Illustration + Design
The Illustration + Design program (I+D) encompasses a diverse faculty with expertise in graphic design, illustration, letterpress, book arts, visual narratives, animation, motion graphics, information design, and interdisciplinary collaborations with the environmental sciences. These specializations are reflected in a broad array of curricular offerings including: field trips, team projects with community clients, internships, and study abroad programs. Through an exploration of the relationship between authorship, personal expression, visual problem solving, and communication, students develop a body of self-authored work consistent with the breadth of the expanding profession. With a high quality portfolio and web presence, students are prepared to go directly into the field and/or apply to graduate programs.
Student animation work can be found here: https://vimeo.com/user27476192
Miles Fujimoto, Animation
Congrats to Haley Morris-Cafiero (MFA '03), who accepted a job as associate professor of Visual Art at De Montfort University in Leicester, England.
Haley, who also earned a Ph.D. this year from the University of Westminster in London, uses her photography as an activist voice to fight discrimination and social invisibility.
Her published monographs include "The Watchers" (2015), in which she captured strangers from across the world reacting to her weight, and "The Bully Pulpit" (2019).
Haley's website: https://www.haleymorriscafiero.com/
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Check out all the cool student work from this month's Illustration, Design and Animation BFA Thesis Show at https://bfacapstone.art.arizona.edu/ (The link is also in our bio).
Thanks to IDA Assistant Professor of Practice Simon Hinchliffe and Cy Barlow with the College of Fine Arts for documenting their work.
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Students in galen dara's ART 404 sketch class began installing their work at the Lionel Rombach Gallery with Galleries Director lydia see and took a field trip to the World Of Words (WOW) library yesterday.
WOW, in the University of Arizona College of Education, has the largest global collection of book illustrations in the U.S. at 1430 E. Second St.!
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Students from galen dara smith's "Scratching the Surface" summer sketchbook class (ART 404) took working field trips to the University of Arizona Poetry Center and the Special Collections, University of Arizona Libraries last week.
The students are using the Lionel Rombach Gallery as an open classroom and visual incubator to display their work!
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Congrats to Olivia Miller, the University of Arizona Museum of Art's new director!
From UAMA's post (🔗Link in @ uazmuseumofart bio has the complete announcement!): We could not be more delighted to announce Olivia Miller, UAMA’s curator of exhibitions since 2014 and interim director for the past 10 months, as the new director of the museum. Please join us in congratulating Olivia on her new role!
Olivia – the first woman to serve as UAMA director – has curated more than 30 exhibitions during her tenure including the museum’s largest in over a decade, “The Art of Food: From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation.” She also oversaw the restoration and return of the UAMA’s stolen Willem de Kooning painting, “Woman-Ochre.”
“I am thrilled and honored to take on this new role at UAMA and continue to work with its incredible staff and collection,” says Olivia. “University art museums are special institutions and the University of Arizona is a dynamic campus with endless possibilities for interdisciplinary collaborations.
“At this exciting time of renewal both here at UAMA and in the field at large, we will embark on a new strategic plan to build upon the museum’s strengths while creating new approaches that center university and community impact, shape our collections to reflect diverse creative experiences, and enact positive social change.”
Kudos to adjunct instructor Jonathan Marquis, whose exhibition "Downwaste" is on display at the San Francisco Airport Museum until Oct. 26.
For the series, Jonathan visited glaciers in Montana's Glacier National Park and produced cyanotypes that visualize glacial melt.
Click on the link in our bio or go to https://tinyurl.com/SOAdownwaste for more details and photos about the exhibition, curated by Kai Caemmerer.
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Congrats to Khaled Jarrar (MFA '19), whose film "Notes on Displacement" won this year’s DOXA Feature Documentary Award.
Khaled is the director and cameraman as he goes with a group of Syrian Palestinians on their journey that ends in Germany after troubles at borders in Europe.
For more details, go to https://buff.ly/41AaBEw
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Congrats to Assistant Professor Alejandro Macias for receiving the Lehmann Emerging Artist Award, which includes an upcoming exhibition at the Phoenix Art Museum with co-recipient Yaritza Flores Bustos.
"Thank you to the panelists and the museum for this incredible and special opportunity. I am so honored," Alex said on Instagram.
From the museum: phxart is thrilled to announce Fronterizx Collective as the recipient of the 2023 Arlene and Morton Scult Artist Award and Yaritza Flores Bustos and Alejandro Macias as the recipients of the Sally and Richard Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards. The exhibitions will premiere on Wednesday, July 19, 2023, with an art talk presented by Fronterizx Collective at 6:30 pm. About the artists:
Alejandro Macias (alex.macias.art) was born and raised in Brownsville, Texas. His practice mixes conventional, representational, and abstract approaches, a strategy that acts as a metaphor for his upbringing along the U.S.-Mexico border. His work explores themes of Mexican-American identity, assimilation, acculturation, repression, civil rights, immigration, cultural misconceptions, contemporary socio-political trepidations, and the ever-shifting American political landscape.
Fronterizx Collective (fronterizxcollective)
Jenea Sanchez and Gabriela Muñoz of Fronterizx Collective began working together in 2009. Their practice in video, printmaking, paper-making, installation, performance, sculpture, and socially engaged projects is rooted in their experiences as women of color who grew up in the liminal culture between Mexico and the United States. ... (They) explore issues of power, labor, and transnational feminisms.
Born in 1997, Yaritza Flores Bustos (delosflores) migrated from Michoacan, México, at a young age with her family. They established a home in Maryvale, the Westside of Phoenix, something that Bustos states with pride. Her interdisciplinary practice works across media to develop a new archive that venerates the multiple languages her community utilizes to survive.
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'Lucky Me!" continues through Friday at the Lionel Rombach Gallery.
The exhibition is presented by Infuse, a group of graduate student artists, writers and researchers exploring ways to come together, create and cultivate professional opportunities for communities across campus.
Infuse is co-organized by Astrid Liu, Emily Kray and Jackie Arias.
Other exhibition collaborators included Leah Mensch and Cameron Carr; Hanan Khatoun, Sydney Streightiff and Jenna Green; Yvette Saenz and Moisés Delgado; and Isaac Morano and Sarah Fenter.
Congrats to all!
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Here's a look at the recent "While It Lasts" exhibition reception, which featured works from Photography, Video and Imaging capstone undergraduate students under Regents Professor Sama Alshaibi at the Steinfeld Warehouse's Subspace.
The artists were Sara Apostolik, Lizzie Bell, Jackie Cabrera, Kimberly Calles, Mckenzie Campas, Caitlyn Jarrett, Marcello Martinoli, Tanya Robles, Fernanda Silva Mendoza, Ariana Valencia and Jessica Wolff.
Congrats to all!
(Photos by David Huber)
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Thanks to Kate Long Hodges (MFA '06) and Ted Wade Springer (MFA '98), who co-hosted Saturday's Foraging & Fundraising event and sunset dinner at The Land With No Name Sanctuary.
Guests ate from the desert, learned about the history and culture of Sonoran biodiversity and sipped wild-crafted beverages while the sun set over the roasting pit.
(Photos by School of Art Director Colin Blakely)
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Graduating senior Grace Rhyne and 20 other students showcased their work at Thursday evening's Illustration, Design and Animation Capstone Thesis Show in the School of Art Lobby.
Congrats to all!
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You have until 5 p.m. today to see Gabrielle Walter's installation "Fireweed" in the 2023 MFA Thesis Exhibition in the Joseph Gross Gallery!
The exhibition also ends at the University of Arizona Museum of Art on Saturday.
Excerpts from her artist's statement: "My installation is inspired by a 2022 trip to Juneau, Alaska, where I reconnected with my body through place. An artist book, illustration series and animation incorporate cyanotypes gathered during this journey to tell the story of a fictional protagonist in conflict with herself and nature. As this young woman goes for a walk, she fixates on the beauty of the landscape, spurring a thought spiral about her aesthetic and physical worth in the vastness of her location.
"Alaska’s native fireweed (Chamaenerion angustifolium) becomes a catalyst for change as the defeated protagonist finds similarities in her own journey and this weed’s ability to survive. ... Set to the backdrop of a cyanotype mountain range, I sought to capture the role nature can play in this relationship as it forces us to acknowledge our bodies through physical exertion and witness the beauty found in harsh conditions. Fireweed is an ode to the endurance of the human form and the relationship between femininity, resilience, and the body."
Congrats to all six of our graduating MFA Exhibition artists, including Gabrielle, Alain Co, Emily Kray, Mariel Miranda, Jesus Sanchez-Alvarez and Jandey. Shackelford.
Click on the link in our bio to read more about them, or go to https://tinyurl.com/SOAMFA23
Photos 1-9 by David Patrick Baboila
Photo 10 of Gabrielle by Michael Chesnick
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Grad student Ben Davis received a $1,000 scholarship from PaperWorks-The Sonoran Collective of Paper and Book Artists — and he presented his work Thursday morning at St. Francis in the Foothills.
"Through the use of photography, book arts and collage, I have been making my own histories of mundane materials that I view as cultural relics," Ben says (https://tinyurl.com/SOADavis23).
"By exploring different narratives and routes in objects and media I hope to inspire the viewer to think critically about the histories of what surrounds us."
PaperWorks awards scholarships to students focused on paper arts, photography, printing, painting and bookbinding from Pima Community College and the University of Arizona.
Congrats, Ben, and thank you PaperWorks for helping our students!
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Only a few more days to enjoy the 2023 MFA Thesis Exhibition, including Jandey Shackelford's striking installation "Imprint."
Excerpts from Jandey's artist statement: "My work raises questions and sheds light on persistent stereotypes, gender roles and forms of oppression that persist. Specifically, it is a reflective examination of the impact that a space, particularly a home or house, can have on its inhabitants. I utilize a combination of my own footprints and those of others to explore these concepts. ...
"These large drawings were created through a process that employs bodies, space, interaction and physical manipulation of roofing paper. The material was subjected to a system of imprinting, tearing, arranging, and careful mending with fibers to represent the foundation of a home and the chaos that can exist within it. Through the combination of construction and craft materials, I seek to express the experience of living in a space characterized by a sense of hopelessness and helplessness. The act of creating these drawings represents an effort to transcend the space of sadness from which they were born."
The MFA exhibition runs until Friday, May 12, at Joseph Gross Gallery and until May 13 at the University of Arizona Museum of Art (UAMA), where Jandey's installation is.
Click on the link in our bio to read more about Jandey and the other five MFA exhibition artists, or go to https://tinyurl.com/SOAMFA23
Photos 1-8 by David Patrick Baboila
Photos 9-10 by Michael Chesnick
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A belated shoutout to Alex Turner (MFA '20), whose "1 Human (Border Patrol) with A.I. Recognition, San Rafael Valley, AZ" has been acquired by LACMA Los Angeles County Museum of Art for its permanent collection.
The work, part of Alex's BLIND RIVER project, was featured in the Marshall Gallery's 2022 exhibition "The Intimacy of Distance: Explorations of the Figure/Ground," curated by School of Art Associate Professor Lawrence Gipe and Douglas Marshall.
More details and a look at Alex's work in the marshall.gallery bio, or at https://tinyurl.com/SOAturner23
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Congrats to all our May graduates! — including Danielle Hunt, who talked to us about her triumphs and trials as a BFA student in 3D and Extended Media with a focus in sculpture.
"I love the tactile and sensorial nature of (sculpture), being able to really see, smell, hear, taste and feel what it is that I’m creating," Danielle says. "Sculpture feels like the truest form of creation to me."
Click on the link in our bio to read the Q&A, or go to https://tinyurl.com/SOAHunt
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The 2023 MFA Thesis Exhibition includes these striking drawings and paintings by Jesus Sanchez-Alvarez titled "Embellishment Intimacy."
Excerpts from Jesus' artist statement: "Creating a sense of intimacy with natural forms and ornamentation is the driving force behind my pen and ink drawings and watercolor paintings. My definition of natural forms encompasses plants, human beings, and animals. Studying the diversity of organisms on our planet evokes within me an attraction to fantastical and other worldly imagery, such as hybrid beings. In my view, a hybrid being is a living composite of multiple life forms such as fairies, centaurs, and angels. I view nature as an enchanting place, and I seek to magnify this perception through creating new types of plants and creatures.
"The presence of ornamentation in this work represents the extension of the natural world beyond where it ordinarily grows. As a result, many decorative components take on organic shapes. Ornament in these renditions can be found on the vestments, architecture, wings, trees, plants, and seeds. The large, decorated, egg-like shapes are the seeds which bloom into elaborately designed plants. The nature in these settings grows upon the playing of musical instruments found in the series’ universe."
The MFA exhibition runs until Friday, May 12, at Joseph Gross Gallery and until May 13 at the University of Arizona Museum of Art (UAMA), where Jesus' works are.
Go to the story link in our bio to read more about Jesus and the other five MFA exhibition artists, or go to https://tinyurl.com/SOAMFA23
Photos 1-7 by David Patrick Baboila
Photo 8 of Sanchez-Alvarez by Michael Chesnick
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The 2023 MFA Thesis Exhibition at the Joseph Gross Gallery and UAMA continues until May 12, including these incredible works by Mariel Miranda, for her thesis project titled “The dust, or the wind, perhaps."
An excerpt from Mariel's artist statement: "My work presents a speculative fiction installation invoking radical utopias founded in a Science Fiction workshop that I co-hosted with my brother, neighbors and friends in Las Cumbres, my barrio in Tijuana, Mexico. Together we planned how to defend our loved ones against a narco pest and the alien thieves that are causing the running water to dry out in our homes. We challenge the use of our land as a junkyard and undermine the presence of a factory that works for the neocolonialist corporations Tesla and SpaceX — thriving on profit from the old Mars colonization fantasy while relying on extractivist practices and of our manual labor."
"In a moment of history, where triumphant narratives depend on our sadness and pessimistic belief in the future’s end, in Las Cumbres — as in many other territories — our fight is for solidarity, joy and life: The South are us."
Click on the link in our bio to read more about Mariel and the other five MFA exhibition artists, or go to https://tinyurl.com/SOAMFA23
Photos by David Patrick Baboila
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Infuse is throwing a reception on Wednesday, May 10, from 3-5 p.m. at the Lionel Rombach Gallery for its 2023 interdisciplinary collaborative exhibit, "Lucky Me!"
The show will be on display through Friday, May 19.
Come through for free food, a tarot reading, to make friends and make luck. Wear your luckiest clothing, or come as your own lucky self, and procrastinate submitting grades for just a little bit longer.
Celebrate with the collaborators and your friends and colleagues from graduate programs all across the School of Art and Department of English!
Exhibition organizers Astrid Liu (she/her), Emily Kray (he/they) and Jackie Arias also announced that each collaborator received prize money for participating in the show:
Leah Mensch and Cameron Carr won the first-place prize of $100 each. Hanan Khatoun, Sydney Streightiff, and Jenna Green won the second-place prize of $75 each. Yvette Saenz and Moisés Delgado won the Most Blessed Award of $50 each. Isaac Morano and Sarah Fenter won the Most Serendipitous Award of $50 each.
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The School of Art houses excellent facilities including studio spaces, computer labs with Wacom Cintiq Touch screens and animation stations, a digital imaging lab with large format printing, mounting and other services, letterpress equipment, photopolymer platemaking equipment, metal and wood type collections, binding equipment, darkrooms, wood and metal shops, sculpture foundry, ceramics labs, and external resources such as: the Center for Creative Photography, the University of Arizona Museum of Art and the Poetry Center as well as an excellent library that houses an extensive book art collection. The campus also houses the Learning Games Initiative Research Archive and the extensive Children’s Literature Collection.
Visit our Resources & Facilities page to learn more about the excellent facilities available for instruction in Illustration + Design.
American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) student chapter
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Book Art Collective
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UA Illustration + Design News
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Persona Magazine
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College Book Arts Association
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- Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art, Illustration + Design Emphasis
- Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art, Illustration + Design Emphasis
Contact an academic advisor or set up an advising appointment to learn more about School of Art programs and admissions
Spring 2021 Undergraduate Illustration + Design Portfolio Review
Accepting applications from Friday, March 12 at 9:00 a.m. until Monday, March 15 at 9:00 a.m.
This annual Spring Portfolio Review accepts 18-22 students in the Illustration track and 18-22 students in the Design track. We also work with students interested in both illustration and design on an individual basis upon acceptance to one of the tracks.
Eligibility Checklist
- I have taken the majority of my First Year Experience (FYE) classes.
- I have taken or am currently enrolled in Art 265/Art 266. It is best to take at least one of these classes in the Fall before the review. But there is no penalty for going through the review multiple times so you should apply even if both required classes are being taken during the review semester. (Transfer students should make sure they have had the equivalent of Art 265/266. Check with the Division chair to confirm).
- A completed Visual Assignment (see below).
- Submit 10–12 art works in your portfolio. The Visual Assignment counts as one of these pieces.
Portfolio Review Procedures
- This Online Review will go live at 9:00 a.m. Friday, March 12 and be open until 9:00 a.m. Monday, March 15.
- Follow this application link starting 9:00 a.m. Friday, March 12.
- I+D Faculty will review and rank the applications. This procedure may take a few days.
- You will be notified via email of your acceptance and the required classes for your track. Please note that if you do not register for the required classes in the Fall, you will forfeit your place in the I+D program.
- You will also be notified via email of you are not accepted to the program. You will be able to sign up for advising appointments to discuss your next steps and get feedback on your portfolio.
Portfolio Review Guidelines
- 10–12 pieces of work including the Portfolio Review Visual Assignment (see below). The answer to the assignment will be the first piece in your portfolio. Other pieces should include projects from Art 265 and Art 266, but may be supplemented with work from other studio areas including self-initiated work. Transfer students should include work from transferred courses.
- Motion and Web design pieces can also be uploaded as well. It is best to upload a still and a hyperlink to online viewing such as YouTube or Vimeo.
Evaluation, Acceptance, and Advising
- The work submitted should: Show an eye for composition and application of formal principles (scale, balance, weight, texture, direction, etc.); Communicate an understanding of form and sensitivity to materials; Show a clear understanding of color relationships; Demonstrate excellent skills and attention to detail; Show a facility with software. Ideas embodied in the work should be innovative and strong. Digital uploads should be clear and readable.
- If you have been accepted into I+D, your name will be placed on a list allowing you to register for the required Design or Illustration courses* online. Register on time to get a seat in fall classes. You will only be guaranteed courses in the sequence indicated on the I+D grid (included with acceptance). If you do not register for the required classes in the fall semester, you forfeit your place in the program. If there are extenuating circumstances, contact I+D Program Chair Kelly Leslie (kleslie@arizona.edu) to discuss.
*You must maintain a 3.0 GPA in I+D classes in order to be guaranteed admission into these classes.
The Visual Assignment
The below poem is a prompt for your Visual assignment. Choose any stanza of the poem or the poem as a whole for inspiration. You may choose to include text but it is not required. Some approaches to consider:
- Book/Book Cover
- Typographic Composition
- Sequential Narrative/Comic
- Poster
- Photography
- Drawing/Illustration
- Animation
A Map to the Next World
By Joy Harjo
In the last days of the fourth world I wished to make a map for
those who would climb through the hole in the sky.
My only tools were the desires of humans as they emerged
from the killing fields, from the bedrooms and the kitchens.
For the soul is a wanderer with many hands and feet.
The map must be of sand and can’t be read by ordinary light. It
must carry fire to the next tribal town, for renewal of spirit.
In the legend are instructions on the language of the land, how it
was we forgot to acknowledge the gift, as if we were not in it or of it.
Take note of the proliferation of supermarkets and malls, the
altars of money. They best describe the detour from grace.
Keep track of the errors of our forgetfulness; the fog steals our
children while we sleep.
Flowers of rage spring up in the depression. Monsters are born
there of nuclear anger.
Trees of ashes wave good-bye to good-bye and the map appears to
disappear.
We no longer know the names of the birds here, how to speak to
them by their personal names.
Once we knew everything in this lush promise.
What I am telling you is real and is printed in a warning on the
map. Our forgetfulness stalks us, walks the earth behind us,
leaving a trail of paper diapers, needles, and wasted blood.
An imperfect map will have to do, little one.
The place of entry is the sea of your mother’s blood, your father’s
small death as he longs to know himself in another.
There is no exit.
The map can be interpreted through the wall of the intestine—a
spiral on the road of knowledge.
You will travel through the membrane of death, smell cooking
from the encampment where our relatives make a feast of fresh
deer meat and corn soup, in the Milky Way.
They have never left us; we abandoned them for science.
And when you take your next breath as we enter the fifth world
there will be no X, no guidebook with words you can carry.
You will have to navigate by your mother’s voice, renew the song
she is singing.
Fresh courage glimmers from planets.
And lights the map printed with the blood of history, a map you
will have to know by your intention, by the language of suns.
When you emerge note the tracks of the monster slayers where they
entered the cities of artificial light and killed what was killing us.
You will see red cliffs. They are the heart, contain the ladder.
A white deer will greet you when the last human climbs from the
destruction.
Remember the hole of shame marking the act of abandoning our
tribal grounds.
We were never perfect.
Yet, the journey we make together is perfect on this earth who was
once a star and made the same mistakes as humans.
We might make them again, she said.
Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end.
You must make your own map.
Ready to join our community of dedicated artists, educators and scholars? Visit our Admissions page to start your application.
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