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52 Tisha Johnson on design as a growth mindset

Why AxS from ArtCenter

Release Date: 12/01/2021

Why AxS Podcast from ArtCenter: Rosetta Mission show art Why AxS Podcast from ArtCenter: Rosetta Mission

Why AxS from ArtCenter

Welcome to the Why AxS, ArtCenter’s podcast featuring brilliant scientific and artistic minds ponder the big why's that come with being a tiny part of this universe.  Our first episode, How to Land on a Comet, takes you aboard JPL’s Rosetta Mission, as we’re joined by mission planner Art Chmielewski + alum/illustrator Liz de la Torre (BFA 13), who mapped the surface of speeding comet for a first-of-a-kind rendezvous with a spacecraft — from a single pixel. Rosetta remains one of the world’s most ambitious — and arduous — space exploration missions. Landing on a comet as it...

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Why AxS Podcast from ArtCenter show art Why AxS Podcast from ArtCenter

Why AxS from ArtCenter

Join us for ArtCenter’s new mini-series investigating the powers of art and science–and the extraordinary, unexpected outcomes when the two fields intersect. The four-part series, launching September 12, features prominent artists–often with connections to ArtCenter–and scientists tackling big ideas about dark matter and transcendence from right- and left-brain points of view. At ArtCenter, science and art often cross paths–after all, CalTech and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are in our backyard, allowing for unique collaborations through programs, exhibitions, internships and...

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Karen Hofmann on building an accessible, affordable and inclusive education show art Karen Hofmann on building an accessible, affordable and inclusive education

Why AxS from ArtCenter

To many of our listeners, this guest needs no introduction. She is someone who has burst through seemingly impenetrable ceilings – glass and otherwise – to claim leadership roles historically held by men. She rose through the ranks as a strategic industrial designer before returning to ArtCenter, her alma mater, for a transformative stint as Chair of our Product Design department. She was also a driving force behind ArtCenter’s innovative DesignStorm program, through which major brands engage our stud

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Jackie Amezquita on migration, memory and making art show art Jackie Amezquita on migration, memory and making art

Why AxS from ArtCenter

When we first heard from Jackie Amezquita four years ago, she was an ArtCenter Fine Art student on the cusp of graduating. In a raw and revealing interview, she traced the arduous path she’d walked to find the stability she needed to risk everything for her art. 

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Aimee Mullins on Finding a World of Possibilities in Every Problem show art Aimee Mullins on Finding a World of Possibilities in Every Problem

Why AxS from ArtCenter

Aimee Mullins is a true polymath. Her passions and professional pursuits are as varied and boundless as the awards and groundbreaking strides she’s achieved within her many chosen fields. She broke new ground in athletics as the first amputee in history to compete against able-bodied athletes in the NCAA’s Division 1 track and field events. She went on to set records in the 100 and 200 meter races and the long jump.

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Artist Lita Albuquerque on Regeneration After the Fire show art Artist Lita Albuquerque on Regeneration After the Fire

Why AxS from ArtCenter

We’re lucky as artists that we can recover much faster because we can express. Nature recovers and we recover. 

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Artist Kim Schoenstadt on finding redemption through creativity and kinship show art Artist Kim Schoenstadt on finding redemption through creativity and kinship

Why AxS from ArtCenter

Client hypothetical. This is the term pioneering architect and designer Eileen Gray used to classify the many Modernist masterpieces she designed in the absence of actual paid commissions. She was simply making things because that was what she was made to do. 

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James Meraz on creating a path through unimaginable loss  show art James Meraz on creating a path through unimaginable loss

Why AxS from ArtCenter

James Meraz joined the faculty of ArtCenter’s Environmental Design department in September of 2001, shortly before 9/11. In the wake of that tragedy he wavered about how to proceed with his planned curriculum. How would it all be relevant? In the end, he resolved to lean into the uncertainty of that “cataclysmic moment,” realizing that the only way out of the pain, chaos and confusion was to go through it. 

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Change Lab Season 10: Forged in Fire, Make to Heal show art Change Lab Season 10: Forged in Fire, Make to Heal

Why AxS from ArtCenter

The next season of Change Lab debuts on March 23. We’re calling it Forged in Fire: Make to Heal and we’re looking at the ways in which adversity can be a conduit for creativity and, more importantly, how creativity can offer solace during the hardest of times. 

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53 Google's Ivy Ross on Reimagining the Life You're Meant to Live show art 53 Google's Ivy Ross on Reimagining the Life You're Meant to Live

Why AxS from ArtCenter

As Google’s vice president of hardware design, Ivy Ross is breaking new ground in the physical world for a trillion-dollar company synonymous with building tools for navigating the virtual one. Since assuming the role in 2014, she’s been tasked with translating a corporate identity consisting of a primary colored logo and blinking cursor into three-dimensional products and environments that are inviting, accessible and add value to people’s lives in ways big and small. 

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In the two decades since she graduated from ArtCenter with a degree in Transportation Design, Tisha Johnson has blazed trails for female design leaders in industries dominated by men. Her success has been propelled by her genuine passion for each phase of the design process, from research to experimenting with materials to aligning aesthetic beauty with human need. 

The results of her efforts are written into her ever-evolving career, which includes transformative stints heading up design teams at Volvo and Herman Miller en route to her current role as head of global design at Whirlpool. Tisha’s growing list of achievements has done little to dampen her palpable excitement for the fundamentals of a job she views, in its simplest terms, as making things that make people’s lives better. In order to do that well, she’s committed herself to a lifelong learning process as a designer and leader, both in the studio and out. In fact, she’s even been known to use her twin passions for surfing and motorcycling as laboratories for design thinking and doing. 

For Tisha, good design is a feeling. And that feeling, in a word, is freedom. It’s part of the purity of spirit and infectious enthusiasm she brings to everything she does. Even now, from her perch atop the upper rungs of corporate America, she speaks of her new role strategizing future generations of home appliances with the reverence and excitement of someone who has just landed her first job. 

I was particularly taken by Tisha’s description of the design process as a dialogue between materials and maker, which echoed themes in my book about the discoveries that happen through physical engagement. Over the course of a conversation that felt at times like a masterclass on design strategy, we also covered her thoughts on how research and careful listening guides the teams she leads, the role of empathy in design and how her work at Whirlpool in connection to what she calls “the hearth of the home” can move her to tears.

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