Jul
24
Making Art, Advocating for Affordable Housing

Making Art, Advocating for Affordable Housing

Dionna Flowers first entered Art Academy of Cincinnati (AAC) in the 90’s, when the school was still up in Mount Adams.

A graduate of Forest Park High School, Flowers served abroad in the Navy during Desert Storm before getting discharged in ’92. Back in Cincinnati, she had no framework for understanding PTSD and the addiction that was running her life, so she threw herself into going back to school.

“I have been drawing since I was seven years old. It was my way of escaping,” Flowers recalls. “So I jumped up and decided to go to the Art Academy of Cincinnati to try to ease the pain of being discharged from the Navy.”

Flowers got into the AAC on a full scholarship but quickly discovered that overcoming financial barriers was only half the battle.

“[The scholarship] wasn’t enough to keep me in there because, as I said, I didn’t understand the dynamics of what I was dealing with internally—dealing with PTSD and military sexual trauma and a survivor of so many different things as a child. I didn’t understand. I thought, if I just do this, and if I just leave that alone but still drink this, then I’ll be okay. And it didn’t work.”

What followed was rock bottom—and a vicious cycle.

“[It was] a long, twenty-five year journey of homelessness, dereliction, in-and-out of jail, in-and-out of institutions, in-and-out of halfway houses […] Clean, dirty, clean, dirty.”

The road to recovery began with intensive therapy at the Fort Thomas VA, then was sustained through the gift of affordable housing—thanks to OTR Community Housing and other local advocates—which gave Flowers the stability and the dignity to begin to dream again, for herself and for her community.

“Once I got equitable and affordable housing, I vowed that I would always give back to the community that I took so much from […] to make good the part I played in the destruction of our neighborhood.”

Finishing What They Started

Flowers is now celebrating five years of being clean, with restored family relationships, a strong support network, and a chance to finish what she started decades ago at the AAC.

“This is like a dream that I lost and was given back.”

Flowers is finding ways to merge art and advocacy work. Outside of class, she is a circuit speaker for the Homeless Coalition. In addition to silent auctions, her work can be found at the YWCA, the OTR Senior Center, and Algin Retro Furniture (as part of Visionaries and Voices), and at an upcoming show at the VA themed around PTSD among female veterans.

This Final Friday, Flowers is hosting “Art Extravaganza,” an art show fundraiser at the OTR Senior Center, with proceeds to benefit local senior services and affordable housing. The show features prints of Flowers’ original paintings made on 4×4’s that were left behind at the end of the school year, which she reclaimed and upcycled.

Flowers is grateful that in spite of everything, including a criminal record, art remains an open door to her. And she is all in.

“I’m open, like a sponge, you know, soaking up everything that I learn here [at the AAC]. And I’m willing to learn more and more and more. I’m ready for class to start back up. I’m ready to come back to class.”

This article was written by Sarah Dupee.

Jul
15
Q&A with Art Academy’s New President Joseph Girandola

Q&A with Art Academy’s New President

Meet Joseph Girandola, the Art Academy of Cincinnati’s (AAC) new president. During his seven-year tenure at the University of Cincinnati, Girandola oversaw all of UC’s graduate students in design, architecture, art, and planning (DAAP). He begins at the AAC in August.
Last week, we got to sit down and talk with him about his own artistic journey, and what he’s looking forward to as president of the AAC.

How did you get into art?

Girandola says he was doing creative work long before he realized it. As a kid growing up in Maryland, he was fascinated with cooking, and he helped his dad make meals for the family.
“And putting together ingredients, which I didn’t really know would become essential to how I made artwork… the idea that one simple ingredient could change the whole flavor of a meal.”

He was also determined to figure out how things work.

“I was taking apart everything from the washing machine to dishwashers to see how they worked. And I knew that I loved to work with my hands, but never knew what being an artist really meant.”

It wasn’t until Girandola was nineteen that he began to consider art as a trajectory in life.

“I was fortunate to become an apprentice stone carver, and that pretty much sealed my fate.”

His apprenticeship in Florence, Italy, ingrained in him the impact artists and designers can have on an urban environment. By simply walking through the streets, he was observing the work of expert practitioners—from cobblestones to doorknobs to artwork created for churches and cathedrals.

“And so for me, my life has been guided by that—noticing small little details in every urban environment to understand the necessity, now more than ever, of what artists can do, artists and designers, what they can do for society in making the world a better place.”

How did you get into the administration side of things?

“I’m the type of person that likes to say yes when people ask me “can you do this?”

After earning his MFA from the University of Georgia, Girandola went to Omaha, Nebraska, for an art residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. The residency’s founder and director asked if he’d help her cook meals for the group, and he said yes. During that time, his eagerness to help other artists became more and more apparent.

“I would talk about my willingness to do anything for artists to make their lives easier, including assisting them with finding grants for their own practice.”

At the end of the residency, he was asked to stay and work there, eventually becoming the residency director. This meant writing grants for nonprofit arts organizations and learning as he went.

“I became a de facto artist and administrator at that point without really knowing it […] I think they’re the same basic ingredients to do both things. It includes passion, it includes skill, it includes knowing when to ask questions, and knowing to be fearless in asking those questions for assistance.”

And you’ve never stepped away from your own [artistic] practice?

“No, never. When my kids go to sleep, I go down and work in the studio. And whether that’s not making anything in the studio and just looking at what I’ve done the day before or the week before, I still consider that an idea-generation act of being in the studio. And for me, maintaining a studio practice I’ll never give up, it’s who I am as a person—it’s who I want to be as a mentor as well— is to let people know their practice is always alive.”

What’re the things you’re most excited to build on here at the AAC?

“I’m most excited about this downtown location for sure. To be in a truly urban environment. This is a place where artists and designers can solve many problems that exist with out-of-the-box thinking.”

While working with graduate students at DAAP, Girandola says he has been repeatedly impressed by the students coming from the AAC.

“I see in them a fearlessness to be bold to be empowered to express themselves. And that is a world I want to live in.”

What are things you’re curious about exploring more with the AAC?

“The more community engagement in social practice, the better. I want to completely look at programming for an educational degree to include that component in everything we do. What does empathy mean? What does truth mean? In every class, these need to be taught. What is our role as human beings in this society?

The Art Academy can take the lead in being a visionary program for creatives to understand how to make a better society through their practice. And being downtown in OTR and seeing the transformation of this part of the city and this part of the region, this is a place to make that happen.”

Girandola also wants to delve deeper into community partnerships and collaborations. He would love to see the AAC collaborate more fully with institutions such as the art museum, regional nonprofit arts organizations, and educational institutions such as UC, NKY, Miami, Mount St. Joe, and K-12 schools.

Can you speak briefly on duct tape?

“For sure. My passion for duct tape starts when I was a stone carver […] I wanted to have some kind of fingerless gloves that could protect my hands but also lock my wrists in place.

[…]

That created a practice of when I would cut off those duct tape gloves at the end of the day. I loved how they looked like these immaculate little sculptures caked in marble dust and the oil from the tools and from the grime and grit of a day’s work. And it reminded me of the fabric of the city of Florence.

[…]

And so since then, I’ve gone on to create duct tape classes with the support of this company Duct Brands duct tape. The founder of the company saw my work over 15 years ago, and we created a collaboration to fund students making giant works out of duct tape. Which has been amazing.

[…]

What I try to teach artists of this day and age, of any age, from kindergartners through masters and graduate-level students, is that the more they can collaborate with people outside that know more than them, the better they will produce their work.

[…]

Because for [an organization] it’s all about a story. And for artists, it’s all about a journey and a story. […] And the more we can connect with the stories we’re telling and the kind of journey we are on, the better we are able to connect, to get our practice out to the world.”

Anything else you would want students and faculty to know about you that they might not know?

Well, I have a passion for wood-fired pizza. I make wood-fired pizza ovens. I’ve created a mobile pizza oven, so we’ll have that hopefully at orientation here. And I like to teach people how to use the oven and make pizza so then they can operate it on their own.

And I also have an open-door policy to come and talk with me whenever students want, whenever faculty and staff want. […] I consider [my office] a welcome mat to the students, faculty, and staff. And to the community.

My goal is to have the art academy have an open door policy to everyone in the city. And that includes other academic institutions, other arts organizations, to the community, to the public.

We need to open the ground floor to the city, being a beacon of creativity, of arts and design in the city. We need to have an open access policy. And really look at the world in a way that builds upon the success of the faculty, staff, and students of the Art Academy of Cincinnati for 150 years. And really connect with our alums again to welcome them in a return of a resurgence of this excellence.

The article was written by Sarah Dupee. 

 

Jul
15
Meet Art Academy’s Newest President Joseph Girandola

Joseph Girandola Named Art Academy of Cincinnati’s Next President

The Art Academy of Cincinnati’s Board of Trustees has named Joseph Girandola as the college’s next president. Girandola will assume office on August 1, 2019.

Girandola succeeds Mark Grote, who is retiring after one year as interim president and returning to serve on the college’s board.

No stranger to the arts, Girandola currently serves as the interim associate dean of graduate studies and research at the University of Cincinnati in the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning. Prior, his roles included the Director of Graduate Studies for the School of Art at DAAP and director of the MFA program at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

During his tenure at DAAP, he sought and secured new external funding opportunities for creative research and was part of the steering committee for the University of Cincinnati’s 1819 Innovation Hub.

“Girandola brings not only the empathetic position of being a practicing artist, but also the experience of being a seasoned higher education administrator,” said Tysonn Betts, chair of the Art Academy’s board of trustees.

Bringing a Vision

His expertise is timely as the Art Academy, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary, recently launched major strategic initiatives to increase enrollment and transform its campus.

“My vision for the Art Academy’s next chapter is to become an open door for problem-solving in the city through the creative practice,” said Girandola. “Building upon its amazing history, the Art Academy will look to collaborate with all of the game-changing innovative entities in the region to provide its students with the best possible skills needed to survive in the global creative economy.”

When asked about his new role at the Art Academy, Girandola sees a team effort. “The tremendous students, alumni, Board of Trustees, faculty and staff will be partners in the journey to solidify the success of the Art Academy into the near and distant future.”

Read Girandola’s full Q&A here.

 

May
21
From Military Service to Art with a Purpose

From Military Service to Art with a Purpose

Each year, the Yale Norfolk School of Art selects twenty-six undergraduate art students from across the globe to attend its six-week intensive summer residency. The students are chosen from a pool of five hundred rising seniors who have been nominated by their school.

In a nutshell—it is a highly competitive program.

Which is why Art Academy of Cincinnati (AAC) student Kimberly Walker was floored when she received her notice of acceptance for Yale Norfolk’s 2019 session. She will be the first AAC student in seventeen years to attend the residency.

Their Story is Unique

Walker’s story is unique in that she became an art student only after serving seventeen years of active duty in the U.S. Army. When a spinal chord injury forced her into medical retirement, she did an about-face toward art.

“I retired down to New Mexico to do some healing. And then I ended up in art school,” she says.

If it weren’t for her now-mentor Sarah Stoler—an ‘00 AAC graduate who chairs the art department at the University of New Mexico-Taos—Walker might still be in New Mexico doing still life paintings.

“She brought the subject of the military out of me. At first I was kind of avoiding it. I just wanted to paint mountains and adobe homes.”

Under Stoler’s guidance, Walker found her way to Cincinnati where she is now a rising senior at the AAC. Her work investigates the ongoing realities of sexual harassment, abuse, and violence against women in the military through the medium of sculpture and installation.

Having a Story to Tell

Though it’s emotionally draining work, Walker draws motivation and energy from having a story to tell.

According to her most recent artist statement: “One out of three women who enlist in the U.S. military will be sexually assaulted or raped. Some have even been murdered by a brother in arms. In this sociopolitical climate, now is the pivotal moment to create this type of art.”

In the process, she has found there is something very satisfying about the physical work of building installations.

“I love the hard work. It’s almost like being a construction worker and an artist at the same time. So there’s some power there where you’re working with power tools,” Walker says. “I have a chain saw which I love to use.”

Unfortunately, the Yale Norfolk School of Art has a strict “no power tools” policy, so Walker will have to leave the chainsaw at home. But she anticipates a valuable opportunity to build on her study of color symbolism.

“I usually do red, white, and blue pieces. Or camouflage green and hot pink. But right now I’m trying all black.”

Otherwise, she is gearing up for an intense, full-immersion experience—something akin to boot camp.

“[The residency] is seven days a week, you can’t leave the grounds, you’re housed in private residences, eating in a dining hall together—breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” she explains. “And I’m like, oh this is basic training—I can do this! And I imagine some special relationships are gonna be built.”

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.

Feb
13
Four Year Tuition Promise

The Four Year Tuition Promise

The Art Academy of Cincinnati (AAC) is in the process of rolling out a four-year tuition promise. This promise will effect this coming fall 2019. This new measure represents the school’s commitment to protecting its students from tuition increases over the course of their four-year undergraduate studies at AAC.

“The standard across higher education is that when you come in as a freshman, you can expect your tuition will increase every year,” explains interim president Mark Grote.

By billing students the same tuition each year, the AAC seeks to reduce financial stress by making education expenses more predictable, transparent, and affordable.

“We want our focus to be on our students, and we know the cost of education is one of—if not the most—critical factors for students today.”

The four-year tuition promise will also apply to the AAC’s returning students. For example, “if you’re a sophomore this year, your tuition will remain the same when you’re a junior and senior.”

This puts the Art Academy at the forefront of what is sure to be a growing trend.

As it stands, the AAC will be the only private art college in America to implement the four-year tuition promise. And one of just three colleges in Ohio.

“This is one of the reasons we like being small,” Grote says. “Because being small, we can make really fast changes.”

To learn more about the Tuition Promise, click here.

Nov
20
AAC Hosts the Regional Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

Art Academy of Cincinnati Hosts the Regional Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

For its third year, The Art Academy of Cincinnati (AAC) will produce the Regional Scholastic Art & Writing Awards of Southwest Ohio, Northern Kentucky, and Southeast Indiana on our urban campus in historic Over-the-Rhine. Established in 1923, Scholastic is the nation’s longest-running and most prestigious national recognition program. Participation ranges from grades 7 to 12.

Through the Regional Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, students from public, private, and home schools receive rare opportunities for national recognition, exhibition, publication, and scholarships. Last year, students from across the country submitted a record-breaking 346,000 original works of art and writing. These submissions were in 29 different categories with nearly 5,000 submissions from the Cincinnati region.

The Awards Ceremony will host both art and writing awards recipients.

Selected art and writing works will be on display at the Art Academy (1212 Jackson St., Over-the-Rhine) presented by Summerfair Cincinnati from January 28 to February 8, 2019. A celebration and awards ceremony is set for February 1, 2019, at the School for Creative and Performing Arts. The event will draw thousands of visitors from across the Tri-state. 

Each June, national Gold Medal recipients from across the country gather in New York City to attend the National Ceremony.  Over the years, numerous artists have been recognized by these awards when they were still students.  Notable alumni include: Andy Warhol, Robert Redford, Truman Capote, Richard Avedon, Steven King, Sylvia Plath, Charles White, Kay WalkingStick, Ken Burns, John Baldessari, Mozelle Thompson, Joyce Carol Oates, Hughie Lee-Smith, Zac Posen, and Lena Dunham. Cy Twombly, Donald Lipski, and Tom Otterness.

Submissions are accepted until December 12, 2018. For more information about the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards or how a teen can participate, visit www.artandwriting.org or https://www.artacademy.edu/scholastics

Oct
17
For Freedoms: Never Again is Now

About For Freedoms Billboard

Two years ago a billboard appeared in Pearl, Mississippi that sparked confusion and conversation. The image on the billboard was of an iconic photograph from the civil rights era with the words, “Make American Great Again”.
It was the work of For Freedoms, an organization using art to promote democratic participation.

Now they’re commissioning artists from across the country to create billboards addressing political and social issues of their choice.

Professor Emily Momohara Responds

Art Academy Associate Professor, Emily Momohara was commissioned to create two of these thought provoking billboards.

One billboard is currently located on I-75. It depicts a young Japanese girl in an internment camp with the words, “Never Again is Now!”. During WWII, Momohara’s family was incarcerated because of their Japanese heritage. This was a result of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s unconstitutional use of power, when he signed Executive Order 9066 incarcerating all Japanese Americans. In turn, families were separated.

Recent accounts of children being separated from parents at the U.S.-Mexico border have inspired Momohara to speak out through art. Using documentation of the WWII incarceration to compare today and the past, Momohara stands firm with immigrants in Never Again is Now!

 

 

 

Jul
11
Camp Art Academy to BFA: A CE Success Story

Camp Art Academy to BFA

A CE Success Story

Illustration by, November Hardy

November Hardy has just completed her sophomore year at the Art Academy of Cincinnati (AAC). It all started when she attended Camp Art Academy at nine years old.

Hardy is an example of a successful Community Education transition into art school. Experiences in camp helped to encourage her interest in art and discover her creative ideas. As a result of her artistic passion she enrolled into the BFA program at the Art Academy.

“I feel that my exposure to art at camp influenced my decision to attend art school. I never really thought about having a career in art or going to an art college. Therefore, having grown up attending art camp every year, it stimulated my interest in art,” said Hardy.

Hardy is now a Camp Art Academy Teaching Assistant. “Assisting at the camp is fun to do and I like having a teaching role. Having students genuinely interested in learning how to draw is a great experience. I also appreciate the kids looking up to me for advice and ideas.”

Hardy plans a future in art. “Majoring in illustration and minoring in design will hopefully open many different paths for me. I would like to freelance as it would afford me the opportunity to work on variety of projects. But I would be glad to just work in a design firm or illustration studio, and freelance when I can. I just would like to be doing something creative”.

“I hope to take away from all the experiences I’ve had from the various projects and people I’ve met here. Learning from the ‘real life’ projects with clients and just the way you can work with peers and professors is exciting to me.”

“Just to take the atmosphere of the Art Academy — where everyone will help you if you need it, and helping others if they need, when I leave would be rewarding.”

You can find Hardy this summer assisting Camp Art Academy teachers.

 

Sign Up For Camp Art Academy HERE.

Written by, Katherine Beck

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.