Lester Van Winkle, professor emeritus in the Department of Sculpture + Extended Media, will be honored as the 2006 recipient of the College Art Association's Distinguished Teaching of Art Award. He will receive the award at the association’s annual conference in February.

The College Art Association describes the award as follows: “The Distinguished Teaching of Art Award, established in 1972, is presented to an individual who has been actively engaged in teaching art for most of his career. This award is presented to an artist of distinction who has developed a philosophy or technique of instruction based on his experience as an artist; has encouraged his students to develop their own individual abilities; and/or has made some contribution to the body of knowledge loosely called theory and understood as embracing technical, material, aesthetic and perceptual issues.”

Joe Seipel, former department chair and current Senior Associate Dean for VCUarts, notes that “Lester has become a legend in the realm of teaching art and richly deserves this award.”

A professor in VCU’s Department of Sculpture Extended Media for 34 years, Van Winkle played a major role in the development of the graduate sculpture program that is ranked first in the nation by U.S. News World Report. In addition, Van Winkle has served as mentor and guide to students in all levels of the program from freshman foundation courses, through beginning and advanced sculpture, to graduate level seminars and studios. Van Winkle received the VCU Distinguished Teaching Award in 2003.

Born and raised in East Texas, Van Winkle received his master’s degree from University of Kentucky and has shown nationwide, from California to Texas to Washington, D.C. to New York, and in Europe. His sculptures are part of numerous public and private collections and he has been the recipient of two NEA fellowships. His work may best be classified as figurative, either carved or cast or welded, of wood or aluminum or steel.

Van Winkle is the second VCUarts professor to be honored by the College Art Association in recent years. Richard Carlyon, VCU Painting & Printmaking professor emeritus, received the Distinguished Teaching of Art Award in 1993.

Emily Davis, a first-year graduate student in the VCUarts Department of Art History, has been nominated for the Phi Kappa Phi National Fellowship Award.  As VCU’s nominee, she also wins theLauren A. Woods Graduate Scholarship, which includes a cash prize of $2,500. 

Phi Kappa Phi is a national honor society promoting the pursuit of excellence in all academic fields. Founded at the University of Maine in 1897, Phi Kappa Phi is the nation’s oldest, largest and most selective all-discipline honor society.  It recognizes outstanding achievement by students, faculty and others through election to membership and through various awards for distinguished achievement.

The national organization of Phi Kappa Phi annually awards over $500,000 to outstanding members and chapters through the society’s various awards competitions. No other honor society awards as much to as many as Phi Kappa Phi.

Award-winning director Casey Biggs will direct VCU students in their February production of The Three Sisters written by Anton Chekhov

Biggs has directed productions of Hamlet for the Odyssey Theater in Los Angeles, Richard III and Macbeth for Circus Theatricals, Hedda Gabler, Therese Raquine for Pacific Resident Theater. In New York he directed Standup Shakespeare starring Alfred Molina and F. Murray Abraham, Stacy Keach in The Evening of Macbeth, and Lynne Redgrave in The Rest is Silence. He co-wrote and directed Prince of Players, a one-man show about Edwin Booth and Love Shakespeare for John Houseman’s The Acting Company. He will be directing The Three Musketeers for the same company next season.

A graduate of The Juilliard School, he has acted and performed throughout the U.S. and Europe. He was a member of the Arena Stage company in Washington, D.C. for ten seasons where he played Bill Cracker in Happy End which was filmed for PBS Great Performances, Petrucchio in Taming of the Shrew, Jack Burden in All the Kings Men, Oberon in the premier of Shakespeare in Hollywood, Odysseus in the American premier of Derek Wolcott’s The Odyssey, and George Bailey in the premier of the musical version of It’s a Wonderful Life. His theatre career extends to performances in Los Angeles, New York and London.

On film Biggs has appeared in Dragonfly, Auggie Rose, Broken Arrow, The Pelican Brief, The Shadow Conspiracy, and The Price of Freedom. On television he starred in four seasons of Star Trek Deep Space Nine, and also in Snoops, STAT, Legacy, Ali, Appearances, Thirst, Enterprise, The X Files, E.R., CSI Miami, and has made numerous guest-star appearances.

Theatre VCU will present The Three Sisters February 16-18, 22-25 at 7:30 p.m. and February 19 & 26 at 2:30 p.m. For tickets, call the box office at 804.828.6026.

In The Three Sisters, the cultured Prozorov sisters and their brother live in a small town and dream of one day finding freedom, fulfillment and romance by moving to faraway Moscow. Often referred to as “the best drama of the 20th century,” this beautifully poignant exploration of the quest for happiness and the tragedy of unfulfilled dreams remains timely and touching even for today’s audiences.

Constance Jansen, a junior fashion design student in the VCUarts Department of Fashion Design & Merchandising, has been selected as a U.S. finalist in the International Fur Trade Federation International Fur Design Competition.  Jansen’s interlaced leather and fur caped jacket will be one of three garments representing the U.S. at Remix 2006 IFTF International Fur Design Competition in Milan, Italy.  There are 37 other member countries that may also submit up to three garments.  An international jury of ten fashion professionals will convene in Milan in March to select the three finalists.

Julia Janeczek, also a junior fashion design student, was one of ten U.S. finalists in the Arts of Fashion Competition in San Francisco in November.  The theme was Art & Fashion & Industry.  Janeczek went on to represent the U.S. in Paris in December where she competed in the Air France Fashion Design Contest with students from 17 countries. 

This was the 23rd edition of the “Concours International des Jeunes Createurs de Mode,” and was attended by major international designers such as Pierre Cardin.  This international fashion design student competition is one of the industry’s most famous and prestigious.  Jurors included Maria Luisa Poumaillou, owner of the upstream Maria Luisa designer wear boutique; Peggy Huynh Kinh, designer behind Cartier, Balmain Celine and Patou; and Adam Jones, Britain's rising fashion designer who presented recently in Haute Couture.

The Anderson Gallery of VCUarts will present two concurrent exhibitions this winter:  Highlights: Print Selections from the Collection, a thought-provoking survey of printmaking from the perspective of guest co-curators David Freed and Barbara Tisserat and Disturbance, a video installation consisting of five separate, yet interrelated, works that explore the phenomena of media spectacle. Both exhibitionswill open with a reception from 7 – 9 p.m. on January 27 and run through March 5, 2006.

The 35 prints and books selected for Highlights: Print Selections from the Collection traverse centuries, technologies and worlds, moving from the exquisite intricacies of a fifteenth-century Dürer engraving to the raucous lithographed color of a Red Grooms street scene.  Rather than emphasizing a thematic connection, the guest curators chose to present works representative of significant aspects of the rich tradition of printmaking, including noteworthy examples of the range of technical approaches, the role of the print as a vehicle for political and social commentary, its association with text in book and portfolio formats, and its appeal to major artists as a means for a broader dissemination of images. From the hyper-realism of Richard Estes to biting caricatures by James Gillray and Sue Coe, from the raw power of a Gauguin woodcut to the elegant linear description of a David Hockney etching, from the autographic brilliance of Toulouse-Lautrec to the cool pop intelligence of Patrick Caulfield, these treasures from the collection invite close scrutiny and underscore the link between process and product that is so integral to the history of the print.

Recently retired, David Freed was a full-time professor in the VCUarts Department of Painting and Printmaking. Born in Ohio, Freed received his BFA from Miami University in Ohio and his MFA from the University of Iowa, where he studied under legendary printmaker Mauricio Lasansky. Freed has received numerous awards, including a Fulbright Grant for study in London. He has participated in group and solo exhibitions in Yugoslavia, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, England, and throughout the United States. His prints can be found in individual collections, as well as those of numerous museums, major corporations, and 15 American embassies throughout the world.

Barbara Tisserat joined the faculty of VCU in 1978, where she continues to teach lithography in the VCUarts Department of Painting and Printmaking. She earned a BFA from Colorado State University and her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her prints have been exhibited in Japan, Peru, and throughout Virginia; she most recently had a major retrospective exhibition at the Visual Arts Center in Richmond in 2005. Her work can be found in the collections of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Art Institute in Chicago, and the New York Public Library, as well as in various corporate collections.

For Disturbance, the Anderson Gallery’s second floor will be transformed into a dark theatre-like space to more fully experience these provocative and often disconcerting works. The centerpiece of this video installation, Disturbance: 22 Minutes of Television Images from April 29 – May 2, 1992, derives solely from a single tape of television footage haphazardly recorded by video artist Bob Paris over a two-day period during the L.A. riots that followed the court ruling in the Rodney King case. Displayed over three large screens, the work features a highly choreographed interplay between footage of riots, newscasts and commercials to create an eerie revisiting of the events.

Two other major installations in the exhibition, Signal and Twilight, reach into the same tomb of images as Disturbance, but emerge with a more tonal, brooding and mysterious expression – an electronic elegy in black and white. Signal offers a brief, disquieting loop that suggests catastrophe in three amorphous events. Twilight, a trio of monitors mounted along a vertical column, also employs abstract, high-contrast images for a meditative evocation of ghostly breakdown.

Bob Paris is an instructor in the VCUarts Kinetic Imaging program.  He has exhibited at the Whitney Biennial, the Image Forum Festival in Tokyo, and Documenta IX in Germany; and his documentary work has aired on public television. His projects frequently use appropriated imagery to form critiques of mass media and popular culture.

VCUarts Anderson Gallery is free and open to the public, Monday through Friday, 10 - 5, and Saturday and Sunday, 1 – 5. For more information about these exhibitions or about the gallery, please call 804-828-1522, or visit the Gallery’s website at www.vcu.edu/artweb/gallery.

Sound and media artist Stephen Vitiello is one of five musicians and critics featured in the December 2005 issue of ArtForum magazine, describing his ten favorite musical experiences in 2005. 

An highly regarded artist in the field, Vitiello is a professor in the VCUarts Kinetic Imaging program.   In his work, he is particularly interested in the physical aspect of sound and its potential to define the form and atmosphere of a spatial environment.  Vitiello has exhibited and performed internationally at the 2002 Whitney Biennial, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Tate Modern and elsewhere.

In 1999, he was awarded a six-month WorldViews residency on the 91st floor of the World Trade Center, resulting in a site-specific sound installation that has been broadcast and exhibited internationally.