Pacific Union College | Department of Visual Arts Newsletter: Spring 2011

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MAY 13, 2011

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Upcoming Events

May 19		Departmental Colloquy
June 12		Commencement

Thesis Exhibition

Visual Arts Majors Thesis Exhibitions
May 14-June 11
Rasmussen Art Gallery, Pacific Union College

Student Film Festival

The 6th Annual Filmmakers of the Future Student Film Festival will be happening May 26th at the Cameo Cinema, 1340 Main Street, Saint Helena CA at 6:00 p.m.

Get Fashionable This Spring!

The Visual Arts Department will be visiting San Francisco's Legion of Honor Museum for Spring Museum Day.

Students Participate in Innovative Art Education

College students have long felt the burden of textbooks—their weight, price tag, and time consumption.

By Katelynn Christensen and Larry Peña
College students have long felt the burden of textbooks—their weight, price tag, and time consumption. Since last spring, Pacific Union College art history professor Alexander Carpenter has simplified the lives of his students by integrating Smarthistory.org, a non-profit, multimedia art history "web-book," into his lesson plans. This web resource combines the text and images of traditional textbooks with new features, like discussion video clips, to dynamically and engagingly supplement—or even replace—art survey course textbooks.

Now PUC students have gotten involved with the project directly, making their own impact on this increasingly popular web resource.

Smarthistory.org and the classroom meet as Carpenter requires students to watch the site's discussion video clips and respond to a number of questions in preparation for upcoming lectures. "I've noticed that students seem to come to class better prepared," he says. "[And] I think the questions are more engaging than what I had [students answering] before."

Carpenter enjoys the flexibility offered by the website because he does not believe students retain information from long reading assignments as well as they could from multimedia sources. "As a student, I really didn't like when teachers would assign a lot of [reading] because I felt like I didn't know where to begin. I didn't know where to end. I didn't know what was going to be emphasized," explains Carpenter. "So, I have dedicated myself to trying not to do that … I prefer very focused, small assignments. That's what I like about this."

Carpenter reports that students consistently respond positively to the web-book. "They are excited not to spend 80 bucks," he shares. "I still give them some things to read, but [on the website] they get to listen to two fun, chatty people who are well educated, talking about art and art history." Carpenter finds that a primary benefit of this process is that students are able to hear individuals other than their professor use the terms, names, grammar, and language of art as they critique and appreciate it.

The students have responded so well, in fact, that the people behind Smarthistory.org have taken notice. Last quarter a representative of the website contacted Carpenter to inform him that PUC is the website's biggest user, and asked if PUC students would help the website pilot a new project. PUC is now the first college to have students record and upload videos of their own to Smarthistory.org's YouTube page. On this supplementary site, students in Carpenter's History of American Art classes discuss works by American artists and designers like Georgia O'Keefe, Frank Gehry, George Inness, and Andy Warhol.

"After using the website for classes and watching their videos, it was cool to be one of those people, discussing a work of art that I had chosen and was excited about," says design/fine arts major Amador Jaojoco, who recorded a video discussing a piece by Southern California artist Greg Miller. "It was really fun to act as a mentor and apply what I had learned about art."

Watch the videos by PUC students at www.youtube.com/smarthistorystudents.

Grant Ordelheide: The Man Behind the Lens

He treks the globe, traveling solo with a 66-pound backpack and scaling mountains to connect with God from behind the camera lens.

By Katelynn Christensen
He treks the globe, traveling solo with a 66-pound backpack and scaling mountains to connect with God from behind the camera lens. Chances are you have already ogled over his work, which illuminates the PUC 2010-2011 calendar. If you do not know him already, it is time you met the man behind the lens: PUC junior photography major Grant Ordelheide, landscape photographer extraordinaire.

Quoting John Muir, Grant shares, "I would rather be in the mountains thinking about God than in church thinking about the mountains."

The story of Grant's photography began in Colorado, just over two decades ago. At the impressionable age of seven weeks, Grant's parents took him on his first backpacking trip. Summer hikes, winter skiing and snowshoeing adventures kept Grant busy throughout his childhood. "[When I was] a kid, we'd go all the time and eventually, I was like: Well, I might as well bring a camera and record what we're doing," Grant explains. "It turned from that to making better and better pictures."

Grant became serious about photography in high school. Although he did not study the art formally until college, Grant began to refine his craft on his own—spending hours looking at others' photos and persevering through trial-and-error shoots. "I [spent] a lot of time in the mountains … and I just kept taking pictures on my own," Grant says. There were many times when he did not feel satisfied with the composition of his photos. "I'd come back and figure out what I did wrong. [It was] a lot of guessing and testing."

Grant's abilities and interests extend beyond landscape photography. He enjoyed portraiture classes this fall and draws additional inspiration from architecture. "You can appreciate a good photo no matter what [the subject] is," Grant says. Although mountains are his passion, he says, "It's all pretty fun."

As much as Grant enjoys the art and process of planning a shot from beginning to end, he sees photography as a byproduct of his passion for nature and spiritual connection. "Spirituality is at the core of my photography … I feel closest to God when I am out in the wild photographing His creations," Grant enthuses. "I hope to convey these moments of spirituality in my images and hopefully make the viewer stop and think about it too."

Although he does not claim to have photography mastered "by any stretch of the word," Grant has this piece of advice for any person interested in pursuing photography: "Just get out there. You don't get any shots sitting at your computer …There are awesome places all around us, and there's good light happening all the time. You've just gotta be persistent and put the time in. None of these shots come easy."

Grand Ordelheide Landscapes Gallery

Tim Wins at Indie Fest

"Adopting Haiti" Wins Best Documentary at San Diego IndieFest 2011.

The World Through Diana's Eyes

The design and photography major's artistic talent recently landed her a job as an assistant at Alan's Studio—a St. Helena-based firm run by photographer Gene Ivester.

By Eirene-Gin Nakamura
On an oddly brilliant winter day, each table in the Pacific Union College campus center mall is packed with students trying to enjoy a warmth they haven't felt since early fall. Among these students is senior Diana Klonek, who sits back in her chair outside The Grind with an iced soy chai hiding behind a pair of oversized sunglasses. Clad, as usual, in an outfit effortlessly blending vintage pieces with a bohemian feel, Klonek is quite clearly an artist.

The design and photography major's artistic talent recently landed her a job as an assistant at Alan's Studio—a St. Helena-based firm run by photographer Gene Ivester, to whom Klonek was recommended by one of her professors in the visual arts department. Though still learning much about the studio's functions, Klonek really enjoys her time there, where she "isn't even allowed to think about anything other than photography."

Klonek has taken every opportunity to exhibit her creativity during her years at PUC. In addition to being yearbook editor, art director for the student-run publication the Campus Chronicle, and assistant Funnybook editor, Klonek worked in the design lab for the visual arts department as a lab tech for three years, and in the photography lab for four.

The experience that contributed most significantly to her career, however, came during her two blissful years working as a student designer and photographer at the PUC public relations office. Her boss, Haley Wesley, says she hired Klonek because of her work ethic, talent, and friendliness, which was a good fit for the notoriously fun-loving group at PR. "Diana is very good at getting the right feeling out of a certain event," says Wesley. "She has this great combination of both photography and design skills that not a lot of people have, and I see all kinds of doors opening to her."

This passion for art came to Klonek in her early years. As a child, Klonek's family didn't own a television, so instead of sitting in front of a screen, she was "forced to get creative." Klonek nostalgically smiles as she recalls that a friend of her mother first introduced her to the art of creating still pictures when she began to take them along on her photography outings. "We had these really cheap instamatic cameras, little Kodaks, that were just really bad," Klonek laughs. "I would shoot everything with it and get them all developed and I was so proud of myself."

Photography, for Klonek, has from the beginning been a way to put the chaos of the world in order. "It gave me a way to see the world the way I wanted to see it. I think that's what photography does; it's not about the real world, not about showing things how they are. For me, shooting is a way for me to show the world with my own eyes."

Last year, Klonek incorporated this philosophy into her photography thesis, in which she captured images of immigrants making their adopted country their own. The project included a portrait of her Polish grandfather—a musician who entered Germany in the 1940s when borders were tight. "It's my favorite because it's more personal," she says. "I have an attachment to it."

This project led into her Honors Program thesis project, a film about personal narratives and what shapes us. Upon this project's completion, Klonek will graduate from PUC cum laude with bachelors degrees in both design and photography.

With only one quarter left until she enters into the real world, Klonek has no doubt that she will continue pursuing her art as a career, specifically in the field of fashion photography. "You get to create beautiful images and model things with your eye and your creativity," she says as she sips her chai. "The artistry, getting to play with environment…it's just perfect for what I like to do."

With clothes impeccably mismatched and skill to blow others out of the water, no one would ever doubt that she has found her calling.

Award-Winning Alumni Filmmaker Visits PUC

Film students at Pacific Union College felt a certain sense of pride as PUC alum Paul Kim, '04, showcased his knowledge and experience in documentary filmmaking.

By Eirene-Gin Nakamura
Film students at Pacific Union College felt a certain sense of pride as PUC alum Paul Kim, '04, showcased his knowledge and experience in documentary filmmaking in a special presentation hosted by the visual arts department on Friday, March 11. The award-winning senior producer on the Adventist Media Productions team gave a captivating discussion-based lecture on the marriage of entertainment and social values involved in the making of documentaries.

"It was incredible to see how much he knows about his craft," said senior film and photography major Adriel Morelli. "He…instilled a sense of hope in the students to one day lock in on something worthwhile."

Kim's short but substantial experience in his field is impressive. After graduating with a theology degree from PUC, Kim worked as a youth pastor until he discovered his passion for social media. He earned his M.F.A. at American University in Washington, D.C., and quickly produced several films in conjunction with fellow young Adventist activists. One of his projects resulted in a film called Unto the Ends, about a young missionary couple, which debuted in 2005 at the General Conference Session of the Adventist World Church in St. Louis, Missouri. His subsequent documentary, A Place To Belong, about two boys with Asperger's syndrome, received the 2010 CINE Golden Eagle award for Best Student Documentary.

It was at the 2005 World Church session that Alexander Carpenter, a history and film professor at PUC, first encountered Kim's work. "It was just amazing," said Carpenter, who reviewed the film in the Seventh-day Adventist journal Spectrum. "I've been a fan ever since."

So, when it came time to choose the speaker whose work would be the most beneficial to his students, Carpenter knew the perfect candidate.

Kim took several approaches in conducting his presentation to effectively portray documentary filmmaking. To demonstrate the technical aspect of filmmaking, he brought equipment from the Adventist Media Center and showed the students what sort of physical work is associated with the craft. He then led a profound discussion about the true nature of documentaries, challenging the students to reassess their preconceived notions about documentary filmmaking. Finally, he connected social values and documentaries and showed his favorite 22-minute Polish documentary, which Carpenter candidly described as "brutal."

"I think [Kim] challenged them to rethink their assumptions about what film does," said Carpenter. "Is it just about entertainment or can you have these stories told that transcend this world?"

Our Faculty Recommend…

If you are wanting to read up on the visual arts and add a book to your list of must-read books, then here are recommendations from a few of our Visual Arts Faculty.

Spring Student Exhibition

The first place winners in each category are...