Otis Art Institute Of Parsons School Of Design

Los Angeles will get its first in-depth look at contemporary Czechoslovakian art this summer at Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design. Dialogue/Prague/Los Angeles, an exhibition of works by 12 Czech artists, will be at the Otis/Parsons gallery from June 29 to Aug. 18. An auxiliary show pairing Czech and American art is expected to take place concurrently in another local exhibition space. The Los Angeles event is the second half of an exchange that debuted last August in Prague.

As part of its search for more elementary school space, the Los Angeles Board of Education on Monday unanimously approved making an offer on the former Otis Art Institute property near MacArthur Park. Pending results of environmental and financial reviews, next fall the new school could accommodate at least 600 kindergarten through fifth-graders from congested neighborhoods of central Los Angeles, where thousands of students currently board school buses daily--more than from any other area.

Madonna's style still crops up everywhere, even at the Otis/Parsons fashion students' graduation night last Saturday, known as the school's Critics Award fashion show. L.A. designer Patti Cappalli, who taught a course there this semester, assigned her students to dress the recording artist of their choice for an imaginary appearance at the Grammy Awards. One student created a beaded garter belt and a sexy red blouse for Madonna (it was modeled by a lip-syncing look-alike).

Citing practical problems and a more attractive option, Otis College of Art and Design has called off its proposed marriage to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The museum in May tentatively agreed to lease space to the art school in the museum's vacant May Co. facility in the Mid-Wilshire district, but Otis officials now say the expense of renovating the former department store and the museum's failure to provide sufficient parking make the scheme unworkable.

Dawn Teitelbaum didn't have to wait long to hit the big time in her corner of the world. A year and a half after graduating from the Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design, the 22-year-old has her poster for "No Man's Land," a critically acclaimed new release starring Charlie Sheen, playing across the country right along with the movie. For Teitelbaum, a 1986 graduate of the school, this is a "major" break, an exciting beginning to a career in graphic design and illustration.

Anne B. Ayres, associate curator of exhibitions and collections at the Newport Harbor Art Museum, will be named today as director of the Otis/Parsons Art Institute Exhibitions Center. She succeeds Al Nodal, who recently became director of the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans. Nodal says he will return to Los Angeles one week a month to continue his other job as chief planner of the MacArthur Park Public Art Program, a revitalization project sponsored in part by Otis/Parsons.

Citing practical problems and a more attractive option, Otis College of Art and Design has called off its proposed marriage to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The museum in May tentatively agreed to lease space to the art school in the museum's vacant May Co. facility in the Mid-Wilshire district, but Otis officials now say the expense of renovating the former department store and the museum's failure to provide sufficient parking make the scheme unworkable.

This is not the time to throw out the arts, says Marina Day. "Our spirits need creativity. We need creative outlets." Day, who has lived in Los Angeles since the 1970s, can remember the pride she felt as a child at Greenwich Country Day School in Connecticut, where teachers would bind into a book the drawings by each first- and second-grader. At 16, she was selling her paintings in a gallery. But, in choosing a profession, she decided that "art was not as worthwhile as helping people.

As part of its search for more elementary school space, the Los Angeles Board of Education on Monday unanimously approved making an offer on the former Otis Art Institute property near MacArthur Park. Pending results of environmental and financial reviews, next fall the new school could accommodate at least 600 kindergarten through fifth-graders from congested neighborhoods of central Los Angeles, where thousands of students currently board school buses daily--more than from any other area.

Francisco Guttierez, a sophomore in the Environmental Design course at the Otis/Parsons School of Design, struggled with a problem of conscience: How do you design a podium for a politician if you distrust the entire business of politics? The balsa model Guttierez had built to explore the problem reflected his confusions.

The Otis College of Art and Design, the city's oldest art school, is celebrating its 75th anniversary this fall with a series of events and exhibitions commemorating its history and looking ahead to the future. The school opened in 1918 as the Otis Art Institute. In 1978, it merged with the Parson School of Design and now offers undergraduate and graduate programs in the fine arts, applied arts, fashion, architecture and design.

As at many fashion events, the show in the audience was as good as the show on the runway. Elaine Goldsmith, chairman of Otis School of Art and Design's board of trustees, wore a student-made bead-encrusted chiffon blouse, substituting pajama pants for the original ball gown skirt. Nancy Vreeland, the dinner chair and a former designer, chopped off the sleeves and neck of her new Bill Blass top and wore it backward.

Pixie Carroll left Berlin to study fashion at the Otis School of Art and Design. But in her first five months at Otis, Carroll has been schooled in the style of the street and she has learned more than she cares to about drug dealing, prostitution, gangs and murder. "I've seen three people die since I came here (last fall)," said Carroll, a 19-year-old freshman who lives in the school's Taper Hall across from MacArthur Park.

This is not the time to throw out the arts, says Marina Day. "Our spirits need creativity. We need creative outlets." Day, who has lived in Los Angeles since the 1970s, can remember the pride she felt as a child at Greenwich Country Day School in Connecticut, where teachers would bind into a book the drawings by each first- and second-grader. At 16, she was selling her paintings in a gallery. But, in choosing a profession, she decided that "art was not as worthwhile as helping people.

Madonna's style still crops up everywhere, even at the Otis/Parsons fashion students' graduation night last Saturday, known as the school's Critics Award fashion show. L.A. designer Patti Cappalli, who taught a course there this semester, assigned her students to dress the recording artist of their choice for an imaginary appearance at the Grammy Awards. One student created a beaded garter belt and a sexy red blouse for Madonna (it was modeled by a lip-syncing look-alike).

With spring temperatures hitting 90-something degrees earlier that day, sunburns were as plentiful as the de rigueur short black cocktail dresses many women wore to the 10th annual Otis/Parsons Critics Award Fashion Show on Saturday night. More than $525,000 was raised for the design school's scholarship program, while guests were treated to dinner, dancing, a solid show of student designs and a silent auction.

Saturday night's tribute by Otis/Parsons to glamour-and-glitter designer Bob Mackie was a Hollywood spectacular in its own right. In a silky smooth fund-raiser, held at the Beverly Hilton and attended by 1,200, the local college saluted Mackie (introduced as "the sultan of sequins, the raj of rhinestones"), promising students and the established designers who worked the past year as their advisers in its annual Critics Awards Fashion Show.

With spring temperatures hitting 90-something degrees earlier that day, sunburns were as plentiful as the de rigueur short black cocktail dresses many women wore to the 10th annual Otis/Parsons Critics Award Fashion Show on Saturday night. More than $525,000 was raised for the design school's scholarship program, while guests were treated to dinner, dancing, a solid show of student designs and a silent auction.

Los Angeles will get its first in-depth look at contemporary Czechoslovakian art this summer at Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design. Dialogue/Prague/Los Angeles, an exhibition of works by 12 Czech artists, will be at the Otis/Parsons gallery from June 29 to Aug. 18. An auxiliary show pairing Czech and American art is expected to take place concurrently in another local exhibition space. The Los Angeles event is the second half of an exchange that debuted last August in Prague.

Francisco Guttierez, a sophomore in the Environmental Design course at the Otis/Parsons School of Design, struggled with a problem of conscience: How do you design a podium for a politician if you distrust the entire business of politics? The balsa model Guttierez had built to explore the problem reflected his confusions.