Alumni

Lisette Bourne (Art BFA '01)

Professional Title: Adjunct Professor

Areas Lisette is able to mentor in: Teaching, art education

Professional Bio: I am a photographer and art educator with 16 years in the secondary classroom and four years at the college-level. I hold an MFA from Claremont Graduate University, and an EdD from National University.

Best advice you can give to someone trying to enter your field: Seek many avenues of meeting other artists and network; because you never know where it will lead.

Your favorite CalArts memory: A picture of my solo photo exhibition with CalArts Bob made it into the newspaper!

Relevant professional links:
http://lisette-bourne.squarespace.com

Brendan Burch (Animation BFA '00) 

Professional Title: CEO Six Point Harness Studios

Areas Brendan is able to mentor in: Getting a job, production, 2D digital animation

Professional Bio: Brendan Burch is CEO of the animation studio Six Point Harness. After graduating from the CalArts Character Animation program, he worked as an Animation Director for Romp Films where he met many future members who now make up Six Point Harness. Since its beginning in 2003, Six Point has been behind renowned TV shows including Nick Jr's Wow Wow Wubbsy, Drawn Together the Movie, and Cosmos for FOX. 6PH is a pioneer in the digital space having produced a wildly popular animated show Dick Figures, developed and sold the animated series Apollo Gauntlet to Adult Swim and will be announcing three original, sold projects in 2018.

Best advice you can give to someone trying to enter your field: Get out there into the community early by joining groups like Women in Animation. 

Your favorite CalArts memory: My favorite memory was driving around in the desert getting into trouble.

Relevant professional links: 

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanburch/
• http://www.sixpointharness.com/

Donna Bonifield (Character Animation '84)

Areas Donna is able to mentor in: Software development

Professional Title: Co-Founder and CVO at GENUUS

Professional Bio: Donna is a visionary technology entrepreneur and 20+year software industry veteran. In 1994 Donna co-founded GENUUS, a social software company to bring A.I. to life. Her role as Chief Visionary Officer (CVO) is to provide leadership in all aspects of company operations, including production, business development, strategy, and executive management.

Childhood influences: Agriculture fruit orchard, Building race cars, Performing Arts, Design and Production Expertise: Disney Trained Director, Technical Software Designer, Business Leadership Mentor and Advisor

Best advice for someone entering your field: Production and fundraising

Your favorite CalArts memory: When T.Hee told me to trace, and Bill Moore used my design panels as the best of the year.

Relevant professional links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/donnabonifield

Nicholas Chase (Music/Integrated Media MFA '00) 

Professional Title: Composer/Performer/Producer/Arts Administrator

Areas Nicholas is able to mentor in: Visual art, media art, music, administration; self-presentation, professional application, portfolio development, academic advisement (for individuals planning to continue to graduate school, or grads looking for academic opportunities)

Professional Bio: "My purpose is to enlighten through music." Characterized by border-crossing energy, Nicholas Chase's music has been hailed by Strad Magazine as 'brilliant,' the Los Angeles Times as 'flamboyant, avant-garde' and 'brawling yet taut...the Rite of Spring meets Metallica,' by the Albuquerque Journal as 'crackling, witty,' by the Whittier Press as 'seamless, powerful... spectacular' and, dubbing him 'Eye/Ear Explorer,' the LA Weekly writes of his short opera 22, 'the human brain at its most imaginative.'

Chase earned his MFA in Composition/New Media and Integrated Media from California Institute of the Arts studying with Morton Subotnick, Bunita Marcus, Stephen L. Mosko, and Ziad Bunni of the Aleppo Conservatory of Arabic Classical Music, and James Tenney. In 2011, he earned PhD candidacy in Integrated Electronic Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute working with Pauline Oliveros. Chase has been commissioned by the Long Beach Opera, the California E.A.R. Unit, Viola Plus, Ltd., as well as Swiss bassist Cristin Wildbolz, first violin of New York's Ensemble Sospeso, Mark Menzies and internationally renown flutist Dorothy Stone. 

Those who have performed his music include New Zealand's 175 East, South West Chamber Music, and the Philadelphia Classical Symphony, where he received a joint award from the Symphony and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts for the Andy Warhol-inspired work tw!TcH. Visual elements play a strong role in Chase's work; his musical scores have been hailed as works of visual art, were featured in Shifter Magazine (2010) and Emergency Index (2012), and have been sold at auction in Switzerland.

His integrated audio/visual performance works have been featured with the San Francisco/Bay Area Illuminated Corridor, the Center for Electronic Art, Information and Technology (CEAIT) Festival in Los Angeles, and culminated with the premiere of NOVA: Transmissions, an interactive audio/video composition, as part of the 2008 Whitney Biennial. World premieres include Gin Blossoms and Broccoli Boutonnières at Other Minds Festival in San Francisco, New York Above Ground atDarmstadt/New York Festival at Brooklyn’s Issue Project Room, Dumuzi: The Wild Beast headlining Stanford/CCRMA's Music from the Edge contemporary music festival, and the electronic multi-channel music-and-light ballet Ngoma Lungundu and Songs of the Thirsty Sword which headlined two festival openings (New Music Plus+ - Janacek Academy of Music and Performing Arts, Czech Republic, Music By The Eyeful - at the Luggage Store, San Francisco). 

As a performer in pursuit of unusual musical possibilities, Chase has performed on music stand, mannequin limbs, lying inside a piano, on a bicycle—and more traditionally as a vocalist, and as a solo pianist. Chase is former frontman to the pop act Soul Parish, who topped the European Indie/Gothic club charts, and performs electronics and DJ turntables as a soloist with his own touring ensemble and with the California E.A.R. Unit.

As an improviser and visualist, Chase has worked with Russian pianist/improviser Roman Stolyar, Ben Miller, Miya Masaoka, and as NIRUSU III with renown harpist/improviser/scholar, Susan Allen and British bassist Rus Pearson. In fellowship at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany, he contributed bi-lingual voice-over to a series of programs on BauhausFM German radio.  

Chase has taught in residencies at the Janacek Academy of Music and Performing Arts, Bauhaus University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and as a guest instructor at California Institute of the Arts.

As Associate Director and Education Outreach Director for Morton Subotnick's Wizard Music Inc., Chase collaborated with the Schools of Education at Arizona State University and UCLA in the development of elementary music curricula placing programs in three underserved communities across Los Angeles, Kansas City, Newark, and New York City.

Chase has also worked with various local communities to develop and underscore educational opportunities in the arts for children, teens, and adults. Chase is the founder of The UFOrchestra and the Founding Director of Musical Arts/Sound Laboratory (www.mas-lab.org) and Chase Ateliers. 

As a producer, Chase has worked with Tom Erbe, Bob Bellerue, Lucky Mosko, Grammy-winner Jeremy Zuckerman, Annie Gosfield, Anne LeBaron, California E.A.R. Unit, Mark Menzies for Morton Subotnick and Cristin Wildbolz. In 2000, Chase was awarded the first President's Alumnus Award from California Institute of the Arts and was nominated for the Herb Alpert Award in Music in 2003.

In 2015, Chase was awarded a Certificate of Honor from the International Center for Japanese Culture in Tokyo for his koto/cello duo Gayate. Since 2011, Chase has worked in seclusion and spiritual retreat to develop his ideas on integrating Yoga/mind-body practices and Hindustani Classical Music forms with traditional Western Conservatory musicianship. In 2014, he presented theoretical discourse on his new work at California Institute of the Arts and recorded the first works shaped by these ideas, Bhajan, commissioned and performed by California E.A.R. Unit alumna Robin Lorentz. As of this writing, Chase is posthumously co-authoring and completing a book on the philosophy of musical co-creation Passage of Desire: Improvisation and the Human Journey, a project initiated by improviser, educator, and harpist, the late Dr. Susan Allen.

Best advice you can give to someone trying to enter your field: Discover your strengths, know your weaknesses, and optimize your talents.

Your favorite CalArts memory: In the beginning of my second year I was given a "Fortune Contract" as part of an installation. The contract was "Be less like the hare, more like the turtle!" I signed it, the artist retained the original, I have the copy framed and on my wall. I live by it.

Relevant professional links: 

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/composernicholaschase/
• http://nicholaschase.net/

Crystin Cox (Scenic Design BFA '03) 

Professional Title: Game Director

Areas Crystin is able to mentor in: Video game design, video game development

Professional Bio: Crystin Cox has been making games for 14 years, she joined the ArenaNet team in 2012 where she founded the Commerce Team which designed and implemented the monetization strategy for the massively successful MMORPG Guild Wars 2. She went on to provide design leadership for both the live updates of Guild Wars 2 as well as the game's full scale expansions. Previously, she worked at Nexon America where she lead the team responsible for design and operations of the global distribution of MapleStory. Early in her career, she also worked with the creative team at the Walt Disney Internet Group developing online games using both new and existing IPs. In another life, Crystin worked as a lighting and scenic designer in live theatre and in the art departments of various low-budget television and film productions. She is an alumna of California Institute of the Arts where she was granted a BFA in Theatrical Design.

Best advice you could give to someone trying to enter your field: Make games, start making as many games as you can in any way you can, get others to play them, get feedback, iterate. Do not wait for permission to become a game creator, do it now.

Your favorite CalArts memory: Opening night of the new works festival my 4th year. I was working with a choreographer to put on a one-act play that she wrote and I was doing the design for. I had finished classes but was working around the clock to get the show opened. Watching the play unfold for the first time in front of an audience was very special and the perfect ending to my time at CalArts. I graduated four days later.

Relevant professional links: 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/crystin-cox-a779573/

Jean DuVoisin (Design BFA '71)

Professional Title: Director DuVoisin Design

Areas Jean is able to mentor in: Design Branding marketing digital

Professional Bio: DuvoisinDesign.com

Best advice you can give to someone trying to enter your field: Know what you are good at and passionate about and focus on that.

Your favorite CalArts memory: Swimming in the pool and listening to Buckminster Fuller’s lectures

Relevant professional links: 

DuvoisinDesign.com

Eliza Frye (Character Animation BFA '08) 

Professional Title: Creative Director

Areas Eliza is able to mentor in: Art and animation outside of the studio system, social media for fun and profit, creative leadership and community building, and not losing your edge

Professional Bio: Oh, hello! I'm Eliza, an artist, storyteller, and creative director. Whether it's through a painting, a piece of branded social content, or a creative team day, I want to grab you by the guts and show you something new.

Best advice you can give to someone trying to enter your field: Murder your ego.

Your favorite CalArts memory: Mike Mitchell's life drawing class with Sara Streeter dressed as a prostitute/dragon: I had a raging fever and hadn't slept more than four hours in two days. Instead of telling me to go home, Mike looked at my drawings and said I should keep working through the model's breaks. My drawings that day were different from anything I'd done before. They didn't seek to capture anatomy or folds of fabric. They told a story. My story.

Relevant professional links:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizafrye/
• http://www.elizafrye.com/
• http://www.elizafryedesign.com/wp/

Brooke Halpin, (Music BFA '76) 

Professional Title: Creative Director

Areas Brooke is able to mentor in: Focus, career development, and direction

Professional Bio: Brooke Halpin, a Connecticut native, is an accomplished broadcaster, pianist, composer, painter, and published author. He wrote The Everything Playing Piano and Keyboards Book, The Only Basic Piano Instruction Book You’ll Ever Need, a Beatles quiz book, Do You Really Know The Beatles?, a novel based on a true story, A Magical Mystery Time, and  Experiencing The Beatles - A Listener‘s Companion. As a composer, Brooke composed the music to the Academy Award winning film Molly’s Pilgrim, the PBS special More Than Broken Glass – Memories of Kristallnacht, and Rudolph Nureyev’s ballet Christopher Columbus for the Hungarian National Ballet Company. His award winning compositions have been performed throughout the United States and Europe. Brooke is also a television producer having produced Video Coffee House, Out of the Box, The Power of Women in Business, and Whose Body is it Anyway.

His broadcast experience includes hosting and producing Music – Behind the Notes and his guests included Branford Marsalis, Suzanne Vega, and Richie Havens. Currently, he is the host of the syndicated radio show Come Together with The Beatles, on KBU, 97.5 in Malibu and online at www.radiomalibu.net, and also airs on WROCK and ROCK ON Radio Network.   Painting for more than 30 years, Brooke has combined his original talents in painting and music and has created “Harmonic Visions.” At gallery exhibitions, Brooke transforms paintings into sound by playing the music in each painting on the piano. His paintings have been exhibited in galleries in New York, Idyllwild, Santa Monica, Palm Springs, Venice, Ventura, Malibu, and at the International Surf Museum. A recipient of a MacDowell Arts Colony Fellowship, Brooke is a graduate of California Institute of the Arts and The Hartford Conservatory of Music.

Best advice you can give to someone trying to enter your field: Know your individual strengths.

Your favorite CalArts memory: Too many great memories; no singular one

Relevant professional links:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/brooke-halpin-42693b/
• https://www.facebook.com/brooke.halpin.9

Kyle Henry (Jazz Reeds BFA '13) 

Areas Kyle is able to mentor in: Self-promotion, branding & web marketing

Professional Title: Digital Marketing Strategist

Professional Bio: I have worked as an independent digital marketing/brand management/web design consultant for over four years to learn the best practices for finessing the Internet and building sustainable bonds between brands and their audiences. My continued mission is to develop and refine real skills and habits to, ultimately, lead or join teams that are creating solutions to social, environmental and cultural complexities across the globe. With a base in marketing and music, my target is finding a way to "get musicians paid."

Best advice for someone entering your field: Get Facebook Blueprint certified

Your favorite CalArts memory: Hanging out with Paul Novros

Relevant professional links:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylehenryla/
• http://www.brdg.social/

Francesca Krane (Set Design & PADT BFA '90) 

Professional Title: Director of Consumer Experience

Areas Francesca is able to mentor in: Marketing, retail design, consumer experience, product design

Professional Bio:  A graduate of CalArts, Francesca Krane launched her career as a set designer for film and television. Well known for her original conceptual sketches and technical background, she has designed award-winning retail stores, brand experiences, hospitality interiors, exhibits, and event marketing tours throughout the country and abroad. She possesses a unique combination of design leadership, creativity, project management, experience, and a dedication to creating unique designs. Working with a network of trade professionals, Francesca provides creative direction, collaboration, and hands- on project management skills to lead designs from concept to final completion, always on time and on budget!

Best advice you can give to someone trying to enter your field: Be confident in yourself, put the seeds out to what you want, and pursue it.

Your favorite CalArts memory: Our graduation word/theme was “infinite;” I continue to hold onto infinite growth and opportunities

Relevant professional links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/francesca-krane-6b12203b/

Jessica Lawson (Costume Design BFA '11) 

Professional Title: Pattern maker and seamstress for film and TV

Areas Jessica is able to mentor in: Making custom costumes for film and TV. Joining local 705 as a custom-made member.

Professional Bio: Jessica Lawson is a costume maker living in Los Angeles. She is a proud member of Local 705 Motion Picture Costumers Union (Cutter Fitter) and works on feature film, television, and commercials. Jessica works with costume designers to make their designs a reality—from sketch to a garment-fit for the big or little screen. Currently, Jessica is making lots of leotards for season two of GLOW.

Best advice you can give to someone trying to enter your field: Sew every day!

Your favorite CalArts memory: So many! I loved working in the coffee shop, it was a chance to meet students and faculty from every department. That inspired me to take some of my favorite classes-one in the puppet school and “queer books” in critical studies.

Relevant professional links: 

• http://www.hollywoodseamstress.com
• http://jessicasews.com/resume

Rose Pasquarello Beauchamp (Dance MFA '04) 

Professional Title: Senior Lecturer in Dance and Artistic Director/Choreographer

Areas Rose is able to mentor in: Dance, choreography, screendance

Professional Bio: Rose Pasquarello Beauchamp is a dance artist, somatic educator, filmmaker, and activist. With a BFA in Performing Arts/Dance from Emerson College and an MFA in Choreography from California Institute of the Arts, Rose’s interests lie in integrating dance, theater, design, and media. Her desire to integrate social activism into her choreography began with her thesis, focusing on Social Constructionism as it relates to movement. In addition, she is a Certified Laban Movement Analyst (CLMA) which has rooted her work in somatics and body awareness. Rose has been extremely active in each of the communities where she has lived and worked. As the Artistic Director of inFluxdance and Co-founder of SirensProof Films (a screen dance company), her full-length work has been featured in various cities internationally including Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Montreal, Toronto, and Mexico. She has been selected for residencies and performance projects including the Dance Complex’s I-ARE Residency in Cambridge, Green Street Performance Works Project, Sugar Space Artist in Residence in Salt Lake City, and the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival’s 2009 Choreographers Lab where she received the 2009 Emerging Artist Award. Rose was nominated for the Most Innovative Choreography Award at the Montreal Fringe Festival 2011 and was voted Best in Festival at the San Francisco Fringe Festival in 2007 and 2008. Her most recent work has toured to festivals including Assemble Festival in Detroit and the Richmond Contemporary Dance Festival. 

In 2017, her full length dystopian dance theater piece reflecting the divisiveness of the current political climate premiered at the Rochester International Fringe Festival. 

She has danced with many contemporary companies and contact improvisation. Rose has taught at Emerson College, Alfred University, The College at Brockport, and the University of Virginia, where as the Head of Dance, she developed the dance program from the ground up. Much of her artistic research centers around collaboration across disciplines, finding ways to integrate dance with architecture, art, psychology, engineering, and music. She has spent a great deal of time presenting at international conferences and dance intensives with a focus on dance and social activism. In 2012, her work in this arena was highlighted in a featured art installation centering around Dance and Social Change at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center. In 2016, she co-founded an organization called Artists Coalition for Change Together (ACCT) as a way to engage dancer-citizens. Rose has received a grant  from the Rochester Center for Community Leadership to spearhead an initiative using dance to build bridges and foster collaborative relationships across various communities. 

Best advice you can give to someone trying to enter your field: You have to absolutely want it and love it, AND saying yes can open doors to paths you never thought of.

Your favorite CalArts memory: My favorite memories were always the Halloween parties and Thursday Art Openings. I have one fond memory of dancing with some fellow dancers and musicians in a contact improvisation in the women's bathroom in the Main Gallery. I also have a great memory of Cinco de Mayo dance celebration with faculty and students and confetti cannons (of course).

Relevant professional links:
rosepasquarellobeauchamp.org

Margaret Pezalla-Granlund (Visual Art MFA '95) 

Professional Title: Director, TCNJ Art Gallery and the Sarnoff Collection

Areas Margaret is able to mentor in: Museum and non-profit work, grant writing, establishing a studio and community outside the coasts (I lived in Minnesota for a decade); parenting as an artist

Professional Bio: Director of The College of New Jersey Art Gallery and The Sarnoff Collection, Margaret received her BA from St. Olaf College and her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. Previously, she was the Robert C. Larson ’56 curator of library art and exhbitions at Gould Library, Carleton College. She is a practicing artist and has been awarded fellowships and grants from the McKnight Foundation, Jerome Foundation, and Minnesota State Arts Board. She has exhibited locally and nationally at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Santa Monica Museum, and at Burnett Gallery in Minneapolis. She has presented on the value of interdisciplinary and curricular exhibitions in academic libraries at conferences of the ACRL, the College Art Association, and the Universities Art Association of Canada.

Best advice you can give to someone trying to enter your field: Learn to write well!

Your favorite CalArts memory: Finding a very strange, almost invisibly thin piece of metal thread of mysterious origins and utility at the Lockheed building when our studios moved  after the earthquake.

Relevant professional links:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/margaret-pezalla-granlund-2728b55/
• http://mpezalla.com/

Marc Smason (General Music Performance BFA '73)

Professional Title: Musician

Areas Marc is able to mentor in: Music, promo, voice trombone

Professional Bio: As a child in Texas, Marc’s mother taught him to sing. He studied classical and jazz trombone in Seattle and in Los Angeles with Stu Dempster (and Dijeridu), Julian Priester, Ken Cloud and Slide Hampton. He also studied voice with Jay Clayton (jazz), Yo Jin Chong (Korean) and Ki Wasitodipuro (Javanese).

Marc has enjoyed teaching trombone and jazz vocal privately and in school workshops.
He received his BFA from the California Institute of the Arts and is a board member of International Federation of Musicians local 76-493.

Marc has composed and played for film, TV, theater, and dance, and performed throughout the world with such luminaries as the Funk Brothers, Baby Gramps, Big Joe Turner, Carlos Santana, Eddie Henderson, Hadley Caliman, Type A, Andy Statman, Perry Robinson, Sam Shepard, Julian Priester, sonny Simmons, Jeff Johnson, and the Ivar's Clams.

His playing encompasses many styles including jazz, Latin, Klezmer, and R&B.

Best advice you can give to someone trying to enter your field: Hard work - no guarantees

Your favorite CalArts memory: Ewe and Javanese concerts in LA schools

Relevant professional links: 

www.marcsmason.com

Stephanie Verschoor (Graphic Design MFA '03)

Professional Title: Global Director Design Management

Areas Stephanie is able to mentor in: Design, design management, going business side, FMCG, agency management, building teams, empowering women (and men) in business, networking, budget management, econometric modelling, USA, UK, European design, consumer journeys, brand experience

Professional Bio: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-verschoor-69b2b3

Best advice you can give to someone trying to enter your field: Ask for advice and be confident.

Your favorite CalArts memory: Just being able to focus on design and nothing else, being so broke I could not even afford a pillow in year 1 :).

Relevant professional links

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-verschoor-69b2b3

Sarah Wass (Music Performance MFA '03) 

Professional Title: COO, National Division, The Harmony Project

Areas Sarah is able to mentor in: Music performance, teaching/teaching artist, administration

Professional Bio: Sarah Wass is a musician, educator and administrator who works at the intersection of community and the arts. She has served The Harmony Project since 2004 in various roles, as a Teaching Artist, Program Manager and Program Director before joining Harmony Project National Division in 2015. Her expertise includes curriculum development; program design and implementation; data analysis and evaluation; professional development for new and experienced teaching artists and event production. While at The Harmony Project in Los Angeles, Sarah created their first replicable peer mentoring program and the Academy for high-achieving students.Sarah is also an accomplished flutist. She has been an artist-in-residence at Stanford University; University of Surrey, UK; Dartington International Summer School and Cal State Summer Arts Festival. Sarah has been fortunate to work closely with many acclaimed composers of our time including Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, David Lang, Anne LeBaron, Christopher Cerrone, Frank Denyer, John Luther Adams, Mark Trayle and Veronika Krausas. She can be heard on recordings by the Innova and The Industry Records labels, in addition to independent film scores and albums by Bright Eyes and A Fine Frenzy.Sarah holds a BM from Oberlin Conservatory and an MFA from California Institute of the Arts. To further her knowledge in the fields of arts administration and community organizing she completed the Community Arts Education Leadership Institute and the Community Counseling Certificate program through Southern California Counseling Center.Sarah maintains a private flute studio in Los Angeles and serves as a winds coach for the Kadima Conservatory. She lives in Silver Lake with her husband, daughter and assorted four-legged furry friends.

Best advice you could give to someone trying to enter your field: Say yes, especially if the opportunity scares you.

Your favorite CalArts memory: Thursday night art openings

Relevant professional links:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-wass-b28116105/
• http://www.flutepianoinla.com/
• https://www.harmonyprojectofamerica.org/