MODA Fundraiser to Benefit Inner City Kids

Modern Class Design (MCD), the interior design company founded by NFL star Vernon Davis and business partner Antone Davis, has partnered with the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) to host a fundraising event featuring art, fashion and design.

Set to be held Saturday, June 9 at MODA, proceeds from the event will help fund the attendance of inner-city students at the art focused Camp MODA in 2012. A handful of designers from local colleges have been invited to attend and display their work for the opportunity to be selected and offered an internship MCD.

MODA regularly features exhibitions on architecture, industrial and product design, interiors and furniture, graphics, and fashion. Camp MODA provides students who have an interest in art with the ability to examine the impact of design on their daily lives.

Davis, who plays for the San Francisco 49er's, believes inner city students growing up in tough neighborhoods like the one where he was raised in Washington, D.C., will build self-esteem through this program which encourages critical and creative thinking.

“I was always interested in art as a kid, but never felt free to pursue it because in my neighborhood you either went in a direction of sports or you got into drug dealing, but definitely not art,” said Davis in a news release. “But it shouldn’t be that way, which is why I encourage kids to pursue art or whatever their dreams are.”

MCD is a full-service interior design company and the upcoming Midtown Atlanta fundraiser is one of three events being held coast-to-coast in support of MCD’s national launch and company roll out. 

Tickets for the event cost $50 and can be purchased here. For more information, contact 404-824-7991 or marcusjackson@caliberenterprises1.com.

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MODA is looking for unique and innovative product and set/space designers from the southeastern United States to compete for a place in our upcoming exhibition, The South’s Next Wave: Design Challenge. These designers should exemplify the myriad new directions the Southern aesthetic has taken. The submission deadline is June 30. Information about how to submit is available here. 

The South’s Next Wave is being curated by David Goodrowe and Tim Hobby co-founders of Aesthetic Identity Design™ firm Goodrowe | Hobby™. Selected designers will collaborate on an installation to be displayed at MODA from September 29, 2012 through January 6, 2013. Additionally, museum visitors will vote on the installations through December 6, and the willing installation will earn a cash prize of $6,000 and will be featured in a major Atlanta lifestyle magazine.

“We envision each vignette as a distinct environment with many layers that will be capable of maintaining the viewer’s attention for 10 to 15 minutes,” said curator Hobby in a release. Each vignette will be technologically enabled in such a way as to allow the viewer to access facts and video about the designers and the vignette installation process.

Product Designers: A jury of established southeastern designers will choose at least 20 product designers for participation in the exhibition. All product designers must currently live in the southeastern United States and be emerging or independent designers. These designers may work in a wide range of fields from furniture to fashion, from jewelry and home accessories, from lighting to industrial design, and more.

Set/Space Designers:  Exhibition curators will choose 16 environmental designers for participation in the exhibition. All of these designers also must currently live in the southeastern United States. They may be established designers working in set design, interior design, merchandising or other field of environmental design and must be willing to collaborate with a product designer to create a single installation.

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In less than two weeks, MODA will launch Skate It or Hang It!? The Evolution of Skateboard Art the only way it can: with a skateboard parade through Midtown followed by a midday performance by 5BORO NYC, a professional skate team, on a street course outside the museum.

With skaters, skateboard artists and a party mood, June 16 promises to be one of the coolest days of the summer.

The fun kicks off at 11 a.m. at the intersection of Peachtree Street and Ponce de Leon Avenue (line up at 10:30 a.m.) where Skate Peachtree, the skateboard parade, begins. Anyone with a board is welcome to join the decks as they roll down Peachtree. Upon arrival at MODA, guests will be treated to an outdoor skate show by the 5BORO NYC skate team (11 a.m. – 1 p.m.). Food trucks will be selling snacks.

Inside the museum, between 1 and 5 p.m., guests can view the exhibition, which includes hundreds of decks, a fine art display, video projections and more. Well-known skateboard artists Sean Cliver, Andy Howell, Wes Humpston, Lance Mountain, Michael Sieben, and Steve Olson, as well as curator W. Todd Vaught, will be at MODA to answer questions and to sign decks. MODA will have some rad skateboard paraphernalia for sale in the gift shop too. (regular museum admission applies to indoor visitors)

Not for the young, but just for the young at heart, that evening Skate It, Hang It or Drink It will be held at the . An official after party, this free entrance, cash bar event will offer more opportunities to rub elbows with the creative skater elite. MODA will be onsite selling special Skate-oriented memberships. (These memberships feature a special graphic membership card and an invitation to an ultra-hip private party at the end of the summer.)

Throughout the summer, MODA will take the decks on the road, with a June 21 event at Woody’s Half Pipe in Dunwoody honoring National Go Skateboarding Day and a July 4 Skate Art Jam that includes professional demos, art sales, and food trucks at The Shops Around Lenox.   

About the Exhibition

Skate It or Hang It!? examines the visual aspects skateboarding, a sport important to contemporary youth culture since the 1970s, by presenting a broad range of styles, imagery, and visual expression in skateboard art. With a broad focus on skateboard graphics—in particular the styles and methods used to embellish skateboard decks—the exhibition will appeal to a broad range of skateboarders, designers and artists and to Atlanta’s youth in general.

Visitors will come to understand skateboard graphics in a variety of ways, as Skate It or Hang It!? will include a survey of skateboard art from the 1970s to the present day; original installations by Atlanta-based artists influenced by skateboard art such as Alex Brewer aka HENSE and Charlie Owens; interviews with VCJ and Jim Phillips, along with personal appearances and art by Sean Cliver, Andy Howell, Wes Humpton, Lance Mountain, Michael Sieben and Steve Olson; an exhibition demonstrating the steps by which skateboard decks are fabricated and a nine-foot interactive skateboard sticker exhibition. There will also be interactive activities allowing children (and others) to design and create their own skateboard decks.

Skate It or Hang It?! was curated by W. Todd Vaught and is supported at MODA in part by the City of Atlanta Office of Cultural Affairs, Vitamin Water and Sam Flax.

It runs June 16 through September 16.