Lunch On Fridays: Alumni Council
Here from There: Hacking Life After Art School

Spend a lunch hour learning about the latest in art and design during these Friday lectures. Each lecture features a variety of artists and designers from around the world, including CIA faculty and visiting artists.

Wondering what life after art school might be like? What are some of the many ways you can find success? Check out this talk with three Alumni Council members: Rene Polin ’94, Jason Tilk ’97, and Paul Sobota ’05. Polin, Tilk and Sobota will each be speaking on their individual journeys, from life as a student at CIA to where they are now, with plenty of time for questions and discussions.

Rene Polin earned his BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1994 in Industrial Design. Prior to founding Balance in 2004, Polin led a successful multi-disciplinary product development team at another leading design firm. Responsible for new business development, project management, and hands-on industrial design work, Polin discovered the way to perfectly-balanced innovation. His experience creating products for start-up companies with yet another firm gave him the insight needed to understand the impact of design on business. His widely-varied client experience includes Diebold, Fisher-Price, and Discover Financial Services among others. When he isn’t working, he can be found spending time with his family or searching for G.I. Joe artifacts at antique toy shows.

Jason Tilk earned his BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1997 in Glass. Tilk’s BFA thesis project foreshadowed the multi-disciplinary artist and designer he would become. He constructed an installation of giant mechanical insectile sculptures made of hand blown glass, aluminum, and stainless steel. The wasp had a motion sensor to signal its legs to open and close when visitors approached. He blew the glass by hand and designed the other components using 3D computer modeling.

Today, the 1997 graduate is still passionately creative, multi-talented, and pursuing several creative outlets. By day he’s an award-winning designer at Nottingham-Spirk Design, named on 13 patents and counting. By night he’s a vaudeville performer of songs, jokes and magic tricks, and the organizer of a recurring burlesque life drawing event.

Paul Sobota earned his BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2005 in Photography. A Cleveland-based photographer and fine artist, Sobota blends his fine art with his commercial photography, creating images that are as fantastical as they are relevant. His work ranges from composing absurdist portraits of mash-up artist Girl Talk (Greg Gillis), photographing celebrity chef Michael Symon, to constructing a simulated camping blog series featuring whimsical disasters and contemplations of solitude. Sobota’s work has been featured in Spin, Bon Appetit, and Food and Wine, and it has recently been published in contemporary art and design books Hair’em Scare’em and Tangible by Gestalten Press.

This event is free and open to the public. Pizza and beverages will be provided. Click here to read more about the Lunch on Fridays series.

Cleveland Institute of Art is supported in part by the residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

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