Upcoming Events

The 48th annual Film Finals

Aug. 18, 7:15 and 9:30 p.m. $5 – $8.50.

Encore screening! Showcasing the year’s top Cinema student productions, the juried Film Finals features short films in animation, experimental, documentary, narrative and film noir. Red Vic Movie House, 1727 Haight St. (at Cole), San Francisco. 415/668-3994.

Applause

Maltzan Architecture to design new Creative Arts Center

Michael Maltzan Architecture will design SF State’s new Creative Arts Center, to break ground in 2010. Maltzan has a reputation for producing visually appealing, functional spaces — often with a civic conscience. His extensive experience in designing for the arts includes the Billy Wilder Theater and Hammer Museum, both at UCLA. The award-winning architect also worked on the renowned Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles when he was with Frank Gehry Partners.

BECA alumni inducted into SF State Alumni Hall of Fame

At a recent campus ceremony, CBS 5 anchor Ken Bastida and “Dr. Phil” executive producer Carla Pennington were among four SF State alumni inducted into the University’s Alumni Hall of Fame. Both earned degrees from the Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts Department.

John Handy Scholarship awarded to jazz percussionist

Student Michael Spencer, a percussionist, has been awarded the first John Handy Scholarship for Jazz Studies. The scholarship is named after the SF State alum and pioneering jazz saxophonist. Handy and his wife Del founded the scholarship to help SF State students who plan to pursue a career in music.

DAI makes NY Times two days in a row

The Design and Industry Department made The New York Times twice recently. Faculty member Hsiao-Yun Chu was featured in a June 15 article about design visionary R. Buckminster Fuller, and student Benjamin Pender was included in a June 16 blog about sustainable design.

Dig This

LA school named for Art alumna

A new public school in East Los Angeles was recently named for a famous Art alumna, artist and author. The Carmen Lomas Garza Primary Center is a 10-classroom school that serves about 200 pre-kindergarten through second grade students. The majority of the student population is comprised of first-, second- and third-generation Mexican Americans.

Lomas Garza (M.A., Art, ’81) has enjoyed a retrospective solo exhibition that traveled from the San Jose Museum of Art to venues throughout the southwestern and southern U.S. She has written and illustrated several bilingual children’s books. Her paintings and cut-paper art depict a Chicana’s memories of small-town life in Texas, including making tamales and dancing in a patio to Tejano music. Her artwork is included at the Hirsshorn, Smithsonian, Library of Congress and other public collections.

Her children’s books have won numerous awards. In a book review of Lomas Garza’s “Family Pictures/Cuadros de Familia,” the Los Angeles Times encouraged readers to “look again, and again and again — for the haphazard detail of these loving snapshots emerges slowly, and is worth searching for.”