President Griffith gears up for the Arts Festival. Photo courtesy of Columbus Arts Festival Facebook page.

During the 50^th annual Columbus Arts Festival, seven CCAD alumni and one student will participate in Expose Yourself, a program where artists give demonstrations of the art-making process. The program was organized by Fine Arts alumnus Ken Aschliman (CCAD 2011).

The schedule of CCAD presenters is as follows:

Friday
4:30-5:15—Stefan Hoza (CCAD 2011), paint a live model
6:30-7:15—Emily Rickard (CCAD 2010), mixed-media collage.

Saturday
4:00-5:00—Ryan Walters (CCAD 2011), large-scale portrait painting.
5:00-6:00—Jon Stommel (CCAD 2009), paint a 7×10 foot mural
6:45-7:30—Tee Johnson (CCAD 2010), watercolor portrait process.
7:30-8:00—Caleb Boller (CCAD 2012), throw a teapot

Sunday
3:00-3:45—Kailtyn Mays (CCAD 2010), three-part mixed-media printmaking
3:00-3:45—Jennifer Sands (CCAD 2011), mask making from limited supplies

Also exhibiting at the Arts Festival is alumna Chelstin Ross (CCAD 2009), who is one of the 10 selected emerging artists. Ross was featured in the Columbus Dispatch for her involvement.

“It’s opportunities like this that make an artist community grow,” said Ross in the article. “At some point, I definitely want to walk around and feel how honored I am to be there.”

Read the entire article here.

The Arts Festival is held on CCAD’s campus from 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 11:30 a.m.-6 p.m. on Sunday. The event is free and open to the public. Learn more at ColumbusArtsFestival.org.

Jennifer Sands

As Jennifer Sands began to conceptualize her collection, she took a slightly different approach with her Masters of Design muse Katharine Hamnett.

“I chose to embrace her use of political themes in her work rather than replicate her specific looks,” Jennifer noted.

Jennifer doesn’t take a fine arts approach to fashion design, it might be fairer to say that the double major takes a fashion approach to fine arts.

As a fine artist Jennifer is drawn to fiber arts and surface design, so she added a Fashion Design major to her curriculum to gain a better mastery of working with fabrics and sewing.

Jennifer handmade rope from fair-trade yarns.

Her Fine Arts senior thesis exhibition (displayed in fall 2010) explored themes of consumerism and its influence on young girls. She created mixed-media pieces that also included jewelry and fiber arts. For her Fashion Design collection, she is exploring similar themes.

With one piece she developed ropes out of yarn into a top.

“The ropes are symbolic of being bound to a profession,” Jennifer explained. “People in sweatshops are bound to their work and don’t have professional choices.”

Another look is more high-end and incorporates metallics to represent the abundance that Americans enjoy.

In developing her collection she was less concerned with creating something that could be mass produced, and more concerned with creating wearable fiber arts pieces that conveyed a message.

In addition to approaching her work with a message, she chose materials that reflected her views. The yarns and wools she used for her rope and crocheted pieces are fair trade and hand dyed and spun. The use of fair-trade materials is parallel to Katharine Hamnett’s crusade to encourage more designers and manufacturers to use organic cotton and fair-trade practices.

Katharine Hamnett is known for her block letter Ts with political messages.

Hamnett has long used fashion to convey a political message. Most famously she launched popular block letter, oversized T-shirts with messages like “Peace” and “I Use a Condom.” The 1980s British pop duo Wham was seen wearing her CHOOSE LIFE shirts in their Wake Me Up Before You Go Go video (the reference was directed at the issues of drug abuse and suicide). Her popular style was also famously “borrowed” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood with their “Frankie Says …” T-shirts.

Jennifer’s choice in Masters of Design muse was a good mesh with her artistic voice, but she still had the challenge of creating a fashion collection—combining her fine arts point of view with a fashion design perspective to create something that is wearable.

Jennifer's collection illustrations.

“My collection is avant garde and conceptual. It is for someone that is not afraid to wear something a little crazy,” explained Jennifer.

On May 13 Jennifer will see her second thesis of the academic year come down the runway.

Following her runway show, Jennifer will continue her fine arts pursuits through an artist’s residency in Iceland http://www.nordanbal.is/en/hrisey/old-school-art-house-in-hry.html

Tickets to CCAD’s May 13 Fashion Show event can be purchased online at www.ccad.edu/fashion.

CCAD students interact with Super Mario Bros. mural

CCAD students now have opportunities to paint murals on campus between the Schottenstein Residence Hall and the Administration Building.

A team of 12 students kicked off the new Student Government program with a 16 x 38 foot mural featuring Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. Students and groups can submit proposals to paint a new mural every month.

The first mural, on display through September, took eight days to complete and was created to advertise CCAD’s inaugural Town Hall meeting, one of several events for students to voice their concerns and have questions answered.

Creators of the Super Mario Bros. mural include Ken Aschliman, Chavilah Bennett, Jessica Braunschweiger, Walker Crane, Greg Reyes, Emily Rickard Jennifer Sands, Pallavi Sen, Dillon Sirimongkhon, Michael Smith, Alex Trimpe, and Dion Utt.

To see local news coverage of the CCAD mural go to nbc4i.