Pratt Fashion Design Program Ranked Third Nationwide by Top Blog

A classroom in the Department of Fashion Design's new space in the Juliana Curran Terian Design Center

Fashionista, a fashion news site read by over one million readers per month, recently ranked Pratt's fashion design program third in the country following Parsons (The New School for Design), and the Fashion Institute of Technology.

According to Fashionista, Pratt's third-place ranking comes in part because its program in fashion design has "shed its image as an up-and-coming fashion design program and become a force to be reckoned with."
 

Fashionista goes on to mention that Pratt's student shows are getting more attention and "attracting such luminaries as Vogue personalities and well-known designers."

The publication highlighted that students in Pratt's Fashion Design department are able to take classes in other art and design disciplines, as the department is part of a larger design school, and noted that Pratt's is one of the few design programs to offer electives in fashion editorial and magazine publishing.
 

Fashionista also ranked Pratt on its list of the top fashion schools in the world in a December 2010 report.    

Text: Amy Aronoff
Photo: Bob Handelman

Pratt Names Anne Van Ingen to Board of Trustees

Anne Van Ingen, the great-great-granddaughter of the Institute's founder, Charles Pratt, has become the third member of Pratt’s founding family to serve on the Institute’s Board of Trustees.

A resident of New York City, Van Ingen is a historic preservationist with more than 30 years' experience in advocacy, grant-making, and nonprofit management—a subject that she currently teaches as an adjunct assistant professor of historic preservation at Columbia University.

In the private sector, Van Ingen is a founding partner of 5516 Dauphine LLC, an affordable housing company working in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, and a director of Charles Pratt and Co. LLC, a financial services company in New York City.

From 1983 to 2010, Van Ingen was director of the Architecture, Planning and Design Program and Capital Projects at the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). In addition, from 1982 to 2010, she was a director and vice president of the Good Hope Corporation, a 15,000-acre timber plantation and hunting preserve in South Carolina. She has also spoken and written widely on historic preservation, fundraising, and philanthropy.

Van Ingen has received numerous awards in recognition of her distinguished service to New York State and the nation. She holds a bachelor of arts in art history from Middlebury College and a master of science in historic preservation from Columbia University. 

Text: Charlotte Savidge
Photo: Wes Haynes  

Pratt Launches New Etsy Team to Connect Alumni with one Another—and with Shoppers

Team Holds Curated Sale at Pratt Pop-up! Just in Time for Holiday Shopping

L-R: Amos Trout Paine (B.F.A. Art and Design Education ’94), Arise Massive Wind Turbines, watercolor, 10.5 x 11.5 inches; Ursula Jaroszewicz, holiday card, letterpress, and cardstock, 5.5 x 4.5 inches Pratt has joined with Etsy, the online marketplace for independent and handmade design, to create a Pratt Institute Etsy team. Launched by the Institute’s Office of Alumni Relations, the Pratt Etsy team gives Pratt artists and designers the chance to connect with one another online, while showcasing and selling their work on this highly popular website. Alumni, students, faculty, and staff are invited to join, upon verification of their Pratt affiliation.

On the Etsy website, shoppers can find almost anything made by artists and designers—from housewares to jewelry. For shoppers, having a Pratt Etsy team provides a sort of “seal of approval,” says Senior Alumni Outreach Officer Emily Hashimoto, who launched the team. “Not only is the Pratt Etsy team great for the designers, but it is a great way for shoppers to know that they are buying items made by the best-educated and trained artists and designers.”

One member of the Pratt Etsy team is Ursula Jaroszewicz (Communications Design, 1998–2000), who makes letterpress cards. “I really appreciate being able to network and make connections,” she says. “I’m hoping eventually to collaborate with someone from the team—there are so many talented people from Pratt.”

In addition, just in time for the holidays, select members of the Pratt Etsy team will sell their work in a curated market at the Pratt Pop-up! in Brooklyn's Dekalb Market, a hip new arts market housed in salvaged shipping containers. Also selling their work at the Pratt Pop-up! will be companies started through the Pratt Design Incubator for Sustainable Innovation.  

The Pratt Etsy team members and other Pratt artists will sell their work at the Pratt Pop-up! from December 14–24, with special holiday shopping hours on Saturday, December 17 from 2–5 PM. General hours for the Pratt Pop-up! are Wednesday–Friday, 11 AM–5 PM, and Saturday and Sunday, 11 AM–7 PM.

Dekalb Market is a joint venture of developers Urban Space and Youngwoo & Associates, whose principal partner is Pratt Trustee Young Woo (B. Arch. ’80). For the Dekalb Market location, click here.

To join Pratt’s Etsy team, click here.

To shop stores owned by members of the Pratt Etsy team, click here. 

Text: Abigail Beshkin
Photos: Courtesy of the artists 

America Reads/Counts Program Hosts College Readiness Day at Pratt

Nearly 1,000 children who attend elementary school in the vicinity of Pratt attended a College Readiness Day at Memorial Hall hosted by Pratt Institute's America Reads/Counts program in collaboration with the New York City Department of Education.

The program was organized by Pratt's America Reads/Counts program director, Peggy West-Barton-Feagin. The purpose of the program was to encourage students to look forward to attending college. As part of the event, Pratt students explained why they decided to pursue higher education and why Pratt was their college of choice. Aamir Smith, an advertising art direction major, concluded the event with a Michael Jackson impersonation in which he performed a dance from the America Reads/Counts play The Wizard of Oz Meets the Wiz. The youngsters received college prep manuals with scholarship information to take home to their parents to show them options for getting financial assistance and making the college experience a reality.

Text: Adrienne Gyongy
Photo: Kevin Truong 

Class Notes

Class Notes provides a way to update fellow alumni on what you have been up to lately. Whether you have found a new job or revived an old passion, received a promotion or recently retired, changed galleries or published a book, let the Pratt community share in your excitement. We welcome your latest Class Notes news at classnotes@pratt.edu. Be sure to include your name, degree, year of graduation, major, and any relevant images with caption and credit information. Please note that your submission may be edited for length and clarity.

1950s

Eva Hesse (’52–’53) is the subject of a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, titled “Eva Hesse Spectres 1960,” which runs through January 8, 2012. On view for the first time are 19 self-portraits in oil, created when Hesse was just 24 years old, which reveal the young painter establishing her creative identity while also exploring alternate states of consciousness.

1960s

Robert Siegel (B. Arch. ’62) is featured in “Gwathmey Siegel: Inspiration and Transformation,” the first museum show exhibiting work from the New York-based architecture practice co-founded by Siegel. The show will run through January 27, 2012, at the Yale School of Architecture Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. Original architectural drawings, blueprints, models, and slideshows display the range of this influential American modernist firm along with personal artifacts and documents of both principals. Siegel is vice chair of the Pratt Board of Trustees.

Pat Steir (B.F.A. ’62) presented an exhibition of new paintings titled “Water and Sand” at Locks Gallery in Philadelphia from October 14 through November 26. The show was accompanied by an illustrated catalog with an essay by scholar Anna C. Chave, who described Steir’s work as suggesting, “vaporous reaches...of rainwater streaming down and beading up on walls or windowpanes.” Another exhibition of works by Steir, titled “A Nearly Endless Line #3,” is on view at Galerie Thomas Schulte in Berlin, Germany, through January 14, 2012.

Martha Grenon, Charles Carter, Long-haul Trucker, 2011 © Martha Grenon, from “Facing East” Martha Grenon (B.I.D. '68), has won (for the second year in a row) Best of Show in the “Facing East: 48 Hours in the Life of East Austin” exhibition at New East Gallery, which was on display from September 24 through October 28, 2011. Earlier in the year, her photos from 13 years of photographing the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference (SXSW) were featured in an exhibition at the Austin History Center, celebrating the 25th anniversary of SXSW.   

Lorna Ritz (B.F.A. ’69) exhibited work as part of group shows at The Painting Center in New York City and at the William Penn Foundation in Philadelphia in 2011. This year, Ritz also received painting awards from The Artists’ Fellowship, Inc. in New York City, and The Haven Foundation in Brewster, Maine. 

1970s

Jennifer Bryan (B.F.A. Merchandising and Fashion Management ’72), who has been working in television and film for 20 years, is currently head costume designer for The Vampire Dairies television series, now in its second season (on the CW at 8 PM EST). Bryan is also planning a line of accessories that she hopes to launch next year.

Susan McCaslin (B.F.A. ’72) had a solo show, titled "Shelters, Caves and More," at the Pound Ridge Library in Pound Ridge, New York, in summer 2011. McCaslin displayed work inspired by the Leather Man, an itinerant who lived in the late 1800s and spent the last six years of his life following the same route from the Hudson River to the Connecticut River and back again, over and over again every 34 days.

Tucker Viemeister (B.I.D. ’74), lab chief at the Rockwell Group, was the honoree in the industrial/product design category at the 2011 Stars of Design dinner and awards ceremony at the Decoration and Design (D&D) Building in Manhattan on October 12. The D&D Building's CEO and president Charles S. Cohen presented the coveted award to winners in eight categories.

Max Gottfried (B.F.A. Graphic Design ’75) exhibited work in “Objects May Appear Closer” at the Freeport Memorial Library in Freeport, New York, in September 2011.

Ted Muehling (B.I.D. ’75) displayed work in “Flora and Fauna, MAD About Nature,” an exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in New York City that ran from May 24 through November 6, 2011. The exhibition focused on how artists celebrate nature in a variety of media including ceramic, glass, fiber, metal, and wood. In September, Muehling’s eponymous store and studio, featuring jewelry and decorative objects he designs, relocated to 52 White Street (between Broadway and Church Street) in New York’s Tribeca district.

Robert Wilkoff’s (B. Arch. ’75) design for a private residence, with interior design by Barbara Hawthorn, Photo: Kenneth M. Wyner Robert Wilkoff, NCARB (B. Arch. ’75), president of Archaeon, Inc., gave a presentation of his design work at the AIA National Headquarters building in Washington, D.C., on October 16. He was among the handful of D.C. metro-area architects who were invited to present their work as part of the "Structure of Spirit, Design of the Heart" exhibition of Ken Wyner’s architectural photography, which was on display through October 28. 

Peter Fiore (Illustration ’76), a landscape painter renowned for his striking use of color, just held a solo exhibition, titled “The Visionary Landscape,” at Travis Gallery in New Hope, Pennsylvania, through November 26. Several of Fiore’s popular winterscapes were on view. 

Mary Campbell (B.F.A. Art Direction ’78) was among the artists invited to Kaunas, Lithuania, to create Fluxus actions and performances for a week in October 2011 as part of the 8th Kaunas Biennial Textile ’11: REWIND-PLAY-FORWARD. Campbell also participated in “George Maciunas and Beyond: Fluxus Never Stops,” an exhibition in homage to the founder of Fluxus, who was born in Kaunas.  

Joe Terrone (M.F.A. ’78) exhibited landscape paintings in oil at the Ridgewood Public Library in Ridgewood, New Jersey, through the month of November 2011. He has been a full-time professional artist for the last two years after a long career as an art teacher. Terrone is a member of the Plein Air Painters of New Jersey, The Society of Plein Air Painters, the Blackwell Street Artists, and the Lower Hudson Valley Plein Air Painters.

John W. Baumgarten (B. Arch. ’79) was honored by the Long Island chapter of the American Institute of Architects for his eponymous firm’s renovation of the Glengariff Healthcare Center’s Pratt Pavilion for Rehabilitation and Healing in Glen Cove, New York. Baumgarten received a 2011 Archi commendation for the project, which transformed the former mansion of Frederic Pratt, founder of the Pratt Institute School of Architecture, into a rehab center.

Elissa Tatigikis Iberti (M.F.A. ’79), a painter, costume designer, and associate professor of visual arts at Dowling College in Long Island, is curating an exhibition, titled “Without a Safety Net,” to be held at the Astor Center at 399 Lafayette Street in New York City on January 27, 2012, from 8 PM–12 AM. The silent-auction exhibition is part of a fundraising event for the Weill Cornell Community Clinic, a student-run clinic that provides medical services for the underinsured population of New York City.

1980s

Wendy Klemperer (B.F.A. Painting ’83) has had a group of eight sculptures purchased by a private collector, who donated them to the City of Portland, Maine. The sculptures are made of salvaged industrial materials to re-imagine species of animals that once lived in the Maine region. In November, the sculptures were permanently installed at Portland International Jetport, where Klemperer’s wildlife “sketches in steel” of a herd of six deer, a porcupine, and a wolf now welcome arrivals to Maine.

1990s

Shanee Epstein (M.F.A. ’92) is showing new works in an exhibition, titled “From New York to Zichron,” at the Mandell JCC in West Hartford, Connecticut, through January 4.  The new works—a combination of paint and collage—were inspired by the landscape of Zikhron Ya’akov, a town in the mountains of Northern Israel, where Epstein spent the past year.

2000s

Mickalene Thomas, Portrait of Mickalena, 2010, mixed media collage, 4.5 x 3.5 inches, Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin art gallery Mickalene Thomas (B.F.A. ’00) had her second solo exhibition at Lehmann Maupin art gallery in New York City, titled “More Than Everything,” a selection of her works on paper including new large-scale Polaroid photographs, drawings, and an array of collages, exploring notions of black female beauty and identity, landscapes, and interiors. The show was on display from September 15 through October 29, 2011. 

Jose Antonio Alcayaga III (B.F.A. Computer Graphics/Interactive Media ’01), a U.S. photographer of Basque heritage, has won an award in the 2011 Prix de la Photographie Paris (Px3) competition, a photo competition which received over 4,000 entries from around the world. Alcayaga won gold in the Non-Professional Press Sports category for his entry, titled Txinga Eramatea, a photograph of the rural sport of weight carrying he shot during a visit to the Basque Country in the Southwest of France.

Samantha Pleet (Fashion Design ’05) was featured in the real estate section of amNewYork (November 10, 2011) in an article about her Greenpoint, Brooklyn apartment, titled “A Whimsical Retreat for a Fashion Maven.” Pleet’s eponymous fashion line is now sold in city stores such as Steven Alan and Saks Fifth Avenue. She recently participated in the alumni fashion show at Pratt Manhattan Gallery.

Brad Ascalon (M.I.D. ’06) and Todd Bracher (B.I.D. ’96) were among nine celebrated New York-based designers who showed work in the tribute exhibition held in memory of Tobias Wong, titled “BrokenOff BrokenOff,” at Gallery R’Pure during New York Design Week 2011.

Sean Slemon (M.F.A. '07) will show a series of life-size sculptures alongside drawings, photographs, and wall-mounted constructions in a solo exhibition, titled "The Sun Stands Still," at MagnanMetz Gallery in New York City through January 7, 2012. 

Amy Mees/X-ing Design, “Mixed Messages” catalog cover and logo, Photo: Courtesy of John Chaich John Chaich (M.F.A. Comm-D ’11) curated the exhibition “Mixed Messages: A(I)DS, Art + Words” shown in June 2011 at New York City’s La MaMa La Galleria for the organization Visual AIDS. “Mixed Messages” presented over 40 text-based works reflecting reactions to and connections through HIV/AIDS. Chaich featured the work of acclaimed contemporary artists, including Pratt alumni Felix Gonzalez-Torres (B.F.A. Photography ’83) and Rob Wynne (B.F.A. ’70) as well as Fine Arts Visiting Assistant Professor Cammi Climaco. Related public programming featured Kevin O'Malley (M.S. Comm-D ’10) discussing his work in social marketing/HIV prevention. Favorably reviewed in Artforum and The New York Times, the show has been invited to travel to Washington D.C. in July 2012 to coincide with the International AIDS Conference. 

Alexandra Meyn (M.S. Interior Design ’11) was featured in the “House Proud” section of The New York Times (November 10, 2011) in an article titled “A Treehouse Grows in Brooklyn.” Meyn designed, constructed, and decorated a 17-foot-tall treehouse with the aesthetic of her hometown of New Orleans and secured it to a mulberry tree behind her apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Meyn has made the 40-square-foot space waterproof and airtight, and plans to use it as a painting studio this winter.

Sabrina Terry (M.S. City and Regional Planning ’11) was among the recipients of the Robert C. Weinberg Award, which is given to outstanding students at the four New York City schools with graduate planning programs—Pratt Institute, Columbia University, Hunter College, and New York University. The award was conferred by the American Planning Association’s New York Metro Chapter at their 2011 awards presentation held at Columbia University.

Text: Compiled by Adrienne Gyongy
Images: Courtesy of the artists, unless otherwise noted