feature / students / alumni / internships / illustration / diversity
April 05, 2024
By Solvej Schou
Images courtesy of Jerron Hess and Karen Kuo

Mentorship Program pairs students with mentors: Jerron Hess and Karen Kuo

This story is part of a series on mentors and mentees in ArtCenter’s Career and Professional Development (CPD) Mentorship Program. In the program, students have the opportunity to be mentored by ArtCenter’s alumni and industry partners. Students apply during the late Spring and early Summer terms to be paired with a mentor for 10 weeks in the Fall term.  

Illustration student Jerron Hess and his Mentorship Program mentor—visual development artist and art director Karen Kuo (BFA 15 Illustration)—not only share a love of animation, but they also now share a professional bond, cemented over months of weekly Zoom chats.

“Karen has been an emergency lifeline,” says Hess, interviewed with Kuo via Zoom. “We’ve had fun talking about the industry, and art and life in general. This experience has been everything you would expect from a good mentorship: guidance, solidarity and insight. It’s been great to hear about the turns her career has taken. She’s further along the path I'm on right now.”

Pasadena-based Kuo has done freelance work for clients including Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network Studios, and has worked full-time as a visual development artist at Netflix and DreamWorks Animation, and as a visual development artist and an assistant art director at Warner Bros. Animation. Projects she’s worked on include the TV series Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai and Kung Fu Panda: Paws of Destiny, and the film Leo. She currently works full-time as a color and paint supervisor at Sony Pictures Animation.  

While Kuo and Hess have kept their Mentorship Program meetings virtual to accommodate their schedules, they connected in person at Pasadena’s LightBox Expo, an annual gathering of artists in the entertainment industry. Kuo has volunteered as a mentor for several years.  

“This program is a nice bridge that shows mentees what the reality of working in the industry looks like,” says Kuo. “In animation, our careers are fluid, and the industry ebbs and flows, like the ocean. There’s more to it than just making nice drawings.”  

“Jerron is a fantastic mentee,” she adds. “And I try to give him any technical shortcuts and small life hacks that he can use to minimize stress.”  

Many Mentorship Program mentee and mentor pairs maintain communication even after the program ends, says Career and Professional Development Director Alysia Alex. When students apply for internships and first jobs, their mentors often provide support, industry connections, portfolio reviews and more, she says. Occasionally, a mentee and mentor pair will end up working together professionally. “The Mentorship Program focuses on preparing students for their careers, enabling them to explore possibilities and expanding their creative network,” says Alex. “It’s also a way for our generous mentors to give back.”

A recipient of the Frank L. Lanza Scholarship, Kieko Fukui Miller Endowed Scholarship and Phil Hays Memorial Endowed Scholarship, Hess grew up in a rural religious community in Pennsylvania and describes himself on his website as “a gay artist who hates long sermons and hymn singing.” A soon-to-be first generation college graduate, he loves character design and visual development.  

“I really love creating moments between characters that involve acting and emotion, and that’s the crux of storytelling,” he says. “I'm just trying to bolster my technical skills as much as possible. It’s been good to pick Karen’s brain about her visual development process. I want to keep in touch with and continue this relationship.”  

Providing one-on-one support to mentees such as Hess is meaningful, especially when it comes to assisting with the pressures that students feel on the cusp of graduation, says Kuo. As an ArtCenter alum, she remembers that feeling.  

“It can feel like a very black and white situation: graduate, get a job, succeed,” says Kuo. “It's good to not hedge everything into that singular moment of, ‘Did I get a job out of school? Am I a failure? Am I a success?’ You want to make sure you have a long career and know how to balance work and life.”