Bravo Alumni - March 2017
March 01, 2017
* Alumni, we love hearing from you! Send any updates or news to alumni@pnca.edu so we can brag about you in our next issue of Bravo!
** Listings are organized by graduating class year.
2016
Ryan Patrick Krueger ‘16 and Sean Chamberlain ‘19 have opened a new experimental art space, Project205, which recently presented 00:00:00 by Goodsport (Nicolo Gentile ‘13).
Danielle Foushée MFA ‘16 is an Assistant Professor at the Herberge Institude for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University. She recently received a Research & Development Grant from Arizona Commission on the Arts to develop a self-illuminating shade shelter.
Tyler Mackie, Maggie Condit MFA ’16, Leslie Vigeant MFA ‘11, Annie McLaughlin ’15, Crystal Schenk, Malia Jensen ‘89, Pippa Arend ’94, and Heidi Schwegler exhibited work in February’s Nasty Women exhibition at Eutectic Gallery.
Lesley Silvia MFA ‘16 was also accepted into a residency in Toronto in July, and was recently featured in a local arts and culture magazine, Artbourne. And this past month, she painted a mural on the outside of an Orlando art supply store. You can learn more about what Lesley’s been up to on her blog.
Damien Dawahare ‘18 and Daniel Gestri ‘18 as Team Orion won judge's choice for the visual design category at the Adobe Creative Jam Portland. They were assigned the prompt 'Human' and given 3 hours to concept and execute an image. Other PNCA participants in the Jam included: Samantha Fowler ‘17, Joaquin Golez ‘17, Alex Gregory ‘17, Forrest Grenfell ‘16, Kami Karras ‘17, and Amy Meyer ‘16.
Phoenix McNamara MFA ‘16 is teaching at PNCA and has an installation piece accepted into What the Festival this summer.
The 2nd Annual Portland Winter Light Festival happened and PNCA was at in the thick of things! Prof. Mary Preis was the PNCA representative for the festival. Prof. Laura Heit was behind a Nightlights commission with RACC and Open Signal. Amy Meyer ‘16 and Forrest Grenfell ‘16 also had installations at the Festival. Siblings Victoria and Joseph Wells launched paint.IR, which allows the user to spray paint light onto OMSI walls.
Margaret Parsons '16 and Jackson Campbell Ward '15 have just finished principal photography on their first feature-length film, using a local cast, skeleton crew, and a minuscule budget ($900!). They did it with support from the exhibitions department at PNCA and sound equipment from PCM/Open Signal. See pics and stuff on Facebook at Vampyrfilmproject.
Lauren Sinner MFA ’16 will be teaching two classes at the Mendocino Art Center in July. She is currently Co-curating the BFA Craft thesis show at OCAC with Namita Wiggers. She is the Assistant editor of Surface Design Journal as well as studio assistant to Marie Watt and personal assistant to Namita Wiggers.
2015
Amanda Zito ’14 is now the graphic designer for Latus Harley Davidson.
Kara Haupt ‘15 is now a Senior Designer at The New Yorker. She’s done a few other impressive things since she graduated: co-led Content and Social design for the Hillary Clinton campaign, continued working on Babe Vibes, a media company and collection of work by creative women. Babe Vibes has been featured in Time Magazine, Hello Giggles, and The Hairpin.
Working Library, a project and production space by Laura O’Quin MFA ’15 and Rory Sparks, was selected from a rigorous pool of applicants to independently occupy the c3 incubator space on the corner of N Chicago Ave and Lombard St. The project, beginning operations in February of 2017, will be home to a community amassed library, studio-run printing press, and the new c3:working library residency. The residency will produce artist projects dealing in publication, archive, and collection through the lens of artists of color. Mark your calendars for the March 9 Open House, 6-9PM!
As you may have heard, Make+Think+Code is one of the newest hottest new projects in Portland. It’s a digital fabrication and research studio, and involves a whole passel of PNCA alumni including Stephanie Fogel ’15, Phillip Thomas ’15, Marlowe Dobbe ‘16, among many others. Check out the M+T+C website for more details and opportunities to take or teach classes!
Lou Watson ‘15 will have work in an exhibition at The Schneider Museum of Art this spring alongside Vanessa Renwick, Nina Katchadourian, Peter Sarkisian, Julia Oldham, and Ken Matsubara. Lou was also nominated for the 2017 Follow Fluxus Award (Weisbaden, Germany).
Mikele Schnitman MFA ’15 is working for Axiom custom products for the last year as a designer builder and 3D maker. He’s worked on various design-builds, from architectural model mockups, to design directives, signs, furniture, molds and casts, 3D scanning and 3D printing and 9axis milling and also working with some artists like Diane Jacobs.
Amanda M. Wilcox MFA ‘15 is currently working as a performance artist in Cottage Grove, Oregon under the auspices of working at a food establishment. Her art practice involves relational art practice, visualizing world peace while satisfying the needs of beings through offerings of food and compassion.
The curatorial project Verge PDX by Alanna Risse MFA ’15 has taken on a second space. She is now curating The Red Fox in North Portland as well as Flickerbox, Inc, a web development firm in downtown. Andrew Lorish MFA ‘13 will be showing at The Red Fox in April 2017 and Kanani Miyamoto MFA ‘16 will be showing with Verge in May at Flickerbox Inc.
2014
Sarah Simmons ‘14 and Annie McLaughlin ’15 have launched a new exhibition space in SE Portland called Bay Space. Bay is a contemporary art gallery and curatorial platform committed to facilitating connections within the art community and to supporting artists and their work. Bay also houses a small, thoughtful selection of art objects, publications and wares. March 3rd, 6-9pm, is its grand opening and the opening reception for Kevin McNamee-Tweed's exhibition, The End.
Willow D’Arcy MFA ‘14 is animating 4 animated sequences for My Rock ‘n Roll Fantasy, a documentary about Molly 16 that will screen at the Hollywood Theater on March 9, 7PM. Don’t miss it!
Women Who Draw is an open directory of female* professional illustrators, artists and cartoonists who take freelance work. It was created by a group of women artists in an effort to increase the visibility of female illustrators, with an emphasis on female illustrators of color, LBTQ+, and other minority groups of female illustrators. Looking through the portfolios, it’s a veritable who’s-who of female illustrators and cartoonists… and there are at least nine (9!) PNCA alumni on the list: Molly Mendoza ‘14, Adriana Vawdrey ‘12, Cate Andrews ‘14, Marlowe Dobbe ‘16, Samantha Mash ‘13, Aimee Flom ‘14, Tess Rubinstein ‘17, Elana Gabrielle ‘17, Maryam Shari’ati ‘14, and faculty members Rilla Alexander and Meg Hunt.
2013
Anthony Hudson '13 is working with Artist's Repertory Theatre on a new version of LOOKING FOR TIGER LILY which won him a second RACC grant last year and was featured on OPB's Think Out Loud. Anthony was also recently nominated for the Henry Art Gallery's Brink Award for emerging artists! Follow more of Anthony’s work at thecarlarossi.com.
For the last 4 years, Peter Falanga MA ‘13 has been working on the TV series Portlandia as the Art Department Coordinator of the show, working directly with the Set Decorator and Production Designer to help source props, track sets, monitor the Art crew, etc. The Portlandia Art department won the Emmy for Outstanding Production Design the past two years (2015, 2016). Last year Peter also worked on the feature film I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore as the Art Coordinator. The film won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Dramatic Feature at Sundance. The film was purchased by Netflix and will be streamed on its services starting February 24th. Peter is also currently on contract as an Art Coordinator for the animation studio HouseSpecial (Laika's commercial studio).
Linden How MFA ’13 and Turner Masland compiled a First 100 Days reading list, “offering historical and theoretical contexts for US labor relations, environmentalism, civil rights, women's rights, and queer liberation movements,” as noted in this Broadly piece.
BCCTV, an arts collective coordinated by Daniel Mackin-Freeman ‘13 and Peter Falanga MA ’13 recently won a Precipice Grant from PICA.
Demian DinéYazhi' ‘13 will be one of three poets reading on Saturday, March 4 at the Cooley Gallery at Reed College as part of Reed Arts Week 2017 and in conjunction with Iconoclastic, a group exhibition currently on view. Stop by at 4PM to catch Demian’s reading.
2012
PNCA has added 2 alumni to its faculty: Kinoko Evans ‘12, who teaches Character and Narrative in the Illustration Department, and Samantha Mash ‘13, who teaches Drawing for Illustration. Kinoko works as an independent cartoonist and illustrator. She has organized comics festivals such as Linework NW, has provided illustration work for Bitch Magazine, the Portland Mercury, and Floating World Comics, and has taught in the Comics Certification Program at the IPRC. Samantha has provided illustrations for Slack, DC Comics, The New Republic, Planned Parenthood, and others.
Taylor Neitzke ‘12 is now the Director of Programs at Open Signal a media arts center that builds upon the 35-year legacy of Portland Community Media. She has developed a teaching program in collaboration with Stephen Slappe called Future Forum; which is a brand-new media artist training for social impact. Participants will explore the future of media, education, teaching and their career in a forum of like-minded individuals during a 10-month program at Open Signal. They are currently seeking applicants, the deadline is April 15th.
Jody Dunphy MFA ’12 did a collaborative piece in an exhibit about trees at the Bush Barn Art Center in Salem this fall and is working on a revamped website showcasing a new line in the next couple of few weeks. You can see more of Jody’s work here.
2011
Robert Fish ‘11 recently made 12 sculptures for xray.fm in Portland for their awards ceremony in January: 12 ceramic microphones (5 of which exploded in the kiln one week before the awards ceremony) 2 abstract character sculptures, and 3 televisions. Says Robert: “Thanks to art school I didn't panic when the 5 sculptures blew up and made due with what I had at my disposal: wood, old unfinished ceramic sculptures, acrylic paint, and ingenuity.
For the past 5 or so years, Michael O’Malley ’11 has been working with the artist collective Whoop Dee Doo, which puts on large scale collaborative installations that culminate in a variety shows/performances. Whoop Dee Doo was recently featured in a short art:21 documentary about a recent performance and installation project with Friends of the Highline. Michael is also teaching art at a special Ed school in Midtown, Manhattan, specializing in teaching collaboration and experimentation with materials.
Elizabeth Malaska MFA ‘11 was selected by LACMA curator, Jarrett Gregory, for New American Paintings' Pacific Coast edition. Flipping through the issue, Malaska looks to be in terrific company. Elizabeth also gave a January artist talk about her favorite piece from PAM's collection.
Julie Pointer MFA ’11 has been working the past two years or so on a book (writing and photographing) that’s coming out on June 13th, published by Artisan Books. It’s called Wabi-Sabi Welcome: Learning to Embrace the Imperfect and Entertain with Thoughtfulness and Ease. She also recently started a floral studio in Santa Barbara called Olivetta.
Jason Lee Starin MFA ‘11 is the Ceramics Shop Supervisor for the Craft and Materials Studies Program at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Jason is also in his second year of a five-year artist in residency at The Clay Studio.
Anne Crumpacker MFA ’11 has also been busy on commissions and exhibitions: her bamboo work was exhibited prominently in 2016’s Bending Nature: Four Bamboo Artists in the Garden at the Portland Japanese Garden and at the Friedman Memorial Airport in Sun Valley, Idaho. She’s also completed commissions for the lobby of The Overton apartment building at NW 12th and Overton and for Amenity Lounge at The Peloton on NE Williams.
Leslie Vigeant MFA ’11 is constantly busy: she just closed a super solo-show at the Alexander Gallery at Clackamas Community College, RIPE hyper/lux/shine/theory, and has a couple upcoming shows in the pipeline in town and around the country. This is in addition to teaching entrepreneurial and professional practices at OCAC and PNCA and wrangling artists as the what-would-we-do-without-her Program Manager of the Applied Craft + Design MFA. You can read a recent review of her work in Clackamas Print.
2010
Esteban Camacho Steffensen ‘10 was an artist-in-residence at Vancouver Island University, where he led a public art mural project that combined perspectives on what it means to belong and be connected.
2009
Agnes Hamilton ’09 has been tattooing for the last 3+ years but moved shops in the last year and now work as a Tattooer at the Hive Tattoo in North Portland. She also became a co-owner (with Katharine Jacobs-Anderson and fellow alumna Ursula Barton ’10) of a working studio & small gallery space in Southeast Portland called Jailhouse Studios. More recently, Agnes has become affiliated with a political (art) activism group called the National Grab Back. See more of Agnes’ work at www.agneshamilton.com.
2008
Artwork by Calvin Ross Carl ‘08 was included by the Portland Mercury in their November list of artwork to inspire the revolution.
Sarah Farahat '08 is back in Portland after a couple years in the Bay Area getting her MFA from California College of the Arts. She spent her summer with Signal Fire, some of the fall in Standing Rock and between that, graduating and the first few weeks of the new presidency feels pretty exhausted. Hanging off of scaffolding to paint a mural in NW hasn't helped the exhaustion, but her bank account and biceps are happy. She's hoping to find college teaching work here in Portland and is currently nerding out writing syllabi.
2007
Though 2017 is only two months old, Alyson Provax ’07 has been B-U-S-Y: she has/had work in the Herselves exhibition at the Blueproject Foundation in Barcelona, the Angry Women exhibition at The Untitled Space in New York (reviewed in NY Magazine), Many Lands at Bridge Productions in Seattle, curated by Benjamin Gannon (reviewed in the Stranger).
Alyson was also invited to be a participant in 2017’s PDX-CSA and paired with Heather Lee Birdsong ‘11. PDX-CSA connects artists and collectors through a “community supported art” program where patrons can follow and support artists throughout the art-making process. Also part of this year’s PDX-CSA cohort: Gina Rios MFA ’18.
Seamus Heffernan ’07 is teaching an intensive comics workshop this summer at The Aegean Center for the Fine Arts on the island of Paros in Greece (which is also the school he studied abroad at while at PNCA!). It runs from June 11 to the 25 and he’d welcome students from PNCA. More info here!
2006
Sara Kaltwasser ‘06 is currently working towards an MFA in Community Arts at MICA. She received a grant to use towards community engagement in East Baltimore and is about to complete an AmeriCorps residency at Access Art, a nonprofit out-of-school program for youth in Baltimore.
Erin Walters ’06 has been living in Los Angeles for the last 9 years working as a freelance makeup artist. She’s worked on some interesting projects and her years of experience and highly developed sense of color and texture (informed by her time as a sculpture student at PNCA!) allow her to move easily between film and commercial work and more fashion-forward work such as editorials and music videos. She’s recently worked as Key Makeup Artist on Lady Bird, an upcoming American comedy drama film written and directed by Greta Gerwig. You can read an interview with her in VoyageLA.
Epicenter Frontier Fellowship is looking back at 5 years of artists-in-residence, including Eliza Fernand ‘06 and Aidan Koch’ 09. Both spent a month in residence in Green River generating place-based work alongside the community.
2005
In December 2016, Nathanael Andreini '05 became Director of Education at the Washington County Museum in Hillsboro, OR.
2004
Joe Chappell ‘04 is the Managing Director of Global Marketing & Communications at the Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants (AESC).
2003
After receiving acclaim for his work in big cities across the globe, Seann Brackin ’03 recently returned to Gunnison, Colorado to exhibit his paintings in the same space that helped him launch his career 20 years ago. Since graduating, he’s lived in Los Angeles; Madrid, Spain; and Sydney, Australia, where they lived for three years. His work is on display in all three cities. Seann is currently on a global trek from Australia to the Americas via Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Europe.
2002
The Skeleton in the Closet series by Fritz Liedtke ‘02 was translated into Chinese, and has shown 4 times in the past year in China, including at the Lishui, Beijing, and Shanghai Photo Festivals, where he was invited to speak there about the work last year. Want to know more? The book can be purchased on Amazon. Fritz has also been working on a new series of photographs of young farmers working just outside of Portland. You can see these photos and more on his editorial portraits page. And! Fritz and his wife welcomed their second child, Freddie, in January. Congrats!
Mary Mattingly ‘02 will be speaking at Central Booking with “Vanishing Green,” a panel discussion about extinction and endangered species, which is affecting plants as well as animals, punching holes in all levels of the ecosystems humans depend upon for our survival. The threat extends from the most delicate wildflower or lordly oak, to the food we might put on our plates. The panel is in conjunction with The Wasteland?, an exhibition on endangered species, with a particular focus on plant life and woodlands.
2000
Michael Orwick ‘00 traveled the world last year with his wife and daughter, painting with kids and doing Plein Air work which will result in shows later this Summer and next Winter. The world tour was inspired by his family’s ambition to experience and learn more about how art empowers, connects, and inspires across boundaries. “Every country we go to, we try to do an art project, inviting children to paint and draw self-portraits, expressing ‘how they see themselves in the world.’” Learn more at studioeverywhere.org.
Rachel Perkins ‘00 is making her name as a book cover designer at Oxford University Press’s New York offices, and living in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan with my husband Ben and sons Max (9) and Asher (4). Some recent titles include: Moths, Myths, and Mosquitoes: The Eccentric Life of Harrison G. Dyar, Jr., Eternity: A History, and Ritual Gone Wrong: What We Learn from Ritual Disruption.
1999
Fertile Myrtle, a new film by Julie Orser ’99, will be screening at the Chicago Feminist Film Festival March 1 – 3, 55th Ann Arbor Film Festival March 21 – 26, and 44th Athens International Film + Video Festival April 3 – 9. Learn more and watch snippets at http://www.julieorser.com.
1998
Pat Boas ‘98 is now the Director of the School of Art + Design and Interim Associate Dean for Academic Leadership, College of the Arts at Portland State University.
1992
Laurie Danial ’92 was awarded a 2016 Individual Artists Fellowship from the Oregon Arts Commission. Congrats Laurie!
The Denver Art Museum just acquired twelve photographic works by Andrew Beckham ’92 for their permanent collection. He’ll also be speaking at the Denver Art Museum on Friday, March 17 at 7PM. His newest exhibition at CPAC takes viewers on a journey into deep space – or so it appears. Black holes, galaxies, and starry skies are in fact “cosmological analogies” created by thousands of tiny Nicotania seeds that Andrew meticulously hand-sifts onto museum board. His images “fulfill a certain kind of visual expectation, and then defy it,” he writes. “In so doing, the eroding notion of the photograph as an empirical document is thrown further into question.” You can see more of Andrew’s stunning work on his website.
1986
Good news for those of you who haven’t stopped in yet: The APEX: Arvie Smith exhibition by Arvie Smith ‘86 has been extended at the Portland Art Museum through March 12, 2017. While you’re there, check out some of Arvie’s work in the Constructing Identity exhibition. Arvie will be doing his last gallery talk in APEX on Thurs March 2 at 6PM. And on March 5, he’ll be delivering a lecture, Almost Good Hair, also at PAM. In other news, he’s currently completing the design for a 18' x 24' mural to be installed on Alberta Commons (corner of NE Alberta and MLK) in late summer.
1983
Deborah White ‘83 designed a number of recent exhibitions including Oregon: Where Past is Present at the Museum of Natural and Cultural History in Eugene, a project for the George T. Abell Gallery at the University of Texas Observatory about the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment, several projects for the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, and 23 banners for the Idaho Parks and Recreation Dept.
A number of PNCA artists are involved in outfitting the new AC Hotel that opened this past month with artwork. Among them David Cohen ’83, who has a permanent installation of 21 light boxes featuring Oregon Native Flora in the hotel lobby. Celebrate the installation at a reception on March 3, 5-7 at the AC Hotel lobby lounge (SW 3rd and Taylor).
1982
Tom Cramer ‘82 had a one-person show of carved wood reliefs at Augen Gallery in Portland in November 2015, dedicated to the memory of Shannon Kraft ‘89. He also had a one person show mainly of oil paintings at Imogen gallery in August 2016. He is planning another one person show at Augen Gallery in Nov 2017.
1980
Thomas Morphis '80 is represented by Hang Art Gallery in San Francisco. Also currently exhibiting at Woodman/Shimko Gallery in Palm Springs.
1976
New work by Julia Fish ‘76 was recently featured in Hyperallergic, which called her “the Emily Dickinson of abstraction.” You can also read about the exhibition in Contemporary Art Daily.
1966
In conjunction with her current exhibition at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Lucinda Parker ’66 gave a lecture to 80 UO architecture students on how to coordinate architecture and art. The exhibition walks through Lucinda’s process of creating the 10’ x 20’ Glade of Many Ages, which was installed in 2011 with significant assistance from Chris Gander ‘86, Eric Gardner ‘00, Seth Leamer ‘07, and Kirsten Brady ‘07. Lucinda also delivered a lecture to the public at the museum.
This fall, Lucinda also installed (again with the help of Chris Gander ’86) six paintings for a K-12 school at Grand Coulee Dam right on the edge of the Colville Indian Reservation. The six paintings convey “pairs of birds & one lone fish in a matrix of water & sky, clouds & basalt escarpments, suns & moons.” She gave a talk and answered student questions about the pieces in a fall visit to the school.
1959
Akbar’s Elephant, a massive sculpture by Lee Kelly ’59, was recently sited in the lobby of the Fox Tower. The move was quite the ordeal: torrential downpours at Leland Iron Works, removing the doors at Fox Tower, even then having to remove part of the sculpture to fit through the doors… but it’s there. Stop in when you’re in the neighborhood!
1958
Ever since his 1972 NEH fellowship, Ralph J. Turner ’58 has studied the history of science, Fortran programming, and other subjects to help understand the relationships of Art and Science. Over the years, Ralph wrote Fortran computer programs to produce layouts of elements spiraling out from a center changing value (color tones) according to set rules and changeable criteria; there is often a correspondence between the colors and musical scales. He currently has a selection of these Early Hexagon Galaxies (computer aided but hand rendered) up at New Morning Bakery in Corvallis, Oregon. Ralph is living in the country north of Sheridan, Oregon in an underground house.
1949
Ellen McFadden ‘49 was among 34 artists selected for Portland2016 Biennial of Contemporary Art. For this her paintings were featured in a two-person exhibition (with artist Howard Fonda) at Oregon College of Art & Craft. She’s also had a painting chosen by PDX to be installed at the airport… you’re your eyes peeled! Ellen’s a true example of a “life of creative practice”: “At 88, yes, I am still around.”
FACULTY
In the first week of April, Prof. Gordon Barnes and Paintallica go to Kansas City to make a Paintallica show on site at the Leedy-Volkous Art Center. They have one week, 10k sq ft and carte blanche to make a collaborative work.
PNCA sent the team of Prof. Nan Curtis, Josh Hughes ‘17 and Andrew Newell ’17 to Sapporo, Japan for the International Snow Carving Contest. You can listen to their interview on OPB’s Think Out Loud here and check out their final sculpture on Facebook.
Widow and Orphan House recently republished Prof. Trevor Dodge’s collection of 60 flash fictions, THE LAWS OF AVERAGE. www.widowandorphanhouse.com/la... And Trevor’s newest collection of stories, HE ALWAYS STILL TASTES LIKE DYNAMITE, will be published in May by Subito Press, a publisher based out of the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Prof. Crystal Schenck was interviewed in the Bend Bulletin about her residency at Caldera.
Prof. Monica Drake led a conversation—This is How it Always Was—on gender, identity, and family with Laurie Frankle at Powell’s on January 30.
For the jazz lovers out there, we recently unearthed a 1961 live performance hosted by Northwest Abstract artist Louis Bunce and featuring legends from the NW jazz community. This video combines action painting accompanied by live jazz in the television studio. Check it out!
And if you haven’t made it down to Salem yet, see if you can squeeze it in. Louis Bunce: Dialog with Modernism at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art is worth a visit. A recent panel discussion with Lucinda Parker ‘66, George Johanson ’50, and Jack Portland ‘71 recalled Louis’ place in the Portland art scene.
The Portland Art Museum has acquired two recent works by Teresa Christiansen for their collection. Both are included in the current exhibition Photography and Contemporary Experience, curated by Julia Dolan, The Minor White Curator of Photography. The show is on view through March 12th.