Communication Arts Chair and rock & roll enthusiast Robert Meganck bestows his creative lessons upon Richmond, or as we like to call it, the Capital of Creativity. Meganck has been with the VCUarts family for 34 years now and has expertise in illustration, graphic design and digital imaging.

“All of us are creative,” he said. “We must fight a system that tells people that they can’t draw or create.”

Theatre faculty Toni-Leslie James has been chosen to design the costumes for Tom Hank’s Broadway debut, Lucky Guy, by Nora Ephron. It details the rise, fall, and rise again of the NYC tabloid reporter, Mike McAlary.

In addition to her NY associate designer, Nicky Tobolski, she is assisted by Joshua Quinn (VCU MFA 2013) and Virginia Varland (VCU BFA 2013). Congratulations team!

VCUarts had a strong presence at the 2012 James River Film Society’s Shorts screening, with a number garnering awards!

First Place: L. City, by fall 2011 Kinetic Imaging Visiting Artist, Sandro Del Rosario

Del Rosario is currently a visiting professor at the University of Richmond. He says “I had a wonderful experience teaching in the Kinetic Imaging Department at VCUarts during the Fall 2011, and I still feel very connected and nostalgic about the school.”

L.City is a 16mm, black and white, experimental film made with cutout photographs, objects and drawings animated frame by frame under the camera.
Originally released in 2002, L.City has been published in a DVD anthology by Rattapallax in 2006 (The Cabell Media Library had a copy).

Short Synopsis:
A man remembers his lost love through suggestions and atmospheres of a city. Like lines of a poem, images, music and sounds reflect an interior state of mind, with the disrupted, non-linear structure that remembering can have.

Second Place (tie): Alphabet, by Kinetic Imaging BFA student, Sean Ruecroft
In addition to his film award – has received a Benjamin Gilman International Scholarship. He will be attending The Bristol School of Animation at UWE (The University of the West of England).

Third Place (tie) Eye Pieces Number 1, by Graphic Design faculty, Steven Hoskins

Synopsis: Eye Pieces, Number 1, 2012, 4:50
“You are watching this: a look, a stare, gaze, glimpse or simply a glance, broken apart and asynchronously re-assembled over 4, 16, and 64 individual split screens, mimicking bird chirps and wind chimes in the out-of-doors. First in a series of eye movement studies.”

Hoskins’ Artist Statement
I have spent most of my life as a graphic designer, and recently as a graphic design educator who teaches and practices in video. Much of this work is imbued with formal/visual explanations for the Hermeneutic Circle: the understanding of meaning derived from interrelationships between part and whole. This is embodied in the video image that is broken and reassembled; fragmented and reconstituted; a union made of asynchrony. Chaotic and irregular movements converge into unified movement; small multiples begin to move as a system.

Third Place (tie) Movements, by Photography and Film student, James Mattise

Movements is what became of my introduction to the Optical Printing machine. The images within the film were composed of various, individually filmed, images layered on top of one another. Local musician, Nick Bonadies then elegantly married the images with a score that allowed the image’s abstractions to blend into a balanced, fully realized experience.

Best Virginia Filmmaker AND People’s Choice award: Evolution!, by Kinetic Imaging alumnus Tyler Rhodes and the Patrick Henry School of Science and Art
Films were selected through a jury panel, with guest juror filmmaker Lyn Elliot selecting the award winners. Lyn is a Film and Media Arts professor in the Communication Studies Department at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Rhodes says “This is a collaborative animation in which I took 5 groups of people and simulated evolution with them in the course of an hour. From those groups I amassed about 460 drawings, which, along with their “animal noises,” I then turned into an animation. This animation here involves the group from Patrick Henry School of Science and Art and is roughly 100 or so of their creatures, with their own unique ending to the animation- the Ice Age.”

Image: Still from Del Rosario’s L. City

Assistant professor in Art Foundation and the Department of Sculpture + Extended Media, Matt King and Associate Professor and Choreographer in the Department of Dance, Scott Putman defy the stereotypes of traditional mediums with their ongoing collaboration, an untitled hybrid of sculptural and performance art.

Matt King’s interest in combining sculpture and performance originated from his interest in documenting viewer interactions with his work. With little to no experience with performance, a typically collaborative art form, King sought out Putman, for his experience in performance work dealing with environment and architectural interaction, like constructing sets. As recipients of the Dean’s Exploratory Research Grant they were able to develop their idea. They were also able to fund the documentation and other aspects of their project with the help of the Dean’s Faculty Research Grant.

The construction of the piece, embodied by many found objects, began August 2012. The piece is currently located in a spacious room at 5 E. 2nd St. With this large new space, there is room for Putman’s choreography, though the performance must be somewhat contained around King’s structure. As they document the performances and interactions, the pair will work to edit the way this piece functions over time.

More on this story: The Commonwealth Times

We are very pleased to see several of our VCUarts family being recognized by Richmond Magazine for their Excellence in the Arts.

Congratulations to the following recipients of Theresa Pollak Prizes for 2012, who will receive their awards in a ceremony on Tuesday, December 4, 2012 at the Virginia Historical Society.

Applied Art, Andrea Donnelly, MFA in Fiber/Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Craft/Material Studies
Dance, Pam England, Alumna of the Department of Dance
Emerging Artist, Jason Keith, Painting + Printmaking BFA
Film, Patrick Gregory, Alumna of the Department of Photography & Film
Photographer, Susan Worsham, friend of the Department of Photography & Film
Visual Art, Matt Lively, Sculpture BFA/Adjunct Faculty in Art Foundation
Lifetime Achievement, Joseph Seipel, Dean of VCU School of the Arts