarketWire in 2005 and IFEX in 2008. He also has been free-lancing and his cartoons have been recently published by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, and The Guardian. Kowsar is a member of the New York Times Syndicate. He has appeared on CNN, BBC, CBC, CTV, VOA and many political TV shows as a guest analyst and observer. Kowsar now works in Washington DC and is the editor-in-chief of Khodnevis.org, the first Persian citizen journalism platform.
Kowsar is a member of the board of directors of Cartoonists Rights Network International.
Kowsar is also a member of the Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists (ACEC) and Journalists in Exile (JEX). CBC made a documentary based on his life and his involvement in the Blogger movement.

WHEN

September 8, 2015 at 7 pm

WHERE

The 126th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2015 at 7pm at Parsons The New School, 2 West 13th Street,in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public.