Four named winners of PCA&D faculty development grants

Four Pennsylvania College of Art & Design faculty members were awarded Fall 2021 grants through the College. These funding opportunities, awarded twice annually, are open to all full-time and part-time PCA&D faculty as well as instructors in the College’s Center for Creative Exploration.

Awarded grants in this most recent round  are:

Research & Practice Professional Development Grant:

Troy Holleman (Live Experience Design / Photography & Video): The grant was used to acquire a Muse 2 headset that monitors the brain’s activity in real-time. Says Holleman: “I plan to extract the brain wave data transmitted for data visualization purposes. The headset gives me access to the delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma waves which will each have their animation behavior. The end goal is to create a compelling projected video animation that changes in real time, based on whoever is wearing the headset.”

Educator’s Professional Development Grant:

Sheri Hansen (Center for Creative Exploration / Illustration): Hansen is using the grant for a course at Brainstorm School in Burbank, Calif. Hansen says the high-level digital painting course, Painting with Value and Light, “is for me about skill-building in designing story-driven illustrations and digital painting techniques, and adapting some of these new skills and practice into my teaching where appropriate.”

Claudia Rilling (Fine Art): Rilling is using the grant for a three-day painting course with Edmond Praybe, a Baltimore area-based painter and educator. Her interest in studying with Praybe, she says, “is based on the way he uses unique vantage points to create still-life compositions that verge on the abstract while also maintaining references to form, to realism. His use of tone and edge are incredibly sensitive. Additionally, after almost two years of little in-person engagement with other painters, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to receive feedback in person.”

Todd Ulrich (Animation & Game Art / Illustration): Ulrich’s grant will enable the PCA&D alumnus and adjunct instructor to attend “Environment Art for Games in Unreal Engine” at the CG Master Academy, a 10-week online course taught by environment texture artist Peyton Varney. “I’ll be using this information to better understand UE4,” Ulrich says, “and create better lesson plans for my students.”