Some context: Stephen McDannell Hillenburg (born August 21, 1961) is an American cartoonist, animator, writer, producer, director, and former marine biologist. He is the creator of the Nickelodeon television series SpongeBob SquarePants (1999-present) which he has also directed, produced, and written. It has gone on to become one of the longest-running American television series as well as the highest-rated show ever to air on Nickelodeon. Born in Lawton, Oklahoma and raised in Anaheim, California, Hillenburg became fascinated with the ocean as a child and also developed an interest in art.
After graduating from college, Hillenburg held various jobs in 1984, including as a park service attendant in Utah and an art director in San Francisco, before landing the job he wanted: teaching children. He hoped to work in a national park on the coast, and eventually found a job at the Orange County Marine Institute (now known as the Ocean Institute), an organization in Dana Point, California that is dedicated to educating the public about marine science and maritime history. Hillenburg was a marine-biology teacher there for three years: "We taught tide-pool ecology, nautical history, diversity and adaptation. Working there, I saw how enamored kids are with undersea life, especially with tide-pool creatures." He stayed at the Dana Point Marina and was also a staff artist. Although "[i]t was a great experience" for him, during this period, Hillenburg realized he was more interested in art than his chosen profession. While working there, he was asked by one of the educational directors if he would be interested in creating an educational comic book about the animal life of tidal pools. He created a comic called The Intertidal Zone, which he used to teach his students. It featured anthropomorphic forms of sea life, many of which would evolve into SpongeBob SquarePants characters--including "Bob the Sponge", the comic's co-host, who resembled an actual sea sponge, as opposed to his later SpongeBob SquarePants character, who resembles a kitchen sponge. He tried to get the comic published, but was turned down by the publishers that he approached. At one point during his tenure with the Orange County Marine Institute, Hillenburg started going to animation festivals such as the International Tournee of Animation and Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation where, at one of those, films made by California Institute of the Arts (colloquially called CalArts) students were shown. He determined that he wanted to pursue a career in that field. Hillenburg had planned to take a master's degree in art, but instead of "going back to school for painting", he left his job in 1987 to become an animator. In 1989, Hillenburg enrolled in the Experimental Animation Program at CalArts. About this decision, he said: "Changing careers like that is scary, but the irony is that animation is a pretty healthy career right now and science education is more of a struggle." He studied under Jules Engel, the founding director of the program, whom he considers his "Art Dad" and mentor. Engel accepted him into the program impressed by The Intertidal Zone. Hillenburg said, "[Engel] also was a painter, so I think he saw my paintings and could easily say, 'Oh, this guy could fit in to this program.' I don't have any [prior experience in] animation really." Hillenburg graduated in 1992, earning a Master of Fine Arts in experimental animation.
How did he come up with the idea of comics and/or Sponge-bob?
A: he was asked by one of the educational directors if he would be interested in creating an educational comic book
Some context: The Whitney Museum of American Art - known informally as the "Whitney" - is an art museum located in Manhattan. It was founded in 1931 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875-1942), a wealthy and prominent American socialite and art patron after whom the museum is named. The Whitney focuses on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Its permanent collection comprises more than 21,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, films, videos, and artifacts of new media by more than 3,000 artists.
In 1961, the museum began seeking a site for a larger building. The Whitney settled in 1966 at the southeast corner of Madison Avenue at 75th Street in Manhattan's Upper East Side. The building, planned and built 1963-1966 by Marcel Breuer and Hamilton P. Smith in a distinctively modern style, is easily distinguished from the neighboring townhouses by its staircase facade made from granite stones and its external upside-down windows. In 1967, Mauricio Lasansky showed The Nazi Drawings. The exhibition traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, where they appeared with shows by Louise Nevelson and Andrew Wyeth as the first exhibits installed in the new museum. The institution grappled with space problems for decades. From 1973 to 1983 the Whitney operated its first branch at 55 Water Street, in a building owned by Harold Uris who gave the museum a lease for $1 a year. In 1983 Philip Morris installed a Whitney branch in the lobby of its Park Avenue headquarters. In 1981 the museum opened an exhibition space in Stamford, Connecticut, that was housed in Champion International Corporation. In the late 1980s, the Whitney entered into arrangements with Park Tower Realty, I.B.M. and The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, setting up satellite museums with rotating exhibitions in the lobbies of their buildings. Each museum had its own director, and all plans were to be approved by a Whitney committee. The institution has tried to expand its landmark building and in 1978 commissioned UK architects Derek Walker and Norman Foster to design a tall tower alongside, the first of several proposals from leading architects. But each time the effort was abandoned, either because of the cost or the design or both. In order to secure additional space for the museum's collections, then-director Thomas N. Armstrong III developed plans for a 10-story, $37.5-million addition to the Whitney's main building. The proposed addition, designed by Michael Graves and announced in 1985, drew immediate opposition. Graves had proposed demolishing the flanking brownstones down to the East 74th Street corner for a complementary addition. After the project gradually lost the support of many of the museum's trustees, the plans were dropped in 1989. Between 1995 and 1998, the building underwent a renovation and addition by Richard Gluckman. In 2001, Rem Koolhaas was commissioned to submit two designs for a $200 million expansion; plans were dropped again in 2003, causing director Maxwell L. Anderson to resign. New York restaurateur Danny Meyer opened Untitled, a restaurant in the museum in March 2011. The space was designed by the Rockwell Group.
any notable person in the article
A:
shows by Louise Nevelson and Andrew Wyeth as the first exhibits installed in the new museum.