Art Department

CENTER FOR COMPUTER ART AND ANIMATION

Leslie Nobler
Digital Art and Illustration

Professor Nobler, a practicing artist/designer, exhibits and publishes internationally. She lectures, participates in art shows and screenings around the U.S.  Working in digital and mixed media art, she produces online illustration, artist’s books, surface design, and alternative prints. Her recent work reinvents sacred books, textiles and relics using computers and new-fangled print techniques. Her work has been exhibited extensively, including the Visual Arts Museum (NYC),  New Jersey State Museum, Noyes and Montclair Art Museums (NJ), Old-Main Art Museum (AZ), Athenaeum Museum (PA),  Kemper Museum of Art (MO), Afrigraphics Pretoria, and International Symposium on Digital Art in Bangkok and London. Leslie Nobler has been honored by acceptance in the prestigious SIGGRAPH Art Gallery and Technical Exhibition numerous times.

Nobler’s work won a place for two years of the International Digital Art Awards on-line and traveling show, which is on view throughout Australia, China and the US. Leslie Nobler recently had solo exhibitions at Johnson & Johnson World Headquarters Gallery in New Brunswick, Karpeles Manuscript Museum (NY) and the Jewish Heritage Museum in Freehold. Her work recently appeared in Professional Artist and Surface Magazines, and in the MidHudson Times, The Jewish Week, and Art Times.

Professor Nobler received her BFA from the University of Michigan School of Art, her MA in Computer Graphics from the New York Institute of Technology and her MFA from Hunter College (CUNY). Her work has been published/reviewed in The New York Times, the Star Ledger, Surface Design Journal, Leonardo (MIT Press), Australian Design, and The Review/Midwest USA  in addition to various arts publications. She spent years designing for the trade and continues to consult on surface design and illustration. She has won grants and awards from Eurographics, the Noyes Art Museum (NJ), Surface Design Association, and CUNY, among others. Leslie Nobler has been invited to present her work at schools such as Kansas City Art Institute, Rutgers University/Newark, University of Northern Colorado, Wellesley College, Wayne Art Center (PA), and Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She was recently awarded a grant to research and apply her investigation on historical artisan-made books to digital design and printmaking. At William Paterson, she has taught Computer Paint and 2D Art, Digital Drawing and Illustration, Senior Thesis, and 2D Design. Contact Professor Nobler.

Lauren Razzore
Interactive Media

Professor Razzore is a web designer, animator, and graphic designer who has taught in the Art Department since the spring of 2006. She specializes in entertainment, sports and kids' design, working mainly as a web designer and flash animator. Professor Razzore teaches Web Design 1, Interactive Multimedia (Flash), Interactive Multimedia DVD and Introduction to Electronic Publishing.

Professor Razzore graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1998. In 2004, she received her M.S. in Communications and Packaging Design with a concentration in Digital Media from Pratt Institute. She spent 10 years working throughout high school and college as graphic designer before transitioning into web design and animation. Professor Razzore has worked for several large-scale companies such as Lycos and The Topps Company as the lead web designer and continues to do many freelance projects for high profile websites and animation clients. She also currently serves as the Director of Technology for the Mount Holyoke Club of New York City.

Professor Razzore's work can be seen in various places on the web, including www.topps.com, www.garbagepailkids.com, www.hollywoodzombies.com, www.wackypackages.com, www.topps.cardclub.com, www.bazookajoe.com and www.lycos.com. Contact Professor Razzore.

Steve Rittler
Animation

Steve Rittler is an independent Animator, Illustrator, Designer and Educator, who specializes in 3D character animation, visual storytelling and figurative art. He graduated with honors from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia in 1990 with a BFA in Illustration and an Animation minor. After launching a career as an illustrator in Philadelphia, Steve moved to New York City in 1991 and a year later enrolled in the MFA Computer Graphics Animation program at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Becoming a member of the Pratt Faculty in 1993, Steve embarked on his career as a 3D character animator in NYC in 1995, moving to Los Angeles for a year in 1996 to work for the Walt Disney Company. Returning to New York in 1997, Steve resumed his faculty position at Pratt Institute and his character animation career in the city. Steve was invited to join the faculty of the SVA MFA Computer Art Department in 1999 to teach character animation, and completing his MFA thesis in 1999, received his MFA in Computer Graphics Animation With Distinction from Pratt Institute in 2000.

Today Steve has his own independent animation studio, MuseMachine Productions, is a freelance animator, designer and illustrator, and a tenured Associate Professor of Animation at the William Paterson University Department of Art, where he joined the faculty in 2001. Films featuring his work as an animator have been screened and won awards nationally and internationally, including the Annecy Animated Film Festival in France, and his own animated film, Nor Gloom of Nyght, has been screened at the International SIGGRAPH Conference, The first Beijing International New Media Arts Exhibition and Imposium and at BUDi 2005 in Seoul. Elected in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006, he currently serves on the board of directors of New York City ACM SIGGRAPH, local chapter of the Special-Interest Group for Graphics of the Association of Computing Machines, and has presented courses on animation production at the 2003 and 2004 International SIGGRAPH Conferences in San Diego and LosAngeles, and at the 2008 SIGGRAPH Asia Conference in Singapore. He served as chair of MetroCAF 2006, the New York Metropolitan Area College Computer Animation Festival, and was also the principal designer, illustrator and animator for the event opener, titles and promotional materials. Steve lives in New York City, plays electric bass guitar and sings in a rock band. Contact Professor Rittler.