News

Spend your lunch hour learning a little more about the world of art and design at CIA’s Lunch on Friday Series. Free and open to the public, these lectures begin at 12:15 and feature a variety of artists and designers from around the world, including our own CIA faculty. This series is jointly sponsored by the CIA Liberal Arts and Foundation Environments with support from additional CIA departments. The following is a list of scheduled lectures, which take place in the Ohio Bell Auditorium of the Gund Building, 11141 East Boulevard. Please check the CIA Calendar of Events for updates.

September 3 – Life at CIA: the first year

September 10 – Karl Anderson
CIA drawing alum and co-director/co-founder of Forum Gallery talks about his experiences since graduation and what it’s taken to survive while cultivating a career in art.

September 17 – Mark Gottsegen of AMIEN
AMIEN is part of the Education Department of the ICA, America’s oldest regional art conservation laboratory. This talk will introduce artists to both the ICA and the free services of AMIEN, the Art Materials Information and Education Network. Gottsegen studied painting with Philip Guston, taught (drawing, painting, materials of art) in North Carolina, and is the author of The Painter’s Handbook.

September 24 – Tommy White
CIA welcomes new faculty member Tommy White to its painting program. White has works in many private and permanent collections, and exhibits in locales as far flung as Seoul, South Korea; Melbourne, Australia; and St Louis, Missouri. White exemplifies the professional artist’s practice which is the hallmark of CIA faculty. He brings to the Institute an extensive teaching experience including nine years at Virginia Commonwealth University and most recently three years at the University of Oklahoma. He now maintains his studio in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

October 1 – Kristen Baumlier
Integrated Media Environment Chair Kristen Baumlier discusses her own practice as an artist and the impact of Environment issues on her work. Kristen Baumlier’s work spans the full spectrum of interdisciplinary media, including performance, interactive installation, video and audio works. She received her MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1994, where she began utilizing humor, combined with interactive performance as core elements in her work. She received an Ohio Arts Council Fellowship in 2004, and an ArtsLink project grant in 2005 to produce a site specific collaborative work in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia. During a residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts in 2005, Baumlier developed “Oh, Petroleum,” where she transformed into “The Petroleum Pop Princess;” a pop icon engaging viewers in debate over materialism and oil consumerism. She is a founding member of the collaborative group, Fossil Fools, which presents issues about energy and fuel consumption.

October 8 – Gretchen Goss
Craft and Material Culture Environment Chair at CIA, Gretchen Goss will introduce the unique and wonderful qualities of enamel as a discipline and an art form. Goss will discuss her own career and her passionate investment in natural forms, giving audience members a delicious glimpse into her own art-making. A twenty-year veteran at the Institute, Goss has been supported by Ohio Arts Council Individual Artists Grants, and her work is shown in exhibits nationally and internationally. Education: MFA and BFA, Kent State University.

October 15 – Brinsley Tyrrell
A local legend known for his work as a sculptor and as a public artist, Brinsley Tyrrell, a native of Godstone, England, has embedded himself deeply into the local culture in a profound way. He has recently turned to landscape and enamel in truly spectacular work that was first seen at William Busta Gallery here in Cleveland. Take advantage of a rare opportunity to hear this accomplished artist speak and to hear of his life and work particularly as it relates to his recent experiments in enamel.

October 29 – Bickford Visiting Artists Joe Kelly and Jay Crocker
Joe Kelly is a Canadian artist who builds ‘filmic’ devices based on old technologies that can only be described as mesmerizing. He and his creative partner, Jay Crocker, create real-time animations to real-time music. Crocker is a professional DJ and musician who creates his own instruments and sound-making devices from found objects. Their work has been shown internationally and has been included in a variety of festivals including Images, Black Maria, PS1, and Ann Arbor. Aitken Auditorium

October 22 – David Park
David Park, dancer, in partnership with Cleveland’s renowned modern dance company, Groundworks Dance Theater.

November 5 – Jenniffer Omaitz ’02
In a talk sponsored by the Bickford Painting Visiting Artist fund, Jenniffer Omaitz, a nationally exhibited painter and installation artist, will discuss her work and her career. Omaitz received her BFA in Painting from the Cleveland Institute of Art and her MFA in Painting from Kent State University. Omaitz has been exhibiting her work in Cleveland and Denver since 2002. Her most recent shows include a site-specific installation commissioned for the 2010 Biennial of the Americas in Denver. Omaitz is the recipient of an award from the Sculpture Center in Cleveland and her installation work will be featured in a solo show at the Center in 2011. Omaitz lives and works in Kent, Ohio.

November 12 – Fibers Visiting Artist Jill Sigman presents “Body, Object, Material: How I Am My Work”
Choreographer and multimedia artist Jill Sigman will discuss her process and projects using her body as a tool for asking questions about the world. Sigman’s work exists at the intersection of dance, theater, and installation, and often involves quotidian materials such as Cheetos, eggshells, wax, and plastic. She is currently at work on The Hut Project, a series of site-specific structures built of found and re-purposed materials, investigating themes of sustainability, real estate, and apocalypse. Learn more at thinkdance.org. Sponsored by CIA's Fiber + Material Studies Department.

November 16 at 7pm – Artist’s Talk with Bickford Visiting Artist Jim Campbell
Tuesday, November 16 at 7pm. Internationally known as an artist working at the edge of electronic media, Jim Campbell holds degrees from MIT in both Mathematics and Electrical Engineering. Born in Chicago in 1956 and now living in San Francisco, Campbell is a former Silicon Valley engineer turned artist who explores the inherent qualities of electronic media forgoing the seductive lure of its capacity through digital to produce high resolution imagery. He instead chooses to investigate the limits of perception working with LED lighting and pixelation. He is most interested in the limits of visual information to transform into meaning. An internationally known artist, his work relates to many disciplines including photography and installation. www.Jimcampbell.tv. Aitken Auditorium. Free.

November 18 at 7pm – Artist’s Talk with VATe Printmaking Visiting Artist Suzanne Chouteau
Suzanne Michele Chouteau received her BA in Art from Saint Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa in 1983, her MA (1985) and MFA (1988) degrees in Printmaking from The University of Iowa. In 1988, Chouteau joined the Xavier University faculty in Cincinnati, Ohio where she is now a Professor and Chair of the Department of Art teaching courses in printmaking, drawing, illustration, and art history. Her prints, drawings, paintings, and mixed-media combinations have been shown in over 90 solo, invitational, and juried exhibitions. She is a member of the Southern Graphics Council, Mid-America Print Council, and the Los Angeles Printmaking Society. She is married to Chris Bedel, Director of the Cincinnati Museum Center's Edge of Appalachia Preserve. They live with their son, Elijah Bird Bedel, on the preserve in Adams County, Ohio. Ohio Bell Auditorium. Free.

November 19 – Kidist Getachew ’03
An alumna of CIA’s T.I.M.E.-Digital Arts program, Getachew makes work that exploits the full potential of digital as media. Born and raised in Ethiopia, she has lived in the United States since 1982. This has given her a cosmopolitan vision which has poetically and elegantly informed her work.