Tyler Graduate lands in CMYK Magazine

Recent Tyler GAID Graduate Nick Dunlap will be featured in CMYK Magazine‘s 53rd quarterly.  His restaurant identity design for “Truckstop, a restaurant specializing in classic American roadside cuisine.” will be part of their Freshest Creatives feature.  Nick was mentored in this project by instructor Keith Somers.

The Freshest Creative Hand-Picked by the Best in the Business, is CMYK Magazine‘s quarterly Call For Aspiring Creatives is open to emerging artists across the globe in the fields of art direction, copywriting, design, photography and illustration. Each issue of CMYK Magazine features as many as 100 selections from more than 80 art-design students attending over 30 of the world’s leading art-design schools, departments and workshops. Every piece is selected for print by the industry’s most influential creative professionals.

Tyler Students win Carpet Design Competition

Tia Bianchini and Caleigh Stednitz, Grand Prize Winning Design, Fauna Category

Fibers and Material Studies area students Tia Bianchini and Caleigh Stednitz were announced as the grand winners in the Fauna category and will have their design woven by the Langhorne Carpet Company. Kate Corcoran and Ashley Rodriguez Reed were announced as second place winners in the Flora category and received a cash prize.

The winning patterns, which will kick off Langhorne’s Conservation Collection, was revealed to the public last night and will ultimately be woven by the legendary Bucks County mill and sold to customers around the world. Winning teams receive cash prizes and non-profit organizations, including the Philadelphia Zoo and Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, will share in all sales proceeds for the benefit of conservation education.

Twenty teams of students representing six area colleges and art institutes submitted original designs as part of the rigorous competition that began eight months ago. Their research included site visits to the legendary carpet mill in Penndel, as well as special tours of the Zoo and Philadelphia Flower Show. Among the competition’s numerous creative and technical criteria, the teams were required to submit at least one pattern evocative of the fragile plant kingdom and another representing the world of threatened wildlife. In addition, they needed to demonstrate that their proposed carpet designs could be woven on the mill’s Jacquard Wilton looms – the gold standard of global carpet making dating back to 18th century England using hand-cut punch cards to “program” the looms. The panel of judges will also take into consideration the market appeal of the designs and input from representatives of the Zoo and Horticultural Society.

Bill Morrow, Langhorne’s President and a member of its founding family, has personally provided the nearly 50 student designers an in depth behind-the-scenes mill tour. “Every student has been intensely interested in our dedication to the time honored methods of Jacquard Wilton weaving and use of the finest wool. As one of the remaining mills of its kind in the U.S., we are as excited as the students and honored to sponsor this competition, “ said Morrow. “Every team will have a great addition to their portfolio upon graduation as a result of the competition and the winners will forever be able to boast they have their own line.”

Judges included Philadelphia decorator Bennett Weinstock, an Architectural Digest Top 100 member; New York-based designer Alex Papachristidis, Elle Décor “A List“ member, and Hilary Jay, Executive Director, DesignPhiladelphia.

Design teams represent: Philadelphia University, Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Drexel University, Arcadia University, University of the Arts, and Art Institute of Philadelphia.

More about Langhorne Carpets is can be found at:
http://langhornecarpets.wordpress.com/
http://www.langhornecarpets.com/

Alternative Knowledge Access

Working together to create an atmosphere for free expression and self knowledge.

Tyler Art students Elisa Mosley and Amy Borch, students in Professor Pepon Osario‘s Community Arts class, initiated a “community intervention” on the front lawn of Tyler School of Art during the Annual Student Show.  Made of reclaimed and salvaged material, the space was designed to, according to Mosley and Borch, “allow students, faculty, and community at large members to lead discussions and teach-ins on various topics.”  They noted that “Lately there have been many student organizations that have emerged from the Occupy Movement, but we don’t feel protests are enough to fully realize the potential people have when they come together to change things; especially education.”

During its time at Tyler, the temporary space hosted, among other things,

• Buddhist Meditation with Professor Vishma Kunu
• Schooled, a discussion about alternative art schools vs. traditional art schools, hosted by grad student Suzanne Seesman and Professor Philip Glahn
• Potluck Student Organizing and Activism Workshop with students from Rutgers University
• Break Dance and Hoop Jam hosted by the B-Boys
• Jam Night with John Mann
• Self-Defense class with Amanda Nardone
• a Rust and Compost Printing Workshop with Sienna Martz
• free painting sessions held by Elisa and Amy

It also served as an impromptu discussion space and hangout.  As the students noted, “If more places like this existed more people would feel accepted, more children would be able to nurture soul expanding curiosities and more people would be making art! “

There’s been quite a bit of buzz about this project.  You can read more at

• The Official AKA Tumbler Page
• The Philadelphia Inquirer
• Philly.com video by Charles Fox
• The Temple News

Congratulations on a great project, and on garnering the great press for Tyler!

Annual Student Show Closing Reception & Mixer

Join us Thursday, September 29 from 6 – 9 pm for the Annual Student Show Closing Reception and Student Mixer.  Students from PAFA, UArts and Moore College of Art have been invited to come and see all the wonderful work Tyler students have done!  We’ll have a large spread of food for your enjoyment, jazz music, and other goodies!

Please join us THIS Friday night, for the opening of BANG!

BANG is a group invitational exhibition showcasing the work of the Tyler School of Art’s 2012 MFA candidates.
This group exhibition will also act as a preview for the upcoming thesis exhibitions, this Spring, at Tyler School of Art’s Temple Gallery.

Where:
Power Plant Productions, Basement
230 North Second Street
Philadelphia
(Entrance in back, on N. Bread St)
Gallery Hours: Open Daily 12pm-6pm

BANG Show Dates:
Wednesday, February 29 – Thursday, March 8, 2012

Opening Reception – Friday, March 2, 6pm-9pm
Closing Reception – Thursday, March 8, 6pm-9pm

www.TYLERMFA.com

We hope to see you there!
Sincerely,
The Tyler School of Art’s 2012 MFA candidates

Amber Cowan on the Cover of Glass Line Magazine!

Glass Professor Sharyn O’Mara writes:  Amber Cowan, MFA Glass 2011 and adjunct faculty in Glass, has been awarded the prestigious international Stephen Proctor Fellowship in Canberra, Australia.

She is also on the cover of the new Glass Line magazine, and featured in an article in the publication.

And, she is one of only eight invitational finalists for a prestigious invitational residency at the Toldeo Art Museum to commemorate one of the most significant historic events in the American Glass Movement.

We are all thrilled for Amber and to share this news.

Exciting News About Tyler Alumnus Dean Daderko

In light of his exciting new position, Daderko spoke to Robert Blackson, Director of Tyler’s Exhibition and Public Programs Department, about his curatorial philosophy. In conversation Daderko explained that it is complicated for him to “articulate the difference between [his] creative career and personal ethics” as he views the two as deeply interrelated. But, it is because of this meaningful relationship that he has gone into curatorial work. Such work, Daderko says, can be viewed as, “a way to ask questions in an intentionally public forum. It’s not about providing better answers, but about asking better questions.”

Since earning his BFA in Sculpture, Daderko has worked within the art  world in a variety of roles, and is perhaps best known for his curatorial work. In addition to Parlour Projects, his five year transformation of a spare room in his Williamsburg apartment into one of the most adventurous curatorial projects in New York, he has curated exhibits nationally and internationally for Vox Populi in Philadelphia, and in Argentina, Canada, and Lithuania. He is also credited with being one of the first curators to work with artists Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, the 2011 United States delegates at the Venice Biennale. Most recently, he has joined the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston as Curator (www.camh.org). His first show at CAMH is scheduled to open in May of 2012 and will address the presence of the readymade in contemporary artistic practice, and will attempt to recuperate some of the radicality of Duchamp’s initial gesture by showing work by artists who use the readymade’s simple materiality and economy of means to address a diversity of social, political, aesthetic and temporal issues.

Stanley Whitney, Professor Emeritus, Wins First Robert De Niro, Sr. Award For Painting

(Untitled ’10, January 7th – February 6th 2010, Team Gallery, NYC)

Tyler Professor Emeritus Stanley Whitney was recently named the first recipient of the $25,000 Robert De Niro, Sr. Prize, given to an outstanding mid-career American painter.  Mr. Whitney served as chair of the painting department until he retired in 2009.  He also taught several semesters at the Temple Rome campus. He earned his BFA at the Kansas City Art Institute and came to New York in 1968 to attend the Studio School. He was encouraged by painter Rob Reid to attend Yale University, where he earned his MFA and studied under painter Al Held. An abstract Modernist painter, he was also awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1996, a Pollock-Krasner Grant in 2002, and an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2010. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across The U.S. as well as internationally.

“Stanley’s work and the way he practices his craft both show what this prize is all about—honoring a person with great passion for and lifelong commitment to art,” said the namesake artist’s son, actor/producer Robert De Niro. “I am so proud to pay tribute to my father through this inaugural prize in his name, and to recognize and support an artist who has achieved so much throughout his career.” The jury added: “For the recipient of the first Robert De Niro Sr. Prize, we have selected a painter who represents the spirit of commitment, independence, and invention that marked De Niro’s own work as an artist. Stanley Whitney proves that you can be a traditionalist without being a conservative. His concerns are those of painters from the Venetians through Delacroix to the Abstract Expressionists: color, light, and a sense of movement communicated through visual rhythm—but his painting is a continual adventure in these realms that he shows to be without limit. For many years he has worked with a consistent set of structuring devices but has used them as a basis for more than just variations on a theme, for the true structural basis of Whitney’s art is color, not shape, and he rediscovers it anew each time.”

You can read more about the prize and Robert De Niro, Sr. at the estate’s website.

Students and Recent Grad Featured on Graphic Design Site

(artwork: Theresa Decker)

2 Tyler Senior Graphic Design students, Theresa Decker and Kelly Thorn, and recent graduate Christine McMahon, had their work featured in the last several weeks on DesignWorkLife, a creative blog that features a different graphic design work each day. The blog was estab­lished to cat­a­log and share design-centric inspiration. Design­WorkLife is a part of Seamless Creative, a New York City-based design stu­dio. You can see the posts here:

Theresa Decker

Kelly Thorn

Christine McMahon

Tyler PhD Candidate Not Just a Scholar!

Tyler Art History PhD candidate and singer-songwriter Brian Seymour released his fourth album last week.  This is his first album in 6 years, but he has not been just sitting around writing songs.  He also serves as the Chair of the Art Department of the Community College of Philadelphia, and has earned his MA in Art History at Tyler.  You can read more about his album release at The Key.com or you can read more about him and listen to some sample songs on his website at www.brianseymour.com.