The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards are heralded as the "Oscars of the comics industry." This month CCA's MFA in Comics and Writing and Literature faculty member Justin Hall received an Eisner Award nomination for No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics (Fantagraphics Books, 2013), which he edited.
Read the restPosted on Wednesday, March 20, 2013 by Allison Byers
Social-practice programs are popping up in academia and seem to thrive in the interdisciplinary world of the campus. (The first dedicated master of fine arts program in the field was founded in 2005 at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, and today there are more than half a dozen.)
Read the restPosted on Wednesday, March 20, 2013 by Allison Byers
Lastly, Filley and Dominguez have enlisted the help of students at the California College of the Arts. This semester, instructor Liz Ogbu is teaching a class called Creative Disruption, which seeks to "understand the needs and desires [of] the diverse constituencies of the Koreatown-Northgate as well as propose opportunities for engagement."
Read the restPosted on Friday, November 16, 2012 by Rachel Walther
A hall of mirrors reflecting an artist's actual view of the world; sculptural train tracks coming out of the wall and into the gallery space; colorful, hanging text-mobiles that evoke psychologically charged word-clouds; a fashion magazine devoted to one fabulous model; and a pop-up shop selling equestrian-themed T-shirts, jewelry, and drawings:
These are the works that will be on view in Fabricators, the culminating exhibition for Glen Helfand's fall 2012 ENGAGE at CCA course, at Jack Fischer Gallery in San Francisco, December 12-22, 2012. The public is invited to the reception on Saturday, December 15, 3-5 p.m.
Read the restPosted on Wednesday, July 11, 2012 by Allison Byers
Fantagraphics Books and award-winning cartoonist Justin Hall have produced a definitive collection of the greatest LGBT comics created over the last four decades.
Out superheroes such as Northstar, Batwoman, and Green Lantern’s Alan Scott weren’t always a part of the landscape of comic book characters. Not so long ago even acknowledging the LGBT community was forbidden in the conventional world of comics. That didn’t stop queer cartooning and characters from existing, though.
Read the restPosted on Monday, July 9, 2012 by Rachel Walther
Matt Silady loves teaching, storytelling, and drawing. And as CCA's unofficial "Professor of Comics," he gets to do all three every day. Silady's passion for his job is infectious. It is truly a calling, and it explains why every fall and spring semester course he's ever taught as part of both the college's undergraduate Writing and Literature Program and the MFA Program in Writing has been full to capacity.
"Any day that I can spread the word and show people what comics can do, it's a good day," admits Silady, whose plans are afoot to greatly expand CCA's graduate and undergrad comics curriculum to offer more opportunities to students interested in graphic storytelling.
Read the restPosted on Thursday, June 28, 2012 by Amanda E. Gross
Within the next few weeks, the three teams of CCA students who won IMPACT Social Entrepreneurship Awards will be heading to Alaska, Tanzania, and Mexico to attempt innovative social transformations. Bolstered by the support of their $10,000 IMPACT grants and their community partner organizations, the teams -- KVAK TV, JuaBar, and 20/20 FOTO -- will work to empower three different communities to address pressing local concerns. Each team brings together a mix of graduate and undergraduate students from different academic programs.
IMPACT is one of the anchor programs at CCA's Center for Art and Public Life, providing students with opportunities to build relationships for social change. It is about innovation, community, collaboration, and making. It celebrates the entrepreneurial drive of CCA students combined with their desire to create a tangible, positive influence within a specific community.
Read the restPosted on Wednesday, June 20, 2012 by Jim Norrena
In the following interview, Writing and Literature and MFA Program in Writing faculty member Matthew Iribarne discusses his recent experience teaching CCA's ENGAGE: Teaching Creative Writing graduate course (spring 2012).
Read the restPosted on Wednesday, June 20, 2012 by Jim Norrena
CCA's MFA Program in Writing and the Center for Art and Public Life launched a pilot course in the spring, called ENGAGE: Teaching Creative Writing. The course marks the first partnership between the graduate Writing Program and Oakland School for the Arts (OSA), an urban, public charter school housed within the Fox Theatre's administrative offices in downtown Oakland.
Read the restPosted on Wednesday, May 30, 2012 by Christina Linden
In fall 2011, CCA faculty member Amy Campos and a group of Interior Design students worked with Dolores Shelter Program (DSP) as part of an ENGAGE at CCA course. Their brief: to generate ideas for the renovation of DSP's homeless shelter on South Van Ness in the Mission District of San Francisco.
The facility's residents are in great need of an empowering and supportive sense of place, hope, and safety, and the aspiration was to facilitate this via better space planning and organization, and the creation of more durable and usable furnishings and storage.
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