Still Learning

VRA + CAA, February 2012, Los Angeles

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:57:00 +0000

The annual College Art Association (CAA) conference will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from February 22nd to 25th.

From the CAA’s website:

“Speakers and panelists will present their recent artistic projects and art-historical research, while others will talk about relevant issues in pedagogy, technology, publishing, and the academic workforce.”

CAA is the Visual Resources Association’s oldest affiliate society and this year marks the VRA’s 30^th anniversary and CAA’s 100^th.

The VRA is planning a number of activities to celebrate this momentous year, including, a panel on the history of teaching with images, a business meeting and a walking tour with the LA Conservancy.

Thursday, February 23rd

12:30-2:00pm

LA Convention Center Concourse Meeting Room 403A.

Paint, Prints and Pixels: Learning from the History of Teaching with Images
Chair: John Trendler, Scripps College

Revisioning Art History: How a Century of Change in Imaging Technologies Helped to Shape a Discipline
Allan T. Kohl, Minneapolis College of Art & Design

Light Explorations: Teaching 19th - 21st Century Intersections of Photographic, Scientific, and Digital Technologies
Sheila Pinkel, Pomona College

Pictures of Art History: The Getty Research Institute's Photo Study Collection
Anne Blecksmith and Tracey Schuster, The Getty Research Institute

New Challenges for a Digital Generation: An Information Literacy Approach to Teaching Visual Literacy
Joanna Burgess, Reed College; Ann Medaille, University of Nevada, Reno

Saturday, February 25th

12:30-2:00pm

Concourse Meeting Room 407.

VRA Business Meeting

In addition to organizational updates, we plan to discuss the VRA's new Fair Use Guidelines and how VR curators might consider implementing ACRL's Visual Literacy Standards.

The business meeting will be followed by a walking tour of "Historic Downtown" provided by the LA Conservancy and refreshments at the most intriguing establishment seen along the way. After the tour we will be meeting casually for food and drinks.

The Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA), another CAA affiliate will also hold a session focused on image issues.

Friday, February 24th

5:30-7:00pm

West Hall Meeting Room 511BC, Level 2

Collaboration, Access, Sustainability: The Future of Image Research Collections

Chairs: Tony White, Indiana University Bloomington; Laura Graveline, Dartmouth College

Picturing the Future: Private Collections and Public Institutions

Inge Reist, Frick Art Reference Library

Digital Humanities and New Emerging Paradigms for Librarians

Ann Whiteside, Harvard University

The Evolution of Corporate-Personal-Public Image Collections: Implications for Research and Preservation

Andrea Copeland, Indiana University

Yours, Mine, and Our Common Cultural Heritage: Losing Control of Digital Visual Information

Joane Beaudoin, Wayne State University

Full session information and schedules are live on the website.
http://conference.collegeart.org/2012/sessions/

More about the conference can be found here:

http://conference.collegeart.org/2012/

In order to attend either the VRA or ARLIS activities you do not need to be a member or register for the conference.

Paint, Prints & Pixels

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:37:00 +0000

As you may or may not know, I'll be chairing a session at the upcoming College Art Association's conference in Los Angeles, titled "Paint, Prints & Pixels: Learning from the History of Teaching with Images."

VRA will be hosting the session “Paint, Prints and Pixels: Learning from the history of teaching with Art” at CAA’s 100th annual conference in Los Angeles, Thursday, February 23rd from 12:30-2:00pm. The session will explore the historic and current imaging paradigm shifts to inform 21st century classroom teaching, the implications of increased access to digital images, intersections of photographic and scientific technologies, interdisciplinary uses of images for teaching and research as well as recently developed visual literacy competency standards. The session will be followed by time for questions and answers.

Full session information and schedules are live on the website.
http://conference.collegeart.org/2012/sessions/

I'll post more information about the session next month, but if you're interested you can review the call for proposals that was sent out last summer here.

Hope to see you there!

calligraphics tablet

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:14:00 +0000

Using a Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch graphics tablet and Illustrator, I tweaked the blob brush to something similar to a chisel tipped pen. Changing the size variation (set to pressure sensitivity) gives the ink flow a different feel - sort of like a softer or harder nib.

After you've drawn/written something you can fine tune the lines by altering the paths - adding, deleting or moving anchor points at will - but I like to leave things as is, making it more personal.

I played around with digital lettering, flourishes and the likes for quite sometime,

then came across a website that generates graph & writing paper: Incometech

which was useful for practice lettering.

One nice thing about digital calligraphy is that you can delete it and start over as often as you like, or just delete one offending letter or squiggle (I still prefer real ink on paper, just saying). After a long time of writing, deleting, and just messing around eventually I ended up with this.

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 02:41:00 +0000

interesting...Twitter's new "Compose new Tweet" button has an image of a quill pen!

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 20:23:00 +0000

For the past month or so I've been writing exclusively with a Sheaffer calligraphy pen. I haven't been trying to perfect a specific letter system, just adapting my natural writing to the pen. It takes more time to write and I've noticed I've become more concise.

VRA/SC meeting

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 02:00:00 +0000

The Visual Resources Association's Southern California Chapter will be holding it's fall meeting Friday, December 9th at the Claremont Colleges. More information can be found here.

Blogger to Google+ profile swap

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:30:00 +0000

switching from the Blogger profile to the Google+ profile

(read more about it here)

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 18:21:00 +0000

What a day

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:47:00 +0000

a hard drive decided to give up,

had to backup to another terabyte hard drive

thought everything would be simple

digital rot

I learned to really dislike "error code -36"

decided to try something else

to no avail

baby steps

seriously?!

ready to smash things, but refrained

things begin to work

I'll be staying late tonight

Google Music beta & Spotify

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 15:37:00 +0000

So in the last week I've been playing with both Google Music beta & Spotify,
they are both great and have different strengths.
Google Music allows you to upload music from your computer, which can take a long time - but then you have access to those songs from anywhere you can log in to Google Music. Works on my Android phone too.

Spotify doesn't upload your music but allows you to play almost any song you can think of. In the beginning it was almost overwhelming trying to think of songs it wouldn't know. I would come up with something I didn't think would be in there and it would return more music by the artist than I even knew existed. In Spotify you can create playlists, I'm not sure if there's a limit to how many. It also has a social element in that you can connect with Facebook and see who you know is already using Spotify. If they make their playlists Public you can listen to their playlists - if you don't want anyone to see a certain playlist you can right-click it and un-check "publish."

Spotify invite via Klout

Google+ invites & info

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 17:28:00 +0000

So I've had a Google+ account for a few days now and figured I'd share some news & information.
First off, I have invites if anyone wants one - I'm not sure how many I have to give out, I think there's a limited number per day, so it may take a day or two for me to send you an invite if I get swamped. Just send me your e-mail address and I'll invite you as soon as I can.
If you don't know my e-mail address feel free to send me a message through my About.me page
or send me a direct message on Twitter

There's an abundance of information about Google+ online, but I figured I'd share a couple links I found interesting or useful:

7 Additional Thoughts on Google Plus

HOW TO: Disable Google+ Email Notification

Why Lehigh (and every other) University needs to be on Gplus. Now.

If you know of any other interesting reads regarding Google+ feel free to post them in the comments.

Happy Fun Intern Post

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 22:53:00 +0000

The summer interns have fired up the blog,
here's their first post of the summer:
Happy Fun Intern Post

(note the awesome photo credit)

Still Learning gets a mobile template

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 19:56:00 +0000

this blog is now optimized for mobile devices,

go ahead, read it on your smartphone

(just scan the QR code above)

CAA in LA, 2012: Call for proposals

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Wed, 25 May 2011 16:18:00 +0000

DEADLINE EXTENDED to JUNE 10th

The College Art Association's 2012 Annual Conference
will be held in Los Angeles Wednesday, February 22 - Saturday, February 25.
http://conference.collegeart.org/2012/

Proposals are now being accepted for the Visual Resource Association's affiliated society session:

Paint, Prints & Pixels: Learning from the History of Teaching with Images.
Arts pedagogy has been profoundly influenced by visual copies and the changing technologies that allowed for their creation. The evolutionary changes have been relatively few considering the expanse of time--drawing, painting, plaster casts, graphic prints, photographs, lantern & 35mm slides, digital images, 3D-computer modeling, and virtual reality. A better understanding of the social, historical, legal, economic, and cultural factors underlying the production and dissemination of visual copies over the last hundred years shed interesting light on present practice and future possibilities. This session will explore these historic and current imaging paradigm shifts to inform 21st century classroom teaching. Practitioners (artists, art historians, art educators, museum curators) and information professionals (archivists, librarians, museum staff, visual resources curators) are invited to share their historical research, pedagogical theories, and practical experience creating and using images for teaching. These might include: 1) paint = direct image making processes, 2) prints = a variety of media with a matrix from which multiple copies can be produced, and 3) pixels = digital technology in general. Among the questions to be explored are: How have visual copies and their educational uses changed over time? Who have the key players been and/or notable collaborations? What lessons can be learned from past image technology transitions and how might they inform the digital realm? What are the implications of using images in the classroom that are many iterations away from the physical object (pixels of prints of paintings)? What new technologies and pedagogical practices enhance the ability to read, interpret, or otherwise negotiate imagery? How can we best nurture the new range of necessary skills in students--higher-level critical thinking, problem-based inquiry, and visual literacy?

Please feel free to forward this to any educators, technologists, historians, studio artists or others you think might be interested in sharing their knowledge.

Interested parties please contact John Trendler, VRA/SC Chair at john.trendler [at] scrippscollege.edu no later than noon (PST) June 10th.
In your e-mail please include your name, institutional affiliation and a brief description of your talk.
Complete abstracts will not be due until late July.
We look forward to hearing from you & creating an amazing session at CAA!

Happy bike to work week!

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Mon, 16 May 2011 19:15:00 +0000

http://www.bikeleague.org/programs/bikemonth/

digital wallpaper

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Wed, 11 May 2011 22:16:00 +0000

here's another desktop background for wallpaper wednesday.

Click on the image to grab the full size.
It was, once again, made from zooming way in to a digital image and capturing a screenshot,
after that I copied it pasted it into a new a new layer, flipped it horizontally, reduced the new layers opacity to 50% and then flattened the layers, copied and pasted it again into a new layer, flipped that one vertically and then 50% with the layer set to difference mode.

Registration for CaVraCon is now open

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Sat, 07 May 2011 22:13:00 +0000

The Northern and Southern Chapters of the Visual Resources Association
& the University of California, Santa Barbara, are pleased to invite you to
CaVraCon, June 16 and 17, 2011.
This two-day conference includes a
wide variety of workshops, sessions, presentations, open houses and tours,
demonstrations, and case studies.

Topics include:
- Using the Getty Vocabularies and building local authority files
- Improving digitization workflows
- Adding books to digital image collections
- Using the VRA Custom XMP panel for embedded metadata
- Deploying CollectionSpace
- ARTstor's Shared Shelf
- Plenary speech from the VRA president
- demonstrations of products such as Content Clips and eBeam Engage
- insights from a documentary photographer
- VRA/ARLIS conference highlights
- short sessions on sharing image collections, subject indexing,
architecture collection overview
- UCSB library and collection open house hour

and much more! Come and learn about innovations in image collection
management, meet others in the field, learn about UCSB's collection and
campus, network and socialize.

Registration is now open:
https://sites.google.com/site/cavraconference/registration

information on local travel:
https://sites.google.com/site/cavraconference/travel

and accommodation:
https://sites.google.com/site/cavraconference/accommodations

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:43:00 +0000

Coming this SUMMER!!

PDF version available for download:

https://sites.google.com/site/cavraconference/file-cabinet

Getty Multicultural Internships: Visual Resources Internship at Scripps College

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 18:48:00 +0000

Getty Multicultural Internships
June 13 - August 19, 2011

Through the generosity of the Getty Grant Program, the Gallery will be offering THREE paid, full-time, 10-week summer multicultural internships. These internships are "intended for members of groups underrepresented in the professions related to museums and the visual arts, particularly individuals of African American, Asian, Latino-Hispanic, and Pacific Islander descent."

For more information about the Getty internship, please see the Getty's website.

Requirements

currently enrolled undergraduate student and have completed at least one semester of college by June 2011, OR will complete their undergraduate degree by September 1, 2011
be a resident of OR attend college in Los Angeles County
be a United States citizen or a permanent resident

Students who have already served as Getty interns at Scripps are NOT eligible.

Stipend $3,500 for 10 weeks
This is gross salary; taxes will be taken out. Interns are subject to Scripps' hiring and payroll procedures.

Description

COLLECTIONS/CONSERVATION INTERN: plans for this intern include, but are not limited to:
- Working with an art conservator on various projects, including conservation of sculptural reliefs by John Gregory of scenes from Shakespeare's plays
- Helping to reorganize and clean the Asian Textile collection at Scripps, (after receiving training in how to handle, fold and move textiles)
- Assisting the collection manager with the inventorying and re-housing of prints
CURATORIAL INTERN: will work with gallery staff to organize an exhibition on Paul Soldner, scheduled for fall 2011. Tasks will include, but not be limited to:

Researching the work to be displayed
Writing wall text; the wall text will also be added to the gallery website

VISUAL RESOURCES INTERN: will work on projects within the Visual Resource Collection, supervised by John Trendler, curator of Visual Resources. The student will:

Receive training in digitizing the collection, including color correction, image optimization and general Photoshop skills and digital asset management, including cataloging and best practices
Help refine the collection of images for art history courses by scanning, cataloging into the visual resources database, checking old records for accuracy, scanning, and preparing images for forthcoming courses;
Assist with collection maintenance and reorganization

How to Apply
Please send the following to Mary MacNaughton, Director, Williamson Gallery, Scripps College, 1030 Columbia Avenue, Claremont, CA 91711 by 5pm, April 19, 2011:

transcript (unofficial is acceptable)
resume
names and phone numbers of 3 references
cover letter describing the academic and work experience that qualify you for the internship
writing sample of 1,000 words

For more information, please call Colleen Salomon at 909-607-4690 or email her at csalomon@scrippscollege.edu.

VRA/ARLIS conference & Engaging New Technologies

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 20:35:00 +0000

What a whirlwind, just returned last night from the joint conference of the Visual Resources Association and the Art Libraries Society of North America, which was held in Minneapolis.It was both amazing and inspiring. Saturday afternoon I was a speaker in the Engaging New Technologies session, I've uploaded my talk to SlideShare and have embedded it here for your convenience: Presentation Technology

View more presentations from John Trendler

I will most likely continue to refine the speaker notes and add links, so check back later.

In the past I've had difficulties getting the speaker notes from PowerPoint to upload to SlideShare correctly, and after a lot of trial and error, searching and learning I believe I have a pretty good handle on it now, and since my talk covered screen casting technologies I figured I might as well create a screen cast explaining some of the things I learned...

Unable to display content. Adobe Flash is required.

I'll be sure to write up more about the conference, Minneapolis and other random thoughts that are still dancing around my head soon.

Technologies for Presentation & Instruction

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 14:43:00 +0000

I'm getting ready to attend the 2nd joint conference of the Visual Resources Association and the Art Libraries Society of North America, March 24th to March 28th.

I'll be speaking at a session titled "Engaging New Technologies" on the topic of technologies used for presentation & instructions.

My presentation will be posted to SlideShare after the conference.
Expect tweets, photos and updates...

The conference hashtag is: #vra_arlis2011

Engaging New Technologies:
Organizer: Meghan Musolff, University of Michigan
Moderator: Betha Whitlow, Washington University in St. Louis
Speakers: Tracy Bergstrom, University of Notre Dame; Sarah Carter, Ringling College of Art and Design; Heather Cleary, Otis College of Art and Design; Bryan Loar, Knowledge Management and Information Specialist; Meghan Musolff, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Greg Reser, University of California, San Diego; John Trendler, Scripps College; Suzanne Walsh, Independent Consultant

Abstract: This fast-paced 90 minute session will demonstrate a rich variety of new technologies and provide concrete examples on how to engage with this array of contemporary products, services, and tools. Utilizing the expertise of tech-savvy presenters from both ARLIS and VRA, the session will provide a basic knowledge of new tools, demystifying them to empower session attendees to further investigate on their own. Emphasis will be given to technologies related to teaching, learning, and research environments and their practical applications for use in the library and visual resources environments.

Call for Proposals: CaVraCon

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 21:57:00 +0000

California Visual Resource Conference
June 16th & 17th, 2011
University of California, Santa Barbara

The California Chapters of the Visual Resources Association are hosting a two day
mini-conference on digital image collections. The conference will offer educational
opportunities dealing with the many aspects of creating, managing and maintaining
digital image collections, as well as the chance to network with both emerging
professionals and veterans of the field.

https://sites.google.com/site/cavraconference/

The organizers are seeking proposals for sessions, workshops, case studies and
other program formats.

Although not limited, possible topics could include:

Metadata/Cataloging

Analog/Digital Collections

Teaching with Images: New Developments

Preservation

Digitization

Professional Issues

Copyright Issues

Digital Imaging Tools

The deadline to submit your proposal is Monday, March 28th at 5:00pm (PST).
Proposals will be reviewed and presenters will be notified of their selection no later than
April 4th, 2011.

The CaVraCon Proposal Form can be found here:

CaVraCon Proposal Form

digital cleaning

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:45:00 +0000

Spring cleaning the computer,

began with moving and backing up files,

then deleting everything unnecessary,

Backed up over a million files?
Deleted nearly half a million?

And rearranged files into a better hierarchical folder structure, which was needed badly.

Wallpaper Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 13:25:00 +0000

Feel free to download & use this as a desktop wallpaper/background -
these are pixels from a digital image zoomed way in and screen-captured.
I'll try to post new wallpapers every so often.

click the image to view full size and then right-click to either "save as..." or "Set as desktop background"

Unclutter your desktop

noreply@blogger.com (John Trendler) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 01:53:00 +0000

While working on some screencasting I realized that I should hide some files on my desktop,
so as to not distract from the screencast itself. I love shoving odds and ends into a new folder on the desktop named something along the lines of "Misc" - works as a temporary fix, but it's hard to locate items later, especially if you have several "Odds & ends" folders.
This morning I came across an awesome little freeware app called Camouflage,
which basically hides all your desktop icons, you can choose to show or hide icons from your menu bar.

Here's an image of my desktop with the icons shown (file names have been blurred to protect the innocent):

and one with icons hidden:

Isn't that nice?

Even though you can double click on the desktop to show your desktop items, I found that if you create a stack of desktop items in your dock it's easier to find/open hidden items.

You can find Camouflage here.