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BYU Community Joins in Celebrating 150th Golden Spike Anniversary

June 20, 2019 12:00 AM
BYU’s College of Fine Arts and Communications celebrated the historic joining of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads On May 10, 1869, history was made in the small town of Promontory, Utah. A single golden spike signified the completion of one of the biggest engineering feats in history. The golden spike — driven into the final link of track — joined the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific railroads, creating the first transcontinental railroad in the United States. The marriage of the railroad tracks in northern Utah marked the start of a new era, completely revolutionizing transportation in the United States. With Utah’s close historical tie to this momentous event, members of the BYU community joined in the 150th anniversary celebration happening in their own backyard. This event has connected a BYU alumnus, an illustration professor and others within the College of Fine Arts and Communications who have joined to commemorate the golden spike anniversary. Golden spike postage stamps for USPS BYU alumnus Kevin Cantrell was hired by the USPS to illustrate the forever stamps recently added to the 2019 stamp program. In collaboration with USPS art director Greg Breeding and painter Michael J. Deas, Cantrell helped create a set of stamps that depict the uniting of the two railroads with the Golden Spike. These new stamps are considered to be the most intricate stamps to ever be executed by the USPS — requiring them to get a new machine that is capable of the ornate details in the design. For Cantrell, a native Utahn, this project hit close to home, especially since most of the work he does is outside of Utah and the U.S. “The biggest significance about this project for me was finally being able to work on a project of historical significance for my home state,” said Cantrell. “When I tell people I designed the golden spike stamps, everyone’s eyes just light up and they immediately recognize it. It is personally very gratifying.' Commemorative posters for city of Ogden BYU illustration professor David Dibble was commissioned to design posters for the city of Ogden’s railroad anniversary celebration. “I loved getting to know the trains better,” said Dibble, who grew up in Ogden surrounded by trains. “It was fun to dive in, learn about them and celebrate what they meant to the country at such a significant time in our history. Because of these trains, our nation was never the same.” Dibble worked with train experts to design historically accurate versions of the trains — Jupiter and No. 119 — used in the 1869 ceremony. The two posters were intended to be a set, representing what it would have looked like for someone in Promontory on the day the two trains came together as the golden spike was driven. Dibble’s posters were displayed at the Ogden Heritage Festival and were sold as prints at the Weber State University and Ogden Chamber of Commerce stores. “After Promontory” — a special exhibit in the MOA that highlights the history of railroads In the BYU Museum of Art, the history of the railroad — particularly the anniversary of the transcontinental railroad — is being celebrated in a new exhibit called “After Promontory,” which shows the historical importance of the transcontinental railroad and its continued impact even today. “This exhibit merges 150 years of great railroad photography with an interesting and relevant discussion of transformation and change — both locally and nationally — that still impacts us today,” said MOA curator Ashlee Whitaker. While this same exhibit is currently on display at other locations throughout the nation, BYU’s “After Promontory” contains additional pictures taken from the holdings of the BYU Library’s L. Tom Perry Special Collections. This added section in the exhibit emphasizes the vital role that Utah had in building and completing the transcontinental railroad. “After Promontory” will be on display at the BYU Museum of Art through October 5, 2019. More information about the exhibit and programming can be found online at moa.byu.edu. “Along the Line: Contemporary Explorations of the Transcontinental Railroad” in the HFAC The paintings and art currently featured in the main gallery of the HFAC offer a modern perspective of the transcontinental railroad and how it continues to affect lives today. “This exhibition seeks to bring together contemporary artists’ interpretations of the cultural, social and economic effects of the railroad,” said graduate student curator Meagan Anderson Evans. The majority of the works in the exhibit were created by regional artists, BYU alumni and faculty who Evans personally reached out to. A few pieces were included from students at BYU, UVU and Snow College. HFAC gallery director Jason Lanegan mentored Evans as she sought to make her vision a reality and help audiences increase their understanding of the impact of the railroad. “There are so many different events taking place both statewide and outside of Utah. It’s about recognition and knowledge,” said Lanegan. “This exhibit helps to bring awareness and different insight.” The show will be up in the HFAC through June 26. A companion show — also curated by Evans — is on display in the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley, Utah.
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ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF DESIGN WINS HONORABLE MENTION FROM OIL PAINTERS OF AMERICA

May 24, 2016 12:00 AM
Assistant Professor of Design David Dibble recently received an award at the Oil Painters of America 25th National Juried Exhibition. Dibble’s work “Hinckley Farm” won a Landscape Honorable Mention from the exhibition in Texas. He primarily paints landscapes working on site, and this painting was no exception. “I did the painting on location at the Hinckley farm in West Provo and loved the morning light striking the old farm buildings,” Dibble said. “I then took the painting back to the studio and further explored the scene to clarify the emotion of strong warm light and remoteness of location that I wanted to portray.”
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Student winner of the Visual Arts category of the 2016 Phi Kappa Phi Arts Competition

March 07, 2016 12:00 AM
Virginia Dall, or Ginger as she is most commonly known, grew up thinking it was normal to have artwork hanging everywhere in the home. Her mother, a professional artist who influenced Dall’s artistic inclination, encouraged her desire to draw constantly as a child. She spent much of her childhood looking through her mother’s art books, cultivating her own artistic voice. Today, Dall is a senior in the BFA Illustration program at Brigham Young University who has worked on several high profile projects throughout her time as a student. One of Dall’s pieces was chosen as the poster for the BYU 2015 Fall Opera, Manon. Dall’s hard work and dedication are paying off. Recently, she was selected as the winner of the Visual Arts category of the 2016 Phi Kappa Phi Arts Competition, sponsored by the national honor society, Phi Kappa Phi. Nominated by her professor, David Dibble, she is invited to attend a banquet where she will receive her award. “We as area faculty nominated Ginger because of her dedication and personal passion for her work,” Dibble said. “She is unique in how she has crossed the bridge mentally into the professional world and is highly motivated to both improve as well as help others around her to do the same.” Initially, Dall was unaware of the competition, stunned at her nomination and the opportunity to showcase her work. “I have been working closely for the past several months with David Dibble on my BFA show and professional portfolio,” Dall said. “I was especially grateful for his role in being nominated.” Dall has also started working as a studio assistant for LDS artist, J. Kirk Richards, an important stepping-stone in reaching graduation and her future career as an artist.
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Student and Faculty Achievements of 2015

January 09, 2016 12:00 AM
Faculty members and students of the College of Fine Arts and Communications participate in regional, national and international competitions every year. It is not uncommon for members of the college to receive prestigious awards on an annual basis. 2015 was a particularly successful year for the college as awards ranged from the Contemporary Dance Company winning the Grand Prix at the New Prague Dance Festival to numerous awards the Department of Theatre and Media Arts received from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival for their production of “Our Town.” The college continues to thrive as an acclaimed institution of the arts and communications. Highlights of the student awards include more than 20 Graphis awards for Design students, a Student Emmy Animation students received for Ram’s Horn, Communications students receiving Mark of Excellence, Gracie, Addy and Effie awards and a music student receiving an Honorable Mention for Outstanding Music at the New York Musical Theatre Festival. The faculty of the college are also active in remaining competitive amongst their peers on a local, national and international level. Art professors Daniel Everett, Peter Everett and Bryon Draper received awards for their artwork. TMA professor, Stephanie Breinholt received Outstanding Director of a Play and the Innovative Teaching Award from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. Design professors, David Dibble, Robert Machoian Graham, Justin Kunz, Eric Gillett and Adrian Pulfer received local and national honors. Two music professors, Rosalind Hall and Ronald Staheli were awarded Creative Works Awards. PRWeek named the School of Communications’ public relations program as one of the top five in the nation. PHOTO BY BYU PHOTO: BYU received 13 national awards from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival for the production of Our Town. Student Achievements of 2015 Faculty Achievements of 2015
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Cinematic version of Charlie Brown shaped by BYU prof, alums’ pens

November 06, 2015 12:00 AM
Professor David Dibble and six alumni play pivotal roles in converting beloved characters from 2D to 3D He’s an icon who has appeared in the Sunday paper for more than half a century, but there are still some sides of Charlie Brown the public has yet to see. For example: the back of his head. This was the challenge facing a team of talented artists at Blue Sky Studios (owned by 20th Century Fox), which included BYU Illustration professor David Dibble and six other alumni from the BYU Department of Design. The group was tasked with transforming the two-dimensional world of Charles Schulz’s characters into a three-dimensional feature-length film. “In the 1950s, Charlie Brown comic strips were a little more 3D and had some depth and perspective in the drawings,” Dibble said. “But in the 70s, 80s and 90s, not only did Schulz progressively flatten down the space, he stuck a flat brick wall in front of the characters in many scenes to eliminate depth. We never see the back of Charlie Brown’s head, we don’t see him from a three-quarter angle. He’s always drawn from a profile view or straight on.” Dibble worked as a visual development artist on “The Peanuts Movie,” set to release Friday. Visual development artists design the color, shape, style and any other visual element that make up a movie. Dibble specifically created a style guide for fellow designers and animators down the production pipeline detailing the nuances for drawing like Schulz, which included references for pen strokes and line width. In order to keep the tiniest details in harmony with Schulz’s original work, such as a poster hanging on the wall in Charlie Brown’s bedroom, every illustration had to be documented with a comic strip reference to prove it was consistent with tradition. “The level of research that went into this is something people won’t necessarily see when watching the movie. To say we did a fairly deep dive to make sure that details are accurate to Schulz’s vision is an understatement,” Dibble said. For example, because Schulz drew Charlie Brown slightly different in every strip, artists created a matrix of over 500 Charlie Browns before narrowing down the final design for the movie. “We also don’t want those details to be felt more than distracting. If people aren’t noticing but it just feels right, then we’ve done our job right.” The influence of BYU graduates stretches from the beginning of the production process throughout the entire movie, with some spending more than two years on the project. BYU Alum Jeff Call helped visualize the movie as a story artist, creating a blueprint of the movie for other departments to use. “The script leaves a lot up to interpretation and we’re the ones trying to tie it down,” Call said. “Every audience member is going to bring certain expectations when they come to watch the movie. We needed to meet those expectations and hopefully surpass them.” Fellow BYU grad Tyler Carter, also a visual development artist, was responsible for designing the look of the Peanuts’ world as well as Snoopy’s imagination, an area not heavily explored in the comics. “When I first started on the film over three years ago, I was quite intimidated,” Carter said. “Peanuts is synonymous with American culture in such a way that it’s almost sacred. Like the rest of the country, I grew up watching the Bill Melendez specials. For me, it’s an honor to work on a film like this.” The fantasy world, which equates to approximately 6,000 miles of computer generated land, is where Snoopy faces off against his arch nemesis, the Red Baron. To create this world, Carter drew on his childhood memories of the towering Wasatch mountains for inspiration. BYU graduate Seth Hippen was an animator on the film responsible for some scenes that included Charlie Brown, Woodstock, Snoopy and Linus. He said his biggest challenge as an animator was mimicking the rough movement of the original Schulz work in the smooth 3D format. “The animation in the holiday television specials was shot on a budget, and movements can be a little snappy moving from a straight on view to a profile view,” Hippen said. “We didn’t want to lose that feel, so to make it work in 3D we would animate one or two frames indicating the head was turning a certain direction and then we would snap it into profile.” Other BYU alumni who contributed significantly to “The Peanuts Movie”include Raphael Tavarez (materials artist); Michael Murdock (lighting technical director); and Brandon May (lighting technical director). The BYU Department of Design is accustomed to being in the national spotlight for work produced by the animation, illustration, and graphic design programs. A 2013 news feature in The New York Times touted “Out of nowhere, B.Y.U. – a Mormon university owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – has become a farm team for the country’s top animation studios and effects companies.” Dibble agrees. “In the way our programs are structured, the students are working in teams and that translates very well to a professional setting,” Dibble said. “You need to be able to work with people. Those recently graduated students start out with a company and, because of their character and work ethic, very quickly become respected leaders.” BY NATALIE TRIPP, BYU UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAREN WILKEY, BYU PHOTO
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