Artist Joyce Kozloff doesn’t need a man to explain the world to her. On March 8, she visited FIT to share her work and philosophy. After living in Mexico in the early ’70s and traveling in Morocco and Turkey, Kozloff resented the way the European male canon excluded decorative arts—often the domain of women or…
Spring 2016
PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORIES
Dan Wagner, Photography ’80
These photos come from Never Seeing Nothing (Ink Publishing, 2015) [inkphotobooks.com], the 14th book by Dan Wagner, Photography ’80. In 95 photographs taken over five years of constant exploration, the former FIT adjunct captures the humanity of outcasts and the accidental humor of urban alienation. He shoots on black-and- white film with ’60s Rolleiflex cameras,…
THE FORCE IS STRONG WITH THIS ONE
Joanee Alina Honour, Fashion Design ’92, stewards Star Wars costumes and props at George Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch
“Star Wars is huge in my life,” says Joanee Honour ’92. She and her colleagues take care of the Star Wars archive of original costumes, models, art, and props. “We’ve got R2D2, the Millennium Falcon, and the Death Star,” she says, though her job mostly involves the costumes. As the senior registrar for the Lucas…
BACK TO NATURE Lydia BairdTextile Development and Marketing ’16
You and Willa Tsokanis ’16 established a textile composting system at FIT. How did you come up with the idea? I started as a Fashion Design student, and I was very aware of how much muslin was being thrown out. In my textile fibers class, I learned that cotton is biodegradable. The idea just came…
READER’S DIGEST
Myra Kornfeld, Fashion Design ’85
Poems and recipes both celebrate the glories of nature, ingredients at the peak of ripeness in the optimal environment. And the outcome of each, whether through language or ingredients, is something that’s magically blended. My husband, Stephen Massimilla, is a poet, and I’m a chef, and we wrote Cooking with the Muse, a cookbook about…
GLORIA LORENZ GARFINKEL Apparel Design ’49
Gloria Lorenz Garfinkel is a New York–based artist whose colorful abstract prints, paintings, sculptures, and handmade books derive from her interest in science and world cultures, particularly Japanese. Among her numerous gallery and museum shows, she has had solo exhibitions at the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum in Springfield, MA, the Ella Sharp Museum…
PHILIP MILIO
Photography ’73
Philip Milio has been taking pictures and writing stories since he retired from his job as counselor in FIT’s Department of Student Life in 2015. The Ellenville Public Library and Museum in Upstate New York presented an exhibition of his photographic illustrations of the Hudson Valley in November 2015, and the Aroma Thyme Bistro in…
MICHELLE RISK CHRISMAN
Illustration (Fashion) ’74
Michelle Risk Chrisman paints landscapes, still lifes, and figures in Taos, NM, and is represented by eight galleries in New Mexico and Arizona. She uses a palette knife instead of a brush to sculpt the paint on the canvas, and she creates her landscapes en plein air (outdoors) and alla prima (painting new layers before…
MAD PROPS:
Philip Shubin, Fashion Buying and Merchandising ’78
An argument with Naomi Campbell convinced stylist Philip Shubin to change his focus from people to inanimate objects. For a decade he had been dressing TV personalities (Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric) and actors (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Harrison Ford) for photo shoots, but working with diva models was becoming increasingly fraught. He told a disgruntled…
DONNA FREDERICK
Patternmaking Technology ’78
Donna Frederick, Patternmaking Technology, owns the Play House, an independent toy store in Durham, NC. She stocks about 200 mostly educational products in the 900-square-foot space, including Legos and other building toys, high-quality Ravensburger jigsaw puzzles, dolls for girls and boys, ABC blocks in myriad languages, maps, chemistry sets, locally crafted toys such as rattles,…
JILL LOTENBERG Fashion Buying and Merchandising ’85
Jill Lotenberg is a freelance photographer who has shot New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo and mayors Ed Koch and Michael Bloomberg, as well as spreads for Glamour, Gotham, and House Beautiful, among other publications. She got her start from an internship at the Garden State Arts Center (now the PNC Bank Arts Center), photographing U2,…
SOMETHING BLUE: Benedict Turner, Advertising Design ’91, Display and Exhibit Design ’84
Queens couple Benedict and Valerie Turner are Piedmont Bluz, a band that plays in the Piedmont style of country blues, a musical genre originated by freed slaves that reached its height in the early 20th century. Valerie plays guitar and Benedict plays percussion, using antique washboards that he embellishes; he also sells these customized Darlington…