BYU News Media Student Lands Front-Page Spot in the Deseret News

Four BYU seniors in the School of Communication's advertising program — Lorien Pereyra, Pablo Perez, Erin Gazdik and Jessica Nugent -— were selected for the Most Promising Multicultural Students Program class of 2019 by the American Advertising Federation (AAF).

Some majors direct their student into a specific career path, but that isn’t the case for those who pursue a degree in communications. BYU School of Communications alumna Siovhan Johnson is learning this lesson as she makes the transition from broadcast news to strategic communications. Read Johnson's full story on the School of Communications website.

The lecture will take place on Thursday, April 4 at 11 a.m. in the Madsen Recital Hall

BYU’s Museum of Art (MOA) welcomes Danae Mattes to discuss her current exhibition, “Where the River Widens,” with students, faculty and members of the community. The lecture will take place Thursday, March 14 at 5 p.m. Like most of Mattes’ work, “Where the River Widens” is composed of natural materials. This specific piece explores how water and earth mix and the human reaction to that phenomenon. “I have come to view my work as a synthesis of the experiences I have when walking through landscape; a culmination of my observations and perceptions of nature,” said Mattes. According to the MOA’s website, Mattes feels that a river’s state of flux is “a metaphor for life, as change is a constant of the human experience.” This flux is demonstrated in her piece, which transformed over a few months as the water evaporated and the materials settled. Not only will Mattes’ lecture explore “Where the River Widens,” but it will also give attendees insight into her journey as an artist — a journey that has taken her and her art across the world, including to Germany, Chile and Japan. For more information about the lecture, visit the MOA’s Facebook page, where the lecture will be livestreamed.

Everyone has a bad day once in a while, but design professor David Habben’s newest children's book “Mr. Sherman's Cloud” takes a look at how those bad days can be turned around. Habben, who goes by the pen name HABBENINK, hopes the book will help people walk away with a new perspective on how to handle difficulties in life and open up discussions about mental health. “I wanted to put an emphasis on the need for us to control our responses to challenges in life,” said Habben. “Even if we have a time in our life where we feel like there’s a storm cloud above us, in the end it can work out. It will be okay.” He continued, “We talk about mental health issues and how we need to be more vocal about them and avoid creating a stigma around having a dark time in life. I wanted this story to speak to the idea that we’re not alone in our journey and we can be honest about the fact that we’re having a rough day and allow other people into our lives to help us resolve that in whatever way it needs to be resolved.” The original inspiration for the book was one of Habben’s sketches that features a man huddled under a rain cloud. The idea to turn the sketch into a book was born when a publisher approached Habben after seeing his work online. “It’s the phone call every artist hopes to get as often as they can,” said Habben of the experience. “It feels great.” Although Habben has illustrated various children’s books, “Mr. Sherman’s Cloud” is the first book he has both authored and wrote. “There’s something nice about being able to craft a story that says what you want it to say and matching your story with the illustration style that you like to do,” said Habben. “A lot of times for illustrators, there’s another party involved, like an art director, that’s putting everything together. It’s nice to tell your own story in your own way.” While characteristic of Habben’s trademark fantastical style, the book also introduces some new stylistic elements that came about during Habben’s latest stylistic shift. His current style focuses on finding a balance between reality and the abstract. “I think every artist should try to speak their own truth,” said Habben. “For me, the way I look at the world, there’s a lot of ambiguity and ridiculous things that go on. I try to approach some of that in the way I make art. If I draw something too exact, it feels less accurate in a way; it doesn’t express the true nature of something. The more I allow my interpretation to come through, the more I’m being truthful about my own perspective.” For Habben, his colorful approach to art is a way of putting a positive spin on the difficult aspects of life — something he hopes comes through in the book. “You can’t take everything so seriously to the point that it becomes a negative part of your life,” said Habben. “I hope people get the sense that they can overcome a bad day and get a better perspective. I want it to help people. I want them to connect with the book in a way that helps them feel positive and make progress in their own lives.” Habben will be holding a book signing at The King’s English in Salt Lake City on May 18 at 11 a.m. For more information about Habben’s other upcoming events and new work, follow him on social media @HABBENINK.

Dance professor Marin Roper discussed how she applies somatic dance practices to the gospel in March’s Faith + Works lecture

Music is much more than simply playing notes according to the award-winning Danish String Quartet. Fredrik Sjolin and Frederik Oland shared their insights on bringing music to life and seeing music as a conversation in a masterclass with students from the School of Music.

Students and faculty from the School of Music will explore the themes of two current BYU Museum of Art (MOA) exhibitions — “Windswept” by Patrick Dougherty and “Where the River Widens” by Danae Mattes — during “Nature Transformed: Musical Experience at the MOA, a concert on Thursday, March 7, at 7 p.m. The event will feature three original compositions performed by their respective composers: “Wave Lapse” by Asher Bay, “Fire Festival” by Scott Nelson and “Woven” by music professors Steve Ricks and Christian Asplund, known by their stage name Ricksplund. Ricks sees the concert as an “intersection between different art forms.” Each piece will feature the artists’ interpretation of an aspect of nature through electronic music. “Wave Lapse” layers live audio from museum patron members and video to comment on the layered complexities of Mattes and Dougherty’s work. Similarly, “Fire Festival” will include video representations of the natural world, including fire, and pair them with live electric guitar and pre-recorded sounds. Ricks says the complementary juxtaposition of the electronic music pieces and Mattes and Dougherty's exhibits was not coincidental. The artists’ approaches to their respective pieces is similar to how electronic music is created. “I’m taking natural sounds and changing them into something else, something unexpected,” said Ricks. “Mattes and Dougherty also took something natural and put it into an artificial space. This inspires people to think about nature and creativity in a new way.” Ricks and Asplund’s piece weaves together Asplund’s viola with Ricks’ use of a MIDI controller pad, which allows him to trigger and control sounds, including their speed, pitch and volume. “It’s like an orchestra in a box, where the orchestra can play any sound you could imagine” said Ricks. The finished product “Woven” features interlocking lines and patterns to create rich textures that reflect the surfaces in Mattes and Dougherty’s work. For more information about the concert, visit the MOA’s Facebook page.

College of Fine Arts and Communications classes allow students to use their artistic abilities to help populations in need

Four BYU Vocal Students Eligible for National Competition After Placing at Regional NATS

Each year, world-renowned publishing company Graphis Inc. recognizes the work of up-and-coming design students during their New Talent Annual. This year, they received 1160 submissions from around the world and chose to recognize 22 of the 25 projects sent in by BYU. Design major Todd McAllister was the only student from BYU — and one of just 21 students total — to walk away with the annual’s highest honor: the Platinum Award. “I was pretty surprised when I found out that I had won the award,” said McAllister. “It’s nice to get some validation after working hard on a project like that. There are a lot of great designers that submit to Graphis each year, so it was a significant personal achievement to win an award against such tough competition.” The designs that won McAllister the award were for Dwell Magazine. McAllister was tasked with re-designing the magazine’s current cover in a way that was aesthetically pleasing but still on-brand. McAllister’s approach to the project was centered on his love for clean, uncluttered design. “I seem to be drawn to simple, minimalistic design because it leaves me with a sense of awe or piques my interest somehow,” said McAllister. “The design direction was inspired by wanting to achieve that same feeling in a magazine cover.” McAllister said he isn’t sure exactly what set his designs apart from the rest of the competition, though his guess is that it was how well the designs paired photos and text. “In my opinion, a lot of beautiful cover photographs are ruined with really busy headlines and other text elements,” said McAllister. “I think that trying to reduce that as much as possible so the photos can speak for themselves might have set my designs apart from the rest.” While McAllister’s designs may have been simple, the creative process that led to the finished pieces was not. He repeatedly designed covers and critiqued them until he settled on three final designs. McAllister said his favorite part of working on the project was figuring out the title part of the design. “I had been through tons of iterations that didn’t seem to feel right, but something about the lowercase masthead placed vertically along the side of the cover seemed to click, and then things sort of fell into place from there,” said McAllister. His experience working on the designs and winning the award impacted McAllister in a lasting way. “I definitely think this experience will have a positive impact on my future career,” he said. “If nothing else, it has helped me feel a bit more confident in my abilities, which is pretty vital to creativity.” After graduation, McAllister doesn’t imagine his future as a concrete, five-year-plan type of journey. “My future career goals basically involve waking up everyday excited to work on whatever project I have,” said McAllister. “I guess I don’t really have a specific position or place I want to be in, I just want to be excited about the work that I’m doing while pushing the boundaries of what I’m able to do.” For now, McAllister and the other students who were honored by Graphis Inc. are waiting for their work to be published in the hardcover version of the New Talent Annual, which comes out May 1, 2019.