PrattMWP Alumni Newsletter Winter 2021

Winter 2021/Issue Twelve

ALUMNI NEWS Steve Arnison Retires after 24 Years For 24 years, Professor of Drawing Steve Arnison raised the bar for the standard of excellence in a drawing program, and helped solidify the stellar reputation recognized by top art schools throughout the country for the quality of student work coming from PrattMWP. Steve joined the faculty in 1996, moving from his home state of Nebraska with his wife Jane and his children, Thomas and Ellen.

Steve Arnison, Self-Portrait, 2015, Charcoal, 50 x 38 in.

Steve’s thoughtful, analytical, and scholarly approach to drawing made him a favorite of students who were consistently stunned at the end of the semester at their progress and achievements under his guidance. His ability to clearly communicate how to see the complex visual acrobatics of the world around us and transform those visions into powerful drawings became the hallmark of

the PrattMWP drawing program.

Four years after Steve arrived, the School of Art transitioned from being part of the Mohawk Valley Community College’s associate program, to becoming an extension campus of the world-renowned Pratt Institute.

In honor of Steve Arnison’s lasting legacy on the PrattMWP campus, we are excited to announce the Steve Arnison Scholarship!

Please donate here to the Steve Arnision Scholarship

This past summer, Steve announced his decision to retire. Ken Marchione recently got together with him to have a conversation about his reflections on teaching at the School of Art. Ken: Hi Steve, I know the decision to retire was something you have been thinking about the past couple of years, but did the pandemic and the prospect of having to teach online factor in your decision?

Steve: The pandemic was not going to deter me, but combined with how I was going to have to teach, it definitely influenced the decision. I would have liked to stay one more year, as it made sense with my son Tom going back to graduate school, but only if I could have taught in the way I felt I could be most effective and confident. I am rarely comfortable with technology and could not see myself teaching remotely. I couldn’t have done it, and I would have surely been a burden on my technologically savvy friends.

What initially attracted you to Munson-Wiliams?

I did not really know anything about the School, only that they had an ad for a full-time drawing Assistant Professor. So, I applied and hoped that I would get an interview.

Can you talk about your first impressions of the program once you got that interview?

Steve: Hah! The first impression was a little startling and it began with the interview. As I was waiting for the interview, then-Admission Director Nancy Zappone-Tan came out and tossed a school catalog to me and said, “all the answers are in there,” after seeing the baffled look on my face said, “just kidding.”

The College Art Association conference is where many schools do their hiring, and the interviews that I’d had there were either with one or two people, maybe three, with many taking place in hotel rooms.

This was my expectation when I went into the small hotel room for my Munson-Williams interview, but instead, the entire full-time faculty contingent was there, as well as the school director.

Steve Arnison, Light, 1998, Charcoal on smooth white wove paper, 49 15/16 × 38 3/4 in.

Museum Purchase, 99.12

Then, to add uncomfortable to awkward, the first question asked of me was from Fran Fiorentino, the School’s long-time, legendary drawing and painting teacher, and it was “who did you vote for?” This question was just as illegal to ask back then just as it is now, but I appreciated the audacity and it actually lightened the mood and opened up the conversation. In the process, the one thing that came through in that conversation was a sense of warmth and comradery from everyone.

How did the School changed over your time here?

I think without a doubt, the Pratt alliance and the expansion of the School from being, solely a fine art school to adding graphic design, illustration, and art education. Those additions expanded our offerings and the type of students who would be coming to learn with us. The students were no longer studying only fine arts.

So, do you feel students have changed?

Well yes, we now have illustrators and graphic designers who work on a computer the majority of the time. So I was not just teaching to students who were drawing and painting on paper and canvas.

Steve Arnison, Lantern & Plane, 2012, Mixed media, 38 x 50 in.

The other thing is that our students used to come from an hour or so away, and we have gone from attracting students within a 100-mile radius to bringing in students from around the world. The diversity of the student body has expanded immensely, and it has been very rewarding.

Have the years working at the School affected your teaching and your art?

Steve Arnison, Blue Pitcher, 2016, Charcoal, 50 x 38 in.

Absolutely! Absolutely! I mean, how do you work with all these, really, really bright students, listen to their commentary, look at their work, and not be affected in a powerful way? I watched them listening to me and taking what they’ve heard and translating it through their own creative energies and digesting it in their own language. I am in awe when I think back on critiques that I’ve had and amazed at some of the things that they may find in their work, and in the work of others.

Thinking about the question, I would like to offer a quote from Richard Diebenkor. Although I never had him as an actual teacher, I always consider him, through my admiration, one of my main teachers. This is a quote he made about working in the studio. “Do search, but in order to find other than what is searched for.”

I love it. I think it’s exactly what I wanted to teach every day. Yeah. It’s that you don’t have to be a leader. Let it (your art) lead. You let it ask the question, but don’t try to dictate what the answer is going to be. You know, be open to any shift, you let it take you somewhere else.

There is another Diebenkorn quote I like. “I can never accomplish what I want. Only what I would have wanted had I thought it beforehand.” Art being the interactive conversation between the artist and the work being created.

Can you talk a little bit about drawing as a subject matter and why it is important for art students to still study it today?

It’s always been important.

It’s always been something that’s so important for an artist to be able to do, just in the sense of its accessibility as a medium. You hear people ask, “Is painting relevant? Is photography relevant? Is ceramics relevant?” Yes! Drawing is very much relevant. It’s relevant as the medium from which creativity flows; where you’re able to search for the exact thing that you don’t know you’re looking for, and that is the thrill of it. I like to compare it with music, only it’s a visual, that you’re organizing to make it complete, to make it the one thing.

What makes the painting real? What makes the drawing real, is not the object.

The real object is not the thing you are looking at when you’re making the drawing. You’re making a drawing. It’s the real thing, and this is the thing that you’re talking about.

It’s a medium that will always be here, like song, like music, like painting, ceramics, and photography. It’s going to go through changes, but it’s always going to be appropriate for an expression or a manipulation of something to find something.

As we bring this to a conclusion, are there any parting thoughts you would like to share?

You mean aside from how I am going to miss the oatmeal cookies in the cafeteria?

I cherish my time spent at MunsonWilliams. I made the right decision to come here. I had been tempted by offers to accept jobs elsewhere, but it is easy now in reflection to know I made the right decision to stay where I was. I have many friends and memories of my colleagues and students.

Steve Arnison, 8:10, 2017, Charcoal, 25 x 38 in.

20: PrattMWP Celebrating 20 Years October 1 through December 9, 2021 PrattMWP Gallery, Museum of Art Join us as we welcome 20 PrattMWP alumni from the past 20 years back to campus to present an exciting multimedia exhibition. One artist will represent each class as we celebrate a reunion of our dedicated and talented alumni from 2000 through today. We will kick off the exhibition October 1, 2021 with a celebration welcoming back alumni to campus for fun, memories, food, and music!

Each week our social media will feature an alumnus who will be showcased in the exhibition. For more information, follow PrattMWP on social media!

Check out the PrattMWP on social media!

Check out the exhibition website!

Adolfo Gutierrez, Class of 2012, Dejando Todo Por El Sueño, Leaving Everything For A Dream, 2018, Acrylic on canvas

Patrick Carew, Class of 2016, Skye + Kyle, 2019, Silver gelatin print

Q & A WITH SEAN USYK ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF ILLUSTRATION Sean Usyk is a freelance illustrator and teacher who was born and raised in Upstate New York.

He has taught communication design and foundation classes at PrattMWP for five years and Illustration and drawing classes at Mohawk Valley Community College for 11 years. He received his BFA from Savannah College of Art and Design and his MFA in illustration from The Academy of Art University, San Francisco.

Sean works primarily with game companies and writers to create narrative illustrations for print.

Recently, he produced a series of illustrations for Tales and Tomes of the Forbidden Library and as 32-page children’s book by local author Jeremy Kozak.

Sean Usyk, The Fallen, 2020, Digital illustration, 11 x 17 in.

Private Commission

Tell us about your personal artwork.

Sean Usyk, Trianna, 2020, Digital illustration, 6.25 x 8.25 in.

Publication: Tales and Tomes of the Forbidden Library

I have always been interested in narrative illustration. From an early age, the works of artists N.C. Wyeth, J.C. Leyendecker, Frank Frazetta, and James Gurney have inspired me to create images and characters that are alive and convey emotion beyond the descriptions of the written word. When creating my illustrations, whether realistic or cartoon, I am fascinated with exploring character design, pose, lighting, and atmosphere by studying from life. Though my work is typically of a fantastical nature I am more interested in the idea of storytelling and connecting with the viewer. The telling of stories and tales is said to help us teach values, feed our imaginations,

and help us cope with our reality. My artwork is an extension of that. I need to create because it feeds my imagination, allows me to look at our world with wonder and awe, and helps me understand what I value in life. I create most of my artwork digitally with Photoshop and a 27-inch tablet screen, but I still practice and study in my sketchbook and with other traditional media for inspiration.

How does your work impact the way you teach?

When I first began to build my drawing and painting skills, I was very interested in how illustrators could make images from their imagination that seemed real. I wondered how they created such dramatic lighting and believable characters with dynamic poses. I became fascinated with the process of creating these illustrations and communicating a believable, captivating scene. From developing thumbnails that explore an image’s composition and value structure, and improving character design and poses by studying anatomy to studying light and color theory by painting from life and photo reference, I have found several ways to help students build a strong creative process that is structured and consistent, yet unique to them and encourages exploration and experimentation. I’m constantly striving to learn how individual artists work and how they approach challenging parts of a project to help a creatively diverse group of students. Each student thinks and creates differently and I enjoy the challenge of helping them discover what steps and methods work best for them.

Sean Usyk, Grab the Bucket and the Rake, 2020, Digital illustration, 17 x 11in, Publication: Oh No Little Joe

What is your favorite part about working at PrattMWP? Working at PrattMWP has allowed me to teach and learn from a wonderfully diverse group of creative individuals. Not only do I enjoy teaching the skills that I love to the students, but I enjoy watching them improve and challenge themselves. They also challenge me to learn more, to be more creative, and to continuously challenge myself.

What do you hope for PrattMWP Alumni?

I encourage all of my students to stay in touch and support each other. Going from the classroom to the real world is a big transition that takes focus and commitment. Just like everything else, it takes practice and is easier when you surround yourself with people who support you and keep you accountable.

Artist’s Website

ALUMNUS PROFILE: SARAH PFOHL - CLASS OF 2003

Sarah Pfohl, Woodpecker Was II, 2019 from the project, The forest rests also in you, 2012 - ongoing

Sarah Pfohl is a disabled artist and teacher originally from Hubbardsville, NY. After two years at PrattMWP, she completed her BFA at Pratt Institute with a concentration in drawing. Sarah went on to receive her MA in education at Harvard and MFA in art photography at Syracuse University. She currently runs the photo and art education areas in the Department of Art & Design at the University of Indianapolis. Her approach to photography is to try to capture images that surprise her in some way. She also has a longstanding project of photographing the hill that she grew up on, often highlighting her mother as an artistic subject.

What inspired you to become an artist?

Just being around people who are always solving problems or being around people who are making things for both aesthetic and utilitarian reasons. I grew up in a place where a lot of people make things. My grandmother was a welder, my grandfather was a mechanic, and another grandmother enjoyed recreational painting. My grandfather took an adult learning class at MWPAI and I was super interested in what was basically his homework, his drawing practice outside of being a mechanic. He would sometimes start a drawing and I would finish it, or he would give me some lessons.

You put your disability status front and center in your work and your teaching, how does that shape your voice and your perspective of the world?

I foreground it in the way that I talk publicly about it. I think of disability as biological, but also including identity and

Sarah Pfohl, Osteogenesis Imperfecta Model No. 38, 2020, from the project , Toward an Aesthetic of Osteogenesis Imperfecta

culture. As any type of identity, gender, race, etc., it shapes my life and worldview in a really profound way. I was born disabled and for a long time, felt really bad about it. I’m not visibly disabled, so it was very easy to pass as normal and I think there was an expectation that I would do that in order to have an easier life. One of the first times that I got really sick was during my freshman year at PrattMWP. I think moving out of my parents’ house had a profound impact on that as well as on advocacy and taking care of oneself. About 10 years ago, I started to become more familiar with the Disability Rights Movement and disability studies and concepts from both places really turned my Sarah Pfohl, Osteogenesis Imperfecta Model thinking around. It’s not that there’s something wrong No. 61, 2020 from the project, Toward an Aesthetic of Osteogenesis Imperfecta with me, it’s that there are issues with the structures of the world and normalized beliefs, and I’ve been trying to make some substantive work about that. One way of being a really strong artist is by offering up new perspectives to the world around you and living an entire life in a socially and historically marginalized body provided me with some of those perspectives, for better or for worse. Mining some of that, being in places where I did not and could not fit in cultivates a criticality that has been useful to me as an artist.

What do you try to impart to your students?

Many of my students come into class loving art and making things, but they received a lot of social messages that art isn’t important and that the work that they make is a fun add-on to their life, but that it shouldn’t be seen as centralized in their life. I do try to communicate that their vision is important and the ideas they have for their work should be taken seriously. Sometimes my students don’t realize that they’re really good at something. So sometimes, it’s a matter of saying to them, “You’re exceptionally good at this!”

Sarah Pfohl, Osteogenesis Imperfecta Model No. 72, 2020 from the project Toward an Aesthetic of Osteogenesis Imperfecta

What messages have you given your students about making art during the pandemic?

Don’t be too hard on yourself. Let’s just try to make something and not get overly concerned if it doesn’t come out perfect the first time. Don’t be scared of the unknown. A studio lighting course, in particular, has been a challenge to translate.

What kind of pictures do you try to capture in your own work?

One project is a photographic representation of the hill I was raised on. For that work, I usually have a shot list of things that I haven’t yet photographed, but I think are essential to the representation of this place that I’m trying to create. I try to balance that with intuition, but sometimes things just happen and I just try to make a photograph, especially when I’m collaborating with my mom to make portraits. I can’t always go in with specific designs, because I want to work with her to see what we realize together.

Artist’s Website

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