amit_sood_building_a_museum_of_museums_on_the_web.html

Amit Sood, a Group Marketing Manager for Google, has created and complete to museum of the century. A site where one can virtually walk through a museum in Paris, while sitting in bed in Thousand Oaks California. The most a exciting aspect of GoogleArtProject is its high resolution viewing of any desired piece; said best by  Julian Raby, director, the Freer Gallery, Washington, DC:

“The giga-pixel experience brings us very close to the essence of the artist through detail that simply can’t be seen in the gallery itself. Far from eliminating the necessity of seeing artworks in person, Art Project deepens our desire to go in search of the real thing.”

The Directions to use the site are EASY, simply select a museum from the homepage and then either choose ‘Explore the museum’ or ‘View Artwork’. Once you are in the main site use the drop-down menus or the side info bar to navigate between artworks and museums.

Cited From:

• http://www.ted.com/speakers/amit_sood.html

Works by professors Michael Pearce and Brian Stethem are included in the current exhibit “Symbols and Words” at The Galleria at the Hillcrest Center for the Arts.  Artists use symbols to communicate meaning. Come and check out the symbols and meanings behind them.

When: January 14 through March 28th, 2010.

Where: Galleria at the Hillcrest Center for the Arts

403 W Hillcrest Drive

Thousand Oaks, CA 91360

For more information, please visit The Art Council Exhibit event page.

Recently, Computer Graphics students were challenged to create a portrait of themselves as they might appear as eighty-five year olds. Demonstrating their compositing skills in Photoshop and their knowledge of the aging process, they created a series of amazing, aged portraits. Our special guest judge for this challenge was CLU’s Dr. Robert Meadows E.D., Ph.D. Professor of Criminal Justice. Our thanks to Dr, Meadows, who after years of service in law enforcement, brought a trained and experienced eye in determining which student did the most visually convincing portrait of themselves as a senior citizen.

The winning portrait was created by Sophia Naranjo. You can visit the Aged To Perfection Show in the Spies Borman Building right next to Media Services. Try to identify participating students before checking their names on the tags below their pictures. It’s fun!

The show’s in the gallery, almost ready for the opening reception tomorrow. We will have food and drinks, good company, good music and FABULOUS ART. Come and meet our seniors and imagine yourself joining them as a CLU student.

3.oo pm Saturday afternoon 26th April. Kwan Fong Gallery.

Works upstairs by Krista.

Bret Bays loads in his sculpture.

Works line the stairway. 

By Laurence Pons

Another article sings the praises of Brian Stethem’ s photography exhibition. And it is the cover story of the Time Out supplement of the Ventura County Star! Dated Thursday, March 20, 2008 and written by Karen Lindell the article is enitled: “A melancholy mood permeates Fillmore photographer’s new exhibit”

The article highlights the quality of the work presented in this exhibition and the importance of documenting places of personal, historical or mythical significance. California’s history is in the making under our very eyes with these pictures. Acting as a witness, Brian’s camera records places in Ventura County, just before these landmarks are being erased.

Brian also recounts the extraordinary stories surrounding his photographs, like the circumstances of his shot of Area 51. ” “It took us a long time to find it,” Stethem said of the unmarked but well-maintained dirt highway. After a 13-mile drive down the road, Stethem said, he encountered a gate with a menacing “turn around, don’t pass this point” sign. Lights flashed, and he heeded the sign’s warning when military guards started to move toward him. By that time, it was dark and he couldn’t photograph the sign, but did manage to snap a photo by using his car’s headlights to illuminate the highway.”

To read the full article click here: http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/mar/20/uncommon-vision/

The previous article was entitled: Strong lines, shapes dominate Fillmore man’s photographs http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/feb/15/strong-lines-shapes-dominate-fillmore-mans/

If you haven’t seen the exhibition yet you have a few more days :

Uncommon Places by Brian Stethem at the Kwan Fong Gallery
Thursday, Feb. 21, through Thursday, March 27
Admission is free. The Kwan Fong Gallery, located in Soiland Humanities Center, is open to the public 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

Here’s a long Ventura County Star article on Brian’s Uncommon Places exhibit.

Congratulations Brian! 

CLU student Karli Watland has been quietly breaking ground as a successful artist. She told me that she has now sold two of her recent series of paintings. 

Karli and her colleague Bret Bays have begun the run of solo shows by our senior students by installing their excellent exhibit into Overton Hall, so come and see why her work is selling. The two artists have worked hard to make their exhibit a great success and I’m very impressed. Their show includes paintings, photography, prints and drawings. Closes 24th March.

Overton Hall is opposite the Humanities building near the flagpoles on Memorial Drive. 

Michael 

By Laurence Pons

On Friday evening the gallery was heaving with people who had come to see Brian Stethem‘s work. That was the biggest opening the gallery has ever had and it was all due to the strength of Brian’s show, “Uncommon Places”. Not only was there a full page in the Ventura County Star, but also in the Fillmore Gazette, which this exhibition deserves.

 
Photographer Brian Stethem answering questions from the audience. 

Curator Michael Pearce introduced Brian’s work and invited the audience to ask questions to Brian Stethem. He was very happy to share his “secrets”, the technical side of photography, his travels, the genesis of his pictures, and his quest for these “uncommon places”. Read more »

By Laurence Pons

More than 30 incredible photos by Brian Stethem will take you to “Uncommon Places” in our next show at the Kwan Fong Gallery. Brian and Michael Pearce were hanging the photos today and already creating a stir.

 The local press has published an article about Brian’s work and this exhibition: “Strong lines, shapes dominate Fillmore man’s photographs” by Nicole D’Amore, click here to read the article:

 http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/feb/15/strong-lines-shapes-dominate-fillmore-mans/

 Photographer Brian Stethem preparing the opening of his exhibition.

Read more »

February 21 – March 27, 2008 

Kwan Fong Gallery of Art and Culture

Uncommon Places                     

The opening reception for “Uncommon Places: Photography by Brian Stethem” will be at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22, in CLU’s Kwan Fong Gallery of Art and Culture.

Brian Stethem has lived and worked in Southern California for more than two decades. 

The camera provides him with a tool with which to explore the world, at home and abroad.

This exhibition presents one area of thematic concentration of Brian’s oeuvre: landscapes.

Brian happened upon these landscapes during his travels in the United States, Mexico, China, Ireland, Scotland, Greece, and Germany. Thirty photographs survey a variety of sites: from spacious, rural areas to edgy urban locales; from popular tourist destinations to Hollywood suburbia; and from hallowed cultural landmarks to historical monuments haunted by violent tragedy.

Certain photographs study the aesthetics of decay and renewal: in California, an abandoned, skeletal farmhouse stands in dust and dry brush as nature slowly reclaims its territory. Other images suggest different kinds of renewal: in a seemingly random view of a city street in south Los Angeles, new construction takes place– the site where the 1991 police beating of Rodney King occurred, sparking the L.A. riots. Is this manmade gesture of renewal an attempt to heal civic wounds or to conceal painful memories?

These images show us how memories and myths shape our perceptions of place. A misty vista of a Scottish land – and waterscape is a case in point. Once we realize that this is Loch Ness — home to the fabled monster – the curvilinear forms of the topography offer new interpretive possibilities.

Brian notes incongruities or ironic juxtapositions: the ancient Parthenon at the Acropolis, Athens, built of pristine marble and once used for sacred worship, now adored by busloads of tourists; the posse of fancy automobiles parked in front of the notorious Playboy Mansion – an eerie, ‘David Lynch-like’ quiet pervades. Meanwhile, somewhere inside, yet another wild party is taking place.

Places have biographies, these photographs insist, and each landscape has a story to tell. While landscapes are the ostensible subject of this exhibition, these images simultaneously tell us about ourselves – of our evolving relationship with ‘place’ and the inherent ‘politics’ of viewing. Brian’s landscapes suggest how we might revisit the places and locales in our own lives with fresh eyes.

Christine Sellin PhD 

Ventura County Star article on Brian here.