When David Ashton (BFA ’62) stepped into Oriole Park at Camden Yards in 1991, the Baltimore baseball stadium was just steel beams and brick. In a controversial move, the city was preparing for the Orioles to leave the aging Memorial Stadium behind and settle into a new home downtown at Camden Yards.

Standing with Ashton on the barebones construction site was Janet Marie Smith, then-VP of planning and development for the Orioles, who laid out her vision for Camden Yards. She wanted him to design a new park that was special and timeless, that had the flavor of a bygone era—a park that would bring the fans back home.

Smith spoke to Ashton like he had done this before. He hadn’t. Though the Commercial Art alumnus was a seasoned designer, he feared that he was in over his head. Ashton Design was just one of many local firms Smith had contacted in her search for someone who could give this skeletal park personality and character. To get the job, he’d be competing with companies whose résumés were much longer than his.

Six months later, Ashton delivered designs for a baseball stadium so unique that franchise owners around the country would soon be clamoring for one just like it. On his first pitch, he had changed the game.

Like the good old days

Ashton never expected Camden Yards to be such an enormous success. After his initial tour with Smith, he returned to his office and the sheer scale of the Orioles project began to dawn on him. As the owner of a small design firm, the bulk of his professional experience was in print. Nothing he’d done could compare to designing every single graphic and decoration in a facility meant to seat 48,000 people.

“I realized that the biggest signage project I’d ever done was a 4-by-8 sign for a housing development,” says Ashton. “I had no idea what I was doing; I was just using my instincts to know what was right.”

Like many kids who grew up in the 1950s, Ashton was a baseball fan. Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio were icons for millions like him, and the parks where they played were equally beloved. At that time, baseball was still a neighborhood thing. Ballparks were brick and iron, just like the apartments across the street, and you could watch the game from the rooftops. When Roberto Clemente hit a home run out of Wrigley Field, it landed on the curb.

But in the ’60s and ’70s, as major league baseball expanded west, new stadiums were designed to be cheap and multipurpose to accommodate a city’s baseball and football teams. As a result, these parks ended up as symmetrical, utilitarian designs featuring massive concrete façades and artificial grass.

“The ballparks were cookie-cutter things,” says Ashton. “They weren’t all that exciting. And it hurt the game of baseball, because it took the people away from the action.”

When thinking about how to engage Orioles fans again, Ashton’s instinct was to look to the beloved, folksy ballparks built in the 1910s and ’20s. Incidentally, one of his favorite hobbies was collecting antiques; he’d even restored a period farmhouse. With the team’s history stretching back to the 1880s, Ashton thought perhaps his love of Americana could give this new ballpark some retro flair.

‘So close, it’s creepy’

“I just procrastinated and procrastinated,” says Ashton, “because I didn’t really know what to do. Finally, Smith called me up and said, ‘Are you going to send us a proposal or not?’”

He scrambled, Xeroxing rough sketches he’d made and bundling them together into a beautiful package, secured with a string. He printed the Orioles logo on the cover and sent it to Smith’s office.

The next morning, he was hired.

He later discovered that his proposal was chosen because it was the only one with the team’s logo on it, instead of the design firm’s.

By the time Camden Yards opened to the public in 1992, the steel beams and brick had been transformed into a resplendent open air park, nestled into downtown Baltimore just off the Inner Harbor. The stadium’s orange accents and lush green signs and seating transport visitors to the turn-of-the-century, with serif font signage, block lettering, swirling wrought iron accents and hand-drawn wall illustrations that evoke the earliest days of urban baseball. The neighboring B&O Warehouse, built in 1899, was renovated and converted to office space for the team, providing an authentic counterpart to Ashton’s antique stylings.

If you go to Oriole Park today, more than 25 years after its construction, you can still see many of the signature features Ashton and his firm designed. The distinctive 19th-century clock above the scoreboard, oriole weathervanes and charming concession stand logos all originated from his sketchbook.

“Most of the stuff that got built at Camden Yards is so close to those sketches, it’s creepy,” says Ashton.

Leaving a national legacy

After opening day in 1992, David Ashton became a local celebrity in Baltimore. He gave talks around town about his design, and the Orioles even hosted the 1993 MLB All-Star Game. Soon, the requests for other stadium renovations started coming in from around the country. The Boston Red Sox hired Ashton Design to carefully update its historic Fenway Park, and the Los Angeles Dodgers enlisted the firm to lend Dodger Stadium a similar retro-cool aesthetic. Today, the Dodgers own the second most Instagrammed location on the planet.

Still, Camden Yards remains in a league of its own.

“As soon as you walk in, it had that cathedral feeling. You thought immediately, ‘This place will stand the test of time’,” said Buck Showalter, Orioles manager, in an ESPN story. “This was a park that you thought other teams would copy. And that’s exactly what has happened.”

Baseball fans love to argue over which ballparks are better than others, but Camden Yards commands a degree of respect rarely offered to contemporary stadiums. Look in any list of the best ballparks in the country, and Oriole Park is bound to appear near the top—right next to the places that inspired it.

Despite its fame, Ashton says the historic significance of his work still hasn’t hit him yet.

“I’m still waiting for that,” says Ashton. “I don’t realize it when I’m breaking the mold. I just do what I think is right.”

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Tom Tartaglino (BFA ’94) always loved to draw and paint, but didn’t pursue a degree in the arts until he was married with children. His friends and family expressed doubts that a career in the arts was sustainable, yet his desire to pursue his dream of being a painter eventually inspired him to enroll in the VCUarts painting and printmaking program at age 40. His first year after graduating, he sold 11 paintings. He’s since produced hundreds more portraits, natural and urban landscapes, and etchings—at the rate of 30 works a year.

Fluvanna Review reached out to Tartaglino to learn about his motivations, subjects and plans for the future.

“I suppose I will pick a subject based on how the message in my head needs to be said to the public. Art is a non-verbal form of communication and works well with emotions. As something is triggered in me, I will think about what sort of painting will best describe it,” he said. “I am often attracted to a subject and unaware of how I feel about it. Not until I paint it do I understand what I am trying to say. Painting and art in general has a lot of surprises. Sometime I don’t know where it comes from.”

At the present he is taking a break from painting, and believes that these breaks make his next painting more powerful. He is thinking about doing more etchings with wildlife, like birds and reptiles, going along with the nature paintings he already does.

“I would like to explore some familiar sounds of the unusual birds. A whippoorwill for instance. That would go along with a painting of a twilight mountain or woods painting. When have you seen a whippoorwill? We only hear them,” he said. Tartaglino will research his subject from the inside out before laying it out on canvas, whether it is a car or a bird.

Read more in the Fluvanna Review.

Lead image: “Going Places” (2010) by Tom Tartaglino.

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Theatre professor Toni-Leslie James has designed costumes for 20 Broadway shows—including productions with actors Patrick Stewart and Tom Hanks. She’s used her technical expertise and industry know-how to train a generation of theatre students at VCUarts, helping them get a foot in the door on Broadway. Her recent work on Bernhardt Hamlet was nominated for a Tony Award, and CBS 6 News reached out to the designer to learn more about her career.

Toni has created costumes for some of the most memorable productions and names in show biz. The 62-year-old Pittsburgh native said she was bitten by the theatre bug at age nine.

“We went to a production of “Jack and the Beanstalk” and I can remember every minute of it,” says Toni.

Toni’s career carried her to Richmond a dozen years ago so she could share her knowledge and talents with aspiring designers. Some of her students are already working in the industry.

“It is tremendously rewarding,” says Toni. “It is excellent to see your work on stage. It is what we live for.”

Read and watch the full interview at CBS 6.

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There’s still time to see the Arts Research Institute faculty-led exhibitions “Swirling” and “Beautiful Words are Subversive.” Both are free and on view until the last weeks of July.

“Swirling” is a multichannel video with sound created by Hope Ginsburg, associate professor of painting and printmaking, and collaborators Matt Flowers and Joshua Quarles. The project, which documents underwater coral farming and reef restoration, is on view through July 30. Learn more at VCU News.

“Beautiful Words are Subversive” is an exhibition curated by Black Chalk & Co., which was founded by Nontsikelelo Mutiti, assistant professor of graphic design, and Tinashe Mushakavanhu. “Beautiful Words” is an exploration of the restrictions on artistic freedom in Zimbabwe. It will be on view through July 26.

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Sterling Hundley (BFA ’98), associate professor of communication arts, was invited to a spectacular birthday party on June 1—but the “guest of honor” was the monumental American poet Walt Whitman, who was born 200 years ago on May 31, 1819. To mark the occasion, the Library of Congress invited Hundley and author Robert Burleigh to discuss their latest book O Captain, My Captain: Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War and stick around for an interview and book signing. Hundley’s powerful illustrations evoke the dramatic moments in Whitman’s life, and his relationship with America’s 16th president.

The Fairfax County Times interviewed Hundley and Burleigh to learn more about their work.

Why did you use mainly dark colors for this book?

HUNDLEY: This story needed visuals that would amplify the mood and emotion of this most tumultuous time. The palette was chosen for that reason. Each assignment and new piece presents an opportunity to use all of the tools at our disposal–mark making, design, scale, pattern, tone, concept, narrative, and many other fundamental aspects in picture making to amplify the sentiment of the story and communicate the message.

How did Walt Whitman touch you personally?

HUNDLEY: I was taken by his humility and humanity. I imagine that Walt Whitman was as lost and powerless as any of us, as we are faced with catastrophic fears and challenges. He chose to look into the tumult and take action that would ease human suffering. There was tremendous courage in doing that which needed to be done. It came at a great sacrifice to his physical and mental health. Yet, for those that he spoke to, gave to, and responded to directly, he was often the difference between hope and despair.

Read the full interview at the Fairfax Times.

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Alma’s RVA, a retail and gallery space, only opened in April and it’s already caught the attention of Style Weekly and Richmond Magazine. Owned and operated by glass artist and craft alumna Sarah Mizer (MFA ’07), Alma’s provides contemporary artists a space to showcase and sell their work. Handmade crafts available in-store and online include mugs, jewelry and bags. Mizer, formerly a professor at VCUarts, also offers workshops in hand-lettering and embroidery through her store.

Style Weekly detailed Mizer’s inspiration and how she founded Alma’s.

Since graduate school, Mizer discovered that her own art was dictated by one show after another and competing curatorial visions rather than her own needs. “I felt like I was wanting more out of the conversations,” she recalls. Now she hopes to provide those open-ended opportunities to artists.

While Alma’s RVA will be an eclectic mix of retail space and gallery, it will cohere thematically around contemporary craft. Works will include wholesale lines and one-of-a-kind art on consignment. Functional housewares will feature prominently and prices will vary from less than $50 to several thousand. Work will rotate seasonally based on themes selected by Mizer.

For its opening, Alma’s RVA featured work by nearly 30 different artists, most of whom currently live in the city or formerly called it home. The inventory remains on view until late summer. Although her family has roots in the Shenandoah Valley, Mizer is a transplant from Rhode Island who moved to Richmond in 2005.

“It’s definitely a celebration of my community,” she says with a smile.

Read the full article in Style Weekly, and check out another interview with Mizer in Richmond magazine.

Lead photo by Scott Elmquist.

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It almost sounds like a dream: Matt Wallin, associate professor of communication arts, sits down at a dinner table, surrounded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, filmmaker Ron Howard, actor Mark Hamill and two astronauts.

“You hear all the time about people who are inspired by ‘Star Trek’ and that’s why they would go to NASA,” said Wallin, whose own path was firmly set at age 7. “That’s what got them going. The arts motivated them to do really well in math and science, because they wanted to one day become an astronaut or create the coldest and most sensitive camera in the world. Or become an astronomer and detect exoplanets at great distance. I mean crazy, crazy stuff.”

Wallin himself was inspired by the original “Star Wars,” which came out in 1977. The movie was groundbreaking, he said, in terms of structure, thematic components, imagination and design. The visual effects, stunning at the time, were very analog by today’s standards. They used physical models with some computer-controlled cameras that allowed for motion-control movements. The visual-effects people then optically composited everything.

“And that’s what I always wanted to do since I was a little kid,” Wallin said. “The more I researched it as even a little kid, I was sort of obsessive compulsive about it.”

Trying to hedge his bets as best he could, Wallin strategically chose to attend a university near Lucasfilm — San Francisco State. He parlayed a college internship with George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic into a full-time job, which he held for 10 years.

Read more about Wallin and the MARS conference at VCU News.

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Associate professor of sculpture Corin Hewitt has been doing some independent archaeology, and his new show “Shadows Are to Shade” at the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU showcases the history he’s unearthed. Hewitt began excavating underneath his two-story home and studio in the Fan last year, and he’s since discovered that his 1915 house was once owned by the Ford family. The artifacts and research materials from his project will be on view at the ICA throughout the summer. Plus, the dig site at Hewitt’s home is open to interested visitors once a week.

This history is the foundation for the exhibition, which combines video, scrim walls, land alterations and artifacts — real and fabricated — divided between the second floor of the ICA and a room in Hewitt’s home, which will be open to visitors once a week.

“I’ve always been interested in the relationship of bases to sculpture — what the ground is that the figure stands on,” Hewitt says. “We expect that when we’re standing somewhere there’s a stability to what we’re standing on. I really like to think about unpacking that, the historical stability and the firmament that’s under that, [even] thinking about that politically.”

Read more about Hewitt’s show, open through September 1.

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VCUarts Music hosts the Guitar and Other Strings Series every July, featuring a wide variety of musical styles from jazz, bluegrass and folk to Celtic, flamenco, classical and blues.

Celtic Masters, featuring Maggie Sansone, Paul Oorts, and Andrea Hoag, kick off this year’s performances with their 7:30 pm show on Friday, July 19. Their dynamic brand of “chamber folk” music, combining traditional and classical styles, features hammered dulcimer, harp guitar and fiddle. Get your tickets.

Quatro na Bossa brings Brazilian bossa nova and samba music to VCUarts on Friday, July 26 at 7:30 pm. For more than 15 years, the band—which includes jazz alumni Kevin Harding (MM ’04) and Rusty Farmer (BM ’99)—has performed Brazilian standards and original material live and in the recording studio. Get your tickets.

The VCU Community Guitar Ensemble closes the series on Sunday, July 28 at 4 pm. The 25-member guitar orchestra will feature classical guitarists from around central Virginia, including guest musicians Lisa Edwards-Burrs (MM ’94), the Robinson Guitar Duo, and the only banjo player to ever graduate from the music program, John Bullard (BM ’05). Directed by John Patykula, assistant chair and area coordinator of guitar. Free admission.

Begun in 1992, the Guitar and Other Strings Series has presented nationally and internationally acclaimed artists in concerts and workshops. Artists who have performed on this series include Leo Kottke, Mark O’Connor, John Hartford, John Jackson, the Washington Guitar Quintet, Charlie Byrd, the Tony Rice Unit, the Del McCoury Band, the Nashville Bluegrass Band, Pierre Bensusan and Stephen Bennett.

Lead image: Quatro na Bossa, photographed by Christophile Konstas.

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In a guide to the most outstanding animation and game design programs in the South, Animation Career Review declared VCUarts Kinetic Imaging to be distinctive among its peers. VCUarts was listed alongside five other universities in the region. “If you’re looking for a unique animation program in Virginia,” says the site, “look no further than the School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University.”

All students in the BFA in Kinetic Imaging program get a solid foundation in video, sound, and animation production. The curriculum allows flexibility, enabling students to focus on an area or to create a cross-disciplinary art practice. Student outcomes include: making art and media work that is meaningful, making meaningful analysis and evaluation, attaining high level of electronic and digital media technical skills, and professional preparation.

The BFA program consists of courses such as Animation (I-IV), Video (I-III), Sound Communications, Web Technologies for Media Artists, Motion Graphics, Computer Animation, Virtual Interactive Worlds, Sound Communication (I & II), and Socially Engaged Media.

The MFA in Fine Arts/Kinetic Imaging “expands the field of video art, experimental animation, sound art and emerging media through the production of works of art that explore the artist’s relationship to culture and society.” The studio-based, fine art program was initiated in the Fall of 2007 and it is a two-year curriculum of 60 academic credits. The competitive program is designed to support just 4-8 graduate students.

Read more from Animation Career Review.

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Guadalupe Maravilla, assistant professor of sculpture, has received a grant from the MAP Fund for his performance “3 Twelves (12/12/12),” to be held at Knockdown Center in Queens, New York. MAP selected Maravilla among dozens of grantees who seek to “interrogate marginalizing structures in the United States while asserting new possibilities for thriving interdependence.” Maravilla was also awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship for his work in April.

3 Twelves (12/12/12) will incorporate autobiographical storytelling and invented rituals in collaboration with thirty immigrant performers. The title 3 Twelves (12/12/12) refers to the date that Guadalupe Maravilla found out he/they had stage three colon cancer on December 12, 2012. Maravilla believes that the traumas of crossing the US/Mexico border as an unaccompanied child were contributing and exacerbating factors to getting cancer; the performance’s climax will be a verbal monologue in which Maravilla will explain how he/they came to this conclusion. In 1984, at eight years old, Maravilla immigrated alone to the United States from El Salvador in order to escape the Salvadoran Civil War. He was part of the first wave of unaccompanied undocumented children to come to the US from Central America. Maravilla became a US citizen at twenty-seven. Given the tenuous political climate, especially surrounding the issue of the US-Mexico border Maravilla believes it is urgent to start thinking about the traumatic consequences of migration. The performance will incorporate choreographed rituals, hand-made costumery, sound therapy, music, smell, and audience participation, and will take place at the Knockdown Center in Queens, New York.

Read the full MAP Fund announcement.

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Amir Berbić, a design expert who has worked in the United States, Europe and the Middle East, has been appointed dean of the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar, effective Aug. 1.

Berbić, a professor of graphic design at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has served as associate dean for faculty affairs of the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts; chair of graphic design; and as acting director of the School of Design.

“It’s a pleasure to welcome Amir Berbić to VCUarts Qatar,” said VCU President Michael Rao, Ph.D. “I am confident the university’s legacy of groundbreaking innovation and creativity will continue with Dean Berbic as leader. I look forward to working with him for years to come.”

Berbić has worked in collaboration with cultural organizations, arts institutions and publishers. His scholarly and creative work examines the role design can have in shaping identities of places.

“Dean Berbić’s experience makes him an ideal leader for the environment of creative innovation and dynamic intercultural collaboration at VCUarts Qatar,” said Shawn Brixey, dean of the VCU School of the Arts. “As a university administrator, he has advocated for the crucial role of the arts and design, demonstrating a commitment to the intersection of the arts across disciplines. His own creative practice relies on connecting fields of knowledge and investing in myriad possibilities offered by cross-disciplinary collaboration.”

Prior to joining the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2014, Berbić was on the Art and Design faculty of the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. He was on the AIGA Chicago board of directors from 2015–18, serving as vice president and co-chair of education.

Berbić’s work has been recognized in numerous publications, conferences and exhibitions including Design Issues, Visual Communication, Print, Graphis, The Society of Typographic Arts, the International Council of Design, AIGA Design Educators Community, TypeCon and Salone del Mobile in Milan. His work is included in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

“VCUarts Qatar is nimble, dynamic, experimental, and it is a lab for innovative ideas that emerge out of research, teaching and student initiatives within a very unique environment,” Berbić said. “I am inspired by the cooperation between VCU and the Qatar Foundation to establish a world-class arts institution in the Gulf — one that responds to the local context while having global impact. I am especially excited by the possibilities to expand on VCU’s relationships with the other esteemed institutions in Doha’s Education City, an academic environment with colleges from worldwide universities operating in proximity, and allowing students and faculty opportunities for cross-institutional collaboration.”

Berbić succeeds Executive Dean Donald N. Baker, Ph.D., who will continue in his role through Dec. 31.

Born in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Berbić immigrated to the United States in the 1990s where he completed his studies and worked in editorial design and publishing. He holds an MFA in visual communication from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA in graphic design from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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Zarah Brock (BM ’15), soprano, tied for third place in the 2019 American Prize in Vocal Performance competition for women in opera (college/university division). Also known as the Friedrich and Virginia Schorr Memorial Awards, the prize recognizes the best classically trained vocal performance of the past year based on recordings submitted to the judges.

Brock earned her Bachelor of Music degree in vocal performance, lending her voice to VCU Opera productions such as The Merry Widow, The Gondoliers and Die Zauberflöte. She also trained at the Castleton Festival, traveling with the program to perform in La Bohème at the Royal Opera House in Muscat, Oman. Since graduating from VCUarts, Brock received her Master of Music degree in opera performance from the University of Maryland.

See the full list of winners.

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Savannah Knoop (MFA ’16) is a self-described “intimacy hound.” Their performances recall and conjure interactions between relative strangers—from chatty bathhouse patrons to dancers at an after-hours club. And in the artist’s next exhibition, they’ll be inviting visitors to a tussle in Knoop’s own personal wrestling gym.

A graduate of the VCUarts Sculpture + Extended Media MFA program, Knoop’s practice is about social obstacles and the physical and cultural barriers that separate people or bring them together. They start their work by wriggling their way into secluded spaces—such as the 127-year-old Russian and Turkish Baths in New York—and integrating themselves into the subculture. There, they record a microcosm of resident languages and gestures, and reposition that landscape in performances that beckon audiences into an unfamiliar world.

Knoop will continue to explore those interpersonal relationships in a more aggressive way when they perform The Tripod Sweep August 7–11 at the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in New York. There, Knoop will invite visitors to literally grapple with social power dynamics as the artist performs Brazilian jiu-jitsu moves on anyone who volunteers.

“I’ve been studying wrestling for, I think, nine years now,” says Knoop. “I’m a purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. So, in some ways, I’ve been training for this project for a long time.”

Despite how long they’ve been preparing the The Tripod Sweep, the upcoming performance at Leslie Lohman won’t be the premiere of the project. Knoop has iterated it since 2014, when they first introduced the interactive piece in a VCUarts sculpture critique. Last year, a version of the performance was curated by art history alumnus Owen Duffy (PhD ’16), who is also a wrestler.

The title The Tripod Sweep is derived from a basic sweep in jiu-jitsu, which Knoop has subtly transformed into a game of action and reaction.

“I take someone’s neck and hand, then I put my foot on their hip,” says Knoop. “Then I destabilize them immediately by falling on the floor, which breaks their posture. I’m destabilizing and I kind of merge to have three feet with them.”

Key to The Tripod Sweep is nonverbal interaction. Audience members sign a release form that waives them of accountability and lets them know that they can refuse to join the performance. During the sweep, the artist remains silent as the participants consider how they can outsmart their opponent.

“Every time I sweep somebody, I go back to a resting space in the corner,” says Knoop. “I lay on physical therapy balls and regather energy and reset. And then I go back out and I perform it again. As the game continues, people develop their own strategies. Some people will sit on the floor with me, and I reset. Some people know I’m going to put my foot on them, so they’ll go around me or block their hip.”

Knoop describes The Tripod Sweep as a kind of public learning experience, where the artist and participants learn a jiu-jitsu move as they come to understand one another.

“It considers these ideas about success and winning and losing,” says Knoop. “It can get very physically active sometimes, but a lot of it is very gentle and generous.”

As a trained wrestler, Knoop can seem like the antagonist of this piece, but they have a history of slipping into different roles for artistic projects. They famously acted as the public persona of fictional teen author Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy for 6 years, and recently echoed the shuffle of a vampire in the public performance Nosferatu on the Beach. But their head-first dives into unfamiliar circles aren’t simple costume shopping; the artist works to immerse themselves in a subculture, to learn foreign vernacular and rituals, while acknowledging their outsider’s perspective.

People are the most versatile material in Knoop’s work. In each performance of The Tripod Sweep, circumstances and reactions change based on who steps into the performance space. As the artist prepares to stage the piece once more at the Leslie Lohman Museum, they know that this manifestation of it will be totally unique.

“It’s so different every time,” says Knoop, “and I think that’s one of the strongest parts of the piece: the material is through the engagement of all of us together.

The Tripod Sweep, curated by Noam Parness and Daniel J. Sander, will be on view at the Leslie Lohman Museum August 7–11, 2019.

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Many undergraduate students take on work while studying at VCUarts, either to gain some professional experience or earn a steady income. Whether you’re a new student or returning to campus this fall, you can take advantage of the following resources to find exciting jobs on campus and around Richmond.

• Become a VCUarts tour guide! Guides play a critical role at the school, and get to work in a fun environment. A short job description as well as links to both the hourly and work study postings can be found on our student info page.

• If you are eligible for work study, there are great positions out there as well. Be on the lookout for research assistant positions with VCUarts faculty; more information coming from Jody Symula, assistant dean of student affairs.

• VCU Career Services will host a part-time job fair on August 28.

• Be sure to check out Handshake, a comprehensive job and internship search tool available to all VCU students and alumni—for life.

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In FLAT PICTURES (YOU CAN FEEL), the collage of images that flash across video billboards and cell phone screens thousands of times a day are separated from their source and printed as individual photos. The new book by photography and film alumnus Will Douglas (BFA ’12), out now through independent publisher Ain’t Bad, takes moving Dior ads and lays each frame side-by-side. FLAT PICTURES recaptures footage of a bullfighter alone in an arena, and flattens a cluttered Paris storefront into a single image. The intention, Douglas says, is to ask the reader to spend more time with these pictures and reconsider how we interact with the big and small screens all around us.

Humble Arts Foundation invited Douglas to an interview recently, allowing him to discuss his ideas further.

Feinstein: So much of this is about deep “looking”. Of course, all photography is, but I see it as a dialog about how we use photography to create narratives about products, gender identity, consumption etc. Where’s your head and heart in this?

Douglas: It is very much about looking. Most of my work is rooted in ideas of perception. I think it’s vital that the book is handled and looked through with the notation of orientation. By the time you finish the book, you will have tuned the book 360 degrees. The rotation is intended to make people break from their traditional experience with a book and experience the images in various orientations brining an embodied or performative aspect to interacting with the book. The pictures themselves are focused on religion, relic, and ritual. The history of religious imagery, icons, and mass reproduction of painting has a tie to photography’s history. The inclusion of the stain glass window of Mary serves as a device to reference the projected image.

Feinstein: The press release for the book uses the following language: “….photographs made in response to the ways in which spontaneous screen-based collage influences and complicates our perception of the 3-dimensional world.” Break this down for me.

Douglas: I believe our reception of images is overloaded. Image overload isn’t news, But I think it’s important to consider how the free association of images build in the subconscious like a collage. For example, a news story of Trump interacting with the US Mexico border intersects with what your ex-boyfriend ate on Instagram. The intersection fuses the quotidian with the monumental in a way that complicates how we deal with violence as well. Unexpected violence is why I included splices of the bullfight as a foreshadow to the sequence of images in the end. We frequently return from our screens to three-dimensional space. We have to deal with depth and physical relationships. After hours of staring at a small glowing screen I have experienced a distorted perception of space. The compressed space of the computer screen fundamentally changes the way I interact with and conceive of the three-dimensional world.

Read the full interview at Humble Arts Foundation.

Get the book from Ain’t Bad.

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If you stick around for the credits at the end of Pixar’s Toy Story 4, you’ll see the film’s story credited to Valerie LaPointe (BFA ’03). LaPointe, who graduated from VCUarts’ Communication Arts & Design program, has been a full-time story artist at Pixar animation studios since 2007. She’s helped sculpt the stories for Brave, Inside Out, and The Good Dinosaur, and this year’s Toy Story 4 marks her first role as a story supervisor. In July, Variety highlighted LaPointe as one of “10 Animators to Watch” in 2019.

Coming up with the tale for the film was a collaborative effort. “It’s hard to place specific ownership on things because we threw [ideas] out there and others built off of it.”

She came up with the idea of the Gabby Gabby villain doll. “I really wanted to have a girl baby doll character in the ‘Toy Story’ universe [to have] more female toy characters in general. But also, why was there never a baby doll? It’s so signature of every little girl.” She says the doll was inspired by one that her mom had as an adult. Of all the toys around the house while LaPointe was growing up, that was the one that was off-limits.

LaPointe is in the middle of directing a short for Disney Plus, centered on “Toy Story’s” Bo Peep called “Lamp Life.”

Read more at Variety.

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The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has mounted the exhibition “Furnished,” which features the work of craft major Colin Knight and craft alumnus William Lenard (MFA ’18). The show—which is on view through January 5, 2020—showcases “furniture-based sculpture to sculptures that function as furniture” by 15 contemporary artists in the southeastern United States.

Knight created his oak and felt chair for his furniture design class final project last year. Lenard recently completed an artist residency this spring at Vermont Studio Center, and won an Award of Distinction in Sculpture from the Moss Art Center in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Read more about “Furnished” at the SECCA website.

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Lida Bourhill came to VCUarts to be a conductor—but she never expected to be standing in front of the Richmond Symphony Chorus before she was out of school.

The experience was the fulfillment of a dream she’s had for years: “I want to be the person who turns notes into music.”

Bourhill, a music education major, has spent her life immersed in the musical world. She began playing piano at 5 years old, and her mother enrolled her in a music academy shortly thereafter. By the time she was 13 and learning under the tutelage of a Virginia All-State Chorus conductor, she decided to pursue a career in music.

“Because the other singers were so talented, he was able to bring a different level of conducting,” she says. “I had never seen anyone craft the music that way. It really brought the notes off the page.”

At VCUarts, Bourhill has proven herself to be an exceptional singer, instructor and conductor. Her pedigree earned her the chance to substitute for Erin Freeman, director of choral activities for VCUarts Music, as conductor of the Richmond Symphony Chorus this summer.

The young conductor might seem a surprising choice, but Freeman was confident after watching Bourhill conduct the Recovery Ally Choir of Richmond last year. The choir, which comprises people in addiction recovery and their allies, was founded by assistant professor of photography and film John Freyer. He was inspired to form the group after collaborating with a similar ensemble in London.

Freyer partnered with Rams in Recovery to establish the choir, but many of the singers weren’t musically trained. When he booked the choir to perform at 1708 Gallery’s annual InLight festival he knew he needed a conductor, and Bourhill was a perfect fit.

Bourhill often turned to her music education training to help the diverse group excel. In particular, she implemented rote teaching, in which she introduced a melody via piano or her own voice and asked the choir to sing it back to her.

“In music education, we talk about ‘rote before note,’” says Bourhill. “We want to avoid bombarding people with the theory and literature behind music, because then no one wants to be a musician.”

Bourhill conducting during a practice session at 1708 Gallery.

Bourhill also integrated vocal warmups and exercises into their lessons that helped the choir learn the relationship between notes and phrases. During training sessions and rehearsals, she took time to carefully explain how the songs they learned were constructed. Though her lessons imparted technical knowledge, her approach translated complex musical concepts into clear and accessible instructions.

“She treated everyone with patience and respect and made sure that all of our voices had an opportunity to shine,” says Freyer. “Everyone became better singers.”

Following a successful InLight performance, Bourhill was invited to continue working with the Recovery Ally Choir this past spring. Together with VCU Service-Learning instructor Robin Rio, the choir collaborated with RVA Street Singers to sing at special events and even record a 7-inch vinyl single at In Your Ear Studios in Shockoe Bottom. Throughout the semester, Bourhill was a steady hand, coordinating arrangements and booking practice space for the growing group.

“These are people who have their own careers and passions, but they also really enjoy music and want to have that in their lives,” she says. “It’s cool that I got to be a small part of bringing it to them and helping them find their voice.”

Now, Bourhill is brandishing her baton before the Richmond Symphony Chorus, where she usually serves as an operations and artistic assistant to director Freeman. Freeman—who is also serving as artistic director of the Wintergreen Music Festival from July 7 to August 4—chose Bourhill to lead rehearsals in her stead to prepare the chorus for their performance at the festival.

Freeman coached her student through the planning and strategy behind driving a rehearsal of such size. The entire opportunity helped Bourhill take her first incredible steps into the professional world of music that she longed to join years ago.

“Both Dr. Freeman and the Richmond Symphony Chorus offered their time and trust to take a chance on me and allow me to learn,” she says. “It was an honor and incredible experience.”

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Photography + Film major David Hall has diverse passions: Lego, Star Wars and filmmaking among them. When he’s not in class, he’s busy developing a successful new career recreating stunning film scenes in miniature form—and they’re a hit on social media.

myVCUarts is a series that captures the experiences of student at VCU School of the Arts in their own words. These short videos take a candid look at the technical and conceptual work that VCUarts students undertake every semester. Learn how our students devise innovative ways of making, discover new ideas in research, work through creative challenges and explain why they love doing what they do.

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