What began in 2008 as a visit by CCA President Stephen Beal to the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing is now blossoming into a productive relationship between the two schools. This fall CCA enrolled six more undergraduate students from CAFA’s International Foundation Course; they join the first four students who began their studies at CCA in fall 2010.

In the first foray into faculty exchanges, David Hisaya Asari (Graphic Design) and Lynn Marie Kirby (Film) spent spring break 2011 at CAFA. An IFC instructor visited CCA in August. And Furniture faculty member Christopher Loomis is in Beijing now teaching for the semester.

What inspired this relationship between the two schools and what are the plans for the future?

Laying the Groundwork

In October 2008 President Beal was invited to participate in a forum on international art education, as part of CAFA's 90th anniversary celebration. He was impressed with the 4,000-student institution and its leaders, many of whom have ties with U.S. institutions. President Pang Gongkai was a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley. Vice President Xu Bing, well-known artist and recipient of the prestigious MacArthur “genius” award, lived and worked in New York for more than 10 years. Dean of Design Min Wang completed his graduate work in design at Yale and worked for more than 20 years in the United States, including a stint at Adobe before forming his own firm in San Francisco.

Team CCA Meets Goal, Places Among Top 50 Fundraising Teams!

California College of the Arts joined AIDS Walk San Francisco 2011 held in Golden Gate Park Sunday, July 17, which marked the 25th anniversary of the event. Team CCA exceeded its $5,000 fundraising goal by almost 20 percent, contributing $5,810 to the largest AIDS fundraising event in Northern California that attracts hundreds of thousands of donors from the Bay Area and across the country.

The dress code on the invitation read “Black/Glitter/Glam,” and the 370 guests more than obliged at the Mirror Mirror gala on March 31, held in honor of the 150th anniversary of legendary retail store Gump’s. The sold-out event raised $417,000, with net proceeds earmarked for the California College of the Arts (CCA) Scholarship Fund.

Cochairs Ann Hatch, CCA trustee, and Jennifer Morla, CCA Graphic Design faculty member, couldn’t have been happier with the results. “We are so grateful to Gump’s for selecting CCA as the beneficiary for the gala. Our mutual interest in supporting artists and designers makes us ideal partners. Through the generous sponsorship of Gump’s, we will be able to help many talented and deserving students obtain a CCA education,” said Hatch.

California College of the Arts (CCA) has purchased from Greyhound Lines, Inc. a two-and-a-half-acre (approximately 102,000 square feet) vacant lot in the Mission Bay area of San Francisco. The property, formerly a bus maintenance facility, abuts CCA’s main San Francisco campus building at 1111 Eighth Street and is bordered by 7th, Hooper, and Irwin Streets. The purchase price was $8.4 million.