Posted on Monday, October 8, 2012 by Clay Walsh
Congratulations to all the student finalists in CCA’s third annual R.A.W. Photo (real artists @ work) contest, which featured the theme “I Belong at CCA.”
Contestants were challenged to submit images that depict a project, moment, mood, or other quality of CCA life taken from a student perspective. As expected, the results were as varying as the students themselves!
Read the restPosted on Friday, September 28, 2012 by Chris Bliss
A new survey confirms it -- a CCA education leads to career success.
California College of the Arts ranks first among art and design schools in the country for alumni with the highest-paying jobs, according to PayScale, a compensation data company, in its 2012-13 College Salary Report.
Read the restPosted on Monday, September 24, 2012 by Allison Byers
The Root 100 ranks black influencers and achievers.
Hank Willis Thomas is a contemporary visual artist and photographer whose work tackles themes of racial identity and pop culture.
Read the restPosted on Sunday, September 9, 2012 by Allison Byers
September 27 through October 27
This year CCA celebrates 25 years of the Barclay Simpson Award -- a social and historical record of the past quarter of a century -- with a special retrospective exhibition, We’re All Here Because We’re Not All There, and an accompanying catalogue that features works by select recipients.
Read the restPosted on Tuesday, September 4, 2012 by Allison Byers
An architectural social stage. Whispering walls. A suspended streetscape installation. These are just a few of the innovative and dynamic contributions from CCA faculty and students featured in ZERO1 Biennial, opening September 12, 2012, in San Jose.
Contributors include Architecture faculty members Mona El-Khafif, Jason Kelly Johnson, Nataly Gattegno, and Christopher Haas, alumnus Mark Campos (BArch 2010), and student David Gastaneta (BArch 2013).
Read the restPosted on Tuesday, August 14, 2012 by Jim Norrena
To say CCA alumnus Kaii Tu (BFA Individualized Major 2012) is on the right path toward career success is probably the understatement of the year. That's because Tu, who graduated with high distinction, was recently awarded a 2012 Windgate Fellowship by UNC Asheville’s Center for Craft, Creativity and Design (CCCD).
Learn more about the 2012 Wingate Fellows »
The $15,000 fellowship, for which more than 120 universities across the United States nominate two graduating seniors with exemplary skill in craft, is one of the largest awards in art and design in the nation.
Tu graduated from Harvard University summa cum laude with a degree in Visual and Environmental Studies, but he's also one of the youngest persons to reach the level of brand manager at Procter & Gamble, his employer from 2005 to 2009 in Cincinnati, where he worked in product design, brand architecture, and business management.
Read the restPosted on Tuesday, August 14, 2012 by Lindsey Westbrook
The following speeches were delivered by CCA students at the spring 2012 commencement ceremony.
While I am proud to have been chosen to speak to my graduating class, I had to ask myself, What qualifies me to address my own peers, the very people who spent entire nights in the studio alongside myself? What advice could I possibly bestow upon those with whom I have been growing and learning in concert . . . other than "Ginger is good for settling an upset stomach, and always drink water."
I'm not quite sure, and hopefully by the end of this something pithy yet insightful will have fallen out of my being here. But for now, I think I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on the last four years and congratulate my classmates on following through to the end.
This is for everyone who slept in their studio. For those who took poorly paying freelance jobs only to empty their bank accounts again the next day in the name of art. This is for my friends who took two buses and a train five days a week to get to their six classes and two jobs (you know who you are); for those who left home without looking back to fearlessly take charge of their own destiny. You are the reason that I keep going, keep making, keep thriving.
Read the restPosted on Tuesday, August 14, 2012 by Lindsey Westbrook
The following speeches were delivered by CCA scholarship recipients at the Scholarship Dinner in fall 2011.
My name is Renata Maria Araujo. I am a fourth-year Architecture student, and I would not be here without the Lloyd H. Oliver Memorial Scholarship. It is the reason I attend CCA. I share your understanding that education is the most transcendent gift one can be given, and it allows us to have a foot in the door of the future.
Knowing I have been awarded this scholarship makes me feel proud, and, at the same time, obliged. No artist is an island, and I am very aware of the community I aspire to be part of. More than anything, though, every time I present my work I am thankful for the trust and encouragement this award represents.
I lived abroad almost all my life, so arriving at CCA was a dramatic change. I was even unsure about pursuing architecture. Now, I am in my fourth year, and it is my future career. I've met new housemates, work buddies, and the city of San Francisco. I've learned how to take a design from my mind, to paper, to physical reality. This knowledge has changed the way I see the world. Sometimes I'll look at a building today and think now I understand, or, sometimes, ignorance is bliss.
Read the restPosted on Monday, August 13, 2012 by Lindsey Westbrook
Bean Gilsdorf (MFA 2011) never imagined herself as a professional advice columnist. But in a moment of levity at an editorial meeting of the art blog Daily Serving, she tossed out the idea of an art advice column, and the others wouldn't let it drop.
And once she launched the thing, it really took off. She posted her first "Help Desk" column in January 2012, and it was almost immediately picked up by KQED.org and the Huffington Post.
What have been the most memorable questions? "One was, 'I just discovered that my MFA faculty advisor is an adulterer. I find that morally reprehensible. Should I continue to trust him in our student-advisor relationship?'"
This dilemma can't be reduced to yet another case of people not living up to expectations, Gilsdorf explains, since your advisor is your designated critic-advocate, and the nuances of the trust and the power dynamic are quite specific. In other words, Dear Abby can't deal with this one. You really need the advice of another artist.
What's been the strangest question so far? "'What is the best and most humane way to skin a cat as part of an art piece, in front of an audience'’ I wrote the guy back privately and told him I wasn't qualified to give an answer."
Read the restPosted on Friday, August 10, 2012 by Allison Byers
BERKELEY -- Filmmaker Jacob Kornbluth was shooting a series of short videos about the economic crisis featuring former Labor Secretary Robert Reich when he realized he had a much bigger story to tell.
"I thought, 'I'm sure there are a lot of people like me who are looking for a coherent story of what happened in a movie (format)," Kornbluth said.
The pair agreed to partner on a feature-length documentary, "Inequality for All." Inspired by Reich's book "Aftershock," it's "sort of 'An Inconvenient Truth' for the economy," Kornbluth said.
