MA 2012
Alyssa Greenberg and Rebecca Mir are participating
in the 2013-2014 cycle of Art21 Educators, a yearlong professional development
initiative and learning community in which six pairs of educators support each
other in the exploration, creation, and implementation of new teaching
strategies and curricula inspired by contemporary art, artists, and ideas. The
crux of Art21 Educators was the Summer Institute (July 10-17, 2013), during
which they participated in workshops, working sessions, guest artist and educator
presentations, and studio and museum visits. Educators will continue to support
each other throughout the school year, sharing documentation (in writing,
photos, and videos), providing feedback, and continuing conversations about
contemporary art, artists, and films.
At the BGC, Alyssa (MA 2011) and
Rebecca (class of MA 2012) were drawn to one another through shared interests
in collaborative, object-based learning and in museum education for social
justice. Today, they are both museum educators in historic house-museums that
are initiating innovative contemporary art interventions. Alyssa is an
education assistant at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum and a doctoral student
in the Department of Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Rebecca
is an educator and floor manager at the New-York Historical Society’s DiMenna
Children’s History Museum in New York City and the School and Community
Programs Developer at the Voelker Orth Museum, Bird Sanctuary and Victorian
Garden in Flushing, Queens.
MA 2010
In January 2013 Alexis Romano was appointed membership
secretary of the Association of Dress Historians and co-founded the Fashion
Research Network with colleagues from the Courtauld Institute of Art and Royal
College of Art.
PhD 2006
Daniella Ohad currently hosts a program at the New York School of
Interior Design called “Collecting Design: History, Collections, Highlights,”
which explores the territory of collecting modern and contemporary design. Her
upcoming publication, “The ‘Designed’ Israeli Interior, 1960-1977: Shaping
Identity,” will be featured in a special issue on Design History in the Journal
of Interior Design. She also co-curated and hosted architect and designer
Gaetano Pesce for a conversation in the design fair Collective.1.
MA 2004
Leigh Wishner has been a curatorial assistant in the Costume &
Textiles department at Los Angeles County Museum of Art for over a year now. In
early June, she gave a presentation in Las Vegas called “One Step Forward,
Two Steps Back: Platforms, Sandals, Stilettos and Historicized Feminine
Footwear Through the Twenty-First Century” at the Costume Society of
America’s National Symposium.
MA 2003
Melissa Cohn Lindbeck and her husband have taken up a new and unusual
hobby… swordfighting! Her husband wears full Medieval-style armour, while
Melissa prefers to channel her inner swashbuckler in Renaissance rapier style.
They have also begun using lightsabers in their practice. You can check them
out at EMAAKnights.com.
Scott W. Perkins was
recently appointed director of Preservation at Fallingwater, where he oversees
the preservation of the historic landscape and house designed by Frank Lloyd
Wright in 1936. In early 2013, Scott presented three papers on Wright’s work,
and this fall he will present a paper at the conference of the Frank Lloyd
Wright Building Conservancy in Grand Rapids, MI, on the murals and screens
designed by Wright’s secretary, Eugene Beyer Masselink, the subject of his
dissertation.
MA 2000
Rick Kinsel, executive director of the Vilcek Foundation, established to
recognize the significant contributions of immigrants to American arts and
sciences, will be among the honorees at the Museum of Arts and Design’s 2013
Visionaries! Gala on November 20. MAD is celebrating “influential creators and
leaders in the art, craft, and design industries, whose work personifies the
Museum’s mission to explore and celebrate contemporary creativity across all
media.”
MA 1999
Judith Gura has been overseeing the design history and theory departments
at the New York School of Interior Design, teaching two or three courses each
term and consulting on exhibitions and public programs. She has also been doing
some outside lectures, which have included venues in Boston and Washington, DC,
as well as New York, and continues to do auction reviews and occasional
magazine pieces. Currently, she has two book projects in development and is
working on three major exhibitions for the NYSID gallery - one on New York City
landmarked interiors, and two on celebrated design firms.
