Art School

Thurl Ravenscroft's rich voice dipped low and deep as he began to utter what has become the trademark of his 50-year show business career. "They're g-r-r-r-eat!!!" Ravenscroft boomed as he recreated the role of Tony the Tiger, a role that the 73-year-old has performed in scores of television commercials for a cereal company for 36 years. "The Tony the Tiger commercial has been done for every English-speaking (country) in the world. . . .

AUSTIN, Texas -- Outspoken rock 'n' roll balladeer Nick Cave traced his beginnings from “rural Australia” to the more comforting confines of his own imagination in a sprawling, hour-long chat at the South by Southwest music conference here. The standing-room-only Tuesday conversation focused largely on Cave's biographical history. The facts of the real world, however, weren't of as much interest to Cave as the more abstract matters of art. Speaking of his relationship with spouse Susie Bick, Cave said, “I feel that I know her better in the songs that I write about her than I do in real life.” Speaking of wanting to leave rural Australia for Melbourne, and then later Melbourne for London and then London for New York, Cave said, “Culturally, life has been a series of disappointments.

Michael Asher, the pioneering conceptual artist who challenged expectations of what constitutes a work of art and what happens during an art critique, died in his sleep at his Los Angeles home early Monday after several years of poor health. He was 69. His death was confirmed by his assistant, Yoko Kanayama. A teacher at the California Institute of the Arts since 1973, Asher was famous for his wit and candor -- and marathon-style "crits," or critiques, that left vivid memories with generations of students.

As one of the leading tight ends in the National Football League, the San Francisco 49ers' Vernon Davis will be one to watch during Sunday's Super Bowl game against the Baltimore Ravens. Last month, the 28-year-old Davis added another responsibility to his resume: art gallery owner. The football player opened a space called Gallery 85 in San Jose. The gallery is expected to show art by Davis as well as emerging artists. The gallery's opening in December served as a fundraiser for the Vernon Davis Foundation for the Arts, which helps fund arts education and art appreciation for at-risk youth.

Drivers on Laguna Canyon Road may have noticed that an Orange County landmark is missing. The Laguna College of Art & Design mural that graced the side of the Laguna Canyon Winery is now a plain gray wall. The mural was painted over by the winery owner who apparently did not recognize its significance. The mural was one of six in the city that were designed and painted by art school students in 2003. It was the largest mural by the college and in Orange County, mural instructor Mia Tavonatti said.

Keith Haring, recipient Friday of a Google Doodle , was among a group of art school students who considered themselves Pop Art heirs to Andy Warhol. But although Haring was dead by age 31, the artist made his own imprint, and it wasn't on a soup can. Perhaps as remarkable as Haring's art was the man himself -- his energy and personality. In a 2008 review of a Haring documentary, Los Angeles Times' movie critic Kenneth Turan says Haring's lively pop sensibility, "owlish looks" and exuberant personality combined to make him, as one of his friends said, "a true phenomenon.

Analia Saban went to art school at the height of the recent market boom, when it was not uncommon for students, particularly in UCLA's prestigious painting program, to be fielding offers from galleries and selling work directly out of their studios. It had a significant impact on the direction of her career, though not because she profited by it at the time. Indeed, she had a rough go of it. Raised in Buenos Aires, she came to Los Angeles in 2002 by way of a small college in New Orleans, where she studied video art primarily.

I was sorry to read of Michael Rissi's current plight with USC's School of Cinema-Television. It doesn't, however, surprise me. As I understand it, after I left the cinema school and took "Dark Star" with me, USC instituted a policy of complete and total ownership of all films made there. I really don't understand how anyone can take Rissi's script away from him and give it to someone else to direct. USC is a school , not a studio. Although this sort of behavior is good training for the real world of Hollywood, I fail to see any circumstances that would excuse this exploitation of talent by a university.