All posts by ah

LSU Art Wins 2021 ADDYs

Students, Honors & Awards, Art, Digital Art, Graphic Design, , ,

LSU School of Art students won gold and silver 2021 ADDY Awards. Each year, the American Advertising Awards, also known as the ADDYs, the advertising industry’s largest competition, recognizes some of the best creative work in the country. The Baton Rouge American Advertising Federation annually recognizes “the creative spirit of excellence in the art of advertising” locally. In March 2021, the Baton Rouge American Advertising Federation awarded ADDYs to LSU School of Art students and faculty:

Gold Winners

ADDYs Student Overall Best of Show Wanderer of Planet Parallelogram, Animation or Special Effects. Graphic or cartoon face.

Digital art student Nnamdi Anyaele won the Student “Best of Show” award for animated short “Wanderer of Planet Parallelogram.” The piece is the official selection at the Sidewalk Film Festival and received an honorable mention at the Nassau Film Festival 2021.

Watch video:

“Nnamdi received four invitations to other film festivals as well as an honorable mention at the Nassau Film Festival,” said Hye Yeon Nam, associate professor of digital art and faculty advisor. “We are proud of the well-deserved recognition.”

Graphic design students in the Graphic Design Student Office (GDSO) also won gold awards:

Print Publication Design: Quad LSU College of Art & Design Magazine, Summer 2020

Quad 2020 cover. Photo of man painting mural

Entrant: LSU School of Art | GDSO (Graphic Design Student Office)
Credits: Lindsey Henriques, Gabrielle Trupiano, BFA › Graphic Designers, Luisa Restrepo › Creative Director, Lynne Baggett › Faculty Advisor, Kitty Pheney, Project Director; Elizabeth Mariotti, Writer/Editor

Cover Design: LSU Foundation Cornerstone Magazine Cover Illustration

Sunflowers illustrationCredits: Yerin Heo, Graphic Designer, MFA candidate

Silver Awards

Logo Design: LSU Museum Anniversary Logo, GDSO

Print Design: LSU School of Art BFA Showcard

Digital Publication Design: Annual Report 2019-2020, College of Art & Design

College of Art & Design 2019-20 Annual Report CoverCredits: Coby Naquin, BFA candidate Graphic Designer; Luisa Restrepo › Creative Director, Lynne Baggett › Faculty Advisor, Elizabeth Mariotti, Project Director/Writer/Editor

Learn more about GDSO, the LSU Graphic Design Student Office.

Learn more about the LSU School of Art digital art program.

MFA Artists Selected for New American Paintings

Students, Honors & Awards, Art, Painting & Drawing, Publicity, ,

MFA candidates Luke Atkinson, Stephanie Cobb, and Samantha Rosado have been featured in critically acclaimed art periodical, New American Paintings. Each issue is a highly selective juried exhibition of contemporary artists in print, chosen by renowned curators.

Stephanie Cobb’s paintings were selected for the upcoming 154th issue of New American Paintings, which will be available June 2021.

Samantha Cobb

Stephanie Cobb

“I am thankful to have been selected,” Cobb said. “It is an honor to be included alongside such talented painters living and working in the South. I am particularly indebted to the mentorship that I received at LSU that aided my growth as a painter.”

“My work is a private moment made public,” Cobb said in her artist statement. “My interest in image making has always been predominately figurative, selecting subjects that are closely tied to personal experiences. Only closeness between artist and sitter will allow for intimacy in a portrait. My hope is to evoke clarity with our closeness, or our distance.”

Her MFA thesis exhibition show is titled “Fun House.”

Samantha Rosado, fellow MFA candidate of painting & drawing, had her work featured in the NAP No. 148, South Issue last year.

Colorful painting of human figures, dog

“La sala, no sale” by Samantha Rosado. 48×36 (hxw) in, oil paint on canvas.

Samantha Rosado in studio

Samantha Rosado in studio.

“My recent work is a narrative series of paintings in oil paint on canvas,” Rosado said. “My work can be described as pages from a journal, giving honest descriptions of family dynamics surrounding the intersections of sexuality and religion, children and parents, siblings and in-laws, and the culture of Puerto Ricans living in the mainland and on the island. In these family portraits each component carries personal meaning for me, which I attempt to convey with a sense of humor through placement and characterization.”

Her MFA thesis show is titled “¡Si tiene su 401(K), It’s OK to be Gay!”

MFA Luke Atkinson’s paintings were in NAP issue #141 in 2020.

“This current body of work is a space where the relationship between the subject matter, the method of painting, and the voice of the painting are negotiated,” he stated. “Listen to the conversation and remain attentive to different points of view. Stay alive and awake so that we may discern the true and relevant from the false and complacent. This is the stuff of life.”

See Luke Atkinson’s work.

New American Paintings has featured the work of more than three thousand painters from throughout the United States, many of whom have gone on to receive international attention. Each museum-quality issue results from a highly selective juried competition and presents the work of forty painters. Thousands of artists enter the competitions every year, but only a limited number make it through the jurying process.

 

Honoring Sue Turner

Art & Design

 

Woman in graduation robe and cap

Dr. Sue Turner (left) at 2017 LSU Commencement ceremony.

The LSU College of Art & Design is saddened by the passing of Sue Turner, a devoted preservationist and philanthropist who supported LSU and the Louisiana arts community for many years. She was 93.

The LSU College of Art & Design presented Dr. Turner with the Doctor of Humane Letters degree in 2017, honoring her long-standing philanthropic commitment to LSU and her exemplary support of the arts and culture of Louisiana.

Read Citation

Carol Gikas, who served as the president and executive director of the Louisiana Art & Science Museum for thirty-nine years, said:

“Sue Turner’s distinctively quiet leadership style would keep organizations true to their mission. Her keen ability to discern who to bring to the table and how to motivate a governing body, along with her style, grace, and beauty, was a persuasive formula. When Sue committed to an organization, it would be for life.

Such was the case with her beloved Louisiana Art and Science Museum (LASM) that she helped get off the ground in the early 1960s. In the more than 50 years that followed, she played a role in securing and renovating two historic buildings in downtown Baton Rouge for LASM’s home (the Old Governor’s Mansion and then the Illinois Central Train Station), building two planetariums, growing an art collection, and securing governmental funding that stabilized LASM through the decades.

She said that when she discovered museums as an adult it opened her world. She wanted Louisiana schoolchildren and families to have cultural opportunities that she wished she could have had as a child. This very personal vision assured that today LASM is still fulfilling its mission.”

The LSU community respectfully honors the Turner family at this time of grief.

Read obituary

The Artistic Spirit of Mardi Gras 2021

Art, Sculpture, Faculty, ,

New Orleans house decorated with colorful Mardi Gras sculptures

“Battling the Leviathan” Mardi Gras house float by Malcolm McClay, Chicory Miles.

Though traditional Mardi Gras parades were cancelled across Louisiana for the 2021 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, New Orleans residents are keeping the Mardi Gras spirit alive through the Krewe of House Floats “Parade in Place” initiative. New Orleans-area homes have been decorated like Mardi Gras floats for spectators to view, as a safer option to the large crowds of the usual parades. The Krewe of Houses has granted an opportunity for local artists to showcase their talents – including many LSU art alumni, students, and faculty – and even stimulate the local artisan economy. Most of all, the art spectacles are meant to raise spirits in a challenging time, and send the collective message that we are a united community and hopeful for the future. Here is a glimpse of one such Mardi Gras sculpture project, by LSU art professor Malcolm McClay.

Battling the Leviathan

By: Malcolm McClay, LSU Art Professor

For the past six years our family has marched with Chewbacchus, usually with a sub-krewe composed of neighborhood families. In the past we have had themes like “New Orleans Sewerage and Waterworld” or “Chewbocalypse Now.” Our themes typically combined political satire with various films. The house float gave us an opportunity to continue our participation in Mardi Gras; however, we felt strongly from the beginning that we needed to do something different this year.

It has been such a challenging time for so many people, and New Orleans has been particularly hard hit because the  economy is so reliant on tourism and many of the city’s artists and musicians cannot perform at their typical venues. Our food culture is threatened as well, as long established restaurants are closing.

From the beginning, we agreed that we wanted to create something beautiful that harkened back to Mardi Gras of the past. Our house was built in the 1890s and we live in a historic district. As you walk through our neighborhood in the Bywater, it is easy to imagine yourself living in another time.

My wife Chicory remembered a flag that we have from il Palio, a Medieval horse race where 17 contradas (districts) in Siena compete against each other. Each contrada is represented by a flag. We brought our children to the race in 2019 and got the Onda (wave) flag with an image of the leviathan.

The leviathan is a mythical sea creature mentioned in both the Torah and the Bible. It is also the title of a book by the philosopher Hobbes written in 1651. In it, Hobbes argues the ideal commonwealth should be ruled by a sovereign, granted absolute power. He uses the image of the leviathan to represent his political ideology. We decided to title our house float “Battling the Leviathan.” Our goal was to acknowledge the many different struggles people are facing at this moment.

Malcolm McClay is a sculpture professor in the School of Art, and the director of the LSU Art in Ireland Summer Program. Chicory Miles, his wife, taught at LSU for 13 years and continues to teach the LSU Art in Ireland Summer Program each summer.  

 

LSU Architecture Students Win Earth Made Competition

Art & Design, Students, Honors & Awards, Architecture, ,

LSU architecture students in associate professor Robert Holton’s class won the Earth Made Competition, an international design challenge to plan buildings using earth materials.

“Last semester my studio participated in an international competition focused on developing contemporary housing in Accra, Ghana constructed out of earth blocks,” Holton said. “Earth construction is central to my research.”

The project Gardens Above Accra by Samuel Methvin and Hannah Mollere is the competition winner, and the project Stacked//Metropolis by BArch candidates Jacquelyn Dupont and Chase Welch received the Institutional Excellence Award. All five LSU School of Architecture entries were shortlisted finalists.

“We were asked for this project to design a multi-use building in Accra, Ghana, incorporating the use of mud brick construction into the design,” said Hannah Mollere and Samuel Methvin.

“Our professor Robert Holton pushed us to use the idea of a field study to design our buildings program. The design incorporated the idea of various green spaces that we called “pocket parks,” allowing for our building to be a public oasis in the city of Accra.”

Apartment building with greenery on rooftop terraces

Gardens Above Accra design proposal by Hannah Mollere and Samuel Methvin.

 

Their design proposal Gardens Above Accra is a concept to create a residential and public space to serve as a retreat from crowded urban life, using voids in the structure as greenspaces. The building also offers a place for vendors to assemble commerce, using interior and exterior spaces creatively.

Stacked//Metropolis uses traditional techniques of earthen construction and integrates “with the opulence of modern living in a seamless and dramatic way.” Proposed protruding structures on the towers and sky bridges for traffic flow offer interesting twists on expected earth building aesthetics.

Earth Building with skywalk between towers

Stacked//Metropolis design by Chase Welch and Jacquelyn Dupont.

“Our design was inspired by the class’s intensive study of traditional earthen block architecture,” said BArch candidates Chase Welch and Jacquelyn Dupont. “We developed a community centered cornerstone and designed the towers to feel monolithic, yet welcoming. All it took was a few sleepless nights, great teamwork, and a passionate professor.”

The Earthen Architecture: Sentient Technologies for Building studio focused on earth construction, an ancient building practice which is inherently sustainable, with modern-day implications. Architecture students concentrate on the potential for earth to be compositionally, formally, and structurally transformed throughout the architectural design and construction processes.

Holton’s research centers around sustainable architecture practices and advancing construction techniques. He has worked with several prominent architectural offices in the US and France including Bernard Tschumi Architects in New York and Paris; Smith-Miller+Hawkinson, Gensler, Peter Marino Architect, and Peter Gluck Architect in New York; and Oppenheim Architects and Design GH in Miami. His professional experience spans a variety of project types and scales and includes the Corning Glass Center, University of Cincinnati Athletic Center, and office buildings for MasterCard International. Additionally, he has worked on winning proposals in Europe, such as the New Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece, and concert halls in Rouen and Limoges, France.

Darius Spieth Voted “Favorite Professor” 2020

Art & Design, Honors & Awards, Art History, Art, Faculty, Doctor of Design,

Darius Spieth speaks at the Louvre

Professor Spieth speaks at the Louvre.

The LSU Reveille The Mag‘s “Best of Campus Guide 2020” named art history professor Darius Spieth “Favorite Professor” of the year. The course ART 1001: Intro to Fine Arts, which Professor Spieth teaches, won “Best Class.” Polled students voted for the “Best of Campus” winners.

“This award comes as no surprise, given how singularly Professor Spieth dedicates himself to his students,” said Alkis Tsolakis, Dean of the College of Art & Design.

A specialist in modernism, San Diego Alumni Association Chapter Alumni Professor Spieth focuses his scholarship on the interrelationships between art, intellectual history, and economics. Major monographs include Revolutionary Paris and the Market for Netherlandish Art (Brill, 2018) and Napoleon’s Sorcerers: The Sophisians (University of Delaware Press, 2007). Spieth is subject editor for Art Markets, Law and Economics for the Grove Dictionary of Art (Oxford University Press), a printed version of which is forthcoming as Grove Guide to Art Markets.

His upcoming speaking engagements include “Marc Fumaroli et l’art moderne” on June 4, 2021, an homage to the esteemed late French historian Marc Fumaroli, jointly organized by the College de France and the Louvre. The event is planned to be held at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.

Dean Tsolakis was named a “Favorite Dean” in the magazine poll. Other “Best of Campus” winners include favorite campus buildings, eateries, study spots, student athletes, “Best Subject” and “Best Major.”

View the digital magazine.

New to LSU: Q&A with Meredith Gaglio

Art & Design, Research, Architecture, Faculty,

Meredith GaglioMeredith Gaglio is an assistant professor in the LSU School of Architecture. She is a historian of modern and contemporary architectural technology, urbanism, and the environment, with previous experience in professional practice. Her dissertation addressed the development and implementation of sustainable community planning and architectural strategies in the United States from the late-1960s through the early-1980s.

Q: What drew you to architecture & design? 

A: As a high school student, I enjoyed every subject—history, art, math, science—and it was difficult for me to determine what I should do next. During an art history course my junior year, I realized that architecture might offer an opportunity to explore all of these subjects. Luckily, I was correct: over the course of my studies at Tulane University, I was able to take classes in almost every discipline, each of which informed my architecture studio work. At Tulane, I also became particularly interested in the relationship between architecture, ecology, and community. As I continued my education at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, these interests deepened, and I still contend with these topics today in my own research. 

Q: What are your research interests? 

A: My current research considers the intersection of grassroots, sustainable architecture and community design with government energy policy during the 1960s through 1980s. My work demonstrates how understanding early sustainable design contributes to a fuller history of American architecture and planning during this time period and supplies a philosophical and historical framework through which to examine current developments in sustainable design. From a broader perspective, I am interested in topics concerning community activism, environmental justice, ecology, climate change, and sustainable design.  

Q: What was your first impression of LSU? 

A: My first impression was of the beauty of LSU’s live oak trees. 

Q: Anything else you’d like to add?  

A: I’m so excited to be here with you all and look forward to learning more about Baton Rouge! 

About Assistant Professor Gaglio
She received a Ph.D. in Architecture from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (2019), a Master in Design Studies from Harvard University Graduate School of Design (2010), and Master and Bachelor of Architecture from Tulane University School of Architecture (2005). She has received fellowships from the Smithsonian Institution, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, and the Buell Center for American Architecture to pursue her research.

She co-edited with Caroline Maniaque-Benton the Whole Earth Field Guide (MIT Press, 2016), a volume of countercultural texts, and has contributed pieces on the RAIN group and New Alchemy Institute to the ArchiteXX “Now What?! Advocacy, Activism, and Alliances in American Architecture since 1968” traveling exhibition. Presently, she is preparing an essay on California’s Office of Appropriate Technology for inclusion in Design Radicals: Building Bay Area Counterculture, edited by Greg Castillo and Lee Stickells.

Alumni Spotlight: Jill Traylor, BID 1998

Interior Design, Alumni, Alumni Profiles,

Jill TraylorAs part of the “Design in a Pandemic” series, Jill Traylor, NCIDQ, IIDA, LEED Green Associate, director of interior design at EskewDumezRipple in New Orleans, shares about her experiences in the time of COVID-19 and beyond.

How has the way you work and operate changed due to the pandemic?

For now, everyone has the option to come into office or work remotely and we usually have about 40% of staff in the office. Our firm has adapted by providing more tools to work and collaborate virtually. Although our preference is to have face to face collaboration as much as possible in the future, we see the opportunity for some level of remote working to continue in a post-COVID world.

How would you say has the role of an interior designer changed?

Clients are looking to us for how they can alter their spaces in response to COVID and the post-COVID world. It’s involved a lot of research on our part into all aspects of interior environments including spacial layouts, circulation, furniture, materials, and air quality. Since information changes daily as more is learned about the virus, we have to stay on the pulse of best practices. I foresee some of these adaptations being the new standard in the future.

Any projects in 2020 that you would like to describe?

We are currently working on several co-working projects in Louisiana, as well as Charlottesville, VA and Salt Lake City, UT. It’s definitely a workplace trend we see growing and evolving. It’s quite different from corporate office design in that the amenities, programming and aesthetics are key for success. We work closely with our clients to help them explore opportunities and how to stand out in the marketplace.

About Jill

As Director of Interior Design, Jill brings over 20 years of national expertise in the design of commercial interiors, having practiced in Manhattan, Dallas, and New Orleans. She brings experience in a wide range of project types, with a focus on workplace, hospitality, and mixed-use. An integral leader in countless project success stories, notably The Shop at the CAC, Palmisano Corporate Headquarters, and Tsunami New Orleans, Jill brings a holistic outlook to the integration of interiors in our projects that is warm, welcoming, and ultimately exceptionally thoughtful. In recognizing the complexity of the spaces we create, Jill’s role as Director of Interiors cements not only the long-term growth of the firm and its work, but an investment in our team and the continued success of our interiors division.