Createmake Makes A Winner Out of Otis Grad

Createmake, a blog (and soon to be print) that focuses on the many facets of art and design recently held a competition in conjunction with the online portfolio site Society6. At stake was the inaugural feature in the first issue of Createmake Magazine.

They announced the winner yesterday and Otis grad Julian Callos ('09 Communication Arts) bested nearly 150 other artists when his work was selected!

You can read more about Julian's selection here and you can see more of his work here.

Congratulations Julian!

*Image of Julian Callo's work "What Develops" from Createmake.com

Food for Thought

I love to cook so I was very intrigued when I heard about an Otis alum's use of her garden as a culinary co-op for fellow artists. Linda Kunik ('06 Fine Arts) has combined her love of gardening, sustainability and art conversation into an ongoing project dubbed "Plant it Forward- The Starving Artist Project."

Linda describes the project this way- (it is) "A multi-dimensional, interdisciplinary project which examines a sustainable,agricultural practice as it relates to the barter system, while referencing the patron/ artist relationship. 5 large gardens were created, producing all types of vegetables and even fruit. Artists work in the garden in exchange for a bag full of recently harvested produce."

Among the contingent of participating artists are a lot of other Otis folks including- Juna Amano, ('08 Fine Arts), Marissa Magdalena ('08 Fine Arts), Ofunne Obiamawe ('09 MFA Public Practice), Suzanne Oshinsky ('05 Fine Arts), Luke Van Hook ('04 Fine Arts) and Whitney Stolich ('03 MFA Fine Arts).

The Beverly Hills Courier ran a great story about the project last week. You can read the entire article here.

Linda is keeping a very active blog about the project, which you can read here and fellow alum Ginger Van Hook ('04 MFA Writing) is photographing it to document its progress.

Enjoy! I am hungry after writing this and need to get get some lunch.

*Image from Linda Kunik's blog "Plant it Forward LA"

Otis Alums Honored by California Community Foundation

The California Community Foundation has announced their selections for the 2009 Visual Arts Fellowships and Otis is very well represented! Of the 14 artists honored, two are alums-

Sandeep Mukherjee was honored in the mid-career artist area (one of 10), receiving a $20,000 fellowship and Juan Capistran received a $15,000 fellowship as an emerging artist (one of just four).

The CCF site itself is pretty thin but there is a nice write up on the LA Times Culture Monster blog that features an image of Juan's work.

*image from Juan Capistran's website

Telethon Time Warp

If you grew up in the 60's and 70's (and probably before and after for that matter) telethons on t.v. were common place- watch people talk and ask you for money while a telephone number flashes on the screen and a bunch of people in the background take calls.

At Otis in 1977 a group of students led by Joe Potts decided to put on their own telethon with the decidedly different goal of wasting time as a measure of the event's success. More time wasted- more successful. That experience took place on the old campus over the course of 24 hours.

This weekend history repeats itself with a 21st century twist. Led by some of the same folks involved with the original, Otis will be presenting "Telethon Revisited" from Saturday 02/21 at 12noon until Sunday 02/22 at 12noon. The main performance space will be on campus in the Student Lounge and the proceedings will be broadcast live over the web.

The LA Times posted a nice plug for it today. You can read more about it here.

*image from original Telethon Returns performance

Thompson's Tales

Growing up in San Diego, Derek Thompson was determined to become a comic book artist. So focused was that dream that when he came Otis' old location- first to participate in the pre-college program and then as an undergrad studying illustration- that he essentially ignored the "crunchy" environment of MacArthur park, graduating with a BFA in Illustration in 1994. During that time he managed to get his first "real" comic book published and he's been working and thriving in the art and design world since.

Last night Derek returned to Otis to give a talk about his own college experience, his life in the professional world and his advice to our current students. He spoke to a packed house in the Lighting Studio and I was lucky enough to catch his talk. He was engaging and entertaining, moving easily between serious subjects (how to deal with the IRS because you didn't have taxes withheld as a freelancer) and the humorous (how do you solve the problem of Jar Jar Binks?). I really appreciated both his honesty about what the art world is and is not and his unflagging spirit and belief that what is is doing "for a living" is what he was always been meant to do. It was a potent mix of encouragement and awareness that an art student should hear. I only wish I had a recorder with me so I could have taped it and then play it for families when they ask why their kid should be able to go to art school.

You may not realize how often you've seen his work and here are just a few of the movies he has worked on during his stints as a freelancer, as a staffer at ILM and currently at Pixar:

Wall-e
Star Wars Episode III
Unbreakable
Thirteen Ghosts
Mummy Returns
Men In Black

You can find a lot more information at his personal site DerekMonster, his blog and on IMDB. In addition to the lecture last night he is doing portfolio reviews and group projects with our students the rest of the week.