Oakland-based Atelier Dion has been in operation for less than 2 years, but has already built up an impressive list of clients and is on its way to becoming a successful ceramics production house. Owners Jay and Rie Dion are a husband and wife duo who met in 2008 while attending graduate school at California College of the Arts. After graduation, the couple realized they could use their skills as ceramic artists to create a business focused on custom fabrication.
Read the restPosted on Thursday, May 2, 2013 by Lindsey Westbrook
Allison Smith (Sculpture chair)
My studio is located in a storefront in downtown Oakland, near project spaces such as Creative Growth and Rock Paper Scissors Collective that combine forms of making, presentation, and exchange. It is conceived as a general store that houses my ongoing project SMITHS, in which I invite various makers to conduct hands-on workshops.
It is also my studio space, office, archive, library, and home. I'm interested in the idea of a general store as a contact zone or space of intimate public exchange that is both material and intellectual. The studio holds my materials, research, remnants of past projects, and works in progress.
Photography by Andria Lo
Read the restPosted on Wednesday, May 1, 2013 by Allison Byers
The month of May not only ushers in warm weather, it traditionally kicks off student show season. With no less than seven schools with a fashion program in the San Francsico Bay Area there are a bevy of opportunities to get out and see what tomorrow's aspiring designers have to offer. First in line to show, and honestly a major SW favorite due to the consistently creative and well executed collections, is the California College of the Arts Senior Fashion Show, set to take to the runway May 17th.
Read the restPosted on Tuesday, April 30, 2013 by Michacia Jones
Earlier this month, CCA alumna Amber Clisura took over the Oakland Metro Opera house to debut her line of Salt Clothing in a fashion show, featuring local Bay Area designers.
Maghan McDowell, who writes for the Style section of the San Francisco Chronicle's Style section was there to capture the event.
Read the restPosted on Monday, April 29, 2013 by Jim Norrena
Neil Grimmer (BFA Sculpture 1995) epitomizes success.
Read the restPosted on Monday, April 29, 2013 by Chris Bliss
It was a CCA lovefest at the AIA San Francisco Design Awards 2013 on Thursday evening, April 25.
Every year AIASF and the local architectural community gather to celebrate exceptional projects. The gala honors the best of Bay Area architectural design and recognizes achievement in a broad range of architectural work.
Read the restPosted on Monday, April 29, 2013 by Allison Byers
For the third year, Giorgio Armani is sponsoring Paris Photo, which is being held this weekend in Los Angeles for the first time, at Paramount Studios. At the fair, the brand has installed the “ACQUA #3” exhibition, a collection of unpublished photographs taken by the photographer Jim Goldberg in Haiti. Gold is a professor of Art at the California College of the Arts* and a member of Magnum Photos.
Read the restPosted on Thursday, April 25, 2013 by Allison Byers
Todd Hido is not your average photographer. The art photos he does have a life of their own. Hido uses his still camera like a movie camera but he only keeps the one scene that defines the entire “movie”. His work is a reflection of the lost “American Dream” that left with the 50’s with an emphasis on the alienation and fracturing of suburban America. His is the stuff of noir films and pulp fiction.
Read the restPosted on Wednesday, April 24, 2013 by Lindsey Westbrook
Sarah Thibault (MFA 2011)
I have a studio in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco. It’s on the second floor of a large warehouse, along with Recchiuti chocolates and the graduate studios of the San Francisco Art Institute. Most days the hallway smells like a combination of chocolate and paint.
The studio itself is a cubicle-type space in a larger room that houses a woodshop, a fire escape, and five other studio/cubicles. I share my studio with the fashion designer Robin Ward. We each get half, split down the middle. I have a desk and a tiered organizer in the corner and one long wall to hang work on.
Read the restPosted on Wednesday, April 24, 2013 by Rachel Walther
It's been more than 50 years since Rima West (Painting 1960) studied painting in the studios of CCA's Oakland campus. And not a day has gone by since that she hasn't relied on her craft for solace and community. She settled in Carmel after leaving CCA and developed a strong support base in the area, which continues today. She maintains a regular studio practice of painting and drawing, and she teaches dance at the Carmel Foundation.
West was born in the Bronx during the Great Depression, and during her childhood her father had a commercial art studio on Broadway in Manhattan. "Art was always in the house," she remembers. An opportunity to do medical illustration for the National Institute of Health took the family from New York to the Washington DC area, and eventually to California. West's father worked up and down the West Coast, designing exhibits for the state's visitor centers. When West was old enough, she started utilizing her painting and drawing skills to assist on these projects, including designs for a visitor center at Yosemite National Park.
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