CCA News
An MFA Alumni Near Sweep in SMART Art: Trash Into Treasure Competition
Posted on Tuesday, July 14, 2009, by Jim Norrena
(l to r): Julia Anne Goodman, 2nd place; Alicia Escott, 4th place; Scott Oliver; 3rd place; Harriete Estel Berman, 1st place
Can something described as “blue junk,” “disintegrated upholstery,” or “IKEA plastic” become a winning entry in an art competition—one that is affiliated with many of today’s high-profile international artists?
Absolutely! Just ask CCA alumni Julia Anne Goodman, Scott Oliver, and Alicia Escott, whose entries were awarded second, third, and fourth place, respectively, within their competing categories in the SMART Art: Trash Into Treasure competition, sponsored by Adventure Ecology, Sculpt the Future Foundation, and San Francisco's Lincart Gallery.
The ecologically themed design competition, much like CCA, inspires students to design and build with sustainable and environmentally responsible practices in mind. Its purpose is to illustrate the most pioneering solutions to beating waste by redesigning discarded materials into works of art as well as functional everyday items. The competition invited individuals and organizations from the Science Marketing Art & Industrial Design Research and Technology (SMART) sectors to present artistic yet tangible solutions to counter waste.
All three artists earned their MFAs at CCA, with Goodman and Escott having just graduated in spring 2009. Oliver (MFA, Wood/Furniture 2005) graduated with high distinction. He also earned his undergraduate degree at the college in Graphic Design in 1994, as well as received the Barclay Simpson Award (2005) and the Ronald & Anita Wornick Award (2004), each awarded through CCA.
About the Artists’ Work
Goodman’s Certain is Nothing Now (second, clockwise): “The main material used is gathered and repurposed blue paper. The majority of the paper came from junk mail that I collected in my neighborhood over the course of the year and then sorted through by color.” (CCA faculty, staff, and students will likely recognize Goodman’s amazing sculpture of suspended blue concentric circles from the 2009 MFA Graduate Exhibition.)
As second-place winner, Goodman received:
- $500 cash award
- HP laptop computer (Hewlett Packard is the official technology supplier for the Plastiki Expedition.)
- Featured in the online Art Gallery of the SMART Art Competition website
- Displayed as part of the art exhibit of the Plastiki launch party
Visit Julia Anne Goodman’s website to view additional work by the artist.
Oliver’s The Valley (third, clockwise): “The materials used in the making of The Valley came almost entirely from the upholstery and stuffing of an old chair I found slowly disintegrating on the lot of a salvage yard. I carefully excavated the chair, sorting the various materials into piles that I could then ‘paint’ with.”
The chair’s so-called landscape depicts predammed (and preflooded) Hetch Hetchy Valley in 1923. The space projects an inviting yet impossible place to reside. “The distance allows for contemplation of the literal land inextricable connections between so-called artificial and natural environments, implicating the role art has played in mediating our experience of this relationship.” (See artist’s description of work.)
As third-place winner, Oliver received:
- A treasure chest of art supplies
- Featured in the online Art Gallery of the SMART Art Competition website
- Displayed as part of the art exhibit of the Plastiki launch party
Visit Scott Oliver’s website to learn more about the artist.
Escott’s Drawing of the California State Animal Last Spotted in 1923 (fourth, clockwise) is ink on two-dimensional 80 x 100 in. plastic packaging and is a drawing of the California state animal, last spotted in California in 1923 in Sequoia National Park, yet never seen again. The image depicts the animal walking off low-density polyethylene (LDPE), a thermoplastic made from petroleum, plastic packaging from IKEA’s Sultan Hasselback–model mattress.
Visit Alicia Escott's website to view additional work by the artist.
(On a side note that relates this story even further to CCA alumni connections, Goodman and Escott are each doing separate residencies at J. B. Blunk Residency, run by CCA Alumna Mariah Neilson, who is J. B. Blunk's daughter.)
For the competition artists were required to produce work from materials that were a minimum 80-percent recovered, reused, or recycled. Each winning proposal per category received a financial grant to support its development. (Read more about SMART Art: Trash Into Treasure competition prizes and categories.)
The SMART Art: Trash Into Treasure competition coincided with the start of Adventure Ecology’s Plastiki Expedition (a 12,000-nautical-mile voyage across the Pacific Ocean via a boat that is almost entirely composed of reclaimed plastic soda bottles!) and culminated with the announcement of winners being made during the Plastiki launch party held May 28 at downtown San Francisco’s Lincart Gallery. CCA Provost Mark Breitenberg was also on hand to support the college’s esteemed faculty and students: "CCA faculty and alums win many awards, but it was particularly gratifying they did so well at this competition. CCA's commitment to making sustainable art and design has quickly become profound and pervasive across the curriculum—in Fashion Design, Industrial Design, and MBA in Design Strategy, to name just a few programs. Students are truly demonstrating their passion for 'making art that matters' ... and doing so with results that are conceptually rigorous and aesthetically compelling."
Winning artists, including the top 10–20 finalists, were featured in the Plastiki launch party art exhibition, as well as posted at the SMART Art competition gallery website. You can view the work of other CCA faculty and alumni participants such as First Year Program lecturer Christine Lee and MFA Program in Writing graduate / Pre-College staff member Corisa Moreno.
On behalf of the college, Mark Breitenberg sums it up: "Our congratulations go out to these alums and to the instructors who inspired them."
About Action Ecology
Founded in 2005 by David de Rothschild, Adventure Ecology harnesses the power of dreams, adventures and stories in order to inspire, educate and engage individuals, communities and industry to become agents of change. By building on its edutainment ethos of making learning an adventure, Adventure Ecology’s unique expeditions to some of the world’s most dangerous, exciting and environmentally challenged regions, continue to not only call attention to humanities impact on our Earth’s most remote and fragile ecosystems but also helps to articulate and promote a better understanding and respect for one of the most pressing ecological issues of our time, in this case waste.
Adventure Ecology’s long-term vision is to create a global youth-based community of changer-makers that learn, share, speak, and most importantly act on addressing our global sustainability issues in order to promote a greater respect, connection and responsibility for our planet, its environment, species and people. Visit the Adventure Ecology website for additional information.
[Slideshow images used with permission: Lincart Gallery, Robert D. Herrick II, Corisa Moreno]
Related
Visit the Lincart exhibition gallery to view SMART Art competition winners at the awards ceremony.
Visit SFLuxe.com to read more about the Plastiki Expedition, including visiting hours for Plastiki Mission Control Center at Pier 45 in San Francisco, which is now open for visitors.
Watch a video of the Plastiki Expedition on YouTube.
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