Alumni
artist's hard work leads to success ... and more hard work
Times Square in New York. The infamous business center, tourist destination and nighttime hotspot, anchored by a billboard-covered tower recognized internationally as the symbol of the area. Thousands of people pass the tower daily, their eyes drawn not only to the huge advertisements, but also to the equally large video screen that adorns the structure’s north face.
Last spring that screen featured an animated video by artist Brian Alfred (’97 B.F.A Art). His work was one of three videos that comprised The 59th Minute, a project developed by Creative Time, an organization that presents innovative public art by emerging artists throughout New York City. The videos were shown on a revolving schedule in the last minute of each hour. Alfred’s video, “Help Me,” references both the chaos and the regimentation of our digitally networked era. In it, the words “HELP ME” crawl slowly across an animated tickertape, in stark contrast to the rapid scrolling of the real tickertape—with ever-changing news headlines—that runs below the video screen.
“Having my work in Times Square was amazing,” says Alfred, whose early efforts in painting and collage evolved into digital drawing and animated video. “Where else would you go if you wanted to screen one of your videos?”
While Times Square was an ideal spot for Alfred to show his animation, he has also been exhibiting his paintings and collages in galleries around the world. Recent exhibitions include a group show at the Studio La Città in Verona, Italy, and a solo show at the Haunch of Venison in Zürich, Switzerland. He also participated in a video group exhibition at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Neb., last summer. Represented by the Mary Boone Gallery in New York, he has had solo exhibitions there and at venues in London and Los Angeles. In 2004, he had his first museum exhibition at the Phoenix Museum of Art.
Despite his professional success at a young age, Alfred, who earned his M.F.A. at Yale in 1999, never planned to be an artist. The Pittsburgh native spent a semester at the University of Pittsburgh as a pre-med major before transferring to Penn State, where he became interested in art as a career. “While I was growing up, we always had art around, and I also visited lots of museums. And then when I came to Penn State, I became enthralled by art when I began to spend time in the studios. A light bulb just went off for me.”
Penn State’s painting faculty nurtured Brian’s interest and budding talent. He says he’s thankful to Paul Chidester, Robert Yarber and Micaela Amato, and especially Helen O’Leary, because she fostered the energy of her students and provided access to many resources. -
Alfred pursued his master’s degree at Yale because “it had the seriousness I wanted, and great resources.” After Yale he was off to the prestigious Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, for what he calls an “amazing experience.” Thousands apply but only 30–40 visual artists are accepted each year to participate in the program, one of the foremost artists’ residency communities in the country.
Thanks to connections Alfred made at Skowhegan, he was invited to be part of his first group show, and a solo show soon followed. After Skowhegan, Alfred moved to Brooklyn and got a job doing window displays at Macy’s. He worked at the department store during the day and painted in his home studio at night. He sold his first piece of work in 2000, and in 2001 he was able to quit the Macy’s job and focus on his art full-time. Although he no longer has to “punch the clock,” he says he feels like he has to work harder now. “So few artists can live off their artwork, so I really appreciate it.”
Brian says he’s trying to fight the misconception of the crazy artist who paints only when the inspiration strikes. “I work every day, even on the weekends, and am thinking about my work all the time,” he explains. He has always worked out of a home studio, making it easier for him to set up a space conducive to his creativity. He says he likes having media—television, newspapers, the Internet—around him all the time, because the news and news images influence his work.
Recently he has been doing more animated videos, which have been shown in film festivals internationally. “I think of animation as a moving painting,” Alfred notes. He has also created and designed his own artist’s catalogues in collaboration with electronic musicians who wrote songs related to his work. “I felt like we had a similar working method, using technology to create our songs or our artwork,” he explains.
Alfred’s artwork is in such collections as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Denver Museum of Art. He received a Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant in 2003 and the New York Foundation for the Arts Inspiration Award in 2005, among other honors.
As far as future plans, Brian is going to continue doing what he’s been doing. He says he is excited to be exhibiting internationally. “I love the idea of showing my work around the world,” he notes. His busy exhibition schedule means he’s creating new art all the time, but he realizes the long hours in his studio are part of the package. Alfred’s advice for aspiring artists is simple: “Work really hard and be in the right place at the right time.” –AMM
graphic design alumna thrives on new ideas
As design director, Carla Frank (’82 B.A. Graphic Design) played an integral role in the most successful magazine venture in history—the launch of O, The Oprah Magazine, in 2000. For many people, working for an incredibly successful television personality and businesswoman like Oprah Winfrey would be challenging enough, but Frank sets her own bar even higher. “I don’t like to be predictable,” she says.
Frank has been with O since 1999 and now oversees a staff of 18, including seven on the design staff and nine in the production and photography departments. The magazine has a circulation of over 2.6 million, and she is responsible for how the publication looks from top to bottom. “It all boils down to having the proper voice for your audience,” she explains. “O’s readership is quite educated, with a high income, so there should be no talking down to them. Visually, we aim for ‘happy sophistication,’ or ‘mass with class.’”
Frank has spent much of her career in the magazine industry. After graduating from Penn State, the Pittsburgh native moved to Washington, D.C., where she designed for magazines such as The Saturday Review, The Washingtonian and Washington Dossier. She then headed up her own design firm in Baltimore before relocating to New York in 1994. She says running her own business, which handled everything from magazines to corporate identity and packaging, made her “extraordinarily fast and good at multitasking.”
When she arrived in New York, she freelanced for a year before landing a permanent position at Saveur Magazine. Frank says freelancing helped her to meet people and “get my feet on the ground.” In New York, she has worked on publications such as Time, The New York Times Magazine, Entertainment Weekly and Garden Design. Before joining the O staff, she was art director of Condé Nast Traveler.
At O, she says, the workload is heavy and the adrenaline level is high. “We’re all perfectionists. But fortunately the staff and Oprah share a nice trust level,” she notes, adding that Winfrey reviews every issue before it goes to press.
Frank also has a trusting relationship with the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Amy Gross, who has given her the opportunity to write and photograph for O. Familiarizing yourself with a magazine’s content, regardless of whether you’re writing it, is essential to good design, Frank says. “Penn State trained me to be content driven,” she notes. “My Penn State education also prepared me for the hard work and all-nighters often required in this business, and fostered the desire to do well.”
O is no exception when it comes to long hours. The staff is always working on several issues at a time. An issue “closes” (goes to print) about six weeks before it comes out on the newsstand. Frank works on designs about three months ahead, meaning she has to think of Christmas before it’s even Halloween.
And she’s always thinking of unique ways to design that Christmas spread. “The fun part is coming up with new ideas. I love that adrenaline rush when you come up with something different,” she says, noting she learned how to think “outside the box” during her time at Penn State. “I am grateful that Lanny [Sommese] always pushed me past my limits and urged me to think of things in different ways.”
Thinking differently has been one of the keys to Frank’s success. Recognized as a leader in her field, she has served on the board of directors of the Society of Publication Designers since 2003 and has been honored with numerous awards. In addition, she has taught or guest taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York, the International Center of Photography, the Fashion Institute of Technology and Pratt Institute.
Frank has excelled in an industry known for its hectic pace and competitive nature. But it’s also an industry where you can make yourself heard—something graphic designers strive to do. “I don’t think you can work at a magazine and not love the subject matter or respect it. After all, our job is to deliver the subject matter with smarts and style … Magazines are one of the last places where you can still design with a personal voice, which is particularly rewarding when you care deeply about the subject matter.” –AMM
