Modeling for Another Limited Rebellion

I modeled for ALR Design's collaboration with Dupont Circle Communications on the Red Flag Campaign . The campaign is focused on bringing awareness of the several ways that domestic violence manifests itself. The posters are intended to be posted at various Virginia college campuses and have been made available for campuses nationwide.

More info can be found on Another Limited Rebellion's blog.

Project M Comes to VCU

A friend of mine, Marc Obrien, will be discussing his work with Project M at VCU 5PM November 3rd at 1509 Main Street Richmond, VA.

Added info taken from the Project M promo materials

What is Project M?
Founded by graphic designer, John Bielenberg, Project M is an intensive two
week long program designed to inspire young graphic designers, writers,
photographers, and other creative people that their work can have a positive
and significant impact on the world.

Thinking Wrong
The human brain tends to think along pre-determined linear thought pathways.
Such linear thinking can inhibit true innovation and creative exploration.
Project M encourages and provides techniques for “thinking wrong” to
generate new ideas and design directions to challenge the status-quo.

What is a 48 Hour Blitz?
A Blitz is an intensive two day workshop that consists of design thinking, rapid
prototyping, immersive research, designing, exploring, anything & everything
based on an undefined project that participants discover in the process.
Twelve spots are available. Open to juniors and seniors. First-come, first-served.
M'ers will be excused from their GDES classes during the Blitz. Interested?
Contact Marc O'Brien at info@projectmlab.com

Schedule:
11/3: Project M presentation, 5pm, 1509 Main St. Open to all students.
If spots are still open, you can sign up after the presentation. Meet & Greet
dinner with Project M/GDES participants after.

11/4: 48 Hour Blitz begins at 9am at 1509 Main St.

11/5: Project will be presented at 1509 Gallery's First Friday opening.
A detailed email will be sent to Project M/GDES participants.

Project M Linkage:
projectmlab.com
pielab.org
welcomehomempls.com
100hammers.com
nadabike.com
blanklab.org
plot63.org
tropical-l.com
getrichslow.org

Inspiration, Art, Cool Stuff, Etc #34

Sorry I haven't been posting this stuff lately. I have been extremely busy.

Oil Does Not Mix With Water Posters printed with oil from the gulf spill.

Changing Education Infographic

NY Times infographic on the recent Wikileaks info

Tracking Fireflys with time lapse photography.

Interesting approach to a slow down and watch for children PSA

Appomattox Regional Governor's School on First Friday

This coming First Friday (Nov 5th), three of my students will have work up at the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, Inc. (101 W Broad Street Richmond, VA 23220).

The festivities will include sketch improv, dance improv, a string quartet as well as 2D & 3D art. The students represent Appomattox Regional Governor's School talents from various departments.

Below is my student's work: Three versions of a poster for an up and coming musical at the school, "The Drowsy Chaperone." Jacob Alder's poster was officially chosen to promote the event.

By Megan Kitchen


By Jacob Alder


By Rachel Meyer

Dia de los Muertos system

This poster was designed for 18"X25" poster, 11"X17" flyers, 4"X6" post cards, and 4"x6" private invitations.


Based on the above poster a poster specific to the Pre-Halloween Party was developed for 11"X17," but as these things sometimes go it was printed scale to fit on a 8.5"X11."


This months "Gallery5 After 5" lecture was also design using this system at 8.5" by 14."

Info about the month long celebration below.

Gallery5 Presents
Dia de los Muertos
Saturday, October 30th - Saturday, November 13th

Gallery5's observance of Dia de Los Muertos will be a multicultural experience, integrating traditional practices with events relevant to the immediate community. The holiday exists today as a fusion of Aztec rites from the Pre-Hispanic era, Roman Catholic beliefs, and modern secular interpretations that vary from city to city across Latin America, parts of the U.S., Canada, and Europe. These festivities celebrate death as a continuation of life and provide a time to reflect on our own lives and the lives of those no longer with us.

By observing such rich and vibrant traditions, Gallery5 hopes to encourage participation by a wider range of demographics, and to challenge common paradigms associated with death. Dia de los Murtos at Gallery5 will include several days of festivities, workshops and live performances. The celebration will begin on Saturday, October 30th and culminate in a Dia de los Muertos festival on November 13th.

All to be held at Gallery5
200 W Marshall St
Richmond, VA 23222

Festival Sponsored by
RVANews
WRIR 97.3
One South Realty Group
Octoprint
Magic Hat Brewing Co.

With special contributions from
The Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
The Latin Ballet of Virginia
National Hispanic Cultural Center
Skull-a-Day
The University of Richmond
Virginia Commonwealth University
Justin Laughter
World of Mirth
Premiere Costumes
Main Art Supply
Nationwide
Moe’s Southwest Grill (10839 W. Broad, Mechanicsville)

Saturday, October 30th
Pre-Halloween Dinner Party
7PM / $10 per person ($8 for members)
An early evening of great local performers and food to kick off your Halloween night!

Featuring Performances by
Tequila Mockingbird
Silent Music Revival
Lobo Marino
Voix de Ville Follies
Gull
Richmond Comedy Coalition
and more!


Friday, November 5th
Public Opening Reception
7PM – 11PM / FREE
This night will celebrate the opening of Memento Mori, an exhibition of contemporary art exploring death and the ephemeral in our main gallery upstairs. (On display until December 17th)

In our GallowLily’s craft gallery, we are excited to present La Danse Macabre, a solo exhibition of internationally recognized Papel Picado artist Catalina Delgado Trunk.

This night will also be an opportunity for audience members to add on to our Community Altar that will be constructed in our Lucent Phoenix space. Guests are encouraged to bring their own ofrendas (or offerings) in the form of small ephemera, flowers, unlit or electronic candles, clothing or non-perishable food. All food and clothing brought to Gallery5 will be donated to a charitable organization after the celebration. To encourage hands-on audience participation and give everyone an opportunity to take home part of the festivities, we will provide Traditional Craft Demonstrations. Learn how to make colorful tissue paper marigolds or mold and decorate you own sugar skull!

This evening will feature traditional and contemporary performances inspired by Dia de los Muertos. Seasonal brews available!

Featuring Performances by
Frankzig
Members of the University of Richmond Theater Department
Daniel Jose' Custo'dio
Flamenco Del Sur (Clarke Hedgepath on guitar, Derrick Englert on bass and Andy Brockmann on percussion)

D.J.’s provided by
WRIR 97.3

Also presenting
Ofrenda to the Disremembered: A multimedia installation by Salvador Barajas, Danah Bella, Liz Canfield, and John Priestly.

"Ofrenda to the Disremembered" is a trans-temporal re-examination of the Mexican tale of la Llorona, whose unthinkable act of desperate infanticide in the face of colonialist oppression made her, variously in different versions, a monster, a cautionary tale anti-heroine, and the protector of border transgressors. This multimedia performance considers la Llorona in a borderland defined by NAFTA, anchor babies, and nannygates in the border fence.

Colectivo caliban is a sound and movement performance ensemble comprising a creative intersection between modern dance troupe d a n a h b e l l a DanceWorks and three multimedia artists who met through the Media Art & Text interdisciplinary doctoral program at VCU. Their work investigates deterritorialization, crossing borders between bodily self and society, subject and object, noise and music.

Wednesday, November 10th
Gallery5 After 5: A Happy Hour Lecture Series
5PM - 9PM / FREE

Andrew Chesnut of VCU's School of World Studies, presents a lecture, Viva La Muerte: The Cult of Saint Death and the Days of the Dead in Mexico”

Also Screening: Death: A film by Matt Lively and Alex Germanotta (30 mins)
Matt Lively and Alex Germanotta both graduated from VCU and teamed up to make films. Alex is the Emmy-winning film wizard and Matt is the tireless internationally exhibited art-maker. The 30-minute documentary "Death" is the first collaboration between them. Lively and Germanotta are currently working on an animated short called "The Wind Chill Factory."

Saturday, November 13th

Dia de los Muertos Food & Craft Festival
11AM - 7PM/ FREE

This will be the culmination of Gallery5’s observance of Dia de los Muertos.
It will be a FREE all-day festival of live music, performance, and workshops.
A full schedule of workshops, performances and vendors will be available soon!

Green Patriot Poster book is finished.

Bizhan Khodabandeh's paster, "To Arms To Arms," is in the The Green Patriot Poster project's compilation of posters, "Green Patriot Posters: Images for a new activism." The posters originate from an online inspirational campaign to be more conscious about what we do to our environment, The Green Patriot Poster Project. The book is available here. Or you can pre-order the book through Amazon.com

Art Book's Description

Edited by Edward Morris, Dmitri Siegel. Text by Michael Bierut, Thomas L. Friedman, Steven Heller, Edward Morris, Dmitri Siegel.
Published by Metropolis Books

This book brings together the strongest contemporary graphic design currently promoting sustainability and the fight against climate change. Collectively, essays by Michael Bierut, Steven Heller, Edward Morris and Dmitri Siegel look back in time to posters and ideas that set the stage for the current movement (World War Two posters, images of international cooperation, posters from the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s) and address the state of the poster: what is the efficacy and mode of distribution for purposeful, message-oriented graphic images today? Thomas L. Friedman advocates for "a redefined, broader and more muscular green ideology that can be the basis of a new unifying political movement for the twenty-first century." The bulk of the book is given over to a compilation of the best posters on the theme of sustainability by a variety of contemporary artists (both emerging and established), among them Shepard Fairey, Michael Bierut, DJ Spooky, James Victore and Geoff McFetridge. These posters, which have a strong graphic presence and which never rest on the tired slogans of the past ("Save the Earth," etc.), show that graphic design does not passively respond to the zeitgeist--it helps shape it. The book, which is sustainably printed in the U.S., reproduces 50 of these posters as tear-outs. Also included is a section on action, with documentation of designs at work in the world: on buses, billboards, protesters' placards, graffiti, t-shirts and so on. This movement is about a new form of patriotism, one that exhibits pride of place, but not fear of others.

New Graphic Design Awards

The above poster will be published in Print Magazine's Regional Annual.


The above poster will be published in Creativity International's 40th Print and Packaging Competition by Harper Collins.