SCAD alumna Erika E. Wade (M.F.A., dramatic writing, 2016) has come a long way from the four-year-old who jotted down Harry Potter-esque short stories back home in Birmingham, Alabama. This Los Angeles-based scriptwriter will debut her solo performance “The Rhythm & Da Blues” Aug. 24-27, 2017 at the 13th Street Repertory Theatre in New York City.
 
SCAD: What's one lesson your learned at SCAD?

ERIKA E. WADE: At SCAD, I learned to stop fighting the things I’m naturally drawn to. At first, I thought comedy writing was the scariest thing I’d ever heard, and then I just wrote in my own voice. I wrote things as I saw them, and it made people laugh.
 
SCAD: What was your first move after graduation?
 
WADE: I moved to L.A. for a summer internship at a literary agency. When it was over, I had to figure out whether I was going to stay in California or go back home.
 
The whole first year, I explored. I did a little standup, then the 2016 Funny Women Festival, a comedy festival just for women. I kept writing new content, even if it was just fleshing out an idea, and opportunities just started coming from everywhere. I wrote "The Mad Mad Scientist Play" for TinyRhino LA, a collective that organizes nights of ten-minute plays. Not only did I find my little place in the city, but I grew as a writer.
 
SCAD: Where do you find inspiration for comedy and playwriting?


WADE: I'm inspired by being nosey. I write on the train. In Starbucks, I watch people and mimic their voices under my breath. I write for the people, so they inspire me. I've also always been inspired by the work Suzan Lori-Parks does with rhythm and historical retellings.
 
SCAD: How are you preparing for your debut one-woman performance?

WADE: Good friend and SCAD alumnus Topher Cusamano (M.F.A., dramatic writing, 2014) has a theater company in New York City. I sent him "The Rhythm & Da Blues" and he asked if he could produce it. The universe aligned, and we developed an Off-Off-Broadway show at 13th Street.
 
I play twelve characters, and every rehearsal, I learn new things about them. My vocal coach helped me make a realistic plan for maintaining my voice. We wanted to make sure each character had their own soul, because I’m not doing wigs or outfits. I wanted to show black women in all their very real emotional ranges.

SCAD: If you could work with one other playwright on a project, who and why?

WADE: I’d love to work with Nilaja Sun. I love how she incorporates multiple characters in scenes. I read "No Child" in my Devising Solo Performances class at SCAD, and it made me rethink what's possible in solo performances. 
 
SCAD: What's your biggest piece of advice for writers getting into the industry? 
 
WADE: Once you accomplish a goal, celebrate, but work like you’re still not where you want to be. “Making it” shouldn’t be a thing. Focus on the work: The only way to be a real writer is to get things down on the page.
 

Supremely savvy style site Fashionista is currently assembling their annual list of the world's top fashion schools. If you're a SCAD alumnus with a degree in fashion, take a moment to make your voice heard. And if you're here familiarizing yourself with what the SCAD School of Fashion has to offer, read on.

At the undergraduate and graduate level, SCAD fashion students prepare to lead the ever-evolving world of fashion through a rigorous curriculum anchored by creative thinking and dynamic technology. Led by Michael Fink, dean for School of Fashion, and guided by professors with extensive industry experience, students explore fashion from the conceptual to the commercial, merging technical dexterity with personal vision to develop original fashion collections.
 
The SCAD School of Fashion offers degrees in accessory design, fashion, fashion marketing and management, and luxury and fashion management. SCAD offers related minors in menswear, fashion photography, fashion journalism, jewelry, fragrance marketing and management and more, allowing students to refine their focus and build expertise in their disciplines.
 
At SCAD, students converse with critics, designers, buyers and thought leaders like Imran Amed, Norma Kamali, Robin Givhan, Brandon Maxwell and Carolina Herrera who visit SCAD's global campuses to share their experience and insight. Each year, the Style Lab Mentor program affords SCAD fashion students the opportunity to interact one-on-one with established designers like Zac Posen, Catherine Malandrino, Stephen Burrows, Rachel Roy, Christian Siriano and Rafé Totengco. Students liaise with top industry professionals during signature events SCADstyle and SCAD FASHWKND, and the many unique workshops and critiques that bring fashion elite to the university.
 
In May 2017, at the inaugural SCAD FASHWKND, 43 students debuted their collections at a runway show in Savannah, held in the courtyard of the SCAD Museum of Art, featuring a recent installation by the internationally renowned Carlos Cruz-Diez. In Atlanta, the collections were displayed in tableaux vivants throughout the third floor of the university's main building. Both SCAD FASHWKND events featured a Shop The Runway retail component, where SCAD alumni shared and sold their designs.
 
In 2017, SCAD students won 20 YMA Fashion Scholarships, more than any other university in the history of the competition. SCAD graduates have won the Supima Design Competition for two consecutive years: In 2016 womenswear designer Jeffrey Taylor (B.F.A., fashion, 2016) earned the $10,000 grand prize in the 9th annual Supima Design Competition. He was invited to show his collection at Lincoln Center during NYFW, and later showed his collection during Paris Fashion Week. In 2015 SCAD alumna Kate McKenna-Schliep (B.F.A., fashion, 2015) won the Supima competition and showed her collection during Paris Fashion Week.
 
In Atlanta, SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film hosts exhibitions of work by world-renowned designers like Oscar de la Renta and Carolina Herrera, as well as historic compendiums including “Embellished: Adornment Through the Ages” and “Shoes: Pleasure and Pain.” To elucidate the themes of each exhibition, SCAD commissions complementary films that are screened in the adjacent SCAD FASH Film Salon. Students can further their studies through the SCAD FASH permanent collection, an archive of more than 1,000 museum quality garments from designers like Oscar de la Renta, Coco Chanel, Marc Jacobs, Yves Saint Laurent, Vera Wang, and Givenchy.

Visit SCAD to learn more about the university's incomparable contributions to the world of fashion.

SCAD is proud to announce the signing of artist-angler C.J. Guest of Shelby, North Carolina to the SCAD fishing team. Guest will matriculate at the university in September, 2017, joining a SCAD fishing program building on its history-making inaugural season under the guidance of Coach Isaac Payne (B.F.A., industrial design, 2015).

Held in Poetter Hall, SCAD's flagship building, the signing ceremony was attended by SCAD executive staff, as well as Guest's parents, Timothia and Chris, and his younger brother Louis.

Guest has long been a notable presence in the world of competitive fishing, dating to his first-place finish in the 7- to 10-year-olds age division at the 2009 BASS Federation Nation Southern Divisional. At the 2016 Bassmaster High School national championships, Guest and his partner placed ninth among 175 competing teams. "I have video of C.J. fishing when he's four years old," said his father, Chris Guest. "He's always wanted that fishing rod in his hands."

A graduate of Crest High School, Guest was a varsity standout in basketball and soccer, and an academic high achiever. In 2017 he received Bassmaster North Carolina All-State High School honors. Guest's signing is the culmination of recruitment efforts by SCAD fishing coach Isaac Payne.

"Last year at the Bassmaster High School National Championships, I watched C.J. and his partner weighing in and introduced myself," Payne explained. "We spoke about lure design, and my own experience earning my bachelor's degree in industrial design here at SCAD. It was important for me to emphasize the highly specialized and advanced degree courses SCAD offers. I met C.J. again at Nationals this year, at Kentucky Lake in Paris Landing State Park in Tennessee, and we discussed the inaugural year of SCAD fishing."

In its augural season, SCAD sent two two-person teams to the 2017 Bassmaster College Series National Championship in Bemidji, Minnesota, where Daniel Kennedy and Cody Stahl placed 13th and Noah Pescitelli and Sean Hall finished 22nd in an 86-team field.

"I followed SCAD fishing online this year and saw how they were doing," C.J. said. "After getting to know Coach Payne and visiting Savannah, I knew this was the place for me."

Guest joins a co-ed team that includes the first female scholarship recipient in the history of collegiate fishing, Laura Ann Foshee, and new signing Oakley Connor, a 2017 All-American from Travelers Rest, South Carolina.

"C.J. is already actualizing his extraordinary potential as a student-athlete and we look forward his future as a SCAD artist-angler," added Payne. "The best is yet to come."

The university welcomes C.J. Guest to the SCAD family.

Catlin Scroggie (B.F.A., animation, 2015) came from her New Market, Iowa hometown to SCAD Atlanta with her sights set on the entertainment industry. Within two years her work appeared in “Wonder Woman,” the summer blockbuster of 2017. As lighting technical director, Scroggie used her own super powers to bring the digital film set to life.

SCAD: What drew you to the field of animation?

CATLIN SCROGGIE: I always knew I wanted to be an artist. I started at a state school, trying to get a fine arts degree. A mentor recognized potential in my work and handed me a SCAD catalog. When I saw people studying to work in film and animation, I knew that this was exactly what I wanted to do. I transferred to SCAD and enrolled in animation. After working really hard, I put my portfolio together, applied at Pixar for the PUP internship in Technical Direction and I got an interview. Already, I had made it farther than I ever dreamed possible.

SCAD: What were your duties as lighting technical director for “Wonder Woman”?

SCROGGIE: If you imagine a film as a digital set, everything starts out in darkness. It’s the role of the lighter to craft a believable world and set the film's mood. In VFX, the lighter integrates live action footage with CGI elements by simulating the same lighting and atmospheric effects as the physical world. Lighters must have a scientific understanding of how light reacts in the real world to accurately simulate it in the digital world.

On “Wonder Woman” I was really fortunate to have an amazing team lead to help me grow and learn. The most challenging thing was the level of pressure placed on artists to overcome the stress of technical hurdles and impending deadlines. It was a huge payoff to see my work on the big screen for the first time.

SCAD: How did you begin your career as an animator after you graduated from SCAD?

SCROGGIE: At SCAD Career Fair, I interviewed with MPC and Method Studios, however MPC was the first to offer me a position in their Academy, thanks to a recommendation from a former SCAD classmate, James Lojo (B.F.A., visual effects, 2014). After graduating the MPC Academy, I went on to work on “Wonder Woman,” “The Mummy,” and “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.” I am now working at Cinesite Studios on Sony Animation’s feature film “The Star,” a retelling of the first Christmas. This is my first feature animation film and I am hoping to use this experience to shift from visual effects to a career in feature animation.

SCAD: What is the most important lesson you learned at SCAD?

SCROGGIE: Success is not a linear path. Originally, I thought I wanted to work in classical hand drawn animation but after my time at SCAD I realized that a career in the technical side of film would help me to grow successfully within a rapidly changing industry. Ultimately, artists have to be willing to adapt to new technologies if they want to survive.

Congratulations to the following SCAD alumni who worked on the feature film “Wonder Woman”:
Carlos A. Alarcon (M.F.A., visual effects, 2010), compositor
Jenn Epstein (B.F.A., visual effects, 2005), senior digital compositor
Josh Evans (M.F.A., visual effects, 2013), matte painter
James Joshua Lojo (B.F.A., visual effects, 2014), VSFX artist
Andrew Maynard (B.F.A., visual effects, 2015), FX artist
Ryan Ruiz (M.F.A., visual effects), technical animator
Madeleine Scott-Spencer (B.F.A., animation, 2005), concept artist
Catlin Scroggie (B.F.A., animation, 2015), lighting TD

Cory Imig's site-responsive show "Notes on Sculpture" transforms the SCAD Museum of Art Emerging Gallery in ways bold and playful. Whether passing through or lingering in contemplation, visitors must assess their relationship to Imig's work.

"It's interesting how the installation influences how people navigate the space," said Imig (B.F.A., fibers, 2008). During a gallery talk hosted by SCAD MOA curator Amanda York, attendees embodied the artist's point.

Imig's show follows her 2016 installation at Gutstein Gallery in the "Push and Pull" group exhibition, as well as her bravura striations adorning the Tybee Island pier at Sand Arts Festival 2017. Her show at Emerging Gallery further signifies her status as an important artist with expansive ideas about scale and space.

The new exhibition features "Ribbon Piece," two intersecting, diagonal sections of green vinyl streamers secured to wall and floor by suction cups and ratchet straps. The gallery becomes a pelagic zoetrope, illuminating Imig's stated desire to create "a moment where people have to contemplate their relationship to the work and their relationship to the space. What type of art object is this? Is this a sculpture? Am I supposed to walk through it? Around it? Prompting people to question what type of experience they're having is something I'm interested in."

"Ribbon Piece" dominates, but other works are key to "Notes on Sculpture." One wall presents Imig's precise diagramming of Sol LeWitt's statement: "All ideas need not be made physical." The diagram gives the sentence a prehensile intensity, subverting and celebrating LeWitt's words.

"When I read LeWitt's 'Sentences on Conceptual Art' in 2007 it was another moment, like, 'Oh, this is interesting,'" Imig explained. "I went to the Writers' Studio in the Jen Library where Jennifer Trevisol spent countless hours with me diagramming all thirty-five of LeWitt's sentences. Some of the sentences are really complex so the diagrams became complex structures. One of the sentences is: 'These sentences comment on art, but are not art.' I loved the idea of turning those sentences into art. It fit so well with the conceptual movement."

Imig arrived for her SCAD MOA show fresh from a road trip to the American west where she witnessed epochal land art including Nancy Holt's "Sun Tunnels," Robert Smithson's "Spiral Jetty" and Michael Heizer's "Double Negative." Her interest in land art inspired fifteen framed pieces in "Notes on Sculpture," with strips of colored paper collaged across natural landscape photographs, rendering distances closer in the work than in reality.

"These are site proposals for possible installations that won't necessarily be built," Imig admitted. Of course, such epic installations are possible, as Imig proved with her red fabric opus at Tybee Island during Sand Arts.

As the gallery talk concluded, Imig greeted friends old and new. Exiting visitors navigated "Ribbon Piece" again. The work remained in play.

Deborah Mosch (M.F.A., illustration, 1991) is a SCAD foundation studies professor specializing in color theory. Here she shares her informed perspective on the remarkable "Chroma" exhibit by Carlos Cruz-Diez, on view at the SCAD Museum of Art through August 20.

Deborah Mosch: I wrote a book "Color, a love story: a color theory course companion." It's for students and anybody who wants to learn about color. My main influences are Josef Albers and Georges Seurat. Seurat had a lot to do with finding light in paint and Albers is all about color relativity. Carlos Cruz-Diez took those developments to the highest power. Cruz-Diez is so far ahead of his time.

I'm fascinated with Cruz-Diez because his work is about color. Color is a character. It's a surrounding. It is a personality. I think of color as having life.

Back in the 1940s, Cruz-Diez was thinking, 'I can't paint these ideas I have fast enough.' So he started working collaboratively with lots of people, and fast-forward to today, that's how people work. He's in his nineties now, and still has thousands of new ideas in his head.

I just can't believe how prolific he is and how many new ideas he’s come up with, especially when you think about what was unfolding in the mid-20th century when a lot of contemporary art really exploded. He had to really stick to his guns and be very strong.

He puts color in big spaces so you have to interact with it. If you look at it an inch off one side, or another side, or you get further or closer, even by a foot, it changes the experience.

The word "experience" is important with his work. That is his gift to the world. He's giving us experiences, not just a theory, an experience. Clearly his work is non-representational. The way I teach color theory is with all non-representational or non-objective imagery because I want students to think only about color so we do it in shape and line.

With his work, it's incredible that he can create so many compositions with just line. Most of his pieces don't have more than six or eight colors in them, but in how they're distributed and how they start and stop and interconnect with each other, they form or imply other shapes. A line and a few colors — it's a very simple concept really, but he puts them together over and over and over in different computations.

I can't help wondering if he ever thinks in terms of, Will this work calm my viewer down or will it activate them? He seems so activated himself and I tend to think that his work isn't meant to be peaceful. It reminds me of "2001: A Space Odyssey." It feels like another dimension.

Cruz-Diez has figured out how the brain reacts to color. He gets it so completely and he understands that it is such a big subject. His work excites me. That someone can say so much with so little is incredible.

"Let's talk about leather," accessory design professor Michelle Quick tells the fourteen high school students gathered in Eckburg Hall on a Monday morning to begin their SCAD Summer Seminars. "Today you'll each make a functioning card wallet. By the end of the week you'll also have made a folio or clutch bag and a cross-body bag to take home." After a playful round of introductions, the students — many from out of state or overseas, and meeting for the first time – get to work.

Quick's workshop is one of approximately twenty classes offered during SCAD Summer Seminars, a series of weeklong immersive experiences for students who have completed their freshman, sophomore or junior years of high school. Students participate in two distinct workshops, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, taught by SCAD professors, alumni and select graduate students. Activities including silent discos and trips to Tybee Island deepen the impression of SCAD student life in Savannah.

"A lot of high school students have done creative assignments before like drawing and painting," Quick says, "but this is different: it's learning to be creative at the next level."

Over the course of the week, Quick's class gains proficiency with industrial machinery, learning how to cut, stitch, and emboss as they create personalized work. What began at tables arrayed with awls, blades and rolls of leather ends up as design pieces students are proud to take home. By Friday evening, Summer Seminars students depart having made new friends and experienced the possibilities of education in pursuit of a creative career.

"I found out about SCAD Summer Seminars when I asked my art teacher which colleges have good industrial design programs and he recommended SCAD," says Vincent Terracciano, a student at Baxter Academy in Portland, Maine. By Friday, Terracciano is doing the final hand-sanding of his leather bag with triangular accents and magnetic buttons. "The leatherworking class has been great. Professor Quick was able to have us make three objects and for that I give her major props. It's been really interesting learning about the different programs SCAD offers."

Chloe Emilio, a rising junior at Staples High School in Westport, Connecticut, took leatherworking and color theory during Summer Seminars. "Color theory class changed the way I look at colors and how they interact. I wanted to bring that to this leatherworking seminar and incorporate the different things I've learned while making my bag." Emilio showed off her handmade leather bag with its complementary purples and yellow and green hues offset by a silver strap. "I always look at bags and think, how do they make that? It's been great this week to learn to make my own."

After copying down professor Quick's contact information (they're encouraged to stay in touch), the students gather their work and offer grateful goodbyes. Quick wears a satisfied smile: "This was a great group. They all wanted to try new things and challenge themselves. At Summer Seminars there's a lot to do and students get right to it. I'm always impressed by their ideas and energy and conviction. The experience of being here and creating work is the most valuable example of what SCAD is like. It's empowering."

SCAD has won the prestigious "Game of the Year – Virtual Reality" award from The Rookies, an international program of recognition  for young designers, creators, innovators, and artists. The Rookies is renowned for discovering and showcasing outstanding talent emerging from higher education facilities and helping to launch them into careers at the world's top studios.

SCAD's winning entry "Centauri" is a virtual reality (VR) adventure where the first-person player is sent to an alien planet to find the salvage of a lifetime. The game was created by a 14-person team of SCAD students headed by lead programmer Victor Burgos (B.F.A., interactive design and game development, 2017) and lead artist Travis Sindewald (B.F.A., interactive design and game development, 2017).

"On top of the world, what a monumental place for our interactive design and game development program to be!" said SCAD president and founder Paula Wallace. "This award by The Rookies is testament to the technologically-advanced career preparation that occurs at SCAD, further proof of what we hear every year from the biggest names when they come to recruit our students. SCAD students are real-world ready."

SCAD offers one of the first and most celebrated interactive design and game development programs in the U.S. Students of the discipline have access to advanced resources and the latest technologies, including a full motion capture lab, green screen studios and Wacom Cintiq displays. The SCAD interactive design and game development is part of the SCAD school of digital media, led by Dean Marilynn "Max" Almy.

In addition, Rookie of the Year Runner Up was awarded to SCAD alumnus Carl Vitasa (B.F.A., interactive game design and game development, 2017) whose project "Dialect Effect: A Tale of Two Tongs" is an immersive Chinese language and culture learning simulation that relies on new voice recognition technology, authentic environments, and engaging animated NPCs to teach a semester of entry-level Mandarin.

Previously, SCAD was named "Best Motion Graphics School" by The Rookies in the 2017 official rankings of The Best Creative Schools in the World.

The Rookies awards are based on over 8,725 entrants from more than 600 universities internationally. Awards were determined by a judging panel that included Joe Letteri, Academy Award winner for Best Visual Effects in two "Lord of the Rings" movies, "Avatar" and "King Kong." Criteria for The Rookies includes creative skills, technical skills, presentation, variety of skills, raw talent and employment potential.

Heart and hustle are the crucial combination bringing eclectic idea lab 13 Bricks to life. From its origins as a screen printing shop specializing in custom apparel, 13 Bricks has grown into a sustainable full-service creative agency with an impressive client list. Settle in for some start-up lessons from co-founder and Savannah native Vann-Ellison Seales (B.F.A., sound design, 2013).

SCAD: How did 13 Bricks begin?

Vann-Ellison Seales: I started 13 Bricks with a friend, Emily Quintero (B.F.A., illustration, 2013) and held meetings in my living room that functioned as our office space. We wanted to have a clothing brand that put the work of the best local fine artists on t-shirts, so we recruited talent from Art Rise on Desoto Row. Emily handled artistic and creative execution, while I did sales and marketing, sharing Facebook events and handing out stickers at community events. We were soon getting recognition and needed to formalize as a brand.

SCAD: What came next?

VES: We tried an Indiegogo campaign to raise $10,000 for a printing press. It was 2013 and I was a senior at SCAD. It didn’t fully fund. We combined it with my savings, bought a screen printing package that included a machine, ink, screens and materials, and sublet a small attic that barely fit the machine. You couldn’t even stand up in it!

My grandad helped us get our first functional venue and luckily, as an electrician, he helped with special wiring required for the machines. We had to learn the equipment and the process: how to not burn clothes, how to cure inks. There were some ruined shirts to say the least! That’s valuable inventory, but through those bumps and bruises we were determined to make it work.

SCAD: What was your first substantial job?

VES: In 2014, "Magic Mike XXL" came to town and wanted 1,300 shirts in six days! We said yes. To manage the volume, we delivered in stages. It’s been fast growth on a shoestring budget, but we’ve built a great client set.

SCAD: What’s the relationship status between 13 Bricks and SCAD?

VES: There are six SCAD alumni working here at 13 Bricks and we can’t wait to welcome more through the door. I hadn’t planned to be an entrepreneur, but I was prepared to say “yes!” to opportunities. Building a business from scratch is not for the faint of heart. You must have grit, accept help from others and never lose hope. We found focus because we brought on staff who help us execute the vision.

I grew up in Savannah and want to contribute to its growth. It’s been great to host interns who can begin their creative careers in our shop. Students should have creative job options here, and I want to supply those options. We want students to know we are here to support them in executing their projects, including large format prints, small bundles and specialized paper orders. Anything printing related, we are the experts. 

www.13bricks.com