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Buchanan visits Art class
Noah Buchanan recently visited Frank Galuszka’s Art class to discuss his commission for the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wisc. The commission comprises two paintings venerating St. Maria Goretti and St. Faustina.

Buchanan, who received a bachelor of arts in 2000, studied under Galuszka at UC Santa Cruz. He earned his masters of fine arts from the New York Academy of Art in 2002.

Buchanan’s work, which is based in the academic tradition of the figure, has been exhibited in the U.S. and abroad. He has received a number of awards and three Individual Artist Grants, including the Stobart Foundation Grant, The Posey Foundation Award and The Stacey Award. Other awards include The Congressional Art Award and a Chancellor's Award from UC Santa Cruz.

 

DANM graduates Michael Dale and Abram Stern created Metavid for their DANM thesis project.

DANM project makes history
Two recent alumni of UCSC’s Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) graduate program are making history by expanding public and media access to the U.S. House and Senate proceedings. Metavid, created by Michael Dale and Abram Stern as their thesis project, provides online, open-source video archives of congressional proceedings using public domain video feed from C-SPAN. The Metavid archives are searchable and indexed, so users can easily link to a specific moment of dialogue.

The project got a major boost this year with a $157,000 grant from the Sunlight Foundation. “The groups we are helping to fund are on the cutting edge of web 2.0 technology and are among the best at using the Internet to strengthen democracy,” noted Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s cofounder and executive director.

 

Pearson serves as co-artistic director of Yale Caberet
Erik Pearson (Cowell, film and digital media, 2001) is one of three co-artistic directors of Yale Caberet, the basement theatre run by students of the Yale School of Drama. Pearson is pursuing a master’s degree in Yale’s directing program.

Pearson’s co-artistic directors for the Yale Cabaret 40th Anniversary Season (2007-2008) are Becca Wolff, who is originally from Watsonville, and Jacob Padron, originally from Gilroy. The fall line-up featured eight shows, including An Evening of Cabaret, Mr. & Mrs. Hollywood and Bicycling for Ladies. A special closing event for the Fall Season was held December 14.

Pearson is the founding artistic director of The Quixote Project of San Francisco for which he directed The Burial at Thebes, The Trojan Women: a love story and Life is a Dream. Other directing credits include Journey to Santiago at Yale School of Drama, The Illusion at Yale Cabaret, Shakespeare Santa Cruz’s fringe production of Nahum Tate’s King Lear, Big Boys at the Actor’s Theater of Santa Cruz, Oedi for 60gRIT, Brilliant Traces at UC Santa Cruz and numerous short films.

Pearson has taught theater as a lecturer at UC Santa Cruz and as an acting tutor for Marin Theater Company’s Conservatory.

 

Carton releases album
Since earning his master of arts degree in music composition from UC Santa Cruz this past June, Sylvain Carton has released a new album, The Special, with the Mitch Marcus Quintet, and he continues to play and compose for his half dozen other bands--including an extended 18-piece version of the jazz quintet called the MMQ + 13 Big Band. He also recently completed work on string arrangements for a new documentary film produced by National Geographic.

Sylvain Carton

Prior to graduating, Carton had already been commissioned to create music for a PBS documentary, an independent film, and Oakland’s Counterpointe dance company.

In a recent article in UC Santa Cruz Review, Carton talked about his reasons for studying music at UC Santa Cruz. “The composition program, with its emphasis on world music traditions, was my main draw to UC Santa Cruz,” recalls Carton. “The campus had just established a new graduate program in world music with faculty who have a lot of experience and knowledge in that area. So I thought it would be a great opportunity to expand my ideas of composition.”

To read the complete Review article, visit http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/text.asp?pid=1629. Carton’s music can be found at sylvaincarton.com.

 

Moss hosts reception at Orange County Museum of Art
Karen Moss, curator of collections, hosted a reception and tour of the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) on Dec. 2. Moss, a 1977 graduate who majored in art/art history, was joined at the event by new UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal and many other members of the UCSC community. The tour featured the museum’s current exhibitions—"Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury," which runs through Jan. 6; and "Art Since the 1960's: California Experiments," which runs through Sept. 14.

For more information about OCMA and its current exhibits, visit http://www.ocma.net.