Artist and Author David Mack at the AAC 2010

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David Mack returned for another great visit to the AAC this February.

Visiting our Junior-level Narrative Illustration course in the morning, David talked extensively about process and technique, and then did an in-progress critique of some comic pages that members of the class were working on. During the lunch hour, he spoke to the whole school about process as part of our Smart Talk series, providing an in-depth look at THE ALCHEMY, his latest Kabuki collection. As usual, David brought tons of original art for us to look at, which provides an opportunity for students to get a close-up view of his various techniques. Thanks for sharing, David. :)

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This is a shot of people hanging out after the digital component of David's Smart Talk presentation:


(photo by Denise Watson)

Here's a closer look at David's original boards:


(photo by Denise Watson)

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In this video clip, David talks about how his trade children's book The Shy Creatures evolved from his Kabuki storyline.


(video by Denise Watson)

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David Mack is the New York Times Best Selling author and artist of the KABUKI Graphic Novels, the writer and artist of Daredevil from Marvel Comics, and the author and artist of his new children’s book THE SHY CREATURES from MacMillan publishing's new children's book imprint, which is in stores now and available at Amazon.com. Also worth noting, David is an extremely giving individual, always eager to share his knowledge with students.

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KERRIE HOULE: 1 POEM (2 VERSIONS)

KERRIE'D EVERYTHING ACROSS THE COUNTRY TO START A NEW LIFE


Distortion: Negation
Language is illness.
Transformed into space.
And confined to the page.

ImperfectionS giving birth to a ripple of line
she never meAnt to hurt you
but she waNts to get in trouble
she’s interesteD in the layers
but she Promised to wish she’d never come to art school
she Adores writing it out
but she’d Prefer see you fail
she hate’s being alonE
but she’ll cry in fRont of you if you wait long enough

Feedback
Internet stale as bricks.
Leaves hard like tricycles.
“You be the yard and I’ll be its grass.”


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Kerrie Houle is a Freshman at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. While still holding on to her Oregonian roots, she's come to terms with the fact that Cincinnati is now her second home.

MONICA WENDEL: 1 POEM

ARS POETICA


When we hop the fence to the hospital on Roosevelt Island
I wonder if this is poetry, because poetry
does not believe in fences or doors or abandonment. Inside
trees grow through the ground, Chrysler building visible
through the not-roof and the empty window spaces that
open up like trachea. People came here to die of smallpox or to survive,
scarred and forever immune, taking with them the memory of
the smell of festering sores like a rotting bird.
So perhaps it is the hospital itself that is the poem
since it is transformative, since now it is a place
to stand on fallen-down metal doors, rubble, and watch the sky
and the East River move. Two weeks later
I hallucinate when I’m walking from the subway.
Messenger bag over one shoulder,
camera heavy in the other hand. Do ghosts mind
being recorded by the living? Or is their anger sparked by
how simple it is for an entire history to be forgotten?
The answer comes to me like bread rising:
They are angry at the fence put around them
breached and climbed in stilettos and sneakers,
the fence that pretends to contain what cannot be held in.


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Monica Wendel will receive her MFA in Creative Writing from NYU in May 2010. One of twelve semi-finalists in the 2009 Miss G Train pageant, she enjoys living in Brooklyn, teaching kids at St. Mary's Health Care System for Children, and entering pointless competitions. In a past life she wrote product descriptions for coffee makers. Exciting developments to follow at www.twitter.com/monicaewendel.

Digits to Digital: An exhibition of iphone and ipod finger art

Digits to Digital: An exhibition of iphone and ipod finger art, is a fascinating, international online exhibition curated by John Bavaro for the Art Academy of Cincinnati by request of the editorial staff of the Incliner.

The following link will take you to the exhibition, which consists of numerous works by 10 artists, accompanied by a curator's statement that opens a conversation about the compelling implications of a new form of art created by a medium for communication. The individual artists have also contributed brief statements about their work.

Digits to Digital

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Below is a sampling of work from the exhibition. Visit the link above to see many more pieces by these great artists.



James O'Shea
Daly City, CA, USA



Kara Kovacev,
New York, New York, USA



Matthew Watkins
Bari, Italy (Born in Manchester England, raised in Toronto, Canada, now living and working in Southern Italy



John Halliday
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada



John Bavaro, Erie, Pennsylvania, USA



Susan Murtaugh
Wisconsin, USA



Benjamin Rabe,
Hamburg, Germany



Julian Wigley
Melbourne, Australia



Cedric Philippe,
Saint Claude/Jura, France



James Schaffer
Pittsburgh, PA, USA

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The editors at the Incliner would like to thank John and all of the artists in this exhibit for all their hard work!

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Curator John Bavaro is Associate Professor of Art (Painting and Drawing) at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania where he is also the director of the Bruce Gallery. His own work, with the iphone, is an extension of his “GENUS” series-a collection of 100 oil paintings of primates (both human and non-human). More of John's art can be viewed at
www.johnbavaro.com


A bit about John from his website:

"I'm an artist and educator at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, where I'm the gallery director at the Bruce Gallery. I also teach full time in Drawing, Painting and 2-D Design.
I graduated with a Master of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Cincinnati, and received my B.A. in English from Miami University. I also did additional art foundations studies at Miami and the Art Academy of Cincinnati before getting an art degree.
In the 1990's I spent four years in Thailand with the Maryknoll Mission Association, teaching a variety of groups including Buddhist monks and mentally disabled children. As the cliche goes, I'm sure they taught me more than I did them."

NEW AAC Drawing IV BLOG

Check out AAC instructor Sarah Hollis' Drawing IV class blog here: http://contemporarysfhollis-drawingiv.blogspot.com/. Already there are some excellent links and images up, including a amazing self-portrait by Sarah herself. This will no doubt be a blog to follow.

Welcome back! Spring is on the way.

AVRIL THURMAN: 2 POEMS

(Click on poem titles for poems)

1. PAPER LANTERN

2. ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN


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Avril Thurman is a poet and visual artist living in Cincinnati, Ohio. Currently a Junior at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, she was recently published in Brighton Approach Vol. I, and has her sights set on New York City, where she will represent the AAC in the New York Studio Program for the Spring Semester of 2010.

NICOLE GREINER: For the Love of Flesh-Meat and Bacon

poem and visual response by Nicole Greiner

For the Love of Flesh-Meat and Bacon


Flesh and meat are life!
Somewhere along the lines I grew these enormous boobs
On an adult, this living, leathery overcoat weighs about 11 lbs
Areola with nipple shown in its normal position

Dali dreamed of Hitler as a white-skinned girl
Whose thighs produced white cream to numb a man's genitals. Called to linger
she played the role of a cyborg

When I go to piss, it's late
For an anterior horn of the lateral ventricle
From the bladder or seminal fluid, from the testis
Note the two shunts, the Botalli's duct (8)
And the significance of hip and pelvic joints for erect posture

And with my face on fire I am suddenly ashamed
I find it very beautiful.

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Nicole Greiner is a Senior in the Sculpture program at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Her work currently addresses the liminal state and transformation.

DAN LANSDOWN: CENTO

poem and visual response by Dan Lansdown



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Dan Lansdown is a visual artist who currently cooks his drawings. He is a Junior at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.

AVRIL THURMAN: 1 POEM, TWO IMAGES

I DO NOT WISH TO SPEAK OF CUCUMBERS, BUTTERFLIES, BRUISES.


I do not wish to speak of cucumbers, butterflies, bruises. Dreams
have been many of late, and not a one a mushroom cloud.
A bad cloud. Nor a cloud in the shape of a cloud.
During the downhill, I raise my arms,
winging, to embrace falling catalpa and light pollution.
Which is never heavy, it is only the way we see at night.
Condensation seems ever less and less about molecules,
and more so a cold glass, weeping on a hot day.
There are many kinds of sadness. I read there were
613, to be exact, only 58 of which are legible.
I read of these:
Sadness of having options, nude model sadness,
sadness of feeling the need to create beautiful things.
Oh, there were more, and many more
I have constructed out of loose-leaf, opal, and breath.
Like coins. Do not spend them all in one
go. Here is some advice:
Do not take advice.
Try to locate your equator:
It is harder than you think. I have tried
and after many false meridians, ended up
(ended down) in Antarctica with Herzog, narrating. He speaks like a child.
It is for this we should envy him, to speak nothing of,
and without, accent. It is not a matter obtuse, it is purely continental.
When I say obtuse, I do not mean to say elbows are
ever greater than right nor lesser than wrong. I would never say that.
I wouldn’t dream of it. Any more and less than less would
I dare to dream of looking in a window, only to notice that
the falling snow turns my hair lavender, or astro turf jackets on pepper shakers.
I would never dream that. None of this is true. Make sure.

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POEMS TO BE READ TO SMALL ANIMALS (collagraph)





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TWELVE POEMS FOR FRANK O'HARA (three-color woodcut on lenox rag paper, plywood, excelsior)























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Avril Thurman is a poet and visual artist living in Cincinnati, Ohio. Currently a Junior at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, she was recently published in Brighton Approach Vol. I, and has her sights set on New York City, where she will represent the AAC in the New York Studio Program for the Spring Semester of 2010.

New Incliner Masthead by AAC Alum Michael Vallera

The Editors of Incliner are very proud of the new Incliner masthead image by AAC alum, Michael
Vallera. See the original image below, along with a brief statement about it by Michael.

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It is familiar to understand the photographic image as a moment that has been captured in time, and represented as a document of that instant as it exists in the world. This series of photographs I have been taking over the past two years has much more to do with the folding of an environment up into the present. The images do not operate as isolated structures of a place and time, but through the use of rupture (in the form of two image collage and single image manipulation) create a space for continuous reinvestigation of the landscape and our shared experience within it. --Michael Vallera, 2009

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MICHAEL VALLERA is a Chicago based sound/visual artist, who graduated from the Art Academy in 2007. He's currently pursuing an MFA in Sound at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. See more of his work at: http://michaelvallera.tumblr.com/.