Our RISD

To consolidate our stories and bits of info about the RISD community on fewer platforms, we’ve stopped posting to this blog.

Keep tabs on what’s going on in studios and with faculty and alumni through the stories we post in the NEWS + EVENTS section of our primary website and @risd1877 on Insta. 

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Aleksandra Azbel MArch 14 integrates methods of hand weaving into her architectural practice and has won a Fulbright to work in Sri Lanka this year 

Architecture students installing an urban rain garden they designed for a neighborhood in Providence

The spring/summer issue of RISD XYZ is reaching most alumni and other readers this week. 

Focused on various interpretations of the notion of freedom, it features Martine Gutierrez 12 PR on the cover—as Tlazolteaotl ‘Eater of Filth,’ just one of the Aztec Demons she created for a solo show called Indigenous Woman, which is also the focus of one of the feature stories. 

Throughout the magazine you’ll find stories about members of the RISD community who show through their work and choices in life what creative freedom means to them. 

In one piece, Jaime Wolfond 13 FD talks about changing course with his startup to give him the freedom to design again, while in another octogenarian painter Maurice Burns 72 PT (above) explains how he has always put freedom in the studio above all else. 

And take a moment to read some of the other interesting freedom-focused stories that surface in this issue—from the Listen commentary from Emma Shapiro 10 PT (on pp 8–9) to pieces by Ken Carpenter 75 Arch and Paula Martiesian 76 PT (pp 66–67), Doug Morris 85 GD (p 71), Lina Sergie Attar MArch 01 (p 89) and Ricker Winsor 77 PH/MFA 78 PT (pp 96–97), among others.

In a spring Architecture studio called Trash, Professor Gabriel Feld invited students to consider the long history of humans generating disposable stuff—dating back to Monte Testaccio, which, as he puts it, was “nothing but a gigantic pile of garbage from imperial times—big enough to rival the legendary hills of Rome!” 

Since our tendency to produce ever more trash hasn’t diminished in millennia, Feld prompted students to consider: “What’s in it for us architects?” 

In mid May those participating in the studio produced an interesting installation in RISD’s Market Square as the last of four group projects during the semester. 

The primary materials in the totems to trash included discarded commercial fishing nets from the port town of Galilee, RI filled to bulging with thousands of plastic bottles. 

Grad students have been buzzing in and out of the Rhode Island Convention Center since Sunday—getting ready for the big graduate thesis exhibition that opens this evening (May 22) from 6–8 pm.

With 214 students exhibiting, the Grad Show is by far the biggest one of the year organized by Director of Campus Exhibitions Mark Moscone 88 PR and his team.

Students and staff build intimate gallery spaces within the massive 28,000-sf hall and then fill it with phenomenal work, creating a marvelous experience for the thousands of visitors who come to the show over its 10-day run.

Backstage at Collection 19 on Saturday, May 11.

Read more about it.

by Literary Arts + Studies Professor Mike Fink

I saw this recently on the brick wall overlooking Gil Franklin’s Daybreak sculpture and the wee Beach where students gather on a nice day to sketch and chat: a couple of pigeons perching on a Camel cigarette logo with a flock of doves migrating underneath. 

By the time I had gone to fetch my old-time camera, it had vanished. But eventually I found out that first-year student Connor Kay 22 PT created this salute to the Middle Eastern dromedary as part of an assignment to make use of a commercial sign. 

It’s also a nod in the direction of the RISD Pigeon Club (there’s a dovecote on the terrace around the corner and I served as the group’s original faculty advisor).  

My late dad was profoundly dedicated to the cult of Camel cigarettes, and when my office was across the street in Carr Haus I used to display such logos as the newborn chick for Bon Ami and the original Old Dutch cleanser with its stylized silhouette (in the good old days before you had to replace anything “old” with the word “new”). 

I even placed my pop’s white-wall tire in my balcony window.

On Thursday (May 2) Alex Rosenberg 06 GL will be scaling the exterior wall of the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia as part of the opening reception for the 2019 series of art installations at the historic site. 

Titled A Climber’s Guide to Eastern State Penitentiary or, Eastern State’s Architecture and How to Escape It, the project also includes a display of traditional climbing gear made from materials available inside the prison prior to its closing in 1971. 

Several other pieces on view center around the history and practice of environmentally conscious “clean climbing.”

Last Sunday (April 28) the Main Gallery at the RISD Museum was alive with students making music and art at the same time. 

Called Sketching Sound, the annual event brings together Music majors from Brown, who perform chamber music surrounded by classical paintings hung salon-style, and RISD Illustration students, who make sketches as they listen and absorb the ambiance. 

“Activating all senses can inspire new approaches to creating art,” says longtime Illustration faculty member Lenny Long MFA 83 PR (above right), who has been spearheading the event for the past few years. 

Students work on a drawing for only as long as each musical piece is played, and at the end of the performance they display their work. 

For the past couple of years, Ryan Richard-Scro 97 GD has been running Say It Out Proud, a greeting card line and Etsy store offering a simple graphic approach for celebrating major milestones. 

The writer/designer says he has received warm feedback from the LGBTQ+ community about the cards, which focus on key life events like coming out, same-sex parent adoption and gender reassignment surgery. 

In a lovely nod to spring, two recent series by Jane Kim 03 PR are on view this weekend at Andra Norris Gallery’s space at the annual Art Market San Francisco (April 25–28) at Fort Mason.

Kim’s series Rise Home explores native botanicals of Northern California and is a play on the word rhizomes, those cool underground plant stems that grow horizontally by sending out roots and shoots.

Kim is best known for her environmentally focused, large-scale naturalist murals—which she paints both indoors and out. By making these paintings in a style evoking vintage botanical illustrations, she focused on the unique anatomy of each plant. 

In both Rise Home and her other new series, Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall (above and below), Kim is taking an artistic approach to scientific illustration and developing her own interpretation of naturalism. 

Each painting shows the accuracy and attention to detail of a field guide, yet is meant to address broader concepts of form, diversity and interdependence.

After years of research and writing, Associate Professor and Head of Illustration Susan Doyle 81 IL/MFA 98 PT/PR happily traveled to Washington, DC last week to accept the Popular Culture Association’s Ray and Pat Brown Award for her monumental book History of Illustration. 

The nearly 600-page book includes 950 images and offers an expansive view of illustrative communication around the world from prehistory to now. Assistant Professor of Illustration Jaleen Grove served as an associate editor, while several other faculty members contributed new scholarship to the inviting tome. 

The PCA presented the award at its national conference, recognizing History of Illustration as the Best Edited Collection in Popular and American Culture. 

Artsy calls out the current Jessi Reaves 10 PT show at Bridget Donahue—the lower Manhattan gallery that represents her—as among the top “5 standout” shows to see in NYC this month (or early next since it continues through May 12). 

Reaves’ wonderfully odd and intriguing works are both sculpture masquerading as furniture and furniture unconcerned with functionality—a beautiful thing. 

A couple of years ago, she made an impact at the 2017 Whitney Biennial with several pieces, including a commission to create functional furnishings for the exhibition space. “Rejecting the sleek craftsmanship of iconic midcentury design, Reaves exaggerates markers of construction to an almost aggressive abundance,” noted Whitney co-curators Christopher Lew and Mia Locks.

“In her new show, [Reaves] pushes her trash-chic aesthetic into weird and welcome new directions,” the Artsy editorial notes. 

by Ramon Solis MLA 19

“How can artists embody multiple identities that strengthen one another?”

Visiting artist Natalia Nakazawa 04 PT, a graduate of the Painting department, posed that question at a recent workshop organized by RISD Careers. 

The multiracial interdisciplinary artist explained how she balances her own need to make studio work with her family life and current position as assistant director of studios at NYC’s Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, a nonprofit that provides subsidized studio space for 100 artists in midtown Manhattan.

Workshop participants—students like me who are thinking about how to maintain our artistic practices after RISD—discussed intersecting identities and challenges and then brainstormed possible solutions. For me, the workshop offered a rare opportunity to slow down, sit back and take stock of larger life issues.

Nakazawa offered personal insights about the importance of seeking support—from institutions and elsewhere. 

“There is a lot more space for families and artists who are parents,” she pointed out. “And it’s not all Ab Ex anymore,” she added, referring to the preponderance of enthusiasm for Abstract Expressionist work in recent years.

Nakazawa reminded us of how important it is to tap into joy as creative practitioners and says that one way she finds it by working with young people. 

She also loves working in textiles, which allows her to weave in intergenerational notions, women-centric ideas and themes of migration.

“If you ask [for what you need],” Nakazawa concluded, “sometimes you get answers.”

by Ramon Solis MLA 19

Print and paper enthusiasts packed into the Fleet Library at RISD on Saturday, April 6, for RISD UNBOUND, a daylong fair for artists and designers who make books, zines and other experimental printed matter.

Zines by senior Zola Anderson 19 PT celebrate Vine, the now-defunct social media platform. One of her wares features “the LeBron James kid,” whose 2014 Vine—a simple compilation of him saying the basketball star’s name over and over again—racked up a mindboggling 45,976,110 views.

Among the dozens of exhibitors, Providence-based graphic designer and RISD faculty member Anther Kiley MFA 13 GD was selling fish cards and foldable paper products in anticipation of launching a wonderful new line of Card Kits (above) later this year.

Artist/educator Aly Maderson-Quinlog MA 16, who runs the micro-press and community arts studio Magik Press in Connecticut, sold zines inspired by xer teaching practice and the need for social justice. “Zines and queerness go hand in hand,” xe notes.

Jewelry artist Luci Jockel MFA 16 JM, who makes extraordinary work from wings, bones and other bits of flora and fauna, is among five “shortlisted artists” nationwide selected by the American Craft Council (ACC) for its 2019 Emerging Voices Awards. 

Fellow grad program alum and Philadelphia-based textiles artist Michael Radyk MFA 08 TX, a former director of education for the American Craft Council, served as one of this year’s judges for the awards, which are presented biennially in recognition and support of the next generation of leading thinkers and makers. 

In addition to winning a monetary prize, Jockel and her work will be featured in an upcoming issue of American Craft Magazine and at the ACC’s Present Tense: 2019 conference this fall. 

The artist lives in Philadelphia, where she works as the metals shop supervisor at University of the Arts (UArts). 

After more than a decade of focusing her camera on an extraordinary young man named Ethan, Providence-based photographer and filmmaker Jo Sittenfeld MFA 08 PH has completed a short documentary that’s being screened today (April 3) at the ReelAbilities Film Festival at Boston’s Museum of Science. 

Called Ethan, the 15-minute film offers “a funny, poignant coming-of-age story of a young man with autism” and his loving family, which is concerned about his future. 

In an interview that aired on WBUR radio last week, Sittenfeld and Ethan’s mother Cammie McGovern spoke candidly about the challenges and rewards of both making the film and raising a child with autism.