A blog for the CCA community

It’s been a little slow on this blog as both the Project Form team and all of us in the CCA community take a short breather, but now that we’re all full from our holiday meals and re-energized, let’s ramp up and get back up and running!

We’ve got a couple more themes to explore, and elements of quite a few have already been brought up in the discussions we’ve been having on this blog.  In this post, we’d like to explore the concept of “All for One”.

Among the CCA community, we all use such a wide range of extremely diverse tools – from paints, brushes, and charcoal, to laser-cutters, table saws, and sewing machines, to advanced software programs coupled with sophisticated hardware.  Some are time-honored and traditional methods that date back for centuries, and others are newfangled and very recent technologies.  Unfortunately, this contrast means that we sometimes judge each other based on the tools we use, discounting the larger connection to the creative process.  Creativity is an organic and open activity, with tools as enablers, but sometimes it’s easy to forget that when we’re focused on our own individual creative processes and using the tools we know best.  Even mundane programs like PowerPoint can be an enabler of creativity – David Byrne anyone?

How can we better understand the value of different methods, both old and new, and help each other find and work with them?  There are so many unforeseen combinations of styles, materials, and disciplines – how might we encourage this merging and blending?  More cross-discipline projects and courses is one idea that’s sprouted up – what else could we do?  Another element to ponder is CCA itself.  We’ve been exploring CCA’s future for several months now, but we can’t and shouldn’t discount our history as a fine arts and crafts institution.  So how might we honor and harness CCA’s history and heritage, while simultaneously adapting to and embracing new technologies and tools in our creative evolution?

So how might we foster, celebrate, and share a love of all tools of making?  How can we support all for one – all tools and techniques for our one love of creativity?

Here at the CCA, it’s “Chic to be Unique.” This theme revolves around our unique personalities and talents here at CCA. We are all strong individuals, drawn to CCA by some commonality and equipped with our own talents, skills, and experiences, and we want to be honored for that and the benefits we bring to the school and community. After all, diversity breeds richness–we need to work together to cultivate the many cultures that live within our institution.

So let’s ask ourselves how might CCA better support and recognize our uniqueness and diverse personalities? How can the different needs of, for example, a graphic designer, writer or MBA student be addressed and respected by CCA without sacrificing one for the other? And how might we support each other in this recognition of our uniqueness? Do you think CCA is diverse enough in knowledge and expertise within our student body, staff, and faculty? If not, how can we encourage more diversity and bring this to the forefront of what CCA stands for? And unique people need many inputs–we need to know what’s new and fresh and inspiring to keep us going. How can CCA better expose us to those new ideas? Is there a way for CCA and those within cultivate the many cultures that permeate the spirit

How might we be like the one-eyed squirrel–unique and proud of it?

The idea of school spirit and connections within the CCA community certainly sparked some good conversation in last week’s “We Are Family” theme, and now let’s expand upon the idea of connection a little farther. This week, let’s explore the idea of “Inside/Outside” and how to make the boundary between those of us inside the CCA community and those of us outside more fluid and lively.

Those of us inside the school desire both protection and exposure to the outside world, and those outside look inward for more connections. For example, in the research, many students expressed anxiety about what will happen after graduation. So how might CCA provide students with more exposure or tools to find the opportunity best suited for each student’s needs and skills? And how could CCA help alumni connect more frequently or deeply with current students, and vice versa? What about the fact that we live in such a vibrant and energetic place–are there ways that CCA can help us better leverage the resources of the Bay Area? For faculty and staff, are there ways that CCA can help you keep abreast of what’s going on in your field of expertise in order to enhance your own learning experience and gather insights that you can pass on to the students and others?

How might we better enhance this lively boundary between inside and outside?

We looked outward in the last theme, thinking about how the CCA could help connect its students with the outside world and dream big. Now let’s look inward and reflect on the world that lives within our campus walls. What links us all now and in the future is that we are a part of the CCA family. What does this  CCA family look like?

This week, let’s ask ourselves - How might we as a community be stronger, more united, and better connected with each other?  How might the CCA give us tools to aid in our search for authentic connections here on campus? Do you think school spirit exists here?  If not, what can be done to build a cohesive identity and make us proud to be a part of the CCA and show it to the outside world? We now live in a highly networked world, with technology as the great enabler.  What tools do you currently use to connect with others and how can we use them to build connections among the whole CCA community?

There is also a wealth of knowledge and resources that we all possess, and yet that pool is not easily shared and offered up within the greater community.  In the discussion surrounding the “Dream Big” theme, one commenter suggested a carpool sign-up/forum from campus-to-campus for late-night studiers, and in another discussion surrounding “Howart’s or the Lord of the Rings“, a suggestion sprouted up for more cross discipline classes and projects.  Do you think these suggestions are good ideas and would you participate?  What other suggestions do you have to bind us all closer together?

How might we all become a stronger CCA family?

Imagine the CCA as  a place of dreams, where imagination reigns free, exploration without constraints is encouraged, and we as students have at our disposal the tools we need to change the world, just as we want to.  We all carry within ourselves a strong sense of promise and there are messages and thoughts and ideas that we want to share with the world in hopes of impacting and affecting it.  That’s what makes us different from other art schools - we look outward and want to engage with society and society’s problems.  Think about the bikes that populate our campus - we are a bike culture, exposed and open to the world as we move.

We are at the CCA to dream big.

And we don’t just want to dream big, but we want to DO big.  What can the CCA do to help us achieve these goals and pursue our passions for causes and change?  How might we make the CCA itself an example of the changes we want to see in the world?  And what are those changes?  What about the communities around us, in Oakland, in San Francisco, in the Bay Area as a whole - should we better engage with the environments that surround us and if so, how could we do that?

After all the student research projects, the stakeout sessions on campus, feedback from this blog, and many behind-the-scenes interviews with key stakeholders, the core development team is starting to hone in on opportunity areas for the CCA’s growth, which is very exciting! The team met the Friday before Thanksgiving for a synthesis workshop and several themes emerged that will be shared here on the blog over the next couple of weeks.

As these themes are presented to you and the rest of the CCA community, we’d like to start brainstorming together via this blog on how to support and build upon these themes with ideas about what CCA (and each of us individually!) might do in these areas.  Another discussion topic is your feedback about the themes themselves.  Do they seem like the right ones?  Are there other themes you’d like to see added? Do you have examples of schools, companies or other places that do this really well and might be an inspiring example?

The first theme will be posted on the blog by the end of the week, so get those brain juices ready!

Below are some photos from the synthesis workshop for your viewing pleasure:

As we look forward into what the design and art landscape will look to support the evolution of the CCA, the question of what the future role of a designer, artist, architect, and so on will be is critical to explore.  So of this week’s Question of the Week, we ask you, “What do you think the designer/artist/etc. will look like in 2015?“  Another question to ask ourselves is whether or not these labels such as designer, artist, architect, and so on even still be valid in five years.  How will these disciplines evolve?  Do you think they will meld together or grow increasingly separate and niche?

To kick-off this discussion, we point you to two resources to get the brain juices flowing after the Thanksgiving weekend.  First is AIGA’s research results to the question of “Defining the Designer of 2015” that was released over the summer.  They present six trends that are affecting the design professional today.  Second, and more oriented toward the fine arts, is an article, “Transforming Art Into a More Lucrative Career Choice“, that was published in the New York Times on Nov. 26, 2008 about the business of art.

Do you agree with AIGA’s “Designer of 2015″ profile and suggested competencies? What would the “Artist of 2015″ look like? Do you think art and business can complement each other or are they opposing concepts?  Leave your thoughts in the comments!

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P.S. The Project Form blog experienced a spam attack over the Thanksgiving weekend, and thus comments will now need to be approved before being pushed live.  Rest assured though that this is for spam control only and that your comments will appear without any edits as quickly as possible.  Thank you in advance for your thoughts!