Tyler Blog

April 5, 2022

In Profile: Aaron Ricketts (BFA '17)

Author: Emily Herbein

Since graduating from Tyler with a BFA in Photography in 2017, Aaron Ricketts has risen as a high-profile Philadelphia creative with an arresting, surrealist-inspired style. His work explores every day themes, typically through portraiture, paired against a backdrop of stunning digital manipulation and striking detail. He has traveled a circuitous path that led from high school to a year in college to ordinary jobs to the Air Force and back to college again.  Along the way, he swapped his interest in photography for studying graphic design (his first college did not have a photography program) but eventually found his way back to his first love — learning the fundamentals of photography over two years at a community college and then transferring to Tyler to earn a bachelor’s degree.  Read More

April 5, 2022

Art Therapy's Hope Springs Installation Spreads Joy Across All Programs

Author: Emily Herbein

Art Therapy major Kianna Cooper (BA ’22) unwinds a length of black thread, snips it and knots an end around a colorful, twisted wire-and-glass bead object. Then she eases up a ladder and loops the other end around the exposed coil innards of a full-size mattress.  Cooper is adding final tendrils to a mobile-like installation title Hope Springs, conceived by Graduate Assistant and Peer Art Education Advisor Ali Ruffner (MEd ‘22) and executed with Art Therapy Program Head and AECAP Department Chair Dr. Lisa Kay as a project to uplift Tyler students, faculty and staff alike as they returned to in-person learning last fall from the imposed separation of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Read More

March 30, 2022

In Profile: Theo Brooks, Glass Tech

Author: Emily Herbein

Studio technicians have a special role at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, keeping the maker spaces well equipped, well stocked with materials, and up to code on safety protocols. Learn about one of Tyler's newest techs, glass artist Theo Brooks.   What makes your artistic practice unique?  Read More

March 23, 2022

GAID Student Audrey Lee '23 Wins Changemaker Challenge Award

Author: Emily Herbein

Audrey Lee (BFA ‘23) is using her education in Graphic & Interactive Design and Entrepreneurial Studies to find a more sustainable and practical way to end the overabundance of Philadelphia’s food deserts, and her idea was recognized this month with a Changemaker Challenge Award from the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Institute at Temple's Fox School of Business.   Read More

March 22, 2022

Visual Studies Alumna Alison Evans (BFA '21) Recognized by Honoring the Future for Sustainability Project

Author: Emily Herbein

Visual Studies alumna Alison Evans (BA ‘21) was recognized with an Honorable Mention from Honoring the Future’s Fellowship and Award Program for Emerging Craft Artists Advancing Sustainability. Thanks to the organization, “craft students across the nation are rising to the challenge of climate change, using their powerful visual voices to offer hope and inspiration for achieving a sustainable future.” Evans’ project, Water Works, explored the relationship between  Philadelphia’s waterways and various levels of pollution.  Read More

March 17, 2022

Amze Emmons Presents on Print and NFTs at SGC International Conference

Author: Wanda Motley Odom

Associate Professor and Program Head Amze Emmons has always viewed printmaking as a formative factor in human culture. “Printmaking is really an umbrella term that refers to a range of technologies that trace back to Paleolithic man using stencils on cave walls, that show up repeatedly in across multiple cultures around the world and that have value in disseminating ideas,” Amze said in a recent interview on the podcast Our Shared Field. Read More

March 11, 2022

Dean Cahan Shares Expertise on Inclusivity in Art World

Author: Emily Herbein

Tyler Dean Susan E. Cahan has made her life’s work advocating for greater inclusivity in the art world, particularly in the field of education and in museums. Her expertise, developed over 30 years as an arts educator, art historian, and curator has influenced public understanding of art, politics, and institutional practices. This spring, Cahan will bring her vision to three public conversations.   Read More

Related Tactics, Disclosure
March 1, 2022

Tyler Glass Program Hosts "Disclosure: The Whiteness of Glass"

Author: Carin Whitney

This week, the Glass program at Tyler School of Art and Architecture will host the artist collective Related Tactics to facilitate the making of work for their project Disclosure: The Whiteness of Glass.   The project’s primary goal is to make space for artists of color to build meaningful connections with one another and reexamine collective experiences negotiating systemic racism in the field. The project builds on Tyler’s prior engagement with Related Tactics as part of the Laurie Wagman Visiting Artist Lecture Series in 2021.  Read More

February 28, 2022

Madeline Rile Smith (BFA '14) Granted 2022 Saxe Emerging Artist Award

Author: Emily Herbein

Madeline Rile Smith (BFA ‘14), Adjunct Professor in Glass, was recently granted the Saxe Emerging Artist Award from the Glass Art Society. Thanks to this opportunity, Smith will present at the 2022 Annual GAS Conference in Tacoma (May 18-21), participate in an upcoming digital artist exhibition, receive an honorarium to support her work, and more.  Her practice, which earned the committee’s attention through an award nomination, specializes in body-activated pieces. She appreciates objects that can stand alone as well as serve as performance art, often times implementing music and sound. Her practice raises the question: “How can glass go beyond the object and not just be a static sculpture on a pedestal? How can you interact with it?”  Read More

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