1930s
Al Konetzni, Pictorial Illustration, ’35, a Disney artist and Legend, designed four new Disney stamps, featuring Mickey Mouse, Dumbo, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, and Aladdin with the Genie. Konetzni was on hand for the unveiling in September at the South Florida Museum. Maida Heatter, Painting, ’36, will have five of her cookbooks featured in the 2008 spring catalog of Andrews McMeel Cookbooks. The internationally acclaimed dessert cookbook author recently donated to the Pratt Libraries autographed copies of 13 of her award-winning books.
Alvin J. Pimsler, Fashion Illustration, ’38, was elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 2006.
1940s
Ellsworth Kelly, Fine Arts, ’44; Doctor of Fine Arts (Hon.),’93, is the artist whose one-color lithograph, titled Red Curve,
appeared on the cover of the 2007 holiday greeting card sent from the president’s office to constituents and friends of Pratt Institute. Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl in Manhattan recently presented a solo exhibition of his lithographs, titled “Ellsworth Kelly: The Rivers.” Helen Fleischman Post, Illustration, ’46, was invited by the Woodbridge Art Center to exhibit her oil and pastel paintings last March.
1950s
Harry Shekailo, Architecture, ’50, wrote Grandpa’s Thoughts of World War II, Bush, Love, and More (Trafford, 2006) to help him cope with the stress of taking care of his disabled wife for the final 18 years of her life. Now 90 years old and “still enjoying life,” Shekailo is helping his great-grandchildren get their college education and is painting again. William C. North, Art and Design Education, ’51, was appointed artist in residence in February 2006 at the Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park in Naples, Fla. His impressionist oil beachscapes, painted on location, were on view last summer at the Florida Fine Art Gallery in Fort Myers. Norman J. James, Industrial Design, ’56, recently released Of Firebirds & Moonmen: A Designer’s Story from the Golden Age (Xlibris Corp., 2007), a memoir that vividly recaptures the odyssey of a maverick
Class Notes
car maker and presents a behindthe-scenes look at the design of the GM gas-turbine Firebird III, which is still considered one of the most advanced concept cars ever built. Robert F. Manning, Graphic Arts, ’58, has been a member of the Speakers Bureau of the Vermont Humanities Council since 2001. His three lectures, funded by the Council, are: “Bearing Witness— Art As Social Commentary, Art As Propaganda”; “The Neolithic World of Stone”; and “Georgia O’Keeffe, An American Master.” After 35 years of teaching, Manning is a retired professor of fine arts. Marilyn Church, B.F.A., Graphic Arts, ’59, exhibited several of her collages in a group show at Lana Santorelli Gallery in Manhattan this winter. Jan Sand, Industrial Design, ’59, recently launched an Internet blog (http://sandfile.blogspot.com/), an autobiographical site that focuses on Sand’s creative journey in Helsinki, Finland. Sand sustains his creativity writing poetry, drawing, and painting, and has had many works published. Before moving to Helsinki in the early 1990s, he was employed by the UN as a design adviser in Israel and has developed numerous temporary exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States.
1960s
Guido G. Karcher, Mechanical Engineering, ’60, was honored by
the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for outstanding leadership in the advancement of its codes and standards. He received ASME’s Melvin R. Green Codes and Standards Medal. Barbara Nessim, Graphic Arts and Illustration, ’60, exhibited her work last summer in two back-to-back shows at Sienna Gallery in Lenox, Mass. The first show, “Transitions,” included pieces from her early 1990s RAM 400 project; the second, included drawings from the “WOMANGIRL” series of the early 1970s. Selections from the latter were also exhibited in the “What F Word?” group show at the Cynthia Broan Gallery in New York City.
William L. Porter, M.I.D., ’60, a retired General Motors designer, has been constructing an all-steel house, garage, studio, workshop, and barn complex north of Ann Arbor, Mich..
Sam Cochran
Samuel Cabot Cochran B.I.D., ’05, used his senior thesis project as the basis for Grow Ivy, a hybrid solar and wind prototype that attaches to the side of buildings to turn the sun’s light into solar energy and electricity. The wind energy is captured through piezoelectric devices that generate wind power from the fluttering of the solar leaves. Collapsible, portable, and beautiful, Grow Ivy won immediate praise from architects and designers when it was displayed at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York in 2005. It was featured in “Design and the Elastic Mind,” an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from February 24 through May 12, 2008, with the sponsorship of the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance. Cochran’s start-up company, Sustainably Minded Interactive Technology (SMIT), began as a sustainable business plan proposed in his sister Teresita’s master’s thesis project in New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, from which she received her degree in 2005. Cochran quickly realized that they were working in the same field of interest, so the siblings formed SMIT in spring 2005. In the fall they moved into Pratt’s Design Incubator for Sustainable Innovation to turn his thesis project Grow Ivy into a real-world product. “The incubator network has been a huge advantage,” said Cochran, “from connecting me with the right people, to solving legal issues and finding investors.” SMIT already has a patent pending on the combination of photovoltaics (solar panels) and piezoelectric devices. He and Teresita Cochran welcomed a third partner as of November 2007—Pratt alumnus Benjamin Howes, B.Arch., ’06. They are now in pursuit of other provisional patents. “I believe sustainability can be the standard way of working and designing,” said Cochran. “Each one of us has the opportunity to create and be a part of the new industrial revolution. We can make the word ‘sustainability’ a reality.” 59