Faculty and Staff

Professor David Habben shared how a 100-year-old guitar helped inspire him to make intentional changes that impacted his professional design work

Professor Brian Christensen’s expertise in ceramics, sculpture and 3D design has led him to ventures across the globe, including an excavation project in Egypt

Ostraff views his art as a catalyst for personal change and a celebration of relationships On July 1, Joe Ostraff replaced Gary Barton as chair of the Department of Art. Ostraff received an MFA from the University of Washington and taught high school art for seven years before joining the art faculty at BYU in 1993. At the time, he was one of the more contemporary-minded professors working in the department, making experimental art. Now, contemporary ways of working have become a critical component of a BYU art education. Projects and Awards During his time at BYU, Ostraff has primarily taught painting, drawing and advanced studio courses. He has directed or co-directed numerous collaborative projects involving his students and peer institutions, including the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA), Wirral Met College in England, Limerick School of Art and Design in Ireland and Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi in New Zealand. These partnerships have involved hundreds of artists and resulted in more than 30 international, national and regional exhibitions. Ostraff is also the only one of nearly 70 fellows to be awarded the prestigious Visual Arts Fellowship by the Utah Division of Arts & Museums three times (in 1993, 1998 and 2010). Together with his wife, Melinda — an ethnobotanist, faculty member in the College of Life Sciences and repeat collaborator with her husband — Ostraff has received roughly half a million dollars in grants over the years. He estimates that 60 to 70 percent of that grant money has helped fund dynamic art opportunities with other artists, including fellow faculty members and students. These grant funds often go toward covering travel costs for his students to collaborate with artists in other locations, or to bring students from other universities to BYU. Read the full article written by Abby Weidmer at art.byu.edu.

Two animated projects from BYU professor Brent Barson were recently accepted into the Communication Arts 2020 Design Annual, a prestigious graphic design journal. Out of the 2,900 total entries, just 126 were accepted. “It is a gratifying validation of all the hard work we pour into our projects,” Barson said in response to his projects’ acceptance into the journal. With art direction and illustration by Linda Reynolds, another BYU professor, and animation by Barson, the two designed and created one of the accepted projects, a short film titled “The Get.” The project was commissioned by KUER’s RadioWest Films in Salt Lake City, which presents unique stories with a focus on Utah. “There is so much satisfaction that comes from having others love a project you feel so passionately about,” Reynolds said. Read the full article at news.byu.edu.

Eight faculty and staff members from the College of Fine Arts and Communications retire this year

The project featured the works of husband-and-wife artists Amanda Smith and Casey Jex Smith, a BYU alum This February, BYU art professor Christopher Lynn spent spring break in Los Angeles — that is, he curated a project for SPRING/BREAK, an annual art show for independent curators. After Lynn and BYU art alum Casey Jex Smith got talking at a benefit auction, they decided to submit a proposal to SPRING/BREAK for a two-artist exhibition featuring works by Smith and his wife, Amanda. This year’s theme for the show — “In Excess” — fit perfectly with the Smiths’ art style, which Lynn describes as “fantastical and detail-oriented, to the point of obsessive.” SPRING/BREAK began in New York City in 2012 and expanded to Los Angeles last year. At first, Lynn wasn’t sure whether they could find a platform in the art show, which almost exclusively features artists based in those cities. “We thought it may be a long shot to have a Utah curator and Utah artists get accepted,” said Lynn. “But Casey and Amanda are peerless artists and I wanted more people to see their work.” Their proposal was accepted, and the team found themselves with only two weeks before the fair in Los Angeles to prepare the exhibition. When Lynn visited the Smith home to select works for the exhibition, an unexpected art project caught his eye. “I noticed a well-worn cardboard box in the corner, teeming with craft foam that had been drawn on and cut out into the shapes of imaginative characters,” said Lynn. “For years Amanda and Casey would take drawing requests from their children. They usually wanted odd hybrids of their favorite TV show characters — the head of Ms. Frizzle from ‘The Magic School Bus’ on a Pokémon body, Spider-Man with his spider wife and spider children, and other variations. As their children grew older, they started making their own foam characters. It became a collaborative family artwork.” Lynn ended up taking the entire box of foam figures with him to Los Angeles to install as part of the exhibition. “It became a whole family affair,” he said. The art show was a first for Lynn, whose experience as a curator and director has mostly been in the nonprofit art sector. The exhibition was a success, and Lynn had the opportunity to show the Los Angeles art world a taste of what Utah artists have to offer. “I met so many excited and earnest curators, organizers, collectors and artists who were a bit surprised to find out that we had such talent in Utah,” he said. “One well-known collector who owns a private museum in West Palm Beach, Florida gladly snatched up one of Casey's large drawings to add to her collection.” And the Smith family’s cast of hybrid characters — known as “Foam Babies” — was a huge hit among the art show’s youngest visitors. “We let toddlers play with the ‘Foam Babies’ and they loved it,” said Lynn. “One kid even spent a half hour finding all the Spider-Man variations and lining them up on the floor.” Lynn looks forward to sharing what he learned from the art fair experience with students in the art program. “Many of our students are operating at or beyond the level of art I saw in the fair, but lack insight into how to apply to or work within an art fair structure,” he said. “I hope to return next year — COVID-19 restrictions allowing — and bring students with me so they can participate firsthand.”

After years of helping students achieve their goals, Heelis looks forward to continuing her own education Department Secretary Sharon Heelis will retire this year after working for the Art Department for nearly 40 years — longer, if you count her time as a student employee. She remembers such momentous milestones as the first computer in the office (“My typewriter was the printer, so when I printed it sounded like a machine gun”), the first fax machine (“We stood and watched as the message printed out from a roll of paper”) and the first copy machine (“It gave us oily paper, it was expensive and the copies weren’t very good”). Fortunately, Heelis said, technology has come a long way since then. Heelis began her decades-long career in the department in December of 1979, after the Barbizon Manufacturing Company — where she had worked for several years before and after serving a mission in Chile for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — announced they were closing. She had been an on-again, off-again student for seven years as she worked and saved money to put herself through school, though she had not yet settled on a major. At first, Heelis worked part-time as a student secretary — typing, preparing syllabi and making copies for faculty with a mimeograph machine. Just six months later, Heelis applied for and was accepted to the full-time gallery secretary position, where she helped care for the university’s art collection prior to the opening of the Museum of Art (MOA) in 1993. The timing was fortunate for Heelis, whose father died suddenly one year into her new job. The oldest of six children, Heelis was able to support herself and ease the pressure on her mother, who was still caring for three children at their home in Payson. Read the full article by Abby Weidmer at art.byu.edu.

Two oil paintings and an edition of lithographic prints by Everett were included in the exhibition, which opened at the Crystal Bridges Museum in February 2020 Last April, Department of Art professor Peter Everett was contacted by the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art for a studio visit. Curatorial team Lauren Haynes, Allison Glenn and Alejo Bendetti were narrowing down their list of potential artists to feature in State of the Art 2020, the second iteration of an expansive exhibition that seeks to showcase a diverse cross-section of contemporary art in the United States. Haynes — curator of contemporary art at Crystal Bridges and of visual arts at the Momentary, Crystal Bridges’ new contemporary space — visited Everett’s studio, as well as several other artists around Utah. “It was a good visit, and Lauren was really thoughtful,” said Everett, “but I didn’t know if anything would come as a result of the visit.” That August, however, Everett was invited to take part in the exhibition as one of 61 artists from across the country — and the only artist chosen from Utah. “It was an honor for me to be curated into this exhibition,” said Everett. “This is a powerhouse team of curators with a great understanding of contemporary art in our country, and I was flattered to be the representative of Utah. It has been great to show my work alongside so many amazing and accomplished artists.” In addition to the two large oil paintings of Everett’s included in the exhibition, an edition of hand-pulled lithographic prints was also commissioned for the exhibition’s opening, a project Everett produced with master printer and retired BYU professor Wayne Kimball. Everett describes his own work as an exploration of the non-linear narratives that reside, interact and evolve between moments. “These narratives often exist between the apocalyptic and magical and frequently locate themselves in the quiet immediately before or after something has happened,” said Everett. “I am interested in forms and entities that have an immediate visual power, physicality and a sense of urgency growing from a place just out of sight. Visual phenomena that I experience in transitional periods — between sleep and consciousness or in a meditative state — are often used as source material. These liminal spaces and the forms they generate have an energy that feels familiar and strange, like echoes from a parallel reality.” In February, Everett traveled to Bentonville, Arkansas to visit Crystal Bridges and attend the opening of the Momentary and State of the Art 2020. The exhibition will be on display through May 24, 2020. “Crystal Bridges is an amazing institution with a breathtaking facility and collection of art,” he said. “The new contemporary space, The Momentary, is equally impressive and promises to energize art and culture in our country.” Though measures taken to prevent COVID-19 have temporarily closed the museum, Crystal Bridges continues to promote art from the exhibition online, and there are plans to take State of the Art 2020 on the road to museums across the country. Everett’s inclusion in the exhibition is a significant accomplishment, but he sees the achievement as “equal parts luck and hard work.” “I think it is important to recognize there are so many great artists around the country and in Utah that could have been included in this show,” he said. “I am a committed artist and have been making art for a long time, but that does not always bring exhibitions and recognition. I had many studio visits in 2019, and some led to good things and others didn't. Happily, the visit with Lauren Haynes led to this opportunity.” For Everett, this experience has reminded him of the importance of finding internal rewards and an honest voice as an artist. “I feel it is important to not pay too much attention to extrinsic rewards and praise and to not get discouraged when there is a dry spell,” said Everett. “These things can be fickle and come and go. What is critical is to be honest and focus on where your center is, what you have to offer and what is intrinsically rewarding that you can hold onto even if no one else seems interested.”

Designed by Actual Source and curated by Executive Director of UMOCA Laura Hurtado, “A 15-Year Expanse” was created to help build connections between generations of alumni

Estrada shares her passion for promoting the arts in the community and inspiring creative confidence in students

“Cool, Creative and Contemporary” are prominent words in every Black + White Photography magazine edition. Seeking out black and white photographic works that fulfill this motto, the magazine recently discovered Brigham Young University photography professor Paul Adams. His feature in the November magazine, titled “Telling Stories”, focuses on Adams’ series of ironic fairytales, all within the monochromatic theme.

Thomas discusses how typefaces are beautiful storytellers

Disney princesses excite and inspire young girls all over the world, captivating them with beauty, bravery and royal status. This princess frenzy — a hallmark of the childhood experience — also fuels passionate debates about the unrealistic expectations these characters set, especially concerning body image and romantic relationships. BYU communications professors Tom Robinson, Clark Callahan and Scott Church, along with graduate students Mckenzie Madsen and Lucia Pollock, recently published their research paper “Virtue, royalty, dreams and power: Exploring the appeal of Disney Princesses to preadolescent girls in the United States” which investigates the topic through the eyes of the girls themselves. “This study is unique because it’s talking about Disney princesses, but it’s not an adult talking about them,” Robinson said. “We’re showing what the young girls themselves think and discovered that they do not all think alike.” Read the full article at comms.byu.edu

The town portrayed in the Sundance premiere of The Killing of Two Lovers is so small that David, who is staying at his father’s home while he and Nikki try to figure out if their marriage is salvageable, easily can see everything going on in the lives of his wife and four kids in the home just down the street. Directed by Robert Machoian, a photography program faculty member at Brigham Young University in Provo, this feature-length narrative offers a superbly crafted, beautifully filmed story about how the difficulties of asking for space to sort things out in a marriage are magnified enormously in a town as small as the one the director chose for the film’s production. Selected for the festival’s NEXT category, the film shines in performances that capture the simmering tensions and spoken words that could derail any good faith intention of reconciling problems in a marriage. And, Machoian – with an impressive, understated, elegant choice of mise-en-scène – gives the viewer the utter irony of the notion of asking for space in a small central Utah town set against an impressive mountain range (although there is no card title specifying the location). The film was supported by the Utah Film Commission. Read the full story by Les Roka at theutahreview.com.

BYU communications professor continues her study on the effects of pornography on children with a new article exploring ways for parents to have healthy conversations with their children.

Robert Machoian Graham has seen four of his past films make it to Sundance. The latest marks the first time one of his full-length films has been accepted.

With so many avenues and options to get the latest information on sports, why do fans visit online forums, such as team message boards? Recent research from BYU communications professors found the reason many fans get online to read and post about their favorite sports team tells a lot about the type of fan they are. As part of the study, a group of sports fans who visit sports forums at least weekly ranked a series of statements. These included things like “I feel a sense of community with the other users of sports forums,” or “I like to visit sports forums for entertainment when I’m bored.” Researchers then interviewed participants to obtain a better understanding of their rankings. A qualitative and quantitative analysis of the data lead to the classification of three different types of online sports fans: tailgaters, trivia seekers and bandwagon fans. Read the full article at news.byu.edu

Cutri’s documentary examines the world of extreme sports including socio-economic factors and peak in participation Extreme sports continue to fascinate and entertain the public even after their long history beginning in the 1950s. It is nearly impossible to peel your eyes from the seemingly superhuman feats athletes perform as they fly, jump and twist through the air. Safety is put on the backburner as participants appear to defy human limitations. In recent years, there has been a boom in the popularity of these kinds of sports. Although School of Communications professor Chris Cutri does not participate in extreme sports himself, he is passionate about understanding the spike in participation because of his previous projects focused on the sociology of sports. “These pursuits are becoming more and more common,” Cutri said. “I wanted to find out why.” The documentary — filmed entirely in black and white — was recently picked up by First Run Features — a prominent distributor of independent films based in New York City. Cutri’s film explores the psychology of extreme sports such as wingsuit jumping, ultramarathons and highlining. Read the full article on the School of Communications website.