An exhibition of moving image installations opened recently at The Hybrid Gallery, a Gerding Edlen Project with Pacific Northwest College of Art, activating the space during the opening of the new Indigo @ Twelve | West building in Southwest Portland, Oregon.

Thousands of visitors attended the opening of the building, and had the opportunity to view dynamic work selected from the College’s July 2009 Boundary Crossings: An Institute in Contemporary Animated Arts program.

Little Gods is an investigation into the magic of objects, concepts and notions that we invest with special meaning: talismans and charms, lucky articles, measurements, numbers, clocks, calendars, schedules and routines. From what we know there are no real singularities in the universe. Let us therefore bring back the little gods.

Featured PNCA artists: Chris Bodven, Katie Harral, Liz Harris, Chad Hinman, Shelley Jordon, Tabitha Knight, Alison Reiko Loader, Joey Lusterman, Akira Nakamura, Jeffrey Richardson, Jessie Weitzel and Cecilia Westerberg.

Little Gods was a studio co-taught by Paul Vester, Experimental Animation Program Co-Director, CalArts, and Rose Bond, faculty member, PNCA Intermedia Department, and Director of Boundary Crossings: An Institute in Contemporary Animated Arts during the summer institute.

The current exhibition is open to the public 6–8 p.m., Thursdays; and 5–8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through November.

A range of symposium activities—including workshops and lectures—will report on and explore the growing body of evidence that the arts nurture and develop complex thinking and communication skills. Featured speakers include authors/professors Dr. Ellen Handler Spitz and Dr. Lois Hetland.

Lecture | “Art for Our Sake,” by Dr. Lois Hetland
6:30 p.m. Thursday, November 12
PNCA Main Campus Building, Swigert Commons, 1241 N.W. Johnson Street

Why do we teach art? Join PNCA as it welcomes author and professor of art education Lois Hetland for a discussion on arts education. Hetland is the co-author of the influential book Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education.

Keynote Address | “Reflections on Space and Childhood,” by Dr. Ellen Handler Spitz
6:30 p.m. Friday, November 13
PNCA Main Campus Building, Swigert Commons, 1241 N.W. Johnson Street

Dr. Ellen Handler Spitz discusses the complex and powerful role the visual arts play in the emotional and cognitive development of children. Spitz is a writer, lecturer and scholar who currently holds the Honors College Professorship of Visual Arts at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She is the author of Art and Psyche, Image and Insight, Museums of the Mind and more.

The PNCA+FIVE Idea Studio will feature a range of activities—including workshops and lectures—reporting on and exploring the growing body of evidence that the arts nurture and develop complex thinking and communication skills. Featured speakers include authors/professors Dr. Ellen Handler Spitz and Dr. Lois Hetland. Visit Continuing Education to register for workshops.

An arts education is now recognized as providing keys tools for the development of metaphorical thinking, the ability to creatively problem-solve, and life-long learning. Fulfilled and productive participation in the cultural, social, and economic processes of the 21st Century society is a key aspect of a creative arts education. Join PNCA for this groundbreaking series that explores the breadth and depth of an arts education.

Complementing the symposium, Imagine: 100 Years of Work from PNCA’s Children’s Art Archives, features work by generations of children taught in PNCA’s Youth Program. The exhibition is curated by Sally Lawrence, PNCA President Emerita and Amy Williams, former PNCA Youth Art Program Director with additional support from long-time Youth Program faculty Bonnie Allen and MaryEllen Hartman.

Get a sneak preview of Imagine via the Youth Art Program Flickr site.

PUBLIC EVENTS

Lecture | “Art for Our Sake,” by Dr. Lois Hetland
6:30 p.m. Thursday, November 12
PNCA Main Campus Building, Swigert Commons, 1241 N.W. Johnson Street

Why do we teach art? Join PNCA as it welcomes author and professor of art education Lois Hetland for a discussion on arts education. Hetland is the co-author of the influential book Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education.

Keynote Address | “Reflections on Space and Childhood,” by Dr. Ellen Handler Spitz
6:30 p.m. Friday, November 13
PNCA Main Campus Building, Swigert Commons, 1241 N.W. Johnson Street

Dr. Ellen Handler Spitz discusses the complex and powerful role the visual arts play in the emotional and cognitive development of children. Spitz is a writer, lecturer and scholar who currently holds the Honors College Professorship of Visual Arts at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She is the author of Art and Psyche, Image and Insight, Museums of the Mind and more.

Exhibition | Imagine: 100 Years of Work from PNCA’s Children’s Art Archives
November 11–December 1
PNCA Commons: 9am–9pm daily

Since its founding in early 1909, Pacific Northwest College of Art (formerly the Museum Art School) has fostered generations of artists and designers through its youth art programs. A retrospective from the College’s youth art archives provides a time capsule of artwork spanning generations of Portland’s youth.

Panel Discussion | Imagine: 100 Years of Work from PNCA’s Children’s Art Archives
Saturday, November 14, 12:00pm–12:45pm
PNCA Main Campus Building, 1241 NW Johnson Street

Exhibition curators Sally Lawrence, PNCA President Emerita, Amy Williams, former PNCA Youth Art Program Director, with additional curatorial support from long-time Youth Program faculty Bonnie Allen and MaryEllen Hartman discuss the selection process for Imagine: 100 Years of Work from PNCA’s Children’s Art Archives. Together, the group explored the College’s extensive children’s art archive and uncovered some surprises along the way. Join this informal conversation and discover the wonders of children’s art.

About PNCA+FIVE Idea Studios
PNCA+FIVE Idea Studios is a series of conversations, symposiums, lectures and performances on the inner workings of creative practice. The series features internationally acclaimed practitioners from a range of cultures in an effort to highlight the importance of creativity in fostering innovation and civic imagination.

The Ford Institute for Visual Education (FIVE) was established in May 2007 with a generous gift from Hallie Ford. FIVE extends PNCA’s intellectual and resource platform through exhibitions, symposia, internationally renowned artists in residence and other programs that enrich the environment for original thinking and creative enterprise.

The Children’s Creativity Symposium is co-sponsored with Oregon Art Education Association, Oregon Psychoanalytic Center, and CAN (Creative Advocacy Network).

Image: PNCA Children’s Art Archive.

In Depravities of War Birk draws on Jacques Callot’s “Miseries and Misfortunes of War” to create a series of monumental woodcut prints, each measuring 48” x 96,” commenting on the debaucheries of contemporary warfare. Printed in collaboration with master printer Paul Mullowney of HuiPress in Makawao, Hawaii, this body of work features traditional woodblock printing techniques on Japanese paper.

In the series American Qur’an, Birk hand-transcribes and illuminates the Holy Qur’an with scenes from contemporary American life. Birk’s version of the Qur’an is based on traditional manuscripts—chapter headings are decorated and the pages are illuminated with miniature paintings in full color, using inks, acrylics, gouache, pencil, and metallic paints.

Raised on the beaches of Orange County and currently living in Southern California, Sandow Birk is a product of West Coast culture. Well-traveled and a graduate of the Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design, Los Angeles, his work has explored Los Angeles County in its entirety, as well as locations around the nation and abroad.

With an emphasis on social issues, frequent subjects of his past work have included barrio life, inner-city violence, graffiti, imprisonment, surfing, and skateboarding. Often merging fact and fiction, Birk creates salient and humorous works that invoke justice. He frequently pursues a particular subject in depth, developing a body of paintings, drawings, prints, and dioramas to support his idea.

In the past several years Birk’s work has been included in more than 10 museum exhibitions and 25 solo shows; he has received a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, a Getty Fellowship, and a City of Los Angeles Fellowship. Two of Birk’s major projects, “In Smog and Thunder” and “Incarcerated: Vision of California in the 21st Century,” were published as monographs by Last Gasp, and Birk’s version of “Dante’s Inferno” was published by Chronicle Books in 2004. Birk has exhibited with Catharine Clark Gallery since 1994.

Birk will visit the PNCA campus in December for a free public lecture.

Exhibition | Sandow Birk’s Depravities of War and American Qu’ran
November 5–January 8, 2010
First Thursday Opening | Thursday, November 5, 6:30 pm
PNCA Feldman Gallery + Project Space, 1241 N.W. Johnson St.
Gallery Hours: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily

Image: Artist Sandow Birk with a print from Depravities of War. Photo courtesy of the artist.

PNCA’s Global Studios program presents a range of work exploring China’s youth culture, contemporary life, propaganda, and politics created by students during a stay in China in Summer 2009.

Global Studios: China is an experiential studio and academic learning program on Chinese contemporary art, design, society, politics, language and culture for BFA and MFA students at PNCA. Hsueh Wei 薛玮, Associate Professor of Photography at PNCA is the Resident Director for this program. PNCA students spent 25 days abroad in Shanghai, Beijing and Suzhou, China in May and June of 2009.

Featuring work by PNCA students Amanda Langston, Alfredo Lettenmaier, Yiu-Hong Leung, Jane Schiffauer and Allison Woodin.

2009 Global Studios: China MFA and BFA Student Exhibition
November 5–28
First Thursday Opening | 6–8 pm, Thursday, November 5
PNCA Main Campus Building, Gallery 214 (second floor), 1241 N.W. Johnson St.

A lecturer during the Museum of Contemporary Craft’s 2008 exhibition Glass, Vicki Halper returns to provide context to the historical shifts examined in the exhibition, The Academy is Full of Craft. In this presentation, Halper reads from the new book Choosing Craft: The Artist’s Viewpoint (The University of North Carolina Press, 2009), co-edited by Halper and Diane Douglas. This anthology recounts American craft’s role within visual culture and history through journal entries, lectures and other reports by leaders in the field. A social history, Choosing Craft provides a vital resource for those seeking a better understanding of contemporary craft’s major concepts, themes and movements through the lens of those who lived it.

Vicki Halper is an independent curator and writer specializing in modern art of the Pacific Northwest and American craft. She is a former associate curator of modern art at the Seattle Art Museum and recent James Renwick Senior Fellow of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Alix Pearlstein’s work includes conceptual sculpture, multi-channel installation, and performance-based video, using everyday objects, pop cultural artifacts, and art historical references to create narrative meaning through association. Slappe is an interdisciplinary artist who teaches in PNCA’s Intermedia department. Together, Pearlstein and Slappe will lead MFA in Visual Studies students through art process and practice during the two-week residency.

Lecture | Caldera Residency Report
Featuring MFA in Visual Studies Visiting Artist Alix Pearlstein and PNCA Faculty Stephen Slappe
12:30 p.m. Friday, October 30 | PNCA Main Campus Building, Swigert Commons, 1241 N.W. Johnson St.

Contact:
Rebecca Burrell | External Relations Specialist
Pacific Northwest College of Art
rburrell@pnca.edu 503 821 8959

Becca Biggs | Director of Communications
Pacific Northwest College of Art
bbiggs@pnca.edu 503 821 8892

November 11 – December 1
Exhibition | “Imagine: 100 Years of Work From PNCA’s Children’s Art Archives”

Thursday, November 12, 6:30pm
Lecture | “Art for Our Sake,” by Lois Hetland

Friday, November 13, 6:30pm
Keynote Address | “Reflections on Space and Childhood,” by Dr. Ellen Handler Spitz

Saturday, November 14, 12-12:45pm
Panel Discussion | Exhibition Curators Discuss the PNCA’s Children’s Archives

All public programs take place at the PNCA Main Campus Building, Swigert Commons, 1241 N.W. Johnson St., and are free and open to the public.

PORTLAND, OR – Wednesday, November 11 through Saturday, November 14, Pacific Northwest College of Art hosts Children’s Creativity: Why the Visual Arts Matter, a symposium focused on the role of visual arts education in childhood development. PNCA partners with the Creative Advocacy Network (CAN), Oregon Psychoanalytic Center and the Oregon Art Association. Art therapists, clinicians, arts educators, youth counselors, art organization leaders, school administrators and more, are invited to participate in this three-day gathering focusing on the relevance of artistic processes of inquiry, reflection and expression to the cognitive, emotional and social development of children.

Workshops will allow participants and experts to discuss art and childhood development with individuals at the forefront of the academic movement to enrich childhood with art. Workshops include “Arts-Based Mediation + Conflict Resolution,” “Studio Habits of the Mind” and “Children’s Books and Children’s Imagination.” In addition, there is a screening and discussion of the film Child and Parent: Learning from the Visual Arts.

Activities will report on and explore the growing body of evidence that the arts nurture and develop complex thinking and communication skills, which are all too often marginalized in a discipline-focused and test-driven educational system. A panel of leading policy makers will also examine positioning and supporting arts education as an essential component of state-wide educational reform.

In addition to a series of panels and workshops, the conference brings in two nationally recognized speakers. First, Dr. Lois Hetland, who is Associate Professor of Art Education at Massachusetts College of Art and a researcher at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, delivers a lecture Thursday, November 12 at 6:30pm. Dr. Hetland will address the trends, opportunities and limitations in deploying the visual arts in therapeutic contexts. Friday, November 13 at 6:30pm, Dr. Ellen Handler Spitz, Professor at the Honors College of Visual Arts at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, delivers the keynote address, examining the purpose of teaching the arts to children within the school system.

The conference is planned in conjunction with Imagine: 100 Years of Work From PNCA’s Children’s Art Archives, to be shown in PNCA’s Commons November 11 – December 1. This retrospective of work is culled from a full century of PNCA youth art programs that have fostered generations of artists and designers. The exhibition is curated by Sally Lawrence, PNCA President Emerita, Amy Williams, former PNCA Youth Art Program Director, with additional support from long-time Youth Program faculty Bonnie Allen and MaryEllen Hartman.

As a leading institution in creative education, and as part of PNCA’s centennial year, this symposium reflects the College’s long history of supporting creativity and visual literacy in the Pacific Northwest.

To read more, or to register, please visit www.pnca.edu/artsmatter.

###

About PNCA+FIVE Idea Studios
A product of the Ford Institute for Visual Education (FIVE), PNCA+FIVE Idea Studios are a series of conversations, lectures and performances on the inner workings of creative practice. The series features internationally acclaimed practitioners from a range of cultures in an effort to highlight the importance of creativity in fostering innovation and civic imagination. PNCA+FIVE Idea Studios explore the creative life and the importance of creativity in fostering civic imagination and collaboration.

About Pacific Northwest College of Art
Since its founding in 1909, Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) has become a leader in innovative educational programs that connect students to a global perspective in the visual arts and design. In addition to its eight Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees, PNCA offers graduate education with an MFA in Visual Studies as well as an MFA in Applied Craft and Design, developed in collaboration with the Oregon College of Art and Craft.

PNCA is actively involved in Portland’s cultural life through exhibitions and a vibrant public program of lectures and internationally recognized visiting artists, designers and creative thinkers. With the support of PNCA+FIVE (Ford Institute for Visual Education), the College has a partnership with the nationally acclaimed Museum of Contemporary Craft. For more information, visit www.pnca.edu.

Dissanayake’s writings about the arts synthesize many disciplines and draw upon 15 years of living and working in non-Western countries. Her Darwinian viewpoint provides a broader understanding of the arts than is customary in most theoretical approaches: the arts are integral to human nature and they evolved to help individuals adapt to their physical and social environments.

She is the author of three books: What Is Art For?, Homo Aestheticus, and Art and Intimacy, as well as over 70 scholarly and popular articles. Her articles on craft themes have appeared in American Craft, the NCECA Journal (1995), the Glass Art Society Journal (1996), Surface Design Journal, a Haystack Institute Monograph (2000), and The Nature of Craft and the Penland Experience (2004). Currently, she is Affiliate Professor in the School of Music at the University of Washington, Seattle.

MFA in Applied Craft and Design Lecture | Ellen Dissanayake
6:30 p.m. Thursday, October 29 | MFA in Applied Craft and Design Studios @ The Bison Building, 421 N.E. 10th Avenue and Glisan Street

The MFA in Applied Craft and Design is a joint MFA degree program offered by PNCA and Oregon College of Art and Craft.

MFA Applied Craft and Design Lectures take place at 6:30pm in MFA in the Applied Craft and Design Studios at The Bison Building, 421 N.E. 10th Ave. in Portland.

MFA Visual Studies Lectures take place at 6:30 p.m., in The Lab at Museum of Contemporary Craft, 724 NW Davis St. in Portland—unless otherwise noted.

All lectures are free and open to the public.

MFA in Applied Craft and Design
Steve Badanes
Thursday, September 2
Founding member of design-build firm, Jersey Devil; Chair of the University of Washington College of Built Environments.

MFA in Visual Studies
Ward Shelley
Thursday, September 24
New York-based artist

MFA in Visual Studies
Martin Kersels
Thursday, October 8
Co-director of the art program at California Institute of the Arts, multi-media performance and visual artist

MFA in Visual Studies
Alix Pearlstein
Thursday, October 14
12:30pm, PNCA, 1241 NW Johnson St
New York-based multimedia artist

MFA in Visual Studies
Kate Gilmore
Thursday, October 15
12:30pm, PNCA, 1241 NW Johnson St
New York-based video artist

MFA in Applied Craft and Design
Zahid Sardar
Thursday, October 22
Author, designer, Design Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle

MFA in Applied Craft and Design
Ellen Dissanayake
Thursday, October 29
Scholar and author, faculty at University of Washington

MFA in Visual Studies
Caldera Residency Report, with Caldera students, Alix Pearlstein and PNCA faculty member Stephen Slappe
Friday, October 30
12:30pm, PNCA, 1241 NW Johnson St

MFA in Applied Craft and Design
Aly Khalifa
Thursday, November 12
Product developer, founder of the creative collaborative Designbox

MFA in Visual Studies
Nina Katchadourian
Thursday, November 19
Brooklyn-based multimedia artist

MFA in Visual Studies
Sandow Birk
Wednesday, December 2
12:30pm, 1241 NW Johnson St
Los Angeles-based multimedia artist

MFA in Applied Craft and Design
Po Shun Leong
Thursday, December 3
Artist, former architect, sculptor, furniture maker

MFA in Visual Studies
Laura Parnes
Thursday, December 10
Brooklyn-based video/installation artist

MFA in Applied Craft and Design
Arthur Hash
Thursday, January 21
Jewelry designer and craftsman

MFA in Applied Craft and Design / MFA in Visual Studies
Allison Smith
Thursday, January 28
6:30pm, Bison Building, 421 NE 10th Ave
Oakland-based performative sculptor

MFA in Applied Craft and Design
Shashi Caan
Thursday, February 11
Interior and product designer, founder of The Shashi Caan Collective, former Director of Interior Design at Parsons School of Design.

MFA in Visual Studies
Patty Chang
Thursday, February 18
Performer, time-based sculptor

MFA in Visual Studies
Mary Weatherford
Thursday, February 25
Los Angeles-based painter

MFA in Visual Studies
Daniel J. Martinez
Thursday, March 11
Los Angeles-based multimedia artist

MFA in Applied Craft and Design
Susan Brandeis
Thursday, March 18
Fiber artist, Director of Graduate Programs for the Department of Art and Design at North Carolina State University

MFA in Visual Studies
Renny Pritikin
Thursday, April 8
Director of the Richard L. Nelson Gallery and the Fine Arts Collection at the University of California Davis, former Chief Curator for Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

MFA in Applied Craft and Design
Natalie Chanin
Thursday, April 15
Alabama-based artist and designer, proprietor of Alabama Chanin

Learn more about the MFA in Applied Craft and Design.

Learn more about the MFA in Visual Studies.