Elaine Cunfer, Kevin Cornell, Matt Twombly, and David Bullock
We had a full house, an audience of 177, for the David Bulluck Return of the CD Grads. Prof. Elaine Cunfer deserves a lot of credit; she did a great job organizing the event. Both speakers shared their passion for illustration. Matt Twombly talked about his internship at Marvel Comics. A highlight of that experience was a personal portfolio review from Joe Quesada Marvel’s editor-in-chief. He also talked about the four months he had to move back to his parents house, before landing his job at Science Magazine. He had some good news to share. At the end of this month Matt begins a brand new job for National Geographic. In his free time Matt is creating his own Western-themed comics.
Kevin Cornell punctuated his presentation with fond recollections of KU. He showed a hand-written index card on which I had scrawled a note,” Kevin, you have 12 recorded absences and I only took attendance 22 times. This is an insult to the concept of a studio class!”
Over lunch at the Tavern Kevin graciously told me I was on the mark with the criticism. During his presentation he said that students can’t expect to be “taught illustration” by a professor. One needs to do lots of work to gain illustration skills. He also had other painful truths, like, “Don’t expect your first job to be glamorous.”
Kevin illustrated Moustache! written by Mac Barnett, a brand new book published by Hyperion-Disney. So new, that it arrived in the KU bookstore on Friday, one day after the Return of the CD grads. Check it out. Kirkus Reviews praised the artwork “Cornell ushers the story forward with cinematic artwork, framed in elaborate medieval-like borders, but paced sequentially like a comic book.”
Kevin Cornell and Matt Twombly will present their artwork at “The David Bullock Return of the CD Grads,” Thursday October 20, from 1 until 3pm. Location: Kutztown’s McFarland SUB, Alumni Auditorium. These are two very successful guys who do very different sorts of illustration. Some samples are posted here, but you should really check out their websites, by clicking on their names above.
Why is it called the David Bullock Return of the CD Grads? Professor Emeritus David Bullock was a founder of the CD dept and the longtime chair, so the event is named in his honor. Among his many contributions to the CD curriculum, Prof. Bullock developed the History of Graphic Design class. Prof. Elaine Cunfer works hard to put this popular annual event together, and this year the focus is on illustrators.
Comic page 2010 Matt Twombly
All C.D. student are expected to be there, but there will be extra seats and the public is welcome. For C.D. students with class conflicts, this is like a field trip. KU CD faculty will ask faculty across campus to allow you to make up lost classwork. There will be pizza and drinks available prior to the event at 12:30. Prof. Cunfer has thought of everything.
Kevin Cornell’s brilliant, entertaining, and award-winning web site, bearskinrug.co.uk gets several thousand hits some days. The artwork above was plucked from his massive gallery. Kevin has illustrated several books including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Matt Twombly’s web site, matthewtwombly.com is brand new and it showcases his illustration, comics and graphic design projects.
We often do a project in illustration classes, a staple of illustration programs everywhere, the old “How To… instructional illustration.’ We see a lot of “How to use Chop Sticks, Check your Oil, How to Back Up your Hard Drive.” Matt Twombly worked at the local supermarket while he attended Kutztown. I recall seeing him restocking yogurt in the dairy aisle. I guess he didn’t like it much. He did a wild series of illustrations on “How to get Fired from Weis Markets.” He now works as a designer for Science, a Washington, D.C. based publication, and he loves his job. He gets to do a new illustration for Science nearly every week.
The illustration Concentration blog has written about both of these talented individuals before. If you missed those entries read more about Kevin here, and Matt here.
The book is by Robynne Raye and Michael Strassburger, the founding partners of Seattle’s Modern Dog Design. Randi Meredith is a talented designer and illustrator. She is also a world traveler. She was a participant in one of the last of the CD Dept.’s sketchbook courses in Mexico. Then last year, she and her boyfriend took a seven-week trip around the world. She blogged about her global adventures here. Below is an image of her booty pirates which were a big hit at the senior show when she graduated in 2010. She was the winner of KU’s Karen Anderson award. We knew she’d go far. Check out her website.
The Boston-based running shoe company, Reebok, was at KU last week to recruit talented C.D. students for their internships and apprentice programs. Randi was a participant in the Reebok program and did some interesting stuff for the company like the batik-inspired women’s T-shirts below.
Éxito means success in Spanish. César Chávez has been in the U.S for just about two weeks. He first crossed the border on foot in Arizona. He has already forgiven the policeman there who forced him to kneel on the pavement with his hands up while drug dogs sniffed his backpack. Fortunately, César has since had a lot of great memories to replace that ugly one. Some good times in Philadelphia, some in Kutztown, some in New York City.
Firelei Báez, Domincan artist in NYC gave César a tour of El Museo del Barrio.
César has been working hard in the KU printmaking studio and carved two woodblocks, two linoleum blocks, and several etchings. This he did in four days. His Eckhaus party was a blast. He’s toured Evan Summer’s printmaking studio, and spent the long weekend in New York City and Hoboken NJ. Firelei Báez, a rising star in the NY art world gave him a personal tour of the bienal exhibition at the El Museo del Barrio that features her work. El Museo produced a great short video about Firelei’s art. We also saw the de Kooning show at MOMA. Call me loco, but I found El Museo’s exhibition far more interesting than MOMA’s de Kooning blockbuster retrospective.
Touring KU Prof. Evan Summer's etching studio. Photo by: Brian McCloskey
He has generously interacted with numerous art and design classes. He was the honored guest at a luncheon with Spanish language students. He has worked alongside the printmaking students and given gallery tours to a hundred other students. Tomorrow 25 youngsters from I-Lead School, a largely Hispanic charter school in Reading will get a gallery tour, as well. One KU CD student, born in Nicaragua, told César he was so very proud to have a Spanish-speaking artist-in-residence at Kutztown University.
César Chávez at mural of the Chicano farm worker & organizer César Chávez in Philadelphia.
César’s English has improved in his short time here. He’s repeatedly said being in the U.S is “like a dream.” There was one unforgettable moment. Walking across Times Square, he encountered a showgirl hawking tickets to the musical Chicago. He asked if he could have his photo taken with her. She grabbed César in a headlock and planted a big wet kiss on his face. Sometimes, life is like a dream.
César Chávez in front of his grafitti mural Oaxaca, 2011/
My friend, César Chávez, a great young Mexican artist, is in Kutztown. He was the master printer for the ASARO collective back in 2006 when Oaxaca’s streets were filled with tear gas and protesters’ blood. After a teachers’ strike got out of control hundreds of thousands of people marched on Oaxaca and took over of the city. At least 20 people, probably many more, were brutally murdered by right-wing gangs and policemen. U.S. media covered the story briefly when Brad Will, an Allegheny College grad, was shot dead while photographing a march.
“Thanks to Our Little Virgin of Guadalupe up to now We have Survived the Bullets of out Militarized Government.” ASARO Print, 2007, Kutztown U. Collection.
Things settled down by 2007 when I met César in the then clandestine studio of ASARO, or ” The Assembly of Revolutionary Artists of Oaxaca.” By day ASARO sold prints in the street, at night they stenciled or pasted their political art on the city’s walls. I curated one of ASARO’s first U.S exhibitions at Kutztown University’s Library. Despite a budget of $300, The Allentown Morning Call called KU’s show one the best exhibitions of 2007. The KU ASARO collection traveled to other schools like Ohio U., Marwen in Chicago, and UNC, Charlotte. Many other supporters spread the word about ASARO. Princeton University created a website of their ASARO prints. The best digital archive is at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts’ Art of Dissent website.
In 2008, along with Dr. John Pohl of UCLA, I curated a large Oaxacan print exhibit, La Tinta Grita, The Ink Shouts, at LA’s Fowler Museum. The L.A. Times wrote, “Even if you know little or nothing about the complex political events that inspired it, the art’s technical skill and emotive power is hard to miss.” It was a big event. I got to fly out to California for the exhibition. Unfortunately, no ASARO artists were able to attend, even with official invitations. The U.S Embassy in Mexico City denied them entry visas.
Kutztown University is fortunate César managed to negotiate the red tape. Though he has been a visiting artist in Spain and Japan, this journey to Kutztown is his first to the US. It is difficult for a young single male from Mexico to get a visa to come to the U.S. legally. His visa fees came to $320. Interestingly, Mexicans are charged fees that others, Canadians, for example, don’t have to pay.” Angel” mixed media drawing, by César Chávez
” Angel” mixed media drawing, by César Chávez
It is far easier for U.S citizens to visit Mexico. I’ve been back to Oaxaca every year since 2007. I’ve had the privilege of working the hand-cranked printing press beside César late into the night. He and I hung an exhibition of prints dedicated to the murdered women of Juarez at ASARO’s Espacio Zapata Gallery.
Born in 1979, César is one of ASARO’s senior members. I’ve watched him patiently mentor the younger artists of the crew. He calls me “maestro,” teacher, but the truth is César and his young compadres have taught me more than I can express about the power of creativity and community.
Eckhaus Event: Mexican Potluck Dinner & Oaxaca Videos. Oct 6 at 6. 157 W.Main St. Kutztown
Charla with language students (in Spanish) Oct 11 at 11. Defran 120.
He will spend much of his time in Sharadin’s Printmaking Studio. As a Visiting Artist, he will demonstrate relief printing techniques for Kutztown art students, as well as create a new print in the studio.
“Street Intervention” mural, César Chávez.
The Communication Design Dept. has been most generous in helping César’s journey. Dean Mowder and Prof. Evan Summer have also been supportive. Rohrbach Library and the Modern Language Dept. have lent a hand. Torrey Smith designed a super exhibition brochure. Thanks to everyone who made or bought the fundraising prints. You saved the day.
Unidentified artist spray painting a mural in Oaxaca. Photo by Ita.
Kris Harzinski of the Hand Drawn Map Society will be coming to Kutztown University, Weds. Sept 28, Sharadin 120, 7:30 pm. Event is Free, open to the public & sponsored by our AIGA, American Institute of Graphic Arts chapter. Kris is a Philly-based designer and illustrator. In 2008 he founded the Hand Drawn Map Association, or HDMA. He collects maps that he finds, or that folk send to him and he wrote a book about these curious items for Princeton Architectural Press. I wrote about the HDMA and showed some of this quirky collection including a wild map of Pittsburgh in an earlier blog post, here.
The Hand Drawn Map Association (HDMA) is an ongoing archive of user submitted maps and other interesting diagrams created by hand. Right now Kris is soliciting more maps and wants your mail. A notice on the website states, “In an effort to help increase the physical archive of the HDMA, all postal mail contributors will receive a free HDMA button as a thank-you.” Of course, If you come see him you can show him your map and save the postage.
The New York Times 6th Floor Design blog recently featured artwork by Zoe McCloskey which should be familiar to graphic designers. In the image above Zoe takes individual block printed letters to spell out “Lorem ipsum dolor sit…” The Times’ Hilary Greenbaum calls it “the most popular sentence in the world that is not meant to be read.”
To read more about Lorem ipsum, click the link above. You will find a link there to web site, Lipsum.com. To see more of Zoe McCloskey’s wheat-pasted street art check www.zoemccloskey.net. Zoe got an email from the Times’ blog asking to use her image to illustrate this story. Of course, she was delighted. Not everyone is as nice as the NY Times about asking permission to use your artwork.
Everyday graphic designers swipe images without attribution. You can do some things to protect your images. Don’t put images on the web at a higher resolution that 72 dpi. That way, at least you know your work is not likely to be reprinted.
Let people know you care about where your art goes.
If you have a website, or blog, a place where you put lots of images, let folks know in writing how you feel about them using your work. For example, a student recently pointed me toward a charming historical web comic,Kate Beaton’s Hark A Vagrant. Here’s how Beaton deals with reader’s questions about re-using her artwork.
harkavagrant.com @ 2011 Kate Beaton
Q: Can I use one of your comics for this paper I’m writing/class I’m teaching/blog post I am writing? A: Sure! If you’re not making a profit on it and you cite me correctly, why that’s just fine!
Q: Can I use one of your comics as a basis for this script I’m writing/in my book/my online app/some other enterprise? A: That’s trickier, you may have to talk to my agent, but write to me anyway and outline your ideas, and we can work out fees and rights of use and that sort of thing.
Q: Can I use a drawing for a tattoo or can you draw me a tattoo? A: Oh dear, I am really uncomfortable with this idea! Get an anchor on your bicep, not a fat pony on the small of your back.
Zoe’s most photographed artwork was from New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. She pasted bandages over a house that was destroyed by Katrina. More images can be found here. Even though Zoe and other street artists are essentially putting their work out there for free, it still isn’t right to swipe the work without attribution.
“Even if you are just making a neighborhood flyer or obscure blog entry, images can spread like wildfire these days. It’s always the right thing to give credit when due.” – Lincoln Cushing.
Design historian Lincoln Cushing has written extensively about swiping art on his docspopuli.org website. He is particularly angry, rightly so, when artists make money from the swiped images with no respect for the original creator. As he puts it, “don’t contribute to our own historical amnesia.” Here is his essay on Best Practices for using the Graphic Artwork of Others. I recommend it. Cushing shows some practical examples of ways to credit the original artists, even if you can’t contact them, or don’t even know their names.
Kolam images from NCC Gallery announcement for Bruce Wall & Josh Miller's exhibit.
The images above are from a postcard that appeared on my desk a few weeks ago. I’d never heard of the Indian art form called Kolam, even though I spent some time in India long ago. Luckily, or perhaps due to good karma, I was able to attend the opening of a remarkable exhibition devoted to Kolam at Northampton Community College.
Northampton Professors, Bruce Wall, Fine Arts, and Josh Miller, Communication Design
The Art of Indian Kolam is a collaboration between two NCC profs, Bruce Wall and Josh Miller. In 1980, Bruce Wall was awarded a Fulbright grant. Along with his wife, KU Prof. Rhonda Wall, he traveled to Tamil Nadu in Southeast India to document these ephemeral geometric folk designs. Josh Miller, who teaches web design and motion graphics, is responsible for several magical high-tech interactive aspects of the exhibition. Most notably, Miller engineered an interactive computer program that permits gallery-goers to design their own digital Kolam.
The Virtual Kolam drawing station, photo from exhibition website.
These new designs are uploaded instantaneously to an electronic wall display and digitally archived. This aspect of the exhibition is clearly a hit with the art students. Miller had said he had hoped for 40 or so viewer-generated digital Kolam, that number has been long surpassed, and several hundred designs have already been uploaded.
We missed his lecture but Bruce gave us a shortened version. Kalom are ritual designs drawn daily outside rural households. What looks like chalk is, in fact, a finely ground rice flour mixed with spices. Like the PA German hex signs we see in Eastern Pennsylvania, Kolam are more than simply decorative. The designs protect the household from bad karmic vibrations. Also like hex signs the designs, whether simple or complex, are constrained by a traditional geometry.
Villagers take the daily ritual quite seriously. Wall met a couple of Frenchwomen who had rented a small house in Tamil Nadu and agreed to their landlady’s one rule, -they were to create a Kolam daily. These two woman apparently were perfectionists and embarrassed by their failed attempts at Kolam. After a few days they gave up trying. The Indian landlady ran into the house waving her arms. She screamed, “You must make the Kolam! You must.” The Frenchwomen came up with a culturally appropriate work-around. They hired a young neighbor girl to make their Kolam.
This is a fascinating exhibition about a little known art form. If you are in the area, do check it out. If you are not nearby, check out the excellent interactive website.
The Art of Indian Kolam exhibit runs through October 23. The Gallery, Communications Hall, Northampton Community College, Bethlehem Township, PA. Weekdays: 8am -10 pm & Saturdays: 9-5.
Update: The Awesome Happening announced below already happened. It was a sunny morning in Kutztown. St. John’s PreSchoolers, Kutztown Elementary students, and lots of KU students joined Dallas Clayton for a morning frolic on the lawn. Dallas was a hit. He gave away, by my count, something like 180 of his Awesome books! We didn’t even give him gas money, Let’s hope his generosity boomerangs back at him a hundred times over. We’ve added one photo of the event above, and will add more soon.
Does the name Dallas Clayton ring a bell? KU illustration student Janaya Buck is a big fan. When she heard about the L.A. writer / illustrator’s Awesome Back to School Tour she invited him to visit Kutztown. You are invited, too, this Weds, Sept 14 at 11. The official room is SH 209, opposite the dean’s office in Sharadin. The classroom may not be big enough, in which case we will spill out into Sharadin’s awesome atrium. If the atrium isn’t big enough, we will spill out onto the lawn. If the lawn isn’t big enough we will go dance in the awesome fountain.
Dallas Clayton's book tour stopped at Borders, perhaps a bit late.
Clayton self-published his first children’s book, The Awesome Book. It was so successful Amazon decided to partner with him. Now he has another book, The Awesome Book of Thanks. Both are available for free on the internet. If you buy a book, he donates a book to a bookless child in a hospital or shelter somewhere in the world. This buy one, give one, philosophy is contagious. First, there was Tom’s Shoes, then the retro eyeglass site Warby Parker sent over 50,000 pairs of glasses to needy people worldwide. Now Dallas Clayton is doing it with books. I’ve never used the word paradigm, and I’m not going to start now, but something is happening, and it may be, um, awesome.
From what I see of Dallas Clayton he is in sync with the New Sincerity Movement. “New Sincerity ” according to Wikipedia, “is a term used in music, aesthetics, film criticism, poetry, literary criticism and philosophy, to describe art or concepts that run against prevailing modes of postmodernist irony or cynicism.”
Clayton’s illustration style is charmingly simple: it reminds me a bit of the great Shel Silverstein. So, unless you are a postmodernist cynic, please join Janaya Buck in welcoming Dallas Clayton to Kutztown’s campus.
Sharadin Gallery will soon have a new name, The Marlin and Regina Miller Gallery. I once proposed that after “Gallery” the words “of Art and Design” be added, to be more inclusive of design. Oddly enough, that modest proposal was met with fierce resistance from some faculty.
The 2011 KU Faculty Exhibition includes works of art and design by my colleagues in Communication Design, Art Education & Crafts, and Fine Arts. I have three works in the show. You can see my large woodblock print of St. Patrick, carved in St. Louis at Evil Prints, and printed in KU’s printmaking studio. Prof. Elaine Cunfer will also be exhibiting a print done on KU’s etching presses this year.
Special thanks to Prof. Evan Summer for graciously permitting us to use that studio space. You may be aware Prof. Summer was awarded KU’s 2011 Arthur and Isabel Weisenberger Faculty Excellence Award. His printmaking class has always been a popular art elective for aspiring illustrators. He deserves the honor and we are looking forward to seeing his new etchings.
Grand Opening: Sept. 8, 4-6pm
The (former) Sharadin Art Gallery will officially be dedicated and renamed The Marlin and Regina Miller Gallery in honor of the donors who contributed to the Sharadin Arts Building renovation. The public is invited to the Miller Gallery’s opening reception and dedication ceremony on Thursday, September 8, 4-6 P.M. Light refreshments will be served. Hope to see you there.
Kevin illustrated Moustache! written by Mac Barnett, a brand new book published by Hyperion-Disney. So new, that it arrived in the KU bookstore on Friday, one day after the Return of the CD grads. Check it out. Kirkus Reviews praised the artwork “Cornell ushers the story forward with cinematic artwork, framed in elaborate medieval-like borders, but paced sequentially like a comic book.”
Illustration Concentration 