"He headed west instead, to freelance and teach at a number of art institutions around Los Angeles, including California State University, Fullerton; Otis College of Art and Design; and California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where he was hired by designer Lorraine Wild to teach in the school's legendary design program. He was on faculty there for 12 years, two of which he served as program director. “For me CalArts was the nexus of Yale, Basel and Cranbrook—where aesthetically anything seemed possible and everything was open to reconsideration. It was a great reeducation,” he says. On weekends he ran a design studio out of Watts Towers Art Center for the neighborhood's youth, through the Community Arts Partnership at CalArts, a model program bringing art and design education from the academy into the Los Angeles community. Many of the students at this art center had gang affiliations or were reformed graffiti taggers. Kirkpatrick found their skills at lettering to be a refreshing parallel to the typographic experiments going on at CalArts. They created design work that reflected the identity of the Towers, which were built in the 1950s by Simon Rodia, as well as the surrounding community." —https://www.aiga.org/design-journeys-garland-kirkpatrick/
Saturday Design School, 1992–2000, Watts Towers Art Center, Los Angeles. Designer: Garland Kirkpatrick —https://www.aiga.org/design-journeys-garland-kirkpatrick/
