CCA News
Lucas Ainsworth: Industrial Strength
Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2011, by Samantha Braman
What do Delphi Optics (special wilderness goggles that use satellite info to provide specific information about your surroundings), Jungle Walkers (100 percent sustainable cardboard puzzle animals), and the Snowkite (a kite that pulls you across snowy slopes) all have in common? They're all the brainchildren of alumnus Lucas Ainsworth (Industrial Design 2010), and they're all in one way or another expressions of Ainsworth's passion for the outdoors.
Before he came to CCA's Industrial Design Program, Ainsworth studied environmental science at UC Davis. "I always intrinsically loved design, but I was never exposed to it growing up. I thought products were designed by mechanical engineers. Then, during my time at UC Davis I was a whitewater guide in their outdoor program on weekends. The guy who runs the program was a designer at Black Diamond, and he used to tell stories about designing and testing outdoor gear. After graduating and working for a few years, I called him up and asked what it takes to be a designer at Black Diamond. He introduced me to the field of industrial design and said, basically, 'Your only chance is to get into a top-notch design school and rock it.'"
While at CCA, Ainsworth developed and marketed all kinds of products, from toys to high-end electronic devices. It was in Jay Baldwin's Industrial Design 1 class that he conceived the Jungle Walker, an environmentally conscious toy elephant made of cardboard that, when assembled, walks and moves its head with surprising realism.
Read the rest >>>ENGAGE at CCA: All Hands on Deck: part 4
Posted on Monday, March 28, 2011, by Samantha Braman
(This is the fourth of four installments describing highlights of the spring 2010 ENGAGE at CCA courses. You can also download the whole story as it appeared in Glance, CCA's college magazine.)
Community Partner Organization: 826 Valencia, San Francisco
CCA Faculty Leader: Aimee Phan, Writing and Literature
Outside Expert: Judith Tannenbaum, teaching artist and writer
Goal: Mentor John O'Connell High School students through the process of producing an anthology of personal essays
Dave Eggers is one of San Francisco's precious few hometown celebrities, famous for his books and his literary journal McSweeney's. And then there's his awesome pirate store at 826 Valencia, where just behind the peg legs, eye patches, and bottles of Scurvy-Be-Gone is a space devoted to helping students ages 6 to 18 develop their writing skills.
Read the rest >>>Alumna Maria Ryan Uses Design as Activism
Posted on Monday, March 21, 2011, by Samantha Braman
Growing up on a wildlife preserve in California surrounded by farms, homesteaders, nature writers, and the Tahoe National Forest, Maria Ryan (Sculpture 2005) spent most of her time outdoors. When she got to CCA and heard about the availability of Center Student Grants, an idea germinated, and the outcome proved life-changing. She used the grant money to spend the following summer studying plants in the Sierra Nevada and teaching a complementary course, titled "Quilting Indigenous Plant Life of the Sierra Foothills." The project combined her love for nature, handwork, and textiles, and in the end led to the production of a public artwork.
"I used an abandoned building as a community center where I held classes for local children. I hired two guest teachers: one a Maidu woman, who taught the ecological and botanical value of each indigenous plant, and the other Louis Bluecloud, a skilled Mohawk artist who gave lessons in graphic pattern design by stenciling.
"Writing the proposal and seeing this project to completion, I recognized the strength that any project acquires through collaboration. I gained priceless experience, working to engage various factions of the community and utilizing local institutions as assets in the creative process."
Read the rest >>>ENGAGE at CCA: All Hands on Deck: part 3
Posted on Tuesday, March 8, 2011, by Samantha Braman
(This is the third of four installments describing highlights of the spring 2010 ENGAGE at CCA courses. You can also download the whole story as it appeared in Glance, CCA's college magazine.)
Community Partner Organization: Bethany Center Senior Housing, San Francisco
CCA Faculty Leaders: Rachel Robinette and Charlie Sheldon, Design
Outside Experts: Patricia Moore, designer and gerontologist; Jump Associates; Wayne Pan of Affinity Medical Solutions and SciMed Partners Inc.; Anna Cwirko-Godycki of the U.S. Administration on Aging
Goal: Define pragmatic, cost-effective design solutions that benefit elder residents and administrators at Bethany Center
Bethany Center is a progressive, publicly subsidized, low-income, 133-unit elder living facility in San Francisco's Mission District. Its population is incredibly diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, language, and the residents' personal histories. It also has a specific policy of encouraging and welcoming the arts, which made it an obvious ENGAGE match for faculty leaders Rachel Robinette and Charlie Sheldon.
"The Bethany Center was really excited to get a fresh take on its problems -- which are mostly centered on communications, residential life, and community engagement -- from a design perspective," says Sheldon.
Read the rest >>>Elyse Mallouk Has a Way with Words . . . and Art
Posted on Friday, February 4, 2011, by Samantha Braman
Finding a balance between two passions can be challenging, but Elyse Mallouk (MFA 2010, MA in Visual and Critical Studies 2010) built her dual loves into her CCA education. Midway through her first year as an MFA student, she decided to enroll in the dual-degree program with Visual and Critical Studies. Having previously thought of herself as an artist with an interest in writing, she began developing a deeper balance between writing and art.
Read the rest >>>ENGAGE at CCA: All Hands on Deck: part 2
Posted on Thursday, January 27, 2011, by Samantha Braman
(This is the second of four installments describing highlights of the spring 2010 ENGAGE at CCA courses. You can also download the whole story as it appeared in Glance, CCA's college magazine.)
Community Partner Organization: Lighthouse Community Charter School, Oakland
CCA Faculty Leader: Russell Baldon, Furniture
Outside Expert: Justin Champaign of Coalesse
Goal: Create functional, attractive, and affordable tables for Lighthouse’s new K–12 library
Course blog: Visit the course-specific blog
Do you remember your grade-school library? Probably fondly. Do you remember the furniture? Probably not at all.
This course set out to change that, for at least a few kids, at Lighthouse Community Charter School. Furniture chair Russell Baldon had wanted to work with Lighthouse for years, knowing that its predominantly inner-city Latino students would benefit tremendously from exposure to the design world. Even before he knew about ENGAGE's impending launch, he'd already been in touch with Lighthouse's director of development and with Justin Champaign, an industrial designer at the furniture firm Coalesse, about some sort of collaboration. (Champaign is also a CCA Furniture 2007 alum.) "When I heard the rumor that ENGAGE was coming," Baldon says, "I saw this course as a natural fit."
Read the rest >>>ENGAGE at CCA: All Hands on Deck: part 1
Posted on Wednesday, January 19, 2011, by Samantha Braman
(This is the first of four installments describing highlights of the spring 2010 ENGAGE at CCA courses. You can also download the whole story as it appeared in Glance, CCA's college magazine.)
"Art school can definitely put you in a kind of bubble. But it can also help you break out of the bubble."
So said one of the 140 students (although more of them were thinking it!) coming up for air after one of the most intense and immersive experiences of their college careers thus far: ENGAGE at CCA.
This new group of project-based courses is an outgrowth of several decades of community-centered work by CCA students and faculty. This past spring more than 140 students, enrolled in 10 different courses, did everything from creating ceramic nesting modules for threatened bird species at Ano Nuevo Island to designing new systems for elders at Bethany Center Senior Housing. More than a dozen new courses are happening this academic year, including a Writing course with San Quentin State Prison, a Textiles course with Zen Hospice Project, and a Community Arts course with La Cocina (the San Francisco "incubator kitchen" for women).
Read the rest >>>Jessica Silverman: Gallerist Extraordinaire
Posted on Thursday, January 6, 2011, by Samantha Braman
"Art dealer" may be the best way to describe her day-to-day work, but Jessica Silverman (MA Curatorial Practice 2007) wears many hats as the founder and director of Silverman Gallery in San Francisco. While her exhibition programs have garnered increasing visibility and national press and her business has grown and thrived, Silverman has needed to be not only "dealer" but also curator, director, writer, installer . . . and sometimes delivery person!
Read the rest >>>Robin Terra's Terra Studio Designs for Paper and Pixels
Posted on Monday, November 8, 2010, by Samantha Braman
Birmingham . . . or San Francisco?
Robin Terra (Graphic Design 1985) never had any intention of starting her own business, but in 2001 when her employer announced the office's impending relocation to Alabama, well . . .
Read the rest >>>Alexandra Grant Spreads Words of "Love" and More
Posted on Tuesday, October 26, 2010, by Samantha Braman
In summer 2008, the artist Alexandra Grant (MFA 2000) was invited to participate in the newly relaunched Watts House Project (WHP), an ambitious undertaking spearheaded by the internationally renowned artist Edgar Arceneaux. She hoped her design would attract attention, but little did she know quite how much she'd receive, and how international it would be!
Read the rest >>>