A London-based nonprofit takes empty commercial spaces and offers them as studios. Artists get a free place to work, and landlords save some money, too.

The Marketing and Communications team at the University of Missouri–St. Louis has won recognition for its dynamic, cutting-edge design. The Council for Advancement and Support of Education honored UMSL’s design team with two awards in its 2023 Best of District VI Awards.

UMSL Magazine, a general interest, externally-facing publication, was honored for its design in a competition that featured institutions from the Mid-America region, which includes the states of Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

The magazine, which is published twice a year with a circulation of over 110,000, received recognition in the Design: Magazines & Periodicals category. Although each issue of UMSL Magazine is unique, certain design elements, sensibility, personality and layout structure create a cohesive brand look that helps demonstrate the diverse successes of UMSL students, faculty, alumni and community partners to a wide audience.

UMSL Magazine’s design is inspired by the university’s community of people, and the designers, led by Art Director Wendy Allison, are mindful to seek inspiration from the stories’ subjects when making aesthetic decisions. Certain sections of the magazine have consistent design elements that help tie the issues together, including the quick-hit front-of-book section and Class Notes, while longform feature stories spotlight more ambitious, creative design and reporting.

“We are thrilled that the Council for Advancement and Support of Education has once again recognized the exceptional design work produced by our talented Marketing and Communications team,” said Justin Roberts, associate vice chancellor for Marketing and Communications. “Our designers continue to come up with creative and innovative ways to tell stories about the UMSL community and connect with our students, alumni, faculty, staff and friends.”

The UMSL Marketing and Communications team was also honored in the Specialty Pieces category for its Discover MORE Admitted Student Kit. The kit was a new endeavor that provided a creative solution to a request from UMSL’s Office of Admissions, which sought to capture the attention of newly admitted, first-time college or transfer students in a unique and memorable way.

The kit, which was mailed directly to new students’ homes ahead of the 2022-23 school year, featured items designed to help guide admitted students through the next steps of the admissions process, including a booklet, notepad, pencil, custom-printed Nalgene water bottle, custom stickers and a letter of acceptance presented in a custom envelope.

The Marcom web/digital team, led by Senior Designer Lori Austin, also played an integral role in bringing the project to life. Each welcome kit included QR codes that linked to an accompanying microsite featuring information about next steps, video interviews with students and guides touting the best that UMSL and St. Louis have to offer. The primary messaging and the design of the kit was aligned with bold new branding that was developed for the university in 2022, and the kit was one of the first external pieces to showcase UMSL’s new brand to a wider audience.

“We thought this kit would be a fun and engaging way to get admitted students excited about coming to UMSL and being part of the Triton community, and the design team definitely delivered,” said Reggie Hill, vice chancellor for strategic enrollment and career advancement. “Between sourcing the materials and producing the box, this was a challenging project, and the end result is the product of a huge collaboration amongst our marketing and enrollment teams. The kit features everything a new Triton could need to kick off their college career presented in an eye-catching, colorful format that inspires them to discover they’re MORE at UMSL.”

Short URL: https://blogs.umsl.edu/news/?p=100432

In 2006, Pam Longobardi traveled to Ka Lae, the southernmost tip of Hawaii’s Big Island, for a residency. Cradled by a rugged coastline and high cliffs towering over the Pacific Ocean, the point marks a confluence of currents where marine life and debris gather on shore, making it a popular fishing spot and unintentional waste collection site. “There I saw an immense multitude of colors and forms of plastic that was being vomited out of the ocean, piled so deep it was beyond my arm’s reach to the bottom,” Longobardi tells Colossal. “The shock was so profound that it completely reoriented my art practice and my life.”

While determined to address the issue, Longobardi quickly understood she couldn’t work by herself. “As an artist, still going on my research missions to Hawai’i as frequently as I could but still often alone, it began to be overwhelming, exhausting, depressing to the point of self-doubt,” she says. Instead, she wanted to create something collaborative and community-based, linking activists, environmentalists, and artists with people living in the region and directly witnessing the impacts. These experiences spurred a now two-decade endeavor known as the Drifters Project, a practice of creating installations and sculptures that help visualize the catastrophic amount of plastic ruining the world’s ecosystems.

“Ocean Archaeology of Our Time” (2023), global ocean plastics from Maldives, Hawaii, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Alaska, California, and Georgia coasts, mounted on painted marine plywood, 9 x 5 feet

Most works begin with Longobardi and a team cleaning specific areas and preventing plastic from embarking “on the wild journey that ends at sea and negatively impacts many, many life forms along the way.” Once the area is scoured and cleared, the artist arranges the findings by color or material into works that convey the immensity and breadth of over-consumption and the inadequacy of our waste systems.

Recent installations include “Endless (zombie Brancusi),” a series of nine totem-like sculptures made of nets and styrofoam, and an algae-shaped work titled “Ocean Archaeology of Our Time.” Although created in the Maldives, an island nation at the forefront of sea level rise and currently grappling with the effects of luxury tourism, the latter piece exhibits more than 1,000 components gathered both locally and in locations like Costa Rica, Indonesia, and Alaska. “It’s important in my works that I remix, as the ocean does, plastics from all over because it is not one place’s issue,” Longobardi says. “It’s (an) all-places problem.” This global vision grounds the Drifters Project, which calls attention to the way cigarette butts, bottle caps, and packaging from one part of the world can wash up on shores thousands of miles away.

One of Longobardi’s largest endeavors is “Plastic Free Island,” an ongoing initiative to keep waste from the beaches of Kefalonia, Greece. Launched in 2011, the project initially paired an international team of students with hundreds of the island’s citizens. Together, they harvested refuse from the shores and created a 44-foot installation and performance. “Plastic Free Island” can provide a sustainable template for reimagining island communities directly facing the impacts of the climate crisis, she says, noting, “Last summer when I went back, we found that all the cafes had switched to paper straws. It was a most rewarding moment to see the results of direct art/science/activism take shape.”

That the Drifters Project can foster community and spark real-world change is also evident in Longobardi’s 2022 book Ocean Gleaning, which documents her works and collaborations over the years along with contributions from about 75 people with similar interests. This crowd-sourced section records evidence of plastics gathered around the world with commentary on the findings. The book also documents waste materials animals often mistake for food, further implicating humanity in causing environmental harm. As Sarah Rose Sharp writes in a review, “The forensic examination of plastics in Longobardi’s work has particular resonance in the context of popular interest in true crime. Stories of horrific murders can always find a voracious audience, but an environmental threat which could ultimately be history’s greatest serial killer is somehow less sensational or interesting.”

“The Crime of Willful Neglect”

Ultimately, though, Longobardi is hopeful. She describes visiting a waterway and beginning to clean even when she hadn’t planned to. “Typically, if there are other people about, someone will ask me what I am doing and then begin to help me,” she shares. “These kinds of spontaneous actions with strangers are the basis of Drifters Project: that anyone, anywhere, can train their eyes to (search for plastic), and you will see it everywhere.”

With an estimated 1.15 to 2.41 million tons of plastic leaching into the oceans every year, tackling pollution needs to be a truly collaborative and global effort, and initiatives like the Drifters Project are one way to make such a staggering problem accessible to people wanting to get involved. Part of Longobardi’s goal is to direct our attention to the magnitude of the problem, instigate movements to refuse single-use and disposable items, and use art to tangibly mitigate some of the consequences already in effect. She explains:

I believe the ocean to be the consciousness of the planet. It is where all life on Earth began. By paying attention to the greater interconnected network outside of our immediate lives, we witness the effects of our actions on all other life forms in this world…It’s really powerful, and the best part of my project, to broadcast the emergence of a collective transformation in understanding our presence on Earth.

Ocean Gleaning is available from Fall Line Press, and you can find more about the Drifters Project on its site and Instagram.

“Anxiety of Appetites” (2020), recovered and assembled ocean-made driftnet balls, floats, feathers, barnacles, and bryozoa,
122 x 60 x 60 inches

“Swerve” (2019), over 500 ocean plastic objects from Alaska, Greece, California, Hawaii, the Gulf of Mexico, and Costa Rica, steel specimen pins, 96 x 54 x 8 inches

“Endless (zombie Brancusi)” (2020), vagrant polystyrene, sea turtle bites, wood, steel, magnets, seven elements ranging from 3 to 6 feet

Detail “Archeology of Desire” (2021), over 1,000 pieces of ocean plastic from Indonesia, Hawaii, California, and Costa Rica, 144 x 96 x 9 inches

“Archeology of Desire” (2021), over 1,000 pieces of ocean plastic from Indonesia, Hawaii, California, and Costa Rica, 144 x 96 x 9 inches

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article The Drifters Project Harnesses Community to Clean the Oceans and Visualize Global Plastic Pollution appeared first on Colossal.

Let your art shine: Calling all creative minds working in the realm of visual art! The NOT REAL ART 2024 Grant Program is now accepting submissions. If you’re ready, so are we. Submit your work today for a chance to win an unrestricted cash award of $2,000, and more in PR and marketing support. There is no application fee.

Founded in 2019, the NOT REAL ART Grant for Artists is a biannual award designed to empower the practice of six contemporary artists, each of whom receives $2,000 and more in media exposure. To date, 36 lucky artists have won this grant!

NOT REAL ART Grant recipients get more than money. Each winner gets to share their story and promote their work with exclusive, in-depth featured interviews on the NOT REAL ART podcast and blog. What’s more, win or lose, every applicant automatically qualifies to be included in future blog stories, newsletters, and our artist marketing database.

It’s free to enter, and the deadline is January 1, 2024. 

Submit your application today at notrealart.com.

2022 NOT REAL ART Grant winner Y. Hope Osborn, “Refuge”

2021 NOT REAL ART Grant winner Natalia Villanueva Linares, “Refuge”

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Open Call: Empower Your Practice With the NOT REAL ART Grant for Artists appeared first on Colossal.

Kate Van Vliet’s Fault Lines series began with a neighborly gesture. “While sequestered at home during the pandemic with twin infants, our neighbors started giving us fresh eggs from their backyard flock,” she says. “The colors of the eggs were so beautiful, and as the shells accumulated on our kitchen counter each day, I knew I wanted to use them in my artwork.”

As Van Vliet began to reassemble the eggs, each shell catalogued a passing day. “When I became a mother, I found myself in this ritualistic madness, each day repeating the day before and hoping for a different result,” she says. “As the leftovers of those actions accumulated on my kitchen counter, I saw that my life had become an open edition of the same but different days.”

In a solo exhibition at Paradigm Gallery + Studio, Van Vliet examines her roles as mother and artist, exploring the idea of becoming an “heirloom machine,” a concept which lends itself to the title of the show. Creating small objects infused with both routine and memories, she examines the relationship between the meticulous repair of everyday objects and the historically invisible labor of women.

Van Vliet meticulously applied archival tissues and adhesives combined with mica to strengthen each piece. “Lots of research was involved in the physical repairing of the eggs,” she says, continuing:

They aren’t ceramics, but I wanted to celebrate imperfections by adapting the kintsugi method to repair the eggshells. I also researched ways that Ukrainian Pysanki eggs are conserved by museums. I combined what I learned with my sensibilities as a printmaker to make a repeatable method of repair that would be stable over time and work with the hairline fractures that occur in the eggs.

If you’re in Philadelphia, you can stop by Heirloom Machine through November 26. Van Vliet also co-founded the community printshop BYO Print, which is relocating to the Paradigm Arts Building building this winter. Visit the artist’s website and Instagram to see more of her work.

“Peck”

“Candy Everybody Wants”

“Donut (Chocolate)”

“Egg Canoes: Duck #12-15”

“Donut (Mint)”

“Roly-poly”

“The Blob”

“The Kiss (Pretzel)”

“The Tickler”

“Tripod”

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article In ‘Heirloom Machine,’ Kate Van Vliet Catalogues Daily Routines One Eggshell at a Time appeared first on Colossal.

Portrayals of motherhood, paintings of the female gaze and video installations of fragility. Women artists across Texas shared the complex and joyous moments of womanhood at the Texas Vignette Art Fair.

“Texas Vignette has been more than an art fair for the last three days,” said Claudia Maysen, a mixed media artist from Keller, said. “It’s a community that is forming and extending its arms to the whole area.”

From Nov. 3 to Nov. 4, 89 artworks exclusively by Texas women were on display at the Dallas Market Hall as part of the fifth edition of the Texas Vignette Art Fair. Founded in 2017, Texas Vignette works to close the gender gap in the visual arts.

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“Our mission is to support, promote and connect women in the Texas art scene across the entire state,” president and founder Jessica Ingle said. “In art fairs, which have become a marketplace nowadays for artists to sell their work, it’s almost worse for Texas women artists and there are so few represented in these fairs, so we wanted to remedy that by starting a fair”

Each year, the Texas Vignette Art Fair is curated by a different woman juror. The juror chooses the artwork and the layout of the show. This year, Emily Edwards, the associate curator at Dallas Contemporary, was the juror. She reviewed 216 applicants this year, which is more than the art fair has ever received. Ultimately, 47 women artists across 23 Texas cities were selected to participate.

“I submitted artwork and was very excited to get to share it, not only in the space but to be around these other female artists,” Laura Briseno, a costume designer from Ennis, said. “It’s such a privilege.”

Edwards said some artists in the art fair were chosen for their work’s power to expose the public to new and challenging perspectives. Others were chosen for their ability to push forward the boundaries of a medium and its presentation.

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Felicia Jordan, a mixed media artist from Dallas, had two of her mixed media pieces in the show. One was a double-sided, king-sized quilt titled “Atlas Shrugged … And Walked Away.” On one side, a fabric silhouette of women with long, dark braids is carrying the world on her shoulders. On the other side, she’s walking away from it. Cursive words are stitched throughout the quilt. They were taken from a journal belonging to a woman Jordan considers her adoptive mother. The passages are in her handwriting and share her stresses of taking care of her family’s mental and physical health.

“I’m currently on this journey to document blackness, healing and trauma,” Jordan said. “What happens if we as women, who carry this burden of life and of keeping everyone together, what happens if we put that down and walk away?”

While there wasn’t a specific theme for the festival, many of the artworks selected depicted contemporary womanhood and were grouped by subthemes. One corner had abstract art that explored color and movement. In another area, the artwork focused on the body and what it represents. Other artworks dove into motherhood and memories of loved ones.

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“It was all speaking to what it means to be a woman and a woman artist [today] and specifically in Texas,” Ingle said.

Some of the art responded to current events and socio-political issues.

Maysen’s piece titled “Three B’s” was inspired by the book bans in Texas. She created a tower of books and added strips of black tape down the sides. Next to the tower of books was an engraved wooden cutout of a child that was anchored on a metal stool. The child, whose gender isn’t revealed, is looking up at the books but their eyes are covered by felt fabric.

“Books banned by the blind, they don’t want to see, they don’t want others to see.” Maysen said.

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All sales from the fair goes to artists. Victoria Brill, a painter in Dallas, said she likes that Texas Vignette allows artists to participate in the art fairs more than once. Like other artists this year, this was Brill’s second time at Texas Vignette Art Fair.

“Even though a lot of work has been done to show female artists and represent women artists prominently, I still think it’s really important to push that and Texas Vignette just does an amazing service for women in Texas,” Brill said.

Arts Access is an arts journalism collaboration powered by The Dallas Morning News and KERA.

This community-funded journalism initiative is funded by the Better Together Fund, Carol & Don Glendenning, City of Dallas OAC, The University of Dallas at Texas, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Eugene McDermott Foundation, James & Gayle Halperin Foundation, Jennifer & Peter Altabef and The Meadows Foundation. The News and KERA retain full editorial control of Arts Access’ journalism.

Aerial fields of vision emerge from Victoria Rose Richards’ embroidered landscapes. Setting scenes from up above, the artist (previously) uses thread to achieve a variety of patterns and textures, implementing satin stitches and french knots to form curiously shaped fields, patches of trees, and bodies of water. The majority of her pieces take at least 10-25 hours each, with every meticulous detail shining through at the end.

Richards is inherently connected to her natural surroundings. Raised and based in South West Devon, nostalgic vistas of farmlands, woodlands, and the countryside make up the subjects of her pieces, emanating feelings of homeliness and familiarity. The artist shares with Colossal that she loves depicting fields because of “the different formations and patterns they make, some being orderly and others higgledy-piggledy, some looking naturally formed and others forced.”

Richards’ work will be included in the ING Discerning Eye Exhibition starting November 17. This winter, the artist is also creating calendars with images of her work, so keep up with her Instagram and website for the latest updates.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Victoria Rose Richards Surveys Land From Above in Atmospheric Embroidered Landscapes appeared first on Colossal.

WEST LIBERTY,  W.Va., November 6, 2023 -West Liberty University’s graphic design senior, Frankie Lander, has clinched second place at the prestigious AdFlux 23 competition with her branding project, marking the culmination of her semester-long dedication to the ART 400 Branding course.

AdFlux is an Intercollegiate Advertising and design Competition sponsored by a coalition of professional associations, including AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) Pittsburgh, AMA (American Marketing Association) Pittsburgh, and American Advertising Federation, and additional sponsors include the National Institute for Social Media and COHatch.  

Moonjung Kang, a professor of Graphic Design in the Visual Communication program at West Liberty University, remarked, “All successful graphic design begins with a comprehensive understanding of the brand. For graphic design students, acquiring a deep understanding of branding is a prerequisite for success. Our branding course was introduced in 2019, and the exceptional projects produced by our students over the years have stood up to the standards of professional companies. Many graphic design students have won awards in various competitions with projects they worked on in my class over the years, but being selected in a competition for branding work for the first time is quite special.”

This competition is designed to recognize exceptional design work in marketing, design, and advertising produced by talented students from higher education institutions in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. It also serves as a launchpad for these emerging creative powerhouses to gain recognition in the Pittsburgh marketing and advertising community.

Frankie’s achievement in this highly competitive event did not come without fierce competition. The competition received a staggering 300+ entries from design majors representing numerous regional universities. Her project, “5th Dimension: An Innovative & Interactive Festival Event Company,” was submitted under the Digital Ads Campaign category and garnered praise from industry experts.

Kang emphasized, “The students who successfully complete the branding course, including Frankie, deserve special recognition. This course is undeniably challenging, spanning an entire semester dedicated to a single project and delivered through intensive one-on-one instruction.”

Frankie’s work, along with other honored projects, will be prominently showcased at the CCAC Richard Robert Smith Gallery and will be part of a months-long touring exhibition. It will be great accolades to start her career off with.

To view the Frankie’s entire branding work, please click here:

The Visual Communication program is one of the many majors offered in the College of Liberal and Creative Arts. To contact Kang for more information, please email her at mkang@westliberty.edu. 

West Liberty University is West Virginia’s oldest public university, offering more than 70 undergraduate majors and 12 graduate programs, both online and on campus. Learn more at westliberty.edu.”