brooklyn - Pratt Institute

FALL/WINTER 2010
THE MAGAZINE OF PRATT INSTITUTE
BROOKLYN
ARts + CuLtuRe
PRAtt + COmmuNitY
CONeY isLANd
ARtists + WRiteRs
ALumNi OBseRve + RememBeR
Fall/ Winter 2010
Enrico Miguel Thomas (B.F.A. ’06), The G Train, 2009, acrylic and ink on paper, 18 x 24 inches
FEATUREs
De pa r t me n t s
10 Brooklyn’s Cultural vanguard
Pratt grads enliven the arts scene
16 GIVING BACK
Pratt in the community
28LITERARY BROOKLYN
Pratt’s writing program
30BROOKLYN OBSERVED
The legendary borough as captured
in alumni artwork
3President’s Letter
4Pratt People
Fashion retailer Alec Stuart; illustrator
Elke Reva Sudin; quilt artist Sandy
Benjamin-Hannibal; urban planner John
Shapiro; punk rockers Matt Johnson and
Kim Schifino; and Brooklyn developer
Samy Brahimy
22 WE ASKED, YOU ANSWERED
Pratt alumni share memories
of Brooklyn
26 THE WONDERS OF CONEY ISLAND
Photographs of the beach, boardwalk, and
amusement park, taken by Pratt alumni
2 Mailbox
48 Corporate Partnerships
West Elm, Cabot Wrenn,
Nachtmann, Starwood Hotels & Resorts,
and Colgate-Palmolive
50 Pratt Exhibitions
52 Supporting Pratt
Trustee Profile: David Walentas; Jane’s
Carousel; adjunct professor Bill Hilson
reveals why he gives to Pratt
38 New and Noteworthy
54 Special Events
44 Ryerson Walk
SILS wins grant to digitize historic
Brooklyn photos; GCPE honored; four
new department chairs named; Catherine
Malandrino honored at 2010 Pratt Fashion
Show; alumna designs Braille game; and
more
56 Alumni News
59 Class Notes
63 Obituaries
About the Cover
Hipster Family, a painting by Elke Reva Sudin (B.F.A. ’09), is part of her
colorful series Hipsters and Hassids. The 22 paintings illustrate the parallel
lives of the two communities who live side-by-side and sustain a sometimes
anxious accord in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The artist sees herself as
sympathetic to both communities, though not fully part of either one, a duality
reflected in her work. (See interview, p. 5.)
Sudin hails from the greater Springfield, Massachusetts area. Now a resident of
Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, she based this series on her Pratt senior thesis. The
series was first shown at the Workman’s Circle Building in Murray Hill,
Manhattan and later at the Aish Center in New York City.
Elke Reva Sudin (B.F.A. ’09), Hipster Family, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 40 inches
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p r at tfolio
Cert no. SW-COC-002556
President’s Letter
Mailbox
The Magazine of Pratt Institute
fall/ Winter 2010
Global Perspectives
Spring/Summer 2010
spring/summer 2010
PROFIT ORGANIZATION
U.S. POSTAGE PAID
ST. CLOUD, MN
PRATTFOLIO
PERMIT NO. 561
tHe MaGaZiNe Of Pratt iNStitute
teir, Sunspots II, oil on canvas,
7, 127 1/4 x 109 1/4 inches.
te collection, Omaha, Nebraska.
gLOBAL PeRsPeCTIVes
GLOBAL
PErsPECtivEs
Korean Network
World-Changing Design
Passport to Creativity
Empathy for Culture
Pratt Worldwide
sPRIng/summeR 2010
A very beautiful and most interesting issue.
Most impressive is John Pai’s work; he was a
distinguished faculty member and colleague.
I stand in awe admiring his work.
Arnold Friedmann
B.F.A. ’53, M.S. ’60
I would like to see information on Pratt
individuals from areas other than well-known
environments. For example, I directed the 1%
For Art Program in Utah for 11 years, which is
now the Public Art program. During the past
20 years, I have designed several projects,
produced a body of sculpture work, and
taught at two universities. The publication
would be better served if alumni from a
broader spectrum were included.
David Holz
1978-1980
A very well-done publication; I’d expect
nothing less from a premier design school.
Jake’s was our go-to design supply store
well before your new, chic Prattstore. Vivid
memories purchasing basswood, miniature
people, cars, and trees for our model building
—alas no photos.
Norman Rosenfeld
Architecture ’56
My old classmate, Norma Masters Greider,
and I both agreed that every page of the last
issue was bursting with creativity, and we
loved seeing how much our alma mater had
expanded in the years since we graduated.
World War II greatly affected our lives: Our
graduating class was almost devoid of men.
Jean Goldfarb Sapin
Art Education ’44
I have enjoyed reading this issue, especially the
article “Koreans at Pratt.” Nearly half of all the
foreign students are from Korea—WOW! I
think that is great! The influence of Pratt
around the world is also fascinating.
Charles P. Schock
Industrial Design ’50
©2010 Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute
200 Willoughby Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11205
www.pratt.edu
Vice President for Institutional Advancement
Todd Michael Galitz
Executive Director of Communications
Mara McGinnis
P
ratt Institute and Brooklyn—few
colleges and communities are so
inextricably linked or enjoy such a long
and mutually beneficial relationship. Our
connections grew out of the close ties that
Charles Pratt, the Institute’s founder, had
to Clinton Hill, where he built homes for
his family as well as a number of the
brownstones and mansions that border
the Brooklyn campus and give the
neighborhood its distinctive character. In
the borough at large, Charles Pratt was
known as a leading philanthropist and
visionary.
Today, with more than 3,500 alumni in
Brooklyn, Pratt’s influence can be felt in
almost every neighborhood and sector of
the borough. From graduates who have helped make this one of the most culturally and artistically
vibrant places in the world, to faculty, staff, and students who devote their time and talents to enriching
the lives of local youth and developing sustainable resources for the community, Pratt, like its founder,
has left an indelible mark on Brooklyn.
At the same time, Brooklyn remains a constant source of inspiration for the Pratt community. Alumni
draw on their memories and experiences to capture the distinctive character and spirit of Brooklyn. The
borough’s industrial past, the Red Hook waterfront, historic mansions and majestic churches, and
familiar neighborhood scenes—all make Brooklyn a timeless subject for artists in every genre.
This issue of Prattfolio is particularly meaningful to me. I’ve personally watched Brooklyn and the
neighborhood surrounding Pratt transform over the past 16 years, since I became president of the
Institute. It’s been gratifying for me, as chair of the Myrtle Avenue Revitalization Corporation (MARP),
to see Myrtle Avenue become a vibrant commercial thoroughfare and an attractive place for students
and faculty to shop, dine, and live. If you have not been back to the area for a while, you will be amazed.
The stories and images on the following pages provide a glimpse of how the Pratt-Brooklyn connection continues to enrich the educational experience at Pratt and the lives of thousands throughout New
York City. I hope that they move and inspire you, and that you’ll come see for yourself how much we
have both grown.
Editorial Manager
Abigail Beshkin
Creative Director
Christine Peterson
Senior Designer
Anna Ostrovsky
Multimedia Designer
Josh Graver
Designer
Tracy Wargo
Editor
Adrienne Gyongy
Senior Production Manager
Jennifer Ashlock
Photo Manager
Diana Pau
Editorial Assistants
Matthew Putrino
Kate Ünver
Contributors
Janet Kashuba
Amber Myers
Charlotte Savidge
Photography
Amy Aronoff
Sigrid Estrada
Diana Pau
Tess Schutte
Jessica Tallman
René Perez
Submit address changes to jtallman@pratt.edu
or call 718-399-4211.
Send Mailbox letters to prattfol@pratt.edu or mail
to Mara McGinnis, Executive Director,
Office of Communications, Pratt Institute, 200
Willoughby Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11205.
Sincerely
photo: sigrid estrada
I was impressed with the quality of the issue.
It created a kind of practice-what-you-teach
feeling about the school and its history. Good,
stylish, up-to-date design themes. It makes
one proud to be an alumnus of Pratt.
Larry Matthews
Communications Design ’79
I found the entire magazine and features very
interesting. I especially liked the following
sections: Pratt People interviews (short and
direct); “Beginning at Pratt: Lab on a chip”;
New and Noteworthy; “Where In the World
is Pratt?” (interesting demographics); and
Class Notes (it’s always interesting to learn
where alumni plant their roots).
Mike Santo
B.I.D. ’85
Prattfolio is published by the Office of
Communications in the Division of
Institutional Advancement for the alumni
and friends of Pratt Institute.
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Thomas F. Schutte
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pratt PeoPle
PrAtt people
elke reva sudin B.f.A. ’09
illustrator and graphic designer, created the series of paintings Hipsters and Hassids. Photographed
blowing the shofar, in honor of the Jewish new year, at her studio in Boerum Hill.
let’s start With a primer on Who exaCtly “hipsters” anD “hassiDs” are.
Williamsburg, Brooklyn is separated by two predominant communities: to the south, a
community of Ultra-Orthodox Hassidic Jews from the Satmar sect. This community secludes
itself from outside influences and holds strictly to its traditions. They wear the clothing of Polish
royalty—fur hats and long black silk coats—and speak Yiddish as a first language.
Hipsters in north Williamsburg are the young artists and creative types. By many definitions,
they also wear funny hats and clothes, and lead unusual lifestyles. Even though they seem to be
about freedom of expression, often times, their vintage clothing and other styles seem like more
of a uniform than an expression of individuality.
alec stuart B.f.A. fashion Design ’05
owner of the fort Greene boutique Stuart & Wright. Photographed at his store.
Do you Design any oF your oWn pieCes?
I design a small collection every season and source or produce
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hoW DiD you settle on your loCation?
It all happened by chance: My dry cleaner closed suddenly (it had
been in the same building for 40 years—a landmark in the
neighborhood); it took me six months to track the owners down
—and another six to convince them to let us do a gut renovation.
A hustle—but well worth the chase.
have you seen Fort greene Change sinCe you openeD in 2006?
Fort Greene has changed, but New York as a whole has also changed.
We opened out here to be under the radar, but recently we have
become a destination shop for greater New York City.
Do you oFFer a pratt DisCount?
Yes.
What sparkeD the iDea For the Hipsters and Hassids series?
My illustration professor Veronica Lawlor challenged me to do a thesis that drew on my Jewish
background. Originally, I was going to explore the secluded community of Satmar women in
Williamsburg, whom I feel connected to because as a religious Jew, I also cover my hair.
phoTo: diAnA pAu
Do you sell any pieCes by loCal or pratt Designers?
We have a few that rotate in and out. Currently we carry a small line
by alumna Mina Stone (B.F.A. ’04), who hand paints and treats a lot of
her own fabrics (see page 39). She’s been an inspiration since I was
an underclassman with her at Pratt. We also carry an amazing line of
shoes from Ariana Bohling (B.F.A. ’05), who handcrafts every pair in
her Clinton Hill studio.
in the Course oF Doing these paintings, DiD you learn anything that surpriseD you?
I learned that the Hassids appreciate art, even if their appreciation is limited to traditional
Jewish subject matter. While doing drawings on location, Hassidic women would stop and look
at what I was doing. I also learned how much the hipster scene is fascinated by the Hassidic
Jews. They love to walk through south Williamsburg because it’s such an out-of-this-time-andplace experience.
I found myself sympathetic to the Hassidic community, because they are people who have
high standards for what life should be like on this earth. I am sympathetic to the hipsters
because as a young artist, I know what it’s like to want to live the urban artist lifestyle.
everything in New York. I have an advantage in having this store in
that I can make whatever I’m feeling inspired to make and not have to
rely on the regimented fashion production calendar.
phoTo: diAnA pAu
hoW DiD you go From maJoring in Fashion Design to
Fashion retail?
It’s all in the same vein of interest. What makes Stuart & Wright
strong, and helps us hold a sense of integrity, is that I’m a designer
before a retailer. I lucked out with a fantastic business partner who
keeps me reeled in when concept overtakes reality.
What are you Working on noW?
My husband Saul (B.F.A. Film ’06) and I are publishing an annual anthology of contemporary
Jewish art. More information can be found at www.SUDINmagazine.com.
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pratt PeoPle
PrAtt people
John shapiro M.S. ’79
Chair of Pratt’s Graduate Center for Planning and the environment (GCPe), which
just celebrated 50 years and won a key recognition from the American Planning
Association’s New York Metro Chapter. Photographed at the Columbia Waterfront
in Brooklyn.
What WoulD you say is gCpe’s biggest aCComplishment in its 50 years?
GCPE led a sea change that saw successful urban vitalization not simply
through the “hard power” of government urban renewal and real estate
development, but through the “soft power” of civic engagement. Plus, we
have turned out more than 500 graduates, ranging from the staff of
community-based organizations to the deputy mayor of New York City.
sandy benjamin-hannibal Pratt Staff 1968–2010
Nationally recognized quilt artist and textile designer; former assistant to the chair, Pratt Department of foundation Arts, and
longtime Brooklyn resident. Photographed teaching her quilting class in New York City.
hoW DiD you FinD time to pursue quilting While
employeD Full-time at pratt?
When I realized quilt making was my passion, finding time
for it became second nature. I’d squeeze it in wherever I
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Where have your quilts been exhibiteD?
Many places, including the Smithsonian Institution, the
Newark Museum, the Museum of Fine Art at Spelman
College, Williams College, Brooklyn Historical Society, and
the Vermont Quilt Festival.
hoW Does it Feel to be a nationally reCognizeD artist
With a sCholarship establisheD in your name?
It's an honor so big I don’t know how to describe it.
I am most grateful to Bonnie Cashin Fund board members
David Baum and Henry Grady for making this scholarship
possible.
I have always had a deep love for education. I remember
days when we children would be kept home from school to
work on the farm. I would ask my dad for permission to go
anyway, because I did not ever want to miss a class.
Permission was always granted. Since age 5, there have
been no more than three years when I was not in school —
either as a student or an employee.
Do you see a Future When it Comes to green builDing?
Yes—but the real impact of new green buildings will be what they inspire
vis-à-vis the retro-greening of the existing built environment. I am excited by
the ideas being explored at GCPE: agriculture on the roofs and walls of
warehouses; vacuum-transported waste; and wetlands for the treatment of
sewage—to name a few.
phoTo: diAnA pAu
Were you traineD as an artist beFore you took
up quilting?
No. I studied business administration in college. “Artist” was
not even in my vocabulary as a profession until I started
working at Pratt. The discovery of myself as an artist
happened in part because the late Professor Mary L. Buckley
and Professor Herbert Beerman often made positive
comments about the way I wore color. Everyone I worked
with in Foundation was encouraging and nurturing.
What Was the most reWarDing planning proJeCt you personally ever
WorkeD on?
Six neighborhood plans, during the early 1990s, for the South Bronx. I
worked with passionate neighborhood residents and leaders on plans for
West Farms, the Mid-Bronx, Crotona Park East, and the Grand Concourse,
and I learned the full value of collaborating with the community. I never did
planning the same after, and it is why I came to GCPE.
could. I remember deciding I would give some time to it
every day even if it was just skimming through a quilt book.
phoTo: diAnA pAu
What are the most striking Changes you’ve seen at
pratt in your 42 years With the institute?
The grounds have changed: the beauty of the campus is
astounding year-round. The faculty and administration
were predominantly male when I started. Now women are
deans, vice presidents, and other high-level positions. Black
Alumni at Pratt was founded and has flourished.
given the Current eConomiC Climate, is it DiFFiCult For the urban
planning proFession to maintain a Commitment to sustainability?
Just the opposite. Sustainability is not just fanciful ideas for foldable cars. It
is a new outlook that depends on recognizing that the most sustainable thing
is to reuse everything you can. Frugality born of necessity may help us realize
a better form of consumerism. Our enrollment has doubled, largely due to
students who want to commit to an urban sustainability movement.
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pratt PeoPle
PrAtt people
samy brahimy B. Arch. ’80
Co-owner iBeC Building Corp., a Brooklyn-based residential development and management
company. Photographed at the Clermont Armory towers, a mixed-use apartment building
in fort Greene, owned by iBeC.
What potential DiD you see in Fort greene anD Clinton hill When you began
buying real estate there in the 1980s?
I saw beautiful historic buildings in a newly designated Landmark District. There
was an active community of urban pioneers determined to restore dignity to a
neighborhood that had declined dramatically in the 1950s and 1960s. Property prices
made economic sense, and there was a reasonable chance that property would
increase in value.
What Was the very First builDing you purChaseD in the Fort greene/Clinton
hill neighborhooD?
The building was a former Masonic lodge (built circa 1874) at 165 Clermont Avenue
that was fire-damaged, abandoned, and in a state of disrepair. I fell in love with the
top-floor meeting room, which was one large space with an 18-foot ceiling and a large
(missing) skylight.
matt & kim
matt Johnson, B.f.A. film ’04, kim schifino, B.f.A. illustration ’02
Keyboardist/vocalist and drummer/vocalist, respectively, of the Brooklyn-based band Matt + Kim, known for its distinctive brand of dance punk rock.
Photographed at the Siren Music festival on Coney island.
What proJeCt are you most prouD oF?
The adaptive reuse of the former Clermont Avenue Armory. My partners and I
converted this National Guard Armory (built in 1873), which was in a state of neglect
and disrepair, into a thriving residential building. We were able to preserve three of
the tremendous wrought-iron trusses that spanned the main drill hall.
Why the shiFt From art to musiC?
[Matt] It’s not much of a shift. Music was always my first love, ever
since I first got a bass when I was 14. [Kim] Being creative is being
creative; the more you understand how to compose in any art
form—drawing, photography, or whatever—the better you can
compose a song.
is there anything you learneD at pratt that has inFluenCeD your Career?
Pratt taught me to be self-motivated, to think outside the box, and to adapt to change.
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phoTo: diAnA pAu
phoTo: diAnA pAu
Where Do you see the next areas oF groWth in brooklyn real estate?
As land prices in the more established neighborhoods have become prohibitive,
outlying neighborhoods such as Red Hook and the Gowanus Canal area show
upward potential. However, growth in those areas will need to be preceded by
investment in infrastructure, transportation, and environmental remediation by the
public sector. Given the budget crisis, that is unlikely in the near future.
Why DiD you name your seConD album Grand ?
For the street we live on in Brooklyn. It kept coming up in lyrics as we
were writing the album, so it seemed only fitting to call it that.
What is it about brooklyn that keeps you here?
We love being surrounded by so many creative people doing awesome
things that make us want to do awesome things, too. We call it “art
school competitiveness.”
hoW Do you get suCh lively album anD CD Covers?
Kim has made our two album covers, also our demo cover and a
seven-inch sleeve. She finds working on band-related art (T-shirts,
stickers, and buttons) to be the only time she gets to work on art
at all!
What's the most important lesson you learneD at pratt?
The ability to tell when something isn’t working—because then you
can keep reworking it until it does.
What's your FonDest memory oF pratt?
[Kim] My senior art show. My dad came up to help with the
installation and my friends, the band Japanther, played at the
opening, which turned into a sweet final party.
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BROOKLYNS
CULTURAL VANGUARD
pratt grads enliven the arts scene
by Abigail Beshkin
At left, the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Arch at Grand Army Plaza, the main entrance to Prospect Park. At right, the Brooklyn Museum.
In October 1983, The New York Times real estate section carried an article
with the headline “Brooklyn Rents Lure Artists.” The piece went on to say
“colonies [of working artists] are developing in Crown Heights, Park
Slope, Clinton Hill, Fort Greene, and Williamsburg.”
That was the beginning, when waves of artists and creative professionals began moving to
Brooklyn. (Many were attending or had attended Pratt.) As Manhattan rents rose, more artists
followed.
Now, almost 30 years later, Brooklyn is in the thick of a cultural renaissance that appears certain to
keep expanding, with Pratt and many of its graduates playing a large role.
Name any major cultural institution in Brooklyn—the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Public Library,
Brooklyn Academy of Music—and chances are several Pratt graduates work there. Pass a mural on a
building, visit an art gallery, a boutique, even a restaurant—and there’s a good chance you are
experiencing the work of a Pratt graduate.
Not only that, but with programs and grants that send Pratt students and professors to work
directly with Brooklyn’s arts organizations, the Institute itself is helping continue the growth of the
borough’s cultural and artistic communities.
Prospect Park is one of Brooklyn’s most iconic locations, and while the 580 acres in the heart of the
borough is a place to walk, run, picnic, and enjoy nature, in the last 30 years it has also become a
major arts center, especially in the summer.
That’s thanks to Tupper Thomas (M.S. ’79), who has served as the Prospect Park administrator
since 1980, and is widely credited with transforming the park.
When Thomas first started her job, she says, “Nobody used the park. People were terrified of it.”
Thomas assisted the park’s renaissance in 1987 by creating the Prospect Park Alliance, a publicprivate partnership responsible for securing both private donations and public funding for the park.
Her degree in urban planning helped her with community outreach, political outreach, and using the
arts as a way to increase visitation to the park. In addition, through an emphasis on safety, and
through marketing, Prospect Park now draws almost 10 million visitors a year to view, among other
things, the park’s 19 monuments, many of which were created by world-famous artists.
Thomas says the lessons she learned at Pratt helped her approach the turnaround of Prospect Park.
“Pratt opened my mind to other ways of thinking about how people participate in their environment,”
Thomas says. “I learned to ask ‘How do you see a much larger picture of the park in relation to the
community?’ This was a philosophy that was being talked about at Pratt in the late 1970s.”
the Brooklyn Public Library
At the north end of Prospect Park is the Brooklyn Public Library’s central branch, the heart of the
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photos: diana pau (grand army plaza, brooklyn museum)
Prospect Park
country’s fifth-largest library system. The
central library and the system’s 59 branches
employ dozens of graduates of Pratt’s School of
Information and Library Science (SILS).
Among them is Mary Graham (M.S. ’78). As
deputy director for public service for the
Brooklyn Public Library system, Graham is in
charge of day-to-day operations for the library,
overseeing a staff of 700.
Graham has spent almost her entire career
working for the Brooklyn Public Library. She
took a job there soon after college, and when
her boss asked if she would consider studying
library science (back then, Brooklyn Public
Library paid the tuition!), she enrolled at Pratt.
“It was great, very convenient. I’d go to Pratt
and take classes in the evenings, and work in
between.” Graham says the lessons she learned
at Pratt are, in these difficult economic times,
serving her well.
“The management courses I took developed
an awareness in me of the need to plan for the
future,” she says. At the same time, she adds “so
many of the professors I had at Pratt built an
awareness in me that community is the focus, and
we have to meet the demands of the community.”
In June, Pratt’s School of Information and
Library Science (SILS) received a grant in
partnership with the Brooklyn Public Library,
the Brooklyn Museum, and the Brooklyn
Historical Society to work on meeting
community needs for cultural enrichment,
while preparing students to become digital
information managers.
Using the almost $1 million grant from the
federal Institute of Museum and Library
Services (IMLS), SILS will implement the
“There’s an energy, a history here.
Even the architecture and the
neighborhoods, the character of the
borough—it’s all conducive to
fostering the kind of independent
thinking that artists generally seek.”
Audrey Frank Anastasi,
owner, Tabla Rasa gallery in Sunset Park
Cultural Heritage Access Research and
Technology Program (CHART).
Through CHART, over the next three years,
18 library science students will receive
scholarships to pursue a focused curriculum
that prepares them to be digital managers for
cultural institutions.
They will also spend two semesters interning
at the library, museum, and historical society,
where they will digitize photos and create
descriptions, then make the images publicly
accessible via a Web portal hosted by the
Brooklyn Museum.
The rich collections of photos—about 15,000
of them—document almost two centuries of
Brooklyn communities. They show images of
early immigrant neighborhoods, subway
construction, and scenes from the 1977
blackout—to name just a few.
“It opens up a world of opportunities for
developing a cutting-edge curriculum in digital
management for cultural heritage institutions,
that will prepare our students to assume
leadership roles in advancing the digital
landscape for museums, libraries, and archives,”
says SILS Dean Tula Giannini.
Also, she says “This grant means all three
institutions will be able to use these valuable
digital assets for exhibitions, education, and
outreach.”
For Deirdre Lawrence (M.S. ’74), principal
librarian at the Brooklyn Museum, the
opportunity to offer Brooklyn’s historic
photographs to a wider audience via the
Internet is unparalleled.
“This collaboration with Pratt means greater
access to rare historical photographs of
Brooklyn for the cultural community of
Brooklyn and all of New York City—not to
mention national and international audiences,”
Lawrence says.
She says this collaboration adds to an already
strong relationship the Brooklyn Museum has
with Pratt.
“We’re in the third successful year of another
IMLS grant that allows SILS students to catalog
and make available a full range of research
materials from the Brooklyn Museum’s libraries
and archives and to digitize images from the
museum’s collections. Thanks to the students
and this collaboration, large groups of collections
are now more accessible for research.”
A LIVELIER NEIGHBORHOOD
And while Pratt Institute and its graduates are
playing a leading role in Brooklyn’s artistic
resurgence, the borough’s cultural renaissance
has also significantly benefitted Pratt.
“All this artistic energy happening in
Brooklyn has raised our desirability,” says
Provost Peter Barna (M.I.D. ’83), “and our ability
to attract excellent faculty members. The
neighborhood is now a wonderful, viable place
to live and work.”
11 11
Because the neighborhood has become livelier,
Barna says, recruiting students is easier,
especially students from overseas, further
contributing to both campus and neighborhood
diversity.
As Brooklyn has changed, he says the
boundaries between Pratt and its surrounding
community have been blurred.
“Pratt has gone from being an enclave to
being a community. That transparency and
permeable membrane means the campus is not
just a commuter campus.”
And that, he says, has impacted the work
students and faculty are creating.
“Artists are attracted to places that aren’t
proscribed,” he says. “And it has an effect on
their art. The art has an edge, like the work of
the artists who came up in SoHo.”
THE BAM CULTURAL DISTRICT
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photos: Diana pau (Urbanglass)
At left, UrbanGlass, in the BAM Cultral District, which rents out the highly-specialized ovens needed for glass art. At right, L-R: Laurie Korowitz-Coutu
(B.F.A. ’97), Miguel Unson (M.S. ’08), Kristin Solomon (M.P.S. ’10) at UrbanGlass. Korowitz-Coutu and Unson are glass artists; Unson and Solomon are
also employed by UrbanGlass managing programs and operations.
photos: iStock (dumbo), Diana pau (BAM)
Top, DUMBO is one of the hottest arts areas of Brooklyn, and is home to dozens of galleries, artists
studios, and art and design businesses. Bottom, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is the
gateway to the BAM Cultural District, which includes several cultural organizations.
There are many great places to escape the New
York City summer heat, but the UrbanGlass
studio, with its flaming blow-torches and
2,000-degree furnaces, is not one of them.
Yet, on a sweltering day this past summer,
the Fort Greene organization was bustling with
glass artists. Using long metal poles called
blowpipes, they carefully pulled glowing red
bulbs of glass from the high-temperature
chambers known as gloryholes, and began
coaxing them into sculptures, vases, or lighting
fixtures.
UrbanGlass is one of the only non-profit
glasswork studios in the country, and the artists
who rent the gloryholes and annealers (used
for heating and cooling glass) consider it one of
the country’s premier glass workspaces. The
organization also offers training in glasswork
for low-income women through The Bead
Project, and holds public seminars on this
highly specialized art.
“Most people working in glass in Brooklyn
have learned it here,” explains UrbanGlass
Associate Director Becki Melchione (M.P.S.
’08). “Then they show and sell their work in
Brooklyn, adding to the economy here.”
Countless glass artists who rent space by the
hour at UrbanGlass studied at Pratt, as did four
of the center’s nine full-time staff members,
including Melchione, who will help oversee
UrbanGlass’s planned expansion.
UrbanGlass is part of what’s known as the
BAM Cultural District. It sits down the street
from the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM),
which is the centerpiece of an ambitious plan
to grow a cultural district in downtown
Brooklyn.
BAM’s visual art curator and sales manager
is David Harper (M.A. ’06). While BAM is
mostly a performing arts venue, Harper curates
the art that hangs in the lobby and other areas of
the academy.
He says the majority of the artists he chooses
live and work in Brooklyn.
“Saying you’re mostly going to hang work by
Brooklyn artists is one of the least restrictive
things you can say,” Harper says. “You could
spend the rest of your life doing exhibitions of
artists in Brooklyn and never run out.”
Harper says Pratt provided the foundation
for his curatorial work. “I loved being
surrounded by artists while I was studying art
history. I think it provided a good base of people
whose work I was looking at and got to know.
Many of the artists we’ve shown have been Pratt
grads, including Fay Ku (M.F.A. ’06), Greg
Lindquist (M.F.A. ’08), and Jean Shin (B.F.A.
’94, M.S. Art History ’96).”
The BAM Cultural District’s expansion has
been widely lauded. Yet, it would be dishonest
not to at least mention what every artist in New
York City knows: that once artists move into an
area, it is only a matter of time before the artists
who first gave the neighborhood its charm can
no longer afford to live there.
Melchione credits her organization as being
one of the first to draw artists to the then-relatively
inexpensive Fort Greene when UrbanGlass
opened in 1990. Fort Greene, which also borders
Pratt, is now one of the most desirable—and
expensive—neighborhoods in Brooklyn.
“Few of our artists can afford to live here,”
she says. “It’s bittersweet, because I like to see
the neighborhood progressing. I like to see the
cultural institutions and more amenities. But
it’s frustrating when you see rents have gone up
at least 100 percent compared to 10 years ago.”
“You could spend the rest of your
life doing exhibitions of artists in
Brooklyn and never run out.”
David Harper, visual art curator,
Brooklyn Academy of Music
OFF THE BEATEN PATH
It is not only the older, more established,
Brooklyn cultural institutions that give the
borough its reputation as an enclave for
artists and creative professionals.
If anything, it is the newer endeavors—
everything from galleries that now rival
Manhattan galleries as serious art spaces, to
boutiques carrying clothing by local
designers—that give Brooklyn its identity as
the borough of creativity.
“There’s an energy, a history here,” says
Audrey Frank Anastasi (M.F.A. ’73) owner
of Tabla Rasa gallery in Sunset Park. “Even
the architecture and the neighborhoods, the
character of the borough—it’s all conducive
to fostering the kind of independent
thinking that artists generally seek.”
Anastasi and her husband, Joseph, opened
their gallery in Sunset Park in 2005—the
first gallery in the neighborhood and an
example of the shift from Manhattan to
Brooklyn for serious art viewing and
collecting.
Creative types have been moving to
Sunset Park ever since, but when Tabla Rasa
started, the neighborhood was in many
ways a clean slate—hence the gallery’s
name.
“It was a clean start in an untapped area,
just as every artist starts with a blank
canvas, a clean slate.”
Being able to arrive at a clean slate and be
one of the “first” in an area is part of the draw
of Brooklyn.
Just a few years ago, DUMBO (Down Under
the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) was one such
clean slate, with empty warehouse buildings
lining cobblestone streets.
The area has since become a haven for
artists, thanks in large part to Pratt trustee
David Walentas, whose management firm Two
Trees has offered below-market rents to artists
and arts organizations (see page 52).
The area is home to many Pratt graduates’
businesses and studios, such as architecture
firm Future Pace Design, owned by Manfred St.
Julien (B. Arch. ’87) and artists Sean Mellyn
(B.F.A. ’87), and Carol Quint (B.F.A. ’62).
DUMBO may be developed now, but there
are still neighborhoods in Brooklyn where
relatively inexpensive workspace and
apartments can be found; that is part of the
borough’s appeal.
“It feels like a place where you can be a
pioneer, in a way,” says Emily Elsen (B.F.A.
’03), one of the co-founders of Gowanus Studio
Space, with Pratt classmate Ben Cohen (B.I.D.
’03), a nonprofit design and art studio where
artists rent use of workspace and equipment.
And while Brooklyn may be your borough if
you are an artist, it is also most certainly the
place for you if you are a foodie, since it
houses the kitchens of everything from artisan
cheese makers and small-batch picklers to
coffee roasters and chocolatiers.
13
So it makes sense that Elsen, a sculpturemajor-turned-studio-space-entrepreneur, has
now become a successful baker. She and her
sister recently opened a pie shop, Four &
Twenty Blackbirds, down the street from the
Gowanus Studio Space. The shop is already
popular and has been featured by several
media outlets, including Martha Stewart
Living magazine and the Cooking Channel’s
Unique Eats.
Elsen says, these days, she finds pie-baking
as satisfying as making art.
“There’s this immediate gratification,
because you’re providing something that gives
people sustenance, and is also a thing of beauty.
The pies are beautiful, they serve a purpose,
and they are also special.”
However, she says she regularly applies skills
learned at Pratt to her baking.
“With sculpture, you are always problemsolving, figuring out how to make a piece work
physically, be it a joint or a weld or a video
production issue,” she says. “That’s true in
making pies too.”
Elsen grew up in Hecla, South Dakota, which
has a population of just 300. Yet she remembers
vividly the first time she came to New York to
look at colleges. She started in Manhattan
before heading to Brooklyn.
“I will never forget coming over the bridge
for the first time,” she says. “I just knew this
was where I would stay.” P
a leader means
“ Being
helping the next
generation succeed.
That's why I'm investing
in creativity by giving to
The Fund for Pratt!
”
lead
PRATT INSTITUTE | LEADERSHIP SOCIETIES
The Brooklyn Bridge
SWEET SOUND OF SUCCESS PRATT STYLE
by Kaomi Goetz
14
p rat t folio
“Steps and process are a very
important part of how we make
music. All those things were
programmed into us at Pratt.”
Amanda Tannen,
bassist and singer, stellastar*
Plus, says Japanther’s Vanek, there are not as
many distinctions between art and music as
people believe. He says art and music are like
“animals” that live and breathe. “Caging them
in galleries, venues, and bars is a near criminal bore.” Japanther came together at Pratt in 2001,
when singer/drummer Vanek and singer/guitarist Reilly started sharing mix tapes and
playing mainly out of boredom. Vanek also
had a work-study job at Imaging Services. He
and his boss, Rob Barber (now one-half of the
indie band High Places), spent many late
hours there playing music. “We told the guards
it was just a project for school,” Vanek recalls.
Japanther had its first show at a bar on
Kent and Broadway, booked by Vanek’s
then-roommate.
Stellastarr* bassist and singer Amanda Tannen met lead singer Shawn Christensen, and
the pair began playing in the Pratt dorms
along with others under the name “Ghistor,” a
humorous nod to a beginning-level typography class where the professor required
students to handwrite the combination of letters G-H-I-S-T-O-R. “When we initially got
together it was a like a group art project,” she
says, which was a nice counterpoint to her
mostly independent coursework.
The band broke up; its members graduated. But in 2000, Tannen ran into Christensen
and Kremer on the street. Christensen suggested they start playing again.
“At that time I was doing graphic design, a
9-5 desk job, and I was not happy about it,”
Tannen recalls. “I needed something more
creatively fulfilling.”
The trio was joined by guitarist Michael Jurin,
whom they call their “honorary Pratt alumnus.”
They named themselves stellastarr*—the asterisk a no-brainer for the visual artists, who liked
the way the symbol looked with their name.
All three bands say they still regularly use
their visual arts training from Pratt.
Japanther’s Vanek and Reilly are collaborating with artists Dan Graham and Raymond
Pettibon on a skate pavilion in Mexico and ink
and brush drawings, respectively.
Cassie Ramone of Vivian Girls creates all of
the band’s album cover art and T-shirts.
And Amanda Tannen of stellastarr* says
her training at Pratt informs almost everything
the musicians do. “We design all of our own
T-shirts, advertisements, and art direct all the
photographs. With our look we always think
about packaging and presentation. And also
steps and process are a very important part of
how we make music. All those things were programmed into us at Pratt.” P
i n v e s t i n g i n c r e at i v i t y
Pratt Institute is proud to recognize its most
g e n e r o u s a n d l oy a l s u p p o r t e r s t h r o u g h i t s n e w
Leadership Societies.
The talent of tomorrow needs leaders like you
today! There are many ways you can join Madeline
and take the lead by giving to The Fund for Pratt at
a leadership level:
Charles Pratt Society
Elite leaders who strengthen Pratt’s tradition of academic
excellence and lay the foundation for The Fund for Pratt through
their generous annual investment of $5,000+.
Chairman’s Council
Pacesetting contributors who further the goals of the Institute
annually with gifts of $2,500–$4,999 to The Fund for Pratt.
President’s Circle
Principal supporters who affirm their belief in Pratt’s mission
annually with a gift of $1,000–$2,499 to The Fund for Pratt.
Undergraduate alumni during their first 10 years out of Pratt will
qualify for the President’s Circle with gifts that correspond to the
number of years since they graduated ($100–$999).
Gatekeeper Society
Dedicated donors with five or more years of consecutive giving
to The Fund for Pratt.
Contact us to learn more
photo: Diana pau
observes, because so many bands are based
here. In fact, New York’s indie music world has
been shifting from the East Village and other
downtown neighborhoods, to Bushwick, Williamsburg, and other parts of Brooklyn over the
last 10 years.
photo: Diana pau
It is not just Pratt-educated visual artists, curators, and librarians who contribute to
Brooklyn’s arts world. There are also many
musical groups that formed at Pratt, or have
at least one Pratt member, gaining serious
attention on the indie music scene.
This may seem surprising. The Institute does
not offer a music program, and most students
arrive planning to graduate as, say, architects or
graphic designers. But rock stars?
One of the earliest and most commercially
successful examples of a Pratt graduate making
it on the music scene is They Might Be Giants, an
alt-rock band co-founded in 1982 by John Flansburgh (B.F.A. Printmaking ’84).
But recently there has been a string of up-andcomers: There is Vivian Girls, whose guitarist and
vocalist Cassie Grzymkowski (B.F.A. Illustration
’08), commonly known as Cassie Ramone, went
to Pratt. There is the alt-rock duo Matt + Kim; Matt
Johnson (B.F.A. Film ’04) and Kim Schifino (B.F.A.
Illustration ’02) met at Pratt and, during a recent
concert at Coney Island, waxed nostalgic about
their shows in Bushwick and Clinton Hill (see
page 9 for a Q&A with Johnson and Schifino).
Ian Vanek (B.A. Comm-Design ’02) and Matt
Reilly (B.A. Comm-Design ’02) of the punk rock
duo Japanther met at Pratt, as did Amanda Tannen (B.F.A. Art Direction ’98), Shawn Christensen
(B.F.A. Illustration ’97), and Arthur Kremer (B.F.A.
Computer Graphics ’98), who make up threequarters of the shoegaze rock band stellastarr*.
Ramone of the Vivian Girls, an all-girl band
of angsty, lo-fi surf punk, says Pratt’s creative
community and the Brooklyn environs are perfect incubators for a band. “The bar is set higher
here than in many other cities,” Ramone
Give: www.pratt.edu/give
Visit: www.pratt.edu/leadershipsocieties
Email: leadershipsocieties@pratt.edu
Call: 718-399-4295
Madeline Burke-Vigeland, AIA, B. Arch. ’81
Chairman’s Council donor
Throughout Pratt’s history, positive town-gown relations have benefited both
the Institute and the surrounding population of Brooklyn. The city and Pratt
coexist peacefully, not only because so many alumni have settled in the
immediate vicinity and beautified the neighborhood, but also due to the
school’s efforts over the years to reach out to the community and offer programs,
education, and assistance to Pratt’s neighbors.
Compiled by Adrienne Gyongy
Photos by Diana Pau
Saturday Art School
Pratt’s tradition of service to the community is nearly as old as the Institute itself.
In 1897, only a decade after its founding, Pratt became one of the 19th-century
originators of Saturday morning art
classes for children and adults, offering
local youngsters opportunities to develop
their potential as creative individuals.
For more than a century since, Pratt has
welcomed community residents to the
on-campus program to develop their
artistic abilities. On Saturday, when they
are free of other concerns, children,
adolescents, and even the parents of those
enrolled may take classes exploring a
variety of media and use the same
materials and tools employed by professional artists, architects, and designers.
Classes are taught by Pratt graduate
and undergraduate students enrolled in
Art and Design Education and are
supervised by Pratt faculty. As such, the
program serves both as a teaching
laboratory for future art teachers and as a
neighborhood resource offering quality
art instruction in the outstanding
facilities of a renowned institution.
With its modest fee structure and
available scholarship support, the
Saturday Art School attracts more than
300 students a year, ages 3–18. It serves its
participants well, whether or not they
later pursue careers in the arts. According
to Art and Design Education Chair Amy
Brook Snider, “The program also provides
us with compelling evidence that
developing art ability enhances the
learning and quality of work in other
subjects.”
Pratt Art and Design Education graduate student Eileen Hillery (center) teaches an Art
Foundations class for 8-year-olds during Pratt’s Saturday Art School in South Hall.
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p r att f o lio
17
America Reads/Counts
Pratt Center: Cypress Hills
America Reads/Counts is a federal program that addresses the problem of falling literacy
scores in the nation’s schools by offering tutoring. Launched in 1997, the initiative was
established at Pratt in 2000 and differs in creative ways from the programs administered
by the other 1,400 participating colleges. Today, Pratt’s program provides service
learning opportunities to about 70 Pratt students who tutor about 5,000 children a week
in reading and math, at 40 schools and community-based sites, including day-care
centers, Head Start programs, and schools that provide specialized services to students
who are visually and hearing impaired. In addition, about 150 children attend a monthly
Saturday School at Pratt’s Brooklyn campus.
In keeping with Pratt’s tradition as a leader in arts education, the program’s
coordinator, Peggy West-Barton-Feagin, has expanded service options to include
creative and unique enhancements that support the learning needs of young schoolaged children.
These include an annual Costumed Read-Out in Pratt’s gym hosting over 1,300
children; the Black Cowboys history show; American Sign Language for tutors and
children; and foreign language instruction taught to children by Pratt student-tutors.
For more than four decades the urban
planners and architects of the Pratt Center for
Community Development have been
collaborating with community groups and
local residents to help them improve their
neighborhoods.
So when East Brooklyn residents wanted to
expand their local shopping options and bring
more life to neighborhood streets, the
Cypress Hills Local Economic Development
Studio turned to the Pratt Center.
As director of economic development
programs for Cypress Hills LDC, Mildred
Keel-Williams valued the Pratt Center for its
expertise in analyzing economic and
land-use data as part of neighborhood
Pratt President Thomas F. Schutte reading to children in a costumed session of
America Reads/Counts, a nationwide program that Pratt has brought to the
Brooklyn community in imaginative variations.
Director of Economic Development Programs Mildred Keel-Williams of the Cypress Hills
Local Development Corporation talks with business owner Leonard Roberts, who renamed
and refurbished a barber shop that had been in the neighborhood for 40 years.
18
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improvement projects.
Visiting Leonard Roberts’ vividly repainted
barbershop, Keel-Williams reassured him he
would not be scammed if he availed himself of
the services Cypress Hills LDC offers. “In this
part of the neighborhood,” she says, “there’s
no structure or organization owners can
relate to, so we hope to bridge that gap to
work with them hand-in-hand to really bring
this area up.”
In Cypress Hills, the Pratt Center and Pratt
planning students surveyed the retail
landscape on Pitkin and Liberty avenues,
assessed the shopping needs and habits of
residents, and made recommendations for
attracting new retailers and appealing to
customers who might otherwise choose to
shop elsewhere.
The resulting study, which concluded in
June, generated recommendations for
preserving the useful retail establishments,
while strategizing how to identify
opportunities for new businesses.
“There’s a lot of opportunity in East
Brooklyn,” Keel-Williams says, “but what is
Cypress Hills known for now outside of
cemeteries? I have faith that things will come
up. The improvements in this barber shop
alone and the day-care center next door are
encouraging, and we hope the Pratt study will
help us attract a viable use for the buildings
alongside them.”
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Design Corps
For seniors and juniors ready to take what
they are learning in class and apply it to real
community needs, Pratt has offered Design
Corps since 2005 in the undergraduate
Department of Communications Design.
Under the direction of Adjunct Associate
Professors Michael Kelly (B.F.A. ’96) and
David Frisco, the course simulates the work
of a design firm in servicing a real client:
students work individually and as teams,
gaining valuable industry experience, while
providing a nonprofit organization with
high-quality work at no cost.
In spring 2010, Design Corps came to the
aid of Recycle-A-Bicycle, an organization that
has been selling refurbished bikes to support
its youth programs since 1995. With
storefronts in DUMBO (pictured here), and
the East Village, the group now recycles 1,200
donated bikes annually.
Pratt Center: Sustainable Houses of Worship
“Recycle-A-Bicycle has evolved tremendously,” explains Pasqualina Azzarello,
executive director, “but our website had
pictures of kids who have now graduated
from college. It was high time to redevelop
our website to better communicate with our
community, and Design Corps seemed like a
perfect fit.” After viewing class efforts,
Azzarello chose a design by [then senior]
David Chapman, which she felt best
maintained the nonprofit’s personality and
spirit while putting forward its changes and
growth.
“I think what Design Corps brings to the
students’ education is this idea of giving
back,” says Kelly. “A website is pretty standard
for us, but working with the community is
really important, because the intention of
Pratt is to prepare students for going out and
dealing with the larger world.”
Former Design Corps student David Chapman (B.F.A. ’10) makes last-minute changes to the website he designed for the client Recycle-A-Bicycle (RAB) under
the watchful eyes of Adjunct Associate Professors Michael Kelly (B.F.A. ’96) and David Frisco, as RAB Executive Director Pasqualina Azzarello looks on.
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Many of Brooklyn's 1,000 houses of worship
are beloved historic buildings, centerpieces of
their communities. Yet, many suffer from
years of deferred maintenance, and their
physical deterioration can sharply undermine
the churches’ religious, social service, and
educational missions.
Aware of this problem, State Senator
Velmanette Montgomery (D-Brooklyn) is
providing a $50,000 state grant for a Pratt
Center pilot project to offer technical support
to three churches in Bedford-Stuyvesant:
Siloam Presbyterian, Friendship Baptist, and
Mt. Pisgah Baptist.
“For each we will conduct a basic shell
assessment, space utilization survey, and
energy audit,” explains Pratt Center lead
architect Michael Kriegh, who heads the
project. “The energy conservation piece of
the puzzle is the one Mt. Pisgah congregants
decided to focus on most directly.”
Under its dynamic pastor, the Reverend Dr.
Johnny Ray Youngblood, Mt. Pisgah is seeing
a resurgence of membership even as it is
experiencing problems with its physical
plant: The sanctuary is too cold; the adjacent
school is too hot. Such inconsistent heating
pointed to boiler problems in the 127-year-old
Italianate structure. As a result, Mt. Pisgah
congregants have focused on energy
conservation.
Anita Alexander, Mt. Pisgah’s director of
social justice ministry, has been a church
member for over 50 years. “Now with this
program,” she says happily, “we’ll be able to
divide and separate the controls of the boiler
into one for the school and one for the church.
And we’re so grateful for the contractor the
Pratt Center suggested, because the fee is
very reasonable.”
An energy assessment arranged through
the Pratt Center recommended changing to
energy-efficient lighting fixtures, so Kriegh
connected Mt. Pisgah to a Con Edison
program that changes or modifies light
fixtures for 70 percent of the installed cost.
Next, Kriegh plans to organize training
sessions for church maintenance personnel.
This will be accomplished under an $85,000
federal grant from Congressman Edolphus
Towns (D-Brooklyn), which will also be used
by the Pratt Center to launch a new initiative:
the Green Community Career and Business
Training Center.
That center will build upon the Sustainable
Houses of Worship effort to develop a
certificate program for non-professionals,
skilled, and semi-skilled workers to work in
churches. P
Anita Alexander, director of social justice ministry at Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant,
raises energy conservation concerns with Pratt Center lead architect Michael Kriegh.
21
Thomas Henrickson
Margery Quackenbush
Ashley Benson, B.F.A. Film ’06, Phoenix, Arizona
B.F.A. Painting ’65, Ontario, Canada
B.F.A. Fashion Design ’60, New York
One year, I worked on the committee welcoming new students. It so happened that the filming of The Good Shepherd,
When John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Novem-
I enjoyed the neighborhoods around Pratt. There was
featuring Robert De Niro as the director and Matt Damon as one of the actors, was happening just outside campus.
ber 1963, someone rushed into the painting studio and
lots of great Italian food and neighborhood bars and
While resting with some of the other students on the welcoming committee, we had the pleasure of meeting Matt
announced what had happened, which stunned
movie theaters—though there was one that we nick-
Damon and, without realizing it, found ourselves sitting on the curb directly in front of Robert De Niro‘s trailer. It was
everyone. The instructor, who always seemed to know
named “the itch” because it wasn’t all that clean—but
also De Niro’s birthday and he was spending the evening celebrating with his children.
exactly what to say to inspire creativity and make
it was cheap.
We found out he had ordered a massive strawberry shortcake for his crew, and we snuck on to the set pretending to be
constructive criticisms, encouraged the class to “Just
I also worked at the Sears Restaurant on Church Street
part of it and stole some of Robert De Niro’s birthday cake. I don’t condone stealing, but it was the best cake I’ve ever
keep painting. There is nothing else that one can
and kept myself and a number of other students eating
had. Afterward, we felt bad and gathered up our pennies and dollars and bought him a Pratt cap. We all signed our
respond to that would be meaningful.”
well on the food I brought from the restaurant.
names in silver marker and presented it to the bodyguard to give to Robert De Niro with our thanks and best wishes.
We asked.
Every Pratt student is, or once was, part of the fabric of Brooklyn. So we asked: What are your memories of your time spent at Pratt and in Brooklyn? What stands out in your mind about your years here?
Maybe you loved Brooklyn so much you decided to stay? We wanted to know your favorite things about Brooklyn, and why the borough continues to inspire you. Here’s what you told us.
Gary Hattem
Richard Poulin
Phil Heidelberger
Tucker Viemeister
M.S. City Planning ’75, Pratt Trustee,
New York
B.I.D. ’77, New York
B.F.A. Communications Design ’65,
Fort Worth, Texas
B.I.D. ’74, New York
First arriving on the Pratt Campus back in the mid-
living in Greenwich Village. With Pratt as the heart of
I remember Myrtle Avenue when the El still rumbled
Brooklyn from Germany and opened three bars by the
1970s was really the beginning of a love affair with
the neighborhood, the area was filled with artists,
above and left the street in a permanent state of
time he was 26.
Brooklyn that has survived until this day. I came to
writers, architects, dancers, and other creative and
semi-darkness. In a small storefront was the Romulo E
My grandfather, August Viemeister, grew up in the
Pratt to become a city planner and Brooklyn enabled
free-spirited individuals. Evenings and weekends
Remo Social Club with its windows heavily covered
neighborhood of Pratt and became an architect.
me to understand that “place” is of essential impor-
were filled with my studies and with the sharing of
with curtains. Lord! How I tried to get a glimpse of what
(Working with Emory Roth, he designed the Ritz Tower
new ideas and concepts with many free thinkers.
went on in there.
on 59th Street and the Beresford on 81st Street.)
tance to individual identity, and is also a motivator for
people to organize themselves to bring about collective change, trumping the usual boundaries of class,
During the 1970s, living in Clinton Hill was similar to
I remember that on the corner of Willoughby right
Kurt Andersen
across from Pratt were the two art supply stores, Jake’s,
Pratt Trustee, New York
and Charlie's right around the corner.
community development, philanthropy, and banking
Living in Brooklyn for the last 20 years hasn’t exactly
If you walked about four blocks down Willoughby
for more than 35 years.
inspired my work as much as enabled it. I love living in
Avenue you could get a brew or two…or six at our
New York City, but I also need a certain amount of
favorite watering hole, Erik's Bar and Grill. I forget their
small-townish peace and quiet in order to write
names but the two bartenders were fraternal twins who
productively. Thus, Brooklyn.
looked like ex-prizefighters...no bouncers needed.
race, ethnicity, and sexual identity. It’s a great lesson
to have been taught early, guiding my work in
22
You answered.
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My great-grandfather Ludwig Viemeister moved to
My dad commuted to Pratt from Long Island (Class of
’43)—his first job was with two of his teachers: Donald
Dohner and Gordon Lippincott.
When I went to Pratt, I felt all this history—especially
when I carried my wire problems to class with some of
the same ID teachers my dad had!
23
Leslie (Kleinrock) Peltz
Ellsworth Kelly
B.F.A. Fashion ’66, Portland, Oregon
Painting ’44, Spencertown, New York
I first attended Pratt as a junior high school student
In 1942, when I was a student at Pratt, it was wonder-
taking Saturday classes. Pratt was my one and only
ful to be in Brooklyn. I loved the area—the streets lined
choice for college when I graduated from Erasmus
with trees, walking to Prospect Park, the Brooklyn
Hall High School in Flatbush. When I attended Pratt,
Museum, the Botanical Garden, and the library. In the
I was a commuter student taking three buses to get to
’60s when I was living at Coenties Slip at the end of
school each morning, and the DeKalb Avenue bus
Manhattan, a quick subway ride took me to Brooklyn,
and the BMT to get home at night.
where I would visit friends and all of the sites above.
It was a turbulent period. The Cuban Missile Crisis
occurred at the beginning of my freshman year.
President Kennedy was assassinated the following
year while friends and I played “toss the keys” on the
lawn by the library. In summer 1964, racial upheaval
led to race riots in Harlem that spread to BedfordStuyvesant. And in 1965, the Northeast Blackout
occurred as I was waiting for a bus to go home.
Classmates and I walked in the dark to Flatbush
It was there at Pratt that I began to draw, and I had
excellent teachers.
This page:
Brooklyn Cafe, 1942
Gouache, 7 7/8 x 6 3/8 inches
Opposite page:
Willoughby Avenue, 1942
Gouache, 8 7/8 x 7 1/8 inches
The gouaches depict the corner where Kelly lived
and a café on the same corner.
Avenue, and then I joined the multitude of people
walking home.
All images are courtesy of the artist © Ellsworth Kelly.
Berryl Schiffer
B.F.A. Sculpture ’71, New York
By far the most memorable bit of history was the
citywide student protest immediately following the
Kent State massacre. Pratt students gathered in front
of Main Building, marched down DeKalb to join a
contingent of students from Long Island University,
crossing over the (closed) Manhattan Bridge and
eventually joining students from NYU and other
downtown schools, and ultimately meeting up with
students coming south from Columbia and Hunter to
protest at the funeral of one of the victims.
At the time Sixth Avenue in Manhattan was under
construction and construction workers generally were
very pro-war. The crowd of students was dispersed
several times as the workers sent down debris and
small items that burst in the air over our heads.
It was one of the most terrifying times of my life.
24
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25
Robert Bindler (B.F.A. ’88), Wonderwheel and Cyclone, 1987, black and white photograph (Courtesy Robert Bindler)
The wonders of
Coney Island
Compiled by Abigail Beshkin
There is no limit to the creativity Coney Island inspires. For more
than a century, artists have been sketching, painting, and
photographing scenes of the beach, the boardwalk, and the
famed amusement rides.
Leslie Peltz (B.F.A. Fashion Design ’66), Shoot the Freak, 2006,
silver and gelatin print, 11 x 14 inches (Courtesy Leslie Peltz)
Rides
What says “Coney Island” better than the Cyclone and the
Wonderwheel? The Cyclone roller coaster opened in 1927
and has operated almost continuously since. The
Wonderwheel is 90 years old and 150 feet high.
Beach
With all the funnel cake and stomach-lurching rides, it is
easy to forget that Coney Island’s almost three-mile stretch
of beach is a place to relax and go for a swim.
Elaine Norman (M.F.A. ’72), Coney Ice Cream 1996, black and white
photograph (Courtesy Elaine Norman)
Freak Show
What would Coney Island be without its sideshow
performers who juggle chainsaws, swallow fire, and charm
snakes? Today’s freak show may be slightly less ghoulish
than those of 100 years ago. But the feats still make people
shiver with delight and horror.
Boardwalk
Strolling along the famed boardwalk, generations of visitors
have fueled themselves with cotton candy, ice cream,
fried dough, and other delicacies.
Peter Kayafas (adjunct associate professor, Media Arts) Left to right: Coney Island, 1991; Coney Island, 2002; Coney Island, 1996;
silver and gelatin prints, 16 x 20 inches (Courtesy Sasha Wolf Gallery)
see more images of
Coney island
alumni.pratt.edu
26
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27
Literary
BrookLyn:
L
Lyn:
new avenues
of inspiration
By Abigail Deutsch
In recent years, Brooklyn’s identity as a writing enclave has both
gained attention and prompted tension. A 2008 article from The
New York Observer printed a list of Brooklyn’s top 100 literati,
divided by neighborhood (Fort Greene and Park Slope tied with 19
apiece). At about the same time, Colson Whitehead, tired of the
fuss over literary Brooklyn, wrote in The New York Times Book
Review: “I get invited to do panels with other Brooklyn writers to
discuss what it’s like to be a writer in Brooklyn. I expect it’s like
writing in Manhattan, but there aren’t as many tourists walking
very slowly in front of you when you step out for coffee.”
Over the last decade, Pratt has begun to play its own role in
Brooklyn’s literary scene, building a B.F.A. program in creative
writing to complement the Institute’s older programs in graphic
design, illustration, and other arts. Writing majors hone their
crafts through workshops and literature classes, ultimately
producing a book-length work of poetry or prose. Alternatively,
their final work might be in a hybrid form, melding word and
image, or combining multiple literary genres.
For many students, Pratt’s Brooklyn location prompts a nuanced
relationship with New York. Some benefits—such as access to
agents, editors, and fellow writers—may be obvious. “You could
run into your future agent at a party or a bar and chat him up for an
hour in a way you simply couldn’t do if you’re not in New York,”
notes Thad Ziolkowski, the program’s director and a 2008
Guggenheim fellow in fiction. Now that digitization is reforming
the literary landscape, Ziolkowski finds it more advantageous than
28
p rat t f o lio
ever for a young writer to live in a publishing center like New York
if he or she hopes to get a foot in the door. “Insofar as there’s a
door at all, the door will be here in New York,” he says—even as,
paradoxically, the Internet now enables writers to work from
anywhere.
Being in Brooklyn also guarantees a roster of excellent faculty
for which Ziolkowski hardly needs to advertise. Pratt “organically
attracts all of these ambitious writers with degrees from Iowa and
Harvard and Yale,” he says. “In terms of the bounty of talented
Brooklynite writer-teachers from whom to draw for my faculty, it’s
truly the easiest thing in the world to run a program like this one.”
Teachers in the writing program include Samantha Hunt, whose
novel The Invention of Everything Else (Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, 2008) was a finalist for the Orange Prize for fiction in
2009; Christian Hawkey, prizewinning author of several books of
poetry and former editor of jubilat; James Hannaham, critic and
author of God Says No (McSweeney’s Books, 2009); and several
others. In addition, such authors as Nick Flynn, Sasha Frere-Jones,
and Joshua Ferris speak regularly at writing program events.
Proximity to the New York writing industry also enables a
variety of professional opportunities for students. The program
requires majors to secure internships their junior year. Students
tend to work at New York–based publishers and publications,
ranging from smaller institutions (such as Soft Skull Press, Ugly
Duckling Presse, The Brooklyn Rail, and A Public Space) to larger
ones (such as Grove, Bloomsbury, Rolling Stone, and Maxim).
Anna Moschovakis, internship coordinator for the
writing program and an editor at Ugly Duckling, has
students attend events related to other students’
internships. Often, she notes, “the ones that are most
attended are readings, book parties, or performances
located in Brooklyn. Not only do the students get exposed
to the range of literary endeavors currently housed in the
borough, they also see the more DIY [do-it-yourself ]
ethos of Brooklyn-based culture workers and the relative
accessibility of venues (and audiences) in Brooklyn
neighborhoods.”
That distinction between Brooklyn and Manhattan
looms large for the program. Ziolkowski emphasizes not
only the campus’s proximity to Manhattan, but also its
distance from Manhattan—physically and psychologically.
Unlike much of Manhattan, leafy, languid Clinton Hill
“works at a tempo conducive to reading,” he observes, and
offers the space necessary for writing. Just as importantly,
even as Pratt’s location enables students to participate in
the New York literary scene, it also enables them to avoid
its potential distractions.
One alumnus, who graduated in 2009 with a writing
degree and who publishes under the name Lonely
Christopher, notes that exposure to the Manhattan
publishing industry can leave people feeling “punch-
uses Pratt’s neighborhood as a teaching tool. Hawkey
sometimes requires students to walk through the
neighborhood. Afterward, they write about their
experiences. The exercise, Hawkey says, teaches students
“to think of writing as a way of moving forward, step by
step, or as a way of not moving ‘forward’ but sideways,
backwards, retracing one’s steps, then moving forward
again.”
In her course about Brooklyn, Samantha Hunt moves
far beyond Clinton Hill. While exploring Brooklyn-based
writing, art, and films (including On the Waterfront and
Saturday Night Fever), her students embark on trips to
Red Hook, Green-Wood Cemetery, Gowanus, the Brooklyn
Bridge, Weeksville, and other Brooklyn destinations. Each
venture leads to a new piece of writing. “We talk about
ghosts and geology,” Hunt says. “We visit Brooklyn's
terminal moraine and discuss the effect of landscape on a
writer.”
The writing program finds itself not only in the literary
hub of Brooklyn, but also in the creative hub of an art
school. Hawkey notes that writing teachers and students
have found inspiration in Pratt’s general focus on the
visual arts, pursuing interdisciplinary and collaborative
projects. For instance, two recent alumni, Alaska
McFadden (B.F.A. ’08) and Jessica Elsaesser (B.F.A. ’07),
Pratt “organically attracts all of these ambitious writers with degrees from
Iowa and Harvard and Yale.” –Thad Ziolkowski
drunk,” and critiques the scene as “pseudo-glamour…The
real grassroots stuff, where the exciting poetry and
experimental fiction (which the industry has no truck
with these days), is happening mostly here in Brooklyn.”
An engaged, encouraging audience is in Brooklyn, too,
notes another student, Ian McKenzie (B.F.A. expected
2012). “People pay attention here, people want art and
culture here,” he says. “In Brooklyn, more so than
anywhere else I’ve been, there’s a voice speaking to you,
saying ‘Keep going.’”
McKenzie feels energized not only by Brooklyn’s gifts,
but also by its challenges, and he finds the stresses of
Brooklyn, positive or negative, important for writing. “It’s
hard to be bored in Brooklyn, and I think that’s incredibly
important for artists. No good work—no good life, even—
comes from boredom.” He goes on to quote Henry Miller,
who evidently found Myrtle Avenue not at all boring: “But
I saw a street called Myrtle Avenue, which runs from
Borough Hall to Fresh Pond Road, and down this street no
saint ever walked (else it would have crumbled), down
this street no miracle ever passed, nor any poet, nor any
species of human genius, nor did any flower ever grow
there, nor did the sun strike it squarely, nor did the rain
ever wash it.”
Down this street, however, walk Pratt writing students,
during both free time and class time. Seeing writing as a
metaphor for walking, and vice-versa, Christian Hawkey
founded A Wrecked Tangle Press, which produces poetry
books that could double as art objects.
Being at Pratt also means the writing classes—like
courses in industrial design or architecture—tend to focus
on practice more than on theory. Ziolkowski, who holds a
Ph.D. in English from Yale, emphasizes reading as a
necessary counterpart to writing, but adds: “As much as I
want [students] to know periods and major writers, I
primarily want them to have epiphanies about writing
that will move them to aspire to write at the highest level.”
He hopes poetry students at Pratt will learn about meter,
he says, but if they don’t—and, in the end, they want to
write poetry—he is still happy. “It’s more important to me
that they be converted to poetry than that they be
systematically conversant with major poets and periods in
the tradition of the English major.”
Students like McKenzie share this perspective. “I’d love
to be able to talk Chaucer all day but I’d love more to have
people talk about me when I’m dead,” he says, “the
avenues I opened instead of the avenues I reused.”
En route to those avenues, he and other students will
find themselves wandering down Myrtle and Classon and
Clinton and Lafayette, and perhaps far beyond. As
Thomas Wolfe wrote in his local short story masterpiece
“Only the Dead Know Brooklyn”: “It’d take a guy a
lifetime to know Brooklyn t’roo an’ t’roo. An’ even den,
yuh wouldn’t know it all.” P
29
Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Gilbert Ford, B.F.A. Communications Design ’00
A native of Jackson, Mississippi, Ford is a Brooklyn resident by choice. He lives on Washington Avenue, not far from Pratt. Ford’s
silkscreens are inspired by Fort Greene Park, where he spends much of his free time during the summer watching the passing scene
and recording it in his personal work.
A freelance illustrator and author, Ford works in a converted pencil factory in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, which houses many
creative professionals. He also teaches for the nonprofit organization, Publicolor, teaching low-income children to use computers
to create designs for screen printing. The summer program is housed at Pratt, where the Institute has donated its computer labs
and screen-printing studio for the students’ use.
Ford is glad to have witnessed the transformation of both Pratt and Clinton Hill into beautiful and safe places to live.
observed
Capturing the essence of the legendary borough in artwork
Compiled by Adrienne Gyongy
It’s little wonder that Pratt’s location—the borough of Brooklyn—should invite the curiosity of Pratt
students in their young and formative years and sustain the interest of alumni throughout their lives.
Rarely has there been a place that so excites the popular imagination. As seen in the artwork here,
Pratt alumni find in Brooklyn both a catalyst for creativity and a place that remains indelibly in their
hearts and minds.
In essence, alumni are inspired by Brooklyn’s magnificent cityscape; its magical light, ancient trees,
and flowering gardens; its vast parks and beautiful bridges; its historic brownstones and eclectic
eateries; its vibrant communities and dynamic commerce; its striving population and deep respect
for education.
Gunnar Hand, Brooklyn Borough Hall,
ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches
Gilbert Ford, Fort Greene Market (from the series Park Life), 2010, silkscreen, 26 x 19 inches
images courtesy of artists
Gunnar Hand, AICP, M.S. City and Regional Planning ’06
30
p rat t folio
When he attended Pratt as a graduate student, Hand made many sketches of the city just for fun, a habit that helped him observe the
built environment. At Pratt, he also met his future wife, Ashley Connor Zarella (M. Arch. ’06).
Formerly a city planner for the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning, Hand is a contributing writer for the New
York–based The Architect’s Newspaper. Though he recently relocated to Kansas City, Missouri, Hand continues to be the executive
director and board member of railLA, a nonprofit organization that is working to bring a high-speed rail system to Los Angeles.
31
Brooklyn
Mel Alexenberg, former chair, Fine Arts (1985–1990)
While Alexenberg taught at Pratt, his wife Miriam Benjamin Alexenberg (M.F.A. ’87) earned an advanced degree. Coming from
Israel to Brooklyn, she was intrigued by the many storefronts with Hebrew letters and encouraged her husband to photograph them.
When Alexenberg invited the sculptor Louise Nevelson to speak at Pratt’s commencement, she told him to notice “subtle bits of
beauty” that would “jump out, even on Brooklyn streets.”
One Sunday morning, while he was out buying fresh bagels, Alexenberg noticed neon Hebrew words dancing above the food-filled
windows of a kosher food shop. Famous Sefirot was painted after his photograph of this Brooklyn storefront; he added 10 circles with
Hebrew letters representing the 10 sefirot (emanations of divine light) according to the Jewish mystical book, the Kabbalah. He then
repeated the shop window in reverse as an afterimage to symbolize the material world being transformed into a spiritual one by a
perceptual shift.
Today, Alexenberg heads the School of the Arts of Emuna College in Jerusalem. His artworks exploring digital technologies and
global systems are in the collections of more than 40 museums worldwide.
Mel Alexenberg, Famous Sefirot, 1986, acrylic on panel, 18 x 25 inches
Liz Goldberg, M.F.A. Painting and Drawing ’79
Liz Goldberg-Johnson, Vaughn and Annabelle Dressed 2, 2010,
oil on paper with collage , 30 x 40 inches
32
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This work is one of the large cells from Goldberg’s animation Faust’s Cocktail Couture, co-produced with Cynthia Golembuski,
which is made up of large and small cells of action, hand-drawn and hand-painted, and takes place in Manhattan and
Brooklyn. The film begins with the first painting that then progresses through a metamorphosis, with stage sets dropping down,
stop motion and puppet-like, until the characters are dressed for cocktails in Brooklyn, as seen here. The artist’s films always
explore the flamboyantly uninhibited and personally empowered woman known as the Diva: the “divine” woman or prima donna.
Faust’s Cocktail Couture is funded by a faculty mini-grant from Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel University
in Philadelphia, where Goldberg has taught fashion drawing and illustration for the last three years. The film debuted at “Fashion
and Fiction: The Dark Side,” an international symposium at Drexel in October 2010.
33
Brooklyn
Kathleen Vaccaro, Tea Kettle, 2009, charcoal on paper, 24 x 18 inches
Kathleen Vaccaro, M.F.A. Painting and Drawing ’10
Vaccaro’s drawing was made one afternoon on the roof of her apartment building near Pratt.
Though the rooftop was officially off-limits to tenants, she found inspiration in the beautiful open
view of the skyline visible from its height.
Ascending to the roof on a very sunny day, Vacarro thought about how she could use that light
with a reflective surface to create different effects, much the way artists such as M.C. Escher,
Manet, and Velasquez investigated the visual potential of reflective surfaces. So she placed a
teakettle on the ledge to provide a distorted reflection of herself, and proceeded to draw.
With a reflective sphere, the mirror image can expand to infinity. Vaccaro’s reflection in a
teakettle has this expansive quality. Placing this object up close in the foreground contrasts with
the smaller shapes in the two backgrounds and emphasizes the deep space both in front of and
behind the artist. Vacarro is an intern at Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn.
34
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Bernard Springsteel, The Parlor, 1999, watercolor, dimensions unavailable
Margaret (Weaver) Cusack, Golden Opportunity, 1986, stitched
artwork made with fabric and thread, 16 x 15 inches
Bernard Springsteel, B.F.A. Illustration ’53
Margaret (Weaver) Cusack, B.F.A. Graphic Design ’68
Springsteel has lived in Brooklyn twice since graduation and each time
found in its architecture fresh ideas for his work. As a Pratt student he
liked to take the Myrtle Avenue El train and ride it for miles on end,
peering into Brooklyn homes along the way and seeing over treetops as
the train went around corners.
His fascination with Brooklyn homes has never left him. It has
inspired many watercolors, such as this painting of a town house near
the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, called The Parlor because it
resembles a house fit for a Henry James novel.
Springsteel started painting seriously 20 years ago and has since
embarked on a second career as a watercolorist after a successful
career as an art director. He is a member of the Brooklyn Watercolor
Society and the Salmagundi Club in New York City and resides in
Southold, New York.
For 38 years, Cusack has used a zig zag appliqué technique to create
realistic images with stitchery and fabric. In this work, commissioned
by Consumers Digest for use as an illustration in Money Maker
magazine, she depicts a couple’s search for a new home that would be
their “golden opportunity.” To portray a typical street in her Brooklyn
neighborhood, Cusack photographed these buildings located on the
eastern side of Bond Street (between Bergen and Wyckoff streets).
Years later, she met a woman at a party who had owned the very
building that the couple was considering; the woman later
commissioned Cusack to create a print of the image.
With her husband Frank Cusack (B.F.A. Advertising/Comm-Design
’68), Cusack lives in an 1840 four-story brownstone in Boerum Hill,
where she has been president of the Hoyt Street Association for most of
the 37 years they have lived there.
35
Brooklyn
Dennis Bauser, Papacitos Outdoor Mural, 2009, exterior satin enamel paint, 30 x 12 feet
Andrew DeGraff, God Sugar Orphans, 2005, watercolor and ink on watercolor paper, 21 x 13 inches
Dennis Bauser, Communications Design, 2003–2006
Freelance artist Dennis Bauser (a.k.a. SINNED) finds New York City an endless source of urban enchantment. When friends who own
the Mexican restaurant Papacitos, in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, asked him to paint a mural in the outdoor patio, he was glad
to oblige. They chose as the mural’s theme Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), a Mexican holiday that celebrates revisiting the souls
of the deceased at their gravesites.
Using colors that represent festivity, Bauser created a graphic for the name of the restaurant and placed spirits of the departed on
each side, rejoicing at the traditional flowers and offerings their loved ones have brought them. With a border of flowers and vines to
unify it, Bauser’s mural contributes to the lively ambiance of Papacitos, which means “a hot little daddy.”
Andrew DeGraff, B.F.A. ’01, visiting instructor, Communications Design
DeGraff’s painting commemorates disappearing buildings of Brooklyn. While researching Brooklyn’s Victorian architecture on the
Internet, he came across the image of a (now defunct) orphanage in Prospect Heights, pictured on the top right of his painting. Slated to be
razed, the Domino Sugar Factory is one of his favorite buildings to pass on his daily bike rides over the Williamsburg Bridge.
Saddened by the eventual loss of both these fine old structures, DeGraff created a wish fulfillment image showing God’s hands
appearing through a great cloud directing the factory to give sugar to the orphanage. In this painterly plea for divine intervention, the
factory is shown in iconic Domino colors while radiant light emanates from the orphanage.
DeGraff, who lives in Fort Greene, describes Brooklyn as a “modern urban walk-in time capsule” in which he sees something new
every day.
Heather Sinclair, M.F.A. Computer Graphics & Interactive Media ’02
Heather Sinclair, Promenade, 2006, hand-painted linoleum print, 3.5 x 5.25 inches
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p r att folio
Having lived in the same apartment near Pratt for the last 10 years, Sinclair feels a strong connection to Brooklyn, which she sees as a
peaceful haven in fast-paced New York City.
Promenade shows a quiet moment between a nanny and her charge on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. Sinclair spent a year as a
nanny in Manhattan while attending Pratt, so she identifies with her subject’s situation. Lacking much private space or personal time,
the nanny pauses to enjoy the tranquility of the park bench. The print is part of an ongoing series based on reference photographs
taken all over the city.
Sinclair teaches animation to children, occasionally finding time to do illustration and animation of her own. P
37
new and noteworthy
New and Noteworthy
D uo Bookshel f Ana Linares, B.I.D. ’07
$160
I te ms in th e m a r ke t p lac e c r e at e d by Pr at t A l u m n i , Facu lt y, an d S t u d ents
WE INVITE SUBMISSIONS TO NEW AND NOTEWORTHY FROM ALUMNI, FACULTY, AND STUDENTS. SEND INFORMATION AND IMAGE(S)
OF YOUR LATEST CREATION IN THE MARKETPLACE TO AGYONGY@PRATT.EDU.
The Duo bookshelf holds books securely while
creating the illusion they are floating; its
design reflects the Brooklyn-based designer’s
love for creating folding shapes inspired by
organic forms in nature and origami. Made in
powder-coated steel, Duo comes in black,
silver, or bright blue and makes the heaviest
books seem light. Duo won honorable mention
from DWR Flatiron Studio in New York in its
annual MDF competition (Modern + Design +
Function) and was shown during the
International Contemporary Furniture Fair
during New York Design Week 2010. Available
at stores in New York City, and through the
sites supermarkethq.com and
analinaresdesign.com.
M ag i c L an g u ag e
Eva Zeisel, Pratt faculty 1939-1953
$425 each, 22 x 30 inches, unframed
$550 each, 24 x 32 inches, framed
The iconic 103-year-old designer, former Pratt
professor Eva Zeisel, designed these limitededition silkscreens in collaboration with James
Klein and David Reid of the New York–based
design studio KleinReid. Available in a limited
edition of 300, the prints are hand-screened on
fine Italian paper and signed in pencil by all
three artists. Buoyant curves intertwine in a
colorful design inspired by a table full of paper
silhouettes, cut during a day of designing the
trio’s now classic Eva porcelain. Available
through kleinreid.com.
Breezy Dres s es
Mina Stone, B.F.A. Fashion Design ’04
$400 each
After a three-year hiatus in Greece, designer
Mina Stone moved back to Brooklyn and
relaunched her eponymous label, featuring her
inventive draping, ruching, cutouts, and dip-dye
coloring. Stone believes dressing should be a
one-step process, so she keeps each piece simple
yet interesting enough to stand on its own. Her
pieces carry easily from day to night and require
minimal styling. The hand-dyed purple silk
Simione dress exposes both shoulders, while the
electric-blue silk Odeon dress exposes only one.
The Elsa dress, a draped black wool tunic with
shoulder cutouts, features a thin line of pleating
above the bust. Available at Steven Alan in
Manhattan, Stuart & Wright in Brooklyn, and
Frances May in Portland, Oregon.
Place, Race, and
Story:
Essays on the Past and Future of Historic
Preservation.
Ned Kaufman, Pratt faculty member
$39.95 (Routledge, 2009)
Ci tySh ade
Micaéla Birmingham, M.S. Urban Planning ’01
$69 (regular), $79 (organic materials)
CityShade was created by Brooklyn-based mother and Pratt alumna Micaéla Birmingham. Fed up
with trying to shade her baby during outings, she created a simple attachable shade to keep her
baby from the sun. CityShade attaches to the hood of a stroller with Velcro, and features clips
that allow parents to open one or both sides, depending on how much sun their little one can
handle. CityShade comes in a range of colors, some named after well-known New York City
neighborhoods (such as Soho Black and Brooklyn Brownstone), and is compatible with most
strollers. Available through citymum.com.
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p rat t folio
Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Jules
Feiffer’s deftly drawn cartoons appeared in
the Village Voice for 42 years and were
syndicated in more than 100 newspapers
internationally. In his new memoir, Feiffer
explains his evolution into one of the 20th
century’s most famous voices of satire and
dissent. Feiffer portrays himself as a young
man, growing up in an overbearing family,
drafted against his will into the army, writing
for the Broadway stage, and most of all,
cartooning. Available in bookstores.
photos: skye parrott (dresses)
B ac ki n g I n to F o rward
Jules Feiffer ’48
$30 (Nan A. Talese–Doubleday, 2010)
In Place, Race, and Story Adjunct
Associate Professor Ned Kaufman, who
teaches graduate seminars in historic
preservation, has collected his own
essays to provide a new outline for a
progressive preservation movement.
Through both big-picture essays
considering preservation across time,
and descriptions of work on specific
sites, the essays in this collection trace
the themes of place, race, and story in
ways that raise questions, stimulate
discussion, and offer a different
perspective on these common ideas.
Available at bookstores.
39
new and noteworthy
new and noteworthy
J u st Ki d s
Patti Smith, D.F.A. ’10 (Hon.)
$27 (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2010)
Patti Smith gave Pratt’s 2010 Commencement address and received
an honorary doctorate of fine arts. Smith is a writer, performer, and
visual artist who has been recognized since the 1970s for her
revolutionary mergence of poetry and rock. In Just Kids, Smith tells
the moving story of her extraordinary relationship with Pratt alumnus,
photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (seen on the cover with her at
Coney Island), and chronicles the fulfillment of their mutual dream of
becoming great artists. Available at bookstores.
S hard Planter Bench
Charles Constantine, M.I.D.’09
$3,200
The geometric Shard Planter Bench is more than just a planter or a bench—it is a sculptural piece
of art waiting to be adorned with plants. Designed by Charles Constantine for Planterworx’s Element
collection, the piece is folded out of a single piece of aluminum. The bench was inspired by a
Rockaway Beach jetty and reflects Constantine’s earlier training in sculpture. The bench comes in
pewter and white and will handsomely display any plant. Available through dwell.com and
planterworx.com.
Anarchy i n a Ja r Laena McCarthy, M.L.S.’07, Pratt faculty member
$6-$10 Jams
Wi l son
Daniel Clowes, B.F.A. ’84
$15.37 (Drawn & Quarterly, 2010)
In her spare time, Assistant Professor McCarthy, a Pratt librarian, creates
jam, jelly, preserves, and chutney in her Clinton Hill apartment, using
mostly local, handpicked, organic fruit and artisanal methods. Having
learned the art of jam making in upstate New York from her mother, she
feeds the insatiable demand in New York City for fresh creatively made
food and even makes free bike deliveries on Sundays to customers’
homes in Brooklyn. Available by direct order or mail order, at local
markets, and through anarchyinajar.com.
Wilson is an original graphic novel
by celebrated comic book artist
Daniel Clowes, whose screenplay
for the 2006 film Art School
Confidential was based on his
experience at Pratt. Wilson tells a
single, complete story (of the
bitterly lonely man named in the
title) in a series of one-page gags
arranged in the familiar layout of
newspaper comics. Clowes offers
biting social commentary as he
uses a variety of drawing styles to
depict Wilson and his world;
sometimes he’s highly realistic,
other times he’s an Andy
Capp-style cartoon, but he's
always the same downbeat guy.
Available at bookstores.
L aure Luxe Metal
Co u tu re & Jew el ry
Laurel DeWitt, B.F.A. Fashion Design ’05
Myrtle Earring, $75
Willoughby Silver Earring, $60
Vis co sit y XL Li g h tin g F ixt u r e
Rob Zinn, B.I.D ’96
$3,000
Designer Rob Zinn, former visiting instructor in Pratt’s Department of
Industrial Design, marvels every time he turns on Viscosity XL and its
hidden colors illuminate—because the wall-mounted light fixture looks as
good with the light turned off as it does turned on. A dramatic lighting
fixture that doubles as artwork, Viscosity XL makes a bold artistic
statement in residential or commercial interiors. Made of satin white
powder-coated aluminum, its accent colors are applied on the reverse side
to reflect colored light on the front of the fixture. Available through
blankblank.net.
40
p r at t folio
DeWitt began her work with metal scraps in a
Wearable Art class at Pratt. She considers
accessories “the icing on the cake of fashion.”
Inspired by the local urban art scene in
Brooklyn, each eco-friendly piece of DeWitt’s
jewelry is meticulously handcrafted and
customized to fit the client. Favored by
celebrities and fashionistas alike, her edgy
designs are created from recycled aluminum
geometric-shaped plating and push the limits
of metal. The names of these LaureLuxe
earrings pay homage to the streets of
Brooklyn. Available through laureluxe.com.
41
The Pratt Library opened in Main Building in 1888. At the
wish of founder Charles Pratt, it served the community at
large as well as the Pratt student body, an unusual
practice at a time when many libraries were private. It
was the first free library in New York City. (Since 1941,
when the Brooklyn Public Library took over its public role,
the library has been exclusive to Pratt.)
The current library is a Victorian Renaissance revival
structure designed by architect William B. Tubby and built
in 1896. The building’s elegant interiors, designed by the
Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company, include glass
block floors that allow light to filter through a two-story
book depository, known as the Tiffany stacks.
The building was designated a New York City landmark
in 1989.
Photo: Diana Pau
In Focus
new and noteworthy
new and noteworthy
SWOON Swoon (Caledonia Curry), B.F.A. ’02
$35 (Abrams, 2010)
This is the first monograph on the
street artist Swoon (a.k.a. Caledonia
Curry, a painting major at Pratt),
whose first works on Brooklyn city
walls appeared in 1999. Introduced
by famed gallery owner Jeffrey
Deitch, the monograph brings the
reader to streets around the world
to see Swoon’s life-size prints and
paper cutouts. It includes striking
images from her most recent
project, Swimming Cities, and
brings readers inside her art
collective, Toyshop. Swoon’s
captions and essays by her and
fellow artists accompany the
photographs. Swoon’s work is held
in the collections of the Museum of
Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum,
and the Tate Modern. Available at
bookstores.
L ump Brooches
Timothy McMahon, B.F.A. Jewelry ’04
LumpBrC with rainbow moonstone, $1,500
LumpBrD with rose quartz, $1,500
Timothy McMahon, a jewelry technician and visiting instructor in the
Department of Fine Arts, uses classical techniques and materials such as
copper, brass, lump enamel, pigmented resin, powder coating, and
semi-precious stones to create a framework for exploring the surrealistic
concept of explosive beauty. In these brooches, organic mounds seem to
boil up and present gems to the surface, which are captured and held by
brightly colored prongs. The brooches swell and bubble to suggest the
unbridled growth of nature, contained within a structured design.
McMahon’s sculptural, one-of-kind brooches are available through
charonkransenarts.com.
Nebula
Lara Knutson, B. Arch. ’99
$65
Alumna architect Lara Knutson is back at Pratt, pursuing a master of
industrial design degree, yet she still finds time to design jewelry as well.
Her necklace, Nebula, is composed of microscopic glass beads forming a
reflective glass fabric that glows when the light is behind the wearer. Like
a cloud of stardust, Nebula gives off flashes of luminescence in necklaces
of two different sizes (at the same price) and a matching bracelet ($40).
The jewelry is spiral knit in a machine and hand assembled. Available at
MoMA stores and at The Future Perfect in Manhattan.
Ma za a r , B a za a r: Des ign a n d Vis u a l
Cu ltu re in Pa k is ta n Edited and designed by Saima Zaidi, M.S. Communications Design ’00
$66 (Oxford University Press, Karachi, 2010)
This encyclopedic effort by Pratt alumna Saima Zaidi provides an
overview of the impact of diverse cultures assimilated by this region
over several millennia. Mazaar, Bazaar comprises 33 essays by an
array of artists, critics, scholars, curators, and important advertising
people, including two photo essays and a collection of political
cartoons. Divided into five parts, the book covers Pakistan’s popular
street iconography, local products and their branding, the creation
of a graphic national ideology, typography, and finally a visual
history of the country. Zaidi teaches typography and history of
design in the Department of Visual Studies, University of Karachi.
Available through oup.com.pk.
T h e A rt o f B ei n g a Dad
Mark Wagner, B.F.A. Communications Design ’83
$24.95 (Blurb, 2009)
The Art of Being a Dad is a creative collaboration between a dad, who is a
traditional and digital artist, and his two small children. The illustrated
book provides a visual account of their relationship for the first seven
years. It also chronicles Wagner’s journey as he navigates the colliding
worlds of babies and career; co-parenting and being a man; the
restrictions and freedom of parenting; and the awe, beauty, and
exhaustion of being a dad. Available through theartofbeingadad.com.
42
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SBiR Rin gs Sallyann Corn, B.I.D ’09
Joseph Kent, B.I.D ’09
$110 wood, $32 silicone
Challenging the definition of jewelry are Seattle-based
alumni Sallyann Corn and Joseph Kent, industrial designers
who have created SBiR, a jewelry collection of pieces they call
“So Big it’s Ridiculous.” Their unusual rings are handmade
from non-traditional materials such as scrap hardwoods sliced
through with metal. Their rings of colorfully chiseled silicone
also offer a bold new style of personal adornment. Available in
wood through fruitsuperdesign.com. Available in silicone in
stores and through fruitsuperdesign.com by winter 2010.
43
pratt people
RYERSON WALK
Ryerson Walk
Pratt’s 121st Commencement Exercises
Pratt presented approximately 1,500 degrees to its graduating
bachelor’s and master’s degree candidates during its 121st
Commencement on May 17 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
As part of the ceremonies, Pratt awarded honorary degrees to
champion of the arts and New York City landmarks preservation
pioneer Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel; award-winning
Brooklyn-based author and MacArthur “Genius” Fellow Jonathan
Lethem; acclaimed international architect Daniel Libeskind; director
of The Museum of Modern Art Glenn Lowry; performer, poet, and
visual artist Patti Smith; and movie director and producer Steven
Soderbergh. Smith also gave the Commencement address and
performed at the ceremony.
WILLOUGHBY residence hall ROOM
BECOMES LAB FOR SUSTAINABLE LIVING
Patti Smith delivers the 2010 Commencement address.
Twenty-two seniors graduating from Pratt’s Fashion Design department
presented their thesis collections at the 2010 Pratt Fashion Show at The
Altman Building in Manhattan on May 13.
The student designers were selected a month earlier by a panel of
fashion industry professionals in the department’s first-ever juried
review, making this year’s senior Fashion Show one of the most
competitive ever.
Those students selected showed their work in four categories:
sportswear, menswear, costume, and evening and bridal. Notable guests
included legendary tastemaker and style icon Iris Apfel, Vogue’s European
editor at large Hamish Bowles, and design luminary Ralph Pucci.
New York–based French fashion designer Catherine Malandrino was
the evening’s honoree, and received Pratt Institute’s Fashion Icon
Award. Kim Hastreiter, editor in chief and publisher of PAPER
magazine, presented the award.
Pratt School of Architecture Dean Thomas Hanrahan and honorary
doctorate recipient architect Daniel Libeskind
The American Planning Association’s New York Metro Chapter has
awarded the Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment
(GCPE) the 2010 Meritorious Achievement and Service Award. This
award recognizes work “of unusual merit or achievement in the
planning profession.” Officials with the APA’s Metro Chapter say they
wanted to recognize Pratt for its 50 years of community service in
planning.
GCPE celebrated its 50th anniversary this year. As part of its
mission, it works with the Pratt Center for Community
Development—and connects graduate students looking to get
hands-on planning experience with community organizations
seeking solutions for making their neighborhoods more livable and
sustainable.
Part of the School of Architecture, GCPE oversees Pratt’s City
and Regional Planning, Historic Preservation, and Environmental
Systems Management programs. It partners with Pratt’s
Construction/Facilities Management Programs and Brooklyn Law
School to offer opportunities for joint degrees.
44
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An evening gown by Timothy Kuzmeski (B.F.A. ’10), at the Pratt Fashion
Show; Kuzmeski’s collection, disquisition., won The Renee Hunter
Eveningwear Award.
photos: RenÉ PEREZ (commencement, fashion show)
Graduate Center for Planning and the
Environment wins top honor
photos: danielle pecora (braille ball), Julie Torres Moskovitz (“Before” Kitchen), Sean Hemmerle (chairs and “After” Kitchen)
2010 Fashion Show features top designs
A group of Pratt students and faculty, along with staff from the
Facilities Management and Residential Life departments, have
created an entirely “green” residence hall room in Willoughby Hall
to showcase how urban campus living can be made more sustainable.
The “1702–Living Laboratory” debuted in August. It includes a
kitchen, bathroom, and living area renovated using the three tenets
of sustainable design—reinvent, reuse/recycle, and choose
environmentally friendly and locally sourced materials. Features
include energy control systems, low-VOC paints, and new furniture
designs built from existing dorm furniture.
By having the students work with a client—in this case, Pratt—
students collaborated closely with Pratt’s Facilities Management
staff. The students communicated to the facilities experts how
students use their rooms; the facilities staff members shared their
expertise on maintenance and operations. By teaming up, the group
designed a sustainable space that has both the students’ and the
facilities’ needs in mind.
The Living Lab is ready to be monitored and analyzed. In
addition, the room will be on view to the Pratt community and
visiting school groups as an exhibition space, and open to current
students and campus visitors as a guest room.
The Living Lab project was made possible through Pratt’s Center
for Sustainable Design Studies and with partial funding provided by
the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education grant
from the U.S. Department of Education. Anita Cooney, chair of the
Interior Design department, oversaw the project with Pratt faculty
members Robert Langhorn, Julie Torres Moskovitz, and Corey
Yurkovich. The team worked closely with Tony Gelber, director of
administrative sustainability, Stephen Brennan, director of
maintenance and operations for Facilities Management, and Chris
Kasik, director of residential life. Other participants included green
consultants Nico Kienzl of Atelier Ten and Anthony Pereira of Alt
Power Inc.
For more information, please visit csds.pratt.edu.
At left, a typical kitchen in the Willoughby Hall residences; at right, the
kitchen in the 1702-Living Laboratory
Wood from older chairs was used to make new, more space-efficient chairs.
ARCHITECTURE alumna WINS
international award FOR BRAILLE
GAME design
The be-B: Braille Education Ball, designed by Danielle Pecora (M. Arch ’10).
Pratt alumna Danielle Pecora, who graduated with a master’s degree in
architecture in May 2010, recently won first place and $2,000 in the
DESIGN 21 Game Changers Competition for her be-B: Braille Education
Ball design. The competition challenged participants to create a game
design that aims to improve lives.
The aim of Pecora’s game was to create an interactive learning
experience both for children learning Braille, and for sighted children.
The ball has 26 magnetically attached pegs; on one side of each peg is a
Braille letter, and on the other side is a corresponding Latin letter. The
object is to match each Braille peg with its corresponding place on the
ball. An electronic device in the ball signals when the Braille and Latin
letters have been matched correctly.
Pecora’s game was selected out of 90 entries from 29 countries.
45
RYERSON WALK
PRATT INSTITUTE | PLANNED GIVING
Pratt Names Four New Department Chairs
Jean Davis
Steve Diskin
Steven Zucker
Gregg Horowitz
“As a working artist who wanted to
express gratitude for my Pratt education,
Four new chairs have been appointed to Pratt, three in the School of Art and
Design, and one in the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Jean Davis is now chair of the Creative Arts Therapy department. She
served as acting chair for two years before being named permanent chair.
Author and designer Steve Diskin took over as chair of the Industrial
Design department. Diskin has taught in several design programs, including
those at Harvard University, the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, and Art
Center College of Design in Pasadena.
Gregg Horowitz, former associate professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt
University, took over as chair of the Social Science and Cultural Studies
department.
Steven Zucker, former dean of the School of Graduate Studies at the
Fashion Institute of Technology, will serve as chair of the History of Art and
Design department. He is co-creator of the website/web-book and new art
historical tool, smarthistory.org.
I found a planned gift to be a great
option to significantly contribute in a
way that worked for me.”
Your Vision for the Future
— Victor Carnuccio, artist, B.F.A. ’79
46
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Students who spent July studying architecture in the Pre-College Program
show their work at Higgins Hall.
WORK from PRE-COLLEGE PROGRAM
DISPLAYED IN GALLERY SHOW
For most of July, almost 400 national and international students participated
in Pratt’s intensive Pre-College Program, run by the Center for Continuing
and Professional studies. Students immersed themselves in college-level
courses in dozens of areas, including graphic design, jewelry and metal arts,
comic book art, and creative writing. They also took a Foundation course, an
art history class, and worked on developing their portfolios.
Their weeks of hard work were displayed the last day of the program,
July 30, at Steuben Hall, Pratt Studios, and Higgins Hall.
Create a Legacy, Lead the Way
photo: diana pau
The School of Information and Library Science (SILS) received
$971,407 from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services to
prepare students to collaborate with three major Brooklyn cultural
institutions to digitize and provide public access to their historic
photos.
Through Project CHART (Cultural Heritage, Access, Research, and
Technology), SILS will accept 18 master’s degree students over the next
three years, who will study to be digital information managers. As part
of the program, they will intern at the Brooklyn Public Library, the
Brooklyn Historical Society, and the Brooklyn Museum, where they will
create digital archives of historical Brooklyn photographs, including
images dating from the late 1800s.
The partners will also create a Web portal, hosted by the Brooklyn
Public Library, to provide public access to the digital photographic
collections of all three institutions.
In addition, through Project CHART, SILS will develop a new
certificate program in Digital Management that SILS Dean Tula
Giannini says will serve as a new model for digital management
curricula nationwide.
“This grant opens up a world of new opportunities for collaboration
and research, as well as for developing a cutting-edge curriculum in
digital management for cultural heritage institutions,” says Giannini.
photoS: lorenzo ciniglio (steven zucker), diana pau (other headshots), AMY ARoNOFF (Pre-college)
SILS RECEIVES nearly $1 MILLION TO
prepare future DIGITAL MANAGERS
A planned gift to Pratt is an easy way to create opportunities for tomorrow’s visionaries.
Your investment in them can benefit you, too. There are many giving options that can help
fulfill your charitable and financial goals.
Make a planned gift to Pratt today through a bequest or life income plan.
718.399.4296 • www.pratt.edu/planned_giving • plannedgiving@pratt.edu
corporate PARTNERSHIPS
corporate PARTNERSHIPS
Nachtmann Glass Contest Sends Students to europe
From internships to design studios, Pratt corporate partners rely on the
Institute’s design expertise and creative problem-solving to address a variety of
current challenges. We’re pleased to highlight recent projects that illustrate
Pratt’s spirit of innovation and commitment to excellence.
Ten students from the Department of Industrial Design traveled to Germany and Austria in
February on an intensive study of the glassware- design industry, thanks to a semester-long
competition sponsored by Nachtmann, one of the world’s top crystal manufacturers.
As part of the contest, students attended Ambiente, the world’s leading tabletop exhibition
in Frankfurt, Germany. They also visited three glass-making factories in Germany and Austria
owned by Nachtmann and its parent-company, Riedel.
Six students won cash prizes for their designs, which Nachtmann plans to prototype in
glass and exhibit at next year’s Ambiente.
First prize winners, the team of Mary Khoun and Konrad Giersz (both B.I.D. ’10), won for
their design FlipIt; Catherine Merrick (M.I.D. ’11) won second prize for Geode; Alvaro Uribe
(B.I.D. ’10) won third prize for his Romance design; Elizabeth New (M.I.D. ’12) won an
honoree award for her design Blossom, as did Kyle Solà, (B.I.D. ’10) for Quake.
Nachtmann officials said they were thrilled with the results of partnering with Pratt.
“The final presentation was like Christmas Eve,” said Nachtmann’s top management. “We
got so many fantastic designs. We were really overwhelmed.”
Pieces from the Pratt Home Office collection, created for modern home furnishings retailer West Elm, in collaboration with the Pratt Design Incubator for
Sustainable Innovation
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“It was a remarkable collaboration,” said Debera Johnson, director
of the Pratt Design Incubator for Sustainable Innovation. “The results
show how Pratt has prepared them for their careers.”
The Pratt Office collection is available in West Elm stores, on westelm.com
and in the West Elm catalog. The Pratt design team included Alex Binsted
(B.I.D. ’09), Gregory Buntain (B.I.D. ’08), Sally Ann Corn (B.I.D. ’09),
Evan Dublin (B.I.D. ’09), Sara Ebert (B.I.D. ’09), Rachel Feeser (B.I.D.
’09), Zachary Feltoon (B.I.D. ’08), Joseph Kent (B.I.D. ’09), Brian
Persico (B.I.D. ’09), Jason Pfaeffle (B.I.D. ’09), Vanessa Robinson (M.I.D.
’10), Grace Souky (M.I.D. ’09), and David Wright (B.I.D. ’08).
The collaboration received coverage in The New York Times, the
July issue of Interior Design magazine as well as on the blogs
Apartment Therapy, Tree Hugger, and Core77.
For more information, visit incubator.pratt.edu/west_elm.
photoS: courtesy of west elm
WEST ELM UNVEILS PRATT HOME OFFICE COLLECTION
Modern home furnishings retailer West Elm and Pratt have launched
the Pratt Home Office collection, an eco-friendly collection created in
collaboration with the Pratt Design Incubator for Sustainable
Innovation. The centerpiece of the collection is a simple and highly
functional desk made with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified
wood. The collection also includes a chair, file unit, wall shelf and
accessories set, and table lamp.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled to introduce the Pratt Home Office
collection as our latest West Elm collaboration,” said Paulo Kos (M.I.D.
’02), director of furniture design at West Elm and lead designer for the
Pratt collaboration. “As a Pratt graduate myself, I am especially
excited to see that the Pratt designers were innovative in their process
and design. The collection is well-designed, affordable, and
sustainable.”
photoS: diana pau (Presentation), alvaro uribe (crystal vase), kyle solÀ (crystal tumbler)
These designs by Alvaro Uribe (B.I.D. ’10) and Kyle Solà (B.ID. ’10) won awards in the Nachtmann
glass design competition and will be produced by Nachtmann.
Georg Riedel, owner of Riedel Glass, Nachtmann’s parent company, addresses students during
their final presentation for the Nachtmann glass design competition.
PRATT STUDENTS
CHALLENGED TO REIMAGINE
THE MEETING CHAIR
Starwood Hotels & Resorts held an exclusive
design competition at Pratt, providing more
than 60 industrial design and architecture
students the opportunity to create a chair to be
used at conferences and meetings.
For the “Starwood Meeting Chair
Re-imagined” competition, students were
charged with creating a seat that was more
comfortable than most chairs commonly found
in conference centers. The designs also had to
address meeting participants’ needs for more
control over their space.
The winner, the Isthmus meeting chair by
Ashley Thorfinnson (M.I.D ’11), was selected
by Starwood hospitality design and brand
management leaders for its comfort, function,
design innovation, and durability. Among the
features the chair concept included were a
pocket for holding meeting materials and
laptops, and a flexible back so users can recline
without disturbing people behind them. The
chair based on Thorfinnson’s design will be
used in hundreds of Sheraton and Westin
properties around the world.
STUDENTS CREATE PACKAGING
FOR COLGATE-PALMOLIVE
Thanks to a collaboration with ColgatePalmolive, students in the graduate
industrial design program had the
opportunity to design packaging concepts for
new personal-care products the company
plans to release beginning in 2015.
The students in the class, led by visiting
associate professor Gary Natsume, conducted
research on personal hygiene habits.
Throughout the spring 2010 semester, the
students worked closely with ColgatePalmolive representatives to refine their
designs based on their research outcomes.
Colgate-Palmolive officials plan to use the
students’ design concepts to help them refine
the actual products. Ultimately, Pratt designs
may be chosen for the final packaging.
This was Pratt’s second partnership with
Colgate-Palmolive; in spring 2009 students
designed packaging for a shower gel.
To learn more about Pratt
corporate partnerships, visit
pratt.edu/partnerships or
contact Corporate Relations at
CorporateRelations@pratt.edu.
49
pratt eXHiBitioNS
pratt e XHiBitioNS
pratt manhattan gallery
you
are
here
the rubelle and norman Schafler gallery
The Rubelle and noRman SchafleR GalleRy
Mapping the
Psychogeography
of New York City
SePtember 24– November 6, 2010
Guest-curated by Katharine Harmon,
author of The Map as Art: Contemporary
Artists Explore Cartography (Princeton
Architectural Press, 2009) and You Are
Here: Personal Geographies and Other
Maps of the Imagination (Princeton
Architectural Press, 2003)
Blind dates
This innovative, interdisciplinary, and cross-cultural exhibition and
project, guest-curated by Defne Ayas and Neery Melkonian, will
involve artists, writers, historians, and sociologists who aim to
facilitate meaningful exchanges among those whose lives have been
affected by the historical ruptures and legacies associated with the
fall of the Ottoman Empire (1299–1922). For the exhibition portion of
“Blind Dates,” the curators have been “matchmaking” artists and
architects whose backgrounds represent the estranged cultures to
mediate through projects together.
celebrating a quarter century of exhibitionS at the rubelle and norman
Schafler gallery and including recent work by alumni and StudentS,
thiS Show will alSo highlight Six of the moSt memorable and influential
exhibitionS that will be reaSSembled along with recent work by the original
participantS. the exhibition iS gueSt-curated by former director of exhibitionS
eleanor moretta.
10.7.10 – 1.21.11
crossing disciplines:
Books
Nov. 19, 2010–Feb. 12, 2011
opeNiNg receptioN:
thursday, November 18, 6–8 pm
Schafler@25
Feb. 25–may
may
ay 7, 2011
opeNiNg receptioN:
thursday, February 24, 6–8 pm
Guest-curated by artist and writer Dave Beech, contributor to Art and Text (Black Dog Publishing, 2009),
and fellow artist and writer Paul O'Neill, this exhibition will establish a dialogue between generations as
well as draw lines between competing conceptions
of the role of text in art.
Feb. 10–march 10, 2011
opeNiNg receptioN:
wedNesday, February 9, 4–6 pm
PRaTT manhaTTan GalleRy
Pratt manhattan Gallery is a public art gallery affiliated with Pratt
Institute. The goals of the program are to present significant innovative
and intellectually challenging work in the fields of art, architecture,
fashion, and design from around the world and to provide a range of
educational initiatives to help viewers relate contemporary art to their
lives in a meaningful way. It is located on 144 West 14th Street between
Sixth and Seventh avenues and is open Tuesday–Saturday, 11 am–6 Pm.
Phone: 212-647-7778.
The Rubelle and noRman SchafleR
GalleRy
The Schafler Gallery presents exhibitions by Pratt Institute faculty
members, students, and alumni from all departments. The gallery
An open call to Pratt faculty and students in all
departments surrounding the theme of "books."
favors cross-disciplinary topics that reveal how ideas and issues
affect our lives from many different perspectives, and provides an
open forum for the presentation and discussion of contemporary
culture. The Schafler Gallery is located on the first floor of the
chemistry building on Pratt’s brooklyn campus and is open monday–
friday, 9 am–5 Pm and Saturday 12–5 Pm. Phone: 718-636-3517.
for updates to the schedule, please visit www.pratt.edu/exhibitions. follow pratt manhattan gallery on
facebook by searching “Pratt manhattan Gallery” and follow pratt exhibitions on twitter @ “PrattGallery.”
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p r at t f o lio
51
supporting pratt
supporting pratt
TRUSTEE
PROFILE DAVID WALENTAS
WHY I GIVE: BILL HILSON
W
B
Trustee David Walentas on the roofdeck of his Clock Tower penthouse, a 6,000–square-foot
triplex currently on sale for $25 million
Pratt made sense since Jane is an artist and because of our interest in
architecture and art.”
His generous offers of studio and gallery space have since made a
significant impact at Pratt, specifically on the Department of Digital
Arts. In 2008, he gave 4,300 square feet at 20 Jay Street to provide space
for students studying interactive, imaging, and experimental media in
the digital arts department’s graduate degree program, which marked
the first time the program’s graduate students would have dedicated
studios.
Keeping with his and his wife’s dedication to ensuring that DUMBO
retains its artistic and cultural base, Walentas lends space for Pratt
events and annual shows of student work. “Those students are the
future,” he says. “It’s the artists who come first and help make a
neighborhood viable for other businesses and residents.”
In 1984, Jane and David Walentas bought a
1920s carousel at auction in Ohio for $385,000.
Jane then spent $1 million over the next 22 years
in her Brooklyn studio utilizing her artistic vision
to painstakingly restore the hand-carved wooden
structure horse by horse to its original splendor.
“The carvings are exquisite,” Jane noted. “It
really was done beautifully when it was made and
I wanted to bring it back to life.”
While it’s been on display in DUMBO since 2006,
p r att folio
the carousel is due to be installed in 2011 at the
river’s edge of Brooklyn Bridge Park in a glass
pavilion created by French architect Jean Nouvel.
The design will allow the landmark merry-go-round
to be lit up at night so it can be seen from across
the East River. By next summer, the Walentas family
envisions kids from all over the world coming to
Brooklyn to take it for a ride.
“It’s going to be fantastic,” says David. “Everybody
is going to come to see Jane’s Carousel.”
Bill Hilson, adjunct professor, Graduate Communications/Package Design, photographed at home
in New Canaan, Connecticut
photoS: courtesy of bill hilson (bill hilson)
Jane’s Carousel
52
ill Hilson knows the importance of sustainable design as
intimately as the typefaces he creates. Through his
teaching and his gifts to the Graduate Communications/Package
Design department and the Center for Sustainable Design Studies
at Pratt, he’s making a tangible difference to the field and its
future leaders.
An adjunct professor in Pratt’s Graduate Communications/
Package Design department for nearly 20 years, Bill came to Pratt
in 1976 to study architecture and, after many fruitful years in the
field, went on to become a leader in digital design, imaging, and
production, introducing technology to a number of advertising
agencies and design studios. In 2001, he brought his expertise to
bear on the emerging area of sustainable design, co-founding the
Institute for Sustainable Communication, which uses an
education-centered approach to bring a practical awareness of
sustainability to the communication industry. Bill also considers
himself privileged to have been able to serve as his department’s
chair for two semesters.
“I love teaching,” says Bill. “I get the satisfaction of knowing
I’m helping to contribute to the future success of my students. It’s
a further honor to be able to participate in the program’s—and
Pratt’s—growth by providing financial support for our outstanding students and activities. I’m also proud to play a part in the
Institute’s truly pioneering efforts to develop and promote the
type of green design thinking and practices that I teach my
students and bring to my professional work.”
Bill’s gifts through The Hilson Family Fund, which he
established at Pratt in 1997, provide essential support for
technology in the Graduate Communications/Package Design
department as well as scholarships for the program’s most
talented and dedicated graduate students. He has also contributed generously to the Don Ariev Term Award, which provides
merit-based scholarships to Graduate Communications Design
students. His recent gift to the Center for Sustainable Design
Studies will support Pratt’s transformative leadership in
sustainable design education.
photoS: Diana pau (david walentas), cori nelson (jane walentas)
hen real estate developer David Walentas—the unofficial
mayor of Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood—walks around
the thriving area that he and his wife, Jane, have revitalized over the last
30 years, he says the two of them feel like “very proud parents.”
“DUMBO is our life’s work,” he says of the stretch of waterfront in
Brooklyn “down under the Manhattan Bridge overpass,” which has
become one of the city’s most desirable neighborhoods. Walentas began
buying property in the 1970s when DUMBO was a deserted industrial
district; he now owns about 3 million square feet of space.
“We look at DUMBO as our legacy,” says Walentas, noting that his
wife and son, Jane and Jed, are his partners in their company Two Trees
Management, which is now working on a massive Dock Street complex
in the area with residential units and a middle school. “Almost
everything we do is to enhance this neighborhood,” he notes—an
exception being the new 1-million-square-foot Clinton Park mixed-use
tower going up at West 53rd Street in Manhattan that will house a
Mercedes-Benz sales/service center.
In the 1980s, David and Jane set out to make DUMBO a residential
destination by focusing on creating a haven for artists and designers—
reminiscent of SoHo, where the two lived in the ’60s and ’70s. They
offered free or reduced rents for artists and cultural organizations.
“We transformed a whole section of New York City with the city’s
most quintessential views,” says Walentas. “What’s remarkable is that it
was all already here. Physically, it’s changed very little.”
Walentas, who grew up in Rochester, New York, began working on a
farm at a young age after his father became ill. But he always knew he
wanted to be a real estate developer.
After winning an NROTC scholarship and completing a degree in
mechanical engineering at the University of Virginia, he worked
overseas. When he needed to come back, he convinced a Danish ship
captain to take him and his VW bug in exchange for work. When he
arrived in New York City, he sold a pint of blood for $10 to buy gas.
Years later, after completing his M.B.A., he ended up back in New
York City and remembers the bank throwing him out when he tried to
borrow $10,000 for his first real estate deal. Walentas, whose personal
motto—No Guts, No Glory—is embroidered on the sleeve of all his
shirts, kept pushing.
Walentas joined Pratt’s Board of Trustees in 2003. “Being involved at
Bill Hilson is just one of the many dedicated members of the Pratt community whose
generosity and involvement have helped make Pratt one of the leading institutions of its kind.
Visit pratt.edu/donor_profiles/ to read about other loyal alumni and friends.
Interior Designer Laura Bohn (B.F.A. ’77)
is leaving a portion of her estate to Pratt
to help provide scholarships for students.
Ashley Zarella Hand (M. Arch. ’06)
shows her support for her alma mater by
giving to The Fund for Pratt and by
having served on the Board of Trustees.
53
special events
Special Events
Pratt’s President Thomas F. Schutte with Catherine Malandrino, designer
and Pratt Fashion Icon Award recipient
Pratt Fashion Show After Party Honors
Catherine Malandrino
Grace Hightower De Niro and BAP honoree
Lee Daniels
Tenth Annual Brooklyn Building Awards
Honors Pratt Institute
May 26, 2010
July 15, 2010
The Black Alumni of Pratt (BAP), under the leadership of Dwight
Johnson (B.I.D. ’72), celebrated its 20th anniversary scholarship benefit
gala on May 26 at the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York City. Dan
and Cynthia Lufkin and Pratt Institute trustee David Walentas and his
wife, Jane, chaired the dinner, and Gayle Atkins Perkins and Malaak
Compton-Rock served as vice chairs. The Honorable David N. Dinkins
and his wife, Joyce, along with Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Casey Ribicoff,
Prudence Solomon Inzerillo, and Julian Niccolini and Alex von Bidder
of Four Seasons Restaurant were honorary patrons.
ABC News correspondent Deborah Roberts and her husband, NBC
weatherman Al Roker, served as emcees for the black-tie event, which
honored philanthropist Annette de la Renta, wife of renowned designer
Oscar de la Renta, with the Distinguished Patron of the Arts Award,
which was presented by her husband. Actor, producer, and director
Lee Daniels and fashion designer Naeem Khan and his wife, Ranjana,
received Creative Spirit Awards honoring creative individuals and
humanitarians who have made a mark in their professions. Marisa
Acocella Marchetto received the Distinguished Alumni Award and
famed artist Peter Max was honored with the Pinnacle Alumni Award.
The evening’s award presenters included actress Grace Hightower De
Niro, Bergdorf Goodman’s Linda Fargo, philanthropist Cynthia Lufkin,
and, via video, former President Bill Clinton. In one of the evening’s
most moving tributes, fine jewelry legend Kenneth Jay Lane took to the
podium to pledge a $100,000 donation to BAP.
Proceeds from the annual dinner support BAP initiatives as well as
scholarships for Pratt Institute students of African and Latino descent.
Pratt Institute was honored for the pavilion of the Juliana Curran
Terian Design Center at the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce’s Tenth
Annual Brooklyn Building Awards ceremony held at Steiner Studios
in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The awards recognize construction and
renovation projects that enrich the borough’s neighborhoods and
economy.
The pavilion was designed by School of Architecture Dean Thomas
Hanrahan and his firm hanrahanMeyers architects LLP. Funding was
provided by a generous gift from Pratt alumna and trustee Juliana
Terian Gilbert (B. Arch ’90).
54
p rat t folio
School of Architecture Dean Thomas Hanrahan and Pratt’s President
Thomas F. Schutte accepting the Brooklyn Building Award
photos: ALAN KLEIN (MARC ROSEN), RenÉ PEREZ (STUDENTS), PATRICK MCMULLAN (DR. SCHUTTE AND CATHERINE MALANDRINO)
Black Alumni of Pratt 20th Anniversary
Celebration of the Creative Spirit
May 13, 2010
photos: JULIE SKARRETT (BAP 20TH ANNIVERSARY), jill d'amico (brooklyn building awards)
Black Alumni of Pratt President Dwight Johnson with Annette and Oscar de la Renta
Alumnus Marc Rosen and Catherine Walsh, senior vice president of
American Fragrances at Coty Prestige, which received the 2010 Art of
Packaging Award
Marc Rosen Art of Packaging Award Gala
April 27, 2010
Pratt Institute and Luxe Pack came together this spring to pay tribute
to Coty Prestige at the 21st annual Art of Packaging Award Gala at the
University Club on Fifth Avenue. Nearly 250 leading representatives
of New York City’s multi-billion dollar cosmetics industry attended
the black-tie event, which raises funds for the Marc Rosen Scholarship
that supports students in Pratt’s Graduate Communications and
Package Design program.
Catherine Walsh, senior vice president of American Fragrances at
Coty Prestige, accepted the award on behalf of the company, which
has created fragrances for Sarah Jessica Parker, Jennifer Lopez, Vera
Wang, and Marc Jacobs.
Award-winning designer, trustee, and alumnus Marc A. Rosen,
(M.F.A. Package Design ’70), established the scholarship at Pratt
Institute in 1989. A visiting associate professor in Pratt’s Graduate
Communications and Package Design program, Rosen teaches the
only college course offered in the world on cosmetic and fragrance
packaging design.
Several of the fashion and design industry's leading figures came
together on May 13 to honor legendary New York–based French fashion
designer Catherine Malandrino, who received Pratt Institute’s Fashion
Icon Award earlier that day at the 2010 Pratt Fashion Show.
Among the guests at the private cocktail reception held at The
Standard Hotel were Pratt Institute Trustees Deborah Buck, David
Pratt, Mark Stumer and his wife, Susan, and Board of Trustees Chair
Mike Pratt and his wife, Carol; Kim Hastreiter, editor of PAPER
magazine, who introduced Malandrino at the awards ceremony;
Marjorie Kuhn, friend of Pratt and Legends 2010 co-chair; and Theo
Spilka, vice president of new business development for the Swiss
company Firmenich, the world’s largest privately owned fragrance and
flavor company.
The Pratt Institute Fashion Show After Party benefited Pratt
endowed scholarship funds.
Pratt fashion design students A. Stevens, D. Randell, J. Dodd, and M.
Barela at the Pratt Fashion Show After Party
55
Alumni news
Alumni News
Pratt City and Regional Planning Program 50th Anniversary reception
Ron Shiffman (B. Arch. ’61) at the City and
Regional Planning Program 50th Anniversary
symposium
L-R: Hae-Hyeong Cho; Pratt President Thomas F. Schutte and his wife,Tess;
Insook Kim; Pratt Vice President for Institutional Advancement Todd Galitz,
and alum Kitai Park (M.S. Comm-Design ’81) at a private dinner in Korea
Be a part
of the
Pratt
alumni
scene.
To see a list of upcoming
events visit:
alumni.pratt.edu
Alumni mingling at the Chicago Alumni Cocktail
Reception
The Korean Alumni Association reception in Seoul, Korea
L-R: Ashley Thorfinnson (M.I.D. ’11), Mark Goetz (B.I.D. ’86), Alvaro Uribe (B.I.D. ’10), Cabot
Wrenn President Ryan Stites, and Tim Richartz (B.I.D. ’86) with the Pratt Institute Chair they
designed and produced
Korean Alumni Association Reception
May 14–15, 2010
The Pratt School of Architecture’s City and Regional Planning Program
celebrated 50 years of community-based planning with two days of
events for planning-program alumni and current students. The
festivities began with a cocktail reception in Higgins Hall, where
keynote speaker alumnus Mitchell Silver (B. Arch. ’87), newly elected
president of the national American Planning Association, addressed
more than 300 guests. One of Saturday’s highlights was the presentation
of a City Council proclamation by alumni and City Council members
Brad Lander (M.S. City and Regional Planning ’98) and Elizabeth
Crowley (M.S. City and Regional Planning ’07) commemorating the
program’s 50 years. Among the symposium’s speakers was Planning and
Architecture Professor Ronald Shiffman (B. Arch. ’61, M.S. ’66), who
56
p rat t folio
provided a historical perspective on Pratt’s involvement with the local
community. Another highlight of the symposium was a series of
breakout sessions where the 150 attendees discussed urban planning
issues in the context of economic development, historic preservation,
and sustainability. Sunday concluded with a panel discussion among
former planning program chairs on the future of the field.
Chicago Alumni Cocktail Reception
June 14, 2010
More than 40 Pratt Institute alumni, students, faculty members, and
friends came together at the James Chicago Hotel for a cocktail
reception celebrating the Pratt Institute Chair manufactured by Cabot
Wrenn and presented at NeoCon 2010, North America’s largest design
exposition and conference for commercial interiors. In his remarks to
the audience, Cabot Wrenn president Ryan Stites shared his enthusiasm
about the company’s collaboration with Pratt.
The Korean Alumni Association of Pratt held its largest-ever reception
in Seoul, Korea this summer at Maak Holic, a new restaurant owned by
Pratt alumnus and parent Tae Boong Jeong. Approximately 150 Korean
alumni attended the event, including Pratt Trustee Young Ho Kim (B.
Arch. ’71), as well as Pratt President Thomas F. Schutte, his wife, Tess,
and Todd Galitz, Pratt Vice President for Institutional Advancement.
photos: yung Lee, Dong Kyu Lee (korea)
City and Regional Planning Program
50th Anniversary Celebration
photos: Sara Huneke (city and regional planning), Brian Morrison (chicago)
June 1, 2010
Creative Arts Therapy Symposium
May 15, 2010
The Creative Arts Therapy department presented the symposium “The
Creative Self: A Conversation Across Disciplines” on Pratt’s Brooklyn
campus this spring. Approximately 100 guests attended the day-long
conference, which explored ideas about creativity from many different
perspectives. The symposium featured a panel discussion with
practitioner-educators, as well as experiential workshops that were open to
the public.
www.pratt.edu/125
57
PrATT insTiTuTe | tHe FunD For Pratt
ImPaC t
Class Notes
M o st p e o p l e d o n ' t re a l i ze t h at t u i t i o n a nd fees
a cco u n t fo r o n l y a p o r t i o n o f P rat t ' s a n nual
b u d g e t . I n fac t , n o t on e st u d e n t g rad u ates wit ho ut
s o m e h ow b e i n g a ss i ste d by p r i vate g i v i ng. From
st u d y a b ro a d to t h e D i g i t a l A r t s L a b, The Fund
fo r P rat t d i re c t l y i m p a c t s st u d e n t s l i ke Steven
L an c aste r ( B . F. A . I n te r i or D e s i g n ’ 1 1 ) ever y day.
We welcome news items from all
Pratt alumni! To submit your
news, notes, and pictures,
visit the alumni website at
alumni.pratt.edu.
1950s
Thomas J. Doyle, B.F.A. Illustration
’55, celebrates his legacy at Pratt
Institute with the enrollment of his
granddaughter, Lauren W. Doyle,
in the Art and Design Education
program.
Hiroko Nakamoto, Interior Design
’55, has been actively working on the
Hiroshima Gateway to Peace project,
a memorial complex at the
Hiroshima Railway Station in Japan,
which commemorates the atomic
bomb of August 6, 1945, and engages
viewers to work toward world peace.
Hiroshima City recently provided
land to build this educational
monument and plans call for
construction to begin on the project
this year. Nakamoto also recently
completed a major pledge to Pratt
Institute to renovate its Grand
Avenue walkway.
1960s
phoTos: girAldi MEdiA (BoB girAldi), oThErs CourTEsy oF ArTisTs
w w w. P r at t. e d U /g i v e . 7 1 8 - 3 9 9 - 4 4 47 . f U n d f o r P r at t @ P r at t. e d U
2 0 0 w i l lo U g h by av e n U e , b r o o k ly n , n y 1 1 2 0 5
phoTo: diAnA pAu
Sheila Metzner, B.F.A. Advertising
Design ’60, offered a unique student
workshop this March concentrating
on “photography” as it is often used
in conjunction with words. At this
Venice Beach event, attendees
studied the concept of expressing
words with pictures. They were
offered a presentation of Metzner’s
personal work and given an
opportunity to transform their own
writings into photographic
expressions.
e v e rY D o l l a r m at t e r S a n D e v e rY G I F t m a K e S a D I F F e r e n C e .
m a K e a n I m PaC t to DaY.
Class notes
Class NoteS
Barbara Nessim, B.F.A. Graphic Art/
Illustration ’60, exhibited “A Current
Past” at the Condé Nast building in
Times Square. A piece from her
series Chronicles of Beauty, a work of
art 28 feet in length, was a model for
a permanent installation printed on
aluminum. Chronicles of Beauty is an
extension of The Model Project—it is
made up of 13 pieces of Barbara’s
work and was recently commissioned for the Eventi Hotel in
midtown Manhattan.
gallery presented 40 years of Steir’s
work in a survey focusing on her
exploration of the vocabulary of
drawing.
Margaret Cusack, B.F.A. Graphic
Arts ’68, presented her traveling
retrospective exhibition, a collection
of 80 framed stitched artworks,
titled “Uncommon Threads: Stitched
Artwork by Margaret Cusack,” at the
Hansen Museum in Logan, Kansas.
Lorna Ritz, B.F.A. Art Education ’69,
was a visiting artist critic at the
Vermont Studio Center in December
2009. Her work was featured at the
Danforth Museum of Art in
Framingham, Massachusetts; Julian
Scott Memorial Gallery at Johnson
State College, Vermont; and the
Peabody Historical Society Museum,
in Peabody, Massachusetts. In 2010
she exhibited work at the American
ambassador’s residence in Caracas,
Venezuela, and was nominated to
receive the inaugural WFCR Arts
and Humanities Award which
recognizes the contributions of local
talent and brings awareness to the
critical role played by musicians,
artists, dancers, actors, writers,
and teachers in the greater
Pioneer Valley.
Edmund Rucinski, M.F.A. Art
Education ’69, exhibited his
collective work in “Transcendental
Essence: A Retrospective,” at the
Feast Gallery & Meeting Space in
Saratoga Springs, New York.
1970s
Donald Loggins, B.F.A. Art and
Design Education ’73, contributed a
chapter to a book on “guerilla”
gardening that was recently
published in Spain.
Ron Elley, Illustration/CommDesign ’62, was honored by Jerry
Bloom’s Wish of a Lifetime program,
granting his one wish to have three
of his artworks framed. At the
completion of the project, Elley will
donate one of his paintings to be
auctioned off by the organization.
Pat Steir, B.F.A. Graphic Arts and
Illustration ’62, showed her work
Drawing Out of Line in an exhibition
at the RISD Museum of Art. The
Stanley Smokler, M.F.A. ’75,
presented his one-person exhibition,
“Steel Currents” at the Delaware
bob giralDi
b.F.a. advertising Design ’60, has won countless awards for his work as a
director of films, music videos, and commercials—not to mention he owns
some of the finest restaurants in New York City.
He was one of the first music video directors of the early MtV days,
directing, among others, videos for Michael Jackson’s “Beat it,” and Pat
Benatar’s “love is a Battlefield.”
this fall, Giraldi will become chair of the new live Action Short film
Program, part of the Master of Professional Studies graduate degree at the
School of Visual Arts, where he is also a faculty member. in october, his
latest short film, The Grey Coat, will be screened at the San Diego Asian film
festival.
Giraldi’s first job after graduating from Pratt was as a graphic designer for
General Motors in Detroit. He later returned to New York City to work at the
advertising firm Young & rubicam.
in 1970, Giraldi joined the advertising agency Dellafemina & Partners,
where he began shooting commercials. three years later, he formed his own
firm. Giraldi Media has produced and directed close to 3,000 commercials,
music videos, and short films.
“Short films reflect a culmination of my training in the commercial
business. i like the medium and i find it a great challenge to get people
emotionally involved in a limited amount of time,” says Giraldi.
At the height of his directing career, Giraldi entered the culinary world. in
1995, he co-founded the celebrity cooking website StarChefs.com, and
began opening some of the best restaurants in New York, including Patria,
Mercer Kitchen, and the highly successful Jean Georges.
Giraldi attended Pratt on an athletic scholarship—playing basketball and
baseball. “it was a place to test yourself—in all aspects. Here i thought i was
a tough kid from Paterson, New Jersey, and then i came to Brooklyn in the
’60s—and realized what ‘rough’ was.”
Still, Giraldi took to Pratt. “Being at Pratt was the first time i had lived
alone—where i began to find my own voice, falling in love—many times—
hanging out in the coffee shops where we would drink coffee and beer and
talk, talk, talk.”
While at Pratt, Giraldi discovered what resonated with him. “Art, music,
words, and pictures arouse emotions in me. i’m not a fine arts guy. i always
had a feeling for commercial art.”
59
CLASS notes
CLASS notes
pratt people
Class Notes
1980s
Andrew Reach, B. Arch. ’80, had his
digital print The Wonder of Bruce
selected for the 74th Midyear
Exhibition at the Butler Institute of
American Art in Youngstown, Ohio.
Kathleen Edwards, Illustration ’78,
was curator of a gallery talk at New
York University’s Grey Art Gallery,
which focused on Lil Picard and
counterculture New York. The
event was offered in conjunction
with an exhibition on view at the
gallery. Edwards has also published
her book Holy Stars: Favorite Deities,
Prophets, Saints and Sages from
Around the World (Sentient
Publications, 2009), a graphic
comparative religion book using
comic-book style to relate essential
information about 27 figures from
the world’s wisdom traditions.
Joseph Rosa, B. Arch. ’83, the Art
Institute of Chicago’s chief curator
of architecture and design, has
been appointed the new director
of the University of Michigan
Museum of Art.
60
p r at t folio
Mary Carothers, B.F.A. Photography ’91, was honored by the
President’s Higher Education
Community Service Honor Roll for
her contributions to exposing
children to art at St. Joseph’s
Children’s Home in Louisville,
Kentucky. Carothers and Sarah Van
Ouwerkerk, M.F.A. ’76, were
awarded a grant to photograph the
original Pony Express route from
Missouri to California for an
exhibition at the Frazier Museum in
Louisville in September 2010.
Edward Giordano, M.S. CommDesign ’85, exhibited a number of
his sculptures at the French
Embassy’s Cultural Center.
B. Arch ’02, was thrilled to be one of the 12 artists, architects, and
designers selected for the fifth season of HGTV’s show Design Star. She
wowed the judges during the first episode when contestants were each
challenged to design a room for a person based on only three descriptive
words about the client. She lasted until the fifth episode where she
participated in a team effort to design a room in a firehouse.
“I gave the show 100 percent, and I have no regrets,” said the Brooklynnative Ferrer. Just this year, Ferrer formed her own company after working
as an architect and project manager for a high-end retailer. She is presently
designing the interior for two projects in Brooklyn—a house and restaurant/
lounge.
Ferrer describes herself as a “people person” and prefers doing public
projects so she can share her work with others.
While studying at the School of Architecture, Ferrer also studied interior
design and participated in the Pratt in Tuscany program, where she studied
photography and painting. She says being exposed to this range of
disciplines was essential to her development as a designer.
Ferrer calls attending Pratt a transformative experience. “I always tell
people that if I have a child and they want to be an artist they are going to
Pratt. All the teachers I had at Pratt were practicing artists—they were
living what they taught and I really respected their opinions.”
Evelyn Brooks, B.F.A. Sculpture ’87,
presented her exhibition “Intuitive
Abstract Paintings” at the West
Caldwell Library in West Caldwell,
New Jersey.
Judy Lew-Loose, B.F.A. Graphic
Design ’87, exhibited two selections
of her work, Blooming Water Lilies
and 100 Tulip Bulbs on the Wall, at
the Body & Hearth Gallery and
Gathering Place in Sacramento,
California, from April through
June 2010.
Johnny Poux, B.I.D. ’89, presented
the second annual exhibition,
“Concrete on Main Street 2010,”
featuring the material that made
Rosendale, New York, famous in
uncommon ways, through reinterpreting the uses of Rosendale
cement through his three-dimensional exhibit and retrospective.
Poux also provided an exhibit on the
town’s history along with pictures
and discussion of the now-defunct
cement kilns and train trestles that
lace the area.
1990s
Alisa E. Sloboda-Clark, B.F.A. Art
and Design Education ’90, has
produced a book to encourage
spiritual healing and personal
growth, titled Dancing in the
Doghouse (Createspace, 2009). The
Joseph Pepe, B.I.D. ’91, celebrated
his success as a key character
designer on James Cameron’s
Avatar. His designs for the film have
been published in The Art of Avatar
(Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2009) and
Avatar: An Activist Survival Guide
(It Books, 2009).
Jean Shin, B.F.A. Painting ’94, M.S.
’96, recently created an installation,
Pattern Folds, which was on view at
the Calvin Klein Collection on
Madison Avenue in New York City.
charity efforts.
Michael F. Gormley, M.F.A.
Graduate Fine Arts ’95, has been
hired as the new editorial director of
the American Artist magazine group.
Gormley will oversee the publication
and editorial staff of American Artist,
Drawing, Highlights, Workshop, and
Watercolor magazines.
Echo Chernik, B.F.A. Illustration
’95, exhibited a personal collection
of fine art at the Art Expo in
Manhattan in March 2010. She is
launching herself into the professional fine art field with the help of
her husband, Lazarus Chernik,
B.F.A. Advertising Design ’94, a
former creative director turned
printmaker.
Jean Claude Dominique, B.F.A
Painting ’95, exhibited his work as
the headliner in a group show featuring nine Haitian artists. The event
was a fundraiser for Haitian relief
2000s
Christine Finley, B.F.A. Painting
’00, received a wave of publicity
surrounding her dumpster
decorating in New York City. Finley
used donated and found materials,
like wallpaper, to create her “polite
Jay Maruszewski, M.I.D. Industrial
Design ’95, is working as the IT
project manager for design and
building of new properties at
Standard Chartered Bank. He is
currently working on two new
buildings in Singapore and Japan.
Amy DiGi Yedowitz, B.F.A. Art and
Design Education ’96, announced
that her painting Coast Guard
Oversees Oil Spill has been included
in the 2010 Permanent Collection for
the United States Coast Guard.
garrison buxton
Adam Burkowitz, M.I.D. ’97,
president and creative director of
the boutique design firm, Equal
Design Group, collaborated with
Hariri Pontarini Architects and Lord
Cultural Resources and Planning to
design and plan Ontario House, the
province’s official pavilion at the
2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.
Jason Karolak, B.F.A. Painting ’97,
showed his paintings with Kavi
Gupta Gallery as part of the Next Art
Fair in Chicago, Illinois, this past
April.
photos: stephen p. harrington (boyton), others courtesy of artists
Donald Fram, B. Arch. ’81, was one
of 134 architects selected
nationally to be elevated to the
American Institute of Architects
College of Fellows for 2010.
Throughout his career at the Port
Authority, he has directed
award-winning programs and
orchestrated the development of
Sustainable Design Guidelines
within the agency.
David Jost, B.F.A. ’79, a designer for
RandomTechnology, received
exclusive licenses for manufacturing and worldwide distribution of
his new moiré effect drink coaster.
The Moiré Coaster is sold wholesale
and online through Kikkerland
Design.
Jon Wooten, A.O.S. Illustration ’90,
designed helmets for the U.S.
athletes competing in the 2010
Olympic Games. A renowned
airbrush artist, he has also painted
helmets for the 2002 U.S. bobsled
team and 2006 luge team.
Nina Ferrer
Beatrice M. Mady, M.F.A. ’78, had a
solo exhibition of her Digital Prints
and Paintings in March 2010 at the
Routunda Gallery in Jersey City,
New Jersey. She also exhibited
black-and-white photographs in a
show, titled “Herstory,” at the
Brennan Gallery, also in New Jersey.
Mary Rieser Heintjes, B.F.A. ’79,
exhibited a drawing from her
sketchbook at the March grand
opening of the Art House Gallery
Library in Brooklyn. This traveling
art show will reach California,
Georgia, Boston, and Chicago before
returning to the library in Red Hook,
Brooklyn.
book includes personal journals and
a chronicle of 60 images of artwork
that she hopes will help readers to
understand the process of art
making in a spiritual context.
photos: William Joseph O’Connor (ferrer), others courtesy of artists
Museum of Natural History in
Wilmington. His welded steel
sculptures inspired by nature and
creatures of the ocean were on view
June 4 through July 18 and
incorporated into an evening of
conversation with Liz Shea, Ph.D.,
on the topic of art versus science.
Mark C. Smith, B.F.A. Painting ’99,
director of DesignSeed (a collaboration between Auburn University’s
Office of University Outreach,
Technical Assistance Center, and
Industrial Design program),
announced that the Southern
Growth Policies Board has named
DesignSeed a winner of the 2010
Innovator Award, which highlights
creative initiatives that aim to help
communities recover from the
recession.
Chris Wright, M.F.A. ’99, had works
featured in an exhibition at the
George Billis Gallery in Los Angeles,
California.
M.F.A. ’03, is the CEO of Peripheral Media Projects, an art and design studio,
and co-founder of Ad Hoc Art, which curates public art projects and
promotes the work of artists who challenge the boundaries of a “fine art”
isolated from society.
Buxton’s work caught the attention of the MetroTech Business
Improvement District, which wanted someone to curate exhibits in vacant
storefronts on the block of Willoughby Street between Duffield and Bridge
streets. The stores had been left empty after businesses were evicted in
preparation for a development project that has since stalled.
Buxton set up exhibits in the 12 empty storefronts. Known as Willoughby
Windows, the project has attracted significant attention and drawn the notice
of news outlets internationally, including the BBC.
“Art should be publicly accessible, and Willoughby Windows allows us to
put art out in a public space,” says Buxton. “It is available 24/7, regardless
of what you do or where you’re from.”
Buxton curated the initial exhibit in June 2009 and installed a second show
in May 2010.
Originally from Oklahoma, Buxton moved to New York to attend Pratt,
where he studied printmaking and, where he says, he learned how to get
things accomplished. “Pratt is a place for people who do not need handholding, who take initiative—like Brooklyn itself.”
Over the summer, Ad Hoc Art served as “street artist emissaries” at
Central Park’s SummerStage. Buxton and Ad Hoc also created merchandise
for SummerStage.
This fall, he and his wife, Alison (pictured above), are working with
colleges, galleries, and productions across the country to teach screen
printing and create public and private art projects.
After the cross-country tour, the couple will set up a studio in Vermont at a
converted 1850s family home which, coincidentally, had been the home and
studio of Harry Shokler, the man considered one of the founders of modern
serigraphy, or screen printing.
“We will continue to keep a strong relationship with people and projects
in Brooklyn,” Buxton says. “Simultaneously, Vermont offers us an amazing
space to create. It is more affordable and sustainable; we can give artists a
chance to take a break from the city and work on larger projects.”
61
Class Notes
Giovanni Jubert Di Montaperto,
M.S. Comm-Design ’07, and Brenda
McManus, M.S. Comm-Design ’07,
were published in Robin Landa’s
new book, Graphic Design Solutions,
4th Edition (Wadsworth Publishing,
2011), featuring their collaborative
work on a fall 2006 Pratt newsletter.
Tahir Hemphill, M.S. CommDesign ’00, was announced as a
recipient of a 2010 Eyebeam
Residency. He will receive a
five-month residency, which
includes a stipend as well as access
to Eyebeam’s facilities, equipment,
and opportunities to develop new
work. One of six new residents,
Hemphill was selected from a group
of 146 applicants based on his
proven ability in spearheading new
projects and areas of artistic
research.
Greg Lindquist, M.S./M.F.A. Fine
Arts and Theory, History, and
Criticism of Art, Design, and
Architecture ’08, presented
“Nonpasts,” an exhibition at
Elizabeth Harris Gallery in
Manhattan. Other recent accomplishments include a sculpture and
painting installation in the Verge Art
Fair at the Dylan Hotel in New York,
and inclusion in the group
exhibition “Gallery Selections” at
Ober Gallery in Connecticut. His
work was also featured in March
2010 ArtNEWS Critic’s Picks.
Ryan Mrozowski, M.F.A. Fine Arts
’05, celebrated the opening of his
second one-person show at Pierogi
in Brooklyn. Mrozowski’s works
were shown in two galleries, one
featuring an exhibition of paintings,
Skirmish, The Enthusiasts, and Sharp
Shooters, and the second showing
his film animations for the first time.
Jee Hyung Hwang, M.F.A.
Painting/Drawing ’09, was
recognized as the 2009–2010 A.I.R.
Emma Bee Bernstein Fellowship
Artist and presented her first solo
show, “I Have Something to Say,” at
the A.I.A. Fellowship Gallery in the
DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Susan Ross, M.F.A ’05, and Melissa
Staiger, M.F.A ’03, co-curated
“Source,” an exhibition made up of
seven artists’ work, including Glen
Cunningham, M.F.A. ’04, Lori
Kirkbride, M.F.A. ’03, and Ben La
Rocco, M.F.A. ’05, which featured a
panel discussion titled “Resource:
Where Abstract Art is (From).”
Michael Schall, M.F.A. ’05, was a
part of two exhibitions in spring
2010. The first was held at the
National Academy Museum as part
of the 185th Annual Invitational
Exhibition of Contemporary
American Art, and the second, a solo
show, titled “Firefall,” was held at
Platform Gallery in Seattle. A series
of Schall’s small drawings were
recently published in McSweeney’s
Issue, No. 32 and The Better of
McSweeney’s, Vol 2.
Ashley Zarella Hand, M. Arch. ’06,
was awarded a 2010 Green
Leadership Award by the Los
Angeles Board of Supervisors. Hand
launched the Downtown Los
Angeles Neighborhood Council
Sustainability Committee to develop
a community greening strategy and
resource tool kit for downtown Los
Angeles. She has been recognized as
an individual whose efforts
empower her community and
society toward ecological restoration and a sustainable future.
Andrew Lanset, M.S. Information
and Library Science/Archives ’07,
received the Archival Achievement
Award from the Archivists Round
Table of Metropolitan New York in
October 2009.
62
p r att folio
Elke Reva Sudin, B.F.A.’09,
exhibited her paintings Hipsters and
Hassids, at The Aish Center and Le
Salon D’Art, both in Manhattan. The
series celebrates two diverse
cultural groups who maintain an
uneasy coexistence in the creatively
charged neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. (see page 5)
Christopher Sweeney, B.F.A.
Writing for Performance, Publication, and Media ’09, and Robert
Snyderman, B.F.A. Writing for
Performance, Publication, and Media
’09, were two of only five candidates
accepted and enrolled in the M.F.A.
in Creative Writing program at
Brown University for fall 2010.
Obituaries
1930s
Norman A. Cortes
Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering, 1949
Sungkuk Kim
Bachelor of Architecture, 1963
Winifred Shaw Melvin
Diploma, Teacher Training in Fine
and Applied Arts, 1931
Harold M. Gottheim
Bachelor of Chemical Engineering, 1949
William A. Gross
Bachelor of Science, Building Science, 1969
Gerhard M. Schouten
Advertising Design, 1949
Melvyn Irving Kestenbaum
Master of Science, Computer Science, 1969
Virginia Rainbault Meyerson
Fashion Illustration, 1934
1950s
1970s
Paul F. X. Hearns
Diploma, Teacher Training in Fine
and Applied Arts, 1935
Catherine S. Chambers
Interior Design, 1950
Stewart L. Sutcliffe
Bachelor of Architecture, 1970
Donald J. Pfundstein
Evening School of Science and Technology,
Spring 1950
Judge Janice L. Bowman-Windham
Master of Science, Planning, 1971
Ardis W. Hughes
Pictorial Illustration, 1934
Elizabeth Ostrowe Cleveland
Evening School of Fine and Applied Arts,
Interior Design, 1938
Jean Zingg Garthwaite
School of Household Science and Arts,
Institutional Management, 1938
Samuel Botero
B.F.A. Interior Design ’68, has repeatedly earned a spot on Architectural
Digest’s list of top 100 interior designers for his work in homes around the
globe.
Now, Botero plans to unveil a line of home accessories, named Botero
World—as the working title.
Under his leadership, Samuel Botero Associates, Inc., has created
colorful, luxurious interiors for a range of homes, including ski chalets in
Telluride, estates in Palm Beach, and Fifth Avenue apartments.
Botero says his showroom will represent his long and varied design
career. “My new showroom will include things I have designed as well as
amazing accessories that I have discovered on my travels.”
Botero calls the showroom in his East 58th Street offices “a place to
come and find surprises.”
Botero’s interest in designing began more than 40 years ago when a
student from Pratt visited his high school class in Manhattan. Botero
listened with rapt attention to the lecture. “I was so impressed by his work
and dedication. The Pratt student left an application for a scholarship. I
filled it out, met the requirements, and I was accepted.”
That presentation laid the foundation for an amazing career for the
Colombian-born Botero.
“While I was a student at Pratt, the modern, Bauhaus design was
taught,” he says. “It was an amazing foundation, but as I started designing
I realized that it takes a lot of discipline to live like a modernist—to be that
simplistic. Not many people live that way, so I embrace many designs. I
use the foundation that I received at Pratt, but I take it in many different
directions.”
Color is Samuel Botero’s passion and the signature of his design. “Years
ago, my first independent project was the interior of a home in Mexico for
the fashion designer Ken Scott. I was so impressed by the color in the
Mexican culture, that I carried it through my design.”
“When I design, I look to please the clients and to bring them to a place
in the design of their homes that they would never reach on their own,”
Botero says.
“Having gone to Pratt was such an incredible foundation. We had top
faculty that inspired us. The professors would look at our work, critique
us, and not break us down. Pratt was an amazing, amazing experience in
my life. I am very proud to have gone to Pratt.”
John S. (Mazurczyk) Merten
Industrial Chemical Engineering, 1939
Ferdinand J. Schiavi
Evening School of Architecture, Fall 1939
1940s
Adriana Corradetti
Costume Design, 1940
Burnita Cooksey Hudgins
Homemaking, 1940
Estelle VanRoon Dreizin
Costume Design, 1941
Robert E. Nitschke
Industrial Mechanical Engineering, 1943
Georgiana C. White
Bachelor of Fine Arts, 1943
photos: Michael Moran (botero), others courtesy of artists
graffiti” in an attempt to dress up
dumpsters around the city. She
plans to take the project to Los
Angeles and to several cities in
Europe and is in talks with
executives at Chelsea Sanitation
Service about redesigning their
dumpsters.
Marvin Stein
Evening School of Art and Design,
Illustration, Spring 1945
Valeska Hammer Ginouves
Industrial Design, 1947
Irene M. German Welling Stoll
Illustration, 1947
Rudolph DuBois, Jr.
Bachelor of Chemical Engineering, 1951
Robert R. Anderson
Master of Fine Arts, 1972
Norman F. Lazarus
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Advertising Design, 1955
1980s
David S. Brown
Illustration, 1956
Lewko Maystrenko
Bachelor of Science, Construction
Management, 1982
Edward Burns
The Evening School, Electrical Technology,
Radio and Communications Option, 1956
1990s
John C. Schoenherr
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Illustration, 1956
Mark Zaininger
Master of Industrial Design, 1995
Ernest H. Grauel
Interior Design, 1957
Otis Chakaras Johnson
Graphic Design, 1998
1960s
Faculty
Robert C. Jennee
Bachelor of Industrial Design, 1960
Otis Chakaras Johnson
Communications Design, Alumnus
Joseph Paolillo
Bachelor of Electrical Engineering, 1960
Abraham Kovner
Pratt Center for Continuing and
Professional Studies
Charles H. Tomlinson
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Graphic Design
and Illustration, 1960
Master of Science, Art Education, 1963
Lawrence M. Flanagan
Associate in Applied Science, Graphic
Illustration, 1961
Marilyn E. Lyons
Graduate Communications Design
Mary Buckley Parriott
Professor Emerita; Pratt Institute
Distinguished Professor
Pratt Institute mourns the loss of these individuals who have touched the lives of so many, both within our community and beyond.
Although we will miss their presence, they leave a permanent mark through their contributions to their fields and to society.
Gifts to The Fund for Pratt can be made to honor the memory of a loved one. Please contact the Office of Alumni Relations and
Annual Giving at 718-399-4211 for more information.
63
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Alumni Gallery | Swoon
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PERMIT NO. 19
The Brooklyn-based artist who calls herself Swoon is Pratt grad
Caledonia Curry (B.F.A. Painting ’02) and is best known for pasting
life-size prints and paper cutouts on walls in public spaces. This
striking figure was left to decay on the outside of a Brooklyn building
in 2005. The peeling figure affirms the ephemeral nature of the
moment. An internationally recognized artist with major pieces in
The Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Museum, Swoon visited
Haiti this year to teach sustainable building styles by helping to build
earthquake-resistant community centers and housing as part of the
Konbit Shelter project.
© Courtesy of Abrams Books
PRATT INSTITUTE
200 Willoughby Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11205
Swoon, figural paper cut-out pasted on a wall in Brooklyn, 2005;
right: same piece, decayed three months later.