& Then

Lisa French pulled off her first coup as Program Director of NESADSU’s new BFA program in Illustration by presiding over the opening reception of her Illustrious Alumni exhibition on Friday evening, April 20th. Perhaps it’s her second coup. The first may have been locating a significant number of NESADSU graduates who, despite the fact that they majored in other disciplines, are now making their names as illustrators.

Alumni from 1968 to 2011 presented work that ranged from children’s book illustration to editorial to the graphic novel, with stops at traditional and digital animation, storyboarding, fantasy and science fiction, syndicated comics, and body illustration along the way. Illustrious Alumni Catalog (PDF)

Of the seventeen artists who took part in the exhibition, eleven were on hand to receive the plaudits of the guests (most of the rest live far out of state). Some you’ve seen in the pages of & Then before, like John Roman (Graphic Design 1971), whose illustrated maps are well known to the Suffolk community; in fact one of them is of the Suffolk community. Another, of Colonial-era Concord, MA demonstrated perfectly John’s fine command of the pen, with an evocative look at what is now a sprawling town much larger than that depicted here. The work of Scott Hill (General Art 1979) was featured in a Feedback column in the spring 2010 issue, while that of Daniela Wong-Chiulli (Graphic Design 2007) and James Kraus (Graphic Design 1982) adorned the announcement of the new Illustration program in the fall 2010 issue. Mauro Maressa (Fine Art 1969), with his, at the time, co-worker at Disney, John Norton, was profiled in the spring 2003 issue, though Mauro is now enjoying retirement and the time to pursue his other artistic interests. Most of the others have been the subjects of class notes at one time or another, though “live” is, of course, much nicer.

The Illustrious Alumni, in total, were:

Bill Bradbury (Advertising 1968)
Gary Destramp (General Art 1978)
Joe Farnham (Graphic Design 1980)
Kseniya Galper (Graphic Design 1999)
Craig Harrison (Graphic Design 1984)
Prescott Hill (General Art 1979)
Alice (Mooney) Imeson (Graphic
Design 1991)
James Kraus (Graphic Design 1982)
Mauro Maressa (Fine Art 1973)
Max Martelli (Fine Art 2011)
Bob Ostrom (Graphic Design 1985)
Bruce Ozella (Graphic Design 1978)
John Roman (Graphic Design 1974)
Karin (Santos) Samatis (Graphic Design/Fashion Illustration 1977)
Barclay Shaw (Fine Art 1978)
Velicia (Gourdin) Waymer (Fashion Illustration 1982)
Daniela Wong-Chiulli (Graphic Design 2007)

The thing that makes most alumni events fun is finding out what everyone is up to. Besides those mentioned above, we talked with Craig Harrison, who came from northern Vermont with his new wife, Anna, and their five-year-old son Moses. Craig is still involved with the bicycle business and his work on display included advertising and sports apparel design, though he also handles book cover illustration and art and design for television commercials, along with art direction and event work.

Bill Bradbury and Gary Destramp, though in classes at NESAD ten years apart, have studio space in the same building and both spent time at the Lowell Sun. Bill does a lot of caricature and comic strip work, while Gary is primarily, though not exclusively, an editorial illustrator. Joe Farnham, now an in-house artist with Trader Joe’s, doing illustrated signage and murals, is also working on a compilation of his work of 25 years of old-time baseball illustrations.

Alice (Mooney) Imeson continues to illustrate the rich and famous through caricatures and editorial portraits, for such publications as the Los Angeles Times, National Review, Seattle Times and Warner Brothers. She had also had solo shows in Boston, Los Angeles and Seattle and has recently submitted her work to The New Yorker.

Light years away is the latest work by Kseniya Galper, illustrations for a graphic novel, called Zero, written by Jan Egleson. The novel has been published by Vook, a publisher specializing in interactive books for the iPad (and available online through iTunes). In addition to this project, Kseniya also does traditional figure painting and drawing, digital collage and illustration, and other forms of visual expression.

A real departure was Velicia (Gourdin) Waymer’s body illustration, here, as often, using as a canvas her daughter Bri. Velicia also exhibited exquisitely decorated masks, demonstrating a range of applications for her design skills. More traditionally, at least in the work he chose to submit, were Max Martelli’s paintings done for music and book covers. Though only out of school since last May, Max has already established a thriving illustration practice, doing album and comic book covers, as well as fantasy and science fiction illustration for gaming and comics.

Barclay Shaw and Karin (Santos) Samatis were at NESAD at about the same time but their work has taken very different turns. Karin, who also does graphic design work, specializes in storyboarding for television commercials and film, as well as presentation comps for advertising. She came to the opening with husband, Bill, who is also a NESAD grad (1977), the only non-Italian member of the famous NESAD “mob” of the 1970’s and a designer in his own right. Barclay, on the other hand, is well known for his science fiction and fantasy art, with more than 500 book and magazine covers to his credit, including 16 cover illustrations for Harlan Ellison paperbacks, including some by Isaac Asimov and Larry Niven. He now  freelances for several governmental and defense agencies, such as the U.S. Army and the National Reconnaissance Office, as well as for private sector clients. See more at http://www.barclayshaw.com.

Bob Ostrom, who currently lives in North Carolina, has been working as an illustrator since shortly after graduation. Beginning with a Framingham toy company, his work has since appeared in over 200 children’s books and publications. Bruce Ozella has been a graphic designer and illustrator for over 32 years and now enjoys drawing “Vintage Popeye” comic books for Idea & Design Works Publishing.

After the exhibiting alumni had had a chance to mingle with each other, the faculty and staff present, and other guests, they headed down the hallway to hear award-winning illustrator, historian and educator (Director of the University of Hartford’s Limited Residency MFA program in Illustration) Murray Tinkelman give an overview of American illustration. According to Velicia Waymer, “Mr. Tinkelman was a wealth of information and thoroughly a ‘pip’ as my grandmother would have said! He gave me plenty to Google on the way home and much to chew on as I plan my next ‘illustrative’ steps.”

According to NESADSU Chairman Bill Davis, who has been with the school since 1971 and, so, knew each exhibitor personally, “As this exhibition shows, NESADSU has been cultivating successful illustrators for decades. They went out into the world, well-prepared for fields such as Graphic Design, Fine Arts and Fashion Illustration, but a passion for picture-making led these NESADSU alums to make their marks as illustrators in all kinds of places, from publishing to animation, from advertising and packaging to licensed merchandise. With this exhibition, we are honoring their legacy and celebrating the potential of all future Illustration alumni we hope will follow in their path.”

Illustration Program Director Lisa French has surely made a positive impression in her first academic year at NESADSU and this exciting exhibition is proof of that. As Lisa says, “I’m so glad that the exhibition, reception and catalogue were so well received and so successful. It was wonderful to meet the alumni involved and their enthusiasm for NESADSU is obvious. The have very positive feelings for the school. I’m also so pleased that the exhibition catalogue shows such a wide range of exhibition-related work. This will certainly be a nice sample to show new and prospective Illustration majors. All of this has reinforced my good feelings about being part of this institution.”

Note: NESADSU only very rarely mails invitations to events. Most such events appear on the appropriate NESADSU blogs (e.g. Graphic Design or Interior Design, the alumni blog & Then or the Fine Arts blog of student Holly Coutu) or, sometimes, are announced via email. For the former, go to the NESADSU website (http://www.suffolk.edu/nesad) and click on “blogs” in the upper left corner; for the latter, please be certain we have a current email address for you (to update, please email Sara Chadwick at schadwick@suffolk.edu.

Images Courtesy of Molly Akin

In the short lifespan of the national Say Something Poster Contest, sponsored by HOW magazine (www.howdesign.com), NESADSU students, under the guidance of graphic design faculty Marie-Anne Verougstraete and Anne-Mary Wood-Mann, have brought home the top prize three times. Last year it was Shawn Semmes (Graphic Design 2012), followed this year
by sophomore Olivea Kelly and junior Brigid Griffin.

Say Something is a design contest and gallery show that gives designers the opportunity to create posters that will “inspire, motivate and educate teenage kids” (howdesign website). Each year the winning designs are donated to a non-profit organization. Last year Boston’s Home for Little Wanderers was the beneficiary; this year the posters went to the Dorchester-based Blue Hill Club, one of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston. HOW has been a sponsor of the competition since its inception, as part of their efforts to encourage design for change.

This year, Marie-Anne had the students in her Computer Applications in Design course enter the contest as a class assignment, as did the students in Anne-Mary’s Graphic Design I class. Of the total of 156 contest submissions this year, four NESADSU students’ posters made the semi-final round of 25, to be exhibited in two shows, one in Boston, the other in Los Angeles. They were Brigid Griffin (Free Your Mind), Olivea Kelly (Be a Lamp or a Lifeboat or a Ladder), Alan Auger (Be Here Now), and Gabrielle Kozera (Grow). In addition, the poster show judges added a new category this year, called “Staff Picks”, five posters that didn’t make the final round but that so impressed the Say Something Team that they were included in the exhibition (but not in the awards judging). NESADSU had an alum in this category as well, Silvi Naci (Graphic Design/Fine Arts 2011).

From this group, two NESADSU students emerged among the top ten, Brigid and Olivea. Both posters spoke to teenagers in a way that words alone cannot. Olivia’s Be a Lamp (“shed light, help someone understand”) or a Lifeboat (“save a life, be there in a time of need”) or a Ladder (“help out, reach new heights”) carries a message for people of any age, while Brigid’s Free Your Mind was “inspired by a

video I watched on the process of tall painting. The way the paint gracefully poured down inspired me to fluidly hand-draw all of these elements in order to convey a free feeling, encouraging others to open their minds.”

Congratulations to all the winners and runners-up from NESADSU. Great job!

Three NESADSU alumni have come under the radar of the College of Arts & Sciences’ Alumni Association and will be honored in April and June for their achievements. Kodiak Starr(Graphic Design 2002) has been chosen to receive the College of Arts & Sciences Young Alumni Award, while Marissa Borst (Interior Design 2006) and Eric Heins (Graphic Design 2009) will be honored as “10 Under 10” recipients.

The Young Alumni Award is being presented to Kody Starr, who is currently the Creative Director of Digital Strategy at the White House, at a reunion reception and dinner at the State House on June 9th. The Young Alumni Award is awarded annually for demonstrated success in one’s profession or for contributions to society, while achieving a level of distinction that has brought honor both to the individual and to the University. To the best of our knowledge, Kody is the first NESADSU alum to work for the President of the United States, certainly in so creative a capacity.

The dinner and awards ceremony at which Kody will be honored will be held in conjunction with the reunions of the Suffolk classes of 1952, 1962, 1972, 1982, 2002, and 2007. As the class of 1962 is celebrating its 50th anniversary, two members of that class at NESADSU, Dan McCarron (Graphic Design) and Steve Zubricki (also Graphic Design) have been asked to join the reunion committee and are working diligently to locate “missing” classmates.

Marissa and Eric, as more recent alumni, have been chosen as recipients of the “10 Under 10” award. “10 Under 10” recognizes outstanding alumni of the past decade who have enjoyed major professional success, made an important difference in their community, or have been loyal supporters of the University. Marissa, who was recently featured in an article on this blog, is an interior designer with Architecture + Design Associates, Inc. in the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area, and is also Director of Programming for the
District of Columbia’s chapter of NEWH, the Network of Executive Women in Hospitality. In addition, she is the principal of All’s Well That Ends Well Designs, which specializes in miscellaneous art and design, and continues to work with FACETS Cares, a non-profit organization that helps those in need of affordable housing, food and medical care and the like.

Eric, a Graphic Design major at NESADSU, has been owner of and designer for Corter Leather since his junior year at NESADSU (“…and it was my full-time job within three months.”). He remembers one of his professors telling him, at the time of his senior portfolio review, “Don’t be afraid to do what you really love. Just because you have a degree in graphic design doesn’t mean you have to use every single part of it – you’re still designing”. Last year Eric designed and made a bracelet to benefit Red Cross relief efforts in Japan, following the earthquake and tsunami, sold 2,000 of them and mailed a check for $32,000, all is 27 days.

The “10 Under 10” event will be held on Thursday, April 26th at 6:00 PM at Boston’s Nine Zero Hotel (90 Tremont Street). Anyone interested in attending should contact Emma O’Leary at eoleary@suffolk.edu or 617.573.8456.

Kody Starr will be honored at a reception and dinner on Saturday, June 9th at 6:00 PM in the Nurses Hall, Grand Staircase and Great Hall at the Massachusetts State House. For more information on that event, please contact Laura Piscopo, Director of Alumni Relations, at lpiscopo@suffolk.edu or 617.573.8457.

Amidst a setting of trendy high-end furniture and accessories, the Montage showroom at 75 Arlington Street was the scene of a celebration by the NESADSU Interior Design community on Friday night, March 9th. In observance of our graduate and undergraduate Interior Design programs’ ascent to #3 in Design Intelligence magazine’s nationwide rankings of interior design programs, Program Co-Directors Karen Clarke and Nancy Hackett invited their students and alumni to revel in these achievements. And to top off the DI programs rankings, Karen was also being honored for having been named one of their “25 Most Admired Educators of 2012”.

2001 Interior Design graduate Michael Moeller was the evening’s featured guest. Now a successful New York-based interior designer and the visible face of several design-related television programs, most notably HGTV’s Design Star and Clean House New York on the Style Network, Michael gave an entertaining and advice-filled presentation. He began by tracing his own career trajectory, beginning with his first job with residential designer Alan Tanksley. This experience demonstrated the perils with working with and for the very rich (“I quickly learned this industry is full of devils who wear Prada”) but also compensations (“I’ve also had installs in homes that ended with a weekend on the beach ….or hitting the slopes for the day”.) Then, from a firm of eight, he moved to BBG-BBGM (“…consisting of close to 200 interior designers and architects, in several different offices, on three different continents.”). Now it was “grand spaces and intimate guestrooms” and more travel “in the four years I spent at this company than ever in my life”.

Michael’s favorite project in the hospitality industry “was not a tangible space at all”. Instead he was charged with studying and inventorying the successes of Radisson’s European properties, by visiting and experiencing them. “Myself and two colleagues, along with several people from the owner’s side, jumped the corporate jet and headed to twelve cities in six countries. It was a whirlwind fourteen days in which we would arrive at a property, tour it, have lunch, jump the jet, hit the next property, tour it, have a spectacular dinner, spend the night, then do it all over again the next day. I saw more of Europe in those two days than most people will ever see in  a lifetime!” Aside from the fun and excitement, however, this trip taught Michael the importance of good conceptual design and brand standard adherence.

After eight years of working for someone else, Michael decided to take the plunge and go into business for himself. “It started out slow, with only one large-scale residential new build home and a couple of small scale decoration projects” but, soon, business picked up on the strength of several good referrals, and he’s been on his own since.

Design Star came along just two years ago, in March of 2010 and, though Michael was not the ultimate winner, he did, as one of the two left standing in the final episode, garner plenty of attention and, ultimately, a stable of new clients (“after weeding through the unrealistic inquiries!”). As he notes: “TV is an interesting medium to work in. All the exhausting long hours, being produced to the point of feeling slightly like a live puppet, and putting yourself out there for the world to critique seems discouraging, but, to a true narcissist like myself, it fuels my fire, motivates me to reach higher, and, ultimately, not settle down until I achieve, to whatever extent I choose, my goal. My friends and family call me crazy…I’m OK with that…”

Then the advice: “You need to believe in your reason and always know your worth. What you do, who you are, your qualifications, all set you apart from the saturated world of the masses. You take the client’s taste and make it work better, convey their personality, and leave them with a one-of-a-kind product that was not shopped from the pages of a catalogue or website.” He also touted buying American when possible, “going green”, “peel[ing] back the layers of all these design trends”, in order to “stay true to your clients’ needs and wants, your concepts and yourself…”

Standing surrounded by students, faculty and alumni of the Interior Design programs, and in the midst of a showroom he was probably eager to plunder, Michael ended the evening by reminding his listeners that “… ultimately, it’s about loving what you do.”

Watch a video of Michael’s keynote address on the Interior Design Connections blog.

Besides being an impressive feather in the Interior Design cap, the DI program rankings have proven a powerful recruitment tool. According to Karen, several prospective students have told her that one of the reasons they are looking especially closely at NESADSU is our programs’ high standing. Given the fact that the survey participants are those “who have direct experience in hiring and in evaluating the performance of recent architecture and design graduates” (DI Survey Methodology), the rankings carry all the more significance for those who wish to enter the professional interior design world.

Montage, who generously loaned their space for the evening, is a staple on design students’ itineraries. Founded in 1959, Montage was originally conceived “to introduce the finest in contemporary furniture from Europe to the Boston design community” (Montage website) and continues to offer such manufacturers as B&B Italia, Cassina, Matteo Grassi and Poltrona Frau, among others. Montage also generously offers its showroom to NESADSU for the annual exhibition of graduate students’ thesis projects.

Images Courtesy of Molly Akin

Two NESADSU Graphic Design alumnae, Eleanor Kaufman (2010) and Bianca Pettinicchi (2010) are following what’s beginning to seem like a well-travelled path to Switzerland, to put a few finishing touches on their design education. Coming a year after Amy Parker (2011) and Lauren DeFranza (also 2011) made the same trip, both are interning for ICON Worldwide in the canton of Appenzell, near the Austrian border. ICON is a full-service agency, specializing in branding, print communications, website development, and social and mobile media. Eleanor has graciously consented to share her blog with the NESADSU community, as she wrote about her study abroad experiences in a previous issue of & Then. Combining her daily accounts of working for an international design firm, with thoughts about living abroad, in the town of Gais, learning to navigate in German, and seeing as much of the countryside as she can fit into her busy schedule, Eleanor paints a portrait of an opportunity not to be missed. Interested graphic designers take note!

After a year and a half of interim leadership, Suffolk University passed the presidential reins from Acting President and Provost Barry Brown to James McCarthy on February 1, 2012. McCarthy becomes Suffolk’s ninth President, following David J. Sargent, who retired in October of 2010.

Most recently provost and senior vice president at Baruch College of the City University of New York, McCarthy comes to Suffolk after stints at Princeton University, the International Statistical Institute in London and Trinity College, Dublin. He also served at Johns Hopkins, Columbia and the University of New Hampshire. While at Baruch, an urban institution with 18,000 students and 500 faculty members, McCarthy steered the college through reaccreditation and strategic planning processes, both of which Suffolk faces in the near future.

A sociologist and demographer, President McCarthy holds a Ph.D. from Princeton, an M.A. from Indiana University and an A.B. from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. Because of his time in Massachusetts and nearby New Hampshire, he feels a special affection for the city of Boston, one thing that led him to accept the presidency of Suffolk.

In his two weeks at the helm of Suffolk, President McCarthy has embarked on a listening tour, meeting with the faculties and staffs of the Law School, the Sawyer Business School and the College of Arts and Sciences, as well as the Student Government. He has plans to visit every department in the University for a first-hand look at what he’s inheriting.

In a open forum held on February 7^th, and another a week later with CAS faculty, McCarthy demonstrated an impressive grasp of the issues confronting Suffolk, given the fact that he’d been President for 4 days at the first and then 11. At the first meeting he was relaxed and genial, displaying flashes of humor, confidence without a trace of arrogance, making, overall, a very positive first impression. At the second he went straight to specifics, promising to continue Suffolk’s traditions of accessibility and excellence, addressing his preference for a decentralized and somewhat simplified system of governance, a commitment to crystal-clear two-way communication, and a desire to restore the family atmosphere some think has been lacking in recent years. Though he only indirectly addressed the issue of facilities for NESADSU, it is clearly on his agenda and we’re therefore hopeful for a quick resolution to this vexing issue. He did, however, urge anyone with a question or problem to email him directly, something that we have already found works perfectly.

NESADSU welcomes James McCarthy to Suffolk and hopes to work closely with him to find solutions to the issues confronting the art school and the rest of the University.