Issue 12
Winter/Spring
Byron Tomingas returned for his 14th season at Jenny Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park. Despite COVID-19, the park and the lodge had record-breaking crowds. The skin on Byron’s right hand, which had been suffering from frostbite for five years, was finally under control and he had a tremendous season. Frostbite is a common…
Donald Beagle’s poem, “Touring a Nuclear Reactor,” was the featured reading in the podcast series “A Moment of Your Time,” read by actress/producer (and CalArts alum) Jenny Curtis. Don’s poem “Sullivan’s Island” was selected for this year’s “Poetry in Plain Sight” project, where poems on posters appear in urban storefronts in cities across North Carolina….
Alan Grabelsky notes, “Love Songs: A Journal of Fateful Encounters. After a 40-year career in film and television at Universal, Paramount, Vestron Pictures, HBO, and Discovery, I returned to printmaking 10 years ago. This summer I had two solo shows of silkscreen prints, one in Saint John and one in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Each…
Charles Ferguson tells us, “The road to CalArts for me was that my music professor at Columbia College in New York was leaving the Ivy League and the coat-and-tie tradition of the Northeastern schools to transfer to a new school in Valencia, California, where he was to chair the music department in this commune of…
Leda Siskind notes, “I am happy to announce that my three-play cycle, Surveillance, is now published by Stage Rights and is featured as their play of the week! Surveillance is about domestic spying—whether it be on a 1950s ‘lavender’ couple facing HUAC hearings or diplomats in Cuba suffering from the Havana Syndrome in 2017 or…
Lee Sheldon says, “Two books published: The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game (2nd edition) and The Multiplayer Classroom: Game Plans. Working on the third edition of Character Development & Storytelling for Games. Also writing my fifth adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel as a video game.”…
Fiona Kelley reports, “Still alive and continuing to practice acupuncture as a doctor of Oriental Medicine in Henderson, Nevada. Also “Company Fairy Godmother” for Contemporary West Dance Theater in Las Vegas under the direction of Bernard H. Gaddis.”…
Lucius Cervantes checks in: “I’ve just returned from Prague Oct 7 where I recorded my Masters Thesis entitled, Quixote Jestures in Memory of Miguel de Cervantes author of Don Quixote. The piece is a three-movement Latin Jazz Symphony and was recorded with The Prague Symphony Orchestra. I wrote this piece for my Masters Thesis and…
Kevin Richardson (back right in photo) has been working with John Hart studios to develop the classic comic strip “Wizard of Id” into a feature-length film. In addition to story and script development, Kevin has reached out to celebrity voices and been pitching at the studios. “Working as an independent animation producer is not for…
Dana Berman Duff curated a program for LA Filmforum called Picture More: Interventions into Filmic Space, in October 2021, which presented the work of nine filmmakers from around the world. She moderated a Q&A with the filmmakers on October 24. Two recent films by Dana Berman Duff screened in several film festivals this year. A…
Alexis Krasilovsky’s documentary feature Women Behind the Camera (2007) streamed as part of the National Gallery of Art’s show Nov. 10-16, 2021. The show was titled The New Woman Behind the Camera. The Criterion Channel will be streaming a one-hour version titled Shooting Women (2008) from Dec. 1, 2021 to Dec. 1, 2023. Canyon Cinema…
Sarah Schneiderman writes in, “On Nov. 2, 2021, I released the large-format edition of my book You’re Fired! I Quit! A Visual Commentary on the 45th Presidency of the United States of America. Following the 2016 presidential election, I was concerned about more garbage getting into the environment as a result of an administration that…
Michael Buckley has developed an art form out of recording “life stories” in a style he calls “audio portraits.” Unlike traditional oral history interviews, Michael minimizes the redundancies of the interview form by completely stripping away the interviewer in the edit while also paring down the ums and ahs into a more pure, unadulterated monologue…
Georgi Coquereau-Kimi shares, “I am currently working on a ongoing large-scale multidisciplinary work based on my life’s journey, from homeless youth sneaking into gas station bathrooms at night for safe shelter—hence the title of my first book, Gas Station Bathrooms I Slept In—through growth experiences during CalArts/motherhood in simultaneity, up to my current status as…
Photographs from Jeanette May’s new still life series Curious Devices will be featured in the exhibition Curious Devices and Other Objects at Klompching Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. This photography exhibition addresses the subject of technology in works by Jeanette May, Max de Esteban, and Rebecca Hackemann. The works will be on view November 10, 2021 through…
Scott Ulrich shares, “As the animation supervisor working with Logan Media on the Apple TV+ show Calls, I was a recipient of a 2021 Emmy Award for Outstanding Motion Design. An experimental sci-fi series, Calls is told entirely through the animation of interconnected phone conversations. A collaborative effort, the show combined reactive audio programming to…
Bobby Brewer-Wallin says, “Professor of Theatre at Willamette University since 2000. I am currently on a one-semester sabbatical (F21) and teaching a course at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland (Writing in Context: Protest Clothing as Threads of Change). Next semester, I will be faculty director leading a semester abroad in Galway, Ireland, and…
Jeremy Hight checks in: “Now a peer reviewer for MIT’s Leonardo and giving a talk about my writing and e-lit at a university in Texas. My fiction is now taught in a graduate creative writing program in Morocco.”…
Dana Marterella is a tenured professor of English and Humanities at Glendale College. She is currently finishing her doctoral degree in Culture and Performance studies at UCLA. Her doctoral research focuses on the intersection between culture and power. She studies the populist forms of expression in the 20th and 21st centuries. …
Garit Imhoff writes, “I’m giving away artwork, dolls and puppets to those who contact me at garitimhoff75@gmail.com.“…
Charly Bloomquist checks in, “I am still teaching photography at Whitman College in Walla Walla Washington….
Annie Walton-Teter says, “Delighted to have published two children’s books during the pandemic. As well as launched a podcast My LOG with my partner on November 1st 2021 www.mylittleorganicgarden.com.”…
Deborah Wasserman reports: “This summer I attended the Skowhegan Alumni residency, which coincided with Skowhegan’s 75th Anniversary Celebration. I also spent two weeks at Aunt’s Karen’s Farm residency (through NYFA), which is a family friendly residency. It allowed me to not only create new work but also spend special time with my loved ones. My…
Kyle Hayworth writes, “After working in animation, music and graphic design, I am FINALLY publishing an original comic series – one page at a time on WEBTOONS. Titled The Aloysius Bloom and releasing new pages every Sunday, this is the first stage on the way to producing a new animated series in 2023!”…
Kenneth Chan writes, “This past summer, I was very pleased to have my piece ‘Shapeshift’ for solo piano performed and recorded by the amazing pianist Sequoia. Got inspired to write this while I was teaching music composition class at a city college.”…
Copro Gallery presents Hallucinations & Dreams, Imaginative Realist Paintings by Dave Lebow, opening Nov. 6. The show continues through Nov. 27. The Copro Gallery at Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave. T5, Santa Monica, Calif. This collection of paintings is a culmination of the artist’s jumble of emotions caused by the 2020 lockdown. Primarily using his…
Andrew Falkowski writes, “Hi, I attended the MFA Program at CalArts from 2001-2003. Since 2017, I’ve been an assistant professor in the Painting and Drawing Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Currently, I am also the graduate coordinator. Thanks for reaching out! CalArts was the most important educational experience I ever…
Lindsey Moran says, “I just returned home from art directing The Menu, a feature in Savannah, Georgia. There’s a second film about to begin principal photography on a brand-new permanent Western town I designed near Livingston, Montana. Looking forward to some ‘time off’ to continue development on an excellent San Francisco-based true story.”…
In June, Sarah Wass was appointed executive director of Brightwork newmusic, a Los Angeles-based performing arts organization dedicated to enlivening and expanding the repertoire of contemporary classical music. Brightwork newmusic accomplishes its mission through an in-house chamber ensemble (Brightwork Ensemble), a monthly concert series (Tuesday @ Monk Space), and by mentoring and teaching the next…
Eva Aguila reports, “My film and project Comida a Mano, which was part of the city of Los Angeles’ CURRENT:LA Public Art Triennial in 2019 was featured in ARTNEWS. Comida a Mano will also be part of the exhibition Simmer at Murray Art Museum in Albury, Australia from Friday, 26 Nov. – Sunday, Feb. 13….
Shaun Fillion was promoted to director of Lighting Design at RAB Lighting and runs the master’s program in architectural lighting design at New York School of Interior Design….
Emery C. Martin and Kerstin L. Hovland (Experimental Animation 12) as Electronic Countermeasures came back together with their friends, Foo Fighters, to bring rock back to the world in light of the global pandemic with a show designed to be about the experience of being there together. Reprising their roles as video designers for the…
Dave Mickey has been appointed as associate dean for the College of the Arts at CSU Fullerton….
Armando McClain writes, “I’ll be playing Bob Cratchit at The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis Dec. 3-23.” https://www.repstl.org/events/detail/achristmascarol…
Kerstin L. Hovland is lead for the Electronic Countermeasures’ video design team for Foo Fighters and Shawn Mendes’ performances at the MTV Video Music Awards 2021. The night led off with Hovland’s dancing ethereal gradients of color filling the stage and air for Shawn Mendes’ performance of “Summer of Love.” Moving on to close out…
Jordan Dykstra reports, “Co-composed with Koen Nutters, our album In Better Shape Than You Found Me (elsewhere music) was featured as one of the Best Contemporary Classical albums of October.” Peter Margasak writes: “The piano part may form the essence of the piece, and it could function on its own as an ultra-minimal Wandelweiser-type excursion,…
Sarah Melnick welcomed baby Bruce Irving Benjamin into the world on July 27 (hopefully CalArts 42) at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital down the street from CalArts. Loving every minute with the little pumpkin, and loving every minute working with the Admissions team for The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts….
Daniel McNamara reports, “I produced my sister Alyson McNamara’s record and made some music videos for it, too. One was an animation that I worked on with fellow alumnx, Shih-lien Eugene Yen, and another with a puppet.”…
Dylan Alexander Freeman‘s group City Of Orchestras (involving other CalArts alums: Aidan Gould, Boz Garden, Bridgette Blankenhorn, Brooklynn White, Catalina Jackson, Erin Poulin, Henry Webster, Jack Doutt, James Vitz-Wong, Jason Tibi, Jaya Kang, Jonathan Freeman, and Kimberly Dunning) has released a new 14-track record that was recorded remotely throughout the pandemic and mixed/mastered in the…
In 2021, Fahad became the artistic director of the newly formed Resonance Collective (ResonanceCollective.org), an organization dedicated to exploring the intersection between artistic and spiritual practice. Its core program, the Golden Thread Concert Series, will begin presenting a monthly concert experience revolving around various perspectives on what constitutes sacred music. The Resonance Collective summer program,…
Anais Franco writes to tell us about a new line of ceramic plates via her studio sachi: “I utilize a technique called ‘nerikomi,’ a form where pigmented, colored clays get layered and pressed together, to form a distinct pattern. I wanted to introduce studio sachi to you as a concept where I find that creativity,…
Socks Whitmore checks in, “Despite the chaotic nature of 2021, I managed to sign with my first talent manager and launch my career to a new level! In between shooting music videos with Transgender Talent, virtual theater and cabaret content for Debatable Productions, and my first lead role in a feature film, The Magical Christmas…
