Keely Colcleugh 2019 ASAI President

The American Society of Architectural Illustrators is pleased to announce that Keely Colcleugh of Kilograph is joining the Board of Directors as 2018 Vice President and the 2019 President. As the 2019 President, she will host the Architecture in Perspective 34 Competition and Conference.

 

Keely is the Director and Founder of Kilograph, a visual communications and emerging VR/AR technology studio based in Los Angeles. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from McGill University in Montreal Canada and a Master of Design in New Media degree from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCIArc). Drawing on 20 years of experience in the fields of architecture, feature film visual effects, and communications design, she has worked at Bruce Mau Design in Toronto Canada, The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and AMO, and as a visualization artist at Atelier Jean Nouvel in Paris.

In 2004, she moved to Los Angeles to begin a career as a Previs Animator on feature films, including Iron Man and Superman, before starting Kilograph in 2009. When Keely isn’t working, she’s speaking about the importance of architectural visualization to architecture students and graphic artists. She has lectured at the California State Polytechnic University, Woodbury University, the University of Kentucky, and USC School of Architecture. She has been a guest lecturer at the IUAV in Venice Italy’s Master of Digital Architectural program, and at Trojan Horse was a Unicorn, speaking on the topic of narrative in architectural visualization.

She is a board member at the A+D museum of Los Angeles, and a member of the Jury for the Architizer A+ Awards.

About the American Society of Architectural Illustrators

ASAI, is an international non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement and recognition of the art, science and profession of architectural illustration.Through communication, education and advocacy, the Society strives to refine and emphasize the role of illustration in the practice and appreciation of architecture.

History

The American Society of Architectural Illustrators (ASAI) was founded in 1986 as a professional organization to represent the business and artistic interests of architectural illustrators throughout North America and around the world.

ASAI’s principal mandate was and remains the fostering of communication among its members, raising the standards of architectural drawing, and acquainting the broader public with the importance of such drawings as a conceptual and representational tool in architecture. Membership in the organization is not limited to professional illustrators, but is open to architects, designers, teachers, students, corporations, and anyone engaged in the serious pursuit of architectural drawing.

The American Society of Architectural Illustrators also assists in the advancement of the profession in a number of significant ways. It serves as a referral agency for those seeking the services of a illustrator, as a network for practitioners and affiliated organizations from around the world, as a clearing-house for ideas and discussions about architectural illustration, and as a sponsor of regional and local member activities. The central purpose of ASAI remains the improvement of architectural drawing worldwide. By recognizing and celebrating the highest achievements in the illustration of our built environment, the organization — together with the dedicated, committed and passionate efforts of its international members — continues to further the quality of the work of all who have an interest in architectural illustration. In 1995, ASAI was recognized for its excellence in achieving its mandate and purposes with an American Institute of Architecture Honor Award which commended the organization for its work in strengthening collaborative associations with the communities of architects, designers and other professionals, as well as for its programs dedicated to educating the public about architectural drawing.

Al Forster, “My Architecture in Perspective Experience”

Dear ASAI Membership,

Al at U of H '62
Al Forster at University of Houston in 1962

My wife and I just returned home to The Sea Ranch from a 5200 mile driving trip over 8 states, the focus of which was the yearly ASAI/AIP Conference, this year AIP 32, held in Houston, Texas.  For those who couldn’t make it this year and didn’t hear my story, I attended the University of Houston, College of Architecture in 1961, smack dab in the middle of Hurricane Carla.  It was at the U of H that I started my long journey in design and presentation drawing and, as fate would have it, here I was returning there, now 56 years later and at the tail end of Hurricane Harvey, to humbly accept the Hugh Ferriss Memorial Prize just across town from where it all began for me.  It is the very best, professional honor an architectural illustrator can hope to be awarded.  I can only imagine myself there at school, the quiet but ambitious 17 year old with dreams of becoming an architect, utterly incapable of even hoping that such an honor could lay ahead for me.

I mentioned to the crowd in attendance the night of the award presentation that it was so very special to speak to a gathering of renderers because virtually everyone there would know the effort and the struggle it takes to complete one of these art pieces we create, day after day, year on end for a lifetime.  Unlike the fine artist, our art has a responsibility, first and foremost, to depict and display the built environment as a product for sale in the very best light while engaging the viewer to join in the experience and visit this creation we have staged and arranged just for them. Each effort needs to be a homerun.  Some of them are not.  And so we fall short and we learn to be better at our craft over time.  If we are successful in that effort then we hope that it results in more work, better projects, involvement with bigger and more experienced firms and some success and recognition by our architectural purveyors and our peers.  And with all of that comes responsibility, the kind that can weigh you down and break you or the kind that can make this skill we’ve learned the impetus for a lifetime’s dedication to being the very best we can be at what we do.

I have been so very fortunate to remain busy with wonderful clients and inspiring projects these last 5 decades.  I am proud and humbled now to be considered worthy of the Hugh Ferriss Memorial Prize and to be able to share the stage with a distinguished and legendary group of my contemporaries who have won the award in year’s past.  For me it is a culmination of a lifetime of hard work and dedication to my craft and it is truly an honor and a thrill to receive.  As a member of ASAP and ASAI for some 22 years I have been presented with a professional forum to exhibit and compare the results of those projects alongside the best of the best in architectural illustration.  It seems, therefor, that I have spent this lifetime of mine chasing the perfect rendering.  I think I’ve come close two or three times but never quite there.  So I must continue the chase and hope for success one day.  The Ferriss Prize has convinced me I am on the right path and worthy of the pursuit…..and just in the nick of time!

AIP 32 Hugh Ferriss Award Winner
Al Forster accepting the Architecture in Perspective 32 Hugh Ferriss Memorial Prize.

I salute this year’s class of fellow award winners and all the members at large.  It is an honor to be in the same company of people with such skill and talent.  I marvel at your work and seek it out as inspiration and example each time I begin a project.  I look through this year’s AIP 32 Catalogue and feel blessed to be included among such gifted and hard working illustrators. And from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank all the dedicated people in ASAI who do all the heavy lifting behind the scenes in the day to day running of our organization and, especially, in the effort to put on a Conference each year.  Thank you Tina and your dear daughter Grace, special thanks to Corey and the hardworking Tiltpixel folks, the judges, the sponsors, the venues, certainly Frank, Steve and Jon, all the volunteers and helpers who always seem to go unnamed and everyone else I missed who did all that it took to arrange and execute this wonderful event.  You have made this an unforgettable experience for me and for my wife, Gayle.  Thanks to all.

Finally, and not counting all the many dozens of illustrators who’s work has inspired me over my lifetime, I have dedicated this award to 5 people who got me to that podium;  Mr. Moore, my high school Mechanical Drawing teacher who’s class forever change the course of my life, my grandfather, Robert S. Anderson, who directed me towards architecture and gave me my first drafting tools, my dad, Al senior, who remains my true north, Doyle Jenkins, one of my U of H design and drawing instructors who sits on my shoulder each day of my life and does not allow me to settle for anything but my best effort and my dearest Gayle, without whom there would be no me!

Most Sincerely,  Al Forster, Architectural Illustrator

AL FORSTER
Architectural Illustrator
PO Box 326
The Sea Ranch, CA 95497
707.785.2184
al@afai.biz

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View the Architecture in Perspective 32 Selected Artists

 

Member, Jane Grealy, wins “Drawing from Nature” Category from ArchiGraphicArts 2016-2017

Standing on my toes at our back fence, I sometimes chat with my neighbour Maria. I love her garden, the chaos at the back, the organized garden beds, and the bright red geraniums that ring her clothesline. Maria and her husband came from Italy after the second world war and with many other European migrants, they settled in our inner city suburb New Farm (in Brisbane, Australia). Maria is over eighty now and finds the house and garden harder to maintain since her husband died a year ago. I have learned more about her since she has allowed me to sit and sketch. Everything in the garden from the shed to the climbing frames for the beans has been constructed by Maria and her husband. No material is wasted, everything is recycled, found and reused. When Maria dies, the garden, sheds, everything will be lost.

There is so much to draw, so much evidence of her and her husband’s life over the last sixty odd years.

Drawing makes me really look, allows me to think, and particularly when I am sketching in Maria’s garden, makes me realize how tenuous life and our surrounds can be.

Jane Grealy

Congratulations to long time member of ASAI, Jane Grealy of Australia, for winning the “Drawing from Nature” Category of the 2016-2017 ArchiGraphicArts competition. The international competition had 900 entries from 25 countries. Program partners of the competition include the Tchoban Foundation Museum for Architectural Drawing (Berlin), Moscow Union of Architects, Сhief Architect of Moscow Sergey Kuznetsov.

The jury was compiled from respected members of the architectural community.

  • SERGEI TCHOBAN – Chairman of the Jury – architect, founder of the Tchoban Foundation Museum for Architectural Drawing, chief of the architectural bureau SPEECH (Russia) and nps tchoban voss (Germany)
  • SERGEY KUZNETSOV – Moscow: Architecture and Water Nomination     Curator – the chief architect of Moscow MINORU NOMATA – artist (Japan, Tokyo) MAXIM ATAYANTS – architect, professor of the Academy of Arts (St. Peterburg), chief of the «Maxim Atayants’ architectural studio» (Russia)
  • SERGEY ESTRIN – architect, artist, chief of the «Sergey Estrin’s architectural studio» (Russia)
  • MIKHAIL PHILIPPOV – architect, artist, chief of the «Mikhail Philippov’s architectural studio» (Russia)
  • ANDREY CHERNIKHOV – architect, Andrey Chernikhov Architecture & Design Studio founder (Russia)
  • EUGENIA MURINETS – Head of the Architectural Board Direction of Moscow
2017-grealy-russia-1
Nataliya ( ASAI member and award winner) attended and accepted award on my behalf. Natalyia in photo in white. Curator Ekaterina Shalina ArchiGraphicArts Curator in red.

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