Communication Design students will spend the Spring Semester 2014 in London studying at Central St. Martins under the guidance of Art & Art History Professor Mark Zurolo.  The students are writing a blog, full of great stories and images, to document their experience: http://ucdesignuk.tumblr.com.

The Central Saint Martins BA (Honours) in Graphic Design is structured around small group tutorials, workshops and critiques and emphasizes solving visual communication problems through experimentation beyond the commercially driven constraints of contemporary design practice. UConn students will be distributed across tutorial groups and engage with project briefs and other required and extra-curricular activities as faciliated by CSM BAGD faculty alongside regular CSM degree students. UConn students will concurrently enroll in Communication Design 3 and Design Survey that will be taught on-site by UConn Associate Professor of Design, Mark Zurolo.

Students will live in the Central Saint Martins student housing where they will share kitchen and living facilities with a range of other UK students. By living in the center of London, students will have the opportunity to visit studios, museums, and historical sites, and attend a wide variety of cultural events. The goal of the program is to produce designers with a global perspective who are prepared to develop their interests cultivated upon this trip into their professional and academic lives. Each student will return with an understanding of the international design community, a network of designers whom they can contact in the future, and a skill set honed at the premier art school in the UK.

A group of Studio Art and Art History majors has spent the semester studying at the Palazzo Rucellai with Professor Deborah Dancy.  They have used photography, painting and drawing as media for exploring the city, its art, and its history.  They’ll be home soon – changed by the experience.  Some quotes from the students as they prepare to finish their studies:

“I walk through narrow streets, surrounded on all sides by buildings that have been standing for centuries. I use historical and artistic masterpieces as landmarks on my walks to unfamiliar places. I see, touch and have an entire experience with the art I have always studied and admired. It is like a dream.”

“I have seen some of the most beautiful things, [eaten] some of the most fantastic food, and met some of the most amazing people during my time in Florence.  All I want is more. I want to see more, to do more… I wish there was a way I could wander forever; to get lost in the world but be okay with it.  I just want to travel the world and draw what I see.  I feel as if there is not enough time to see all there is to see and experience all there is to experience… Everything seems too short and there is never enough time in a day. I just know this adventure will pass in the blink of an eye.”

“… I still hope to meet the rest of this semester with an open mind because I know for a fact that there are still experiences to be had, even though part of me is already looking forward to [coming back] to a heavy work-load, multiple deadlines, and late nights. The reason for my excitement to go back is not as much homesick as it is an anxiousness to use what I’ve discovered here towards getting my career started. I do believe that this experience has had an incredible influence on me and I’m excited that it’s both almost over, and that there is still a good deal of time left to spend here.”

To hear more from the students, visit their blog at http://uconnflorence.blogspot.com

CROSSTALK @ CAG

University of Connecticut, Storrs Campus

Week one – Jesper Just – Nov. 4 to Nov. 10

Week two – Clinton Watkins – Nov. 11 to Nov.17

Week three – The Complaint Choir: Tokyo Nov. 18 to Nov. 24

Week four – Janet Biggs Nov. 25 to Dec. 13

Art and Art History students participating in  SAIL (Student Artist Initiative for Leadership) with Professor Ray DiCapua are engaged in projects to transform the Department.  They’ve installed a chalkboard mural space in one hallway to host student work, are building an alumni network to enhance professional development, and have begun a series of video conversations, “Art ReStart,” to explore what it means to be an art student: http://vimeo.com/channels/607421

The SAIL group has approached its mission with energy and creativity.  “In my 30 years of teaching here, I have not witnessed anything quite like this,” notes Professor DiCapua, the group’s faculty mentor.

Faculty and professional staff are visiting with the group and offering advice and support for the different projects.  Stay tuned as the work progresses!

Prospective students and their families are invited to visit the Department on Monday, October 14th, 2014. It’s an ideal day for a visit because high schools typically have a vacation day but UConn doesn’t, so prospective students can see us in action.

The day begins with a 10 am joint session for all prospective students and their families. This one-hour session will feature presentations by the Dean and Assistant Dean as well as professional staff from Admissions and Financial Aid.

At 11 am, prospective students for Art & Art History will have the chance to visit classes, including Drawing I, Basic Studio: Painting, and Aqua Media. Prospective students will then have a casual lunch with current students and faculty in the Arena Gallery, 12-1 pm. At 1 pm, we’ll have special demonstrations in our digital photography and sculpture labs and printmaking studios. Students will have the option of joining a campus tour at 2 pm.

There is no cost for this day – attendees are asked to RSVP to
SFAOffice@uconn.edu with their contact information and area of interest.

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Art and Art History was pleased to co-sponsor Visiting Artist Favianna Rodriguez with El Instituto (Latin American and Puerto Rican/Latino Studies) in February 2013. Rodriguez conducted printmaking and poster workshops and spoke with students across campus during her visit in the newly renovated Bishop Center Studios.

Favianna Rodriguez is a celebrated printmaker and digital artist based in Oakland, California. Using high-contrast colors and vivid figures, her composites reflect literal and imaginative migration, global community, and interdependence.

Rodriguez is renown for her vibrant posters dealing with issues such as war, immigration, globalization, and social movements. By creating lasting popular symbols – where each work is the multiplicand and its location the multiplier – her work interposes private and public space, as the art viewer becomes the participant carrying art beyond the borders of the museum.

Rodriguez has lectured widely on the use of art in civic engagement and the work of artists who, like herself, are bridging the community and museum, the local and international. Rodriguez’s has worked closely with artists in Mexico, Europe, and Japan, and her works appear in collections at Bellas Artes (Mexico City), The Glasgow Print Studio (Glasgow, Scotland), and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles).

Latina magazine recently published this interview with Rodriguez.

Rodriguez has exhibited at Museo del Barrio (New York); de Young Museum (San Francisco); Mexican Fine Arts Center (Chicago); Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco); Sol Gallery (Providence, RI); Huntington Museum and Galería Sin Fronteras (Austin, TX); and internationally at the House of Love & Dissent (Rome), Parco Museum (Tokyo), as well as in England, Belgium, and Mexico. She was a 2005 artist-in-residence at San Francisco’s prestigious de Young Museum, a 2007-2008 artist-in-residence at Kala Art Institute (Berkeley, CA), and received a 2006 Sea Change Residency from the Gaea Foundation (Provincetown, MA). Rodriguez is recipient of a 2005 award from the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

As a teacher, Rodriguez has conducted workshops and presentations at Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles), El Faro de Oriente (Mexico), de Young Museum (San Francisco), the Habana Hip Hop Festival (Habana, Cuba), as well as Williams College and The Commonwealth Club. In 2003, she co-founded the Taller Tupac Amaru printing studio to foster resurgence in the screenprinting medium. She is co-founder of the EastSide Arts Alliance (ESAA) and Visual Element, both programs dedicated to training young artists in the tradition of muralism. She is additionally co-founder and president of Tumis Inc., a bilingual design studio helping to integrate art with emerging technologies.

Rodriguez is co-editor of Reproduce and Revolt! with internationally renowned stencil artist and art critic Josh MacPhee (Soft Skull Press, 2008). Her artwork also appears in The Design of Dissent (Rockport Publishers, 2006), Peace Signs: The Anti-War Movement Illustrated (Edition Olms, 2004), and The Triumph of Our Communities: Four Decades of Mexican Art (Bilingual Review Press, 2005).