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D I V I S I O N O F C O N T I N U I N G E D U C AT I O N · S C H O O L O F V I S U A L A R T S
C R E AT E / C O N N E C T/ C O M M U N I T Y
Martin Abrahams N A N I N S T R U C T O R ’ S J O U R N E Y N by Sarah Grass N
The life and career of Martin Abrahams, SVA Animation faculty, can best be described in the image of a kaleidoscope. His path has looped and swirled in time—itself an animation of his cinematic reality. With familial ties to the magic of old Hollywood and a natural penchant for drawing and painting, the stage for a future animator was set early. In his words, “Animation is just acting with a pencil.” At once political and poetic, personal and commercial, Abrahams work exists in multiple frames per second. First and foremost identifying as an artist, Abrahams broadly covers his many roles: creative director, animation producer, pioneer and innovator of independent animation and video, and even stunt double. I had the pleasure of chatting with Abrahams about his journey from SVA student to multifaceted professional, from his childhood among Hollywood celebrities to the time-traveling practice of his life as an artist. In Continuing Education, Abrahams teaches Introduction to Animation, and coteaches The Animation Studio: Putting It All Together, a course combining traditional hand-drawn and digital animation.
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W H AT’ S IN SIDE
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NE WS Katie Earle and Oge Erike’s collaborative photo series NYC(see) Everything exhibited. IN THE CL A S SROOM Learn how to use light in film in Igor Sunara’s Cinematography course.
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STUDENT ART Check out the work of CE students in our inaugural student art showcase. SPECIAL PROGR AMS Multimedia artist Camille Coy’s experience in the City as Site program.
Summer Residency Programs at the School of Visual Arts #TimeSpaceCommunity
Time
Gemma Holzer, Nathan, 2017.
Residency Programs offered during the summer of 2018: Art Writing Summer Intensive
Illustration and Visual Storytelling: Art and Industry
From the Laboratory to the Studio: Interdisciplinary Practices in Bio Art
Painting and Mixed Media
City as Site: Performance and Social Interventions Design Writing and Research Summer Residency
Sculpture, Installation, New Media Art and Techno-Ceramics
Documentary Filmmaking: The Art of the Interview
Social Design Meets Entrepreneurship
Fine Arts: Residency in Contemporary Practices
SVA TypeLab
Future of Images: The Lens and Screen Arts
Virtual and Mixed Reality Design and Storytelling
Photography and Video
S P A C E Participants in the Summer Residency Program have the benefit of working within SVA’s dynamic, culturally rich campus. Each program offers access to its own unique set of resources and spaces, which have been designed with artists and creative thinkers in mind. 2017 Painting and Mixed Media resident Eiko Nishida.
Community With an emphasis on shared experience and community building, the Summer Residency Program provides a platform where participants can build and expand their networks and create lifelong connections with artists, critics, curators and other arts professionals.
@sva_residencies
#TimeSpaceCommunity
Illustration residency faculty member Andrea Tsurumi with 2017 residents.
Apply at
sva.edu/residency Priority Deadline
April 1, 2018
Nir Arieli
S VA C O N T I N U I N G E D U C AT I O N N E W S
FROM THE
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
We are very proud to welcome you to our first student artwork issue of ContinuEd. In this edition, we are showcasing a selection of extraordinary work created by artists who have taken a continuing education course at SVA. Up until now, due to the sheer volume of individuals who attend our courses, we have been challenged to exhibit our students’ artwork. We have two physical dedicated spaces, but it is impossible to accommodate the breadth of work produced in all of our courses. Happily, with this publication, we are able to provide an additional venue for exhibition, and we will continue to do so with every spring issue of ContinuEd. These works have been carefully chosen by the Division of Continuing Education staff and will illustrate the diversity and talent of our students. If you are interested in exhibiting your art on campus or in the pages of an upcoming newsletter, please submit your work via our website: sva.edu/continued/artsubmissions. We look forward to seeing what you’ve produced in any artistic discipline—whether it be in advertising, animation, computer art, design, film, fine arts, illustration, interior design, photography, printmaking, sculpture or electronic media. Please enjoy the selection of artwork from our students, and join us in fostering a passionate and engaged artistic community.
—Joseph Cipri, on behalf of the Division of Continuing Education C E L E B R AT I N G O U R TA L E N T E D S T U D E N T S
CON T I N UE D P R OJECT SPACE EXHI B I T I ON S
Students’ Work Chosen for Exhibition Opportunity Student Katie Earle on her CE course experience and having her work with collaborator Oge Erike exhibited in the ContinuED Project Space in Gramercy
March 2018 ARTIST: Jessica Klein
CON T I N UE D Spring 2018 edito r i a l sta ff Joseph Cipri, editorial director Keren Moscovitch, managing editor Nika Lopez, editor visual arts pr ess, lt d . Anthony P. Rhodes, executive creative director Gail Anderson, creative director Brian E. Smith, art director Sheilah Ledwidge, editor Carli Malec, designer
Jessica Klein has been looking at models for the past four years in Alphonse Van Woerkom’s portrait class. Through looking, she’s found a lot that doesn’t quite meet the eye. COURSE: Alphonse Van
Woerkom, Portrait Drawing I, FIC-2137-A
co n tri butor s Sarah Grass Georgette Maniatis William Patterson Michael Bilsborough Stephanie McGovern Eric Sutphin © 2018 Visual Arts Press, Ltd. ContinuEd is published by the Division of Continuing Education
April 2018 ARTISTS: Else Heinsen
and Marc Starr “Geometry and Texture,”
sch oo l o f vi sua l a rts Milton Glaser Acting Chairman
exploring works on fabric,
David Rhodes President
COURSE: Elaine Breiger, Etching
Anthony P. Rhodes Executive Vice President
metal and paper.
Workshop, FIC-2858-A FOLLOW OUR STUDENT EXHIBITIONS: #SVACESTUDENT
VO L U ME XC V • N U M B ER 1 facebook.com/SVACE Instagram: @svace Twitter: @SVAContinuingEd youtube.com/CETUBEatSVA sva.edu/ce
ContinuEd (USPS-004171), Copyright © 2018 by the Visual Arts Press, Ltd. is published quarterly by the School of Visual Arts, 209 East 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010. Call (212) 592.2050 to subscribe. Periodicals postage is paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to ContinuEd, 209 East 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010-3994.
You and Oge Erike exhibited your work created in the Digital Embroidery course. Tell us a bit about your experience in the course. I studied fine arts in undergrad, and while I have continued a personal art practice, when I started taking courses in SVA’s Continuing Education I was re-immersed in an environment that encouraged and challenged my practice more critically. This inspired me to push myself further, and in class I created a series on photographs that was an exploration of digital embroidery’s ability to build upon existing imagery. The embroidery brings a fantastical element to the images depicting their particular version of reality—allowing me to alter it in ways that are either complementary, contradictory or unexpected. This allows for a very playful conversation between the photographs and the stitches.
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What is unique about digital embroidery? Digital embroidery allows you to draw with stitches in 1/ 100th of the time it would take you by hand, and it is an incredibly satisfying technique because once you’ve correctly programmed your visual, you just sit back and let the machine do its magic. Faculty Judith Solodkin and Aimee Morgana, each in their own unique way, were able to show me the incredible versatility of the embroidery machines, and how to push their limitations to get the tonal depth and designs that I wanted. I fell in love with the process of digital embroidery, and continuously have ideas for more projects that I could realize on the machines. Working within the fiber arts studio, you also have access to digital printing, sewing machines and garment construction tools, which allow for further expansion of the possibilities of what you can create.
Your art (with collaborator Oge Erike) was selected for display after your submission to SVACE’s Call for Art. What was that like? Oge and I were offered the display cases to show our work NYC(see) Everything. It is a series of photographs capturing a series of “New York minutes” printed onto a poly-satin fabric, which are then embellished with embroidery. The exhibition cases are beautiful and well-lit, and they were a great place to have our work showcased. We had a very positive experience with the Continuing Education staff setting up and taking down the work, and it was a great opportunity to be able to invite people out to see our work. Did the exhibition here at SVA lead you to new opportunities to exhibit your work? Yes. After inviting friends to see the work up at SVA, we were given suggestions of where we should exhibit next. We had a two-week exhibition at Sensei Art Bar Gallery on the Lower East Side, and I have also been continuously encouraged by my SVA instructor to introduce the work to other galleries where we can exhibit next. The SVA exhibition was a great launchpad for further exhibitions of our work. It gave us the opportunity to see the work properly displayed, and gave us the impetus to prepare the work for installation, now that the pieces are ready for additional exhibition opportunities. I am incredibly grateful to the program, and especially to the faculty for encouraging me to take the next step and facilitating having the work shown in the ContinuED Project Space. To see more about this story please visit: sva.edu/continued/earleerike. [Georgette Maniatis] NYC(see) Everything by Oge Erike and Katie Earle was exhibited in the ContinuED Project Space in the fall of 2017. 3
MARTIN ABRAHAMS
What was it like to study at SVA in the 60s? At that time the school wasn’t granting degrees, so it functioned a bit like today’s Continuing Education program. I was a Fine Arts student from 1964 to 1968. The environment was a kind of salvation from the dissent between generations flaring up in universities: the antiwar movement, the voice of youth standing up for themselves. SVA understood and encouraged the way young people thought. It was always at the forefront of freethinking, of individuality, and of political concern. It wasn’t just an academic art school, it was a place for someone like me to really develop my voice, both creatively and politically.
“These days you can’t just be an illustrator, you can’t just be a comic book artist. You need to know a little bit about animation and it’s become so easy to do with new technology.” MARTIN ABRAHAMS faculty
How did a Fine Arts student end up in animation? Well, my family was involved in movies so I’m predisposed to moving pictures. One of my uncles was Dean Martin’s stunt double and he got me started working when I was 11! At the same time I was an artist and I don’t think there’s anything else I ever wanted to be. It was just the natural process that I would make moving images, and the combination of acting and painting led me to animation. At the time it was unheard of for Fine Arts students to take animation courses, but I got all my friends to sign up for a course in the film department and it ran! Nowadays this type of thing is common at SVA. As a student, where did you think you would end up in the future? I liked the idea of making film, especially after working for a year with Michelangelo Antonioni on Zabriskie Point. I also always imagined that I would be a gallery artist. But one develops their talents as well as the need to support themself. I never thought I would do any commercial work, you know the idealism you have when you’re a student, but then you get out and realize, at the very least, you
4 • CONTINUED / SPRING 2018
have to pay for your art! I vowed that I would only do what I want to do, and I did! My commercial work wasn’t separate from me in the end. I was hired for “Marty work” and I went in all directions: music videos for The Dead Boys, The Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, Peter Tosh, Rita Marley, etc. and at the same time I was working on Sesame Street! I also did a lot of corporate video work to support my fine art work.
In the end I did become a gallery artist, my current focus. I’m making still images again like when I was a student, only now I return with the disciplines of filmmaking and animation. I believe artists time travel, past, present and future. Artists live in the moment, so the moment I was a student is the same as now. I’m still the fine artist I was back then, taking images that I fell in love with at three years old and rediscovering new visions with them as an adult. Can you speak a bit about your approach to teaching in Continuing Education? For the young artist, it’s not about whether the work is good or bad, but how to make it better. Continuing Education is an absolutely perfect place to discover one’s self and make what you do better. Also, as Henry Miller would say, “be like a crab.” Let your interests move you in multiple directions! These days you can’t just be an illustrator, you can’t just be a comic book artist. You need to know a little bit about animation and it’s become so easy to do with new technology. My courses are for students of all creative backgrounds.
To see more about this story please visit: sva.edu/continued/martinabrahams. TOP TO BOTTOM: Hands Up (Black Lives Matter), digital Photoshop collage, Giclée archival print, 24 x 36". Break on Through, digital Photoshop collage, Giclée archival print, 53 x 72" Money, digital Photoshop collage, Giclée archival print, 36 x 72".
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RELATED COURSES
Writing an Animation FeatureFilm Screenplay (ANC-2137-A) Gesture Drawing (ANC-2125-A) Creating and Developing Entertainment Properties for Visual Media (CIC-3312-A) Cartooning Basics (CIC-2011-A) For more information, visit sva.edu/ce
IN THE CLASSROOM
The Art of Visual Storytelling
Students utilize backlighting to re-create a look from Blade Runner.
A
rmed with light as raw material, students in Cinematography work collectively to transform physical space into visual narrative. Igor Sunara, SVA faculty of 32 years, guides his students to not only develop their technical skills, but to also develop the relationship between cinematographer and director. The class expands beyond familiar imagery while still keeping traditional styles and sequences in mind. In the words of Sunara, “[We want] to find new ways of seeing the same.” Sunara designed the course for beginners, giving them a basic understanding of the nuts and bolts of digital film equipment, lighting styles and three-point lighting techniques in a realistic working environment. Students have the opportunity to work on a team with the aim of shifting the subtext of the scene from subject to space. Aesthetic is introduced as an imperative element to the film and becomes a dominating tool used to conceptualize visual language. Each session focuses deeper on how to translate the undertones of a film into metaphor and feeling. Sunara encourages his students to always consider the context of the job
by Stephanie McGovern
at hand: Is a horror movie being shot? A romance? Or, is it a reporter covering a story on live television? These elements dictate the lighting choices the cinematographer must make in order to visually communicate with the audience. Through the sampling of 10 different films, students discuss, examine and address the essentials of staging mood that fits the purpose of the scene. Sunara teaches the basics, but also expands on the individual backgrounds and professions of each student. Toward the end of the 10-week session, participants will be ready to work and expand their newly formed techniques. As we have learned,“[Film is] a different way of understanding storytelling. It’s an act of communication and a language already established.” To see more about this story please visit: sva.edu/continued/cinematography. E LEFT: Stills from an “homage to horror film” exercise shot by the fall 2017 Cinematography class.
READY TO CHECK OUT OUR COURSES?
sva.edu/ce
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SPRING STUDENT ART ISSUE
We proudly present our inaugural student art showcase
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When we first conceived the idea of ContinuEd, we knew we wanted to devote the spring edition to student work. Through our call for entries, we were overwhelmed by the volume and
quality of the work submitted. We are very excited to share our students’ work and we hope you’ll be as inspired as we are. Check out how to submit your own work (all CE students are welcome to submit) at sva.edu/continued/artsubmissions .
“The works I’ve accomplished in the advanced painting course with Ira Richer are without a doubt relevant to my career development. They have been pivotal for my progress as painter and artist.” LORENZO IRICO
“In the countless number of semesters I’ve taken his portrait class, Alphonse van Woerkom has fanned the flames of my personal weirdness, all the while sneaking in lessons about art theory and technical accomplishment.”
— SAUL BASS
JESSICA KLEIN Sevan Gatsby
Paloma Martinez-Miranda
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“The strength of the Power of Politics course is in the diversity of the class: professional artists to amateurs, local artists from NYC to people from around the world, like Venezuela and Brazil. I quickly learned that everyone has a story to tell, and this class helped give the tools necessary to tell it.” SAPANA ADHIKARI, MD
Amanda Macchia
“Being surrounded by SVA’s artsy classroom environments and students really excites and inspires me to be creative. SVACE’s courses and experienced and knowledgeable faculty have given me the opportunity to learn new skills and improve old ones.” RASHIN SALAMATI
Elana Goren
Robert Morien
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SPRING STUDENT ART ISSUE
Nadine Butterfield
“It was an amazing time, learning from other people attending this course, hearing their points of view, ideas and experiences. I really developed my skills in photography thanks to the incredible teacher, Richard Rothman, who is really open minded and a talented photographer.” ESTELLA DANDYK
Lin Duoduo
Rashin Salamati
Mae Belle Vargas
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Lin Duoduo
Rumkie Baruah
“The Residency in Contemporary Practices afforded me the opportunity to engage with artists from across the globe, discuss concepts and practices with professional artists, and learn and apply contemporary practices at SVA’s Visible Futures Lab and in my personal SVA studio.” CYNTHIA GROYA
Phapfun Watcharasombut
Kathryn Hart
Eli Lontz
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SPRING STUDENT ART ISSUE
“Whilst I have been painting and drawing for most of my adult life, I have found a special place within SVA, especially in Pastels class. Each class is a new beginning. It has been a wonderful journey that I continue to embrace.” WAYNE GREGORY
Yuko Torii
Wayne Gregory
Wayne Gregory
“This experience opened my mind to the fascinating world of illustration and the variety of niches within it. Consequently, this understanding directed me to Children’s Books Illustration where I found the career I would like to pursue as an artist for the children’s market publications.” CAROLINA VASQUEZ Monica Klasa
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“I have taken Fashion Photography with Janusz Kawa. It has changed the trajectory of my career. After two semesters of studying with Janusz I felt empowered and informed enough to shoot independent fashion editorial work that has since gotten published in multiple magazines.” VERONICA LONDON
“Although I have been doodling all my life, I never actually had a chance to attend a formal institution for an art education. I took a Continuing Education comic drawing class at SVA and it was just perfect! From the teacher to every last student who attended that class, everything was excellent.” SIRAJUS SALEHIN
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SPRING STUDENT ART ISSUE
Sofía Fabiola Ramírez Flores
“Since I have been studying in the silkscreen course in SVA, I have gained a ton of knowledge along with a unique technique. I am so amazed and impressed with the school’s facilities. It helps me create a lot of magnificent artworks.” KANTAPON METHEEKUL
Kantapon Metheekul
Sawa Hotta
Svetlana Jovanovic
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“I’m currently turning my focus to illustration and have been taking classes with Steve Brodner. I find the encouragement, guidance and professional insight I get in his class to be invaluable. For me, it’s important to always reinvent myself and stay current, which is the main benefit I get by taking these courses.” MARIE COONS
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ART IN NEW YORK CITY
Aïda Muluneh, All in One, 2016, pigmented inkjet print, 31 1/2 × 31 1/2" (80 × 80 cm). Courtesy the artist and David Krut Projects. © 2017 Aïda Muluneh. On view at MoMA’s “Being: New Photography 2018” exhibition.
Spring
T
Museum Roundup
he story begins with Joseph Cornell visiting a midtown gallery and finding a collage by the cubist master Juan Gris. The collage, The Man at the Café, inspired new work by Cornell, including 18 of his signature box sculptures, two collages and even a sand tray. Look for a recurring icon—a white-crested cockatoo—alighting throughout the exhibition “Birds of a Feather: Joseph Cornell’s Homage to Juan Gris,” on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art until April 15, 2018. At MoMA, photographers can’t miss “Being: New Photography 2018,” on view March 18 – August 19, 2018. This update to MoMA’s “New Photography” series explores timely questions in contemporary photography, including “diverse lived experiences” and “photographic representations of personhood 14 • CONTINUED / SPRING 2018
today, when rights of representation are contested for many individuals.” Since Donald Trump’s election, you may have seen Zoe Leonard’s seminal text-based artwork, “I want a president,” either online or in person in places like the High Line Park in Manhattan. This spring, the Whitney Museum presents “Zoe Leonard: Survey,” the first large-scale overview of the artist’s work in an American museum. Look for the Whitney to highlight Leonard’s engagement with “histories of photography, embodiments of loss and mourning, institutional regulations of gender, migration and the urban landscape.” The exhibition will be on view March 2 – June 10, 2018. Art fair week is ruled by the Armory Show, but the place for artists is the SPRING/BREAK Art Show.
The Show ventures into underused, historic New York City exhibition spaces, like the former James A. Farley Post Office. It offers independent curators free space where they can try out “visionary perspectives” under a unifying theme (this year: “Stranger Comes to Town”). SPRING/BREAK Art Show is on view March 6 – 12, 2018. [Michael Bilsborough]
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SPECIAL PROGRAMS
A CE Student Continues
T
Camille Coy
he work of multimedia artist Camille Coy conjures the tussle between an analog past and a digital present. Coy has described herself as a “reluctant Millennial,” referring to an awareness that her generation’s reliance on, and preoccupation with, digital technologies often comes with a sense of alienation. Coy graduated from Brown University with a double concentration in Visual Art and Modern Culture and Media. For her thesis, she presented Simulated Magic (2016), an immersive, multimedia installation that took the form of a sculptural mountain that was augmented by sound, video and light components. Coy remains a curious and omnivorous artist, scanning the shifting horizon of new media for cues and clues for her work. Through SVA’s Continuing Education courses, Coy has been able to engage with this sense of curiosity and has explored a variety of courses including Animation; Digital Feminism; The Fourth Dimension: Video; Space and the Broken Screen; and Special FX Makeup and Silicone Prosthetics for Film and Television. It was Ofri Cnaani’s Digital Feminism course that led her to participate in City as Site, one of the
Design with People Skills “Interaction Design is the design of experiences, exchanges and interactions,” explains Gwen Kurtz, program coordinator for the summer intensive in Interaction Design. Often abbreviated to IxD, Interaction Design is a burgeoning, interdisciplinary field that tries to rethink and improve design by studying how people engage with it. From web and app design to ad campaigns in the social media or public sphere, to visualizing data to best communicate to a public, IxD has far-ranging applications in many fields.
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Summer Residency Programs offered through the Division of Continuing Education. The roving, nomadic aspect of City as Site, which focuses on public performance and interventions, offered Coy a chance to test her live-work in real time and space and collaborate with a dynamic group of artists and thinkers working in performance. In the summer of 2017 as part of City as Site, Coy presented Simulation of a Hyperreal Cyborg Demi-Goddess, a durational performance staged in the streets of New York City that folded together ideas of femininity, magic and technology. The piece foregrounded Coy’s hope that “users and producers of digital and new media art continue to search for critical and philosophical answers while reexamining the intersections of their own digital and physical lives.” To see more about this story please visit: sva.edu/continued/camillecoy. [Eric Sutphin] Top to bottom: Camille Coy, Sunday, 2017, comic strip, Photoshop; Simulation of a Hyperreal Cyborg Demi-Goddess, 2017, 2 hours, performance, West 23rd Street— playing on and drawing from human fantasies of femininity, magic and technology; Simulated Magic, 2016, multimedia installation, Brown University.
Taking place over the course of a month, the intensive program allows students to take up to four courses, such as Mobile UX Design and Visualizing Information. These concepts and ideas are applicable to a wide array of disciplines. When asked what kinds of students participate in the program, Gwen shared that, “students come from backgrounds as diverse as architecture, film, graphic design, writing and industrial design. All with a passion to learn and an interest in exploring interaction design are welcome and encouraged to attend.” IxD Summer Intensive was started in 2009 by the full-time MFA program in Interaction Design, originally for those interested in eventually pursuing a degree. We spoke with Liz Danzico, founder and chair of the IxD MFA, on why she started the intensive program. She said, “Because Interaction Design students come from such a wide range of backgrounds, we believed
people would take the summer program before attending the full MFA program—a kind of boot camp. What we found was that the program was also attractive to early and mid-career professionals who cannot return to school full-time. It became a career booster and energizer for people already in the profession as well.” As an example of work made in the monthlong program, we are featuring Crystal Wang, a student who went on to enroll in the MFA program. She took the Visualizing Information course, and created a fun and engaging visual mapping of the hit TV series Friends. In an increasingly interconnected world, IxD is becoming an ever more relevant and in-demand field, where an ad or app cannot simply get by on its good looks, but must also have exceptionally good people skills. See her map at sva.edu/continued/crystalwang. [William Patterson]
Students from the Research Methods course, a part of the Summer Intensive in Interaction Design, with faculty member Jodi Leo in front of their final projects.
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Clockwise from top-left: Gus Balakatounis, Carolina Vasquez, Rumkie Baruah, Wayne Gregory, Jim Clarke, Kathryn Hart, Eunah Hwang.