CCA News
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail... I mean, a name. The story of San Francisco's greatest new art space, Will Brown
Posted on Thursday, May 10, 2012, by Lindsey Westbrook
Will Brown is an actual guy. A very cool and nice guy, according to all who know him, plus a CCA Curatorial Practice graduate student. Once upon a time, not too long ago, Will was spending a lot of time by himself down at 3041 24th Street, which some of you may recognize as the address of the late, great Triple Base gallery. Triple Base was founded in 2006 by CCA Curatorial Practice grads Joyce Grimm and Dina Pugh (both class of 2006) and finally closed in 2011. Toward the end there, the space's main "resident" who was keeping it up and running and officially occupied was their friend Will.
If you've been down to that block of 24th Street in the last few years, around Harrison and Folsom, you know that it has become a lovely haven of art and food while retaining its Mission District feel. So three friends of Dina and Joyce (two of them also alumni of CCA grad programs) decided to step up and take over the lease. The idea of running their own experimental/conceptual gallery space, once conceived, seemed like an offer they couldn't refuse.
The question that almost derailed everything was what to name this new venture, but under their self-imposed 11th-hour wire came the stroke of genius. "Will Brown" is of course a spoof on commercial gallery naming conventions. It is also a benign inside joke, and a well-meant tribute to a friend. Keeping it in the family, so to speak. The three of them also liked the idea of operating as a singular, semi-authorless entity.
The three new proprietors of Will Brown (the gallery) are David Kasprzak (MA Curatorial Practice 2011), Lindsey White (MFA 2007), and Jordan Stein (a 2005 MFA grad of the San Francisco Art Institute). Far easier than picking a name was selecting the theme of their first show, which opened on January 27 and closed March 4. The provocative premise, like the gallery's name, was a refutation of art business as usual, and specifically a play on art ownership and art-world transactions. Illegitimate Business featured artworks and ephemera "with a peculiar provenance," in other words acquired by their (anonymous) lenders under less-than-totally-up-and-up circumstances. The original concept came from old conversations with the curators' artist friends Zachary Royer Scholz (MFA 2006, MA Visual and Critical Studies 2009) and Brion Nuda Rosch.
Read the rest >>>CCA Faculty and Recology Alum Barbara Holmes Stages New Work at SOMA Residencies
Posted on Wednesday, May 2, 2012, by Lindsey Westbrook
Furniture faculty member Barbara Holmes spent most of February installing a tour de force exhibition in an impressive new space in one of San Francisco's more down-and-out neighborhoods. Located at 1045 Mission Street between 6th and 7th Streets, it will be on view through Sunday, May 27, 2012. Since it's viewable only through the front windows, visitors are welcome to come take a look 24 hours a day. At night the piece is theatrically lit with interior spotlights.
1045 Mission Street is a 100-foot-long window-front space on the ground floor of SOMA Residencies. In 2011, the owners invited Recology's artist in residence (AIR) program to utilize it for off-site exhibits. Holmes is one of the first artists to install there, and she leaped on the opportunity to conceive her most ambitious piece to date -- one that would specifically take advantage of the entire available space and the nighttime illumination possibilities. The opportunity to create something so abstract, almost alive, on this big of a scale, was deeply interesting.
Also interesting were her interactions with people who live in the neighborhood and passed by while she was installing. The door was closed, but that didn't stop people from tapping on the window pretty much daily, wanting to ask about what she was doing and, occasionally, relate their life story. "It's a pretty tough neighborhood. Sometimes the interactions were funny, sometimes sad. A lot of the people who were passing by, seeing the piece, were not people who would ordinarily go to art galleries, so it was wonderful to reach them with an artwork."
Read the rest >>>Little Paper Planes: 20 Artists Reinvent the Childhood Classic
Posted on Thursday, April 19, 2012, by Lindsey Westbrook
Little Paper Planes: 20 Artists Reinvent the Childhood Classic
Chronicle Books, 2012
Paperback, 84 pages, $19.95
Kelly Lynn Jones (MFA 2010, Painting/Drawing 2002), owner of the online artist store Little Paper Planes (which carries work by many CCA artists!), has created this awesome celebration of a timeless pastime. The book offers constructible paper airplanes and a few other airplane-inspired crafts, taking the paper plane to a whole new level, from paper-doll planes and shark planes to plane mobiles and mix-and-match gliders. Featuring work by rising stars and indie darlings as Gemma Correll, Michael Hsiung, Julia Rothman, Alyson Fox, and Lisa Congdon. Printed on perforated pages for easy removal and assembly, the planes are accompanied by instructions, artist interviews, and loads of visuals.
Read the rest >>>None of This Is Real
Posted on Thursday, April 19, 2012, by Lindsey Westbrook
None of This Is Real
Sidebrow Books, 2012
Paperback, 115 pages, $18
Miranda Mellis (Writing faculty) imagines a not-too-alternate reality of philosophical children, reincarnating chimeras, mutant matriarchies, and kind seers adapting to affliction. These five fictions question what is knowable and what actions can be taken in the face of loss of family, heritage, ecosystems, agency, and power. A face incapable of masking its sneering rebellions; young sisters in search of their missing mother; a page whose very body extracts meaning from occult readings in response to alienation; a never-ending line for coffee that becomes a surreal site of quotidian wars in miniature. Mellis brings the playfulness of contemporary fabulism to bear on today's pressing ethical and political issues, exploring the potential and limits of magical thinking with empathy, subtle humor, and an engrossing mastery of the fictional form.
Read the rest >>>Under the Halo: The Official History of Angels Baseball
Posted on Thursday, April 19, 2012, by Lindsey Westbrook
Under the Halo: The Official History of Angels Baseball
Insight Editions, 2012
Hardcover, 264 pages, $50
Under the Halo: The Official History of Angels Baseball is designed by Graphic Design faculty Brett McFadden and Scott Thorpe of the firm MacFadden and Thorpe. From the team’s inaugural season in 1961 under the ownership of film legend Gene Autry, this book traces memorable moments, personalities, and accomplishments through first-person accounts by Angels past and present. It includes more than 300 images, a vintage scorecard, program guide reproductions, and a removable timeline.
Read the rest >>>Tag Toss and Run: 40 Classic Lawn Games
Posted on Thursday, April 19, 2012, by Lindsey Westbrook
Tag Toss and Run: 40 Classic Lawn Games
Storey Publishing, 2012
Paperback, 208 pages, $14.95
Adam McCauley (Illustration faculty) illustrates this book by Paul Tukey and Victoria Rowell. Remember those long summer afternoons spent playing Kick the Can, Capture the Flag, and Wiffle Ball? Now, even if you can’t remember the difference between dodgeball and double ball, you can brush up on the rules of your favorite classics (plus learn a few new ones!) and begin some new family traditions with your own kids.
Read the rest >>>Fashion and Sustainability: Design for Change
Posted on Thursday, April 19, 2012, by Lindsey Westbrook
Fashion and Sustainability: Design for Change
Laurence King Publishers, 2012
Paperback, 192 pages, $29.95
Fashion Design faculty Lynda Grose coauthors (together with Kate Fletcher) this book about the potential of sustainability to transform both the fashion system and the innovators who work within it. Sustainability is arguably the defining theme of the 21st century. The issues in fashion are broad-ranging and include labor abuses, toxic chemicals, and conspicuous consumption, giving rise to an undeniable tension between fashion and sustainability.
The book is organized into three parts. The first is concerned with transforming fashion products across the garment's lifecycle and includes innovation in materials, manufacture, distribution, use and re-use. The second looks at ideas that are transforming the fashion system at root into something more sustainable, including new business models that reduce material throughput. The third is concerned with transforming the role of fashion designers and looks to examples where the designer changes from a stylist or creator into a communicator, activist, or facilitator.
Read the rest >>>Amana Harris: Self as Super Hero: Handbook on Creating the Life-Size Self-Portrait
Posted on Thursday, March 8, 2012, by Lindsey Westbrook
Self as Super Hero: Handbook on Creating the Life-Size Self-Portrait
Sankofa Publishing, 2011
Kindle edition, $18
This book is by Amana Harris, CCA alumna and faculty member in Diversity Studies The ArtEsteem Self as Super Hero curriculum was inspired by a need for heroes for our children, youth, and communities. The heroes we need are defined as exceptional individuals or beings who inspire, protect, and serve, standing and taking action for justice and for the well-being of the environment, people, and animals. This multidisciplinary curriculum takes children, youth, and adults through a journey of self-exploration, family and cultural research, societal assessment, and development of aesthetic tools for artistic creation. The ArtEsteem Super Hero is a re-created version of self that embodies superpowers that help create a more loving and peaceful world. In the end, the goal is to allow you to stretch your imagination and integrate your ideas to expand and make this curriculum your own.
Read the rest >>>Zack Rogow: My Mother and the Ceiling Dancers
Posted on Thursday, March 8, 2012, by Lindsey Westbrook
My Mother and the Ceiling Dancers
Kattywompus Press, 2012
Paperback, $18
My Mother and the Ceiling Dancers is MFA Program in Writing faculty Zack Rogow's seventh collection of poetry. The book is "Dedicated in loving memory of my mother, Mildred 'Mickey' Rogow: These poems celebrate her life and values, as well as the reasons for living that eluded her at points along her path." This is Kattywompus Press’s first full-length book, and it is hand-sewn, hand-glued, hand-bound.
Two of the poems have been nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. Several of the poems have already been published in anthologies. A series of tanka poems in the collection won the Tanka Splendor Award for best tanka sequence in English. Melissa Stein, author of Rough Honey, says, "Zack Rogow's poems tenderly evoke life’s ironies, bitter and sweet. They have a passionate sweep: the East River to Venice canals, Van Gogh's ear to sandcastles, filterless Pall Malls to the dazzling, dying stars. And they have a big, beautiful, aching, resonant heart."
Read the rest >>>Georgia Bellflowers: The Furniture of Henry Eugene Thomas
Posted on Thursday, March 8, 2012, by Lindsey Westbrook
Georgia Bellflowers: The Furniture of Henry Eugene Thomas
Georgia Museum of Art, 2012
107 pages, $16
This catalogue is designed by Graphic Design faculty Brett McFadden and Scott Thorpe of the firm MacFadden and Thorpe to accompany the first-ever exhibition of works by Henry Eugene “Gene” (or “Shorty”) Thomas (1883-1965) at the Georgia Museum of Art. Thomas worked from his home in Athens, Georgia, as an antique dealer and furniture maker for more than four decades. Because he relied on locally found antiques for inspiration and because he favored local woods such as walnut, cherry and maple, his furniture has a distinctly regional flair. The exhibition features approximately 17 pieces of furniture and related ephemera.
Read the rest >>>