OC Fair & Event Center Visual Arts Judges 2016
Fine Art
Evalynn Alu
www.evalynnjalu.com Evalynn J. Alu was born and grew up in Los Angeles. She was raised by parents who encouraged her to experiment and enjoy art and creativity. Marrying young, she moved to Orange County, with her husband, to raise their two sons. The desire to study art was strong and when her youngest son (Jeff Alu) was three she went back to school to study art at California State University at Fullerton. Evalynn's work was representational for years and she gradually discovered a need and fascination with objective abstract form, mostly derived from the universal forces that are forever present. Working with watercolor and experimenting with lithography and etchings have also influenced much of the work she does today. Other preferred mediums include sculpture, ceramics, oils, acrylic, lithographs, assemblages, and photography. Alu received an AA from Santa Ana College and a BA from California State University, Fullerton in 1982. She taught elementary school for 28 years. She is currently heading up the art program and teaching grades k-‐8th drawing, painting, sculpting, collage and pastel work. It has been said of Evalynn’s work that: “A mysterious quality permeates her art, as if each painting tries to record an abstract event taking place, without revealing specific details. The viewer is drawn in for closer contemplation and varied interpretation.” Evalynn has been creating art for over 40 years. She states “I have always been fascinated with shapes, forms, color, light and shadows that are always present in nature. Creating movement filled with emotion of the moment becomes an intriguing experiment laced with my ever-‐expanding knowledge of technique. I am always searching for answers in my art. I know, should I find these answers, that my need to create will be no more.” Evalynn has shown in solo shows as well as in many juried shows winning competitions in both local and international events. She is currently a member of the Orange County Center
of Contemporary Art. Her interest in painting grew after experimenting in many mediums of art. As a result, abstract art has become a major part of her artistic life. Evalynn states that, “perfecting ones technique while experimenting is always an important part of my work”.
Nguyen Ly
www.nguyenly.com I’m a multimedia artist and art educator with expertise in numerous printmaking techniques (including monoprint and drypoint), as well as drawing, sculpture and collage. My prints, drawings, sculpture and other work have been exhibited throughout California and in locales as diverse as Springfield, Missouri, and Guadalajara, Mexico. I was born in Saigon and raised in Los Angeles, and I’m a member of the Latino printmakers’ network Consejo Gráfico and the printmaking collective Los de Abajo. As a result, I’m especially attuned to the cultural mix that makes my adopted hometown of L.A. so rich – and to the pressures faced by so many first-‐ and second-‐generation Americans.
Kevin Staniec
1888.center Kevin Staniec is an arts advocate, author, and publisher. He is the Executive Director of 1888, a regional catalyst for the preservation, presentation, and promotion of cultural heritage and literary arts. In 2002, Kevin co-‐ founded ISM, a non-‐profit organization that published an internationally distributed culture magazine and produced art exhibitions and community programs. In 2013, Kevin co-‐founded Black Hill Press, a publishing collective dedicated to the novella. He is the author of several books including Begin and How to Be a Super Hero.
Photography
Jeff Alu
Manny Escamilla
www.jeffalu.com Jeff Alu is a one-‐time asteroid/comet researcher who worked for JPL and utilized the 18" Schmidt Camera at Palomar Observatory. Shooting many films of the night sky and processing them chemically instilled in him a dislike for the dark room procedure, and his job there was eventually terminated due to advancements in asteroid-‐search technology: He was replaced by machines. He left JPL after many asteroid discoveries and including four comets, and took up digital photography to continue the "search" more locally. His work has been shown in over 60 exhibitions, including the Harwood Museum in Taos, NM, and the Biblioteca Statale di Trieste in Trieste, Italy. He is included in 10 private collections, and images from his New York series are included in Bloomingdale's private collection. His work is featured in over 20 publications including a artist spotlight in Black and White Magazine, Lenswork Extended, Adore Noir Magazine, Shots Magazine, and his book Jeff Alu: Surrealities was recently published by Zero+ Publishing. After serving as exhibitions director at the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art for a number of years, he continues to draw inspiration from other artists and from the world around him.
Manny Escamilla completed a BA in History from UC Berkeley and MLIS from UCLA. He was recognized as a 2014 Library Journal Mover and Shaker for his work with Santa Ana Public Library to collect, preserve, and share local history as part of the Teen Community Historian program. This Teenspace program was also recognized by the Whitehouse with a 2014 National Arts and Humanities After School Program Award. He currently volunteers as a consultant to local artists incorporating historical themes and site specific considerations across different formats. Through his assignments at the City of Santa, Manny also serves as a City representative on the forthcoming Santa Ana Arts and Cultural Master Plan. You can also find him working on analog light shows and spinning metal records in Downtown Santa Ana. @full_metal_archivist
Matt Frantz
Matt Frantz is a professor of visual communications at Laguna College of Art and Design. Over the past 15 years, he has instructed a variety of courses in design, drawing and illustration, photography, photo-‐editing, and video at multiple colleges in Orange County and San Diego. His personal work is focused on portraits and narrative imagery, often combining photography with drawing and painting. Commercial client projects include covers for advertisements, books, CDs, DVDs, posters, and videos.
Rachell Eve Frazian
Rachell Eve Frazian is a Southern California street photographer. She holds a BA in Women's Literature & Photojournalism from the University of Miami and an MLIS from Florida State University. Her practice includes film, digital, medium and large format photography and she looks forward to adding alternative processes to the list. Her current project is shooting the late night streets of Los Angeles County. To watch how the current project develops, follow her Instagram @rachellevefrazian.
Rolf Goellnitz
www.rolf-goellnitz.com
Born in Aachen, Germany Rolf studied and earned an advanced degree in Product Design at the University for Applied Sciences, Faculty Design, in Aachen, Germany. Following his studies, he worked internationally for almost 30 years as a Creative Director and photographer for Europe’s largest fashion retailer as well as other clients in Germany and the USA. His work has gained recognition through numerous national and international awards in both Europe and the USA. In 1999 he founded the OMC Communication LLC, a company offering Creative Service and The OMC Gallery As an Associate Professor he taught Design Management and Interdisciplinary Creation from 2000 to 2004 at the University for Applied Sciences, Faculty Design, in Aachen, Germany. In autumn 2004 he and his wife RoxAnn Madera moved with their business from Duesseldorf to Huntington Beach, California. Rolf is cooperating with more than 30 international artists and has curated more than 70 exhibitions in Germany and the USA at 'The OMC Gallery’. The Gallery has participated in international art and photography fairs in Cologne, Paris, New York, Rotterdam, Los Angeles, Duesseldorf, Miami and San Francisco. Rolf also offers “one to one” photo workshops and has been invited on several occasions as a guest speaker to LBCC, to share his knowledge and point of view about contemporary art and photography with faculty and students. He also consults young professionals, who aim for a career in fine art, marketing and communication.
Jenny Lynn
Susan Spirtus
www.steadyjenny.com Greetings Orange County! I am a mother, activist, musician, artist, and a student of life. I strive to leave this place better than how I found it; for my daughter, for the people I love, for the earth. I have been shooting for over 15 years, I teach photography at Bowers Museum in an after school program and am also the photo editor at Huntington Beach Culture Magazine. While I do shoot everything from weddings, corporate head shots, to hip hop and urban decay, I truly feel in my element when I am covering social injustice and environmental issues, both local and international. When I was still in school for photography at Orange Coast College, I won Best of Show in the OC Fair's Amateur Photo Division in 2009. So it is an absolute privilege and honor to have been asked to judge the OC Fair photography exhibition this year! I am endlessly grateful and cannot wait to see all of the emerging talent in my hometown of Orange County!
susanspiritusgallery.com Susan Spiritus has been in the forefront of fine art photography for the past 39 years, opening the doors to her eponymous Newport Beach gallery in 1976. Specializing in contemporary photographic art, Susan works with design professionals, architects, corporations, space planners and private collectors to provide advice and personal counsel to address each client's needs. The gallery handles the work of about 50 artists including photographic luminaries, many of today's most popular and award winning contemporary photographers as well as emerging talent including George Tice, Camille Seaman, Cara Barer, William Neill, Danae Falliers, Larry Vogel, Julie Sample, Hiroshi Watanabe, Cat Gwynn and many others. The art that you can find in the Susan Spiritus Gallery will range in price and style and will include pieces that are sometimes vintage, platinum, gelatin silver, color, hand colored and today, works which are digitally printed.
Kurt Weston
www.kurtweston.com As a legally blind photographer Kurt Weston has overcome the barriers, obstacles and challenges of producing and exhibiting his art. His limited visual acuity -‐ total blindness in his left eye and limited peripheral vision, no central vision in his right eye -‐ permits Weston to see the world like an impressionist painting. Through his art he experiments with enhanced photographic views and perspectives. Weston possesses an extensive art education a BA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago (1985) and an MFA in Photography from California State University, Fullerton (2008), combined with fifteen years work experience as a professional fashion photographer. Weston’s photographs have drawn much attention, spawning articles and art exhibitions. His work has been exhibited internationally and most notably Transformations (2006) and the Shift (2011), exhibitions at The Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington DC. Much of his work has become part of an international traveling exhibition entitled Sight Unseen which opened in 2009 at the California Museum of Photography and continues touring through 2016. Weston’s work has also been featured in numerous articles including The Los Angeles Times (2009); the New York Times (2009) Lens Blog and has been included in the text book “Reframing Photography: Theory and Practice” published February 2011; He has been a featured artist in Better Photography Magazine (2010 and 2015). Weston has also been the subject of two documentary video’s Obscura by Damon Stea and The Blind Imagination by Taylor Adam Swift. In 2010 he was the recipient of the Arts Orange County Outstanding Artist Achievement award and in 2012 he appeared on national television, CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield show highlighting his photographs and advocacy. Collectors include The Houston Fine Arts Museum and the National AIDS museum, as well as many private collections. Also, Weston is currently an educator in photography and art at the Huntington Beach Art Center.
Carolyn Yarnell
carolynyarnell.com Photographer, visual artist and contemporary classical music composer, Yarnell is a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Yale University. Awards include The National Endowment for the Arts, The Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship to Iceland, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among others. A California native, Yarnell lives in Huntington, working as a freelance photographer, artist and musician, and is the Exhibitions Director at the Orange
County Center For Contemporary Art. A thousand words unspoken, my art is both an expression of, and liberation from, this material world that my restless soul has found itself temporarily but so inextricably bound up in. Being a musician, in my visual work I draw from the formal techniques and the spontaneity of classical musical composition, incorporating counterpoint, tonal harmony and improvisation to create both linear and vertical depth. My photographs are not clear representations of places or things, they are rather like fleeting frozen moments perceived from great distances through the curved lens of time.
Youth Judges: Fine Art
Abram Moya Jr
Abram Moya Jr. was born in Kern County but grew up in Los Angeles County. He has earned his degrees in Sociology with a minor in the field of Art. Abram has always been interested in the field of art, however, he used is credentials to work in the community as an activist for social justice. During the upsurge of the Chicano Movement, Abram was not only inspired by the political movement but also by the upsurge of the Chicano culture, mainly with the artist, such as “Los Tres Grandes” of Mexico, (Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueros). The Renaissance Artist of Europe also influenced him. He has been an artist for over 40 years and professionally over 30 years. Abram likes to work with the Medias charcoal and watercolors. He has dabbled in other Medias such as oils, airbrush and ink. Abrams work shows a strong proclivity towards social realism. This influence is because of his many years in social activism. With great sensitivity, he records the social plight of the dispossessed and the oppressed of the earth. Elements of struggle reverberate throughout his work and a deep concern for the human condition. He also shows his passiveness in his watercolors of flowers. His work has been exhibited throughout Los Angeles, Orange County, and has also exhibited in San Jose, California. Abram has exhibited at the Newport Art Festival, Bowers Museum, Art for Social Justice in Long Beach, the Elephant-‐ear Art Exhibit, California State University in Fullerton Grand Central Station, The Orange County Museum of Contemporary Art and many other exhibits. He has over 25 exhibits throughout southern California.
Christain Ramirez
Christian is a Southern California based artist. Since graduating with a BFA in Drawing and Painting from Laguna College of Art + Design in 2008, he has been working fulltime in the admissions department. As the Associate Director of Admissions for LCAD, he travels regionally, nationally and internationally recruiting talented art students. Christian maintains a rigorous studio practice in Laguna Beach, CA. Trained as an academic painter, Christian eschews conventional illusionism in favor of a process of distillation, demolition and reconstruction. He views his process as analogous to destabilized sociopolitical structures, wherein measured decisions collide with chance, sabotage, corruption and error. In addition to exhibiting in a number of group shows and competitions, Christian has ventured into curating, having put together a successful large group exhibition in Downtown LA in April, 2012. More recently, Christian was in residence at the Vermont Studio Center having been awarded an artist grant for March, 2013. He is currently researching MFA programs in the hopes of continuing his graduate studies in the near future.
Youth Judges: Photography
Tiffany Ma
www.tiffanyma.myportfolio.com Tiffany Ma teaches Printmaking, Photography, and Mixed Media in the Visual Arts Conservatory. She is also the Summer Coordinator for the Visual Arts and Digital Media Conservatories. Besides her role as an educator, she works as a fine artist and currently creates her work at Mutual Aid, a shared studio space in downtown Santa Ana.
Kirby Piazza
www.teachingchannel.org/teachers/kirby-‐piazza Working as an educator, advocate and professional photographer, artist Kirby Piazza has interests that range from portraiture & documentation to abstract and manipulated landscapes. He lives, works and roams in the Newport-‐Mesa area of California.
Woodworking
William Ng
wnwoodworkingschool.com William Ng comes from an engineering background and uses a similar approach in his woodworking. Precision, accuracy and efficiency are emphasized in his teaching. His sense of humor, combined with his passion for woodworking makes for an enjoyable learning experience. William was an instructor of furniture making at Cerritos College. Many of William’s students have won numerous woodworking awards. In addition to being an instructor and the director of our school, William continues to make custom furniture in his studio.
Fred Rose
fredrosestudio.com Fred Rose grew up along the river in Carmel Valley, CA. Fred Rose received his BFA in ceramics from California State University, Long Beach-‐ 1992 and his MFA in sculpture from California State University, Fullerton-‐ 2001. He was Chair of Woodworking Program for seven years at California State University at Long Beach. He is currently a self-‐employed artist living in Costa Mesa. He has work traveling the East coast as part of The Center For Art in Wood’s Bartram’s Boxes Remix. He has been making wood sculpture for the last 28 years. He is
influenced by the writings of Eric Sloan and John Seymour, the works of such artists as Noguchi, David Nash, Martin Puryear, Guiseppe Penone and his own childhood along the river and in the forest. Fred Rose is interested in how the spectrum of traditions in wood from utilitarian woodworking, wood sculpture, and folk art can act as a visual poetry about the nature of the physical world or the quirks of being human. Most of his wood is collected from locally found logs from the urban forests of Long Beach and Costa Mesa. He mills logs into a variety of lumber, carving and turning blanks, or specimens of wood oddities from which he combines found organic forms such as branches and wood oddities with his own man-‐made carvings, turnings, and furniture/constructions in attempt to connect wood back to the tree and to create new associations. He boroughs different ideas and processes taken from the broad body of wood history and knowledge and combines them into new constructs rather than mastering one technique or style.
David A. Wade
wademade.gallery Creating fine woodwork for over 25 years, David takes pride in creating furniture pieces that can be shared and enjoyed for generations. In his EnoCraft displays David combines beautiful warm woods with found factory-‐made aircraft parts creating an unparalleled harmonious tension. David's voice comes to life through mixed media, playing the role of architect, engineer, and mechanic to give found objects a secondary life. David's main artistic influence was his teacher and mentor Sam Maloof. A world-‐renowned woodworker, Sam is often labeled as the greatest designer-‐craftsman of our era and was the first craftsman awarded the prestigious MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellowship. David first began working for Sam at age 19, sweeping up the shop and raking leaves outside -‐ "a true Karate Kid story," as David puts it. Slowly but surely he worked up to creating and assembling orders. Over the next 20 years Sam taught David everything he knew to maintain extraordinary craftsmanship. "The shop was like an Olympic training center, it was challenging and stressful. However, it was pretty incredible. In my mind we made the world's best furniture." Although David was honored to work beside Sam, he always felt the
need to expand his creations beyond the Maloof design. WadeMade designs are new and unique, while keeping the Sam Maloof legacy, style and craftsmanship alive. See David in action and learn more about the Sam Maloof tradition in PBS Sam Maloof Woodworking Genius Special.
Plein Air
www.delantyfineart.com. Rick J.Delanty is a professional artist and active member of the California Art Club, as well as the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association. He has been selected into the Laguna Plein Air Invitational nine times, where he has received both the Boseker and Surfrider awards of excellence. Delanty has exhibited six summers at the Laguna Beach Festival of Arts, as well as receiving a number of national awards. A teaching career of thirty-‐two years has paralleled his professional painting career, until his retirement from public arts education in 2006. Recognized as an Educator of the Year by Otis College of Art and Design, Rick shared his love of life-‐long learning with student artists who are now recognized as masters in their own fields. Currently, Rick participates in exhibitions of his landscape paintings in galleries, museums and creates commissioned works. He is a signature member of LPAPA, American Impressionist Society, and California Plein Air Painters. His studio is located in San Clemente, California.
Rick J. Delanty
Photo Shoot-Out & Faces of the Fair
Rick Valasek
www.PicRick.com Rick has been working as a photographer and a “composition” artist for most of his life. His early career involved working as a sports and action photographer for several magazine publications. In the mid 80’s he moved into the business of photo retouching and composition. During this time he opened up an Advertising Agency which did “creative” for dozens of Southern California clients including: Disneyland, Tomy Toys, Van’s Shoes, Upper Deck Trading Cards, PepsiCo., Makita, and many more. In recent times, Rick has concentrated on Portrait, Landscape and Event photography. Currently he is taking a collection of photos for an exhibition of Panoramic Images of Southern California.
