AICAD : Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design

“It’s really important to me that my pots are used, not just looked at and pondered,” says Joan, whose show, Full Circle, is on display at the Mary E. Black Gallery. “I’m really after that connection with the audience. And, I believe that as someone continues to use a piece, it builds a history. You think, ‘Oh, the last time I took this out, we had a great dinner party.’ Or, ‘I always get this out when the entire family is gathered around the table.’”

Mitchell Sutika Sipus, BFA Art Academy of Cincinnati ’04 and an alumnus of the AICAD New York Studio Residency Program ’02, is an interdisciplinary Urban Planner who now creates unique solutions to some of the world’s most difficult problems. He has conducted successful projects in Kenya, Egypt, Somalia, and Afghanistan, has spoken at Oxford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his work has been featured in WIRED magazine.

Lee was part of the team led by sound editor/designer Paul N. J. Ottosson, whose efforts were recognized at the 2013 Academy Awards with the Oscar for Best Sound Editing (in a rare tie, with Skyfall). In the sound categories, the specific on-stage, statue-holding recognition goes to the supervising sound editor; Ottosson is now a three-time Oscar victor (he previously won sound mixing and sound editing for The Hurt Locker). Ottosson had previously worked with Gilmore on the apocalypse thriller 2012, and hired him again for ZDT, which turned about to be an intense, and rewarding, challenge.

The coming-of-age tale, which opened in June in limited release, is the vision of first-time director Benh Zeitlin and his New Orleans-based filmmaking collective, Court 13. Among Zeitlin’s tight-knit group of collaborators, four RISD alumni played key roles in bringing the world of Beasts to life.

“I started taking pictures because everything was exotic,” she said. “About a year later, my job was really wearing me out, so I decided to do something I actually liked. I wanted to study photography, so I started looking around for schools.

“I see myself as creating activist artwork to challenge and to change and to bring hope for the women of Afghanistan,” says Hangama, 23, just back from the U.K. and en route to Lunenburg, where she is one of three NSCAD grads with the NSCAD-Lunenburg Community Studio Residency Program.

“There’s a lot of soul in the eyes of our characters and that’s because of the decisions that the artist made. The eyes are really only black discs, but they’re drawn so carefully and cleverly that the characters look alive. You’re drawn to them. And I think that’s the difference. As much as I love computer animation, I still feel there’s a place for the hand of the artist.”

With nylon rope as her medium, Toshiko has specialized in creating crocheted play areas for children. She did her first large commission 30 years ago for the Hakone Open Air Museum outside of Tokyo, Japan. Brightly coloured and interactive, it’s a children’s playground like no other– otherworldly, colossal, inventive, fun, and yes, beautiful.

“When you’re in school, the idea of being a practicing artist seems so far off and unattainable,” says Jared, back in Moncton, N.B., where he grew up. “So I want to say to the students who are in the middle of it that yes, being an artist is possible, but you’ve got to make opportunities for yourself.”

he John F. Kennedy New Frontier Awards were created by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and Harvard’s Institute of Politics to honor Americans under the age of 40 who are changing their communities and the country with their commitment to public service. The awards are presented annually to two exceptional individuals whose contributions in elective office, community service, or advocacy demonstrate the impact and the value of public service in the spirit of John F. Kennedy.

It didn’t take Luke McKinney long to find the opportunity of a lifetime that every young artist aspires to achieve. A friend got a job on a reality show for the Discovery Channel but decided not to take it and gave the information to McKinney. McKinney showed up in his place, and as fate would have it, ended up working for three seasons on the show “Flying Wild
Alaska.”

In the few years since graduating, Carrie Bilbo (B.F.A. Jewelry/Metalsmithing ’09), has made a dramatic entrance into the rarefied world of fine jewelry design.

Bilbo’s incorporation of cicada wings in necklaces and rings—described as “edgy and chilling” by Nylon—have gained recognition as beautiful body ornaments, and received media attention in Vogue, Sublime, and New York magazine’s blog The Cut, NBC New York, InStyle magazine, and Art Jewelry Forum.

On the kibbutz where Israeli-born video artist Oded Hirsch grew up, there is almost always a ready-made cast of family and friends excited to star in his work.

For his first major piece, 50 Blue, half a dozen men from the kibbutz—a collective living community in Israel — volunteered to hoist Hirsch’s father in his wheelchair up to a watchtower while standing in the Sea of Galilee in the rain.

“I was surprised because people really came to me and said ‘we want to be part of it,’” he says.

Just before he was scheduled to do a poetry reading at SFMOMA last year in response to a work in the collection as part of the Pop-Up Poets Series for the exhibition The Steins Collect, Arnold Kemp discovered that Mary Heilmann’s Fire and Ice Remix had been taken off view.

“I asked the Museum to project an image of the painting on a blank wall,” Kemp says. He printed copies of the painting which he gave to the audience. Some were in color. Some in black and white. He told the audience that before he would read, they had to take a minute to try to transform the projection into the actual painting.

When The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens its newly installed Arts of Korea Gallery this month, it will showcase two works by Il Lee (M.F.A. ’82), a Korean-born, New York-based artist best known for creating innovative works both on paper and canvas using ballpoint pens.

The exhibit brings the artist’s move from Korea to New York full circle, explains Jung Lee Sanders, whose gallery Art Projects International has been representing Lee since 1996.