Barry Blitt on illustrating the story of the year

Image of New Yorker cover
Image of New Yorker cover
Image of New Yorker cover
Image of New Yorker cover
Image of New Yorker cover
Photo of illustrator Barry Blitt

One of America’s foremost illustrators (and OCAD University alum), Barry Blitt is perhaps best known for his political New Yorker magazine covers. He’s illustrated over 80 covers along with doing work for The New York Times, Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone. Barry has also illustrated a series of children’s books.

We caught up with Barry to ask him about illustrating Time’s person of the year, Donald Trump.

Bad Reception

Miss Congeniality

 

As someone who’s been living the US presidential election campaign pretty closely for the past year and a half, how do you feel now that it’s over?

You'd think I'd be happy it's finally over, but the result was so disappointing to me. It was sort of giddy fun during the early months, but as it wore on - in those last few weeks of the campaign -  it became harder and harder to filter out the ugliness of the whole thing.

 

Grand Illusion

Significant Others

 

Will you draw Donald Trump differently now that he’s been elected president?

I don't know - I haven't been able to bring myself to draw him since. Though I expect it's inevitable, unless I go into another line of work. Orthodonture or ditch-digging are suddenly looking tempting in comparison.

 

Anything But That

 

What’s your creative process? How do you come up with your New Yorker cover ideas?

I try and keep a sketchbook around all the time and scribble wry thoughts as they occur, with as little self-editing as possible. Then, I redraw the least objectionable ideas as quick sketches, and submit them to the magazine. If something gets chosen I begin the process of sucking all joy and life out of the drawing for the final art.

 

Illustrator Barry Blitt

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Sex is a Funny Word wins Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children's Non-Fiction

Sex is a Funny Word
Friday, November 18, 2016 - 5:00pm

"Sex is a Funny Word: A Book about Bodies, Feelings, and You" a book written by Canadian sex educator, Cory Silverberg and Illustrated by Illustration Sessional Instructor Fiona Smyth has received the Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children's Non-Fiction.

About the book:

“A hugely important book that both normalizes diverse sexuality and gives it the respect it deserves… Silverberg’s introduction to sex and sexuality is a pitch-perfect guide for kids seeking answers to some of life’s most embarrassing and confusing questions… The tell-it-like-it-is text is inclusive and sensitive, creating a resource full of acceptance for readers regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity or social standing.”

The Jury was conformed by Dory Cerny, Books for Young People Editor, Quill & Quire; Nadia L.Hohn, teacher, Toronto District School Board and author of "Malaika's Costume (Groundwood Books); Heather Kuipers, Owner, Ella Minnow Children's Bookstore.

A full list of this year's winners can be found here.

Coungratulations!

Barbara Klunder: A Retrospective Exhibition

Barbara Klunder Mural
Monday, November 3, 2008 - 5:00am to Friday, January 9, 2009 - 5:00am

FCP Events proudly presents the first-ever retrospective exhibition showcasing works OCAD alumna Barbara Klunder.

Whether designing her own fonts or handmade sweaters and carpets, illustrating children’s books or Jazz Festival posters, creating an embroidered book for the Dalai Lama or a Rolling Stones T-shirt, Barbara Klunder has explored and mastered many artistic categories with ease.

Presented in association with David Kaye Gallery.

The FCP Gallery is located on the street level in the retail area of the First Canadian Place Complex.
FCP Gallery viewing hours are 11:00 am - 3:00 pm

Venue & Address: 
FCP Gallery 100 King Street West, Toronto, Ontario
Email: 
http://www.fcpevents.com/fcpevents_exhibition.asp
Cost: 
Free

Illustration Speaker Series - Marcos Chin

Thursday, October 22, 2015 - 1:30pm to 3:00pm

Marcos Chin is an award-winning illustrator whose clients include: Google, The New York Times, Rolling Stone Magazine, Starbucks, Target and more. He recently created the illustrations for the children's book ELLA, written by Mallory Kasdan.

Venue & Address: 
100 McCaul Room 230 Central Hall
Cost: 
Free - open to the public
Marcos Chin illustration of a child on the back of a large red dog

A Secret Garden

Friday, November 7, 2014 - 12:00am to Saturday, November 29, 2014 - 9:15pm

A Secret Garden is a multimedia installation that will probe the complex tension between the presumed anti-racist political consensus in Western liberal society, and the racist (sub)texts that persist in children’s films and literature. The work takes as its source Francis Hodgson Burnett’s children’s book The Secret Garden and the films that have been adapted from that text. It explores a two-fold ‘white-washing’ of Burnett’s source text: 1) the sterilizing of explicitly racist and colonialist elements from the text in the various film adaptations, and 2) the impact of the idyllic, colonially derived fantasy space of the novel on young readers.

The installation will function as a conversation between traditional art / craft and the digital vernacular of the Millennial shaped by the children's media of the ‘90s. The gallery space will function as the canvas of the exchange: flowers adorning the walls to emulate ornate 19th century wallpaper; furniture covered with hand-painted flowers, nostalgically evocative of a classical colonial living room meets a ‘90s family / media room.

Upon entering the gallery participants will encounter the clashing signifiers of the nostalgic domestic spaces that inform the original text, its film adaptation, and that of its young millennial viewers. Cliché objects of antiquated wealth will jostle with those of the sprawling post-internet late 20th century: colonial portraiture with gifs; Victorian flowers and statuary with data-moshed video works; hand-painted ‘brown’ Mary Lennox(s),with text-based juxtapositions of the text and film that expose both ideological shifts from the source text, and racist and sexist consistencies.

Venue & Address: 
OCAD U Student Gallery
A Secret Garden

A Secret Garden

Image of a decorative floral illustrations surrounding an open space with a gradient of purple
Thursday, November 6, 2014 - 5:00am to Saturday, November 29, 2014 - 5:00am

Opening party: Thursday, November 6 (7-11pm)
In conjunction with GTFO in the Small Space

A Secret Garden probes the complex tension between the presumed anti-racist political consensus in Western liberal society, and the racist (sub)texts that persist in children’s films and literature. The work takes as its source Francis Hodgson Burnett’s children’s book The Secret Garden and the films that have been adapted from that text. It explores a two-fold ‘white-washing’ of Burnett’s source text: 1) the sterilizing of explicitly racist and colonialist elements from the text in the various film adaptations, and 2) the impact of the idyllic, colonially derived fantasy space of the novel on young readers.

The installation will function as a conversation between traditional art / craft and the digital vernacular of the Millennial shaped by the children's media of the ‘90s. The gallery space will function as the canvas of the exchange: flowers adorning the walls to emulate ornate 19th century wallpaper; furniture covered with hand-painted flowers, nostalgically evocative of a classical colonial living room meets a ‘90s family / media room.

Upon entering the gallery participants will encounter the clashing signifiers of the nostalgic domestic spaces that inform the original text, its film adaptation, and that of its young millennial viewers. Cliché objects of antiquated wealth will jostle with those of the sprawling post-internet late 20th century: colonial portraiture with gifs; Victorian flowers and statuary with data-moshed video works; hand-painted ‘brown’ Mary Lennox(s),with text-based juxtapositions of the text and film that expose both ideological shifts from the source text, and racist and sexist consistencies.

Artists Featured: Lido Pimienta, Adrienne Crossman, Benjamin McCarthy and Toni Darling

Curated by Lido Pimienta

Venue & Address: 
OCAD U Student Gallery, 52 McCaul Street
Website: 
http://www.studentgallery.ocad.ca
Email: 
studentgallery@ocadu.ca
Phone: 
416-977-6000 x 263
Cost: 
Free

Satisfy your appetite for art at OCAD U’s Night Kitchen Under the Tabletop

Tuesday, September 4, 2012 - 4:00am

A Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Independent Project

(Toronto—September 4, 2012) Hungry for great art? OCAD University invites you to pull up to the tabletop for Night Kitchen, part of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche starting at 7:03 p.m. on Saturday, September 29, 2012, and continuing until sunrise.

Curated by OCAD U alumna Lisa Myers, Night Kitchen is inspired by the children's story written by the late Maurice Sendak, where a boy dreams of surreal, late-night experiences inside a bakery kitchen.

Night Kitchen welcomes the audience into OCAD University after dark, where artists Cheryl L'Hirondelle, Christina Zeidler and Sean Procyk create works that playfully feed the audience through the systems of the institution and its architecture. Using cooking and digestion as metaphors, Night Kitchen invites a reflection on institutional processes, hierarchy and identities.

"We're looking forward to challenging our visitors this year with these incredibly provocative and engaging works by our graduates and faculty," said Dr. Sara Diamond, President of OCAD University and Chair of the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Advisory Committee. "OCAD University has been a proud independent project partner since Scotiabank Nuit Blanche's inception. We invite Torontonians to come to Night Kitchen to broaden their palate for contemporary art."

L'Hirondelle presents her treatycard.ca net.art project, a work that explores treaty relations by re-examining the intent of the Canadian government's Certificate of Indian Status. With bureaucratic flare, L'Hirondelle's participatory work invites visitors to question classification and colonialism as they are processed and issued their own treatycard.

Zeidler reverses the roles of audience and performer by taking over OCAD U's auditorium seating with her video and live performance as American feminist writer Valerie Solanas. Filling the auditorium balcony, the Turd Choir joins in with lyrics inspired by Solanas' infamous SCUM Manifesto, suggesting we all create a little world of our own and question the status quo.

Responding to the unintentional soundscape of OCAD U's heating, ventilation and air conditioning infrastructure, Procyk creates an immersive installation with light, water and vibration, amplifying and making visible the ubiquitous hums often ignored in our built environment.

Plan your night:

Onsite at OCAD U will remain open until 11 p.m. with its current exhibition, Letter Rip! Art, Words and Toronto, featuring work by Andy Callahan, Hyang Cho, Michelle Gay, and Gary Taxali with an anchoring contribution from Monkey's Paw proprietor Stephen Fowler (230 Richmond Street West, ground floor).

OCAD U's Student Gallery will remain open until 2 a.m. with its exhibition Astral Plane, a collaborative installation project by Nicholas Robins and Christopher Benjamin Speck.

Visitors are also encouraged to check out Museum for the End of the World at Nathan Phillips Square and City Hall, commissioned by the City of Toronto and curated by Janine Marchessault and OCAD U Liberal Arts & Sciences Associate Professor Michael Prokopow.

For more Scotiabank Nuit Blanche events featuring OCAD U students, alumni and faculty, visit OCAD U's online events calendar.

Biographies:

An award-winning singer/songwriter, interdisciplinary artist and curator, Cheryl L'Hirondelle devotes her creative practice to investigating a Cree worldview (nêhiyawin) in contemporary time and space. She is also an active arts advisor, programmer, director/producer, cultural strategist and activist. Her performance works have been documented in Caught in the Act: An Anthology of Performance Art by Canadian Women (2001, YYZ Books) and Making a Noise: Aboriginal Perspectives on Art, Art History, Critical Writing and Community (2006, Banff Centre Press). In 2004, L'Hirondelle was one of the first Canadian Aboriginal artists to be invited to present at the Dakar Biennale for Contemporary African Art (Senegal). L'Hirondelle has been recognized with awards such as the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards (2006, 2007), the imagineNATIVE New Media Award (2005, 2006) and as a Webby Awards Official Honoree (2009). L'Hirondelle has contributed as an advisor to the Banff New Media Institute and the Canada Council. She is a past Smartlab Researcher, KIDS FROM KANATA On-line Aboriginal Liaison, and was a member of the Drum Beats to Drum Bytes Thinktank. She is a member of OCAD University's Aboriginal Education Council, and teaches in OCAD U's Integrated Media program.

In addition to being an independent curator, Lisa Myers is an artist, musician and chef. These disciplines inform her various practices. Myers cooked for many years satisfying hungry stomachs at Enaahtig Healing Lodge and Learning Centre. Her community work included co-ordinating and editing This Food is Good for You, the Enaahtig community cookbook, and designing and facilitating an art and food program for youth at the Georgian Bay Native Friendship Centre. Musical projects include bands Chicken Milk, Venus Cures All and Adaptor 45. Myers' recent research interests include Indigenous North American art practice, geography and food studies related to colonialism. Her MFA research in Criticism and Curatorial Practice at OCAD University investigated cultural agency and the encoding of food from diverse Indigenous perspectives, and resulted in the exhibition entitled Best Before. Myers has curated exhibitions at the MacLaren Art Centre, York Quay Centre and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Her writing has been published in C Magazine, Fuse, and Senses and Society. She lives and works between Toronto and Port Severn, Ontario.

Sean Procyk holds a degree in Fine Arts from McMaster University, a Bachelor of Architecture from Carleton University and a Master's of Fine Arts from OCAD University.  He is currently employed as the Sculpture Facilitator for The Banff Centre's Visual Arts Department, where he advises artists about fabrication processes, project planning and installation design.  Drawing inspiration from construction processes, audiovisual light shows, interactive electronics and computer intelligence, he creates immersive artworks that evoke a multisensory experience.

OCAD U alumna Christina Zeidler (Integrated Media, 1997) is a Toronto-based artist who creates short films, gallery installations and collaborative film projects. She is also President and Developer of The Gladstone Hotel in Toronto, where her community-based approach to the redevelopment of the building and business, and the integration of artist-designed rooms has earned her a respected reputation within Toronto's cultural community. Zeidler is also a member of the euro-electronica-pop-diva sensation ina unt ina, and part of the newly formed band Mintz. She has been recognized as one of Toronto's 10 best filmmakers by Toronto International Film Festival Co-Director Cameron Bailey, and was awarded the Best Canadian Media Award at the 2004 Images Film Festival.

 

About OCAD University (OCAD U)
OCAD University is Canada's "university of imagination." The University, founded in 1876, is dedicated to art and design education, practice and research and to knowledge and invention across a wide range of disciplines. OCAD University is building on its traditional, studio-based strengths, adding new approaches to learning that champion cross-disciplinary practice, collaboration and the integration of emerging technologies. In the Age of Imagination, OCAD University community members will be uniquely qualified to act as catalysts for the next advances in culture, technology and quality of life for all Canadians.

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Download this release as a PDF document.

Media are invited to attend. To RSVP or for more information, please contact:

Sarah Mulholland, Media & Communications Officer
416-977-6000 x327 (mobile x1327)