Apr
27
2022 Posthumous Alumni Award: Noel Martin

Congratulations to our 2022 posthumous award recipient Noel Martin.  

Accepting the award on Noel’s behalf is his son, Reid Martin.

About Noel Martin
Mr. Martin was born on April 19, 1922, in Syracuse, Ohio. His family moved to Cincinnati where he chose to spend the rest of his life. Martin studied drawing, painting, and printmaking and later spent time as a member of the faculty of the AAC and of the University of Cincinnati.  He was self-taught in typography and design, which were his main activities for the bulk of his career.

Martin spent his professional career as a freelance graphic designer and art director with clients including such brands as Champion Papers, Federated Department Stores, Xomox Corporation, Dreyfus Corporation, The New Republic magazine, Hebrew Union College, and many other industrial, educational, and cultural organizations.

In 1947, Martin held the role as the first graphic designer for the Cincinnati Art Museum.  During that time, Martin worked on the museum’s first logo, graphics, installations, and put him at the forefront of the movement to simplify and remove the clutter from catalogs of all varieties—from industrial parts catalogs to art museum catalogs.

Exhibition Acclaim:
His work was included in the exhibition, “Four American Designers”, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, in 1953, and in a one-man exhibition at the American Institute of Graphic Arts in 1958.[1] In 1971. Martin was the first Cincinnati artist to exhibit at the Contemporary Arts Center after its relocation in 1970 to 5th st. where he exhibited geometric paintings.[4]

Foreign exhibitions have included those of the U.S. Information Agency in Europe, Latin America, and the U.S.S.R., and at the Gutenberg Museum, Mainz; Musee d’Art Moderne, Paris; and the Grafiska Institute, Stockholm. Martin’s work is represented in public collections in New York, Boston, Washington, Cincinnati, and Amsterdam.[1]

He lectured at the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, Aspen Design Conference, and schools and organizations throughout the country. Among his awards are the Art Directors Medal, Philadelphia, 1957, and the Sachs Award, Cincinnati, 1973.[1][5]

Martin succumbed to leukemia on February 23, 2009. His archive of works is currently housed at the University of Cincinnati | DAAP.

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/arts/design/28martin.html

Apr
27
Interview with Bill Parrish | Winner of the 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award

2022 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipient William (Bill) Parrish​

Interview by Christine Carli (2008 | Board of Trustees President)

Christine: How did you decide to attend the Art Academy? 

Bill: Originally, my hope was to get a full scholarship to the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music. I was accepted and offered a scholarship, but it didn’t cover all my tuition. My second choice was the Savannah College of Art & Design. They offered me a full scholarship, but after looking at the overall costs of living, it was too expensive. The Art Academy of Cincinnati was my third choice. Not thinking I would get in, I submitted my application anyway. At that time, I was a bit intimidated by all I had heard about it’s rich tradition of artists, (Frank Duveneck, Elizabeth Nourse….) and what a great school it was. After getting accepted, I submitted my portfolio, and got a full scholarship. That, coupled with other private scholarships and grants, it made my decision easy. Without the scholarship and other needed expenses covered, I would not have been able to attend. I’m so thankful that the admissions office actually sat down with me during this process to make sure I had the needed resources to attend the school.

Christine: What mediums interested you?

Bill: Before attending the Art Academy, I was pretty prolific at drawing and painting. I graduated from Princeton High School, and my high school art teacher, Mr. Frank Shands, who happened to be African-American, and a great artist, was a huge Michelangelo fan, and taught art from the Masters perspective. But when I started attending the Art Academy, they encouraged me to experiment, try new things. As a result, I was exposed to a plethora of mediums of interest: Charcoal, Printmaking, Egg Tempra, Gouache, Watercolor, Oils, Acrylic, I eventually gravitated to using whichever I felt solved the problem and still use all of them. 

Christine: Can you recall a memory from your experience from the Art Academy that stays with you today? 


Bill: Yes. At the end of my second year at the Academy I has a random encounter we the Art Museums designer Noel Martin in the museum library and became friends with him. Noel was not only an amazing designer, he was just as great a man. I’d stop by his office on occasion and ask him if it was ok to hang around to watch him work. He’d share stories about the jazz musicians in New York and Chicago back in the 1940’s among other things of interest. I found myself in Noels office on a regular basis, sometimes having lunch with him, and learning what the designer for the museum did. He finally put me to work doing small projects as I learned about design, type and a bunch of other things just having to do with just life in general. I hadn’t declared a major yet, and was torn between Painting and Design. I shared my struggle with him, and he said, “Do both.” I made my decision during the summer before my third year that Design & Illustration would be my focus. By the time my last year rolled around at the Art Academy, I think I was spending more time with Noel Martin than in my classes. Noel was my hero. He gave me projects to do that allowed me to have “real life” projects for my portfolio and not just class projects. We became good friends and I even got to know his son Reid Martin, who was a good designer himself.

Christine: What do you value most about your education?

Bill: The people. The relationships

Christine: Who were some of your favorite teachers?

b: Two of my favorite people weren’t teachers. Paul (the janitor) and Mrs. Zepf who ran the bookstore. Paul had a great relationship with the students. He was quiet, but you could approach Paul and talk to him about practically anything. I considered him the Academy’s Psychologist that nobody other than the students knew.

Mrs. Zepf was like our mom. She was sweet, but could get after you if she saw you involved in mischief. She looked out for all of us. At times, I didn’t have money to pay for art supplies I needed. She would say, Don’t worry about it, and give me what I needed.

Some of my favorite teachers were: Gary Gaffney, Connie McClure, Anne Mioke, Larry Goodridge, April Foster, Baron Krody, Frank Sotagata, Alex Gellen, Jay Zumeta, Diane Smith-Hurd, Mark Barensfeld

Christine: How do you apply what you learned at the AAC to the work you’re doing today?

Bill: I apply it daily. Relationships are everything. My Art Academy education challenged me to be uncomfortable. It exposed me to what real education looks like when you willing to try different things outside of your strengths. I couldn’t have believed that attending the Academy and the experiences would have a “lifelong” affect in shaping who I am today. I started my career as an Artist, Designer & Illustrator, and now while I’m still doing those things, I’m now a writer, business man, community advocate, teacher and learner, just trying to embrace change for the sake of staying relevant to this ever changing culture.

Christine: As lifelong creative, what are you most passionate about doing?

Bill: Engaging community!

Christine: You are drawn to community building and sharing your love of art with others. What prepared you for creating a cultural arts center from the ground up?

Bill: I wasn’t planning to create a cultural arts center from the ground up. I can truly say that because of my Art Academy experience challenging me to engage in things that I wasn’t comfortable with for the sake of learning and growing, that creating a cultural arts center was just part of my life process. Something I had to do for the sake of creating a gathering place for community. I’m now equally as comfortable as a business man as I am with art.

Christine: If you could say something to your 21 year old self about being an artist, what would it be? 

Bill: I’d give my 21year old self the same challenge that was given to me as I entered the Art Academy : Embace the uncomfortable. Stay relevant to the culture that surrounds you.

Christine: How do you feel about your recognition as the Art Academy’s 2022 Distinguished Alumnus?

Bill: This is soooo humbling. It brought me to tears. This interview can’t really communicate how on so many levels, the Art Academy of Cincinnati prepared me for my professional career, and life. I’ve received numerous awards throughout my career, a number of them from prestigious organizations, but this one by far means the most to me. It has nothing to do with the award itself. I believe that I embody the Art Academy DNA, and what it represents as an institution. One that makes its educational experience unique, and sets it apart, far apart from other art institutions.

About Bill Parrish

William (Bill) Parrish is the Founder and Executive Director of the Eckstein Cultural Arts Center in the Village of Glendale. ECAC is a gathering place for creative and thought leaders, young as well as seasoned, to practice their craft and share collaboratively through education, art, music, theater and more.

It was Bill’s Senior Thesis Exhibit at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, that served as a platform to launch his career. Bill decided to invite a number of local Advertising Agencies, Printing Companies, and Newspaper executives to his exhibit. Among the 25 invitations he sent out, one was to Randy Cochran, Scripps-Howards Graphics Editor for all of their newspapers throughout the country. Mr. Cochran attended Bill’s exhibit, and was so impressed, he offered him his first professional job. Two weeks after graduation from the Art Academy Bill moved to Denver, Colorado to begin his first professional job as an Editorial Illustrator and Page Designer for the Rocky Mountain News, the largest of the Scripps-Howard Newspapers. This opportunity opened other opportunities, that included Bill becoming Art Director of the Cincinnati Enquirers Tristate Magazine, Assistant Features Editor/ Graphics Editor for the Fort Wayne Journal-News, and Graphics Editor for the Hamilton Journal-News.

Bill went on to become Communications Director for Bristol Myers-Squibb during the merger of the two corporate giants. This was where his real educational experience began. Understanding the unique DNA of 2 large organizations, navigating the strengths and weaknesses of both, and developing a strategic plan to leverage two conglomerates into a single brand was a great experience. Managing the communications, design, and production of a consistent look and feel throughout the company required much more than just the design process.

Before devoting his fulltime work to developing the Eckstein Cultural Arts Center, Bill spent two decades as Strategic Communications, Brand Manager, and Design Director for such mega churches as: The Vineyard Community Church in Springdale, Ohio, Perimeter Church, Duluth, Georgia, Westlake Hill Presbyterian Church, Austin, Texas, First Presbyterian Church Edmund, Oklahoma, & Christ Memorial Church, Holland, Michigan. Bill’s career began as a Professional Artist, Designer & Illustrator, but transitioned into Communications Director, Brand Manager, and Design Director.

Aside from his career work, Bill Illustrates and designing books, annual reports, corporate identity signage, posters, is a brand consultant and designer, exhibits his fine art, sings and plays acoustic guitar. 

Bill has received numerous awards throughout his career including a Silver Medal from the Society of Newspaper Design in Design & Illustration, The Indianapolis Art Director’s Show, Best in Design, Denver Art Directors Club, Best in Illustration, First Place Ohio Best in Newspaper Design Associated Press, First Place Ohio Best in Newspaper Illustration Associated Press for the Hamilton Journal News. Communication Arts Bronze Medal in Illustration and Design. Best of Show. Holland, Michigan Annual Competitive Art Show. One person exhibits at The Denver Art Museum, Fort Wayne Art Museum, Congregation Beth Shalom, Chicago, Illinois, Group exhibit at the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Charlotte, North Carolina.

Apr
21
Jim Effler Named Distinguished Alumni

Jim Effler Named Distinguished Alumni 2020

The Alumni Council of the Art Academy of Cincinnati is proud to confer upon Jim Effler the 2020 Distinguished Alumnus Award.

The Art Academy of Cincinnati Alumni Association established this award as our highest honor. The Alum who receive this honor have distinguished themselves by the contributions they have made in their particular field or profession, in service to the Art Academy and to the betterment of humanity.

About Jim Effler

Jim is a professional artist living in Cincinnati, Ohio. Originally known for airbrush illustration, he now works predominantly in oils, a medium he first explored while attending the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Effler’s style combines painting and digital techniques with traditional methods.

Effler graduated from the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 1978 with a major in illustration and graphic design. From 1982 until 2000, he was a partner in AIR Studio, which represented more than a dozen regional illustrators. Since then, he has been a full-time independent illustrator.

Over the years, Effler has gained a reputation for his many beer posters and labels. His whimsical illustrations featuring goats are one of the highlights of Cincinnati’s annual Bockfest celebration. The goats have been featured on the festival’s posters for the past 25 years. He has also completed numerous posters for the Hudepohl 14K Brewery Run.

Effler paints landscapes and portraits. His commissioned work has included a number of family and institutional portraits, including one of May Festival Chorus Director Robert Porco, which hangs in Cincinnati’s Music Hall.

He has created a number of public and private murals throughout Cincinnati. His “Beer Barons” mural is on display at the Moerlein Lager House at The Banks. Jim has worked with ArtWorks since 2015, when he designed and illustrated the Cincinnati Brewery District Mural, “Grain to Glass,” at the Moerlein Brewery in Over-the-Rhine. In 2016, he designed two additional ArtWorks murals, “Prost to Cincinnati” in Over-the-Rhine and a tribute to the Miami-Erie Canal, “Locks, Docks and Barrels” in the CUF district.

Effler is a member of the Cincinnati Art Club, serving on its board from 2006 to 2009 and chairing the club’s ViewPoint juried competition. He has taught at the College of Mount St. Joseph, the Art Academy of Cincinnati, Miami University, and AIC College of Design.

Oct
30
Dottie Stevens: 100 Years of Impressions

 

Dottie Stevens: 100 Years of Impressions

by Robin Stevens Payes

Women of Dottie Silverstein Stevens’ generation came of age in a time when most occupations were not open to them. And self-promotion frowned upon.

Their work was in the home: raise the family, keep a nice, clean and orderly household, serve as gracious hostesses or guests and be good helpmeets, volunteer in the community, and get together for bridge or mahjong with “the girls.”

They could have hobbies: cooking, painting, playing piano.

But to work outside the home, much less to promote one’s artistry in the marketplace, would be frowned upon.

“Father Knows Best” was not just a TV show, but a way of life.

Mom was typical of her era in that she did all of the above, and without reproach. But her passion was for her art.

She painted, sculpted, took classes, taught them…and never let go of the question that drove her all her life: “What is art?”

All the while, seeking to capture her own version of it.

Even though she thought “selling” herself and her work was unladylike, she found a way. Dottie entered juried art shows, and won. When her paintings sold, she kept detailed records about the purchaser, price, and date of sale, along with a Polaroid or Kodak picture.

She kept records of it all on file cards, painstakingly handwritten, with xerox copies in loose-leaf binders—this being the days before computers could spit out copies on demand.

But her journey started by accident, at the tender age of 6, in 1924.

 

A Teacher, a Poem and a Shadow as Gift for a Lifetime

In Dottie’s own words:

From the very beginning, it was all based on an innocent, naïve misconception.

In elementary school, we had a wonderful teacher who inspired all the children in a very clever way. She promised a special reward if we behaved and worked hard.

She would read a poem to us and then let us draw a picture about it. One day, our reward was a charming little poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, “My Shadow.”

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;

And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

After reading it aloud, we all took out our crayons to draw a picture about the poem. As Teacher walked around the class, I was surprised when she paused at my desk and asked me to come to the front of the room and hold up my picture.

Then, she proceeded to take me to all five other first-grade classes to display my “work of art,” to hold up my drawing in front of all the other children as an example.

Mom never thought to question why.

When little Dottie told her mother about this honor, my grandmother immediately proceeded to buy the six-year-old a beginner’s set of oil paints, a small palette, and a canvas board. She was signed up for art lessons after school and, in time, made her first oil painting—a copy of a beautiful lady by Thomas Gainsborough (note: this painting is in the retrospective).

 

From Hobby to Profession

Cincinnati was sponsoring a city-wide art competition downtown, called “Girls Hobby Fair.” After investing one dollar in a picture frame, my grandmother submitted my mom’s earliest still life: Two Books and Brass Candlestick. It won a first prize blue ribbon, and a $25 gift certificate to Wilde’s Art Supply Store. With that coveted certificate, Dottie bought her first wooden easel.

Art became a major part of her life. She pursued formal training in great art schools, beginning with the Cincinnati Art Academy in the 1930s, the Cincinnati Art Museum and later in universities and museums. During World War II, she studied at the Chicago Art Institute and did graphic art design working for the Manhattan Project in Chicago.

She was inspired by the Impressionists, and first copied, and later innovated on their style. She began experimenting with sculpture and printmaking, and ceramics.

Extensive travel with her husband, David Stevens, further enriched her experiences, and many of Dottie’s paintings took their inspiration from their travels around the world, making it altogether fitting that the proceeds of the art auction will go towards funding a scholarship for AAC students to study abroad.

In her 90s, when the physical processes of painting and sculpting became too demanding, Mom turned to writing. She wrote a play, “What is Art?” to explore this question using words as her medium.

And after she gave up painting and sculpting, she used to say she was always painting in her mind. For her, art became sustenance.

But she never got over thinking that the drawing that launched a career and a passion for art was really a happy mistake.

Again, Dottie’s words:

Thinking about that early inspiration, I can’t believe there was really anything aesthetically remarkable about my picture.

My guess is, that while other kids were naturally drawing a little child with its detached shadow somewhere nearby, perhaps my portrayal showed a little girl with her shadow attached to her feet, and with its shadow laying horizontally on the ground, as shadows do, according to the laws of physics and the direction from which the light was slanted.

In any case, because of my early misinterpretation of my first-grade teacher and her encouragement, a subsequent whole world of art opened up to me.

Fast Forward: Inspiration Comes Full Circle

It is fitting, then, and a great thrill for her family that, having started with the early inspiration of a teacher, Mom’s art, and the Wilder scholarship it endows will pay it forward: to support, to inspire, indeed, to fuel, an art-filled future for students at the Cincinnati Art Academy for generations yet to come.

 

Robin Stevens Payes, daughter of artist Dottie Stevens, is a Maryland-based author, science writer and storyteller who takes teen readers to the Edge of Yesterday through her time travel novels and “learning through story” interactive adventure portal.

October 24, 2019

 

Apr
03
Charley Harper & Tony Tasset Named Distinguished Alumni

Tony Tasset & Charley Harper Named the 2019 Distinguished Alumnus

The Alumni Council of the Art Academy of Cincinnati is proud to confer upon Charley Harper and Tony Tasset the 2019 Distinguished Alumnus Award. Tasset will also join as the Academy’s Commencement speaker.

About Charley Harper

Charley Harper (August 4, 1922-June 10, 2007) was a Cincinnati-based American Modernist artist. He was best known for his highly stylized wildlife prints, posters and book illustrations.
Born in Frenchtown, West Virginia in 1922, Harper’s upbringing on his family farm influenced his work to his last days. He left his farm home to study art at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, and won the Academy’s first Stephen H. Wilder Traveling Scholarship. While at the Academy, and supposedly on the first day, Charley met fellow artist and fellow Distinguished alumnus, Edie McKee, whom he would marry shortly after graduation in 1947.

About Tony Tasset

Tony Tasset fuses unstinting candor, dizzying scale shifts, and precise prismatic rendering of familiar objects and forms to create towering sculptures, paintings, and installations that transfix, startle, prickle, and captivate viewers around the globe. These massive spectacles provoke spontaneous dialogue among persons encountering each other as they come upon Tasset’s outdoor sculptures, characterized by luminous color and unimaginable depth, weight, height, width, and impact.
Tony Tasset’s works are anything but “tacit.” Rather, they are astounding, radical, commanding, and arresting. The artist’s own uncurbed, seemingly boundless, and momentous art has held innumerable people around the globe spellbound for 35 years.

May
18
Q&A with Wilder Winner Noel Maghathe
Q&A with Wilder Winner Noel Maghathe

Artists draw inspiration from many places including the environment that surrounds them. The opportunity for a change of scenery can prove especially valuable. At the Art Academy of Cincinnati the Stephen H. Wilder Traveling Scholarship provides just that, affording art students of all disciplines the chance to explore the world around them as fuel for their creative expression.

Noel Maghathe is a Mixed Palestinian American artist and graduate of the Art Academy. Dedicated to radical gender and identity politics, Maghathe uses performance, photography, sculpture, and installation to advance socially conscious dialogues centering queer voices.

Check out a Q&A with Maghathe below to learn more about Noel’s experience traveling on the Wilder Scholarship.

Q: You were one of last year’s recipients of the Wilder Traveling Scholarship. Where did you go and how did you use this award to continue your practice and research?

I was lucky enough to travel with my father to his home in Halhul, West Bank, Palestine.

I decided to use Wilder Traveling Scholarship to experience being a queer person/femme in Palestine first hand, but to also reconnect as an adult with this whole side of my life. Using several social media outlets, I connected with other queer Palestinians to listen to their experiences and collaborate.

Q: Can you share with us your experience in Palestine?

I spent the majority of my time in the small town of Halhul, where my grandmother lives. My father was born and raised in this rural town.

It was a wild experience full of ups and downs; two men asked for my hand, conversations of marriage, conversations of equality. I gained and lost feelings of wonder, revisiting a home after seven years brings comfort but distortion.

It became so much more than me being queer, but re-birthing the home in my heart for this place. When creating with my new friends, I felt happy and strong finally being here after all of this hard work.

I sat and spoke with my friend Rawand from Ramallah for an hour as we did each other’s hair after we’d just met. I thought back to my childhood where I spent hours sitting with my sisters straightening our hair for school the next day, we spent so much time laughing and intertwining. After our hair, we did our makeup and she took me to the old city of Birzeit, where we interacting with the space using my cellophane forms I had been making in Halhul.

It was an enduring experience with a lifetime friendship, I plan on coming back and studying at Birzeit for gender studies in the next couple years.

Q: How did your experience in  Palestine change your work?

It changed the way I thought of art making and what it can impact.

Q: After returning, you went on to become an Agent of Change delegate to this year’s UN Commission on the Status of Womxn. Was this a continuation of your work during your time in Palestine?

This was a continuation of my path as an artist. I was shown and recommended this opportunity by a new friend, Mitchell Sutika Sipus.

He spoke at graduation last May and we connected after hearing about the work he has done overseas. I was encouraged to apply after he expressed that we need more artists outside of this form to be involved in global conversations.

Q: Could you tell us more about your experience as an Agent of Change?

It was an overwhelming time!

I loved being in NYC and to be at the United Nations HQ every day was hair-raising. I spent every morning taking a train and bus over to Manhattan then heading to a conference room full of people from all over the world. I’m just sitting here two seats from the minister of women of New Zealand, speaking of the economic empowerment of rural women in NZ.

I’m in awe that I am here and able to be a part of the conversation. Speaking and hearing views of these gender issues and the lack of universal conversation of the trans and gender non-conforming community really pushed me to my choice of gender studies for masters.

I hope to connect more with ILGA (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association ) in the future for this matter, they were the only group to truly address these issues within the whole commission. Shout out to Zhan Chiam! I met so many people that were doing amazing things to help further the gender equality from Fiji to Indonesia to Estonia.

I am so thankful for the time I spent not only at the United Nations, but the people I met in New York. What a beautiful time I had.

Q: Where do you see your work going from here and how do you feel your art/design will make an impact on the world?

I see myself going in a completely new direction after this conference, I was very torn on whether to continue fine arts in grad school, but I have decided to dive into gender studies as well as Arab studies.

I will always make work and perform, but I need to be involved in these issues and use my art and performances in those environments as one. Especially with what is happening this moment with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict with the Land Day peaceful protests, I can’t just bury my head.

Q: How do you view yourself as a change maker?

I’m still learning how I can make a change. Thus far I’ve been advocating as much as possible and my performances are becoming more political and facing these issues head-on.

Sep
19
Education to be Radical, Relentless, & Radiant

To view the original post by Mitchell Sipus, Art Academy alumnus, click here.

I was deeply honored to give the commencement speech to the graduating class of 2017 at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. These last few days, I am now continually reflecting upon the unique and powerful proposition this school makes to the world. There is no other school like it.

The only other college to which I can compare it is the mythical Black Mountain College of the 1960s that produced revolutionary minds such as John Cage. To plagiarize someone else’s story, the Art Academy (AAC) doesn’t merely graduate artists or designers, it graduates the critical but hard to find team member of every successful business:

“there are three kinds of people you want to launch a business: the person with the idea, the person with the financial sense, and the person who makes you say ‘what the fuck?’ The last is the person who can rip ideas apart, remix them, and flip everything upside down to generate breakthroughs that no one else can see.” 

The last kind of person is particularly hard to find. Many schools can teach people to become accountants or to be entrepreneurs but no school teaches students to be intellectually rebellious and operationally radical. Except for the Art Academy of Cincinnati. No joke. It is even in their mission statement.

Everyday books about Innovation, Design, and Economic Disruption churn through billions of dollars in annual publishing sales. Parallel to the publishing industry, countless institutions argue they offer an education that will transform students into innovators who will change our world. But do these industries actually generate the change-makers we seek?

In the last ten years, I’ve been fortunate to spend time at the world’s best universities as a speaker, student, or instructor including Oxford University, MIT, Harvard, Cornell, and Carnegie Mellon University – and these are indeed great schools. Their students are brilliant and the faculty are more than competent. The programs are well funded and the students are nearly guaranteed the security of a well-paying job upon graduation. These schools also attract people who already have a history of success – when Elon Musk attended Stanford, he had already earned degrees in Physics and Economics. Yet I have never encountered another school that transforms unknown students into true innovators. In fact, when I recently taught Design Thinking at an East Coast top-tier MBA program, my students complained the entire time about the lack of clear directions and the constantly shifting parameters within the course requirements. I have since learned that this complaint is exceedingly common within MBA Design degrees. These programs are forcing square people through intellectual circles and many graduates come out very little changed.

Do all art schools impact students to think so differently? I’m not sure… there are many art schools in the world. My sister is a student at SCAD. I have friends as RISD. When I was a teenager, I lusted for the attention of the San Francisco Institute of Art (SFAI) and the School of the Chicago Institute of Art (SCIA). Unfortunately, in 1999, I had so little money for college, I did not even have the 50 dollars to apply to any of those programs let alone all of them. With little hope to attend any college, I drove my broken-down ‘91 Geo Prism to the Art Academy of Cincinnati for a Portfolio Review Day in mid-October, to present my high school artwork to various colleges. San Francisco was there, as was Chicago, and at least a dozen others. Chicago offered a partial scholarship on the spot, which was incredible… yet, as I did not have the money to apply, let alone to live in Chicago, it held more symbolic meaning than opportunity. I was nonetheless motivated at that moment to find a way to go to art school.

Weeks later I happened to cross paths with some artists, Aaron Butler and Christopher Daniel. Aaron worked at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and pioneered the experimental music group, Dark Audio Project, while Chris was a metal sculptor who went on to found the extraordinary and thriving Blue Hell Studio. They both held Art Academy ties, and with their encouragement, I decided to do everything possible to earn a scholarship. I applied only minutes before the deadline, in person, submitting my application in a massive wooden box crafted from an old PA system pulled from a dumpster in Kentucky (at Aaron’s suggestion that I make the physical application somehow stand out). As a mediocre student in high school, I had only applied to one other school at the time – the globally exceptional design school of the University of Cincinnati, DAAP – and I was not accepted. The Art Academy took a chance on me, offered a scholarship to cover more than half of tuition, and I will be forever grateful. Notably, after later graduating from the Art Academy, I received a full scholarship to DAAP for graduate school.

Visiting AAC this (in May) was not only nostalgic – it was inspirational. The Art Academy is a weird place. It consistently takes chances on people like me. It is a community of outsiders. It pushes them to build expertise on the ability to make something new – which is not typical, considering most degree programs demand students acquire knowledge on a longstanding subject or methodology. It pushes students to invent new models of production, new identities as artists, and to take life to the frontier of possibility. Graduates of the Art Academy of Cincinnati do not need books on creative problem solving, they need wicked problems where all others have failed. If the Art Academy has a flaw, it is a simple fact that they do little marketing or high-profile partnering, and consequently, the world knows little about this school amid an insatiable demand. The Art Academy of Cincinnati is not a diamond in the rough – it is a silent A-bomb in the exosphere.

My life has changed much since I attended the Art Academy. I am writing this blog entry while on a flight to San Francisco. Tomorrow morning, I will run a series of design strategy workshops for a Venture Capital firm in Silicon Valley to explore new investment models for Artificial Intelligence. Since attending the Art Academy, I have lived in multiple countries, built companies, and am fortunate that my abilities to tackle entrenched problems in new ways are continually in demand. When I think of the year I started college, 2000, my life is now very different from the future that was most likely ahead. Though I have my fair share of life challenges, I have a wonderfully creative and satisfying life. It has been a hard journey, but I credit the faculty and students of the Art Academy of Cincinnati. While most colleges chart a path for your future, the Art Academy provided a compass to guide me through the deep woods of the unknown.

Mitchell Sipus
Class of 2004

Jul
05
Looking Through

“Whether we are looking out at the world or looking inward at ourselves, we are always looking through the void within us, through the world, and through both light and darkness. This is a moment of uncertainty and possibility where we find ourselves alone, even if in reality everyone is still very close.”

For her solo exhibition Looking Through, Katelyn Wolary offered these words as a companion to her collection of portraits – both striking and bewitching. Capturing classmates with oil and wood panels, she offers us a glimpse of that moment. Her subjects are staring off at nothing, everything, present but only partially, alone yet connected to everyone else searching through the void.

Katelyn’s self-portrait for the exhibition? She’s looking through you. Not in a judgmental or apathetic way. It’s as if she knows something and is waiting for the right time to share. Perhaps she’s expecting you to have the answer. Either way, there is an air of gentle confidence, a sense that she’s comfortable in the moment if not content.

Already a painter and poet, Katelyn recently earned another telling title – Class of 2017 Valedictorian. Listening to her recount her time at the Art Academy, it is clear this honor celebrates more than her G.P.A.

Growing up in the comparatively small town of Wilmington, Ohio, Katelyn developed a disciplined focus and work ethic via her participation in athletics. But when one of her art teachers in high school saw her potential and encouraged her to connect with another artistically inclined student, Katelyn began directing that same attitude toward her artistic endeavors. Though her parents initially expressed the common concern about how she’d earn a living, they helped her dive into her new passion with vigor.

When her work in high school was recognized with an Ohio Youth Governor’s Art selection, she remembers Joe Fisher – then with AAC admissions – attending the ceremony. This kind of personal touch made a good first impression and continued to impress her once she’d decided to accept the AAC’s very generous scholarship.

“Paige Williams and Mark Thomas were my “Studio Art 1: CORE” instructors, which was the first studio experience I had as a freshman at AAC. Their instruction, support, and criticisms supported my desire to learn and work hard, and was one of my favorite classes throughout the last four years. I have so many good things to say about so many of my professors, it’s hard to know where to begin.”

Another one of those professors was Matt Hart. Katelyn credits his Aesthetics class for helping her consider and develop her own views and values. She also enjoyed letting both the athlete and artist run free in Matt and Paige’s Creative Running course.

Throughout her time at the Academy, Katelyn’s dedication and desire to stretch herself with opportunities within and beyond the AAC has translated into both a richer personal experience and public recognition such as the Helms Trust Scholarship.

“The personal connections and support within the AAC community, which extend far beyond the walls of the Art Academy building, have been one of the most rewarding experiences of attending AAC. For example, last spring, 21C Museum Manager and AAC alum, Michael Hurst, came around to the student studios to check out the work. Fortunately, he saved my business card and contacted me later in the fall for the opportunity to loan my work to 21C for their Elevated Art exhibit, which has been hanging for the last six months and features other local artists.”

Standing on the cusp of graduation, sharing yet another moment of uncertainty and possibility with her fellow graduates, Katelyn is very grateful for both her biological and AAC families. The support of both has played a big part in empowering a profoundly gifted, hardworking and humble artist.

An artist who is certain to make the most of her possibilities.