Ohio Governor John Kasich with winning design Aaron Roberts

CCAD-Designed Licenses and Plates Hit the Road

It was a pretty big deal when Gov. John Kasich asked CCAD to help design new driver’s licenses and license plates for the Ohio BMV. And ever since the selected designs were unveiled in November 2011, we’ve been itching to see them out in the real world.

Well, that time has come. The new driver’s license went into circulation in January, and the new plates are due to come into use as this magazine hits the mail. So watch the wallets, purses, and bumpers near you for clean, elegant new designs by CCAD’s very own Aaron Roberts (Advertising & Graphic Design 2012)!

Informal Critique Blooms on Campus

Want to get unvarnished opinions about your art? Ask your peers.

That’s the approach Fine Arts alum Erin McKenna (CCAD 2012) adopted for a student-driven critique program she started at CCAD.

During her junior year, she participated in the semester-long New York Studio Residency Program. “There were kids from all over the United States,” McKenna says. “Nobody knows anybody when you get there. We decided that on Wednesday nights we’d make dinner together and walk around the studios, giving critiques. It was at night, much more relaxing; there were no professors there. We listened to each other. I learned a lot; it was nice to have the perspective of a peer.”

McKenna liked the idea so much she brought it back to campus, organizing evening critique sessions for students during her senior year. Up to 30 participants, mainly Fine Arts majors with some from Illustration and Advertising & Graphic Design, visited studios. “I had a lot of people come up to me after they had their critique and say it was very helpful.”

“It’s still going on Wednesday nights and has even more people,” she says.

Animation students during Skype conversation

Animation Students Skype for Advice

For members of the Animation Student Collective at CCAD, professional advice is only a Skype away.

Skype, an Internet voice and video service, links the student animators to professionals, including CCAD alumni. Animation senior Rico Jackson, president and founder of the Animation Student Collective, explains: “Most of the professionals are in California because that’s where the animation industry is, the bulk of it. We can’t bring them to Ohio because that would cost entirely too much money.

“Instead, we Skype them.”

The group meets in Kinney Hall. Using a computer linked to a video projector, Jackson asks the guest animator questions; other students also can come up to the computer’s camera and pose questions as well.

Chris Oatley (CCAD 2001), a former Disney character designer who now runs an online art academy, held a session with students last semester. “Chris is a phenomenal speaker,” Jackson says.

Jackson hopes to have Skype sessions with three guests during spring semester. He says the sessions have an impact. “With Chris, a lot of people sent us messages or talked with us afterward. They said it was really inspirational. Students made some artwork right away because they were inspired.”

Students work in the MindMarket

Students Embark on Two-Year Project with Electronics Company

The CCAD MindMarket’s DesignLab is giving students the chance to dig into an extended design project with the advanced electronics company InPower.

“InPower reached out to CCAD after learning about some of the offerings CCAD has for Industrial Design,” says Cynthia Gravino, CCAD MindMarket director.  “We determined that a DesignLab partnership would best serve their needs and would provide a great hands-on opportunity for our students in a client-based project setting.”

Tom Gattis, dean of the School of Design Arts and chair of Industrial Design, stepped in to lead the project.

For the first semester (fall 2012) students conducted a comprehensive market, product, and competitive landscape analysis.

This spring, they’ll incorporate that research into a redesign of InPower’s product packaging.

InPower will continue to tap into CCAD talent throughout 2013­–2014, focusing on work to find new avenues for their products.

“As an engineering-based organization, InPower provided an opportunity to expand the types of companies we serve,” Gravino says.

“The only difference [from the real world] is we are doing it within the safe confines of the college,” Gattis says. “Students have expert guidance from faculty and can try a lot of things and really explore concepts that in a corporate setting would be a bit too risky.”

Science Chair’s Research Presented

CCAD Chair of Science Julie Posey has worked with Ohio State University’s Division of Infectious Diseases since 2010 to create a tracking profile for a specific strain of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

Posey’s research studied nearly 500 positive cases of MRSA.

The resulting paper, Development of Bio-informatics Research Network for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) Blood Stream Infections (BSI): A Multicenter Regional MRSA Surveillance Collaborative for Genotyping, Geocoding, and Data Collection for Outbreak Investigation, was presented by OSU researchers at the Infectious Disease Society of America conference last fall.

Alexa Carson’s holiday card design

’Twas the Season — for a Holiday Card Contest Winner

CCAD teamed up with the Columbus Partnership last year to create a new tradition — a holiday card design contest.

The Columbus Partnership is a nonprofit, membership-based organization of 49 CEOs from Columbus’ leading businesses and institutions. Its primary mission is to improve the economic vitality of the Columbus region.

“Partnering with CCAD was a great opportunity to support an incredible educational asset in our community and work with the creative student innovators of Columbus who help drive our economic growth,” said Stephen Lyons, vice president of member services and community engagement at the Partnership.

A jury reviewed 38 entries and selected Illustration senior Alexa Carson’s design.

Carson received a $1,000 cash prize, and the card, which included her name and contact info, was distributed to more than 3,000 Columbus Partnership clients and friends.

Fine Arts Faculty Member Keeps Active Practice

Danielle Julian Norton’s approach to artmaking? Two words: keep moving.

Norton, a 1999 Fine Arts alum and now an assistant professor of fine arts and graduate studies, is keeping up an almost dizzying itinerary of residencies and exhibitions in the United States and Europe.

This includes stints last fall at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, CO, and last summer at I-Park in East Haddam, CT.

A year earlier, she did residencies at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE, and in Dresden, Germany, under the sponsorship of the Greater Columbus Arts Council.

Her exhibition schedule last year ranged from the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio in Lancaster to the Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, CO, to the Cynthia-Reeves Gallery at Art Miami. A show at Ohio Dominican University will have just closed as this magazine mails.

“To grow as an artist I feel it’s important to meet other artists and go outside my comfort zone.” Norton says. “Each time I go and meet a new art community and group of artists, it’s like a mini-graduate school; you learn new approaches to art-making.”

“I think it works well in the classroom,” she says. “I can give [students] real-world examples. A teacher should also be an active artist.”

Norton calls her work interdisciplinary, “a cross between sculpture, photography, and performance.”

Next on tap is I Forgot to Forget, a June 15 – July 20 exhibition she is curating at the Urban Arts Space of Ohio State University.

The anatomy lab at Columbus State Community College, photo courtesy of Kristine Schramer

By Robin Hepler

Tens of thousands of visitors to the COSI science museum this winter will view an exhibition of CCAD students’ interpretations of the human form. Students in the fall semester course The Human Body in Art and Science have had access to the cadaver labs at Columbus State Community College and to the fall Body Worlds & the Brain exhibition at COSI to study the body from numerous perspectives—all for their use in creating art at the level expected for an exhibition hosted by a regional tourist destination.

CCAD faculty members Julie Posey (Science) and Kristine Schramer (Fine Arts) developed the team-taught course and negotiated the community partnerships to bring this full array of opportunities to students. The project provides an expansive and very public new venue for students to exhibit their final coursework and serves as an example of CCAD’s evolution in project-based learning.

“The college is moving toward a more cross-disciplinary way to deliver on project-based learning to mimic what happens in the real world,” says Kevin Conlon, CCAD vice president for Academic Affairs. “We are intentionally seeking external academic partners to provide opportunities for students to engage in teaming and problem-solving challenges.”

The expanding scope of projects is bringing faculty members together to create whole new classes, such as Posey and Schramer’s human body course.

“The scale of these newer project-based learning opportunities is becoming much more ambitious,” Conlon says. “As a result, they often engender dedicated courses that aggregate talent from multiple levels and departments and in academic constructs that may go beyond the limits of current course models and academic terms.”

CCAD students doing a dissection in the CSCC lab, photo courtesy of Kristine Schramer

Constructing new learning opportunities

Posey says she and Schramer spent three months developing learning objectives and finding the right combination of curriculum elements from science and art for the new course.

“I focus on the world out there that isn’t art. This course is about the human body—every different aspect, from tattoos to aging to body systems to our DNA,” Posey says. “I try to engage students about issues that are fundamentally meaningful to them as humans, not necessarily as artists. That is where Kris comes in.

“Kris shows these kids that our worldly experiences, our knowledge of our own micro-world, can be truly inspirational as art,” Posey says. “She ties what I do with what artists do.”

In each lecture Schramer shows students work of contemporary artists who work with the human form as their muse. Students are not asked to memorize facts about science; instead, Schramer says, she wants to teach students how to make themselves subject experts when they need to for their creative work.

And she teaches the process of a project.

“My goal is for every student in this class to have the experience of taking on an ambitious project and completing it successfully. I meet so many creative people who are full of brilliant ideas, but lack both the nerve to begin and the practical skills to manage the execution of a complicated project,” Schramer says.

“Using the study of science and each student’s individual project as the educational vehicle, I guide them through the stages of brainstorming, refining, proposing, revising and proposing again, researching, planning, budgeting, scheduling, and presenting their work publicly.”

Schramer says these skills can be applied to any major endeavor undertaken in life, whether it be artistic, entrepreneurial, or personal.

Posey and Schramer partnered last fall to team-teach a biotechnology course that also tapped the resources of Columbus State anatomist Eric Kenz. That project helped launch 2012 graduate Jonathan Hodge’s career in medical illustration. This year’s public exhibition at COSI, sharing museum space with the acclaimed Body Worlds & the Brain exhibit, makes their second project-based course much larger in scope—creating more opportunity and expectations.

UPDATE 12/2/12: There will be a free, public reception to view the student work on Sunday, 6-8 p.m. Dec. 9, 2013, at COSI Columbus.

Community-based projects

Students working in the CCAD MindMarket, photo courtesy Danielle Ford (2013)

Businesses and organizations in central Ohio can now access the talent of CCAD faculty, staff, and students for projects through the CCAD MindMarket’s DesignLab. Depending on the need, the CCAD MindMarket can assemble cross-disciplinary teams to provide design solutions through three different project structures: charrettes lasting 54–72 hours; semester-long, in-class projects; and longer-term project partnerships.

A spring 2012 joint project that teamed up a Fashion Design class and an Advertising & Graphic Design class is an example of the kind of community project that likely will work through the new MindMarket in the future.

Twenty-two students from the two classes presented design solutions for Huntington Bank’s branded team jersey for the annual Pelotonia bike race to raise money for cancer research. In the end, the bank asked that two options be combined—utilizing functional design elements by senior Nina Rehner and graphics by senior Dahui (Danny) Li.

“That’s how real projects work in corporations,” says Suzanne Cotton, chair of Fashion Design at CCAD. “It was a terrific scenario for the two finalists to work together to combine their concepts.”

Matt Mohr, assistant professor of Visual Communications and Media Studies, led the graphic design students in the project.

“We’re always looking for ways to combine disciplines,” says Mohr. “Apparel graphics, especially the opportunity to create a concept that covered the entire garment, posed a unique challenge. Given that the designs were for a well-respected, high-profile event made for eager excitement among the students.”

Conlon says the new curriculum architecture being built at CCAD supports the practicum experience, whether faculty members are bringing new projects to the classroom or outside organizations are approaching CCAD through the new structure of the MindMarket.

“It’s all about providing the students choices among a variety of paths to the practicum and a gateway to the professional-level and portfolio-worthy experience,” Conlon says.

All project-based learning is incredibly valuable for the student—not just for the experience of merging research, theory, application, experience, and result, Conlon says, but also for the benefit it provides students in developing their portfolios.

“Professional development has always begun with the portfolio at CCAD. Our continuing commitment to the portfolio as the primary evidence of discipline readiness will now be enhanced with the engagement of more and varied types of project-based learning,” Conlon says. “The practicum experience, played out in at least 12 credit hours within the new curriculum architecture, is the college’s demonstrated commitment to this ideal.”

For Schramer the experience is paying additional, personal dividends: “In these classes, Julie and I are learning right along with the students,” she says.

To check out the online print version of IMAGE, click here.

Her work alongside the division resulted in a research paper, Development of Bio-informatics Research Network for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) Blood Stream Infections (BSI): A Multicenter Regional MRSA Surveillance Collaborative for Genotyping, Geocoding, and Data Collection for Outbreak Investigation.

The paper was presented by OSU researchers at the Infectious Disease Society of America conference in San Diego, Oct. 17–21.

The paper was about a study that Posey worked on to create a tracking profile for a particular MRSA strain. The study included nearly 500 positive cases of MRSA.

Hodge studying medical illustrations

A CCAD student and professor have been invited to present an abstract at the 7th International Conference on the Arts in Society in Liverpool, UK.

Julie Posey, chair of science at CCAD and Jonathan Hodge, Fine Arts senior worked with the lead anatomist Eric Kenz at Columbus State Community College (CSCC) to work on their abstract, The Integration of Art and Science: Bridging the Gap between Disciplines and Institutions.

This presentation details an interdisciplinary/intercollegiate approach to medical illustration. Hodge was able to study cadavers at CSCC and create photo-realistic anatomic illustrations.

“By utilizing CSCC anatomy laboratories, we were able to link CCAD expertise in illustration and aesthetic awareness with human cadavers to craft medical drawings that highlight dimensional qualities often missed,” Posey said.

In addition to working with CSCC, Hodge also received mentorship from alumnus Anthony Baker (CCAD 1986) who is a medical  illustrator for The Ohio State University. Under Baker’s guidance, Hodge illustrated the anatomy involved in yoga poses as part of an honors class project. This opportunity to work with a professional in the field and broaden the scope of the intercollegiate cooperation will be highlighted at the UK conference.

The conference will take place in July 2012 and discuss a range of themes, including the relationship between art and science.

Hodge, from New Orleans, LA, also worked on a recent project with T.Ty Fowler, M.D. who serves as the director of orthopaedic trauma at Mount Carmel West Hospital. Dr. Fowler will include six of Hodge’s medical illustrations in a published article.  His illustrations will also appear in a McGraw-Hill lab manual to be published soon.

Student looks at display.

A decade ago, the worlds of science and art collided in an albino bunny named Alba. Alba was normal by all accounts—until the lights were turned out. Then, thanks to an intervention by Brazilian-born, Chicago-based artist Eduardo Kac, the fluffy white rabbit glowed neon green as she hopped around the room.

Today, the same science that allowed Kac to transfer the “glowing genes” from a jellyfish to a rabbit egg is being taught—albeit on a more basic level—at CCAD. Why is this important? Because in today’s world, concerns about cost and sustainability are causing artists, designers, and scientists to find more and more to learn from one another.

“The point is not to teach the students how to create glowing animals,” says Julie Posey, chair of CCAD’s science department. “It’s to get them thinking about how science can be used not only to influence their work, but to create it.”

Student looks under microscope.

In CCAD science courses, students examine cadavers; dissect eyeballs, hearts, and brains; test body fat and blood pressure levels; extract DNA (creating glowing bacteria à la Kac); and explore a myriad of other experiments and observations designed to help them think differently about art and design.

“The small but imperative details that make the heart beat, the issue of sustainability, potential health hazards—we teach students all of this to give them the information they’ll need to step back and take a second, deeper look at their work,” Posey says.

The newest example of art and design blending with science is taught by Dean of Industrial and Interior Design Carl Garant and ecologist Kim Landsbergen, who is an associate professor of cross-disciplinary studies and sustainability research. Together they have created a course in biomimicry, in which students explore the application of nature’s solutions to a wide variety of design challenges.

Although there are a few other schools of art and design that teach biomimicry, CCAD is the only one at which the course is fully co-taught by a scientist and a designer. “Nature’s diversity presents us with a wide selection of viable design strategies that are sustainable and worthy of recognition and application in today’s world,” Garant says.

If this is the first you’ve heard of biomimicry, it probably won’t be the last. Biomimicry is being pursued by everyone from InterfaceFLOR, a leader in commercial flooring, to the consumer product giant Proctor & Gamble. In fact, Proctor and Gamble’s Behavioral Science Organization (the branch of the company that works with biomimicry) has already hosted an intern from CCAD: Joel van Gilder, a senior Industrial Design major who participated in the inaugural biomimicry course last spring.

Students listens during science lab.

Students in the course research the unique biological and ecological characteristics of a particular insect and then develop a variety of design solutions informed by their work. Like many science-focused courses at CCAD, the biomimicry class takes advantage of the resources at nearby Ohio State University—in this case, with a visit to the entomology collection in OSU’s Museum of Biodiversity, where students come face-to-face with the biology of their organisms, measuring and drawing their insect subjects. Students ultimately present their biologically inspired designs in portfolio-quality, self-published books.

“Students cannot learn in a vacuum,” Garant says. “Biomimicry asks them to look to nature for design inspiration and to think about the sustainability ramifications surrounding their design choices. It’s about understanding the impact and importance of the design process as we strive to design more intelligently.”

Julie Posey instructs students during a gene transfer lab

The Honors Program at CCAD will put on an exhibition featuring artwork inspired by science December 2011.

The exhibition, Biotechnology Inspires Art, will feature work by eight students and will be open to the public Dec. 10–16 in Beaton Gallery.

The students will submit pieces that were somehow inspired by science and the information they have learned throughout their courses. The exhibition will include drawing, painting, digital, textile, and video/performance art.

Julie Posey, associate professor at CCAD, has taught science courses at the college for 13 years and every day is amazed by the students and their relationship with studying the liberal arts.

“There is something about an artist’s mind. They think differently and question science in a manner that I have never seen,” said Posey.

Posey’s teaching inspiration comes from the artistic world. She will often incorporate her lessons around what an artist will need or want to know.

“Professors and art instructors will do a great job at telling students about harmful materials they are working with. We will take it to the next level and tell them why it is hazardous, what it can do to your organs, skin, and the body as a whole,” Posey said.

The science courses at CCAD have a very hands-on format and curriculum. The classes incorporate labs and field trips into the structure of the course to inspire the predominantly visual learners.

Each student must take three science courses, one biological or physical class and two social science classes. Available courses often change depending on what is a current hot topic, or by the input and feedback of students.

“I often get students come in and realize they have an interest in something like medical illustration or just have fun in the classes and they will continue to take more courses as electives,” she said.

Posey enjoys incorporating the students’ love of art into each class and lab.

“In labs students can extract DNA from their cheek and transform it into a necklace and we will have students paint what they are viewing and interpreting under a microscope,” she said.

Posey’s office is filled with examples of student work. There are quilts made to represent the layers of skin, hearts and other organs made of glass, ink prints of muscle outlines, necklaces modeled after ribosomes, and more.

“I have my students create pieces of work inspired by science and what we have learned and am encouraging other teachers to do the same,” Posey said.

Kinney Hall, an academic building, has corridors filled with work inspired by English classes and comparative studies. Posey’s passion and amazement for what students have created and been inspired by is contagious.

Sample from a CCAD teaching portfolio

Several CCAD faculty were presenters at the recent Assessment in the Arts Conference in Denver, CO.

Associate Provost Char Norman, Dean of Fine Arts and Foundation Studies Julie Taggart (CCAD 1991), and Christopher Yates (CCAD 1987), chair of Foundation Studies, were among the art and academic professionals who shared their first-hand knowledge and experiences. Their presentation, Accountability and Exchange: Using Digital Portfolios for Assessment, focused on CCAD’s use, beginning in 2010, of faculty and student digital portfolios as part of its assessment process. The discussion touched upon the benefits, challenges, and opportunities inherent in the method.

Additionally, Liberal Arts’ Jeannine Kraft, chair of history of art and design, and Julie Posey, chair of science, teamed together to deliver a paper entitled Assessment in the Liberal Arts in the Art and Design College Context.

Held at Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, the conference was designed to add to the body of knowledge of assessment of creative academic programs. Focal topics included improvement of student learning, how the arts can be appropriately assessed for accreditation, and techniques of providing assessment feedback.