Tag Archives: tara mcpherson

Tara McPherson Coloring Book!

Dark Horse Deluxe joins with Tara McPherson to design the Somewhere Under the Rainbow Coloring Kit! This fantastic “kit” comes in an easy-carry heavy-gauge clear vinyl bag with zipper enclosure, and includes: 96-page coloring book featuring 48 pieces of outstanding black and white art by Tara McPherson. This book has concealed spiral binding and stiff covers and includes unique box of 24 crayons in modern colors. But that’s not all! Four color-them-yourself postcards, and a deluxe sticker sheet are included in the spiral bound book.

This is available at cool stores everywhere on August 27, 2008, but you can pre-order your kit here.

Repost and Reminder: Parsons Illustration at Comic-Con

Parsons will host a panel at Comic-con in July 2008, featuring Parsons Faculty and alumni in a conversation about how art school, and in particular a Parsons Illustration education, prepares young artists to enter these areas of professional activity. The panel is titled:

“Toys, Comics and Characters: Illustrators as Entertainment Entrepreneurs”
Friday, July 25th, 2008
3:30-4:30 p.m.
Comic-con
International
Room 32AB
San Diego Convention Center
111 W. Harbor Drive
San Diego, CA

Faculty and alumni joining us on the panel include: Tara McPherson (Parsons faculty, Vertigo Comics creator), Abby Denson (Alumna and Lulu Award Winning Cartoonist/Author of Tough Love: High School Confidential), Nora Krug (Parsons faculty, BLAB! contributor and internationally published illustrator) and Brian Wood (Parsons alumnus, iconoclastic indie creator of DMZ among other works).  The event will highlight the Illustration department’s curriculum and career paths our alumni have followed, while offering attendees information on Parsons degree programs.

Following the panel will be an alumni reception hosted by New School Alumni Relations.  Alumni attending Comic-con (or located in Southern California) and industry friends are invited to join Parsons faculty and representatives from Alumni Relations and Career Services for refreshments and conversation.

Parsons Illustration at Comic-con in San Diego!

Parsons will host a panel at Comic-con in July 2008, featuring Parsons Faculty and alumni in a conversation about how art school, and in particular a Parsons Illustration education, prepares young artists to enter these areas of professional activity. The panel is titled:

“Toys, Comics and Characters: Illustrators as Entertainment Entrepreneurs”
Friday, July 25th, 2008
3:30-4:30 p.m.
Comic-con
International
Room 32AB
San Diego Convention Center
111 W. Harbor Drive
San Diego, CA

Faculty and alumni joining us on the panel include: Tara McPherson (Parsons faculty, Vertigo Comics creator), Abby Denson (Alumna and Lulu Award Winning Cartoonist/Author of Tough Love: High School Confidential), Nora Krug (Parsons faculty, BLAB! contributor and internationally published illustrator) and Brian Wood (Parsons alumnus, iconoclastic indie creator of DMZ among other works).  The event will highlight the Illustration department’s curriculum and career paths our alumni have followed, while offering attendees information on Parsons degree programs.

Following the panel will be an alumni reception hosted by New School Alumni Relations.  Alumni attending Comic-con (or located in Southern California) and industry friends are invited to join Parsons faculty and representatives from Alumni Relations and Career Services for refreshments and conversation.  Details to follow!

MoCCA Comic Art Festival this weekend!

The program for this year’s MoCCA Art Festival features a rich mix of animators, cartoonists, graphic artists, and writers. Our special guests include Jessica Abel, Rebecca Donner, David Hajdu, David Heatley, Chip Kidd, Alex Robinson, Frank Santoro, and Brian Wood. Saturday’s program opens with author Blake Bell talking about his new Steve Ditko biography, and closes with Dan Nadel in conversation with Chris Forgues (“CF”), whose comics, according to one critic, “exude the ease of someone just now putting all the pieces together to make for consistent great work.” Sunday’s program opens with an illustrated history of radical cartooning, by social movement cartoonist Nick Thorkelson, and closes with a screening of new animated shorts from Scandinavia.

Parsons Illustration associates will be out in force–Tara McPherson, Neil Swaab, Bob Sikoryak, Jillian Tamaki, Brian Wood, and Peter de Seve–so make sure you stop by and see their work!

The MoCCA Art Festival, now in its seventh year, is an annual fundraiser for the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA). Each year the MoCCA Art Festival Award is presented to a creative figure whose work has elevated the cartoon arts. The Award was presented to Jules Feiffer in 2002, and in subsequent years to Art Spiegelman (2003), Roz Chast (2004), Neal Adams (2005), Gahan Wilson (2006), and Alison Bechdel (2007).

This year’s Award recipient, Bill Plympton, is an internationally renowned cartoonist, illustrator, and animator. His cartoons have appeared in major newspapers and magazines, from the Village Voice and the New York Times, to Vogue, Rolling Stone, and Vanity Fair. He is the author and/or illustrator of numerous books and graphic novels, including Hair High, Mutant Aliens, Tube Strips, and The Sleazy Cartoons of Bill Plympton. He is probably best known for his short and full-length animated films, which include The Tune, I Married a Strange Person, Guard Dog, and Idiots and Angels, which premiered earlier this year. Bill Plympton will be introduced by the animator Signe Baumane.

The 2008 program is being held in tandem with an event at NYU that will take place the day before the Festival officially opens, on Friday, June 6. Sponsored by the New York Institute for the Humanities and MoCCA, “Post-Bang: Comics Ten Minutes After the Big Bang!” features roundtables and presentations on “key trends and debates facing comics in this new, ‘post-bang’ environment.” For more information about this, click here

MoCCA Comic Art Festival
Saturday, June 7th & Sunday, June 8th, 2008
Hours: 11:00am – 6:00pm
Admission is $10 each day / $15 weekend pass (weekend pass only $10 for MoCCA members)
The Puck Building, 293 Lafayette, New York, NY

Programming Schedule
Exhibitor List (Parsons Illustration will be sharing a table with Cat Lauigan at B45!)
Map of Exhibitors
Featured Artist Sketch Table Schedule (featuring Illustration Alum & Faculty Bob Sikoryak on Sunday!)

[MoCCA Art Festival poster art by Parsons Illustration Faculty Tara McPherson and DKC]

Tara McPherson News

In addition being interviewed (and providing the cover art) for the recent issue of Clutter Magazine (#12! Get your copy here!), Illustration Adjunct Faculty member Tara McPherson is keeping herself busy this summer. Here’s some of her upcoming events:

Sunday, June 8th, 2008: Tara will have a table at this year’s Museum of Contemporary Comic Art event.

The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
MoCCA Art Festival 2008
June 7th-8th, 2008
The Puck Building
Hours: 11:00am – 6:00pm
Admission is $10 each day / $15 weekend pass (weekend pass only $10 for MoCCA members)

Meet comics and cartoon artists! Four full ballrooms of cartoonists and publishers! Three days of entertaining and educational panel sessions!

***

–Tara will also be a guest speaker in this years ICON 5 in NYC, along with Jordin Isip (another Illustration Faculty member!) and gallery-owner Jonathan Levine.

Gallery 101
Saturday, July 5, 2:00pm – 3:00pm
Martha Rich with Tara McPherson, Jordin Isip and Jonathan Levine

Here’s a description of the panel:

The increasing popularity and success of the small gallery has created a need for new, affordable and original art. Exhibiting in a gallery is a great way for illustrators to expand beyond traditional forms of illustration and generate additional income. How do you take that next step into the exhibiting world and get your work out of the studio and on the gallery wall? Illustrator Martha Rich questions gallery curator Jonathan Levine and illustrators Jordin Isip and Tara McPherson about the challenges and successes connected to their gallery experiences. Curious about showing your work in galleries, curating your own shows or developing a new line of revenue and expanding your creativity? This session is for you.

***

Tara will also be at Comic-Con 2008: July 24-27 in San Diego!

Video of Tara McPherson’s art & info about Flatstock

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClvF3u_JGoU&hl=en]

Check out this great video–narrated by art critic Julia Morton–featuring Illustration Adjunct Faculty Tara McPherson and her exhibition “Lost Constellations” on view through March 22nd at Jonathan Levine Gallery.

You can also catch Tara (and her artwork) at Flatstock 16 in Austin, Texas this week.  Flatstock brings poster artists from around the world for the bi-annual convention sponsored by the American Poster Institute, dedicated to the promotion of music poster art and design worldwide.  Tara will be manning a table at the following times:

Thursday, March 13 (1:00PM – 6:00PM)
Friday, March 14 (11:00AM – 6:00PM)
Saturday, March 15 (11:00 – 6:00PM)

You’ve heard the sordid tales of deluxe poster prints sold to you (the fans) by the artists themselves, now come see for yourself. FLATSTOCK 16 is free for everyone so come one come all!

Early Notice: ICON5

adam mccauley

ICON5 will be held in New York City at the historic Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan. The theme of this year’s conference, The Big Picture, is more than a slogan, it is the perspective through which we see our future – a future of limitless possibilities for illustrators as thinkers, story tellers and providers of creative content. The conference promises to examine and discuss the current creative and economic forces that every illustrator and our industry face today.

Parsons Adjunct Faculty members Jordin Isip and Tara McPherson will speak on the following panel:

Gallery 101
Saturday, July 5, 2:00pm – 3:00pm

Martha Rich with
Tara McPherson, Jordin Isip and Jonathan Levine

The increasing popularity and success of the small gallery has created a need for new, affordable and original art. Exhibiting in a gallery is a great way for illustrators to expand beyond traditional forms of illustration and generate additional income. How do you take that next step into the exhibiting world and get your work out of the studio and on the gallery wall? Illustrator Martha Rich questions gallery curator Jonathan Levine and illustrators Jordin Isip and Tara McPherson about the challenges and successes connected to their gallery experiences. Curious about showing your work in galleries, curating your own shows or developing a new line of revenue and expanding your creativity? This session is for you.

Other ICON5 speakers are: Marshall Arisman, Steven Bliss, Enrico Casarosa, Allan Comport, Andrew Coningsby, Tad Crawford, Ronnie del Carmen, Chrystal Falcioni, Mark Gallagher, Von Glitschka, Rudy Gutierrez, Mirko Ilíc, Jordin Isip (Parsons Illustration Adjunct Faculty), Barry Jackson, James Jean, Jerelle Kraus, David Lanham, Jonathan LeVine, Luba Lukova, Ross MacDonald, Gedeon Maheux, Leonard S. Marcus, Tara McPherson (Parsons Illustration Adjunct Faculty), Stephan Martiniere, Tim Mendola, Mitch Nash, Gary Panter, Daniel Pelavin, Louisa Saint Pierre, Ina Salz, Keri Smith, Mark T. Smith, Greg Spalenka, James Sturm, June Walker, and Robert Zimmerman.

icon5
July 2-5, 2008
New York City

Registration info can be found here.

 

[image by Parsons Illustration Alum Adam McCauley]

Tara McPherson solo show at Jonathan Levine

tara mcpherson

Parsons Illustration Adjunct Faculty Tara McPherson is currently showing new works at her first solo show for the Jonathan Levine Gallery, here in New York. Here’s the official press release:

For the artist’s first solo show at the gallery, Lost Constellations features a new series of oil paintings and resin-cast sculptures, incorporated into a site-specific installation. The sculptures are a new experience for the artist, who has never before worked in this medium, three-dimensionally in full-scale proportions.

The painted portraits in Lost Constellations depict adventurous super-heroines from an alternate universe, crossing dimensional planes of time and space. McPherson considers the idea of parallel existence through the use of multiple views or angles on a subject, inspired by the Einstein cross (a phenomenon caused by gravitational lensing) while her series of bodily transfigurations convey principles on the physical manifestation of thought. A reoccurring cast of female characters appear in various states of action-fighting battles and growing toward self-discovery. Using her signature bold and graphic style, Tara’s imagery explores love, loss and loneliness through variations on strength, vulnerability and female empowerment. Concepts of non-verbal communication and the evolution of spoken language are explored as well, along with an interpretation on the circle of life- represented through transitional properties of water particles: gas, liquid and solid.

One of the first women to gain recognition in a genre (and greater Art world) dominated by Male artists, Tara McPherson is a role model for younger female artists in the movement. A multi-faceted artist, she has successful careers in both Fine Art and Illustration. Her process remains the same in commissioned illustrations as in her personal work. Tara only does what she enjoys, never compromising her talent or individual sense of creative expression. Fine Art allows McPherson to develop a deeper, more intimate narrative for her subjects. Through layers of paint and symbolism, ideas that take pages of storyboard to convey in illustration projects can be condensed into a singular panel for one of her original pieces of artwork.

tara @ levine 2

Lost Constellations: Tara McPherson
Jonathan Levine Gallery
Feb 23 thru Mar 22, 2008
529 West 20th Street, 9E New York, NY 10011 ph:212-243-3822

Congratulations, Tara!