RISD XYZ Spring/Summer 2018 by Rhode Island School of Design

spring/summer 2018 rhode island school of design

// inspired by place

inside

// R ISDXYZ

spring/summer 2018

FEATURES

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// 28

// 36

From A to Z

Passion Meets Purpose

Amplifying Beauty

Andrea Zittel MFA 90 SC experiments with every aspect of everyday life from her ever-expanding home and test site in the high desert of southern California.

From Mexico to Puerto Rico, Ghana and beyond, alumni from diverse fields and at different stages of their lives forge deep connections with their communities.

Most at home in the desert, Phillip K. Smith III BArch 96 makes stunning installations that encourage people to appreciate the natural allure of their surroundings.

// 08 // 02 comments online, incoming, ongoing

// 08 listen reflections, opinions, points of view

// 44 // 10 look

• ideal ingredients • world of change • fragile world • playgrounds

// 42 reflect a message from the president

// 71

// 68 unravel our major abbreviations

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// 96

// 44 two college street

// 62 impact

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campus community newsbits

who’s giving to risd + why

class notes + profiles

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// 96

looking back

sketchbook

// 58 six degrees connecting through the alumni association

changes over time

moving forward

ideas in progress

above right: photo by Lance Gerber

DEPARTMENTS

start here

// thoughts from the editor

Pondering the Impact of Place When students come to RISD from around the world, they’re looking for a place that feels right for wherever they are in their lives. If it’s a good fit, most find a creative home that cultivates remarkable growth in a few short years. But then comes the inevitable change of place precipitated by graduation, along with the challenge to venture out into the world and figure out where to make your mark.

This issue focuses on a variety of ways alumni find context and meaning for their work by connecting with and responding to specific places. Whether it’s creating in the kitchen, revisiting recess, remembering the outfield, exploring alternatives in Joshua Tree, harvesting rain in Mexico or responding to the local light, drawing inspiration from the places you land makes these places that much more satisfying.

E D ITOR / LEAD WR ITE R

comments

// online, incoming, ongoing

Liisa Silander lsilande@risd.edu LEAD D E S I G N E R / PR OD U CTI ON COOR D I NATOR

Elizabeth Eddins 00 GD CLAS S N OTE S / CONTR I B UTI N G WR ITE R

Anna Cousins CONTR I B UT I N G D E S I G N E R S

Sarah Rainwater Sarah Verity 12 GD E D ITOR IAL S U PP ORT

Robert Albanese Lauren Maas Simone Solondz PH OTOG RAPH E R

Jo Sittenfeld MFA 08 PH campus/event photos unless otherwise credited COVE R

The Circle of Land and Sky (2017, detail) by Phillip K. Smith III BArch 96 (see page 36) photo by Lance Gerber BACK COVE R

painting of original glasswork (detail) by Jim Butler 78 PT (see page 71) OTH E R ALU M N I CONTR I B UTOR S

Jordan Baumgarten MFA 11 PH (Listen / pages 8–9) Jo Sittenfeld MFA 08 PH (pages 44–51) Chandler O’Leary 03 IL (Sketchbook / pages 96–97)

THIS IS NOT AN AD When Rosemary Feitelberg, a writer for WWD, asked if we had any concerns that this XYZ cover (Winter 2018) would promote smoking, the answer went without saying. But Robin F. Williams 06 IL, the Brooklyn-based artist who made the painting, graciously responded, leading to a story that ran on the WWD blog (1.24.18). “Just because I paint a woman smoking doesn’t mean I want women to smoke,” she explained. “Cigarettes have an incredible psychological weight and symbolic power.... I’m painting about [that] more than I’m painting about smoking.” For anyone who missed the reference, Williams’ acrylic and oil painting is titled It Is Not a Pipe, a nod to René Magritte’s The Treachery of Images in which he painted a pipe and added the words Ceci n’est pas une pipe. “I hoped the play on words would speak to the ways we often confuse women with images of women or the products they sell,” Williams adds. This and the other paintings she exhibited in Your Good Taste Is Showing, her fall solo show at P•P•O•W Gallery in NYC, stem from her research of advertising and other pop-cultural depictions of women in the 1970s.

D I R E CTOR OF ALU M N I R E LATI ON S

PR I NTI N G

Lane Press, Burlington, VT paper: 70# Opus Satin (R) FSC text and 80# Sterling Dull (R) FSC cover F ONTS

Quiosco, designed by Cyrus Highsmith 97 GD (see page 74) and Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk R I S D XYZ

Two College Street Providence, Rhode Island 02903-2784 USA risdxyz@risd.edu

risd.edu/xyz Published twice a year by RISD Media (in conjunction with Alumni Relations) Postmaster: Send address changes to Office of Advancement Services RISD, Two College Street Providence, RI 02903 USA

Are we now going to a digital format instead of the traditional printed magazine? I hope not. I would much rather have a magazine I can hold in my hands and read. I do have a printed copy of the Winter issue and I was surprised to see this new electronic format arrive in my email. I spend enough time at my computer staring at the monitor screen. Peter Mersky 67 IL Alexandria, VA

Editor’s note: I like print, too, but just so you know, we’ve been emailing XYZmail to readers every month for well over a decade now. The e-newsletter doesn’t replace the magazine as much as supplement it between the two issues we publish each year— in January and June. This email newsletter is fantastic. Thank you! Jesse Taggert MFA 03 GD San Francisco, CA

Christina Hartley 74 IL

AD D R E S S U P DATE S

WHAT’S WITH XYZmail?

Unpaid Product Placement How fun to discover that XYZ turns up in the darndest places — like on the Target website helping to sell an over-the-toilet-tank magazine rack. Though a reader just alerted us to this recently, the covers in question are from Fall/ Winter 2013/14 and from — wait for it! — 1995, the first issue of our first bona fide magazine, which was called RISD views.

BEST-KEPT SECRETS?

From the editor: When I thanked Alison Blackwell 07 IL, twice-a-year (not quarterly, by the way) emphasis on a Providence-based illustrator and roller derby enthuextraordinary things happening in people’s lives—which siast, for this great submission, she wrote, “I’m happy tends to make everyone sound like an overachiever. if my comic made you laugh.” So per Alison’s suggestion, please be in touch with Even though we’ve always invited your random “your best-kept secrets”—the work you do just because sketches and finished pieces not destined for it makes you happy. “I still bet some people will public display, most of you only think to be in touch hesitate to submit,” she predicts, adding: “Imposter when something big is happening. That leads to a syndrome is a real thing!” Please let us know what you think — about this issue or anything else on your mind: email risdxyz@risd.edu.

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spring/summer 2018

LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIPS

Sorry but I just hated the last issue, particularly the cover! It was depressing and wantonly bad art. Something a little uplifting in this atmosphere— is that not what art is about?

Love the RISD XYZ publication. Informative and beautifully designed. Great visuals. Award winning!

Bardet Wardell 67 AP Kingston, NY

Greetings. Please discontinue sending me RISD XYZ. I’m tired of the incessant left-wing politics suffusing its articles and artworks. I realize this is how students and faculty are expected to think today, and I’m sure you presume everyone else agrees. But I don’t. I find it insulting, and I’m fed up with it.

Andrew Kramer BArch 65 (see also page 67) Ivins, UT

Thanks for your wonderful magazine! I look forward to every issue and love reading about other artists and their work. As a retired art educator and program coordinator, I’ve always loved art and being an artist. As I’ve aged, I’ve wondered if I could find beauty in aging. With memories of Edna Lawrence’s nature drawing classes, I have found beauty in aged shells, and nearing 80, I am thrilled that I can still draw and paint.

Michael Kreski 73 ID El Segundo, CA

Like most artists, seniors create art when they enter their own “spiritual space.” For some, family and home challenges prevent us from predictable periods of time to create. I keep several ongoing projects to continue when circumstances allow.

I found the political tone expressed in the Winter 2018 issue to be particularly disturbing. RISD’s staff and students are, of course, entitled to their opinions, but I believe that those expressed in the Winter edition are misguided, and I suspect that will likely continue to be the case in future editions. I would request that you remove my name from the mailing list [and] save me the trouble of recycling a magazine in which I have no further interest.

Irene Cunin Glaser 61 AP* Potomac, MD

Manuel Andrade 60 TC Milford, CT

MAKING SUMMER MUSIC

Full Disclosure Student models wait behind the scenes before hitting the runway to debut Disclosure, a cohesive collection by Persephone Bennett 18 AP in which she created “the perfect hyper-feminine symbols”— with feathers, confetti, chunky 04

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knits, beads and elaborately constructed trains — and then brought her “anger” to bear on them. Hers was among the 23 very individual final collections Apparel Design seniors presented on May 19 in the department’s annual fashion show.

I really enjoy reading RISD XYZ! My career path since ’93 has ranged from staff illustrator and senior designer for Checker Bee Publishing to art director at Lewtan Industries, senior graphic designer at Specialty Printing and now the northeast and Ohio territories sales manager for Fields MFG, a leader in the promotional products industry…. Along the way I’ve always enjoyed playing music. Recently my daughter Georgie, who is 13 now, decided she, too, likes singing and playing the ukelele. We decided to step up the family sing-along night to record an EP called End of Season—with songs celebrating summer and recorded with my rock, ska and R&B band Time of Day (timeofday.net). Dave Kopperman 93 IL helped write the songs and the arrangements and produced the EP at the Coffeehouse Recording Studio. And Kate TenEyck 96 SC plays the trumpet solo on the fifth song, The Rain. You can find it on the Time of Day YouTube channel and on iTunes and CD Baby. Dave TenEyck 93 IL Cromwell, CT

The magic of that jewel-box of a city still pulls on my heartstrings… For now I bounce from coast to coast, but I plan to die in Providence. Julia Sherman 06 PH in a food/travel review for Vogue (3.15.18)

My background is a composite of many roots, languages and affinities. Lacking a common ground, I have used architecture as a language from which to speak. Nader Tehrani BArch 85, an Iranian-born architect and Cooper Union dean, in Architectural Digest (2.9.18)

RENEWAL IN THE WINDY CITY After graduation I returned home to Chicago, where I worked for a short time for an industrial design consultant and then for several years in new product development for manufacturing. Since both of those experiences were very frustrating for different reasons, I went on to earn an MBA from Northwestern University—and left the world of design. I lived in London for three years, working in marketing and general management. But Chicago drew me back again and for 16 years I built a career as an independent business strategy consultant while raising a family.

Things changed in 2011 when I began taking classes in jewelry and metalsmithing at Lillstreet Art Center, a wonderful co-op here in Chicago. I have been at it ever since and now trade monitoring for studio time. I also began teaching there this spring, and in addition to showing work at Lillstreet since 2014, I was the center’s featured jewelry artist in May. I couldn’t be more thrilled with my newfound passion. I love drawing and designing again using all of the skills I learned as an Industrial Design student at RISD. And I feel so lucky that I can now bring my ideas to life with my own hands. I consider myself an artist because I am both the designer and the maker— the synergistic merging of the two. The work is a constant act of exploration for me to see what I can do with the materials and how they will interface with the body. I also feel lucky that I’m not seeking to create a business or earn a living, so I can pursue this passion for “art’s sake.” That said, I do take my work seriously and think about it all the time. As a late-life emerging artist I face other types of challenges. I am ineligible for most “emerging artists” opportunities as the term is generally a euphemism for being young and just out of college (meaning there are age limits). I also struggle with this new culture of sharing on social media—finding the right cost/time balance for effectively documenting my work.

In the history of the world and the centuries of history of this country, we’ve been having a sustained conversation about sexual violence for about six months. So, no, we haven’t won yet. #MeToo movement leader Tarana Burke at a RISD/Brown talk (2.14.18)

I think maybe it’s supposed to be top secret. Doreen Garner MFA 14 GL , laughing when asked about being invited to show at Art Basel in June (The New York Times, 5.11.18)

In Moroccan architecture there is always something secretive… something that makes people want to know more—to know the story of this place. visiting designer Asmaa Benachir speaking at RISD (see also page 54)

Susanne Henry 79 ID Chicago, IL Please let us know what’s on your mind by emailing risdxyz@risd.edu.

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MAKING HISTORY “The opportunity to be the first African-American painter to paint the first African-American president of the United States is absolutely overwhelming,” said Kehinde Wiley—a 2017 RISD honorary degree recipient—at the February 12 unveiling of his portrait of President Barack Obama for the National Portrait Gallery. “It doesn’t get any better than that. I was humbled by this invitation but I was also inspired by Barack Obama’s personal story.” In setting the 44th president against a verdant bower of leaves, Wiley emphasizes Obama’s embrace of life and abiding sense of hope. He chose African blue lilies to represent Kenya (where the president’s father was born), jasmine for Hawaii (where the president himself was born) and chrysanthemums, the official

PLEASURES OF POETRY I graduated from RISD in the Class of 1952, living in the turret in the then-dorm [Carr House]. After graduation I got a job designing stationery for the Eaton Paper Corp, but my boss was a woman right out of The Devil Wears Prada. I was glad when I met my GE engineer husband and I quit my job and had a family. As is often the case, I guess, I found myself being creative in many ways other than art. Never having lost an early love of poetry, I went to writers’ conferences and studied poetry, and selfpublished three books…. Lately, with my Home Instead friend, I have been going through the hundreds of poems I have written in the past 70 years. One of my poems, Anatomy, which I wrote in 1991 and recently unearthed, …refers both to my elderly mother’s fading… and to life drawing and anatomy classes at RISD. At 88 and a half I had hoped that I would still have time and energy to do another book—a fat one full of poems—but at this point it doesn’t look as if that will happen…. I was told years ago that I am “resourceful.” I think that word must apply to all of us who have had the privilege of being RISD students. Viva la creativity! Phoebe (“Bing”) Honig 52 IL Pittsfield, MA

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flower of Chicago, to reference the city where he met Michelle and got his own political start. Noting that the Wiley portrait definitely stands out at the National Gallery, New York Times art critic Holland Cotter writes: “Whereas Mr. Obama’s predecessors are, to the man, shown expressionless and composed, Mr. Obama sits tensely forward, frowning, elbows on his knees, arms crossed, as if listening hard. No smiles, no Mr. Nice Guy. He’s still troubleshooting, still in the game.”

Anatomy I thought it amusing in art school’s anatomy class when our model’s bulges refused to divulge her bone structure, flab concealing critical junctures, but in life drawing (where I guess we were supposed to respond to grace) scrawny Jenny disrobed and posed, her face and body all bony angles. Now that Mother’s flesh no longer swells or dangles, wasting away as if a spilling of unshed tears over her too many lingering years, I am again studying anatomy, seeing the body’s stark simplicity, like a willow against a winter sky. Radius and ulna are subcutaneous. That word returns to me spontaneously when I feel, rather than see, her wrist bones, an instantaneous omen, this more skeletal shape reminding me of life’s fragility when I clasp her passive hand, beginning to understand that my last anatomy lesson may be today’s.

IRRATIONAL INFATUATION Not long after graduating, I did what any sensible young person would do after earning a rather expensive degree in Painting: I bought a one-way plane ticket to Paris. I spent over a year traveling through Europe and the Middle East and when I finally extinguished my bohemian wanderlust—a romantic impulse fueled by Henry Miller, Blaise Cendrars and Arthur Rimbaud—I returned to the States to begin practice on a more domesticated version of dreamy bohemia. Several years ago I was fortunate enough to join the summer faculty of the Paris College of Art in the heart of the 10 ème arrondissement. Thinking of it more as a working

vacation, for several weeks at a time I would be without a proper studio but with the abiding urge to make capricious little sketches in homemade notebooks. The watercolors are small, intimate expressions of my lifelong, irrational infatuation with a city that to the occasional traveler is much more of a myth than a heaving, sweaty metropolis. David Schoffman 78 PT Los Angeles, CA

DESIGN YOUR SUMMER AT RISD

HIGH SCHOOL

RISD PRE-COLLEGE precollege.risd.edu COLLEGE LEVEL AND BEYOND

SUMMER STUDIES ART + DESIGN COURSES TEXTILES SUMMER INSTITUTE SUMMER INSTITUTE FOR GRAPHIC DESIGN STUDIES summer.risd.edu CONTINUING EDUCATION

COURSES FOR ADULTS, TEENS AND CHILDREN ce.risd.edu

RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN Division of Continuing Education

Feedback welcomed at risdxyz@risd.edu.

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spring/summer 2018

listen

// reflections, opinions, points of view

UNPACKING HOME

by Jordan Baumgarten MFA 11 PH

MY R E LATION S H I P TO PH I LAD E LPH IA is deep, and polarized. I was born here, I went to college here, I met and married my wife here. I have also nearly been killed and witnessed some of the worst tragedies imaginable here. Experience—and this complicated relationship to place—is the cornerstone of my work and the driving force in my life. Returning home to Philly after RISD, I initially felt like I was coming back defeated. I had thought success meant leaving home and never coming back. I’d long defined failure as living and dying within 50 miles of where I’d been born. I was filled with panic at the idea of the same sights, the same smells, the same people speaking in the same accent…. The same, same, same, sameness seemed like the most creativitycrushing thing on earth.

In 2013 we moved to the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. My first photograph in that neighborhood, made on the day we were deciding whether we wanted to move there, was of a child running through an open fire hydrant in the dead of summer. The sun caught the water and a rainbow obscured most of the kid’s body. At the same time, there was an active drug and prostitution corner at the opposite end of the block. How can these dissonant extremes coexist within the same space? How can heroin and sex be

Constant immersion and engagement leads to a deeper understanding of this place. openly sold on the street—alongside everyday life—within a tightly knit and historic neighborhood? The seeming lack of oversight created a feeling of lawlessness. I wanted to explore the immense confusion and disorder that comes from living in that place. So, I started taking daily walks through the neighborhood. It was the same route every single time. I made photographs along the same loop for five years. I stopped two overdoses and intervened in the attempted rape of a sex worker.

I never spoke to or photographed the same person twice—not intentionally. I just rarely saw the same people twice. I wondered: Did they get help? Did they get arrested? Did they move? Did they die? I only know the story of what happened to one young woman I encountered. She was stabbed, beaten with a brick and after running down the street for help, collapsed and died in front of my friend Jaime’s house. Living here in Philadelphia has affected my life and, in turn, my work more than I ever thought it could. Constant immersion and engagement leads to a deeper understanding of this place. Things that were unfamiliar become familiar, the rarely seen, momentous events become outliers—and commonplace moments along the periphery are the foundation upon which life is built. Living here allows me to identify systems inherent to this place—and my photographs exist within the moments that confirm or confound those systems. Understanding those systems allowed me to create my newest monograph, Good Sick (GOST Books, 2018). The book is a photographic portrait of the US opioid crisis, shown through its effects on my neighborhood here in Philadelphia. Kensington is a nexus for those in and around the city seeking heroin and all that it entails. The supporting addiction-based economy coexists alongside everyday life in the community and its surrounding landscape, blurring any barrier between the two—sometimes causing one to be mistaken for the other, appearing as if they are one and the same. See more at jordanbaumgarten.com.

The work is not a document of what the national opioid epidemic looks like. It’s a project about the feeling of a neighborhood in the grips of that epidemic. While all the photographs in this series were made in Philadelphia, they are not about this specific place. The work is also not a document of what the national opioid epidemic looks like. It’s a project about the feeling of a neighborhood in the grips of that epidemic. I am interested in creating a psychological space to better communicate experience. Is this project a truthful representation of the epidemic? No. Is this project a truthful representation of experience? Yes. I have learned that “sameness” isn’t a bad thing—and acknowledging that has helped strengthen my studio practice. Ultimately, if I spend the rest of my career moving from project to project, with each one being an attempt at unpacking home, that would be a life well lived, and one that I could look back on proudly. I was born here and will most likely die here. I’m okay with that. // RISDXYZ

Four of the 44 photographs in the new monograph Good Sick, a series shot in the same neighborhood over the past five years.

spring/summer 2018

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// ideal ingredients

Synergy Behind the Sakonnet “There was a terrific synergy between my background and O&G’s impressive artisanship,” says Lothar Windels BID 96 in reference to the Sakonnet café chair that debuted in May at the ICFF. Inspired by the 18th-century classic American Windsor chair, the RISD associate professor and head of Furniture Design worked with O&G Studio founders Sara Ossana MIA 05 and Jonathan Glatt MFA 04 JM to design and make the chair in the US with regionally sourced hardwood. “Our expertise lies in the art of the Windsor, while Lothar is a master of contemporary seating design with extensive experience in metal and alternative materials,” notes Glatt. “We had a great time bringing our two perspectives together to create the Sakonnet.” oandgstudio.com

DEEP FLAVORS “My whole self-expression comes from being in the kitchen and exploring, coming to a realization of who you are in that space,” Jerrelle Guy 12 IL (left) says in a recent Bon Appétit interview. Now pursuing a gastronomy degree at Boston University, the writer and food stylist/photographer chronicles her culinary life with her partner via the enticing blog Chocolate for Basil (subtitled The Omnivore and the Vegetarian). In her new book Black Girl Baking: Wholesome Recipes Inspired by a Soulful Upbringing, Guy offers a personal collection of eclectic recipes as an homage to family and growing up in a small Florida city infused with Jamaican, Haitian and Cuban influences. She credits “the interwoven cuisines” of her parents — a “Southern-born black man” and “an island girl from Guam”—with shaping her palate but concedes that it was actually “the magical world of the Food Network” that fed her early love of food. While her sister would be transported reading Harry Potter fantasies, she was entranced by “watching butter and sugar cream together on screen.” Cooking gave her a richly satisfying sense of “power and self-control” unlike anything else, she explains, and she learned early on that food brings people together. Creating her first cookbook was “about soul-searching”— exploring memory and personal history through food, Guy says. And in the book she aims to “bring art and expression” into the kitchen by focusing on process over perfection. “I want to tell people that they can go in the kitchen and explore.” chocolateforbasil.com

Sculpting in the Kitchen Since Ishiah White 15 SC returned home in 2015 to help open Commune, the farm-to-table restaurant — with locations in Virginia Beach and Norfolk, VA — has been delighting customers with its healthy, locally sourced menu. As its executive baker, she relishes the daily mix of creativity in the kitchen. “I really consider my job a form of art,” White

says. “I’m making miniature sculptures every day, whether it’s rolling croissants or assembling a cake.” (TripAdvisor reviews of Commune are peppered with praise for her biscuits, muffins, cupcakes, brioche and baguettes.) Next up for the thriving eatery: a dedicated bakery to supply both restaurants. communeva.com // RISDXYZ

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LIFE ON EARTH A new site-specific installation commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art is creating a stir high above Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Called We Come in Peace, the pair of sculptures by Huma Bhabha 85 PR is activating the museum’s Cantor Roof Garden through October 28. For Bhabha, a Pakistani-born artist who has long addressed themes of memory, place, war and displacement, the presumed “greeting” of the title — drawn from the promise made by aliens in the 1951 sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still — veils potential acts of transgression. For the commission, the NY-based artist approached the rooftop site as a sort of “landing pad” for two figures — one standing 12 feet upright, the other prostrate and extending 18 feet — that have presumably “just touched down from outer space.” “My objective is to give life, personality and power to the sculptures,” says Bhabha, whose fourth solo exhibition at Salon 94 also ran this spring in concert with the roof garden commission. Seen separately, the two figures might “inspire darker interpretations,” she continues, “but the combination of the two on the Met roof creates a dialogue and a narrative that implies some kind of communication from which hope can be derived.” salon94.com

Site-Specific Solutions

left: image ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art | photo by Hyla Skopitz

Years ago the community in Masoro, Rwanda recognized the need for both new housing and public facilities, yet faced tough challenges — including scant resources and difficult topography. That’s precisely the type of place where the architecture nonprofit GA Collaborative believes it can make the biggest impact. In 2013 team members Zaneta Hong 03 ID, Yutaka Sho 01 LA , RISD faculty member Michael Leighton Beaman and James Setzler developed a prototype for low-cost homes and taught residents to build them. Returning in 2016, they found a way to “use the site’s severe topography to our advantage,” designing a healthcare campus replete with terraces, ramps and flexible indoor and outdoor spaces. Since it opened in March, the Masoro Health Center offers a full range of preventive, curative and maternity care. gacollaborative.org

Architecture of Necessity Having traveled extensively in the remotest regions of Africa, Jeffrey Long 70 AE brings the colors and textures of far-flung places to his paintings — which have swung between representational and abstract over his fruitful career. In his recent Shelters series (shown last winter at Desta Gallery in San Anselmo, CA), the California-based artist depicts the “provisional, ad hoc architecture of necessity” as a synthesis of the shantytowns that spring up wherever resources and opportunities fall short. “These piecemeal shelters evoke desperation and misery,” Long reflects, “but they are also emblematic of people doing the best they can under difficult conditions.” jeffreylongstudio.com // RISDXYZ

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BRINGING UP BABY The intimacy of the illustrations in How To Be An Elephant (2017, RBP/David Macaulay Studio) by Katherine Roy 04 IL — a gorgeous natural history of pachyderm family life — could only have come from firsthand observation. With the seed of an idea

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fragile world

planted years ago by a YouTube video, the insightful storyteller and biology buff traveled from her home base in New York to nature preserves in Kenya where she came face-to-face with the majestic mammals. The entrancing book that emerged from this research has earned several starred reviews. “I felt as if I’d fallen into the deep end of my research dream from a thousand feet up,” Roy says of her transformative journey in 2014. In close encounters with herds at the Mpala Research Centre and Amboseli and Tsavo national parks, she soon discovered that “picture book research is not for the faint of heart!”— particularly when her jeep was bluff-charged by a protective matriarch. A female will defend her calves “just like a bear,” Roy notes — “but elephants can weigh 7,000 pounds and punch holes in a car like nails through tinfoil.” katherineroy.com

Mighty Migrators “Monarch butterflies are beautiful insects vital to the health of our planet, but they’re small and easy to overlook,” notes Jane Kim 03 PR , the artist behind the marvelous Migrating Mural project. In her latest effort to raise awareness of fragile species endangered by humans, she’s drawing attention to the 80% decline in monarch populations over the past 20 years by painting them — much larger than life — at spots along their annual migration path from Canada to Mexico. The Nature Conservancy is among the partners supporting Kim’s multi-year effort, which has already led to public installations in Springdale, AR and Winter Park, FL, with new murals surfacing soon in Utah and California. inkdwell.com

Hidden Beauty Almost 15 years after they first met at RISD, Jessica Walsh 08 GD (of Sagmeister & Walsh in NYC) and Jessica Schultz 08 AP (cofounder of Kore Swim in California) have teamed up to create a retro line of swimwear and beach accessories available for a short time this summer. “I’ve always been drawn to the timeless look and laid-back vibe of the ’70s,” Walsh says in explaining the simple cuts, velvet textures, cutout maillots and tie-front bikini tops that characterize the collection. Her design of a burnt orange striped fabric is complemented by an inviting Flora & Fauna print that (on close inspection) reveals rats, spiders and cockroaches hidden among its flowers — reflecting a desire to “create beauty from ugliness,” she says. korewear.com

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In their new book D C-T! (hint: decode the title by reading the letters out loud), Joana Avillez 08 PT and Molly Young pen a paean (P-N!) to “the City.” Their joyous mix of wordplay and visual whimsy has been winning praise from critics and New Yorkers alike since its release on May 1. D C-T! is “an illustrated puzzle book in the key of New York,” Young explains. Fans of William Steig will recognize his phonetic shorthand in the clever text — a graphic language he debuted in the 1968 classic CDB! Half a century later, it’s as fresh as ever thanks to the preponderance of txt-speak in everyday life. 16

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playgrounds

Avillez brings the book’s breezy text to life in ebullient drawings teeming with typical city scenes. “I M B-Z,” a businesswoman snaps at a would-be mugger. “R U I?” asks a bodega clerk of his zoned-out customer. And with gruesome glee, a boy who spies a pile of garbage writhing with rats exclaims: “S L-I-F!” “I don’t think I realized what a New Yorker I was until a few years ago,” Avillez reflects. But as a native and lifelong resident, she now sees clearly that “the city gave me everything I’m interested in, in terms of style and humor. I was people-watching from my stroller!” joanaavillez.com

far left: photo by Edith Young 16 PH

PENNING A P-N TO NYC

Urban Uplift

next spread: photo by Steve King Architectural Imaging

“I’d like a park or a public space I can actually feel safe in after dark,” one resident of Allston, MA told Bostonbased architect and artist Jillian R. Wiedenmayer BArch 12 as she began plans to revive the Boston neighborhood’s deteriorating Franklin Footbridge. Alternatively, “anything that brightens it up,” offered another local. These are just two of the many community stakeholders Wiedenmayer heard from in public “listening meetings” designed to elicit residents’ hopes for the site — a central part of her process in bringing color and attention to neglected urban spots like this one.

Two years in the making (complicated by a lot of red tape), The Chroma Line finally came to life last fall and winter thanks to an enthusiastic group of volunteers, including teens from the local youth development agency West End House. At 460 feet, it’s Boston’s longest mural to date. And in keeping with Wiedenmayer’s ongoing exploration of “escapism and place” through architecture and public art, the bright oasis offers pedestrians a transporting experience. jillianrene.com

Bully for Lou If thoughts of school recess bring up a creeping dread from your distant past, Lou is for you. In the marvelous animated short, director Dave Mullins 93 IL — a longtime Pixar supervising and directing animator for hits from Monsters, Inc. to the eagerly awaited Incredibles 2 — takes the terror out of the schoolyard and the bluster out of the resident bully with help from a lost-and-found box come to life. Lou’s humor and heart earned the film a 2018 Academy Award nomination for best animated short: more proof that the good kids come out on top. pixar.com/lou // RISDXYZ

spring/summer 2018

features

// inspired by place

From the high desert in California to the barrios of Mexico City to rural weaving villages in Ghana, alumni respond to specificity of place in remarkably different ways. The following stories show how several have honed their practices in light of local conditions.

Now two decades into it, Andrea Zittel continues to probe every aspect of everyday life on a compound she has built from nothing in the high desert of southern California.

by Kate Bolick ON MY S ECON D EVE N I NG ALON E in the California high desert, I realize how much I’m looking forward to lighting the glass oil lamp. My home for this scorchingly hot week in June is a one-room cabin without electricity or running water that my host, Andrea Zittel MFA 90 SC, has purposefully left nearly bare, and I’m craving the flame’s intricate shadow, the only baroque fillip in this spartan interior. As daylight drains from the wide, empty plain outside the uncurtained windows, and the darkness makes the uncanny quiet feel even more silent, I fall into a brief reverie about the human hunger for ornamentation and the expressionlessness of my electric lamps back home. Mundane revelations, perhaps, but insights into the ordinary are the point of living in this spare box tucked into a landscape as strange and sweltering as Venus, with little to occupy me but uninterrupted thoughts

about how I conduct every bit of my life, down to the way I brush my teeth or wipe my hands on a dish towel. The 400-sf structure, where I have come to try to understand Zittel’s work—and, if her theories are correct, myself as well—is one of a pair she calls Experimental Living Cabins. They are the latest addition to her singular oeuvre, called A–Z West—a challenging sprawl of projects that has developed in the 17 years since she left an art career in New York for a lone stucco shack on the edge of ghostly Joshua Tree National Park, some 130 miles east of LA, where she currently lives full time.

// From A to Z

Andrea Zittel MFA 90 SC

Like her predecessors, Zittel uses the material of the Southwestern desert, but she isn’t a land artist in the traditional mode: Instead of moving earth with giant machines or leaving hulking, unpeopled abstractions amid the dust, she employs this vast landscape to explore and challenge the quotidian functions of our existence. She was trained as a sculptor and still considers herself one, but her art is really a kind of philosophical quest, one that involves an ongoing and intense examination of what it means to live. What do we really mean when we say we need shelter, community, clothes, tools, light? How elaborate a space—indeed, how much space, down to the millimeter—do we need to survive, to thrive? What structures best facilitate creativity, serenity, unity? R EVOLUTION B EG I N S AT HOM E

What makes Zittel’s art seem so urgent at this moment is that the culture appears to have caught up to her at last: In our era of rapidly shifting domestic arrangements, nearly everyone—young people living alone or aging couples in communal compounds—seems badly served by architecture designed for the increasingly vestigial nuclear family. The cultish Marie Kondo’s admonitions to cast out the nonessential seems ripped from Zittel’s playbook; the conceptual underpinnings for the swelling phalanx of tiny, modular dwellings that evade byzantine zoning regulations and create a more mobile society can be found in Zittel’s experiments as well.

For Zittel her “life practice” involves reconsidering every aspect of day-to-day life, from what she wears (seasonal “uniforms”) to where her food comes from (raised gardens in steel tubs) to eating out of ceramic bowls made on site (preferring bowls as more utilitarian than plates and mugs). Shipping boxes are used to make shelving, while large shipping containers make for decent studio space.

above: photo by Lance Brewer

What she refers to as her “life practice” now comprises more than 60 acres, including permanent sculpture installations, informal classrooms, shipping container workspaces, dormlike guest quarters and a giant studio with rooms for weaving textiles and crafting rustic clay bowls. The bowls and textiles, collectively known as A–Z West Works, are sold to help keep the whole thing going. Maintaining this small empire has required endless endurance, extreme physical exertion and an obsessive ambition of the sort we associate with the celebrated, largely male land artists of the 1970s who colonized the American desert, among them Walter De Maria, Michael Heizer and Robert Smithson. But while those protean figures are experiencing a renaissance in the public imagination, their works have, in fact, ossified or become commercialized—in New Mexico, De Maria’s The Lightning Field (1977), consisting of 400 sharpened steel poles, is run by the Dia Art Foundation as a sleepover site; Heizer’s City, begun in 1972 as a mile-anda-half-long excavation set to be one of the largest sculptures ever made, won’t be visitable or photographable until at least 2020; Spiral Jetty, the mammoth pinwheel of mud, salt and rock that Smithson finished in 1970, has spent most of its existence underwater—whereas Zittel’s experiment has, since she conceived it, moved from the theoretical to the vividly animated in a way that few utopian art projects ever do.

During her nearly two decades in the barren, windswept wasteland, her practice has gone from an isolated curiosity to a complete operational community constructed to outlive her, a “Through the Looking-Glass” laboratory that reflects our contemporary fascination with the spaces in which we live. From ur-furniture that makes even the concept of a chair seem quaint, to vessels that force us to question the notion of a drinking glass, Zittel’s work reminds us that the elemental building blocks of human society are ultimately domestic— and that revolution begins in private. “I don’t want people to be uncomfortable, but I don’t want them to feel comfortable, either,” Zittel tells me. “You know when you’re alone with yourself and you feel jangly and on edge? But in a way that’s the most cathartic thing in the world? Almost painful, but so good?” We are discussing my stay in the Experimental Living Cabins—I’m on day four of seven—in the kitchen of Zittel’s home, which is in the center of A–Z West and has, over the years, been expanded from a shack into a chic, colorful oasis filled with her own designs, including 2011’s Aggregated Stacks (wall shelves made from plaster-covered cardboard shipping boxes from Amazon) and Linear Sequence (2016), a low-tothe-ground sculpture of tabletops and floor cushions that functions as a living room. She shares it with her 13-year-old

son, Emmett, and a menagerie that includes three dogs, a cat, six chickens, four rescue pigeons, three rescue tortoises and three fish. Zittel is 52, 5-foot-6 and lanky, with shoulder-length reddish-brown hair she often pulls back in a long braid. For decades, she’s worn the same outfit every day for a predetermined period—she’s been wearing her current one for about three months—an extension of A–Z Uniforms, a work she began back in Brooklyn. When I visited, she’d been too busy to finish assembling that summer’s ensemble, so was still in her spring getup—a black sleeveless muscle tee, a floor-length black denim A-line skirt and black Birkenstocks. There are thin black onyx rings on all of her fingers; her bare arms are those of someone who regularly lifts heavy objects. Based on her minimalist, cerebral aesthetic, I’d expected her to be austere and aloof. But as I watched her make the rounds of the property, conferring with assistants and checking on the artists bent over the kiln, she projected a regal serenity, asking questions and waiting patiently for the answers before responding in a cadence she once conceded has a bit of Valley Girl in it. The Brooklyn-based artist Rachel Harrison, who has known Zittel for 20 years since they both lived in Williamsburg, calls her “legendarily generous,” especially to young artists, several hundred of whom have spent time at A–Z West over the years.

top left: photo by Giovanni Jance | far right, top and bottom: photos by Lance Brewer

What makes Zittel’s art seem so urgent at this moment is that the culture appears to have caught up to her at last.

zittel.org

// RISDXYZ

spring/summer 2018

// From A to Z

Andrea Zittel MFA 90 SC

EXPE R I M E NTS I N LIVI NG

When she bought the land in Wonder Valley, she was in the midst of making a series of sculptures called Planar Configurations, based on her longstanding fascination with the “planar panel”— basically, anything that is rectangular, whether a 4 x 8-foot piece of plywood, an 8½ x 11-inch sheet of printer paper or a table top. Each sculpture, made of wood, red fiberglass and black-matte aluminum or steel, is a set of interconnected rectangles—like a 3D Mondrian—that functions as a table, bed, counter and room divider. In 2016, Zittel—always frustrated by how few people actually get to interact with her work, and ever on the lookout for ways to finance her many projects—had a revelation: She could put a Planar Configuration inside each of the cabins and allow people to stay in them, for rates comparable to a nearby Airbnb. It would be the first time that a stranger could reside in Zittel’s universe full time, in utter privacy—in contrast to the Wagon Station Encampment with its communal ethos and group activities. The Experimental Living Cabins are intended for solo visitors who stay anywhere from two days to three weeks. The point isn’t to enact the now-clichéd off-the-grid adventure, but to exist just a few steps outside of real life, in a strippeddown but completely functional environment—to reexamine, even relearn, everyday activities. A welcome disorientation, even an epiphany or two, might arise from doing without conventional touchstones like, say, a mirror, or a refrigerator.

left and above: photos by Lance Brewer

But Zittel’s own work is always the soul of the machine. In 2004 she started the Wagon Station Encampment, 12 domed aluminum-clad units around a central outdoor kitchen that marry the proportions of a frontier-era covered wagon with the modernity of a Subaru Outback; there is just enough space for one person to sleep or sit up, and a few hooks for personal items. Over the years, during which dozens of artists have stayed in them for weeks at a time, she has assiduously maintained the wagons, two early versions of which are owned by the Guggenheim; from a distance, they gleam like fallen satellites in a lunar terrain. In early 2017 she opened her latest permanent site-specific work, Planar Pavilions, a loose grid of 10 configurations of black-painted cinder-block walls of varying heights—some low enough to sit on, others as tall and imposing as linebackers—along a gentle slope, which calls to mind the crumbled foundations of a future civilization as well as the constellation of concrete boxes Donald Judd installed in the early 1980s on his own property in Marfa, TX. I have driven west to see her from where I’m staying in the Experimental Living Cabins, set on 15 acres a 40-minute drive away in Wonder Valley, a desolate, unincorporated corner of the Mojave Desert near the joyless sprawl of Twentynine Palms, home to one of the largest military training areas in the country. Zittel started buying up acreage to add to her holdings several years ago, attracted by the site’s remoteness and the several ramshackle “jackrabbit homesteads” on the property (really, little more than a dusty patch of desert), relics of the Small Tract Act of 1938, which lured pioneers to “prove up” five acres. (The terrain is so inhospitable that few actually stayed.) She now owns three of the cabins, though only two are renovated: simple board-and-batten structures, painted gray with white trim, that stand alone amid the scrub brush, 600 feet apart in the wide, flat basin rimmed in the distance by purpled mountains. She originally intended to use them for herself— ironically, between occasional afternoon visitors and the residents who come for longer stays in exchange for help with site maintenance, A–Z West is such a hive these days that Zittel rarely has the alone time she craves—but like most elements in her life, the cabins have become part of her work, perhaps even the ultimate expression of it.

“The act of inhabiting and having an evolving relationship with a space or place is inherently different from the act of installing [grand interventions] like Spiral Jetty or Double Negative.”

above: photo by Sarah Lyon

Andrea Zittel MFA 90 SC

Zittel’s Wagon Station Encampment (above left) — first installed in 2004 — offers 12 domed aluminum pods with just enough space for a single person to sleep or sit up. A central outdoor kitchen (below left) completes the western wagon train idea. More recently she has built 10 black Planar Pavilions from cinderblocks — as stark and unyielding as the desert around them.

zittel.org

Zittel is intimately familiar with the comfortable-uncomfortable sensation that the cabins can evoke; it characterized her early years in the desert. When she left Brooklyn in 2000, many in the art world viewed it as a surprising retrenchment or even the end of her career. She had spent almost a decade represented by the acclaimed Andrea Rosen Gallery, showing such apparently urban-inflected works as the 1994 A–Z Living Units, a precursor to the Planar Configurations—portable pods that seemed inspired by cramped studios: Barbie’s-Dreamhouse-by-way-of-Bauhaus. Although she had grown up north of San Diego and spent time at her grandparents’ ranch in California’s Imperial Valley, she didn’t yearn for the wilderness in her 10 years in New York. There were no signs in her work of the organic monumentalism synonymous with the sculptors and conceptualists who first decamped for the desert, and she didn’t seem the type to erect a permanent museum of her art, as did the assemblage artist Noah Purifoy, a pioneer when he left LA for Joshua Tree in the 1980s. Nor did she give indications of wanting to create a

conventional home and burrow into a solitary relationship with two-dimensional work, as had the female artists who famously forsook NYC for the Southwest, Georgia O’Keeffe and Agnes Martin. She was social, hosting weekly cocktail parties in her Williamsburg townhouse. But as others began discovering Brooklyn, she began feeling a pull toward the sun-blasted, desolate terrain of her childhood. Zittel sees herself as part of the 20th-century tradition of American artists leaving cities for the open spaces of the Southwest, but she is aware of her deviations. O’Keeffe and Martin chose the desert as a form of retreat, but Zittel saw it as liberation. As for the parallels often drawn between her and the largely male artists who came to make their massive, macho marks on the desert, she gently notes that she is not interested in “grand interventions,” only in finding meaning in intimate, everyday gestures. “The act of inhabiting and having an evolving relationship with a space or place is inherently different from the act of installing works like Spiral Jetty or Double Negative,” she says. // RISDXYZ

spring/summer 2018

FI N D I NG LI B E RATION

// From A to Z

Andrea Zittel MFA 90 SC

Before my trip, I’d been thinking about Zittel in relation to the social-utopia-makers of the 19th century, the “material feminists” who sought liberation by transforming the domestic sphere. In 1868 Melusina Fay Peirce, an organizer and author, spearheaded the “cooperative housekeeping movement,” proposing that wives charge their husbands for their domestic labor. The writer and reformer Charlotte Perkins Gilman argued for taking the kitchen out of the house, making it communal and hiring cooks to lessen the burden of “women’s work.” Could Zittel’s heady innovations be postmodern descendants of these ideas? But perched on a stool with the oil lamp and a book, the night astonishingly silent save for a lone coyote in the distance, I realized that Zittel isn’t interested in changing society or achieving political or social perfection, but is instead seeking liberation of a more private sort. Because here’s the strange thing: I never did get bored, or lonely, or restless during my stint in Zittel’s world. For all my physical discomfort throughout the week, I felt deeply, supremely calm. Existing alone in an unfamiliar space in which every detail has been considered and honed to its ultimate function was simultaneously soothing and stimulating. Engaged so closely with my immediate surroundings, I was able to drown out my ever-present anxieties. Bowls were no longer just bowls: They were the sole necessary vessel. Without a chair back, I sat up taller and lay down on the ground to watch the stars. I began to see the cabins as performance art, but with the artist herself absent—

As part of her ongoing research, Zittel has bought three tiny cabins in Wonder Valley, a 40-minute drive from her own compound. She now rents out the two she has renovated as Experimental Living Cabins to anyone interested in roughing it for a while with no electricity or running water.

above: photo by Lance Brewer

During my stay in the cabin, I established a routine determined by the movements of the sun: After daylight nudged me awake around five, I rose from the bed portion of the Planar Configuration and unlocked both doors to let in the early cross-breeze. Then I scooped ant corpses from the ice cooler and retrieved my sack of ground coffee. I checked my shoes for scorpions/tarantulas and stepped outside to the composting toilet. I’d save the outdoor shower—a water tank modified with a hand pump—for later in the day, when the heat was unbearable. Then it was off to assess the dwindling freshwater reserve and to conduct frugal ablutions over a steel sink that drained through a black hose into a bucket below. I filled the kettle. Ignited the propane stove. Set out French press, bowl and spoon. (In keeping with Zittel’s catechism, there are only bowls—never glasses or plates, which she deems unnecessarily use-specific.) Carried two black wooden vintage stools out to the patio, one for sitting, the other for my breakfast and books. Every time a bead of perspiration rolled down my leg, I’d assume it was an ant and try to flick it off, never learning. In the afternoon, the hot wind in my face like a blow dryer on high, I drove to the air-conditioned local library, with Zittel’s blessing; the cabin stay is meant to be challenging but not life-threatening. Back home around 6 pm, I cooked a meal of spiced beans, avocado and tortillas and washed up in the final sliver of sun. After lighting the oil lanterns, I watched their flickering patterns, then sat outside to read. By 9:30 pm I was asleep, atop white sheets, enveloped in unbroken darkness.

or, maybe, with the viewer taking the artist’s role. There was a kind of generosity, or trust, in that gesture. Among the materials Zittel had left me—an idiosyncratic mix that included Viktor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, back issues of Lapham’s Quarterly and local travel guides— was an ancient paperback, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. First published in 1884 by Edwin A. Abbott, an English theologian who wrote the novel under the pseudonym A. Square, it is a Euclidean sci-fi fantasy about a civilization of polygons who inhabit an alternate two-dimensional reality— not my usual genre, but during the long nights, I gave myself over to the barely sublimated satire of Victorian values. In the days and weeks following, long after I returned home, I saw rectangles everywhere—counter, bed, ceiling, blanket, book, cover, page. Even a line of text is a long, narrow rectangle. Viewed like this, through Zittel’s eyes, the material

world seemed endlessly malleable, little more than a sequence of manmade conventions we’ve all agreed to preserve, whether or not they have outlived their usefulness, that were now merely burying—or distracting—us with infinite variety. I also came to see Flatland as more than a brainy curiosity or even a nod to Zittel’s obsession with geometry. Perhaps it was best read as a primer for the alternate reality she has single-handedly engineered—one that rejects society while remaining in rapt conversation with it. I didn’t get a chance to ask Zittel about the book before I returned to New York— the cacophonous, often disconnected city she abandoned long ago. I will never know why she left it out for me. What I did know, without her having to utter a word, was this: She is always thinking about everything—about every detail that adds up to a life, and that includes you.

Existing alone in an unfamiliar space in which every detail has been considered and honed to its ultimate function was simultaneously soothing and stimulating.

This story originally appeared in T, The New York Times Style Magazine (10.30.17) and is reprinted here with permission.

// RISDXYZ

spring/summer 2018

When alumni connect with their local communities, theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re often compelled to put their creative problem-solving abilities to good use in addressing social needs. The four stories that follow offer examples of how a passion for place can lead to meaningful work in specific regions of the world.

“There’s so much beauty in the world— not just beauty you can see, but feel in the marrow of your bones.”

FINDING JOY IN Hool Eye Johnson Donkor MA 16 (above)

led the effort to create this new welcome center in a kente weaving village. In love and newly married, she’s also soaking up Ewe culture and learning everything she can about it from her new husband, Sampson (below right), and the young people she’s also teaching, including Beauty and her baby sister (left).

J UST MONTH S AFTE R Hool Eye Johnson Donkor MA 16

earned her graduate degree in art and design education from RISD, she traveled to Ghana—a country and culture that had fascinated her for years—to facilitate a community arts project involving puppetry, music and textile design. With support from a RISD Graduate Studies grant, she was able to pursue the project in fall 2016—in a kente weaving village called Tafi Abuife, which she had first visited the year before on the recommendation of RISD Professor Jonathan Highfield. “As a young girl growing up in Colorado, I discovered that I could speak and write backwards,” Donkor explains. Realizing that she also processes sound differently than others, she says that the first time she heard Ghanaian drumming “saturated colors danced in my brain. The syncopations were a language that felt very natural to me.” As a result, the artist and drummer landed at RISD with the intent of further exploring the synesthesia between music and the visual arts. Smitten by the villagers, Donkor returned to Tafi Abuife in February 2017 to rebuild and restore a condemned building that now serves as a welcome center—a place where the kente weavers sell their work and invite foreigners to learn the rich history of the Tafi people. In Ghana she first experienced “the moment when you know you are where you need to be,” she explains in her master’s thesis, adding that “there’s so much beauty in the world—not just beauty you can see, but feel in the marrow of your bones.” As it happens, Donkor also fell in love in Ghana: “With joy and gratitude, I got married to Sampson Donkor, one of the kente weavers I met.” The newlyweds are now living close to the village and she’s focused on learning both the language (Ewe) and how to weave kente cloth. “Sampson and I share the same passion for art, music and teaching youth,” she says,

Hool Eye Johnson Donkor MA 16

hooleye.com

“and are now working to expand the after-school arts program we’ve started in our home and the welcome center.” The plan is to establish their community arts program as a 501c3 nonprofit and teach drawing, painting and kente weaving while also incorporating indigenous drumming and music. “We want to provide a resource for children to be able to express themselves, discover new pathways for learning common core subjects and feel empowered through creativity,” they say. “In high school, I was the eyeball girl,” Donkor reflects in explaining the genesis of her nickname (one her mother gave her based on her propensity for sketching pigs and eyes). “The eye was a sign of life that I would render on all my schoolbooks, clothes, shoes—you name it.” Now that she’s teaching and living in Ghana, her name has taken on added meaning. “The kids have never heard ‘Hool Eye’ before and they just love to say it,” she says. And given the local proverb: “The eye never forgets what the heart has seen,” she now sees her name as “reflective of my beautiful experiences in Ghana.”

// RISDXYZ

spring/summer 2018

ESSENCE OF LIFE IN

3 0

// Passion Meets Purpose

150 kilometers away where many indigenous people already struggle with a scarce water supply. “That’s just insane,” Fenton points out. Pumping water into the mountainous city is also costly and wasteful given that roughly 40% of it is lost due to leaky pipes. And despite its five-month rainy season, Mexico City ranks third among the world’s largest cities facing a water crisis—impacting 20 million residents. Recognizing the need for immediate solutions, Lomnitz and Fenton quickly shifted the focus of their RISD degree project, intent instead on introducing a major paradigm shift in how Mexicans relate to water. “Mexico is such a beautiful country,” Lomnitz says—“so full of resources and hard-working people. I’ve never seen people who work as hard as we do here. And they are kind and generous. But, as a society, we’re like a car whose tires are spinning in the mud. I mean the engine has power and there’s gas, but we get stuck in the mud.” Hellbent on improving the everyday lives of Mexicans and helping the country get unstuck, in 2009 Lomnitz and Fenton

Enrique Lomnitz 06 ID + Renata Fenton 06 ID

Through their progressive nonprofit organization Isla Urbana, Enrique Lomnitz 06 ID

(above and facing page top) and Renata Fenton 06 ID (facing page bottom) are making clean water accessible to more Mexicans.

top: photo by Pilar Campos

WH E N Enrique Lomnitz 06 ID and Renata Fenton 06 ID first started working together at RISD, it was with the idea of developing sustainable, affordable housing solutions for back home in Mexico City. But as they began research for their final degree project in Industrial Design, they quickly unearthed a much more fundamental need in their home city. “We began visiting low-income neighborhoods, knocking on doors and asking what problems people are having,” Lomnitz explains. “And people started talking to us about water.” In 2006, even as residents were experiencing improvements in basic infrastructure like phone service and pavement, access to safe, clean water was becoming increasingly difficult and costly. As the designers began studying the issue, they learned that 70% of Mexico City’s water comes from an aquifer and that the city has actually sunk more than 10 meters in the past century due to water extraction. “The ground is super stressed,” Lomnitz says. In addition, roughly 30% of the city’s water is pumped uphill from an area

top right: photo courtesy of Camaroni Producciones | middle: photo by Cate Cameron

“Mexico is such a beautiful country—so full of resources and hard-working people…. But, as a society, we’re like a car whose tires are spinning in the mud.”

teamed up with several progessive partners to launch Isla Urbana, a hybrid social enterprise and nonprofit that builds on what they had learned through their degree project. “Our initial challenge was to make a relatively low-cost rainwater harvesting system,” Lomnitz says, “but one that provides water of a certain quality using a simple filtration system retrofitted into existing houses.” After talking at length with their very first customer, Clara Gaytán (who lives in a mountainous neighborhood on the edge of the city), they installed their first system using $1,000 of their own savings. In the decade since, the organization’s overall director (Lomnitz) and design director (Fenton) have continued to refine their designs while totally throwing themselves into educating fellow Mexicans about sustainable approaches to water and energy. They’ve partnered with dozens of NGOs and arts-based nonprofits such as Concentrarte and Artolution (see next page) to offer public workshops and teach kids about sustainable water consumption. They’ve bought an old school bus, painted it with colorful murals and driven it to remote rural villages to work with residents in installing rainwater harvesting systems that they understand and can maintain. And they’ve been annoyed by baffling governmentfunded interventions clearly ill-suited to the needs of local communities. Along the way, Isla Urbana has evolved into an organization of 35 designers, engineers, community outreach specialists, environmental education coordinators, installers and assistants. Together, the team has established a foundation to raise funds in support of their work with low-income residents and has installed more than 7,500 systems throughout Mexico City as well as in areas such as Jalisco, Durango, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Hidalgo and Chihuahua. And the organization has earned Mexico City’s 2017 Environmental Action Award, along with recognition from the BBC World Challenge, the Clinton Global Initiative, MTech 35 (MIT Tech Review’s 35 innovators under age 35) and the UBS Visionaris Award, among many others. Most importantly, perhaps, through tireless community engagement and partnerships with other environmental and educational organizations, Isla Urbana has proven to policymakers and government skeptics that rainwater harvesting is a viable solution for Mexico. “We don’t see our system as a palliative imposed on people who don’t want or understand it,” Lomnitz says, “but as a permanent solution for the future. Putting in rainwater systems is like sowing seeds, so that each one influences what’s around it. We just hope that in a future that may not even include us those systems will still be here.” islaurbana.org

“We don’t see our system as a palliative imposed on people who don’t want or understand it, but as a permanent solution for the future.” // RISDXYZ

spring/summer 2018

For more than a decade, Max Frieder 12 PT has been bringing the life-affirming optimism of the arts to displaced people fleeing the world’s most troubled hot spots. Earlier this year the paint-splattered activist (facing page, bottom) connected with Rohingya refugee kids whose families were fleeing genocide in Myanmar.

AN ADVE NTU R E SOM E AM BASSADOR FOR TH E ARTS ,

Max Frieder 12 PT continues to find his own sense of meaning

and purpose in the world’s most troubled places, working to restore hope—and even joy—to children and families in crisis. Through his nonprofit Artolution the activist partners with grassroots organizations throughout the world, showing how the act of making art can help bring communities together, reinforce communication and literacy and provide refugees with some semblance of normalcy, even for short spans of time. Frieder, a native of Colorado who’s currently pursuing an EdD in Art & Education at Columbia, realizes that the people he works with need basic necessities first—food, water and housing. But he also recognizes the need for “psychosocial support” and the value of art-making for kids, in particular. “They may not be able to read or write,” Frieder says, “but children can draw, paint, sculpt and express themselves no matter where you go. Even people who have suffered serious trauma and displacement have an inherent need and thirst for fun.”

// Passion Meets Purpose

Max Frieder 12 PT

In January Frieder teamed up with representatives from Save the Children to travel to Bangladesh and work with children and families at the Balukhali Refugee Camp, “a sprawling sea of makeshift shacks,” as he puts it, overcrowded with Rohingya families fleeing persecution in Myanmar. “The level of suffering here is unimaginable,” he wrote in the journal he kept on his daily commutes to the camp from the Bangladeshi city of Cox’s Bazaar. Now that an estimated 800,000 refugees have congregated there, it’s the largest camp in the world, with the attendant problems that come with trying to shelter that many traumatized people in extremely tough living conditions. Frieder reports that when he first arrived at the camp with a translator and a small team of local Rohingya refugee artists, the children “looked at me like I was a creature from another planet, with paint-encrusted clothes and a giant smile on my bearded face.” But once he was able to get them singing and dancing and playing games of call and response, “the way the children laughed showed a craving for attention—a craving to be treated as human.”

photos courtesy of Max Frieder / Artolution

DREAMING OF A PLACE TO CALL

Since starting his first global community art project in 2009— while he was still a student at RISD—Frieder has joined forces with Artolution co-director Joel Bergner. Working together since 2015, they’ve partnered with local artists, grassroots community groups, schools and international institutions in the US and 30 countries in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Europe, Australia and South Asia, with repeated visits in recent years to Za’atari, the massive refugee camp for Syrians in northern Jordan. “The arts have a special role to play in areas affected by crisis and displacement,” Frieder points out. “Play and imagination in crisis-affected areas need to be valued as portals into a world where abuse, neglect, trafficking and re-traumatization can fall away. In a refugee camp, lifesaving measures come in many different forms, and education—especially arts education— is one of them.” Working with the Rohingya, Frieder reports that he “saw some of the most terrifying things you can imagine.” Images of the horrifying ethnic cleansing going on in Rakhine state— men with guns, dead bodies, villages in flames—haunted children’s drawings. But despite the recent trauma, “the majority of children drew images of kids, animals, houses, flowers and dreams for a new life,” he says. “The day-to-day life of the individuals in the Balukhali camp is a bleak combination of waiting, hopelessness and feelings of worthlessness,” Frieder points out. “Something as simple as rediscovering play through tossing up fabric scraps and dancing, banging on a sculpture made of trash and creating a public mural that community members see on a daily basis has positive psychological and social influence beyond measure.”

“Even people who have suffered serious trauma and displacement have an inherent need and thirst for fun.”

artolution.org

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PULLING THROUGH IN

WH E N Matilsha Marxuach 94 CR moved back to San Juan in 2004, she had a clear idea of what she wanted to do—and more importantly, how she wanted to do it. She had traveled and lived abroad before returning to her native island to practice sustainable agriculture in the countryside. But now, through Concalma—her line of relaxed yet fashion-forward handbags, which translates as “with calm” or “at ease”—she wanted to quietly raise awareness of fair trade and promote the island’s economy through a product line and store that support local designers, suppliers and producers. “I knew from the start that whatever product I designed had to be manufactured in Puerto Rico in order to help the local economy,” says Marxuach. With that in mind, she turned to the Cooperativa Industrial Creación de la Montaña, a femaleowned factory in the island’s mountainous Utuado region, to produce her handbags.

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// Passion Meets Purpose

Matilsha Marxuach 94 CR

Since Hurricane María devastated the island last September, the entrepreneur has been working extra hard to keep her business alive by launching Concalma/Conprisa (“in a hurry”), a call to action to encourage people outside of Puerto Rico to help with the recovery by shopping online. And she has joined forces with NGOs and community members to help with relief efforts. “After the storm, we didn’t have power for months,” Marxuach says. “And since there was a shortage of food and water for the first few weeks, we were especially concerned about disadvantaged people and the elderly.” With her own shop in the Old San Juan area of the city closed due to lack of power, Marxuach worked with friends and neighbors to open a community kitchen to provide meals with whatever they collectively had on hand. The Puerto Rico Recovery Fund, established by a San Juan-based economic think tank familiar with her business, also turned to her for

As a natural problemsolver, Puerto Rican entrepreneur Matilsha Marxuach 94 CR

(above) has worked to weather the recession and help islanders bounce back after last fall’s devastating hurricane. As part of the relief efforts, employees at the factory she works with in Utuado (facing page, top) helped distribute supplies and sew mosquito netting.

help in establishing a distribution center out of the Utuado factory to get supplies to residents once they eventually arrived from the US mainland. “It was a collaborative effort involving community leaders and factory workers from 17 different towns in the area,” the designer says. Next problem? Mosquitos. Without electricity the fans islanders rely on to keep mosquitos at bay couldn’t do their job. So, with support from the Foundation for Puerto Rico, Marxuach launched a pilot project in which the Utuado co-op workers sewed 500 mosquito nets. It was also a way to help them recuperate from the months the factory was closed. Though the leap from focusing on ceramics at RISD to running a handbag company in Puerto Rico may seem large, Marxuach says that as a child her favorite playthings were fabric and scissors. She initially had no intention of going to college but agreed to apply to just one: RISD, where her older brother had studied architecture. Once she got to campus, Apparel Design didn’t seem like a viable major since she hated the industry’s reputation for worker exploitation. So drawn to the chemistry and math involved in making glazes, Marxuach opted for Ceramics instead. “The program built up my self-confidence, which would later help with the business aspects of Concalma,” she says. “And bags, like pots, are useful vessels, so it was an easy jump.”

“What I learned from María is that natural disasters bring uncertainty, and in the face of uncertainty you need to move fast and you need to be flexible.”

shopconcalma.com

“I knew from the start that whatever product I designed had to be manufactured in Puerto Rico in order to help the local economy.” After RISD Marxuach initially bought and ran an organic tropical fruit farm on the island and set up her own ceramics studio. She raised her children on the farm before opting to move back to San Juan after they had grown. “I no longer have a studio and now focus mainly on the business,” Marxuach says, “so I miss working with my hands.” On the flip side, she enjoys contributing to the island’s design culture and experimenting with new models of sustainable development in Puerto Rico. “What I learned from María is that natural disasters bring uncertainty, and in the face of uncertainty you need to move fast and you need to be flexible,” says Marxuach. “In design we have a tool to construct solutions to all sorts of problems—and also to support trade practices that favor small-scale production and cultural diversity.”

With a background in architecture and a love of symmetry, artist Phillip K. Smith III creates site-specific work that invites viewers to slow down and appreciate their surroundings.

by Robert Albanese

G ROWI NG U P I N SOUTH E R N CALI FOR N IA , artist Phillip K. Smith III BArch 96

had no idea just how much the Coachella Valley desert had shaped his sense of place until he left it to study at RISD. “This wealth of experience I had with light and shadow, the atmosphere and scale of the desert—I didn’t become very conscious of it,” he recalls, “until I moved to the East Coast and found all these damn green trees in my way.”

Since returning to California in 2000 to “fully take on the challenge of the desert,” Smith has been making sculptures and site-specific installations that invite people to reconsider the land and sky—and to look carefully. “The beauty of the environment… operates at a pace that is wildly different from our day-to-day lives,” he says. “So we have to slow down to see it.” In 2013 Smith first started making inroads with his sitespecific work through an uncanny merger of architectural precision and awe-inspiring natural wonder he created in the middle of the Joshua Tree desert. Called Lucid Stead, the unassuming piece used mirrors on the exterior of a desolate shack to reflect the desert around it during the day, while radiating his now-patented color-sequencing program to transform it with colored light at night. As projects like Reflection Field at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and ¼ Mile Arc on the beach in Laguna, CA grew in scale and scope, more and more people began to take notice of his dazzling public art experiments with reflection, light and color. As a result, Smith is now working on long-lead light-based commissions for West Hollywood, CA and Bellevue, WA, and this spring the London-based fashion brand COS commissioned him to explore similar ideas in Open Sky. His first site-specific

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Phillip K. Smith III BArch 96

this spread and previous: all photos by Lance Gerber

“Ideas about beauty are sometimes challenging to critics and the art world, but I would argue that universal beauty does exist.”

Five years ago Smith’s work took an exciting new turn with Lucid Stead (left), which reflected the Joshua Tree desert during the day and radiated evocative colored lights at night. Installations such as 1/4 Mile Arc — on the beach in Laguna, CA (previous spread) — and Reflection Field (left) at the Coachella music festival followed. This spring Smith’s first site-specific commission (above) outside the US mesmerized visitors to the Palazzo Isimbardi courtyard during the big art, architecture and design festival in Milan.

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project outside the US, it made its public debut in mid April at this year’s Salone del Mobile in Milan, drawing curious crowds to the courtyard of the city’s Palazzo Isimbardi during the international art, architecture and design festival. “It was so exciting to work with a totally different set of circumstances—a totally different mindset about how to look at and analyze what’s happening in the site,” Smith says. “Before I had seen the actual site, I already knew about the quality of the light and air that pierces historic Italian courtyards thanks to my European Honors Program year in Rome when I was at RISD.” Similar to his other installations, the artist carefully positioned a series of mirrored structures to enhance the relationship between the 16th-century palazzo and the framed expanse of sky above its open-air courtyard. Whether viewers saw reflected slivers of the structure or the sky depended on where they stood in the space. But that’s the point: he remains committed to creating work that tailors the concept of universal beauty to the particularities of individual perception. “Ideas about beauty are sometimes challenging to critics and the art world,” Smith says, “but I would argue that universal beauty does exist. In a room full of Rothkos, there’s a reason why everyone is staring at that one,” he continues. “I’m really inter-

ested in allowing my work to be open enough that it can hit on core human ideals while also creating an immersive experience that feels like you’re the only one having it at that moment.” R ETU R N I NG TO TH E D E S E RT

Although he chose to study architecture at RISD, Smith was keenly aware of doing so “in the middle of an art school.” At that point he was unsure of his own artistic voice and vision but knew that he “wanted to make things” and was open to allowing various mediums to shape his approach to architecture. At RISD “you can’t deny the power of having friends who are in Textiles and Glass and Graphic Design… to affect how you conceive of architectural practice,” he says. Completing studio assignments sited in New England also confirmed his belief that architectural projects should always honor and respond to their environment. “Studying architecture at RISD ingrained in me an interest in the potential of a site,” he says, along with the urge “to coax out its beauty and details”—which is “still of the utmost importance.” During his years at RISD, Smith and his friends also visited a lot of museums and galleries in Providence, Boston and New York. But he was disappointed by how distant and elusive much

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“I was ready to make substantial work on my own and I wanted to do that in a place that I cared about.”

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Phillip K. Smith III BArch 96

the challenge struck him with “this feeling of absolute bliss and absolute fear,” that project led to an opportunity to design a 45,000-sf homeless shelter in Indio, CA and then smaller commercial spaces. But although most of his “initial opportunities in the desert were in architecture,” he recalls, his ongoing experiments in his studio confirmed that what moves him creatively is the artistic exploration of “space, light, form and change.” By 2008 the recession provided Smith with the final nudge to pursue his studio work full time. “Just as all the architecture jobs dried up,” he remembers, “the public art opportunities went through the roof. Shocking as it is, making public art carried me through the recession.” Building on the momentum of Lucid Stead, his passion project in Joshua Tree that started this new direction, he created Reflection Field and then Portals, another piece for the Coachella Music and Arts Festival. Last year he was pleased with public response to The Circle of Land and Sky, the 300 mirror-polished poles he installed at the 2017 Desert X biennial

For his stunning Circle of Land and Sky, Smith installed 300 mirrored poles as part of the 2017 Desert X biennial in Palm Springs, CA.

photos by Lance Gerber

of the work felt. “It didn’t give me any kind of way in—there wasn’t any sort of welcome mat for me,” Smith says. “I felt like I needed a PhD in art history to even start a discussion about what I was seeing—and that made a profound impact on me.” From that point on, Smith vowed to make his own work “accessible to all. I want to be able to have a conversation about art and place with not just museum directors and curators but also the family that lives across the street.” After graduation Smith worked as an architect for five years—one in NYC and four in Boston—while striving to maintain a studio practice on the side. But despite almost a decade in the northeast, he never acclimated to the cold, grey winters and felt an irresistible pull to return to the warmth and open expanse of Coachella Valley. “I was ready to make substantial work on my own and I wanted to do that in a place that I cared about,” he explains. Soon after returning to California, Smith accepted his first solo architectural commission ever—to design a 27,000-sf education center for his local Presbyterian church. Though

in Palm Springs. People used it as a “tool for viewing the environment,” he says, “and truly seeing the colors of the sky for the first time.” Once again it affirmed that beyond existing for themselves, these sculptures help viewers to better understand and value the natural beauty of the setting. “For Lucid Stead and this piece, it’s all about connecting with the desert and the pace of change that’s happening around you,” Smith explains. “I was really happy that people’s natural reaction was to whisper as they approached and walked around it—creating the sense that the piece had somehow made this space in the desert sacred.” For as long as Smith has been interested in addressing the specifics of space, site, color, and light and shadow, the pace of

life in the desert continues to influence his ideas about change. With his most recent piece in Milan, he set out to provide visitors with a respite from the sensory overload of the citywide art and architecture extravaganza—a place to “stop and hang out for 10 minutes, a half hour, an hour.” By allowing people to pause and slow down, he wanted them to appreciate one of the few things we all have in common: “our relationship to the sky that hangs over our head.” For Smith this most recent commission for COS—far from the desert he knows and loves so well—helped advance his exploration of natural beauty in new and interesting ways. “We don’t need a curator to tell us what beauty is,” says the artist. For that, “there’s an internal curation that we all share.”

“I was really happy that people’s natural reaction was to whisper as they approached and walked around it—creating the sense that the piece had somehow made this space in the desert sacred.”

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reflect

// a message from the president

A PLACE FOR IDEAS WH E N I WAS A STU D E NT AT R I S D , the place where I first attempted to make my mark was my sketchbook. For me—to this day—there is nothing more exciting and inviting than a blank page. My sketchbook was a safe space to try out new ideas, store nascent ones and return to past inspirations. By documenting my progressing explorations, it served to remind me of how convoluted the path of creation often is, and so emboldened me to press forward into uncharted terrain. In those early years I developed what almost felt like a character relationship with my sketchbooks as the personal “dialogue” and back and forth that resulted was like a conversation with a colleague or friend. Eventually these sketchbooks—along with three-dimensional studies and models—became the means through which my furniture design practice advanced. There I researched commissions, drew up exhibition plans, recorded unformed ideas until they grew into useful ones, explored new personal languages for my work—and ultimately fostered my career as a designer and maker. While for me my sketchbook was a conceptual realm for adventurous experimentation, I also know that residencies, studios, galleries and social spaces are equally important for artists and designers as they mature as creators. As much as my sketchbooks provided an inspiring and challenging space, so did my engagements with the natural world. Getting off the “page,” out of the familiar and physically engaging

in remote landscapes facilitates conceptual growth. Cities can sometimes do the same thing. All said, travel feeds imagination with new source materials— often ones that merit chronicling in a sketchbook or some other visual record. The adventure of a RISD education is steeped in the high-contact, immersive learning experiences that have helped to define us for the length of our history— learning experiences built upon shared moments, interactions, dialogue and, of course, critique. In an age where communication increasingly occurs remotely, digitally or virtually, such engagement often becomes less dynamic. Face-to-face interactions and first-hand experiences compete with expectations for immediate— often remote—access. At the same time, new contextual frameworks are being built through our rich liberal arts curricula, helping us to make better sense of our histories, our currencies and our global perspectives— deepening the definition of what goes into evolving creative practices. As the way that students learn, interact and utilize space changes, RISD, too, must adapt to provide spaces conducive to these developments while still honoring the physicality of learning that is so central to our mission. That is why we will continue to implement the next stages of our Campus Master Plan over the coming decade to include innovative research and collaborative spaces, as well as residences that address the needs of our students. By improving our

“By improving our physical campus, we can advance research and practice, and also encourage new ways to build community.”

Find ongoing stories about students, faculty and alumni at risd.edu/news. Use the search icon in the top right nav bar on the page to find the following stories by title:

Rewards of Ethical Practice Toronto-based apparel designer Peggy Sue Deaven-Smiltnieks 09 AP (above) is showing how fashion can be a force for good.

Tennessee Mountain Home

Recent graduate Rebecca Buglio MFA 16 CR has found the artistic community of her dreams at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.

Instinct for Allegory Visiting artist Walton Ford 82 FAV paints stunning pictures alluding to the disastrous impact of humans on the natural world.

Questions of Identity Brown/RISD dual degree student Nadia Wolff BRDD 21 TX considers how religion relates to race, sexuality and global colonization.

physical campus, we can advance research and practice, and also encourage new ways to build community. While I still enjoy the challenge and opportunity of the blank page, that notion is also a metaphor for reimagining practice in the arts and design. For many of us the “page” is now a tablet or a screen or even a community, with the tools that activate them allowing for alternative ways of recording, iterating and sharing. But sometimes there is still nothing more satisfying than pulling a pencil across a sheet of paper, knowing that every time I move a graphite line across the plane of a page, my thoughts are embodied in each mark—informing it and helping to foster a lifelong relationship with creative ideation. —Rosanne Somerson 76 ID Follow the president on twitter.com/somerson.

Pulitzer Prize-winning Cartoon Welcome to the New World, a New York Times series by illustrator Michael Sloan 85 IL (above) and writer Jake Halpern, wins a 2018 Pulitzer for editorial cartooning. // RISDXYZ

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//â&#x20AC;&#x2030;â&#x20AC;&#x2030;campus community newsbits

In 2014 these 21 first-year students were among the 462 who arrived at RISD ready to throw themselves into whatever the next four years would bring. Just weeks into fall semester they were already forming bonds with each other, grouped together as Section 16 in Experimental and Foundation Studies. Now most of them are graduating with the Class of 2018, ready to move on from a place that has made a profound impact on them.

FOUR YEARS OF AMAZING CHANGE by Jo Sittenfeld MFA 08 PH I N TH E FALL OF 2014 the Class of 2018 started out at RISD just as I was starting a new job as a photographer with RISD Media, the school’s communications department. Although I attended RISD for grad school and had taught here for six years, I knew nothing about Foundation year. So I pitched the idea of following a group of first-year students—one of 20 “sections” of students who take all of their core studios together—during their first semester. Since each of the core studios meets one full day a week, I checked in on the 21 students in Section 16 most Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays that fall as they worked with Associate Professor Norm Paris 00 IL in Drawing, Associate Professor Paula Gaetano-Adi in Design and Senior Critic Deborah Coolidge MFA 80 CR in Spatial Dynamics. Now seniors, these students have been my passport to a place that I thought I knew well but now understand better. I’ve watched them grow, had a front-row view of their development as artists and heard their vocabularies expand along with their horizons.

“I definitely over-decorated but I think it added coziness to the room. My roommate’s opposing wall featured a single 8.5 x 11" drawing in charcoal. But we actually complemented each other well and I think he lowkey-enjoyed the leopard print rug.” Dennis Krawec 18 ID

Section 16: Zoë Bax 18 IA • Felix Beaudry 18 TX • Vaughan Carman 18 AP • Michael Chang 18 ID • Vincent Chen 18 IL • Joanna Claessens 18 FAV • Katie Falk 18 FAV • Shawn Guo 18 GD

Working with Associate Professor Norm Paris 00 IL (front in photo on facing page) for Drawing and Deb Coolidge MFA 80 CR (in orange to the left) for Spatial Dynamics, members of Section 16 quickly caught on to the notion of experimentation in the work they were being urged to produce.

“That first year I was quick to say I got a ‘bad’ crit when my classmates pointed out things I could have done better. But recently I realized that as long as people aren’t telling you how to make your work, there’s no such thing as a ‘bad’ critique.” Joanna Claessens 18 FAV

•Shivangi Gupta 18 FD • Emily Holtzman 18 TX • Poornima Jhanji 18 GD • Olivia Kim 19 IL • Dennis Krawec 18 ID • Kathryn LaMontagne 18 TX • Mei Lenehan 18 GD ▶ ▶ ▶

Felix Beaudry 18 TX, Kathryn LaMontagne 18 TX, Emily Holtzman 18 TX and Zoë Bax 18 IA interned

in NYC last summer. Three of the four of them shared a sublet and all loved getting together after work.

“Everyone should try to travel during college. You get introduced to so many new ideas, people, cultures, etc. Get out of the RISD bubble, the Providence bubble, the US bubble!” Dennis Krawec 18 ID, who spent the last three summers in China (see below) and completed Chinese 100–700 at Brown (which he’ll remember as “a personal hell but also a personal heaven”)

▶ ▶ ▶ Henry McClellan 18 PR • Yasemin Orhan 18 FAV • Nina Ripich 19 PT • Na Snidvongs 18 GD • Nathan Taylor 19 FAV • Kendra Xu 18 GD

“Sometimes you feel lonely — not because you don’t have friends around, but because of something that has to do with your story. At the Not Your Token rally in 2016, people shared all sorts of thoughts and experiences in public without the influence of any hierarchy or power structure. It was freezing out, but I felt so warm inside.”

“I’ve been on the team for four years now and have made some really good friends. We bring our on-court chemistry to our lives outside studio and organize team-bonding dinners, parties and activities.” Shawn Guo 18 GD (second from right)

Yasemin Orhan 18 FAV

OPPORTU N ITI E S, CHALLE NG E S + STU N N I NG CHANG E

During their sophomore, junior and senior years, these Section 16 students introduced me to new ways of thinking. Collectively they have shown me the magic of a knitting machine, how to use a video jib, what true interdisciplinary work looks like. They’ve shared their struggles, their job woes, their triumphs. I’ve gotten to know them academically (I’ve taught two of them in my classes) and personally (several have babysat my children). I’ve watched them get new haircuts, fall in love, deal with family troubles, change majors, flounder in classes, embrace new mediums. I’ve seen them take on leadership roles, tend the living wall in the Nature Lab, run the Student Alliance, make lattes and sandwiches at Carr Haus, captain the Balls basketball team, be RAs, organize dances and earn scholarships. I was intrigued by them when they were just starting off, tackling challenging assignments in their core studios. I listened as they learned to clearly present their work and provide helpful input to each other in crits.

And over the past four years they’ve shown me the power of a RISD education, collectively and individually. Admittedly, not all of the classes and teachers have been perfect—so they’ve learned to pay attention and chart their own course when needed. Almost all of these students have struggled in real and tangible ways. They’ve taken time away from RISD, failed courses, worried about visa renewal, felt let down by their peers and their bodies and the school. But they’ve also made movies and lamps and shoes and tables and GIFs and set up photo studios in their dorm rooms and published comic books and fed shrimp and interned with high-end fashion labels. They’ve shared apartments in NYC while doing summer internships (and worked at a dry cleaner to make ends meet). They’ve made children’s books, curated shows and performed in plays. They’ve used their voices during studentled rallies. They’ve earned pilot’s licenses, gotten tattoos and piercings, learned new languages, completed independent studies in India and China, and taken travel courses in Korea, Italy, Japan and Morocco.

“Advice? No major will have exactly what you want, so pick one and go from there, but always follow your personal artistic impulses and interests.” Henry McClellan 18 PR (who switched majors — from Illustration to Printmaking)

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“Anne Emlein MFA 06 TX, my Knitting II teacher, taught me so much about how to make work that is critical, kind and rich. Her daughter Rosie is the knitting technician and she always inspires me with her genius and work ethic. Polly Spenner 96 TX, the other Textiles tech, is also an absolute powerhouse.” Kathryn LaMontagne 18 TX

WI S E, FU N NY + B U R STI NG WITH PROM I S E

Like their peers in the Class of 2018, these 21 students have worked hard—both in the studio and in paying jobs. And through their experiences, they’ve learned what they don’t want to do as much as what they do want to do. Getting to know the students from Section 16 as well as I have, I’m most impressed by their strength, curiosity, boldness, work ethic, sense of self and kindness toward one another. They’re shockingly wise and funny. I’m thankful for their willingness to trust me with their stories and allow me into their studios and dorm rooms. I believe that RISD students have a special way of thinking, mostly because it’s not one way of thinking. Yes, they pick up on buzzwords like “agency,” “inter50

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sectionality,” “liminal space,” etc. But they also defy expectations and push boundaries in hard-fought ways. They’re definitely not complacent. This year as I’ve roamed around campus taking photos, my spirits have always been brightened when I run into Section 16ers. Now that they’re graduating— as cheesy at it sounds—these students will take a special piece of my heart with them. I will sorely miss this crew and their talent and energy. Like the rest of the Class of 2018, they’ll all scatter and—I totally believe— do amazing things. Look out world, because a beautiful, strong and talented group of young adults is about to spring from this place. And I, for one, cannot wait to see where they’re headed.

Did you make lifelong connections during Foundation year? Let us know at: risdxyz@risd.edu.

right: photo by Scott Indermaur

“Your thinking changes a lot year to year, and so do your set-in-stone ideas.... I’m choosing to focus on what feels especially culturally relevant to me.” Mei Lenehan 18 GD

“I value my peers a lot more and feel more connected to them. I respect my professors (even if they have blind spots for some things). A large part of my senior year has been about listening to feedback but trusting myself.” Katie Falk 18 FAV (above)

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HONOREES HELP CELEBRATE RISD’S NEWEST GRADS

Thousands of family members and friends from around the country and the world will celebrate the accomplishments of more than 672 students—464 undergraduate and 208 graduate—who are accepting their hard-earned degrees this year. On Saturday, June 2, artificial intelligence expert David Hanson 96 FAV, photographer Annie Leibovitz (above right)

and multidisciplinary artist Cai Guo-Qiang (above) will join the festivities as honored guests. Hanson, who is committed to creating compassionate “genius machines” (see page 58), will accept the Alumni Award for Artistic Achievement and deliver the keynote address. An icon in her field, Leibovitz creates portrait photography that reveals the strength, vulnerability and humanity of her subjects. Since becoming Rolling Stone’s chief photographer in 1973, she has brought an unmistakable aesthetic to the art of celebrity portraiture, discovering in some of the world’s most prominent people something new and previously unseen. For the past 35 years, the New Yorkbased artist has continued to shoot groundbreaking photographs for Vanity Fair and Vogue, among others. Her work has been

After two decades of experimentation, Cai Guo-Qiang produced the breathtaking 2015 performance piece Sky Ladder, which rose above the harbor in his hometown of Quanzhou, China.

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exhibited widely, published in several books and earned her Living Legend status with the Library of Congress, along with many other accolades. Working across several disciplines, Cai is best known for his signature “explosion events” and paintings made by detonating gunpowder that attempt “to achieve a sense of the eternal from the ephemeral.” The New York-based artist’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim, which hosted the 2008 retrospective I Want to Believe. In 2012—the same year his daughter Wen-You Cai 12 SC graduated from RISD—Cai received the Japan Art Association’s prestigious Praemium Imperiale and was among five artists to earn the first US Department of State Medal of Arts award. In 2016 Academy Award winner Kevin Macdonald further illuminated the artist’s life and work in the Netflix documentary Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang. Prior to the main event on Saturday, master’s degree recipients will celebrate their accomplishments at a graduate hooding ceremony on Friday. Risë Wilson, chief program officer for The High Line in Manhattan, will offer new grads a fresh perspective on professional practice.

Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs Jan Howard comments on work by Arghavan Khosravi MFA 18 PT (in purple shirt) on view in Un/Settled. Other works shown in recent or current RISD Museum exhibitions include (bottom l – r) photographs from the Elegy series by Justin Kimball 85 PH, Don’t Tread on Me by Michael Owen 90 PT and Mono Rail Over No Man’s Land by Nicole Eisenman 87 PT. Several screenprinted porcelain platters by David Allyn MFA 03 CR are included in The Phantom of Liberty, which continues through December 30.

MUSEUM HIGHLIGHTS ALUMNI IMPACT Four compelling exhibitions at the RISD Museum this year highlight the work of alumni, exemplifying how RISD grads “are generally able to wed complex ideas with a thorough understanding of the mediums in which they’re working,” as Museum Director John Smith puts it. The cornerstone of a group exhibition called Un/Settled—on view through July 8 and reflecting on notions of home, identity and dislocation— is a beautiful goatskin-bound artist’s book by Tia Blassingame MFA 15 PR filled with original poems about the legacy of slavery. The show also includes work by six other Printmaking and two Painting alumni. “When adding new works to the collection, one of the things we consider is how they’ll expand on the kinds of stories we’re able to tell,” says Jan Howard, the chief curator of prints, drawings and photographs who conceived Un/Settled. “Acquisitions are also driven by how the collection is used in teaching— especially by RISD faculty and students.”

As Dominic Molon, the museum’s Richard Brown Baker Curator of Contemporary Art, notes, “the work of alumni is imbued with a profound appreciation of craft and skill, even when that might not be the primary focus of an artist’s practice.” In curating the spring show Stranger Than Paradise, he sought to juxtapose “works of different styles, sensibilities and eras, suggesting how human perspectives on the natural world have shifted over the centuries.” The solo show Elegy (through July 8) features incredible color photographs by Justin Kimball 85 PH, while The Phantom of Liberty: Contemporary Works in the RISD Museum Collection—a new exhibition that continues through December 30—highlights work by eight alumni. “Our alumni have steered the course of recent art history,” Molon contends, “and the RISD Museum has a special role to play in providing a tangible and lasting record of their influence on the shape of art—past, present and future.”

Find more information about alumni exhibitions on campus and off at risd.edu/news.

“Our alumni have steered the course of recent art history and the RISD Museum has a special role to play in providing a... lasting record of their influence....” Dominic Molon, the museum’s Richard Brown Baker Curator of Contemporary Art

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EXPLORING MOROCCAN CRAFTSMANSHIP In an effort to help preserve and learn from Morocco’s vibrant craft and decorative arts traditions, RISD has launched a 16-month partnership with the country’s Maison de l’Artisan, its Ministry of Tourism, Air Transport, Handicrafts and Social Economy and an organization called Holmarcom. Launched in January with Crafting the City, a Wintersession travel course, the program connects RISD students and faculty with Moroccan craftspeople, designers and academics, creating a platform for learning that elevates experiential cultural exchange and reinforces a shared commitment to preserving artisan practices. Students enrolled in the spring studio Clay-in-Context began the semester with a week-long visit to Morocco, where they researched and developed plans for site-specific projects they designed after returning to RISD. “Our primary communication was through observation” of master

Shifting Focus After the Storm Two art students from Puerto Rico studied at RISD during spring semester as part of an AICAD exchange program initiated in the aftermath of Hurricane María. While the change of scenery didn’t alleviate the ongoing challenges Charlyne Ortiz and Danick Rivera face in San Juan, it offered them a new frame of reference before returning for their final year at Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño de Puerto Rico (EAP). “To me RISD has been a place where I can question ideas,” says Ortiz, who experimented a lot with melted acrylic in the Sculpture studios. “Here, even if you don’t have a skill yet, you can try new things and teachers guide you. They give you references.” 54

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craftspeople at work, notes Architecture Critic Laura Briggs BArch 82, who taught the interdisciplinary studio with Ceramics professors Larry Bush and Katy Schimert. In late April, Moroccan designers and craft masters Abderrazak Bahij (above left), Asmaa Benachir and Bouchra Boudoua (above right) visited RISD for a whirlwind series of tours, demonstrations and presentations, along with a panel discussion on the intersection of Moroccan arts and crafts with technology and innovation. Boudoua, who attended art school in London, spoke about recently establishing her practice in the cultural hub of Marrakesh, where she collaborates with local artisans on an unconventional ceramics line inspired by traditional Moroccan designs. “We’re interested in preserving craft so that it isn’t seen as a last option,” she explains, “but remains an important part of our heritage.”

Nothing to Hide When activist Roxane Gay visited campus to deliver RISD’s 2018 Martin Luther King, Jr. keynote address, her sense of humor and candor were palpable. “I’m here to talk about bodies, not race,” she announced just moments after taking the stage in early March. “Fat, much like skin color, is something you cannot hide.” Although Gay says that her body was the last thing she wanted to write about, doing so led to Hunger, the critically acclaimed 2017 memoir she read from during her presentation.

Exploration + Evolution This spring Painting majors Madeleine Billings 20 PT, Mary Kuan 19 PT (above) and Madison Whittington 19 PT teamed up to curate You’re Invited (subtitled Sleepover: the Exploration and Evolution of Girlhood, Sexuality and Identity). The provocative show transformed the Chace Center’s Gelman Student Exhibitions Gallery into a complex world of wonder from May 4 – June 4.

above right: photo by David O’Connor

NEXT-GEN MULTILITERACY CENTER In moving beyond traditional models of writing support, RISD’s Center for Arts & Language is activating inclusive approaches to mentoring art and design students. Previously known as the RISD Writing Center, the office adopted a new name in 2017 to better reflect its expanding areas of focus: tutoring in writing, public speaking and visual communication, along with varied support for multilingual learning and student publishing. New needs have emerged over the past decade not only at RISD, but “across higher education and in the public sphere,” notes A&L Director Jennifer Liese. “The communications ecology has diversified to include more oral, electronic and visual forms, and ‘writing’ is happening in increasingly varied and expressive ways.” On March 1 alumni Andre Bradley MFA 15 PH, Rachel Ossip BRDD 15 GD and Phoebe Stubbs MFA 11 GL returned to campus for an A&L roundtable For ongoing stories about students and studios, go to risd.edu/news.

discussion on the relationship between creative practice and publishing. “Artists’ and designers’ perspectives on the world are unique and essential,” Liese points out, whether they take form visually or verbally. In mentoring students to gain fluency across multiple modes of communication, she hopes that they graduate better able to articulate “what they care about and why it matters.” // RISDXYZ

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RECONSIDERING VISUAL STORYTELLING History of Illustration (Fairchild Books–Bloomsbury), a new book edited by Illustration Department Head Susan Doyle 81 IL/MFA 98 PT/PR, captures the global impact of illustrators on human knowledge. With nearly 600 pages enlivened by 950 images, the book offers an expansive view of illustrative communication. RISD professors Robert Brinkerhoff, Bolaji Campbell, Nick Jainschigg 83 IL and Winifred Lambrecht are among the dozens of researchers, curators and practitioners who contributed new scholarship to the book, as did associate editors Jaleen Grove and Whitney Sherman. Covering a diverse range of topics— from Renaissance-era anatomical and medical illustration to Muslim illustrative traditions, wartime propaganda and digital forms of image making— History of Illustration sheds light on multiple histories, says Grove, a postdoctoral fellow at Washington University who will begin a visiting faculty appointment at RISD in the fall. Among the primary needs it addresses is going beyond the Eurocentrism of previous histories to include the emergence and development of image-making practices in the eastern and southern hemispheres. Doyle emphasizes that as new technologies make it increasingly easier to create and share images, the need to understand their social role is greater than ever. As educators “we’re not here to tell students how to make a picture,” she says. “What we want to do is give them the critical skills to question why they’re making it and who they’re making it for.”

Remarkable Range in Faculty Show During its month-long run, the 2018 RISD Faculty Exhibition & Forum offered a fascinating display of the range of talent and vision among the individuals who teach here. Painting, furniture, sculpture, photography, video, digital installations and more shared gallery space at the RISD Museum and Gelman Gallery in what Providence Journal critic Channing Gray called a “mind-dizzying array” of concept, color, form and scale. Faculty members also spoke about various aspects of art and design practice as part of the associated forum series.

// two college street

Faculty Newsbits Earlier this year Professor of Architecture Gabriel Feld completed an artist residency at the Siena Art Institute, where he worked on Dal diario di Siena, a series of watercolor experiments about the inspiring Italian city.

JAN BAKER | 1950–2018 In 2012 Baker curated an exhibition called Bookmark, which celebrated her decades of teaching the art of books at RISD. It featured 350 of her students’ best artist’s books—which she also donated to the RISD library’s phenomenal special collection of artist’s books. An avid traveler throughout her life, Jan served for two years as RISD’s chief critic at the European Honors Program in Rome, led a textiles workshop in Vietnam for UNESCO and taught book design at the National Institute of Design in India with support from a Fulbright. Jan spent coveted sabbaticals discovering such marvels as the Rosetta Stone in London, Bodoni’s Manuale Tipografico in Parma, Arabic manuscripts in Doha, palm leaf books in Bhubaneswar, scholar’s stelae in Hanoi and Suminagashi in Echizen. With each venture abroad, she made innovative travel journals packed with drawings, jottings, visual lecture notes, photographs, tickets and ephemera—and used them all as ongoing inspiration for new work. An outpouring of grief, love and gratitude followed the news that Jan Baker, a well-loved professor of Graphic Design who taught here since 1981, died on Saturday, April 28 in Providence. Fellow faculty and staff members, along with scores of current and former students, shared just how much she meant to them. Throughout her life, Jan made extraordinary works of art using handmade paper, handwritten lettering and an exquisite level of craftsmanship matched by conceptual rigor. At RISD she taught what she loved: book arts, letterpress, papermaking, bookbinding and visual poetry—and made these a signature part of the Graphic Design curriculum.

The ABCs of her life sum it up best: Artist. Alphabet. Aunt. Books. Baker. Calligrapher. Collections. Cousins. California. Design. Devoted. Daughter. Empowering. Energetic. Family. Friend. Fulbright. Generous. God-mother. Handmade. Hearts. Inquisitive. India. Italy. Judaism. Japan. Kind. Love. Lucky rocks. Lecture notes. Mark. Meditation. Maps. Mentor. Notebooks. Optimist. Professor. Polka dots. Persistent. Perfectionist. Quilts. RISD. Sister. Sabbaticals. Students. Traveler. Textiles. Tea. Thirteen. UCSC. Valentines. Venice High. Wise. X-pert. Yale. Zany... Contributions in Jan’s memory may be made to the Jan Baker Artists’ Book Fund (online at support.risd.edu or via mail c/o Amanda Wright, Institutional Engagement, Two College Street, Providence, RI 02903).

Find more updates about faculty at risd.edu/news and our.risd.edu.

Partners, an amazing new documentary by Professor Henry Horenstein 71 PH/MFA 73, premiered on May 12 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The hour-long film explores the wonderful idiosyncrasies and synchronicities of relationships. The University of California Press recently published William Kentridge: Process as Metaphor & Other Doubtful Enterprises by HAVC Department Head Leora Maltz-Leca. Critics are describing her scholarship as “lucid, erudite, rigorous and poetic.”

Tenderheaded, a solo exhibition that continues through July 8 at Brandeis’ Rose Art Museum in Waltham, MA, presents paintings by Assistant Professor of Painting Jennifer Packer that reflect on the ways black Americans navigate within the present political landscape. Longtime FAV faculty member Erminio Pinque 83 IL has earned a $200,000 Carter Fellowship for Entrepreneurial Innovation from the Rhode Island Foundation. As founder and director of the Providence-based creature-making and performance studio BIG NAZO, he’s using the grant to transform vacant storefronts across the state into hubs of cultural activity. // RISDXYZ

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six degrees

// connecting through the alumni association

SAY HELLO TO THE FUTURE

“Artistry is essential to bringing robots to life.” Decades before it became de rigueur, David Hanson 96 FAV was inspired by a place called the future. Since graduating from RISD in the mid 1990s, he has been pushing, probing and poking around the realm of artificial intelligence, growing ever more knowledgeable about the complexities of human thought and emotion in the process. On June 2 Hanson is accepting RISD’s 2018 Alumni Award for Artistic Achievement at Commencement and delivering this year’s keynote address to graduating students. “Our quest is to create amazingly expressive robots that build engaging relationships with people through conversation,” Hanson says of the team of roboticists, AI experts, scientists, engineers and cognitive specialists he leads at Hanson Robotics in Hong Kong. “Our robots teach, serve, entertain and will in time come to truly understand and care about humans.” Hanson’s latest and most advanced robot, Sophia, has been garnering a lot of attention in recent months—appearing in mainstream publications like Elle and Popular Science, trading gags with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, appearing in a video of a blind date with Will Smith and even addressing the United Nations last fall. “I am here to help humanity create the future,” she told assembled world leaders. (Google her to get a sense of the bot in action.) Sophia can recognize faces and voices, process 58

For more on David’s work, go to hansonrobotics.com.

visual cues, conduct basic conversations and mimic human gestures. The “skin” of her face is actually a patented nanotech material called Frubber that moves a lot like human skin, allowing her to respond with almost realistic-looking facial expressions. “Artistry is essential to bringing robots to life,” Hanson notes. At RISD Hanson majored in Film/Animation/Video and then went on to work at Walt Disney Imagineering as a sculptor and technical consultant. He returned to school to earn a PhD in Interactive Arts and Engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas and has taught interactive and robotic sculpture on several UT campuses as well as at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. Both PC Magazine and WIRED have called him “a genius” and he has earned

Robotics expert David Hanson 96 FAV has been introducing ever more advanced versions of his bot Sophia to the world in recent years. In addition to accepting this year’s Alumni Award for Artistic Achievement at Commencement, he’s also delivering the keynote address.

recognition from NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Tech Titans and the Cooper Hewitt, among others. Hanson and his team are constantly improving on their robots using an iterative approach and cloud-based AI that provides analytics for processing social data gathered from the millions of interactions their computers are having with people. Ultimately, he hopes to create “genius machines with greater-than-human intelligence, creativity, wisdom and compassion that can help us solve the most challenging problems we face.”

What Do Alumni Think? In early August, the Office of Alumni Relations will send an online survey to all alumni we’re able to reach via email and post. Please keep an eye out for it and respond (it shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes). As the first comprehensive effort of its kind in more than 25 years, the survey is an effort to research the opinions of our global community of more than 27,000 individuals and is meant to: • learn how you think about and want to engage with RISD

• better understand the type of programming that’s of most interest to you • help RISD offer holistic and reciprocal resources that help you engage with each other and with the college • update your biographic and contact information

RISD is working with SimpsonScarborough, a firm that specializes in higher education research, to conduct the survey. Initial results will be shared during RISD Weekend (October 5 –7) and in the Winter 2018 issue of this magazine.

photo by Riley McClenaghan 20 FAV

DESIGNING FOR BETTER HEALTH On March 23 alumni and current students came together in NYC for Designing for Health and Wellness, a panel discussion at the Johnson & Johnson office building co-hosted by RISD Careers, Alumni Relations and J&J. In a lively conversation moderated by J&J’s Director of Experience Strategy Mary Quandt (in red in the photo to the right), alumni (from l–r) Chris Purcell 01 ID, Aidan Hudson-Lapore BRDD 17 ID and Samantha Dempsey 13 IL shared their experiences using human-centered design approaches to foster innovation in the healthcare industry. As a designer at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, Dempsey says that she’s “always thinking long-term and big picture: Will this improve a patient’s health over the next 10 years?” She first got intrigued with bringing art and design thinking to healthcare when she was at RISD majoring in Illustration and landed a summer Maharam STEAM Fellowship at the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation in Rochester, MN. Recent graduate Hudson-Lapore, who majored in Industrial Design at RISD and Cognitive Science at Brown, says she focuses “on how design can support decisions and shape behaviors, especially in ambiguous or complex situations. Put bluntly,” she adds, “thinking hard is hard, so people don’t do it very often. This means that a designer has the power to shape the world in positive ways by being thoughtful about what tasks to make easy.”

Purcell—who has been working at J&J since 2015—is also committed to making things easier for users. “My design innovations are based on a systems-level perspective,” she explains. “I strive to balance the business, technological and human aspects of every challenge.”

“Put bluntly, thinking hard is hard, so people don’t do it very often.” Aidan Hudson-Lapore BRDD 17 ID

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CLUBBING COAST TO COAST In addition to gatherings in Asia centered on President Somerson’s travels (facing page), alumni have been connecting through a wide range of club activities in various parts of the country.

In Seattle On March 23 Bill Gaylord BArch 76 (above right) welcomed alumni attending the 2018 National Art Education Association (NAEA) convention to a reception at Bonfire Gallery, the space he operates at the Panama Hotel in Seattle. The show on view featured selections from the 420 wonderfully surrealistic artworks Dave Calver 76 IL created for his recently released graphic novel Limbo Lounge.

In California

In NYC On February 13 a group of politically active alumni and faculty got together at Thoughtworks in Manhattan to talk about design actions in response to the current political climate. Organized by Will McGloughlin BArch 09 and the RISD/NY alumni club, the discussion focused on ways to use art and design to spur change. 60

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to an unseasonably chilly reception on the grounds of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The following day four local alumni — Tanya Aguiñiga MFA 05 FD, Michael Maltzan BArch 85, Adam Silverman BArch 88 and David Wiseman 03 FD — spoke to trustees about their work at a gathering at Aguiñiga’s studio.

Andrew Freeman BGD 02, a member of AIGA NY’s Citizen Designer Now! initiative, moderated the discussion, which included presentations by Ashleigh Axios 08 GD, Sarah Sandman MFA 09 GD, Willem van Lancker 10 GD and RISD Associate Professor of Graphic Design John Caserta. On April 12 RISD/NY hosted a very different sort of gathering: a cooking demo at the Bulthaup NY showroom to introduce Misen Cookware, a lovely new line of pots and pans designed by Joseph Guerra 12 FD and Sina Sohrab 12 FD of Visibility. And on May 21 the club helped host a special reception for alumni and students showing during NY Design Week. President Somerson spoke at the event, which took place at the Soho showroom of Henrybuilt, a company founded by Scott and Miranda Hudson BArch 88.

In Philly It may have been 11 days after the fact, but on February 25 RISD/Philadelphia hosted its much-loved Valentine’s Party at Fork Spoon Storefront, a public design studio founded by Christine Tan BArch 09 and her partner Nicholas Tazza.

In Maine On February 28 Stephen Burt 87 IL , Julie Kuceris Gray 05 PH and Lauren Rudy 04 ID hosted a gathering at Engine in Biddeford, ME. They teamed up with Tammy Ackerman, Engine’s director, to encourage area alumni to check out the community arts organization’s specialized equipment, studios and exhibition space. Find a list of club contacts at risd.edu/alumni/alumni-network.

far left: photo by Matthew Watson 09 FAV | top: photos by Robert Wade Photography

Alumni gathered last fall at Carpinteria Bluffs Nature Preserve for a Plein Air Oil Painting Workshop with wilderness buff and landscape painter Emilie Lee 04 IL (above right), who also talked about her most recent cross-country painting trip. In February several members of the RISD/LA club connected with trustees, faculty and staff who were in town for the Board of Trustees’ first-ever meeting in Los Angeles. RISD/LA co-chairs Marisa Murrow 00 PT and Liz Lanphear 04 FAV (above) welcomed guests

“RISD was founded by women, by very forward-thinking women who started the school and the museum before women even had the right to vote in the United States.” President Rosanne Somerson 76 ID

STRENGTHENING TIES IN ASIA Area alumni and other friends of RISD offered President Rosanne Somerson 76 ID a warm welcome when she visited Singapore in March. During her trip to Hangzhou, China in April, alumni got together with her at China Academy of Art, where the president spoke as part of the college’s 90th anniversary celebration.

In early March, President Rosanne Somerson 76 ID and Vice President of Institutional Engagement O’Neil Outar visited with alumni in Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai as part of a week-long trip to the region. In Singapore the president spoke at an international business conference called Brainstorm Design, visited the Singapore University of Technology and Design and enjoyed getting together with alumni and parents at the Singapore Cricket Club. “The notion of change is terrifying to most leaders of organizations,” Somerson told business leaders at the conference. But as cited in the Fortune magazine coverage of the event, design “creates pathways” for helping people manage change, the president pointed out. As always, an enthusiastic group of alumni involved in the RISD/Hong Kong club appreciated catching up with President Somerson over Sunday brunch. She also enjoyed an eye-opening tour of Hanson Robotics, the futuristic firm David Hanson 96 FAV (see page 58) runs in Hong Kong. In Shanghai Somerson visited the HOW Art Museum, met privately with several RISD supporters and spoke with corporate leaders about developments in art, design and technology. She also spoke about her work at Tongji University’s College of Design and

Innovation, where her newly created jewelry box was on display as part of Design Shanghai 2018. During a second trip to Asia in early April, Somerson traveled to Korea and China to meet with potential supporters, along with educational and corporate partners. In Seoul she spoke with representatives of Ewha Women’s University, the Korea Foundation and Hyundai, among others, and while in Hangzhou, her visits included one to NetEase, a tech company. In Hangzhou Somerson also joined China Academy of the Arts (CAA), a longtime sister school In addition, during her visit to Shanghai, Somerson and exchange program partner, in participated in an interview with International celebrating its 90th anniversary. Channel Shanghai (ICS), a local cable news outlet. The president spoke at the opening “RISD was founded by women,” Somerson told Chinese ceremony, and as she had done in viewers—“by very forward-thinking women who Korea—home to more than 500 started the school and the museum before women even RISD alumni and 108 current had the right to vote in the United States. So they were students—she also met with area very much ahead of their time, and at the heart of RISD alumni at a special reception. is this sense of empowerment for women.” // RISDXYZ

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impact

// who’s giving to risd + why

Students traveled to Morocco over Wintersession as part of a new partnership (see page 54). Ongoing programs in Rome and Seoul also offer rich cultural experiences.

SUPPORT FOR TRAVEL + MATERIALS

of their son Eric Peloquin 10 ID, who loved to explore the world. “From the sinuous and richly textured forms of nature to the cadence of the jangled, gritty city, Eric devoured the imagery and forms of the places he visited,” the Peloquins note. “These imprints fueled his imagination and gave contour to his creative process.”

Open to all students regardless of major, the Eric Peloquin Travel Award provides a grant for travelbased study focused on design, creativity and cultural understanding, enabling students who might not otherwise have the means to take advantage of travel during their years at RISD.

To learn more about these funds, please contact Sarah Sligo at 401 454-6469 or ssligo@risd.edu.

top: photo by Kendra Xu 18 GD

Building on the Social Equity and Inclusion (SEI) initiative launched in 2016, RISD is more focused than ever on raising funds in support of a diverse student body. Increasing scholarship funding is central to this effort, but so, too, is ongoing support for scholarship recipients once they’ve matriculated. Both the Materials Fund, which helps offset the additional costs of buying supplies for studio projects, and the Travel Fund, which supports access to programming around the world, are contributing enormously to opening up learning opportunities for current students. Thanks to contributions of more than $233,000, this academic year the Travel Fund helped 82 students in need participate in RISD’s semester-long programs in Rome and Seoul, along with other studio-based travel and Wintersession opportunities in Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Morocco and Portugal. “These educational experiences help students acquire new knowledge, deepen their learning and broaden their understanding of their chosen disciplines in entirely new contexts,” says Vice President of Institutional Engagement O’Neil Outar. The educational value of travel is a sentiment Ray and Virginia Peloquin fully embrace. Earlier this year they endowed a $100,000 travel fund in memory

NEW NEW DISCOVERIES DISCOVERIES IN IN DENMARK DENMARK by Gabriel Gurrera MDes 18

Earning a travel grant to visit Denmark—one of the most forward-thinking, design-centric and beautiful places I’ve ever been—felt like a dream. Every corner I turned and architectural site I visited last November seemed to reveal more depth and beauty than I could have expected and had something unique and fascinating to study—deepening my research for my thesis. While all the sites made an impression on me, the two that really inspired me most are Cisternerne, an old underground water reservoir for the city of Copenhagen that has been adaptively reused as a museum and installation art place, and Koldinghus, the ruins of a 13th-century castle

Donors Support Making Creativity and skill are only part of the making process. Access to the right materials is also essential for students to realize their vision. Since its inception in 2017, RISD’s new Materials Fund has awarded grants to more than 300 students to help bring their projects to fruition. Supported by contributions from donors, the Materials Fund meets a basic and growing need on campus. RISD welcomes gifts to the Materials Fund and others at support.risd.edu.

by Gabriel Gurrera MDes 18

“I was able to deepen my understanding... by actually touching and experiencing these sites.” that has been “restored” using new materials, sculptures and lighting to give visitors the experience of its previous grandeur. Beyond the sites I visited, the culture and people of Denmark showed that good design is a fundamental part of their culture. I’m amazed at how the mood of the spaces they inhabit is so important that they have a special word— hygge—to describe it. And I’m also amazed at the way the Danes take care of all members of their society. Thanks to the generosity of Travel Fund donors, I was able to deepen my understanding of this country and my thesis topic by actually touching and experiencing these sites. It was the trip of a lifetime.

Lasting Commitment Last spring when Rachel Doane 64 LA passed away in her home city of Louisville, KY, the longtime contributor to the RISD Annual Fund left part of her estate to RISD. This generous bequest is being used to establish a new Presidential Initiatives Fund, which will support the president’s top strategic priorities. To learn how you can help RISD through a planned gift, contact Tim Monroe at 401 454-6434 or tmonroe@risd.edu.

among the materials funded so far: 6,200+ sheets of printmaking paper 925 lbs of clay 600 sheets of photo paper 450 sheets of paper 198 pieces of lumber 102 yards of fabric 82 rolls of film 75 paintbrushes 70 sheets of cardboard 67 sheets of Plexiglas 62 dowels 38 thesis books 23 cones of yarn 1 beekeeping suit + buckets, canvas, chipboard, cork, flame retardant jackets, foam board, paint… // RISDXYZ

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looking back PLEASANTLY SURPRISED RISD is an odd and interesting place. Its wonderful mishmash of disconnected buildings dates back as far as the 17th century and mingles with residential and commercial spaces. Nonlinear and varied, the campus is full of crevices and crannies, concrete and brick. Pockets of green — at the RISD Beach, behind Woods-Gerry, above Frazier Terrace, next to Market Square — have historically inspired students to respond to the intensity of studio work by extending their creativity outdoors. Over the years, many have had fun transforming both quirky and common spaces on campus with visual surprises that delight people passing by.

Pop-up installations from different decades but with similar motivations: to surprise and delight. Through his long-running Tape Art project, Michael Townsend 93 PR added interest to campus spaces for years after graduation. A decade ago, textiles artist Liz Collins 91 TX/MFA 99 drew extra attention to Daybreak, the iconic sculpture on the RISD Beach, by stretching her boldly colored knits over the bulbous form.

// changes over time

“There’s only one rule: no words or letters. This allows people to focus on the process and to communicate through the language of pictures.”

selected photos courtesy of RISD Archives

Michael Townsend 93 PR, speaking in 1999 about his Tape Art series

In the 1960s (left), students introduced memorable interventions through an annual happening called COLAB. In 1982 they unfurled rolls of lush turf to transform Benefit Street for Take-a-Break weekend, a joyous tradition that was repeated just this spring. Foundation classes (background image and above) over the years have also produced interesting site-specific pieces.

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spring/summer 2018

moving forward 7,464

alums (28% of total) # of alumni living in New England

South Dakota state where you’re least likely to run into a RISD graduate

// undergraduate class notes

2.04

per square mile the distribution of alumni in Rhode Island, the state with the highest concentration

Melissa Ferreira 90 IL Pont-Aven, France

Anthony Belluschi BArch 66 Portland

Chaeyeon Songyi Han 01 GD

Seoul Andy Friedman 97 PT New York City

Alina Vadera 10 IA New Delhi

Gabrielle Bullock BArch 84

Los Angeles Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul BArch 84

Alejandra Laviada 03 PT Mexico City

Bangkok Ellie Schimelman 60 AE Ghana

672

total # of new alumni graduating this spring

# of different citizenships held by students now at RISD

Australia + New Zealand the two most remote places (from RISD) alumni live

alums also come from such farflung spots as: Barbados, Bolivia, Botswana, Croatia, East Malaysia, Guadeloupe, Honduras, Hungary, Iran, Malta, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Saint Vincent + the Grenadines, Romania, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Ukraine, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, NYC NYC + Brooklyn

studio

most appealing cities for RISD grads

the happiest place to be

the places mentioned most throughout this issue

Andrew Kramer BArch 65 Since retiring from a career in architecture and architectural photography, Andrew has been painting in his home studio in southwest Utah. Storm Passing at Kayenta, one of his recent works, was inspired by a photo he made from his back patio. Andrew and his wife Linda owned and operated Purple Sage Studios in the Kayenta Desert Community near St. George, UT, for several years and now paint and sell from their home studio in Ivins.

exhibition at Archivio Emily Harvey in Venice, Italy. A longtime resident of NYC, she recently moved to New Jersey.

Irene Cunin Glaser AP * (see page 4)

1963

Collaborative, wrote to remind us about the nonprofit she runs in Ghana, where she has lived for more than 30 years. “Our mission is to introduce creative people to an African culture... by organizing workshops with artisans, conducting tours to traditional villages, mentoring Ghanaian children and promoting young Ghanaian artists,” she explains.

1961

Fay Jones 57 PT Unemployed (2017, acrylic and collage on Okawara paper, diptych, each panel 72 x 39") is among the paintings on paper Fay showed in New Work, a March solo show at Russo Lee Gallery (one of two galleries that represent her) in Portland, OR. Fay Jones: At Her Own Pace, a documentary by John Forsen, offers a fascinating look at the artist’s career over six decades. She and Robert Jones 53 TC have four children and eight grandchildren and are enjoying life in Seattle, where they’ve lived since 1960.

April. She’s also happy to share her new Wikipedia page, which includes several images of her mixed-media work.

1960 Ellie Schimelman AE, founding director and program facilitator for Cross Cultural

Sas Colby PT contributed work to two group shows earlier this year: Her photostamp series Nude Running was included in Seeing Red at Gray Loft Gallery in Oakland, CA (February–March), and The Poet’s Tool—an assemblage of found objects and hand-written text about writing poetry— was part of Work by Women at the Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, NM (February–May). She’s based in Berkeley, CA.

Wilma Parker PT, a former RISD trustee, was recently appointed to the board of Hungaria Nostra, an international organization active in identifying, protecting and preserving notable examples of architecture in Hungary. Meeting with the board this spring at her historic drayhorse stables in San Francisco, she took the opportunity to unveil a bronze plaque commemorating the heroic actions of the horses that cleared Market Street after the earthquake of 1906. Wilma’s painting from a photograph of the scene was on view in the stable for the event.

1964 Three books and 70 works on paper by Elizabeth Ginsberg TX were on view in March in Patterns & Place, her solo

1966 The Sutor House in Portland, OR—a 1938 residence designed by Pietro Belluschi in the incipient Northwest Modern regional style, and renovated in 2013–15 by his son Anthony Belluschi BArch—was featured in Dwell magazine (November/December 2017). Check out author Brian Libby’s Portland Architecture blog for more coverage of how Anthony restored some of his father’s original plans and intentions for the house. A lakefront house in Sharon, CT designed in the 1990s by the multitalented Sam Posey PT was featured in a Wall Street Journal photo essay (12.28.17). The painter and architect is known internationally as a race car driver and racing commentator.

Paul O. Rawson 43 ID Still painting at age 97, Paul is exhibiting recent watercolors at the Easton [CT] Public Library through June 30. After a full and rewarding career as a designer — during which he designed the first GE Toaster Oven, the first electric curling iron for Clairol, surgical instruments still in use today and iconic products for Waring, Farberware, JC Penney, Timex, Corning and Black & Decker, among many others — he has been working in watercolor and pen and ink in the 20-plus years since retiring.

1952 Phoebe (“Bing”) Honig IL (see page 6)

1958 London Plane Tree, a work on paper by Merle Temkin TX (NYC) that’s in the collection of The RISD Museum, was included in Manual: a journal about art and its making 10, published by the museum in Please email class notes submissions to: risdxyz@risd.edu.

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KEY CURRENT MAJORS Apparel Design

Arch Architecture CR Ceramics Digital + Media

FAV Film/Animation/ Video FD

Furniture Design

Graphic Design

GL Glass IA

Interior Architecture

Industrial Design

IL Illustration JM Jewelry + Metalsmithing

1968

PH Photography

50th Reunion October 5 – 7

PT Painting PR Printmaking SC Sculpture TX Textiles

5 T H -Y E A R D E G R E E BArch Architecture MASTER’S DEGREES MA

Adaptive Reuse (Interior Architecture)

Art Education (Teaching + Learning in Art + Design)

MArch Architecture MAT Teaching MDes Design in Interior Studies MFA

Fine Arts

MID

Industrial Design

MLA Landscape Architecture FORMER MAJORS Advertising Design

AE Art + Design Education LA Landscape Architecture MD

Machine Design

MIA

Interior Architecture

Textile Chemistry

Textile Engineering

F O R M E R 5 T H -Y E A R DEGREES BGD

Graphic Design

BID

Industrial Design

BIA Interior Architecture BLA Landscape Architecture OTHER BRDD Brown/RISD Dual Degree CEC Continuing Education Certificate FS

enrolled for Foundation Studies only

* attended RISD, but no degree awarded

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Paul Housberg 75 PT/MFA 79 GL For many years Paul has collaborated with architects to create art glass installations nationwide (glassproject.com), including his first major exterior public artwork, completed in November 2017 for an office building in Charlotte, NC. Other recent projects include an installation for the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Theater in Salt Lake City and a brilliant mosaic wall for a lobby in Washington, DC. He’s based in Jamestown, RI.

1967 Linda Connor PH exhibited her extraordinary photos in Speak to the Stones, and the Stars Answer, a spring exhibition at Haines Gallery in her hometown of San Francisco. Her sublimation prints on aluminum—with subjects ranging from the moon to figures buried at Pompeii— were featured alongside sculptural work by Zhan Wang. In February and March Mary Curtis Ratcliff AE showed new mixed-media kinetic sculptures

Paula Wittner 70 PH Resistance (15 x 10") is among the 79 oil and gouache paintings Paula showed in El Mundo de Paula Wittner at La Universidad de Sonora in Hermosillo, Mexico. The April exhibition focused on small works she’s created over the past few years. Though her RISD work was in photography, she explains that “after being outside in Arizona” — she lives in Patagonia, AZ — “I couldn’t go back into the darkroom.”

in Circumference, her solo exhibition at Mercury 20 Gallery in Oakland, CA. Her work was also featured in HERE (Part 1): Berkeley Art Center’s Artists Annual (December–January); she lives nearby in the Bay Area. Pamela R. Tarbell AE showed dazzling oil paintings on canvas in Kaleidoscope, her March– April solo exhibition at Merrimack College’s McCoy Gallery in North Andover, MA. More of her work was on view this spring in juried group shows at County College of Morris in Randolph, NJ; Harrison-Lobdell Gallery in Saranac Lake, NY; and Simmons College’s Trustman Art Gallery in Boston. Pamela is based in Concord, NH, where she runs Mill Brook Gallery & Sculpture Garden.

1969 Ed Baranosky PT showed four paintings in The Spirit of the Landscapes, a group exhibition at LucSculpture gallery in his hometown of Toronto, ON. The work was on view in March and April. Connecticut-based artist Maureen McCabe IL showed small works in Assemblage, her March solo exhibition at EBK Gallery in Hartford, CT.

1970 Jeffrey Long AE (see page 13) New paintings by Andrew Stevovich PT (Northborough, MA) were on view in a May solo exhibition at Adelson Galleries, the Boston (and NYC) gallery that represents him.

Carlton Fletcher 72 PT In Memoriam (oil on linen, 40 x 50") is among the paintings Carlton showed in a four-decade retrospective at Susan Calloway Fine Arts in his hometown of Washington, DC. Still lifes, studio scenes, Potomac River views and street scenes were on view in the February – March exhibition.

1973 45th Reunion October 5 – 7 In April the Museum of Modern Art screened I, Candy (2018), a new film by Candy Kugel IL . In conjunction with the screening, the NYC-based artist discussed her career as a pioneer of animation with filmmaker and historian John Canemaker.

1975 Barbara Bernstein PR (Amherst, VA) has developed

Helen Frederick 67 IL/MFA 69 PR In February the College Art Association (CAA) presented Helen with its Distinguished Teacher of Art Award at the annual CAA conference in Los Angeles. The founder of Pyramid Atlantic Art Center for printmaking and books arts in Hyattsville, MD is a longtime advocate for the arts in the Washington, DC area and an exhibiting artist, curator, lecturer and board member for local and national art organizations.

a workshop curriculum that uses simple drawing exercises to improve concentration and awareness. Groups from a wide variety of institutions—including The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC and UVA School of Medicine in Charlottesville, VA—have participated in her Drawing Attention sessions. She was selected as the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation

Creative Fellow for 2017, which funded her residency at the Millay Colony in May 2017; in 2016 she completed a public art commission—a whimsical line design reproduced at large scale—for seven stations of the Virginia Transit System. As she did last summer, Cynthia Scott SC will have a solo show at The Front gallery

in New Orleans in July. As a member of The Front, she participated in I [love] america and america [loves] me at Box 13 Gallery in Houston (January– March). Last June her wall sculpture Greed—included in the New Orleans Museum of Art’s show Pride of Place: The Making of Contemporary Art in New Orleans—became part of NOMA’s permanent collection. She exhibited two works at New Orleans Art Center in August and had one piece each in Full House (November) and Clickbait (December) as part of The Front’s participation in the Prospect.4 triennial.

1976 Second Bloom: Cathy Graham’s Art of the Table (Vendome Press, September 2017) offers inspirational ideas from NYC-based artist Cathy Graham PT. Written by Alexis Clark, the book illustrates Cathy’s approach to everything from extraordinary floral arrangements to handmade place cards to over-the-top table settings.

Laura Gottwald 69 GD The modernist cement tiles Laura designs — manufactured by Original Mission Tile from encaustic (pigmented) cement — have won two recent awards: the top prize in hard flooring at NYCxDesign (spring 2017), and Interior Design’s 2017 BoY (best of year) Award for tile and stone design. She lives and works in NYC, where she divides her studio time between product and interior (mostly residential) design (lauragottwald.com).

cultures from around the world. More of her paintings and pastels were displayed at the Bergen County Players theater in Oradell, NJ, for the February– March run of the play Steel Magnolias. Laurie lives in nearby northern NJ, where she teaches art to adults and kids and does freelance illustration.

In January 2016 Sarah D. Haskell TX launched Well Used, Well Loved (WUWL), a community art project exploring age and impermanence. The Maine-based artist asked eight households from England to Oregon to “adopt” a handwoven linen dishtowel to use however they wished, and then periodically respond to a journal writing prompt. She also did a spinoff project involving Japanese kozo paper spun into shifu thread. Sarah’s 9/11 memorial Each One: The Button Project—her first community art piece—is currently on long-term loan to the September 11th Memorial & Museum in NYC.

John Dilg 69 PT John (Iowa City, IA) considered his relationship to the land — rife with issues of memory, regret and danger — in Deep Water Prairie, his first show in Chicago in 20 years. Devening Projects displayed the paintings in February and March.

Faces of the World, a show of 24 oil paintings by Laurie Harden IL, was on view at the Mountain Lakes [NJ] Library for the month of February. The work focused on people and

Candy Barr 74 PT/MAT 75 left: Ten oil paintings by the Vermont artist were exhibited this past winter and spring in the Burlington, VT office of US Congressman Peter Welch. Titled Vermont & Maine: Paintings on Location, the show highlighted the beauty and variety of New England. Please email class notes submissions to: risdxyz@risd.edu.

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Christian White 77 PT

EXPLORING MIND GAMES TH R E E-TI M E CALD ECOTT M E DAL WI N N E R David Wiesner 78 IL knocks

it out of the park again in I Got It!, his latest picture book (Clarion Books/ HMH, April 2018). Set in a place very recognizable to plenty of parents and kids, and wordless except for the shout-out in the title, this wonderful story about a childhood baseball game conveys all the inner drama of an outfield catch as an intense, imaginative, moment-by-moment replay.

he’d found the right situation to play out that inner monologue. “Like all of my books, it started in a sketchbook with thumbnail drawings,” Wiesner explains in a video accompanying its release. In trying to figure out how to tell the story best in 32 pages of pictures, he repeatedly makes “lots of little scribbles”— over and over. “Slowly but surely I get a sense of who the character is and the book begins to take shape.”

“Slowly but surely I get a sense of who the character is and the book begins to take shape.” Before he even landed on setting the story on the baseball field, Wiesner knew he wanted the book to capture an idea he first noticed as a child: “In your mind, there can be this very long, elaborate narrative happening that outside in the real world may take mere seconds.” Recalling the interminable moments of suspense waiting in the outfield to catch a ball (or not), he knew

The scenes in I Got It! toggle between real and imagined, as the anxious young outfielder at the heart of the story envisions “ever-increasing scenarios of all the horrible things that could go wrong.” The artist plays up the contrast between fantasy and reality with alternating approaches to painting — crisp acrylic and gouache for the scenes of real action, and looser watercolor to convey the inner turmoil of the boy who’s trying to catch the ball. As with his best pure picture books, Wiesner manages to tweak out the extraordinary in the ordinary. “Surely even capable athletes will relate to the interplay between body and mind, muscle and emotion, which I Got It! captures with beauty, fluidity, wit and suspense,” notes Bruce Handy in The New York Times. “Like René Magritte, Wiesner has a precise and realistic style that makes his leaps into the weird all the more effective.”

For more on David’s work, go to hmhbooks.com/wiesner.

Alcove Still Life (2001, oil on panel and pine, 18 x 21") and another of Christian’s paintings were featured in Fool the Eye, a trompe l’oeil survey presented by the Nassau County Museum of Art (Roslyn, NY) from November 2017 to March. Based in St. James, NY, he has exhibited at many museums on Long Island over the years, and in 2015 he was the subject of a 50-year retrospective at Gallery North in Setauket, NY.

1977 In Crosscurrents, a winter solo show at the George Bruce branch of the New York Public Library, Daniel Rosenbaum CEC (Brooklyn) exhibited acrylic paintings reminiscent of “aerial views of abstracted landscapes” and “otherworldly, dream-like visions.” Creativity runs in the Swanson family—and last November Peter Swanson FAV, his son

Adam 07 IL and his wife Christine all showed work together at Mass Audubon’s Habitat Education Center & Wildlife Sanctuary in Belmont, MA. A Moment in Time featured Peter’s photographs, Adam’s paintings and Christine’s textile work.

1978 40th Reunion October 5 – 7

Dionne (Giglio) Pia 80 PT Love and Devotion, Dionne’s exploration of Persian miniature painting, ran in the September show Visual Narratives at the Loft Artists Association in Stamford, CT (near where she lives in Weston). Last fall she also exhibited a vivid acrylic and collage piece in the Ridgefield [CT] Guild of Artists’ 40th Annual Juried Show, where it received honorable mention.

Jim Butler 78 PT Synaptic Reverb, Jim’s recent one-person show at Tibor De Nagy Gallery in NYC, featured five new paintings like the one shown on the back cover — Synaptic X-Ray (2017, oil on canvas, 66 x 90") — and Siren (right, 2017, oil on panel, 13 x 19"), which are all based on his hand-blown glass figures. “I exploit the material’s hypnotic optics to create visual perceptions simultaneously fluid and concrete,” he explains. A professor of art at Middlebury [VT] College since the 1980s, Jim is a resident artist at Corning [NY] Museum of Glass this year.

Katherine Kean FAV contributed oil paintings to Four Million Angels, an exhibition featuring the work of five Los Angeles artists at the Annenberg Community Beach House in Santa Monica, CA. On view from January to April, the exhibition looked at “the people who fill the streets of Santa Monica on a sunny day.”

1979 As show creator and executive producer for The Handmaid’s Tale—now in its second season on Hulu—Ilene Chaiken GD and a team of writers won the 2018 Writer’s Guild of America award for best drama series. Based in Los Angeles, she has worked as a writer, director and

executive producer for such shows as Empire, Black Box and The L Word. Ilene is also a member of RISD’s recently formed President’s Alumni Advisory Council and is an advocate for women and the LGBTQ community in

Hollywood. She’s currently the executive producer on two upcoming TV movies, one of which is a sequel to The L Word. Susanne Henry ID (see page 5) In spring 2017 the Brazilian magazine Healthcare Management recognized Scott Slotterback BArch as one of the 100 most influential people in healthcare worldwide. As the policy director for global green and healthy hospitals for the organization Health Care Without Harm,

the San Francisco-based architect won the award for his international work in environmental sustainability for healthcare facilities.

1980 Check out Herman Miller’s online WHY magazine for an

article by Carol Catalano ID, principal of Boston’s Catalano Design studio (catalano.design). The product and furniture designer discusses her early explorations of molded plywood and recent forays into new technologies including 3D printing.

Jean Blackburn 79 PT Jean stacked, joined and altered 12 wooden tables for Feed, her winter installation at Pierogi gallery in NYC. For the “rectilinear meander” that weaves through the forms, she cut material from the tables and milled it into strips: “Suggestive of rooms, architecture, diagrams, hierarchies and relationships, this meander creates a weave of interconnections and dependencies,” the gallery notes. Jean is a longtime professor of Illustration at RISD.

Andrew Schwartz 79 PH left: Twenty-plus years into his career as a unit still photographer for motion pictures — and with more than 50 films under his belt — Andrew was honored last year with the International Cinematographers Guild Publicists Award for Excellence in his field. He joined Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Katzenberg and other luminaries of film at an awards ceremony in Beverly Hills, CA in February 2017. A still from When Harry Met Sally is shown here; over the course of his career Andrew also shot Men in Black, Fatal Attraction and many other blockbusters. Please email class notes submissions to: risdxyz@risd.edu.

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Jeff Quinn 86 PT Elements (40 x 42") is among Jeff’s recent works on view in Unreal Estate, a two-person show (through June 30) at Kabinett Gallery in Newton, MA. When he’s not painting “worlds that seem a cross between a Japanese landscape and some undiscovered planet” (as the NY Daily News put it), he teaches drawing and painting at Parsons in NYC.

1982 Nantasket, an acrylic-oncanvas diptych by Linda (Zigman) Kosoff PT, was included in the show Thunder of Meaning (August 2017) at Los Angeles Art Association/ Gallery 825 in West Hollywood, CA. She lives in nearby Woodland Hills.

1981 Centenary—a selection of paintings Trine Bumiller PR created in response to a residency in Rocky Mountain National Park—was shown in March and April at Gallery 81435 in Telluride, CO. Three

of her paintings were chosen for the inaugural group exhibition that greeted guests at the March grand opening of Denver’s Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art; she also contributed work to Pink Progression, a trio of shows

(March–August) about the Women’s Marches, at the Boulder and Denver libraries and the Center for Visual Art (also in Denver, where Trine is based). In April she was thrilled to work on new projects during a residency at Brush Creek in Wyoming. Susan Doyle IL/MFA 98 PT/PR (see page 56)

Eric Wolf 82 PH left: In homage to RISD’s extraordinary trove of natural specimens, Eric organized and curated The Nature Lab, a multimedia exhibition of contemporary nature-focused work by 92 artists, including Ricky Boscarino 82 JM , Scott Cohen BArch 83 , Alberto de Braud 83 PH , Jay Feinberg 82 AP, Mark Giglio 84 PT, Benjamin Herndon MFA 16 PR and Lawre Stone 82 PT, whose piece Sunflower Dawn is shown here. The salon-style installation was on view in February and March at LABspace in Hillsdale, NY (near his home in Hudson Valley) as part of the Nature Lab’s year-long 80th anniversary celebration. Eric’s Maine Paintings are on view through June 16 at Gregory Lind Gallery in San Francisco. 72

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For Fans & Interactions, a winter 2018 show at Tambaran gallery in NYC, Frances Middendorf IL worked with perfumer Leonardo Opali to explore the potential of multisensory storytelling. (One collaborative piece paired her depiction of Neptune in a lemon garden with Opali’s fragrance of water and lemon.) Work by William J. Middendorf (Frances’ father) and printmaker Kim Gatesman was also on view.

1983 35th Reunion October 5 – 7

1984 Gabrielle Bullock BArch, a longtime principal at Perkins+Will in Los Angeles, has been named president of the International Interior Design Association. In that

role, her first order of business is to advocate for more diversity and inclusion in the architectural fields. More than 50 paintings and studies by Steven Kenny IL were on view recently at Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art on the Tarpon Springs [FL] campus of St. Petersburg College. Internal Landscapes: The Mysterious World of Steven Kenny ran from January– April. Steven lives nearby— in St. Petersburg. Lily Prince PT exhibited paintings in March and April in Recurring Waves of Arrival, her solo show at Littlejohn Contemporary in NYC. She’s thrilled that Jacquie Littlejohn 76 TX is now representing her. Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul BArch is now the new vice chair of the board at Kasikorn Bank in Thailand, where she also serves on the prime minister’s Special Advisory Committee. In the past she has worked as minister of tourism and sports, vice chair of the Thai Chamber

Mary Jane Begin 85 IL Just in time for her December 2017 lecture and book tour in China, Mary Jane got word that her book Willow Buds, The Tale of Toad and Badger had been selected for the country’s prestigious Bing Xin Children’s Literature Award. Four of her books have been recently translated into Mandarin: two Willow Buds stories, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Before I Go to Sleep. In addition to her freelance work, Mary Jane teaches illustration at RISD.

TRIBUTE TO WORKERS AS ON E OF MANY LOCAL ARTI STS who once

of Commerce and president of the Thai-Japanese Association, among other positions.

1985 Huma Bhabha PR (see page 12) Surface Tension, an exhibition of encaustic reliefs and wraps by Stephanie Roberts-Camello PT, was held at the Cotuit [MA] Center for the Arts in March and April. Artscope magazine published a feature on her work that coincided

Marcellus Hall 87 IL Kaleidoscope City (March 2018, Bittersweet Editions) — his first graphic novel, “years in the making” — is a meditation on romance and connection, unfolding through four seasons and five boroughs. Marcellus himself is based in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and is busy as both a musician and an illustrator.

with the show (March/April 2018 issue). Earlier this year Stephanie’s work was also included in We the People, an invitational at the James Library in Norwell, MA. She’s based in Pembroke, MA.

Michael Sloan IL (see page 43)

1986 Peter L. Brown IL (New Milford, NJ) served as executive producer for Perplexed Music, a film written and directed by Mark McGann. Exploring “the temporary madness and isolation of a middle-aged man as he battles for reason and stability,” the Kickstarter-funded short has won top honors at Red Corner Film Festival in Sweden and the LA Shorts Awards. Patti “Fleck” Edwards IL presented at the National Art Education Association convention in Seattle as part of the Women’s Caucus exhibition session. Her paintings express “equality and women’s equity” through an “expressive use of color and gesture,” she notes. She is a senior art lecturer at Old Dominion University Virginia Beach [VA].

had studios in The Foundry complex in Providence, Peter Diepenbrock BID 84 “knows the place inside and out,” as he puts it. His early years of practice as a sculptor unfolded on the 26-acre industrial site, where 13 former factory buildings along the Woonasquatucket River now house commercial and residential space. Today the imposing brick structure off the western edge of I-95 is known as The Promenade Apartments. But for several decades around the turn of the 20th century it housed the Brown & Sharpe clock and instrument factory — one of the many companies that made Providence a vital manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution. Fast-forward to 2016. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of The Foundry’s rebirth in post-industrial Providence, Diepenbrock — known for his site-sensitive sculptural work for public spaces and private commissions — proposed mounting an enormous clock on the building’s northeastern corner as a tribute to the workers who kept Rhode Island humming a century ago. Once the project got the go-ahead, the sculptor — who now works out of his island studio in Jamestown, RI — enlisted James Androuais of Americlock to fabricate the custom timepiece. Watching The Foundry Clock Man being hoisted and installed atop The Promenade last fall was “thrilling,” Diepenbrock says. “You can’t imagine.” At 12’ high and 9,000 lbs, it’s a suitably impressive reminder of Providence’s industrious past.

Ruth-Anne Siegel 86 GD The Ghost Lingers (acrylic and collage, 18 x 24") and other vibrant abstract floral paintings were on view in Oil & Water, a two-woman show in February at Gallery House in Ruth-Anne’s hometown of Palo Alto, CA. Please email class notes submissions to: risdxyz@risd.edu.

See more of Peter’s work at peterdiepenbrock.com.

Kim Powell 91 IL

In France Melissa thrives on “the constant stimulation... and the sheer beauty of the place.”

above: Sixteen years into a “six-month visit” to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, Kim continues to find inspiration in the colors and contrasts of her adopted home. In March and April she exhibited paintings including Legorreta Gallo (oil on canvas, 40 x 40 cm) in a solo show at the city’s Imagine Gallery (kimpowellart.com). “It is my hope that the paintings exude a sense of lightness of being and a joy of life,” she says. “Mexico heals my soul and I wanted to pay homage to that.”

FOLLOWI NG I N TH E FOOTSTE PS

of many accomplished artists before her, Melissa Ferreira 90 IL fell in love with Pont-Aven — a picturesque town in the French province of Brittany — the first summer she taught there. In 2002 former RISD professor Caroline Boyle-Turner invited her to teach figure drawing and illustration at the PontAven School of Contemporary Art (PASCA), which she had founded as a summer venture. And three years later, when Boyle-Turner expanded PASCA to a year-round operation, she urged her friend to succumb to the inevitable and relocate from Rhode Island — where the illustrator was freelancing, teaching at RISD and maintaining a studio. For someone who hadn’t even boarded a plane until she was 25, the move from New England to small-town France was a big adjustment. But Ferreira not only loved the place, she could feel her creativity blossoming “away from all the familiar norms that I contained and that had also contained me.” Put simply, she thrives on the “constant stimulation in the environment — the Breton and French languages, the cultural references, the extraordinary light and the sheer beauty of the place.”

When PASCA, which had initially drawn her to Pont-Aven, closed in 2013, “everything changed,” Ferreira says, including her financial stability. But she had made her home in the town and wanted to stay. Before long she established a business under the arts association La Maison des Artistes, setting up shop in a tiny space off the main road in Pont-Aven where she sells her work and runs workshops. The combination — along with the Wintersession courses she continues to teach at RISD — allows her to get by, but few luxuries. “I possess a lousy business mind,” Ferreira admits with a smile. She’s gearing up to launch a Patreon presence, but says: “Money has just never been a priority for me.” Instead, she enjoys a different kind of prosperity. “I live on a hill and look to the night sky before signing off to sleep. I listen to the owls, then hours later have coffee with songbirds.” Most importantly, her work offers the rewards of “making images and objects that please me, and guiding others as they discover creative play.” Life in small-town Brittany may not be the fast lane, Ferreira reflects — but it suits her and it feeds her creative hunger. “And the crêpes ain’t too bad either,” she says.

For more on Melissa’s work go to melissaferreira.net.

John DeVore 88 IL 2017 was a banner year for DeVore Fidelity, the audio speaker company John founded in 2000 (a while after building his first pair of speakers at RISD). Built by hand in Brooklyn, DeVore speakers enjoy an international reputation in the niche high-end market, and last year their success was capped by the top honor in the industry: Stereophile’s Speaker of the Year award (among other awards and recognition from Audiophilia, AudioStream, Part-Time Audiophile and Rocky Mountain International HiFi Press).

top, far left: photo by Scott Davis

MOVED BY BRITTANY

Kimberly Becker 90 TX

Charles Stone III 88 IL Netflix released Step Sisters, Charles’ latest film, in January. The comedy starring Megalyn Echikunwoke focuses on competitive step dancing in black sororities and fraternities: “I just skimmed the surface of black Greek life in Drumline,” he noted about his 2002 film. “Step Sisters gave me a chance to delve deep into the art of competitive stepping.”

1988 30th Reunion October 5 – 7 Kim DeMarco IL welcomed last winter with a cover for the New Yorker (12.4.17). She says of the snowy NYC scene: “A bundled-up guy passed me on a deserted street of the Village,” biking home with a “fresh, hot pie, late at night, just when it was starting to snow. I love these New York moments.” She’s now based in Los Angeles— where “we celebrate Thanksgiving in 90-degree weather.” Adam Silverman BArch 88 showed ceramic work in Fantômes, a spring solo exhibition at Pierre Marie Giraud gallery in Brussels. The artist is based in Los Angeles.

1990 In Evidence & Remains, a fall 2017 exhibition at David Weeks

Studio in Tribeca, NYC, Patrick Keesey PT “explored the limits of drawing” through dark colors on black paper, while David Weeks PT allowed a glimpse into his design process, showing some of the 3D sketches, material explorations and models behind his self-produced collection of objects and installations. John Mathot FAV (Los Angeles) is a director on the animated TV series Twelve Forever for Puny Entertainment, which will debut on Netflix in 2019. Created by Julia Vickerman, the series centers on 12-year-old Reggie, whose desire to remain a child is so powerful it creates a fantasy world in which she never has to grow up. Visit YouTube to see the pilot.

1991 New Caribbean and floralthemed mixed-media works by Providence-based artist Carolina Arentsen IL were on display at the Block Island [RI] Airport earlier this year. Light & Space, an exhibition of work by Melissa McGill SC and David Weeks 90 PT, was shown at David’s Tribeca studio in March and April. His lighting interacted with Melissa’s 100 Breaths, a series of 100 unique works of metallic dust and varnish on paper.

right: Kimberly presented her series House Dresses — the final project of her MFA thesis program at Heartwood College of Art in Biddeford, ME — as a show-within-a-show at A Woman’s Place, a winter exhibition (which she curated) of 13 women artists at Belmont [MA] Gallery of Art. The dresses are cotton organdy and silk organza, she explains, “with a painting of a house on the front and a story embroidered on the back. Each dress is about a real woman and her story of a moment when she was subjected to an injustice due to being born female.”

lux, a solo show of paintings by Mel Prest PT (San Francisco), is up through June 16 at Galleri Urbane in Dallas. In April she exhibited with five other artists in Flower Power at Garvey Simon gallery in NYC. In April 2017 Arlene Wilson TX had a fundraising solo show at a private residence in her home city of Nashville, TN. She sold several paintings and raised $3,400 for the Nashville Tree Foundation. With champagne “and a barefoot cello player whom I paid with one of my paintings, it was a blast worthy of Music City,” she says.

1992 Operating the “#1 Boston design firm in North Carolina,” GJ Nelson GD (gjnelson.com) is pleased to report that his graphic design business has not suffered in the least since he relocated to Greensboro, NC in 2013. Among the reasons for his move: “The great expense of living in Boston, and our love of supporting nonprofit organizations through discounted and donated work. Greensboro is

about 1/4 the living expenses,” he reports. Retaining a number of Boston-based clients, GJ says: “I drive up and down a few times a year. Sometimes I say I live in North Carolina and work in Boston.”

In March and April Sonya Sklaroff PT showed New York Portraits Part VI: Metropolis in Repose at Galerie Sparts in Paris. She works from her studio in NYC.

Kamilla Talbot 90 GD Though they met at RISD in 1989 and both made their way to NYC after graduating, Kamilla and Ronnie Peters MFA 90 GD only reconnected last year, thanks to the magic of social media. Ronnie is now a digital designer and a principal at 360 Design; he and his partner Susan Sakin also use their storefront studio space in lower Manhattan as a pop-up gallery. In March they hosted Inland Sea, a solo exhibition of Kamilla’s oil paintings and works on paper. She divides her time between her Brooklyn studio and the Catskills, traveling and painting as much as time and grants will allow. Please email class notes submissions to: risdxyz@risd.edu.

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Paul Attemann BArch 94 As a senior associate at Union Studio Architecture & Community Design in Providence, Paul was delighted that AIA Rhode Island awarded the firm top honors (a 2017 AIA RI Design Award) for its work on the WaterRower World Manufacturing Headquarters in Warren, RI. He served as project architect for the new 30,000-sf building and oversaw renovations to the existing facility, aiming to increase energy efficiency while cutting down on waste from the company’s manufacturing process.

1993 25th Reunion October 5 – 7 A longtime member of the Admissions team at RISD, Lucy Bourgeault SC began a new job this spring as director of admissions and financial aid at Vermont College of Fine Arts, a low-residency graduate school in Montpelier. Liza Jernow AP is happy to report that “creativity translates across mediums”— including vegetables, grains and all the other ingredients she works with as a NYC-based food stylist, recipe developer and cofounder of Wild Apple Journal, a website for foodies

Grace Lin 96 IL In A Big Mooncake for Little Star (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers), a new picture book due out at the end of August, Grace spins a whimsical tale about the phases of the moon in words and gorgeous illustrations. And 12 years after publishing her first novel, The Year of the Dog, she was excited for its re-release in May — perfectly timed for the current year in the Chinese zodiac. The 2018 edition (also Little, Brown) features new behind-the-scenes material and “even better, a photo of an Asian girl right smack in the middle of the cover!” 76

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living gluten-free. With clients including Martha Stewart, Epicurious and NYC Restaurant Week, Liza has mastered the art of the “perfectly placed pea,” as she puts it. Eleven of the 13 local businesses selected by DESIGNxRI for its 2018 Providence Design Catalyst awards are run by RISD alumni, including Wild Power Games, the Providence-based board game company recently launched by Ryan Lesser IL and Jennifer Hrabota-Lesser 94 IL . Other alumni entrepreneurs benefitting from the support are Lisa Foster MIA 12 (Reconstructure), Laura Moss MArch 12 (Functional Aesthetic

Design+Build), Greg Nemes MArch 12 (Work-Shop Design Studio), John O’Keefe MLA 09 (Sealand Design), jewelry makers Julia Sullivan 10 PR (RA HA) and Tzu-Ju Chen 00 JM , printmaker Alexander Carlisle 10 PR (Sawtooth Editions), Buck Hastings 06 PT (Providence Painted Signs), Conor Oberlander 16 ID (Ambo Studios) and Eliza Squibb 13 TX (Upriver Downriver). Dave Mullins IL (see page 17) Dave TenEyck IL (see page 4)

1994 After years working for architectural firms in Los Angeles and Toronto (where he’s now based), Robert Glennie BArch is working on his own as a licensed architect. He took inspiration from Tommy Landau AIA to design The Tommy, a speculative starter home that addresses the need for low-cost, sustainable living in city centers. He has also returned to fine art,

Lindsay Packer 96 TX In Day for Night, her January–February immersive installation at Transmitter in Brooklyn (where she lives), Lindsay created “luminous, temporary geometries that called into question the divisions between analog and digital ways of seeing,” she explains. “Site, movement, chance and improvisation determined composition and color.”

“wanting to explore composition again and develop a new vocabulary for future work.” Robert’s most recent painting show was Art for Planners, held in summer 2015 at The ARTS Project in London, Ontario. Matilsha Marxuach CR (see pages 34-35)

As creative director of the 12th annual PhotoNOLA festival in New Orleans, Jennifer Shaw PH masterminded the four-day event in December 2017 that brought 65 exhibitions to her hometown, along with workshops, portfolio reviews and other fun (and free) events open to the public.

Andy Friedman 97 PT

Benjamin Sears 96 IL Capacity Crowd (charcoal and mixed media on paper, 22 x 28") is one of the recent drawings Benjamin exhibited in Excavations, his April solo show at UMass Amherst’s Hampden Gallery. He lives in nearby Granby, MA.

Almost Home, the first major exhibition for Do-Ho Suh PT on the East Coast, features large-scale, hand-sewn recreations of past homes in cities around the world, along with drawings and a series of replicas of household objects (Specimens). The Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC is hosting the installation through August 5.

1995 Certified speleologist Nick De Pace BArch (who’s also a critic in RISD’s Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Interior Architecture departments) and a small team of experts are working in Newport, RI to study a subterranean stone structure believed to be significant to the settlement of the city in 1639. Check out historic newportspring.org for the latest findings. Elaine Isaak SC—writing in Nashua, NH as E.C. Ambrose— is delighted to announce the publication of Elisha Daemon (February 2018, DAW), the fifth and final volume in her Dark

Phillip K. Smith III BArch (cover + pages 36–41) Lothar Windels BID (see page 11)

After doing his first editorial illustrations for The New Yorker in 1999, Andy began a thriving career “drawing caricatures of cultural luminaries for nearly every newspaper and magazine in the country.” In 2002 he left the magazine for a three-year stint on the road as a “Slideshow Poet” and in 2006 started playing guitar and touring as a singer-songwriter. Despite major problems with carpal tunnel syndrome, the NYC-based artist is now contributing illustrated reportage to The New Yorker again (as in these images from The Imperfect Michelangelo, covering the recent show at The Met). This year Andy is also finishing a book of essays and drawings and finalizing three new albums.

Apostle series of historical fantasy novels about medieval surgery. The books follow “the harrowing journey of Elisha, a barber-surgeon in 14thcentury England who discovers he has an unnatural affinity with Death,” she explains. Library Journal describes the work as “painfully elegant, beautifully told.”

1996 Lindsey Adelman Studio, the lighting design firm Lindsey Adelman ID runs in NYC, partnered with Artsy in March to host a benefit auction for the poverty-fighting organization Robin Hood Foundation. Lindsey is also a founding member of the recently established RISD President’s Alumni Advisory Council. Rafael de Cárdenas AP and his multidisciplinary NYC design firm are the subject of a new book from Rizzoli: Rafael de Cárdenas/Architecture at Large (October 2017). He discussed his practice and the first decade of AAL at Maison&Objet Paris, an international design fair held in January.

Please email class notes submissions to: risdxyz@risd.edu.

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Jonathan Bogarín 00 PT 306 Hollywood, a wonderful magical realist documentary made by Jonathan and his sister Elan, premiered on opening night at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. The 94-minute feature — based on a sort of archeological excavation of the things in their late grandmother’s home in New Jersey — is the first full-length documentary for the pair. The film will appear in theaters in the fall. For more, see @306Hollywood on Facebook and Instagram.

Anna Schuleit Haber 98 PT left: 032 Moorsprugger’s Mistake (mixed media on paper, 34 ¾ x 72") is among the paintings in SCIENTIFIC PURPOSES (In which a murderous hairdresser donates his head to science, with one restriction), a March – April solo show at Abigail Ogilvy Gallery in Boston. Inspired by a short fiction collection by Thomas Bernhard, the 10 abstract works on linen and paper evoke the writer’s “obsession with intrigue, political corruption, trauma and urban mystery,” the curator notes.

1998

recently promoted to retake director—a title she shares with Andrew McPhail 98 IL and Gabe DeFrancesco 96 IL . In October Karen became president of the executive board of The Animation Guild (TAG), the union that represents 4,400+ artists and writers in the Los Angeles

20th Reunion October 5 – 7

Sophie Stone 09 PT, whose textile work was on view in March.

In the three years since they opened Safe Gallery in Brooklyn (safegallery.biz), Sarah Welsh Elliott FAV and Pali Kashi 01 PT have hosted shows by several RISD alumni—most recently

Now that she’s been working on The Simpsons for half its run (since 2003), animator Karen Carnegie Johnson IL is pleased to report that she doesn’t “feel like a newbie anymore.” In fact, she was

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Maegan Fee Gaffey 01 TX Parents Maegan and Josh (and proud big sister Esme Vivienne, age 3) were delighted to welcome Fiona Elizabeth Gaffey to the family on December 1, 2017. They all recently moved from Boston to Westport, CT.

animation industry. Check out her articles in recent issues of TAG publications Keyframe (Winter 2018) and Pegboard (March 2018). She and her husband, comic book illustrator Drew Edward Johnson, have two kids: Cole (9) and Quinn (5).

Artist and educator Clara Lieu IL is continuing to build ArtProf.org, a free video-based educational portal she launched last year with help from other members of the RISD community. “It’s a little bit Antiques Roadshow, in terms of the interactive critiques, and, of course, a little bit Bob Ross,” she says in a story on Artsy (3.19.18). Clara is a longtime critic in Experimental and Foundation Studies at RISD.

1999 Brooklyn-based artist Glen Baldridge PR showed new drawings and paintings last fall in Dream Burner, a solo show at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery in NYC. His striking

Lili Maya 03 GD/MFA 05 DM Working together as Maya + Rouvelle, Lili and James Rouvelle created Pulse, Drift, Ping, Echo — an installation of handmade glass, neodymium magnets, electromagnets and electronics — for The Senses: Design Beyond Vision. The group show examining “how multisensory design amplifies everyone’s ability to receive information, explore the world, satisfy essential needs and experience joy and wonder” is on view at the Cooper Hewitt in NYC through October 28. Lily is based in Baltimore.

new work combines saturated color, marbleized texture and partially hidden cryptic phrases. He’s also represented in Un/Settled at the RISD Museum (through July 8), and recently showed alongside his NYC studio mate Alex Dodge 01 PT in PAIR at the Pizzuti Collection in Columbus, OH (November 2017–April 2018).

2000 As art director for Portfolio/ Penguin, Chris Sergio GD (NYC) oversaw the creation of Oh, The MEETINGS You’ll Go To! (April 2017)—a darkly comic parody of the Dr. Seuss classic Oh, The Places You’ll Go! With text by an anonymous “Dr. Suits”

sews adorable stuffed Ukrainian food pillows) in her San Francisco studio.

For Off Season, his winter residency project at Halsey McKay Gallery in East Hampton, NY, David Kennedy Cutler PT “swapped the stereotype of the Hamptons as leisure destination for an alternate universe and illustrations by Zohar Lazar, where he was the sole resident, the book is both an affectionate laboring to sustain himself tribute to Seuss and an acerbic during the coldest months of look at the world of work. the year,” the gallery explained. David’s avatar—a “digitally 2001 produced skin-suit depicting Adrianna Bamber IL was the artist’s idealized self”— inspired by childhood “haunted the unforgiving winter memories to write, illustrate landscape” from January to and publish her first children’s March and performed a series book: My Ukrainian American of arduous tasks. Story (October 2017), a “glimpse Yutaka Sho LA (see page 13) into the customs, dance, food, craft, music and holiday traditions passed down from generations of Ukrainians.” She creates illustrations (and

2003 15th Reunion October 5 – 7

Rachel Scheinfeldt 99 SC/MArch 06 Two of Rachel’s 11 x 14" silver gelatin prints are on view through June 29 in Red Light, part of the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival exhibition at Lonsdale Gallery in Toronto.

Sarah Weinberg Gratz BArch and her husband Ricky welcomed their third daughter on July 21, 2017. Eve Shoshana Gratz and her big sisters Julia Eden (age 6) and Rena Pearl (age 3) are now one big happy family living in Baltimore. Zaneta Hong ID (see page 13) Apologies to Katy Horan IL for being so bewitched that we printed images from her wonderful new book Literary Witches a full decade off from her actual class year in the previous issue (Winter 2018, page 85).

Jane Kim PR (see page 15) Chandler O’Leary IL (see pages 96–97) Wowing both critics and crowds with their 5'30" film Negative Space, Max Porter FAV and Ru Kuwahata took top honors—the Grand Prix Short award and the audience award—at MONSTRA, the Lisbon [Portugal] Animated Film Festival in March. Max will return to RISD’s FAV department in the fall as a full-time faculty member.

Airlie Anderson 00 IL + Barbara DiLorenzo 98 IL With a new picture book apiece, these New Jersey-based author-illustrators were thrilled to do a double book signing in April at the legendary NYC bookstore Books of Wonder. Airlie’s Neither (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, February 2018) and Barbara’s Quincy: The Chameleon Who Couldn’t Blend In (Little Bee, April 2018) are both bright, appealing tales about the challenges of fitting in. Please email class notes submissions to: risdxyz@risd.edu.

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Jess Wainer 04 GL

Alejandra Laviada 03 PT Alejandra’s photographs are on view through June 17 in the group show Reveal and Detonate (Develar y Detonar) at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC. Based in Mexico City, she was also one of the 19 photographers featured in Point/Counterpoint: Contemporary Mexican Photography at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego (November 2017 – April).

2003 continued Always, Sometimes, Never, an exhibition of conceptual work by Tavares Strachan GL, the

NYC-based artist and new RISD trustee, was on view from January – April at the Frye Museum in Seattle. This year

Keri King 05 IL

he was also appointed the first artist-in-residence at the Allen Institute, a nonprofit scientific research organization in Seattle where he’s working with the Frontier Group. In addition, Tavares continues an ongoing project with SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space exploration research venture. Last fall, in recognition of her work as a stylist for Victoria’s Secret, Maybelline and celebrity fashionistas such as Gigi and Bella Hadid, Kaia Gerber and Taylor Hill, Revolve named NYC-based designer Elizabeth Sulcer AP stylist

of the year at its inaugural Revolve Awards celebration in Los Angeles.

2004 Nick Marcoux FAV served as cinematographer, editor and technical director on Seamless Work, a video installation presented in February and March at Slater Mill in

Pawtucket, RI. The threescreen production was a contemporary interpretation of the city’s textiles factories on any given day. Nick is a freelance cinematographer and editor, as well as filmmaker in residence at Trinity Academy for the Performing Arts in Providence.

Shara Hughes 04 PT Surprise Anxiety, an exhibition of dreamy, jewel-toned monotypes — including this one, Outsider (2018, monotype with oil-based ink, 38.5 x 29") — was presented in March and April at Pace Prints in NYC. Shara lives and works in Brooklyn.

bottom, far left: photo by Erin X. Smithers

Keri had a blast designing the sets for The Skin of Our Teeth, Thornton Wilder’s play staged by the Wilbury Theatre Group in Providence (January – February). And the actors clearly had a great time working within her clever designs, including a stage that shifts from proscenium-style to boardwalk right in the middle of the action. The multidisciplinary artist/designer (shown here onstage with (l-r) technical director Justin Carroll and lighting designer Andy Russ) also created the posters for the theater company’s 2017–18 season.

Jess has built an art business (jesswainer.com) designing and fabricating custom chandeliers and sculptures for residential and business clients around the Bay Area in California. For the past two years, she has worked full-time on a residential lighting project in Atherton, CA, working closely and collaboratively with the owners of the home on eight custom pieces.

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including Emily Pelstring FAV, whose short film Insect Express won honorable mention in the Canadian Animation category. Also selected for screening were films by three 2017 graduates: Mimi by Jeffrey Hsueh IL, Lotus Lantern by Xingpei (Calvin) Shen FAV and Super Catball Ultra by Ali Jafri FAV. Working in collaboration with OLEDworks, the lighting design team at Rich Brilliant Willing (headed by Theo Richardson FD, Charles Brill FD and Alex Williams FD) presented a conceptual display at the March 2018 Light + Building trade fair in Frankfurt, Germany. The seamless, malleable fabric housing they developed incorporated two emerging technologies: OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes) and 3D knitting.

Looking into the Future, a digital montage by RI-based artist Thomas Terceira CEC, was selected as the cover image for the Fall 2018 issue of the poetry journal Rattle.

2007 Alison Blackwell IL (see page 3) Keep the Change—a marvelous romantic comedy written and directed by Rachel Israel FAV and co-produced by Ryan Cunningham 02 FAV—began its theatrical run in selected US cinemas in March. Focusing on a high-functioning autistic man (played by Brandon Polanksy) and featuring a cast of actors on the spectrum, it won Best US Narrative Film at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival, where Rachel also took home the Best New Narrative Director award.

Stephanie C. Silverman 04 FD Molly Lowe 05 PT For her Hammer Projects show at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles (January – May), Molly created a series of painted portraits and a sculptural installation addressing the ways social and popular media affect our perception of reality. Her subjects include strangers she obsessively tracked down “meandering rabbit holes” on the internet and then painted “for hours, days and weeks,” explains the Brooklyn-based artist.

Katherine Roy IL (see page 14)

2005 In her recent solo show How the West Was Won, Regina Mamou PH used printmaking techniques to delve into “ideology as it manifests

through religion, politics, authoritarian structures, charismatic mass movements, utopias and dystopias.” The work was on view in January and February in twin exhibitions at Bert Green Fine Art (Chicago) and Adjunct

Positions (Los Angeles, where she lives). Emily Snedden Yates CR co-curated Woven Strands: The Art of Human Hair Work, an exhibition of stunning Victorian decorative art using hair that’s on view through September 16 at Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum, where she works as special projects manager. In conjunction with the intriguing exhibition, Emily helped produce a catalogue and organize a symposium and sold-out workshop.

As the first female lead for the Family-in-Residence program at the Delaware Art Museum, Stephanie worked with her husband and daughter to design and implement Creative Power, an interactive installation for the museum’s Kids’ Corner. Her digital portraits of artists — primarily of women and minorities represented in the museum’s collection (but also others, including Dale Chihuly MFA 68 CR ) — are a highlight of the installation, which opened in April and will remain on view for a year. Stephanie teaches art and design at the Tatnall School in Wilmington, DE.

2006 Renata Fenton ID (see pages 30–31) Enrique Lomnitz ID (see pages 30–31) Held last September in the Canadian capital, the 2017 Ottawa International Animation Festival featured films by several alumni,

Noah Breuer 04 PR left: Tatra Tassel (woodcut, screenprint and UV-reactive dye on linen and raw silk, 40 x 40") is one of the pieces Noah showed in Lucerna, his February solo exhibition at Left Field Gallery in San Luis Obispo, CA. Please email class notes submissions to: risdxyz@risd.edu.

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TROPICAL ALLURE

“If somehow I can use my business ethics to demonstrate that [respecting local tradition] is important, perhaps that will be a cue for others to do the same.”

I F M IAM I WE R E A CANVAS , Nick Mahshie 07 PT would paint it. The locally born artist has always been inspired by his lush surroundings. As a teenager, his paintings were filled with brilliant color: “Bird Road tire shops, palm trees, lizards, cleavage — it was always about Miami,” he says. Even after he left — first to attend RISD and later to live in Buenos Aires — Mahshie maintained his tropicalia aesthetic. As a performance artist known as Tranqui Yanqui — a play on the Latin word tranquilo and the Argentine version of gringo — he frequently constructed immersive installations that included a bevy of locals donning Tranqui Yanqui’s signature look: verdant tropical landscapes and kitsch iconography painted on cardboard and fashioned into clothing. After leaving Buenos Aires to attend grad school at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Mahshie decided his venerable Tranqui brand would have a home in Miami as Tranqui Prints, a sustainable screenprinting studio offering custom, hand-printed textiles for an array of projects. His vision for the brand draws on Miami’s complicated relationship with its own growth. When Mahshie returned to the Magic City after nearly 15 years, he was awed by its evolution but disturbed to find that gentrification was rapidly consuming its most impoverished neighborhoods. “How do you act when you feel Cultivated Image, inspired by the detritus left after Hurricane Irma hit Florida in 2017, was on view this spring at Arts Warehouse in Delray, FL.

like in some ways you’re part of the problem?” he wondered. “I didn’t grow up in Little Haiti, and now I want to buy here and live here and start a business here…. If somehow I can use my business ethics to demonstrate that [respecting local tradition] is important, perhaps that will be a cue for others to do the same.” Mahshie is now working exclusively with Little Haiti business owners to source fabrics and execute his smaller design projects, such as pocketbooks, shorts and home accessories. He works primarily with Bortan Fabrics, where G. Apollon frequently counsels him on his selections, and with tailor François Arsene, who has worked alongside the owner of Virgil’s Tuxedo for more than 30 years. “I knew I wanted to find people with these skill sets who are close to where I live,” he says. “I found François and Apollon and immediately established a rapport, and I thought, ‘This is how a community should function.’ I shouldn’t have to go to big-box stores when I can literally bike to Bortan and Virgil’s and keep community business alive.” Recent events have stirred up the local Haitian community, including Trump’s disparagement of Haiti as a “shithole” country and his threat to

Learn more about Nick’s diverse projects at nickmahshie.com.

deport thousands of Haitians. Mahshie’s actions to support the community seem on the surface like small, practical steps. But in light of the current climate, they could have a widespread impact if other business owners follow suit. The fact that Miami organizations tend to support artists with a certain pedigree while shunning lesser-known makers is not lost on Mahshie. He suggests local artists should be conscious of that reality when building their own creative businesses. “How can creatives who have influence set a precedent?” he asks. “They can make conscious decisions about who they work with.” Mahshie also hopes to open a community screenprinting studio to allow local artists affordable access to his equipment and space for their own projects. “This is a really accessible medium,” he says. “This technique, which had a moment long ago, can be incorporated into anyone’s practice. I really want to open up my space to other artists so they can pursue a practice geared toward textiles or fashion.”

This story is excerpted from a longer piece by Nicole Martinez that ran in the Miami New Times (3.12.18).

Eric Manche 08 FAV right: Working with his childhood friend Jeff Nitzberg, Eric made Slimed! for his RISD degree project. Completing the film two years later, the pair found an appreciative audience at festivals for the “zero-budget, live-action, feature-length sci-fi/comedy with no-name actors,” and self-published a DVD — which was discovered and picked up a decade later by legendary cult film company Troma Entertainment (of Toxic Avenger fame). Troma is releasing Slimed! on Blu-Ray this year, and soon it will be available on streaming services too. Eric, Sara Vanderbeek 03 PR and baby Florida Anna are based in Austin, where he and Ben Powell 08 FAV run the creative agency Basic Cable Television.

fern) to protect against harmful UV radiation. The company launched in March via Indiegogo—check out getsundots.com for the latest.

2009

Jemima Kirke 08 PT In her winter show The Ceremony at Sargent’s Daughters in NYC, Jemima explored the pageantry of weddings through a new series of oil paintings. The ambivalent expressions on the brides’ faces (including hers, above) reflect her mixed feelings about marriage, especially in the wake of her own divorce. “I’m really not saying marriage is wrong and that you shouldn’t do it,” she noted in an interview in W. “I ask people to acknowledge that things have two sides, and there are dark sides to everything, and that’s okay.”

2008 10th Reunion October 5 – 7 Brooklyn-based artist Julia Bland PT showed new work— three large wall-based pieces and a hanging sculpture— in Underbelly, her March– April solo exhibition at Helena Anrather gallery in NYC.

Chris Tolles FD (Cambridge, MA) is excited to announce his new healthcare company: Sundots, makers of an organic edible gummy for sun protection. As founding CEO, he worked with Emilia Javorsky MD, MPH to develop the daily chewables that use the proven power of Polypodium leucotomos (a South American

In April Cait Clark AP celebrated the grand opening of her boutique Cait Shea (caitshea.com) in Chester, CT. Working from locally sourced natural fibers and plant-based dyes, she aims to produce “comfortable, timeless and sustainable pieces for the modern woman.” The boutique also carries Harbinger Hardware, a line of handcrafted home goods by Matt Kihm 10 ID. It’s a classic case of life imitating art imitating life: For his RISD degree project, Christopher Hund PH created a hoax retrospective exhibition for a fictional musician, including multiple albums and mockumentary videos. After publicizing the project online and creating a website for Paxico, the musician’s (fake) record company, Chris started hearing from friends who wanted to record on the label. So he now runs Paxico (paxico records.com) as “a full-fledged record label” from his apartment in Bushwick, where he’s “pressing vinyl, cassettes, CDs and whatever else we feel suits each individual project.”

In addition to directing and animating films from her home base in Brooklyn, Leah Shore FAV produces How It Went Down, a weekly show for Billboard featuring interviews with musicians and her “neat-o, sparkly animation” on top. Check it out on Billboard’s Facebook feed. Funeral, the new “live action-ish” short film she wrote and directed, will be on the festival circuit this year.

Teek Eaton-Koch 09 IL/MAT 10 below: The American Society of Architectural Illustrators selected Teek’s Apple Bank for Savings, New York, NY for publication in Architecture in Perspective 32 (fall 2017), its annual juried anthology. The watercolor piece received an award of excellence in the Observation category. In addition to creating renderings, Teek is a fine artist and a high school art teacher in Connecticut.

Jing Wei 08 IL left: Jing ushered in the Year of the Dog (starting on February 16) with a creative collaboration with Panda Express Chinese Kitchen. Drawing on her love of the warm and festive Chinese New Year celebration, she created a series of playful images that adorned the restaurant chain’s packaging for the holiday season. The Chinese-born, California-raised illustrator is now based in Brooklyn. Please email class notes submissions to: risdxyz@risd.edu.

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to organize a conference at Teachers College, Columbia University (where he’s an EdD candidate) on Community as Educator: Art’s Potential for Re-Shaping the World. Providence-based artist and furniture designer Topher Gent FD exhibited new work— the latest entries in his Hedra series of steel furniture, and a first look at the new Draftsman lighting series—at the 2018 Architectural Digest Design Show, held in NYC in March. The work was selected for MADE, a juried expo of limited-edition and one-ofa-kind art and furnishings.

Jacqueline (Siefert) Cushing 12 AP

Jerrelle Guy IL (see pages 10–11)

Jacqueline wrote with a double dose of great news: “On November 22, 2017 I married Christopher Ames Cushing in Newport, RI, and on December 27, 2017 I had a little boy named Remington Ames Siefert Cushing!” The family lives in Newport.

Claire Lordon IL created the cheerful illustrations that accompany Bill Wise’s rhyming text in Over at the Construction Site (April 2018, Sterling

Publishing), a new book for toddlers and their grown-ups. She recently relocated to Vancouver, BC.

Ryan Jude Novelline 12 IL

Karin Kunori 10 GD Friends and coworkers at Todd Oldham Studio in NYC made this collaborative embroidery in honor of Karin, who passed away suddenly on January 9. Those who had a hand in it are Derya Altan, Diana Bendixen, Joseph Escobar 13 IL , Nelina Huang, Patrick Hulse 17 IL , Patrick Hruby, Michelle Kohanzo, Greg Kozatek 10 IL , Sophia Lehman, Tony Longoria, Nora McLeod 11 TX , Todd Oldham (RISD honorary degree 14), Emily Olivera 13 IL , Kevin Robledo, Mary Beth Running, Zoe Schlacter 17 TX and Kristina Sparling.

2010 Two years into an import/ distribution venture based in San Diego, Tessa Carpenter FD and Bob Allred are pleased to report that business is booming for Juniper House (juniperhouse.com). Their collection of outdoor furniture and accessories is inspired by the southern California lifestyle. In the next year they’re planning to work more with designers and also expand their presence in the western US and Texas.

2011 Liam Holding PT showed a variety of paintings—several small watercolors and two large works of acrylic, spray enamel, wax and oil on canvas—in Further Maybe, a December 84

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exhibition of four artists at FJORD gallery in Philadelphia (where he lives). The body of work “focused on specific images and objects,” attempting to preserve moments “otherwise lost in a cluttered transition from place to place.” Hillel O’Leary IL can’t say enough good things about his fall 2017 residency at Joya: arte + ecología (joya-air.org), a nonprofit arts-led field research center in southern Spain. During his two-week stay at the off-grid site in stunning rural Andalucía, he worked on a series of multimedia site-responsive installations and connected with fellow RISD grads Rachel Arena 17 FAV (who’s working at Joya as a web developer) and Annika Berry 16 FAV.

2012 Last fall, as cofounder of the nonprofit Artolution (see pages 32–33), Max Frieder PT helped

Taking inspiration from the 1811 fairy tale Undine, Ryan transformed one of his own illustrations into 26 yards of a hemp-silk fabric print, then applied 30,000 Swarovski crystals by hand to create this stunner for last fall’s New York Comic Con. After people went gaga for the gown, Ryan and model Elizabeth Mooney 12 IL (who works in NYC as a fashion photo retoucher) showed it again this spring at the Mermaid Festival, part of Asian Geographic’s Asia Dive Expo (ADEX 2018) in Singapore. Ryan is putting together a mini collection of eco gowns to show in the fall. By day he’s also a motion designer for the Game Show Network in Boston.

EMBRACING THE WORLD OF OPERA

Erica Ehrenbard 12 SC + Zachary Steinheiser 12 SC Since getting married last fall, “we live in Philadelphia,” Erica reports, “where we are currently working hard to transform an animal-infested carriage house into our permanent fabrication studio and home. The ceremony was on September 23, 2017 near our neighborhood.”

Alyssa Winans IL, who works at Google’s offices in San Francisco, was the project co-lead on this year’s Google Doodle for International Women’s Day (3.8.18). For the interactive animated feature on the Google search homepage,

she and Lydia Nichols “reached out to 12 female artists of all backgrounds to share their personal stories in a series of visual narratives… that evoked… the spirit of the day,” she explains.

Alina Vadera 10 IA Architectural Digest India named ava studio, Alina’s interior architecture studio in New Delhi, to its Top 100 list in March. As in this serene interior for Rahul Mishra’s flagship store in New Delhi, she aims to create “evocative spaces through a narrative driven by functionality, clever creative solutions and aesthetics.” Alina is currently working on projects for retail, hospitality and residential clients.

Please email class notes submissions to: risdxyz@risd.edu.

FOR M E R FU LB R IG HT FE LLOW

Alex McCargar BArch 11 first fell in love

with opera as an expressive medium while interning for an architecture firm in Zurich, Switzerland. At a performance of Die Stadt der Blinden at the Opernhaus Zürich, he realized that the collaborative, multidisciplinary art form synthesizes what he’d previously seen as his disparate interests in art, history, classical music and architecture. “When the tone of a note works in harmony with the hue of a set, object or light—and the movements of an actor or a singer mediate that relationship — it forms a perfect ecstasy,” McCargar explains. “Experiencing that moment

compelled me to find my place within the world of opera.” When the Massachusetts native applied for and landed a Fulbright fellowship in 2015 /16, it was to study opera production in Vienna, where he explored approaches to stage design that honor the venerable traditions of opera while combatting its reputation for being elitist and outdated. “The stories that unfold on stage are still so relevant,” he says. “I want to help reinvent the art form as something new, experimental and provocative.” McCargar is now completing the first year in a three-year MFA program in set design at Yale School of Drama, where he’s learning about everything from sound to lighting to costume design. But while the Yale program offers access to a wide range of contemporary tools, he realizes that “you have to be careful about how you integrate new tools into an opera that’s 300 years old. You don’t want to make something that looks cool but ultimately distracts from the story.” –Simone Solondz

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Priscilla Tey 15 IL + Michael Ee 15 GD

FACES OF HARLEM G ROWI NG U P I N HAR LE M , first-generation American

Ashton Agbomenou 14 FAV watched helplessly as

gentrification transformed his neighborhood, pushing people of color further into the margins. And with each new incidence of police brutality — coupled with signs of growing racial and economic inequality — the vision of America that inspired his parents to leave their home in Benin, West Africa grew dimmer. So in late 2017, when President Trump made his infamous remark about immigrants from “shithole countries,” Agbomenou says that it was as if a switch flipped. He “needed to respond to this crazy narrative… right now”— through a new series of portraits “celebrating the faces of the African diaspora.” After winning support from the New York Community Trust Van Lier Fellowship, Agbomenou began working on his new portrait series during a residency at Wave Hill in February and March. “The most important

thing for me was the quiet space,” he says of his studio at the cultural center in the Bronx. “Looking back at the work I had been doing since leaving RISD — as an artist’s assistant and as a production assistant in the film world — I realized that it wasn’t pointed in any specific direction. Wave Hill gave me the space to meditate on how to move forward.” After interviewing black residents of Harlem about both their changing neighborhood and their sense of their own place in society, Agbomenou confirmed that “there is real conflict between the two black communities”— African immigrants and their children on one hand and African Americans whose families have lived in the US for generations on the other. He hopes that his new portrait series — which will be on view at Wave Hill from September 23 through October 27 —“might help these groups feel more connected.” – Simone Solondz

Michael and Priscilla worked with three other artist educators in Singapore to organize an exhibition of 22 young Singaporean artists. Held in January at ION Art Gallery in the city-state’s shopping district, Waning, Waxing featured Priscilla’s series of mixed-media illustrations and Michael’s acrylic and oil paintings on canvas, as well as a 360º virtual reality illustration by André Wee 14 IL and mixed-media sculptures by Xinwei Che 15 SC . Michael explains that the exhibition as a whole reflected “how these Singaporeans grapple with living in a place of continuous transformation while coming into their own.”

“Wave Hill gave me the space to meditate on how to move forward.” 2013 Jeanette Bradley CEC is thrilled that her children’s picture book Love, Mama was published in January by Roaring Brook Press. The story focuses on a toddler-like penguin who learns that his parents’ love transcends time and distance—even when they’re at work. As executive director of the Providence-based GAIA Vaccine Foundation (gaia vaccine.org), a nonprofit dedicated to reducing the incidence of infectious disease in the developing world, Eliza Squibb TX designed a new 86

See more of Ashton’s work at ashtonagbomenou.com.

Danny Glass BRDD 15 PT Danny offered a unique perspective on the art world in Basel Miami (oil on canvas, 54 x 50") and other paintings in his solo exhibition at Spectrum Miami in December. The works in Appraising the Art World “capture glimpses of people engaging with works of art displayed in accessible public spaces, or with works rarely seen because they are tucked away in blue-chip settings,” he notes.

2015 Jon Key 13 GD + Wael Morcos 13 GD In February Jon and Wael hosted a festive launch party for Morcos Key (morcoskey.com), their new design studio in NYC. They’re focusing on visual identities and print and digital systems for nonprofits and arts and cultural institutions, along with commercial enterprises in North America and the Middle East.

“storytelling cloth” this year to continue GAIA’s campaign to fight cervical cancer by

promoting HPV vaccinations in Mali. She also teaches in RISD’s Textiles department.

Emily Ann Hoffman 15 IL Emily’s stop-motion animated short Nevada was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Both funny and thoughtprovoking, the film follows a young couple through a romantic weekend, when a contraception mishap leads to a lot of what-if’s. The festival favorite was also selected for Hamptons International FF 2017, New Orleans FF 2017, Atlanta FF 2018 and Festival Stop Motion Montreal 2017. Emily is based in NYC and was a Sundance Ignite Fellow in 2017.

2014 Following an epic and therapeutic 4,300-mile bike journey—a summer 2017 feat in honor of her mother, who had recently passed away— Annalisa van den Bergh GD has created WFB (workfrom bike.com), a blog and design studio on wheels specializing in visual journalism and social media. “I come up with my best ideas when I’m moving,” she says, “because there’s nothing like the inspiration of changing horizons.” When she’s not crisscrossing the country (and the world, someday), Annalisa is based in New York.

At the end of the summer Xinwei Che SC (see also facing page) is exhibiting sculptural works in her first solo show, on view from August 29– September 16 at the Ion Art Gallery in Singapore (where she lives). A team of alumni is working with robotics engineer Feng Tan to introduce the educational,

wifi-connected Woobo to curious kids across the country. The Boston-based startup— which takes its design cues from Shen Guo ID, Bre Huang GD and Kaitlyn Nee 17 GD/IL—has raised more than $310,000 through Kickstarter and Indiegogo to launch the techy toy, which sings songs, plays games and answers kids’ questions. Ishiah White SC (see page 11)

Sierra Montoya Barela 15 PT right: Sierra showed oil paintings, wooden sculptures and ceramics in Death Dance and Daily Bread, a winter exhibition at Yes Ma’am Projects in Denver, where she lives. Like much of her recent work, Young Man with Green Eyes explores themes of masks, rites and rituals. Along with Diego Rodriguez-Warner MFA 13 PR (see page 93), Sierra was also one of several artists commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver to produce 25 works for the Octopus Initiative, a free art lending library. Please email class notes submissions to: risdxyz@risd.edu.

// RISDXYZ

spring/summer 2018

WORKING WITH WATER WORLDWIDE by Lachlan Turczan 15 FAV

WH I LE STU DYI NG FI LM , animation and video at RISD, I became frustrated by how nearly every aspect of filmmaking is mediated through digital interfaces. So I was eager to work with light and sound in a more tangible, hands-on way. In the beginning, I drew inspiration from the mesmerizing reflections under the Providence River bridges — a kind of organic cinema that’s like looking into a fire. I began working with water by vibrating petri dishes with low frequencies, forming complex natural patterns. When I realized that reflecting light off these vibrations creates ever-

My most recent assignment — Power by Exo — got me really obsessed with K-pop. I’ve also choreographed light shows for the Game of Thrones theme and Adele’s Skyfall in Istanbul and the Christmas song Carol of the Bells in Macau. When on assignment making fountain shows around the world, I’ve been attempting to distill my experiences abroad into experimental animations. It’s been a lot of fun for me to put my RISD education as a visual storyteller to use. Islamic Kaleidoscopes and Sheik Zayed Mosque are films that try to

“I drew inspiration from the mesmerizing reflections under the Providence River bridges—a kind of organic cinema that’s like looking into a fire.” shifting light displays, I found myself sculpting water with sound, creating musical scores to explore the variety of patterns water can create. Now, as a fountain choreographer at WET in Los Angeles, I’ve continued to sculpt with water. It’s been really amazing working on large events like Gyalchester by Drake for a live performance at the Bellagio fountain for the 2017 Billboard Music Awards. I worked on the 2017 and 2018 New Year’s events in Dubai, which required coordinating with companies behind the world’s largest fireworks/light shows. 88

convey my dizzying experience of the architecture and ornamentation found in Istanbul and Abu Dhabi. I made Walking Backwards while in Macau, where I found tons of people actually doing just that for exercise. Apparently, walking backwards also sharpens your thinking skills and enhances cognitive control. I use video processing techniques to try to convey internal experiences like these. But now that I’ve found it and begun to explore its potential, I expect that water will remain central to my practice.

Watch some of Lachlan’s phenomenal water work at www.lachlanturczan.com.

Zharia Shinn 18 IL Afro Punk earned Zharia (zhariashinn.com) a gold award in the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles’ Illustration West 56 competition and juried show, which included work by 16 other RISD students and recent grads. Her work creates new contexts for psychological portraits of people of color through abstraction and material.

2016 Nashra Balagamwala IL (Pakistan-ProvidencePakistan) and Jing Wei 08 IL (Brooklyn via Shenyang, China) are two of the artists featured on Bright Side, a new blog dedicated to “inspiring and empowering immigrants to share their stories and show their positive impact on society.” Check out thebright side.co to read about their fascinating experiences. In The Garden, his first solo show, Brandon Lipchik PT investigated the male-on-male gaze, sexuality and intimacy through semi-abstract paintings influenced by digital media. The work was on view in February at Brooklyn’s At Large gallery.

2017 Gabriel Cohen FAV (Chicago) showed new drawings and sculptures in 88888888: The Possibility of Meaning in an

Entropic Universe, a winter solo exhibition (his first) at in lieu gallery in Los Angeles. He also reports that he’s “producing a fill-in for the New York radio station WFMU, which is broadcast weekly on the Tuesday morning show.” Work by Hyun Jung Jung TX was included in Artifacts: a Plane of the Possible, a small group show in March at One Grand Gallery in Portland, OR (where she’s currently based). Taking inspiration from pop culture, she works “to create textiles that people can easily relate and respond to.” Flashlight, a digital interface designed to assist travelers who use wheelchairs, was one of the innovative prototypes highlighted at Dubai Design Week’s 2017 Global Grad Show in mid November. Developed by Chorock Green Park ID, the software helps wheelchair users book accessible rooms

in advance and plan activities that are wheelchair friendly. Chorock is currently an interaction designer for Intuit in Mountain View, CA. Zoe Schlacter TX showed textile work at the seventh

annual Spring/Break Art Show during Armory Arts Week in NYC (March 2018)—joining the likes of Rebecca Chamberlain 91 AP, Gabriela Salazar MFA 09 PT, Lauren Was MFA 04 SC, Adam Eckstrom MFA 05 PT and Liz Collins 91 TX/MFA 99

Henry Swanson 16 PT

Christina Qi 19 IL

left: Henry showed paintings last winter in My Mom Can Drive If Your Mom Can Pick Up, a one-person exhibition at Anna Zorina Gallery in NYC. In summer 2017 he concluded his artist residency at The Goss-Michael Foundation (in Dallas, where he lives) with the show Mad Festive.

Last fall Christina won the student prize — € 500 and a place of honor in the exhibition — at the International Festival of Travel Journals at Université Clermont Auvergne in France. The first student winner from outside France, she created her sketchbook in Viterbo, Italy last summer while studying drawing with RISD Associate Professor of Illustration Fred Lynch 86 IL .

(who curated an exhibition). She’s one of several alums who work with Todd Oldham at his studio in NYC (see also page 84).

Following what was clearly a successful internship, Suzie Shin GD recently began working as a full-time designer in Chicago—at the graphic design studio Thirst, where her colleagues include senior

designer Kyle Green MFA 15 GD. Check out My Week in Columbus (3st.com), Suzie’s sketchbook documenting the temporary architectural installations of Exhibit Columbus [IN] in fall 2017.

Deaths

Susan Phelps 59 PT of Cambridge, MA on 11.4.17

Grant Terrell 79 PT of Algonquin, IL on 12.15.16

Anthony Woidyla 59 SC of Foster, RI on 11.3.17

Paul Daigneault 80 IL of Marshfield, MA on 1.1.18

Edmund Gregan 60 LA of Northford, CT on 2.4.18

Pamela Grossi 81 CR of Tijeras, NM on 2.19.18

John Kettle 60 MD of Vernon, CT on 4.4.18

Carmela Kolman 82 IL of New York, NY on 3.20.18

Carol Belt 61 AE of Morrisville, PA on 1.29.18

Miranda Russell 82 PR/MAT 84 of Wellesley Island, NY on 2.10.18

Mary Hartman 44 PT of Mystic, CT on 2.12.18

Heather Benjamin 16 PR Heather (baby-fat.net) exhibited new works on paper and canvas in Death of a Tail, a December – January solo show at Dress Shop Gallery in Brooklyn. Continuing the narrative of her previous work rooted in zine and comics culture, pieces like this one explore “the female human experience as she knows it,” musing on “intimacy, sexuality, self-perception, body dysmorphia and trauma.” Heather lives and works in Providence.

Rita Breese 47 IA of Bellevue, WA on 1.15.15 Bertha Cavedon 47 TX of Slatersville, RI on 1.23.18 Cynthia Eckstrom 47 IL of Guilford, CT on 4.26.15 Herbert Lester 47 MD of Kerrville, TX on 12.21.12

Please email class notes submissions to: risdxyz@risd.edu.

George Whipps 62 MD of Athol, MA on 2.15.18

Sarah Good 87 SC of Exeter, RI on 2.3.18

Carmel Cady 48 PT of Provincetown, MA on 3.1.18

Christopher Sabin 64 PT of New London, NH on 2.18.18

Ann Donohue 89 JM of Alexandria, VA on 2.11.18

Marguerite Ashland 49 IA of Moscow, ID on 11.18.17

Joan Feldman 65 AE of Boca Raton, FL on 1.17.18

Kelly Marquis 90 GD of Wilmington, NC on 12.15.17

Carolyn Spencer 51 IA of Lincoln, RI on 11.18.17

Priscilla Ferguson 66 AE of Canyon Lake, TX on 12.12.17

Elizabeth Cohen 91 SC of Brooklyn, NY on 5.30.17

Mary Juskalian 52 TX of Greenville, RI on 10.26.17

Nancy Friedman 66 PH of Flemington, NJ on 10.27.17

Noah Klersfeld BArch 96 of Brooklyn, NY on 10.13.17

Nancy Segerberg 52 IA of Kinderhook, NY on 12.12.17

Peter Dudley 67 PT of Greenfield, MA on 3.8.18

David Bussiere 99 FAV of Point Roberts, WA on 11.14.17

James Hamilton 53 PT of Lambertville, NJ on 2.2.18

Gordon Bainbridge 68 AE of Roswell, GA on 12.20.17

Michael White 06 IL of Providence, RI on 12.20.17

Dorothy Hovey 53 ID of Peacham, VT on 12.7.17

Robert Dixon BArch 71 of Waterford, CT on 12.1.17

Karin Kunori 10 GD of New York, NY on 1.9.18

Patricia Lovell 58 GD of Agawam, MA on 12.18.17

Margaret Tucker 75 IL of Carthage, IL on 3.2.18

Saja Tourbah BArch 14 of London, England on 10.15.17 // RISDXYZ

spring/summer 2018

moving forward

// graduate class notes

Laurence Young MAE 78/MFA 79 PR Past and Present, which continues through June 17 at the Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport, MA, presents Laurence’s new body of paintings of Provincetown drawing from images from public records, postcards and Polaroids from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries. From August 24 – September 6 he’ll show other paintings in Full Circle at Alden Gallery in Provincetown, where he lives. In addition, his painting A Moment in Time was featured in a renovated home on a recent episode of This Old House (2.22.18).

1967 Photographs by Emmet Gowin MFA PH were on view at NYC’s Pace/McGill Gallery (which represents him) from September 2017–January 2018. Here on Earth Now: Notes from the Field featured seletions from nearly 20 years of exploration of tropical environments, including some with his wife Edith, along with typological studies of a huge range of rare and beautiful moths.

1971 Working from his studio-store on Anna Maria Island, FL, Emerson Quillin MAE creates

lighthearted illustrations that he licenses worldwide for reproduction on cards, t-shirts, cocktail napkins and other products. Check out his wares at emersonshumor.com.

1972 Work by Muriel Angelil MAE was on view in March and April in The Geometry of Space, her solo show at the Country Center for Health and Rehabilitation in Newburyport, MA (near where she lives in Amesbury). Frank Lloyd Wright and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie (History Press, 2016)

by Roy R. Behrens MAE has been one of Amazon’s top 10 bestselling titles on Wright for more than a year. Last November Roy spoke about art and ship camouflage at the Imperial War Museum, the Courtauld Institute and the Royal Society—all in London. One of his recent essays was published in Camo Mania: New Disruptive Patterns in Design (Victionary, 2017); his site camoupedia.blogspot.com continues to be an important resource on art and camouflage. At the end of this year Roy will retire from 46 years of teaching, most recently as a professor at the University of Northern Iowa.

1980 In So Lightly Here, a spring exhibition at Anna Maria College in Worcester, MA, RI-based artist Esther

Mary Jane Andreozzi MAT 87 Inspired by “the grace, strength and beauty of the natural world,” Mary Jane exhibited work done with wax oil crayon on wood in Voice in the Woods, her spring show at Providence’s ArtProv Gallery. Also on view: furniture pieces she made in collaboration with Brown professor and furniture maker Phil Gruppuso. Mary Jane chairs the art department at Bay View Academy in Riverside, RI. 90

Sanford Lee MFA 93 PT Last December Sanford showed watercolors and letterpress prints in Shaman, his solo exhibition at AS220 Project Space in Providence, where he lives. He explains that his work — including this piece, Magpie Dream — “deals with his identity as an immigrant, as a spiritual seeker, and as a person existing in a liminal space between national boundaries and cultural realities.”

Solondz MFA PH reflected on the ephemeral world of nature through sculptural pieces created with milkweed, rust, salt and mud—as well as “collaborations” with woodpeckers.

1981 As a longtime weaver and aficionado of old and “totally obsolete” industrial looms, Peggy Hart MAE turns her attention to the fascinating history of the US fiber and textile industry in Wool: Unraveling an American Story of Artisans and Innovation (Schiffer Publishing, November 2017). Research for the book “led me down any number of rabbit holes related to consumption, automobile upholstery and manmade fibers,” she notes. Peggy weaves wool and cotton blankets in a barn in rural Massachusetts.

1983 A 3D mixed-media piece by Linda DiFrenna MAE is included in the 2018 Biennial Members Exhibition (through October 7) at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, MA; a series of her photographs will also be on view during July at the Attleboro [MA] Arts Museum.

1988 Robert Martin MFA PH has written two books in recent years about New England artist and educator Mary C. Wheeler: An American in Paris: Drawings of Mary Colman Wheeler, 1877–1882, from a spring 2017 exhibition at the Chazan Gallery in Providence (part of the Making Her Mark series sponsored by the Providence Art Club), and Mary Wants to Draw (2015), a children’s book he also illustrated (chosen for

Kim Kulow-Jones MFA 92 FD Weightless is one of the pieces Kim showed last fall in Sea/Space, her solo exhibition of prints and sculpture at Mariposa Gallery in Albuquerque, NM. Her print work was also on view in February in the group show Ink, Press, Night at Night Sky Gallery in Santa Fe. She and Doug Jones MFA 92 FD are the furniture designers and builders behind Random Orbit Studio in Los Lunas, NM.

a 2016 Hermes platinum award from the Association of Communication and Marketing Professionals). Both books were published by the Wheeler School in Providence (where he lives) and are available for purchase through the school.

1989 On March 1 NYC-based conceptual artist Janine Antoni MFA SC delivered the annual Elson Lecture at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, which acquired her iconic 1993

piece Lick and Lather in 2016. In addition ALLY (Hirmer Publishers, 2018), a wonderful new book released in February, explores the “new pictorial language” Janine has created in working with choreographers Anna Halprin and Stephen Petronio. Critical essays by a diverse range of writers and art theorists, including feminist philosopher Hélène Cixous, further enrich the book. A commission from Brown University’s percent-for-art program led Brooklyn-based

Josh Owen MFA 97 FD Josh’s ingenious Torq nutcracker earned both the 2018 Asia Design Prize and a 2017 Good Design Award. Earlier this year he was honored to be one of 100 designers invited to contribute to 100x100, an exhibition of objects celebrating the work of legendary designer Achille Castiglioni at Fondazione Achille Castiglioni in Milan. A member of the design faculty in RIT’s College of Imaging Arts & Sciences, Josh is currently serving as chair of the Industrial Design program. Please email class notes submissions to: risdxyz@risd.edu.

artist Spencer Finch MFA SC to embed a series of artworks into the structure of the school’s new Engineering Research Center late last year. Fretted glass, ceramic tile, wood flooring, plywood panels and concrete pavers make up the tessellated patterns of the pieces, which range from “striking to subtle” at nine sites throughout the building. Spencer’s light installation Moon Dust (Apollo 17) is illuminating the Baltimore [MD] Museum of Art’s Fox Court through October 2024.

1991 For her ninth solo exhibition at Linda Hodges Gallery in Seattle, Daphne Minkoff MFA PT continued her “exploration of layered, collaged surfaces combined with photographic imagery of decaying buildings and other artifacts of the urban environment,” noted the

Emi Ozawa MFA 92 FD Emi kicked off 2018 with a solo show at Richard Levy Gallery in her hometown of Albuquerque, NM. Follow the Line (January – March) featured This is Granny Smith (acrylic on poplar, 52 x 52 x 13") and other painted wood wall sculptures created during her year as a Roswell Artist-in-Residence (RAiR) in Roswell, NM.

curator of her February show. Daphne teaches painting at North Seattle College.

1995 The Massachusetts Art Educators Association (MAEA) named Vivian Poey MFA PH its 2017 Higher Education Art Educator of the Year and presented her with the award at its annual conference at UMASS/ Amherst last November. A professor at Lesley University

in Cambridge, MA, she has taught for 17 years and directs the MA program in Arts, Community and Education. In her own photography, Vivian examines such issues as history, migration and cultural assimilation. “My teaching philosophy is based on using art to investigate, transform and communicate,” she says. “I challenge students to look beyond what they know to find gaps and points of friction.”

Lian Brehm MFA 84 SC Lian received a 2017 Blanche E. Colman award from Boston University to support further work in cast and hand-formed paper pulp sculpture. She’s a longtime elementary school art teacher in Danville, VT. // RISDXYZ

spring/summer 2018

Laura Jacobson MFA 03 CR “A deep interest in biology and structure drew me to MRI slices” of the human brain, Laura notes. “In this work, I’ve merged MRI scans with clay because clay, like the brain, is plastic and malleable.” Based in Palo Alto, CA, she showed several of her fascinating ceramic sculptures and brain-inspired prints in Our Cosmic Brain, a twoperson show that ran from January – March at NYU Langone Art Gallery in NYC.

1998 In February Jamē Anderson MArch was promoted to principal at SmithGroupJJR, an integrated architecture,

engineering and planning firm with offices in the US and China. As a member of the Cultural studio at the Washington, DC office, she specializes in the intersection of exhibition design and architecture; her current projects include the interpretive site development of Lumpkin’s Slave Jail/Devil’s Half Acre in Richmond, VA. Last fall Seung-Hea Lee MFA JM began a new job as a profes-

sor of Jewelry at Savannah [GA] College of Art and Design.

2002 In August Trevor Lee MLA and artist Janet Echelman will present a week-long workshop

at the Domaine de Boisbuchet in southwestern France. Titled Organic Solar Futures: Investigating Art + Energy Technologies, the program will explore the transformative and creative possibilities of organic photovoltaics (OPV) thin-film technologies. Trevor runs a practice called Suprafutures (suprafutures.com) and is also an associate and manager of visual communications at OLIN in Philadelphia.

2003 In the caption for a piece by Mark Bowers MAT in the last issue of RISD XYZ (Winter 2018), we mistakenly implied that he was the teacher in the exhibition Drawing Show—

Teacher and 2 Students Part I. Not so, Mark tells us. He’s one of the two students whose work was featured with that of James Valerio, a professor emeritus at Northwestern University. Apologies for the error.

2004 Colby Bird MFA PH (Austin) exhibited work in Dissonant Accords, a two-person show that ran from January–March at Black Ball Projects in Brooklyn. In March his work was included in Halsey McKay Gallery’s booth at The Armory Show in NYC. Lauren Bello Okerman MArch is the creative director for Coalition Snow, a women’s ski and snowboard gear company based near Lake Tahoe—in the Sierra Nevada mountains on the California/Nevada border.

Breanne Trammell MFA 08 PR Breanne exhibited with Kristina Paabus 00 IL in the grass is the same color over there, a December show at Galerri Metropol in Tallinn, Estonia. In February she and Michelle Leftheris MFA 06 DM participated in a panel discussion co-chaired by Amanda Lechner MFA 05 PT at the College Art Association conference in Los Angeles. Breanne teaches at the University of Cincinnati [OH] and Michelle is at Middlebury [VT] College — and both accepted tenuretrack positions this year.

Art educator Katrina Latka Stacy MA recently began a new job as curator of education and interpretation at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, where she also oversees O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu home and Ghost Ranch. The Brooklyn-based Ghost of a Dream team Lauren Was MFA SC and Adam Eckstrom MFA 05 PT spent the month

Deana Lawson MFA 04 PH In her first solo exhibition at Sikkema Jenkins in NYC (March – April), Deana again showed her remarkable “knack for identifying the strangely potent components of black interiors,” as New Yorker reviewer Doreen St. Félix put it. Her first monograph, which includes an essay by Zadie Smith and an interview by Arthur Jafa, will be published by Aperture in September. Based in Brooklyn, Deana teaches photography at Princeton. 92

// undergraduate class notes

of February as artists in residence at The College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University in St. Joseph, MN. In March The Statistics of Hope, their collaborative project with Jennifer Dalton, opened at 601Artspace in NYC, and Aligned by the Sun—their series commenting on DACA and the US travel ban—was included in Pattern Recognition at NYC’s SPRING/BREAK Art Show. Tim Waterman MLA co-edited two volumes published recently by Routledge: Landscape and Agency: Critical Essays (October 2017, with Ed Wall) and Routledge Handbook of Landscape and Food (February 2018, with Joshua Zeunert). His introductory textbook Fundamentals of Landscape Architecture has been translated into seven languages. Tim is a senior lecturer and Landscape Architecture Theory coordinator at the University of Greenwich in the UK.

2005 Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist Tanya Aguiñiga MFA FD has earned the first Americans for the Arts Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities. Presented in January, the $75,000 prize will support her ongoing work in communities this year—specifically on the AMBOS [Art Made Between Opposite Sides] Project bridging the US-Mexico border. Materials documenting that initiative are on display through September 23 in Tanya Aguiñiga: Craft & Care at the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC.

2007 Alice Engel MFA TX and Hovig Vartan were married on November 18, 2017 at St. Thomas Church in New York City, where they live. Rachel Milano MFA 06 TX and Aurora Harrington MFA 07 TX attended the festivities.

right: photo courtesy of From the Hip

2008 Jonas Criscoe MFA PT has shown print work in several recent shows around Austin, where he lives: at ICOSA Collective and Dimension Gallery last fall and in two winter exhibitions held in conjunction with PrintAustin 2018.

Saba Qizilbash MA 04 As one of the artists selected for the exhibition Ishara at Concrete Gallery Dubai, Saba created 100 graphite drawings of desolate places that she has come across during her travels. On view in March, the exhibition was organized in partnership with UAE Unlimited and patronized by HH Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan al Nahyan, who is adding her work to his collection. Saba teaches at the American University in Dubai.

Jewelry work by Kevin Hughes MFA JM is featured in La Frontera: Encounters Along the Border, a traveling exhibition that’s on view through September 23 at the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC. He works at RISD and maintains a studio in Providence. Design, Culture & Global Security—a course Assistant Professor Tom Weis MID taught last fall in RISD’s ID department—is featured in a podcast made by Inkstick Media. Check out the episode “What happens when the military thinks outside the box?” on Things Go Boom (available on pri.org).

2009 The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) has selected sculptural jewelry by Cheryl Eve Acosta MFA JM to represent its Greater Kansas City Area Committee in the exhibition Heavy Metal— Women to Watch 2018. The show will be on view from June 28 to September 16 at the museum in Washington, DC.

at Smack Mellon in NYC. The Brooklyn-based artist was one of 50 in the fall 2017 show who “use their work to critique power in a multitude of ways.”

2010 Last fall Colleen Clines MLA and her sister Maggie, partners in the fair-trade nonprofit Anchal, designed a shipping box for CAUSEBOX. The likeminded company, which sends a box of socially conscious goods to 15,000 subscribers quarterly, went with a design inspired by the geometric pattern and kantha stitching of Anchal’s Naari Throw Quilt.

Goebel & Co. Furniture exhibited new designs from its residential collection at the March 2018 Architectural Digest Design Show in NYC. Martin Goebel MFA FD runs the company, which is based in St. Louis, MO. For Women’s History Month in March, Amanda E. Gross MAT showed a series of “fearless women” charcoal and pastel drawings at Howling at the Edge of Chaos in Beacon, NY, where she lives. In May she showed recent paintings at the Hudson River Center as part of the Beacon International Artist Residency.

After years of vacancy and neglect, the former Pilgrim Congregational Church in Providence’s West End has been restored and converted into residences, thanks to the sibling team of developer Federico and designer Antonio Manaigo MFA FD. The Pilgrim Lofts development preserves many of the original details of the 1874 structure—including eyebrow windows, ornamental stonework and heavy timber framing—in 15 loft-style apartments.

2011 Jordan Baumgarten MFA PH (see pages 8–9)

Recitations not from memory, a video by Sunita Prasad MFA PH about gender discrimination, was featured in UPROOT

Diego RodriguezWarner MFA 13 PR Western Painting (acrylic, spray paint, latex paint and wood stain on carved panel) is among the work from the past five years (including four new paintings) that was on view from February – May in Honestly Lying, a solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Denver (his home city). Diego’s layered, complex compositions are informed by collage, woodblock printing, trompe l’oeil and art historical references.

Please email class notes submissions to: risdxyz@risd.edu.

// RISDXYZ

spring/summer 2018

EVERYTHING BUT THE KITCHEN SINK WH E N Rachel Grobstein MFA 13 PT left Brooklyn for the Roswell Artist-in-Residence (RAiR) program in New Mexico last fall, she “wanted to engage with the sky and stars.” In when I close my eyes, the resulting solo exhibition that ran from mid November to early January at Roswell Museum and Art Center, she presented a series of “collections of junk”— including painted cutpaper miniatures mounted to the wall with pins to create tiny constellations of objects. “The work began with space mythology and my obsession with space junk,” says Grobstein — “defunct satellites and rockets collecting in our atmosphere almost like floating landfills.” Unlike the space junk swirling around out of sight, however, the artist’s miniature tableaus compel viewers to reconsider everyday objects from their own bedside tables or junk drawers.

Find out more about Rachel at rachelgrobstein.com.

“I’m interested in the way these collections create complicated portraits speaking to everything from dreams and sex to memory and self-maintenance.” “I’m interested in the way these collections her eye out for opportunities like RAiR that can create complicated portraits speaking to every“change the whole ballgame.” thing from dreams and sex to memory and selfCase in point: while in New Mexico Grobstein maintenance,” Grobstein explains. “[The work] found herself newly obsessed with photographing engages with the tradition of still life, cataloguing roadside memorials. “They’re a form of folk art,” a world of repetition, consumer culture and routine.” she says. “People pile up plush teddy bears, colorGrobstein’s creative interest in people’s junk ful fake flowers, seasonal decorations… building and what it says about them dates back to the these insane, beautiful accumulations of stuff that beginning of her MFA studies at RISD, when she paint portraits of the people who died there.” performed a standup comedy routine about the — Simone Solondz contents of her kitchen drawer. “The assignment was part of a first-semester grad seminar on drawing taught by [Associate Professor of Painting] Kevin Zucker 00 PT,” she recalls. “I thought a monologue about birthday candles, magnets and packets of soy sauce would be funny. But it ended up being kind of profound.” Grobstein also remembers her first crit with Painting Professor Dennis Congdon 75 PT, who remained “completely silent for a very long time” while studying her tight, meticulous miniature paintings on paper. “I had never before experienced that quality of high-intensity attention,” she explains. Since graduating, she has begun working in gouache and making more sculptural work she describes as “2.5-D”— reflecting her growing interest in dimensionality and shadow. In her practice as well as her work teaching and mentoring teenage artists in NYC, Grobstein still finds herself “actively negotiating conversations [she] had in grad school.” She also keeps

Stephanie Benenson MA 17 Stephanie established the art nonprofit Harbor Voices to focus on the immigrant community in Gloucester, MA. So far the endeavor has included an installation at City Hall (shown here), a funding network for community members and outreach to local schools, with Colleen Andrews MA 17. In January Stephanie worked on an upcoming Harbor Voices installation during a residency at MASS MoCA.

disconcerting narrative that is at once suburban and surreal.”

2016 2014 In The 45th City—shown in March at pinkcomma gallery in Boston—Jonathan Hanahan MFA GD explored the architecture of “fake news” websites using 3D printing to build them as tangible structures. The project is an extension of the Thick Interfaces work he began at RISD and was also exhibited in September 2017 at Luminary Arts in St. Louis, MO, where Jonathan teaches in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University. New embroidered paintings by Sophia Narrett MFA PT are on view through June 17 in Sophia Narrett: Certain Magic at BRIC gallery in Brooklyn, where she lives and works. Full of allusions to love and desire, the works “tell a dreamy yet

Ling Chun MFA CR showed “wild, no-boundaries” work in Melting Point: Movements in Contemporary Clay, the first clay biennial at Craft & Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles. The invitational show—also including work by Nicole Cherubini 93 CR—was on view from January–May. Ling is finishing up a two-year residency at Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, MT. Hool Eye Johnson MA (see pages 28–29) Shona McAndrew MFA PT had a solo show at the Philadelphia gallery Pilot Projects in March. In an extension of her RISD thesis work, she exhibited lifesize papier mâché figures exploring femaleness and sexuality— and had fun driving them cross-country and documenting the trip on Instagram.

RaMell Ross MFA 14 PH Beautiful, poetic, confounding and quietly revolutionary, Hale County This Morning, This Evening, the 78-minute film RaMell has been working on for the past five years, earned the US Documentary Special Jury Award for Creative Vision at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Fellow grad and RISD faculty member Maya Krinsky MFA 14 PH contributed enormously to the final cut as screenwriter.

Thalassa Raasch MFA PH recently started a new job as the program communications associate for the Maine Community Foundation in Portland. She’s producing photos and videos for the nonprofit, supporting its mission to improve the quality of life for people in Maine.

2017 Early this year Colleen Andrews MA began a new job as director of art education at the

Tordo (CX Wong) MArch 14 Since leaving the East Coast and the architecture field for Los Angeles, where he’s currently working in art fabrication, Tordo reports that he’s relying on survival skills learned at RISD and is also feeling “oddly at ease with instability and uncertainty” as he develops his artistic practice. Over the winter he worked on a sitespecific installation of found materials at a remote location in the desert. Death Valley Art Show, presented in March with four other artists, also involved storytelling and primitive camping.

Angels Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro, CA (see also caption top left). Last September NYC-based artist Yu Cao MArch self-published All That I Love, her new book of 29 paired drawings and poems “capturing the ineffable beauty of daily life,” via Blurb. And in December her video art was shown at Gallery MC in NYC as part of Show Your World, a multi-artist presentation of classical and folk music, art and performance. Standing out among 189 entrants, the team of Siyi He MLA and Yixin Ren MLA placed among the four runners-up in the 2018 domestiCITY affordable housing design competition in Atlanta. They were awarded

Please email class notes submissions to: risdxyz@risd.edu.

// RISDXYZ

$20,000 in January, and their entry—a site plan for wooden structures and urban farming— was on view in March and April as part of the competition exhibition. Sculptural work in glass, stoneware, sand and iron by Bahamian-born artist Anina Major MFA CR is part of We Suffer to Remain, an exhibition at the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas focused on the island’s history of slavery. The four-person show is on view through July 29.

2018 The Furniture Society named Manan Narang MFA FD winner of its 2018 Emerging Artist Competition held in conjunction with the Philadelphia Furniture Show. spring/summer 2018

sketchbook

// sketches, doodles, ideas in progress

DRAWN TO THE ROAD by Chandler O’Leary 03 IL

I live in Washington state with my lovely husband, who, like me, loves to travel. But I’m the real nut in the family, with a preference for road trips — either solo or with my spouse or friends. For one thing, I have lived all over the US and in Italy, so the urge to wander is deeply ingrained. And I am the one who will choose the squiggliest line on the map, rather than the Interstate, every single time. I am the one who gets excited about driving 200 miles out of my way to see a giant concrete prairie dog. I also have a thing for jackalopes, I brake for any coffee-pot-shaped building, and I have a bright yellow hat shaped like Swiss cheese.

I’ve been recording my travels in my sketchbooks for more than 20 years, which has had an enormous effect on my experiences as a traveler. Since drawing takes so much more time than photographing, I have to be selective about what I see and draw. But when I photograph, I’m letting the camera do all the seeing for me — so the memories don’t sink in. By taking the time to slow down and look at something long enough to draw it, I’m really studying it, committing that subject or place to memory. I love that even a rough sketch can really transport me back to a time and place like nothing else can.

To hear more about Chandler’s travels, listen to her new podcast series at missadventurepodcast.com. Also, find many more of her travel sketches at drawntheroadagain.com.

clockwise from left: Cattle Point, at the southern tip of San Juan Island,â&#x20AC;&#x2030;WA | Blue Swallow Motel on Route 66 in Tucumcari, NM | Orcas Island, WA | Big Bend National Park in Texas | in the background, Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles

Please submit samples from your own sketchbooks to risdxyz@risd.edu.

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