RISD alumni magazine - Rhode Island School of Design

Rhode Island School of Design’s alumni magazine
Spring/Summer 2011
3
Conversations
online, incoming,
11
ongoing
5
Listen
to reflections, opinions, what’s
on our readers’ minds
6
Look
8
at summer stuff, the great
outdoors, skin season
14
22
Doing it Differently
in a DIY World
True Character
As quintessential RISD makers,
Tanya aguiñiga MFA 05 FD, Jessica
Brown MID 09 and amy Devers
MFA 01 FD readily share their commitment to craftsmanship with others.
47
Buck Lewis 81 IL loves bringing
characters to life on screen and has
created some of the most memorable personas in the Disney, Pixar
and DreamWorks inventories.
FINDING YOUR OWN WAY
T h is is T h e T ime of y e a r w h e n a n yon e w h o
53
32
Six Degrees
updates from clubs, the Alumni
Association, Alumni Relations
37
Two College Street
Maeda’s message, faculty
news, a glimpse of studios/
student life now
42
Impact
news about scholarships, donors,
the RISD Annual Fund
44
Where We Are
class notes and profiles, undergraduate first, graduate second
59
Where We Were
photos/memories from
the past
64
Sketchbook
sketches, doodles, thoughts,
works in progress
works at a school or has kids of a certain
age inevitably thinks about transitions. Every year,
all over the world, a select group of students graduates
and moves on to a new phase in their lives. At RISD
the alumni “body” grows steadily, adding another
650+ people every spring—and every year I find
myself thinking about how these new graduates will
find their path in life.
This issue, like most, is of full of stories about
how and why various alumni have chosen to do what
they do. For some reason, the paths that RISD artists
and designers follow to get wherever they want to go
strike me as extraordinarily interesting—maybe
because they seem so daring, or circuitous, or counterintuitive. No matter what RISD alumni choose to do
after graduation, they generally embark on a journey
that’s less predictable and infinitely more intriguing
than that of the average college grad. Becoming an
artist—or a creative professional of any sort—isn’t like
going into banking or engineering or retail. There’s
no one path, no linear progression.
In this issue of RISD XYZ, you’ll find a feature
article about three young alums, Tanya aguiñiga MFA
05 FD, Jessica Brown MID 09 and amy Devers MFA 01
FD—all designers, all makers and all women who
would gladly use a power drill over a hair dryer any
day. Their paths have taken them in very different
directions, yet each one is living a creatively satisfying
life, capitalizing on an innate love of making. And
Te ac h es,
28
RISD Vintage 2011
(a very good year)
As they wrapped things up
this spring, RISD’s newest batch
of alums showed that they’re
definitely ready for what’s next.
Let us know what you think about this issue: [email protected].
much of their satisfaction comes from sharing the
skills they’ve learned along the way with people who,
unlike most artists and designers, aren’t naturally
drawn to a DIY approach.
The second feature story focuses on Buck Lewis
81 IL , a character designer for animated features
who tried out a couple of careers before ending up
in Hollywood. In fact, Buck first went into advertising
and had made enough money by the time he was
30 to “retire” to a newly purchased farmhouse in
Connecticut, with the romantic notion of finding the
solitude and space he needed to become a painter—
until he took a significant detour.
Almost wherever you turn in this issue you’ll
notice that RISD alumni are not content to simply
follow a predetermined career path or do “what’s
expected” to make it. The handful of Class of 2011 graduates highlighted in the third feature seem to know
that and are prepared—not to follow a set trajectory
or to climb the old-school ladder, but to make their
own path. They may meander a bit, but chances are
that they, too, will find creative satisfaction.
If there’s anything I’ve learned about RISD alumni,
it’s that you are a restless bunch, unwilling to accept
that you may have to compromise in order to pay
the bills. Granted, many alumni may do that at some
point, for a period of time. But what’s totally impressive about most RISD grads is that you figure it out.
You create alternatives. You find a way to make
a living doing what you love.
editor’s
message by
Liisa Silander
photo illustration by
Elizabeth
Eddins 00 GD
CONTRIBUTORS
PUBLISHING DIRECTOR
Online, incoming, ongoing
Becky Bermont
EDITOR
Liisa Silander
[email protected]
401 454 6349
D E S I G N/ P R O D U C T I O N
Kate Blackwell
Elizabeth Eddins 00 GD
Sarah Rainwater
Listen |
Cover |
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Anna Cousins
Francie Latour
Paula Martiesian 76 PT
Liisa Silander
D I R E C T O R O F A LU M N I R E L AT I O N S
MEAT LOVERS
“The winter issue of the magazine is
outrageously beautiful. I think it’s the
best I’ve ever seen come out of RISD!”
Jerry mischak 73 PT, adjunct faculty, Painting, Providence, RI
Christina Hartley 74 IL
PRINTING
Lane Press
Burlington, VT
printed on 70# Sterling
Matte, a recycled stock
RISD XYZ
Two College Street
Providence, Rhode Island
02903-2784 USA
Published three times a year by
RISD’s Media group, in conjunction
with Alumni Relations.
Listen illustration |
Cover | crystal ellis MFA 11 SC (crystalroseellis.com)
creates evocative works of sculpture in a range of
materials—paper, feathers, wood, and lead and monofilament, as in the mesmerizing kinetic piece The Weight
of Water (see her website). she’s shown on the cover
peering into her egg-shaped papier-mâché piece Echo,
which she exhibited this spring in risD’s 2011 Graduate
Thesis Exhibition. interestingly enough, after graduation
Crystal plans to throw her energy into expanding a small
design company she founded with two other women
called…egg Collective. You can also see another piece
of her pure, white, soft/hard work on page 31.
Listen (page 5) | After winning a Fulbright grant to
study in Japan, Louie rigano 10 ID (louierigano.com)
has been exploring traditional Japanese aesthetics
and design philosophies this year. His goal is to analyze
and react to the core tenets of Wabi sabi as he designs
and fabricates functional objects. Louie wrote the Listen
piece on page 5 in response to his experiences during
and after the march 11 earthquake and tsunami, which
not only changed the course of his year abroad, but
radically altered his understanding of the human spirit.
This year Louie has also been posting gorgeous images
and writing about his Fulbright year in Japan on his blog:
louieinjapan.blogspot.com.
2
risDXYZ
Sketchbook |
Listen illustration (page 5) | A nYC-based illustrator from Hong Kong, Victo ngai 10 IL (victo-ngai.
com) travels a lot between the two cities—and speaks
Cantonese, mandarin, english and Japanese. Her real
name is ngai Chuen Ching, but since her British kindergarten teachers couldn’t quite handle that, they dubbed
her Victoria—which, in turn, baffled her Chinese classmates, who gave up and just went with Victo, which
stuck. Just a year out of risD, she’s freelancing for The
New York Times, PLANSPONSOR and The Village Voice,
among others. Victo has won awards from Communication Arts, American Illustration, Spectrum, the society
of illustrators/nY—and the list goes on. she created
the illustration to accompany Louie’s Listen article and
was inspired by the namazu, the catfish in Japanese
mythology responsible for causing earthquakes.
Sketchbook (page 64) | Artist/educator sarah
haskell 76 TX combines her lifelong love of weaving
with teaching people of all ages and abilities to discover
the joys of working with thread. she lives in York, me
with her family and spends summers exploring the
coast of maine in her sailboat. sarah contributed a page
from the sketchbook she kept during a salty trip across
the Atlantic earlier this year. she regularly exhibits her
textiles in local and regional galleries, and though she
loves being on the water, her studio is where she finds
real meaning. “The interlacement of threads, the meditative quality of weaving, the metaphor of weaving and
the truth i face when i am at the loom are my passion.”
Let us know what you think about this issue: [email protected].
I N I T I A L C R E AT I V E D I R E C T I O N
WellNow Design
wellnowdesign.com
Criswell Lappin MFA 97 GD
Nancy Nowacek
Dungjai Pungauthaikan MFA 04 GD
O N T H E C OV E R
Echo (2010, papier-mâché, wood, paper)
It’s a terrific edition, congratulations on such a beautiful and
conceptually bold issue.
Chris Bardt BArch 83
RISD Professor of Architecture
Providence, RI
I love the design. It is interesting
and well done, and creative. And
yet engaging and readable. Content
is very good, and above all, the
whole thing is well organized, well
executed and exciting.
Believe me, I ran my own
design firm in Boston for 27 yrs,
and I don’t throw out compliments
too often. But you have created
a superb piece of work. And I do
know how much effort that takes
on everyone’s part.
Jack Dickerson 69 GD
Brewster, MA
I really loved the food-themed
issue of XYZ! Great reading!
Reminded me of a New Yorker
or NYTimes magazine issue.
Peter Goldberg 88 PT
A D D R E S S U P D AT E S
Postmaster: Send address changes to
Office of Advancement Services
RISD, Two College Street
Providence, RI 02903 USA
Or email [email protected]
Pawtucket, RI
The best edition of the magazine
that I’ve seen in all the years that
I’ve assiduously read it! Congratulations! I don’t know how or where
or from whom the idea developed
but it really is a winner from
all perspectives.
Barnet (Bunny) Fain
Before your great food issue I was
only aware of a couple of culinarilyinclined RISD alums. Now I feel
almost part of a crowd! I’ve worked
as a product and surface designer
for most of my life, but when I was
diagnosed with celiac disease a few
years ago, I used my years of home
cooking experience to start developing gluten-free recipes. GlutenfreefromNYC is my new online
bakery and www.wheatlessand
meatless.com is my blog catering
to gluten-free vegetarians and
vegans. I would love to hear from
RISD food people in the NYC area
who’d like get together. Who knows
how many of us there might be?!
Bernice Mast 71 PH
New York, NY
I just got my copy of the XYZ
magazine. It looks fabulous!!
Thank you so much for asking me
to be involved, and for your very
thoughtful and generous article
about the feast [see Winter 2011,
pages 22–23]. I’m truly so honored
to be a part of it. It’s so nice to
be next to Ciril (who I remember
from college) and the other great
RISD grads. I think I own a cookbook by Krystina Castella. Go
RISD!!I can’t wait to see what the
next one will bring! It’s really such
a fun and cool publication.
Lauren Garfinkel 91 AP
Brooklyn, NY
honorary trustee/former
Chairman of the Board
Barrington, RI
Follow risD at twitter.com/risd and facebook.com/risd1877.
all about you. if you don’t yet know about the strategic national Arts Alumni
project (snAAp), you may want to check it out. it’s an online initiative aimed
at providing a national picture of what alumni of us art schools are doing
with their degrees. run by the indiana university Center for postsecondary
research in collaboration with Vanderbilt university’s Curb Center for Art,
enterprise, and public policy, snAAp is modeled after the national survey of
student engagement, a more established indiana Center project that collects
data on the level of academic involvement among college students. The
snaapshot section of the snAAp site presents interesting stats in an easily
digestible format that helps frame a picture of art school grads in the us:
snaap.iub.edu/snaapshot.
“This was a journey that ran from one
delight to another, from one insight
or thought on to the next. Sometimes
it takes time and a tale to shape
the design of a voyage. The inconveniences, the delays, the errors can
interfere with the pleasant moments.
But not this time.”
mike fink, Professor of English, talking about a recent trip to
Jamaica where he connected with alumni who were his former students.
Read his story at www.risd.edu/jamaica.
spring/summer 2011
3
DIS-APPOINTMENTS
TOO SMALL
One of my favorite teachers was the late Dr. David
Manzella, chair of the MAT [Master of Arts in
Teaching] program. Toward the end of his tenure and
after his retirement he made his new studio—a former
bakery—into a bread making sculpture facility/
studio, where he and (as I understand it) invited
artists/students and friends would also make bread
works. He would have been the godfather of this
issue and I was rather surprised and disappointed he
was not mentioned.
I think that RISD XYZ is a
beautifully designed, interesting
magazine. But why does the
typeface have to be so small and so
gray? I know I am not alone with
this question.
Perci Chester MAT 68/MFA 69 PT
Minneapolis, MN
Editor’s note: Thanks for the reminder, Perci. I haven’t
heard about David’s legendary bakery studio, but we
obviously couldn’t pack all the great RISD food stories
into a single issue…. Like the year the Class of 1974
baked its design diploma from cookie dough (in the
Foundry!), the award-winning Dining + Catering
people who are making amazing food at RISD these
days and the many professors (current and former)
known for being almost as talented in the kitchen
as in the studio.
Nice work on the XYZ magazine. It is a pleasure to flip
through… wish I’d known about the FOOD issue. My
firm does mostly food and hospitality work for chefs
such as Mario Batali. Among other projects, we’ve
designed all of Mario’s award-winning cookbooks and
most of the branding for his many restaurants.
Douglas Riccardi 84 GD
Brooklyn, NY
Editor’s note: We did run a subtle mention in the Fall
issue (page 54) hinting that food was on the horizon for
Winter, but we hear you. We’ll attempt to make our
intentions clearer in the future. Coming up next: a focus
on alumni involved in publishing.
“Like Rome, Providence
congregates around seven
hills. The two to keep in mind
are Federal and College.”
from an article citing Providence as “on the shortlist
of coolest small cities in the US” in the British newspaper
The Telegraph, which also notes that RISD as “responsible…
for the city’s vibrant, experimental art scene” (5.14.11)
Gretchen Dow Simpson 61 PT
10
WOrds
or less
Providence, RI
Editor’s note: Since we use several
alumni-designed faces (Antenna,
Receiver and Chronicle) at
various sizes throughout the issue,
I’m not sure which one rubs you the
wrong way. But thanks for the
feedback. We’ve been trying to be
very sensitive to legibility issues
and will continue to do so as we
tweak our font choices to make the
magazine graphically stronger.
PORTABLE
DOC
FORMAT?
Though I’d enjoyed risd views
tremendously, RISD XYZ provides
us a more mainstream if not
elegant experience. Magic happens
when image and typography meet
thoughtful design, and they are
committed to print as is in RISD
XYZ. That brand of magic captured
me at a very early, impressionable
age, and I’ve been at its mercy since.
I wonder if there might be an
archive where pdfs of each can be
obtained as well? I’m no digital
junkie, but I make exceptions for
certain material. For instance,
RISD XYZ.
It was super, super intense.
I was so energized.
Collection 2011 guest critic
Robert Geller 01 AP remembering his senior crit
with Nicole Miller 73 AP , among others
It goes without saying
that we aren’t a
cookie-cutter publication.
Erica Morse 12 GD in her editor’s note after the
great new risD student magazine The All-Nighter
(all-nighter.com) signed off for the summer
If the work is good,
what does it matter?
actor/student/mC/whatever
James Franco MFA 12 DM commenting
on media criticism that he’s “spreading
himself too thin”
I’m feeling very manly.
David Byrne 73 FS after former Florida
governor Charlie Crist publicly apologized for
failing to get permission to use the song Road
to Nowhere in his campaign ad
Christopher Bright
Cranston, RI
Editor’s note: We post current and
back issues of RISD XYZ (in PDF
format) at www.risd.edu/xyz.
I wanted to fall in love with
my profession again.
USA why she came to risD
risDXYZ
Keep in touch. Write us at: [email protected]
LEARNING FROM
TRAGIC LOSS
i h a D J usT goT T e n ou T of T h e s h ow e r a n D
Erika Tarte MFA 11 GD telling Graphic Design
4
Readers reflect, write, shout, share
what’s on their minds.
had started buttoning my shirt when I felt the initial
tremor. I wasn’t too concerned at first, especially
as there had been several small earthquakes since
I had arrived in seismically active Japan. But by the
time I reached the third button the severity of this
earthquake was obvious—within roughly five
minutes everything in my Tokyo apartment had
been completely rearranged.
“It’s difficult to concentrate…
in the midst of a national
crisis of such magnitude.
It was totally terrifying, but I was unhurt. As
a Fulbright fellow studying abroad, I immediately
realized my parents would be worried, so I Skyped
them back in the US to let them know I was safe.
Then I followed the news as websites announced
with increasing concern when each aftershock would
occur, and I would feel it just seconds later. Fortunately, Tokyo suffered virtually no structural damage.
Still, since I was studying in a region close enough
to the Fukushima nuclear plant to warrant travel
warnings, I took the advice of Fulbright Japan and
returned to America for a short leave of absence.
But in the 10 days before I left, I witnessed a
different Tokyo. The night following the earthquake,
I walked from my apartment to Shinjuku station—the
busiest train station in the world—and stood in the
street amidst thousands of people facing three huge
LED screens, which usually streamed advertisements
but now displayed live news footage of the destruction
of not-so-distant coastal cities. We stood in silence
monitoring the flow of graphic images and the
outpouring of people rushing through the streets
toward their homes. The cultural barriers I had been
facing by virtue of being an outsider in a foreign
country were nullified.
Despite this, it was very hard
to even think about my design
projects and research. The
continuous aftershocks were
unnerving, some large enough
to pull me out of sleep. Yet the
Japanese seemed remarkably
unphased. They went to work as
always and carried on with
everyday routines. Even in the
face of such unbelievable
loss—loss that I, as a visitor, could
never truly comprehend—the
people of Japan remained resolute.
The month at home in the U.S.
allowed me a chance to regroup
for the second half of my Fulbright
To submit your own commentary, email [email protected] (subject line: listen).
year, which was almost exactly at
the halfway point when the earthquake struck. I had just started an
internship in Tokyo a few weeks
before and had arranged another
one for late spring, both at industrial design firms. This spring I
am also working with a traditional
woodworking master an hour
outside the city and in the summer
I will spend a few weeks making
ceramics at a Buddhist monastery.
While it will be difficult to concentrate on my personal design
project in the midst of a national
crisis of such magnitude (complicated by radiation concerns from
the irreparable power plant),
I am deeply gratified to be able to
delve into the historic culture
of a people with the self-discipline,
tenacity and poise to remain
intrepid in the face of immeasurable loss and tragedy.
text by
Louie
Rigano 10 ID
illustration by
Victo
Ngai 10 IL
spring/summer 2011
5
The WATeR WhISPeReR
It’s Summer!
Emily
Cohen
90 IL
emily cohen 90 IL had fun working as a school
art teacher for years, but it wasn’t until she taught
her own small children to swim—both by age two—
that she discovered her true calling. By transferring
her creative approach to teaching from the
classroom to the pools of sunny southern California,
she developed a how-to method for small fry
based on “entertaining developmental methods
that break down the basic elements of swimming
in a simplistic manner,” she explains. Today, she
runs The Water Whisperer in Sherman Oaks and
Woodland Hills, CA, teaching hundreds of babies,
kids and adults to swim every season. Cohen
boasts a 98% success rate in getting kids three
and up swimming within 10 lessons. Her trick?
Push fun, not sheer survival: “Throwing children
in immediately and creating scary experiences
are not part of The Water Whisperer philosophy.”
thewaterwhisperer.com
Botanical Beauties
“it is easy to forget that the colonists settled in new York
City because of its bounty of natural resources,” noted
wendy hollender 76 TX in a recent New York Times feature
on vanishing urban plants. she, too, first grew roots in
manhattan, living there for 30 years as she built a career
around drawing beautifully accurate renderings of plants,
primarily through the new York Botanical garden. now
the botanical illustrator has transplanted herself to a more
natural setting: Hollengold Farm in upstate new York, where
she conducts botanical drawing workshops, creates fine art
Wendy
Hollender
and does commissioned work for clients such as Country
76 TX
Coty and others. Her latest book—Botanical Drawing in Color
Living and Horticulture magazines, restoration Hardware,
(2010, random House)—offers an approachable how-to
guide to capturing the blooming beauty of botany.
drawingincolor.com
Pot Happy
plants feel right at home in pots made by Kim Barry 78 SC,
owner of Clay Trout pottery in the seaside town of
mattapoisett, mA. she uses traditional methods to craft
each of the hand-thrown vessels, adding embellishments
for custom projects. (Wedding centerpieces with the
couple’s initials are particularly popular at this time of year.)
Clay Trout offers shapes and sizes to suit even the pickiest
of plants: delicate paphiopedilum and phragmipedium
orchids are pampered in narrow, deep pots that accommodate their particular root systems; Cattleya pots have
holes for extra aeration. Barry uses several varieties of
clay that release moisture at different rates, allowing you
Roots on the Cape
to select the very best housing for your favorite greenery.
claytroutpottery.com
For all his expertise in shaping outdoor
Lois Brezinski
environments, george rockwood
70 AP
“rocky” clark BLA 77 admits that nature
knows best. At Harwich gardens by the
sea, the landscaping company he has run
on Cape Cod for 30 years, gorgeous
perennials provide the starting point for
Endless Escape
designers with a keen sense of balance
between the wild and the manmade.
sometimes you just can’t bear to leave the perfect vacation
Clark takes particular pride in the habitats
behind and return to the rat-race—just ask Lois Brezinski 70 AP.
he creates to encourage hawks, owls,
inspired by an “idyllic” getaway in the Cayman islands, the
turtles, rabbits, deer and other native
Kim
Barry
species to thrive. unmowed fields and a
pesticide-free patch of land allow willows,
78 SC
pitch pines, bayberry and red cedars to
Rocky
Clark
entice the wild ones to have a hay day.
to make a new life in the Caribbean after getting burnt out on
the job. There she pursued her passion for capturing the blissfulness of beachfront living in her vibrant watercolors, and soon
discovered that resorts and galleries were eager to display
harwichgardensbythesea.com
BLA 77
one-time owner of a textile design firm in new Jersey decided
her work. now settled in Delray Beach, FL, Brezinski runs a brisk
business with Cayman Colors, a line of decorative tiles, cards,
candles and other products featuring tropical scenes that
transport buyers beyond the mainland.
loisbrezinskiartworks.com
AND THERE’S
MORE
6
risDXYZ
Jillian Barber 68 CR
jillianbarber.com
Bring the outdoors in with ceramic seahorses, turtles, lacy fish and
jardinières fired in the artist’s Jamestown, RI studio. Inspired by natural
beauty, Barber also sculpts masks and is particularly partial to her own
Greenman, an ancient symbol of male fertility, rebirth and regeneration.
David Stark 91 PT
davidstarkdesign.com
The modern-day bride doesn’t need a church, a limo or even special shoes
(at least not for beach weddings). But flowers are a must. So in To Have
and to Hold Stark breaks it all down, petal by petal and season by season,
for brides who don’t want to bother with thinking about every last detail.
Aaron Meshon 95 IL
risdworks.com
In his ode to the Bomb Pop, Aaron Meshon sends us straight back to summers
spent scampering curbside at the first jingle of the ice-cream truck. Yet,
without adding a single calorie to the mix, his rubber-dipped messenger
bag will keep your laptop and other sundry stuff safe and sound.
Paul Loebach 02 ID
paulloebach.com
Loebach is making a splash again with his high-end Great Camp collection
for the Manhattan design store Matter. Inspired by Adirondack furniture,
it offers a line made with pieces of lumber that appear to have been
whittled by hand—except that it’s a total illusion.
spring/summer 2011
7
Mountain Modern
The Great Outdoors
it takes a real appreciation for the great outdoors to design homes that both
complement and respect the breathtaking natural landscapes around them.
in his 30 years as principal of Charles Cunniffe Architects (CCA) in Aspen, CO,
charles cunniffe BArch 75 has mastered the art. CCA’s approach involves
a “humanistic, socially responsible and technologically sophisticated vision
GeAR OF The YeAR
of design”—one that has earned the AiA Colorado West 2010 Firm of the Year
designation, along with the 2010 AiA Colorado West people’s Choice Award,
a gold nugget award of merit and a top spot in CnBC’s list of America’s most
impressive ski homes, among many other awards. natural wood and stone
Toss away the tent poles and lighten your load this summer with
NEMO’s nifty inflatable beams. Since founding NEMO Equipment
in 2002, inveterate adventurer cam Brensinger 02 ID has been
working nonstop to raise design standards in outdoor equipment.
From the get-go, NEMO’s breakthrough AirSupported Technology
earned an avalanche of awards and recognition from Popular
Science, Time, I.D., iF and others. Almost a decade later, the
bright ideas just keep flowing out of the NEMO shop in Nashua,
NH: the Sleep Tight Anchor Transfer system tethers tents in precarious positions; the APRI liner raises internal tent temperatures;
a Removable Insulated Floor separates sleepers from frosty
ground. Most recently NEMO’s Astro/Pillowtop sleeping system
earned a 2011 Gear of the Year citation from National Geographic
Adventurer and an Editor’s Choice award from Backpacker.
nemoequipment.com
allow CCA residences to harmonize with their surroundings, while expansive
windows are strategically placed to enhance the sweeping views.
cunniffe.com
Cam
Brensinger
02 ID
Falling in Love
“picking Gravity as my first feature with
Jon
Naiman
no film school training was insane,”
says marah strauch 00 GL. “That said,
89 PH
i didn’t have a choice. it chose me.”
As the writer and director of the first
When Quidditch Isn’t Enough
full-length documentary about the sport
of BAse jumping (freefalling from fixed
Bern-based photographer Jon naiman 89 PH
objects), she has spent five years
says Hornuss, a 17th-century swiss hybrid
tracking down and interviewing BAse
between baseball and golf, is an acquired taste
pioneers and grabbing exhilarating
among farm folk, with a “rather small” fan base.
footage shot in the 1970s and ’80s
played on thin strips of land between crop
by BAse guru Carl Boenish, wearing
fields, the game pits hitters, who whack a small
a head-mounted camera. she’s also
puck—called a hornuss (or “hornet”) for the
filming modern wingsuit flight and
buzzing sound it makes when flying 300 km/h—
jumps—including along the spectacular
far out into a field, against defenders, who use
rock faces of norway, where Boenish
heavy wooden shields on sticks to intercept the
died on a jump in 1984. But Gravity is not
hornuss in flight. naiman’s series Release Form
a film about death, outrageous stunts
Marah
Strauch
00 GL
captures the flavor of the swiss sport and
or media hype, strauch emphasizes.
caught the attention of the jurors for Photography
it’s “a love story about what it feels
Prize 2011, which selected several of his photos
like to fall, at first uncontrollably, then
willingly, and finally ecstatically.”
gravitythefilm.com
Karen Hackenberg 78 PT
karenhackenberg.com
The ocean is filled with mystery, but humans have the pesky habit of
filling it with deadly irony. From a Natural Ice soda can to the sea nymph
on a Starbucks plastic cup, Hackenberg’s paintings create a disturbing
juxtaposition between Pacific waters and the junk we throw in them.
8
risDXYZ
Biel, switzerland.
Charles
Cunniffe
jonnaiman.com
BArch 75
for a recent show at photoforum-pasquArt in
Susie Nielsen MFA 05 GD
farmprojectspace.com
Now is the time to visit farm project space + gallery in Wellfleet, MA,
where Nielsen mounts a great line-up of shows during the height
of tourist season. A lot of RISD alums are frequent “farmers,” with work
by Asya Palatova MFA 04 CR featured through June 14.
Kevin Cunningham BArch 05
spiraresurfboards.com
Last spring we noted that Spirare Surfboards certainly stand out at the
shore. This spring Cunningham completed a Kickstarter campaign to begin
making artful surfboards from “trash that washes up from the massive
drifts of debris in the ocean.”
Tom Weis MID 08 + Shoham Arad MID 08
see-why.org
This summer these two RISD classmates are teaming up to offer a new
series of design workshops for teens at Weis’ See Why Studios in Rockport,
ME. The goal is to show teenagers exactly how the design process works
and why it matters.
spring/summer 2011
9
Tubing
Karelle Levy 97 TX believes that no matter what shape you’re in—or what shape
you were born with— the beauty of her toobular knit designs will “flatter the shape
you have.” Through her miami-based company Krelwear, she creates knock-out
knitwear that is regularly snapped up by such tastemakers as nicki minaj, Cameron
Skin Season
Diaz, pink, Alanis morissette, Christina ricci and Carmen electra, among others.
And her seamless tubes cover a lot more than just ankles; using the finest yarns
(including glow-in-the-dark and uV-reactive ones) she creates fabulously funky
skirts, dresses, tanks, sweaters, onesies for the beyond-infancy crowd and—well,
courtesy of Karen Carpenter/Sport Illustrated | cover image: courtesy of Bjorn Iooss/Sports Illustrated
PeRFeCTION
“Swimsuit photos were probably the last thing in the world they
would have expected me to be doing at RISD,” Bjorn iooss 03 PH
readily admits. But earlier this year shooting skin led to one of
the most visible photography gigs on the planet, when his photo
of Russian model Irina Shayk was selected from stacks of
contenders for the cover of the 2011 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit
Edition (estimated circulation: 60 million). Iooss had done work
for advertising and several VOGUE editions, but had never shot
for Sports Illustrated before. On the morning of the shoot on the
beach in Maui, he realized he was looking at something potentially special: “It was beautiful. The light had just come up.” And,
he adds, “The crazy thing about it was that it was the first
morning, the first girl, the first look, and it was perfect.”
bjorniooss.com
basically, anything that can be knit in the
round. Levy’s fusion of art and fashion
has earned Krelwear growing recognition,
including call-outs such as genArt’s
Fresh Faces of Fashion and Daily Candy’s
Sweetest Thing Fashion Designer.
krelwear.com
Karelle
Levy
94 TX
Sally
LaPointe
Bjorn Iooss
03 PH
06 AP
Stylish Sunscreen
Going Gaga
The convergence of two major hat-wearing seasons—
summer and a royal wedding—makes it a heady time
to be eric Javits 78 PT. since 1978, when he crafted
Marked for Life
his first hat to help a friend get noticed at the
Old salts and landlubbers alike can proudly bare summer
door of studio 54, the millinery and accessories
designer has been synonymous with easy glamour.
Eric
Javits
performers as diverse as Bette midler, Alicia Keys,
the rockettes, madonna and Britney
spears have commissioned special
78 PT
favorite designers.” The bad news is that the
on staff specialize in custom designs influenced by
Duke
Riley
maritime folk art, scrimshaw and 19th-century tattoos—
think Queequeg, not Kat Von D. riley’s interest in folk history
95 PT
is more than skin deep: through his projects outside the
tattoo studio, he addresses “forgotten unclaimed frontiers”
have graced the heads
of at least two first
recent adventures in the name of art include An Invitation
ladies and accentuated
to Lubberland, his attempt to rediscover a river beneath
the runways at Donna
Cleveland that was the site of a booming shantytown during
Karan, Carolina Herrera,
the Depression, and a cross-country journey by freight train
elements but shy of the sun, Javits invented
she is “fast becoming one of Lady gaga’s
skin adorned with the work of Duke riley 95 PT, founder
on the edges of urban areas, often where water meets land.
Arnold scaasi and Bob mackie
good news for sally LaPointe 06 AP is that
of east river Tattoo in Brooklyn. He and the other artists
editions. Javits hats
shows. For women out enjoying the
so, as all the gossip blogs will tell you, the
than the glitterati would opt for evening wear
snapped this shot in late-winter nYC,
Lapointe could only take credit for half the
look (namely, the expert tailoring and
sculptural structure for which she’s known).
to reconstruct the defunct “hobo census” of the us.
unlike the celebs who have embraced her
eastrivertattoo.com
work, Lapointe doesn’t actually show much
dukeriley.info
skin in her fall collection. “she’s a smart
woman,” noted POSHGLAM, “because new
York City in the fall and winter doesn’t lend
into a suitcase.
itself to scantily-clad dressing.”
ericjavits.com
risDXYZ
she wore a beautifully sexy Lapointe gown
to Ces, the Consumer electronics show in
at a trade show?). But when the paparazzi
springs back into tip-top shape after being stuffed
10
don the designer’s entire outfit. so, yes,
Vegas earlier this year (though who other
the popular Squishee: a faux-straw chapeau that
Lara Kurtzman 00 PT
kelacalaq.com
What do feminist comedian Janeane Garofalo and R&B femme fatale
Rihanna have in common? They both go for the irreverence of Kelacala Q,
a jewelry line used to accentuate the abundance of bronzed skin in this
year’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.
exuberantly outrageous celeb doesn’t always
sallylapointe.com
Jennifer Clinch Guertin 96 PT
anchorsteamtattoo.com
Nothing celebrates skin like a good tattoo. As owner of Anchor Steam
Tattoo Gallery in seaside Newport, RI, Guertin has been perfecting her
body art for over a decade. From Nemo to mermaids with Afros, Samurai
warriors to Wonder Woman, her portfolio makes an indelible impression.
Evian Zukas-Oguz 98 TX
evianzo.com
As owner of EvianZO, Evian Zukas-Oguz channels hippy California style
to make her hand-dyed silk sarongs, tank tops and other beach-ready
wear. Summer never felt so good wafting through a whisper of an indigo
silk dress or shimmering off a red and yellow swimsuit.
Sarah Small 01 PH
livingpictureprojects.com
Plenty of skin marked last month’s debut of Tableau Vivant of the Delirium
Constructions, the most recent of Small’s theatrical experiments; 120
performers of all ages, sizes and colors took to the stage in Brooklyn to
bring tableaux-style paintings to life in this “live mosaic of humanity.”
spring/summer 2011
11
““There’s
There’s just
something about
3D—the fact that
I can touch it and
it’s tangible.”
Jessica Brown MID 09
“i was being asked
to be myself, but
a very conservative
version of myself.”
Amy Devers MFA 01 FD
““II like working with
my hands to make
something.”
Tanya Aguiñiga MFA 05 FD
12
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“my kids are
my review
team. They
just respond
instantly to
stuff, and
it’s amazing.”
Buck Lewis 81 IL
spring/summer 2011
13
DOING IT
D
F
IF
R
E
N
E
Y
L
T
IN A
Y
I
D
W
O
R
Meet three designers who share
a deep love of materials, a
fondness for power tools and the
drive to help others discover the
joys of working with their hands.
D
L
h ow ca n you T e L L w h e n a P heno m eno n has Beco m e
com P L e T e Ly e n T r e n c h e D w iThin PoPuL ar cu LTu re?
by Francie Latour
earlier this spring
Tanya Aguiñiga
created an inviting
installation of
crisscrossed yarns,
felted furniture and
floating woven pieces
for Crossing the Line,
her solo show at
LA’s Craft and Folk
Art museum.
14
risDXYZ
When it’s got a catchy three-letter acronym that everybody
either instantly recognizes or senses they should. Like DIY.
DIY is the American middle-class hobby that grew into
a philosophical movement that exploded into a national
obsession that spawned a billion-dollar media and retail
empire. It’s an anti-consumerist subculture and it’s a giant
cable network (actually several, including DIY, HGTV and
a lucrative chunk of PBS). It’s a way to plan your wedding and
it’s the message behind every ad for Lowe’s and Home Depot.
More than anything, it’s a highly hyped notion of returning
to something the average American vaguely senses has been
lost—without knowing exactly what that something is.
For three young alumni—one from suburban Michigan,
one from rural Kentucky and one from the Mexican border
town of Tijuana—DIY was never really any of those things. It
wasn’t a trend or something they even identified with a label.
For amy Devers MFA 01 FD, Jessica Brown 09 MID and Tanya
aguiñiga MFA 05 FD, doing it yourself has always been something they craved. From the time they were young, finding
a new way to use an old thing was a way of life and a physical
impulse—almost an extension of their own hands.
They may not have chosen the same materials or had the
same motivations: As a teen, Brown once took apart a dresser
to make shelving for a stereo out of necessity; at the same
age, Devers was doing her hair in wild architectural styles for
sheer fun. Aguiñiga made money to buy candy by packaging
handmade jewelry in Saran Wrap and selling it door-to-door.
Today, their channels of expression are equally varied—
making how-to videos, creating floor-to-ceiling installations
and bringing imaginative curb appeal to homes. But from a
spring/summer 2011
15
shared passion for making and building, these three alums are
carving out dynamic careers, blurring the boundary between
DIY and craft and elevating the most mundane materials—
from obsolete 8-track tapes to impersonal folding chairs to
nondescript bathroom tiles—to new heights.
“All three of these women demonstrate a high level of
informed intellect in their manner of making,” says Professor
rosanne somerson 76 ID, longtime head of Furniture Design
at RISD and now interim provost. “There is a clear sensitivity
to materials and process linked to their concept, but they each
produce work that simultaneously extends their personal
voice and our conceptual understanding.”
THE URGE TO TINKER
Amy Devers on
the set of the DiY
network show
Freeform Furniture
(above) and doing
an on-camera
workshop as a
crowd of Koreans
looks on in seoul.
16
risDXYZ
FU rN I TU r e De sI G N
amy Devers MFA 01
amydevers.com
As distinct as their paths have been, Devers, Aguiñiga and
Brown all describe the same gravitational pull towards
three-dimensional making. “I started envisioning furniture
before I had any idea it was something you could study in
school or had any kind of understanding of the physics or
mechanics of it,” says Devers, a Los Angeles-based furniture
designer/maker who has skyrocketed to DIY fame as a co-host
for shows like Trading Spaces, Blog Cabin and the A&E hit Fix
This Yard. This year, Devers launched “Hands On,” a homeimprovement advice column for ReadyMade magazine.
Recalling her college days and early 20s, Devers says she
had a powerful urge to tinker. She was studying the business
side of fashion at the Fashion Institute of Technology. But one
night, while watching her friends struggle to design a
packaging product that would open in a particular way, she
became obsessed. “I just couldn’t let it go,” she says. “I got my
own cardboard and sat in my dorm room alone playing with it
until I figured out how to make it work.”
Later, while sharing a tiny apartment with friends in
California, she figured out how to make milk-bottle lamps
with rudimentary wiring. But her mind was racing far ahead of
her hand skills. “I started this mental process of re-engineering all the furniture in our place in my head so that it would be
more useful to us,” she says. “I’d think, ‘If this futon was just
hollow somehow, then we could still sleep on it but we’d have
all this storage underneath.’”
Eventually, when Devers got to RISD, her skills would
catch up with her ideas. For her graduate thesis project, she
designed and built an entire nightclub lounge interior using
only bathroom materials; shower fixtures became lamps and
vanity pieces became sitting areas.
“Everyone else was seeking out the most lavish materials—
beautiful upholstery fabrics and exotic woods,“ says Somerson,
“and Amy brought in these really mundane materials from
Home Depot, which she then repurposed with an incredible
level of both craftsmanship and ingenuity.”
Like Devers, Aguiñiga was reaching for that same building
know-how in her 20s, too, but for very different reasons. In
the late ’90s, as part of the Border Art Workshop, a politically
engaged arts collaborative in San Diego, she wanted to build
spaces that would give migrant squatter communities access
to resources and a powerful voice through art.
She built those spaces in the tradition of the border
neighborhoods around her, cobbled together using nontraditional techniques and discarded materials destined for the
“All three of these
women demonstrate
a high level of informed
intellect in their
manner of making.”
rosanne somerson 76 ID, professor and interim provost
trash heap. Once, she reclaimed an outdated marble rotunda
from a local San Diego museum, sawed it into pieces, drove
them down to Mexico and transformed them into church pews.
“Where I’m from, you don’t throw anything out. You always
made due with what you had,” says Aguiñiga, a furniture
designer and artist whose exuberant, handcrafted work has
been shown everywhere from Mexico City to Milan. Her work
has spanned the gamut from metal and plastic to wood and
textiles; in Crossing the Line, her spring solo show at LA’s
Craft and Folk Art Museum, she exhibited a room-size
installation of crisscrossing yarns and floating woven pieces
that enveloped visitors in a cocoon-like environment.
Through the Border Art Workshop, Aguiñiga developed the
skills she would need to hone her vision in craft. “We built a
soccer field. We built a cemetery. We built a sculpting school to
teach people to carve gravestones themselves,” Aguiñiga says.
“I had never even used a power drill before, and here
I was doing roofing and physically building stuff. That was
when I started to think, ‘I want to make furniture. I like
working with my hands to make something.’” And though it
was a slow road, Aguiñiga began to win the approval of her
struggling working-class relatives, who had been counting
on her—the family star since kindergarten—to lift them out
of poverty through medicine or law. “One of the times Pope
John Paul II came to Mexico, we were on the roster of people
for him to meet because of all the work we had done for
migrant rights,” she says. “Even though my family wasn’t
happy with me ‘wasting my brain’ on art, they finally said
‘Well, if the Pope thinks she’s okay, I guess she’s okay.’”
From the time Jessica Brown stole her cousin’s toy push
saw, the satisfaction of creating and repurposing in 3D was
visceral. Her longtime mentor and former high-school art
teacher, Glenda Bittner, puts it this way: “She made men’s
underwear out of duct tape. She made clothes for her pet rat.
Every single solitary assignment I gave Jessica she attacked,
like it was the greatest thing there ever was.”
Long before Brown knew what sustainability meant, she
and her family would do what most people did in their
hometown of West Paducah, KY: They recycled, reused and
handed down almost everything. Food scraps became cattle
feed. Bathtubs became planters. T-shirts became rags.
But even in a community of savers, Brown stood out. Once,
spring/summer 2011
17
“Every single solitary
assignment I gave
Jessica she attacked,
like it was the greatest
thing there ever was.”
As one of the first
women to be
featured regularly
on DiY shows,
Devers typically
tackled projects
with men. Here
she’s building a table
with Diamond rio
on DIY to the Rescue.
glenda Bittner
Jessica Brown MID 09
has been tinkering,
experimenting and
making things since
she was a kid—when
her parents essentially
gave her free reign to
“destroy their house
with purpose.”
18
risDXYZ
PLANES OF IDENTITY
For Devers, Aguiñiga and Brown, the journey to becoming
designers/makers was marked by their own evolving sense of
INDUsT r I A l De sI G N
Jessica Brown MID 09
jessicabrowndesign.com
bottom: photo by Belinda Valadez
after getting a stereo for Christmas, she took a saw, cut out
the upper rails of her five-drawer bureau, covered a cardboard
slab with some contact paper and then set it on the lower
rails—all in a matter of minutes. “I took the stereo and
speakers, positioned them into their new home and voilà,”
says Brown, who now lives in Providence. “My parents were
flabbergasted. One, that I had cut up a bureau they had had
for years, and two, that I did it that fast.” Looking back, she
says that her parents gave her a precious gift: the freedom to
“destroy their house with purpose.”
Now Brown dreams of following in Devers’ DIY footsteps:
With a TV persona that is a cross between Bob Villa, Bob
Barker and ’80s MTV icon Downtown Julie Brown, she has
launched four episodes of her YouTube show Let’s Just Make
That!, showing viewers how to make kitchen islands or pot
racks with the forgotten materials sitting in their basement.
She is shopping the idea to several networks.
“There’s something about 3D and the fact that I can touch it
and it’s tangible,” Brown says. “With painting, I might be able
to smell the paint, but I can’t physically go in there and move
those shapes and colors around.”
bottom,
photo
byfar
Stephani
right: photo
Ewens
by Xxxxxxxx Xxxxxxxxxxx
identity and the lived experience of crossing cultural boundaries—boundaries of ethnicity, nationality, race and gender.
Fresh out of San Diego State with a degree in furniture
design, Devers got her first job—as a machine shop foreman
overseeing a 12-man team that built trade show booths. She
quickly realized that before she could be their boss, she first
had to prove she could be their equal.
“I noticed in my interview that they all came to work in
blue Dickies and a white t-shirt,” Devers says. “So on my first
day, I came in blue Dickies and a white t-shirt. When something was too heavy for me, I moved tables around and used
leverage to manipulate materials. And I just worked. I worked
as hard and as long as they did.”
As part of the project
Artists Helping
Artisans, Aguiñiga
worked with artisans
in Chiapas, mexico,
who weave fabric
using backstrap
looms.
But that gender challenge paled in comparison to what
Devers would face in the surreal world of television. She broke
into TV after hearing about a casting call from a friend of a
friend. The criteria were simple: a female who was a skilled
builder. No acting experience necessary. “I thought, ‘What the
hell. I know how to build. I have rhinestone safety glasses,’ ”
says Devers, who landed the part and launched her TV career
on the DIY Network’s flagship show, DIY to the Rescue, in 2003.
On the one the one hand, Devers says, she was a soughtafter commodity—a telegenic woman and highly skilled
builder who knew how to get the content right. On the other
hand, she was a novelty—a product audiences would have to
buy in order for the show to succeed.
“There was a moment in home-improvement TV history
where, if you were a woman, you were either the sexy carpenter who didn’t really know what she was doing, or you were the
token female,” Devers says. “The network didn’t want either.
They hired me because I was the real deal. But they had a deep
suspicion that nobody would believe I was the real deal.”
These days nobody doubts Devers’ credentials, and she’s
developed her own on-camera persona—“relaxed, a little bit
of a smart-ass, and bossy in the all-for-the-greater-good kind
of way.” But in that first crucial season, producers told her
she had to play it safe: “No jokes, no goofiness, no personality.
Just the facts. So I was being asked to be myself, but a very
conservative version of myself.”
If Devers had to straddle invisible boundaries of perception, Aguiñiga straddled boundaries that were geographic and
highly policed: Twice a day from the age of 5, she crossed the
border from Mexico to attend school in San Diego, where she
was born and where her father worked. For years, her Tijuana
address was a secret she had to keep from her school and even
her closest friends. But as an adult, her body of work—highly
tactile, interactive pieces with unexpected combinations
of material and form—stands as a powerful visual translation
of that experience.
“Where we lived was a few blocks away from the border
fence. So the drive to school was along this road right next to
the border,” says Aguiñiga, who lives and works in LA and
won a $50,000 award in 2006 as an inaugural recipient of the
prestigious United States Artists Fellowship. “That’s one of the
things that made the border super present in my mind always,
the difference between me just being able to drive over it and
other people having to sacrifice their lives to cross it.”
spring/summer 2011
19
“I’ve always felt guilty
about making work
that wasn’t functional,
because that’s something that people of
leisure do.”
“I have absolutely no doubt Jessica is going to be famous
one day,” Bittner says. “I’ve never known anybody braver than
she is and I’ve never seen her fail at anything. I’ve seen her
detour, but I’ve never seen her fail.”
CRAFTING COMMUNITIES
Here’s a coincidence: When you talk to friends of Devers,
Aguiñiga or Brown, they inevitably start telling a story that
involves one of those women walking into a room. The point
of the story is to explain that the room is no longer the same
once they’ve entered it.
“I took Amy out to dinner last night. We went to a restaurant we’d never been to before, and there was a room in it
I wanted to show her,” says Ron Fleming, an LA designer and
friend. “There was a big party happening in that room, so
I hesitated. But Amy just walked right in and grabbed the guy
around the shoulders and said, ‘Hey, happy birthday!’ She’s
totally fearless.”
These women don’t just want to break new ground,
colleagues and friends say. They also passionately want to
connect. With an equal mix of personal dedication and largerthan-life personality, they are using their craft to engage
audiences and build communities. The infectious enthusiasm
they generate around their work has allowed them to bridge
divides between high art and domestic crafts, between the
average homeowner and the intimidating renovation project,
and even between generations of their own families.
“My granddad watched me on YouTube and he calls and
says, ‘Jess, you don’t know how proud I am. I tried to teach
your uncles how to make things, and I always wanted to
pass on that legacy,’” says Brown, who first started Let’s Just
Tanya aguiñiga MFA 05 FD
20
risDXYZ
FU rN I TU r e De sI G N
Tanya aguiñiga MFA 05
aguinigadesign.com
Make That! to help her mother in Tennessee tackle basic
home projects when Brown was far away. “Hearing that and
knowing that brings a whole new level of satisfaction.”
Rosanne Somerson recalls being in a room when Aguiñiga
demonstrated her process of hand-felting folding chairs. She
remembers the entire studio smelling like olive oil and soap,
and watching her student lovingly cast the bright wool fibers
onto the drab metal.
“If you’re in a room with Tanya, you’re happy. She is just
naturally connected to people. And actually, I think that’s
something all three of these women share,” says Somerson.
“They all are incredibly hard workers. But they’re all also really
funny, lively inventive people who draw people to them and,
in doing that, draw them to new ideas.”
“They all are incredibly hard
workers. But they’re all also really
funny, lively, inventive people.”
rosanne somerson 76 ID
Aguiñiga created
Embrace Lounge
(top) at risD,
inspired by the need
to be held. Later she
rescued a set of
metal folding chairs
from a dumpster
and covered them
in felt skins, using
eye-popping colors
inspired by her
native Latino culture.
bottom right: photo by Peter Goldberg 88 PH
With an instinctive love of materials and a childhood
defined by a hyphenated identity, Aguiñiga began to embed
her ideas about home, alienation, boundaries and belonging
into her furniture designs. Her very first piece at RISD,
Embrace Lounge—a daybed with a surface cut out in the shape
of a human figure—spoke to an acute need she was feeling at
the time: for physical, human contact.
Today, Aguiñiga’s sense of identity and place are still
evolving. In 2007 she traveled with a younger sister to weaving
villages in Chiapas, Mexico to study traditional techniques
of backstrap weaving, where women use their own bodies as
looms. But success has also meant redefining what it means
to exist in two different worlds.
“It’s a long process to be okay with someone giving you
$50,000. I was never actually prepared for success. I was
prepared for struggle,” she says. “I’ve always felt guilty about
making work that wasn’t functional, because that’s something
that people of leisure do. And now I guess I’m ‘people of
leisure.’ I’m still exploring ideas centered around craft and
tradition, but in different ways.”
On the surface, Jessica Brown might seem to share some
common ground with Devers and Aguiñiga. As an AfricanAmerican growing up in rural Kentucky, she knew what it felt
like to be a minority in a predominantly white world. As a
woman who builds, she knows what it’s like to be female in
a predominantly male world.
But while Brown has addressed issues of race head-on in
her past work, those are not necessarily the forces that have
shaped her art. What accelerated Brown on her path was
something else entirely, something that made high-school art
class not just a fun place to create, but a critical outlet for her
survival. In 1997, she was among a group of students who were
fired on in a school shooting, injuring five and killing three.
She doesn’t talk much about the incident, and the bubbly
optimism of her YouTube workshops betrays nothing of the
pain she experienced. But in the shooting’s emotional
aftermath, art literally saved her. “After the shooting, the art
room became my escape, because I decided to not really deal
with the… shooting,” she says.
The art annex became the place Brown went in the earlymorning hours before school opened, letting herself in with
alarm codes she had been given. It was the place teachers sent
her as an alternative to detention when she got in trouble. And
it was where Brown forged a deep bond with Bittner, her art
teacher, who became her mentor and surrogate mother.
Jessica Brown loves
transforming trash
into something
useful, as in the funky
key holder she made
from an old neil
Diamond 8-track
tape. Above: One
of the benches Amy
Devers has shown
viewers how to build
on Fix This Yard.
spring/summer 2011
21
it took roughly four
months of sketching
before po, the
unlikely hero in Kung
Fu Panda, began to
emerge from Lewis’
imagination. Finding
the character’s
essence required
dozens of sketches—
until he hit on the
contours of po’s
flabby exterior and
inner warrior.
At RISD Buck Lewis learned to value
process—something he now uses to
bring memorable characters to life in
some of the best animated features
made in the US.
22
risDXYZ
Il lUsT r AT IoN
Buck Lewis BFA 81
by Francie Latour
i n 1988 B uc K L ewi s f i n aL Ly goT e V ery Th i n g h e h aD
e Ver wan T e D. Just shy of 30, he walked away from an
award-winning career in advertising and a client roster that
included American Express, HBO, IBM and Sony. He fled
Manhattan for a Connecticut farmhouse on 100 acres. It had
a circa-1750 chimney, a 35-foot-long artist’s studio with
vaulted ceilings and offered all the tranquility he would need
to answer his true calling: to become a painter.
Three months later, he fell into a black hole of depression.
“I was one of those people who was like, ‘Someday I’m going to
paint. Someday, I’m going to get out of this rat-race with all
this commercial bogus bullshit and do something that’s pure,’”
Lewis says, with all the idealism of that 29-year-old self
coming through in his 52-year-old voice. “I was fortunate
enough to reach the point where I could actually get what
I wished for, and see what that felt like. And it was scary.”
It was scary for a few reasons. One, Lewis found out he
wasn’t very skilled as a painter. Even worse, it dawned on him
that in this static medium, he had nothing relevant to say. But
the worst realization of all came one night when he went to
the movies, and settled in to watch the animated classic Who
Framed Roger Rabbit? When it was over, he realized that at 30
years old, he had gotten his true calling all wrong.
“I could feel the appetite right away, like, ‘I want to do that,’”
Lewis recalls. “And as soon as I felt it, I thought, here I am in
bucklewis.com
a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. How in the hell am
I going to make movies? Other than wallow and read about
people who make films, I couldn’t put together how I would
do it.” About a month later, in a moment that could’ve been
scripted for Hollywood, Disney called.
The studio was in a rut with a movie that was in production. They wanted something new, and they’d heard about
his whimsical, prize-winning style in the illustration world.
“I think they thought, ‘Hey, maybe this guy could do something,’” Lewis says. “So I got invited to play.”
Since then, Lewis has been playing in some pretty elite
movie company. As a character designer on more than 20
animated features, his blockbuster credits include:
Madagascar, Cars, Ratatouille, Bee Movie, Ice Age, Kung Fu
Panda, and this year, Gnomeo & Juliet. He has created
characters for the titans of animated film, from Pixar to
Disney to DreamWorks. And his heroes and anti-heroes are
voiced by some of the biggest names in movie-making—Bruce
Willis, Owen Wilson, Jerry Seinfeld, Renee Zelleweger.
But if his gifts as an illustrator have catapulted him to the
top of his field for a second time, you get the feeling that for
Lewis, it’s not about the credits. (Sometimes, in the messiness
of creative collaboration and the Hollywood tussle over turf
and egos, he doesn’t even get full credit for his work.) For him,
it’s about the medium itself. His plein-air canvases from the
farmhouse may have lacked meaning. But inside his Los
Angeles studio, the blank sketchbooks where animated films
“I could feel the
appetite right
away, like, ‘I want
to do that.’”
Buck Lewis 81 IL
spring/summer 2011
23
“There was a kind of clarity about illustration, and it was
really attractive to me that you couldn’t hide behind any
pretense,” he says. “It had nothing to do with what you looked
like or your persona or anything else. It just had to do with
what you could do.”
But even a non-traditional school like RISD has rules, and
Lewis, the would-be biker, found himself gravitating to other
things beyond the studio—like getting into trouble. He may
not hold the record for being called before RISD’s disciplinary
board, but with roughly seven appearances in four years, Lewis
says if he doesn’t, he’s probably pretty close to whoever does.
“How can I put this?” says carter goodrich 81 IL, a fellow
character designer whose credits include Shrek, Finding Nemo
and Despicable Me. “Buck was this sort of wild man; I came
from the country in Connecticut with nothing like that kind
of background.” But the two became lifelong friends and today
live just a couple blocks away from each other in LA. “He
didn’t do anything really bad. . . I just think that reckless and
fun life got him into trouble now and then at RISD.”
Lewis also faced the brutal realization that he would never
again be the ace high-school artist whose work blew everyone
away. For four years, he worked with peers who were as good
or better than him, he says, and professors whose relentless
When the director of
Ice Age turned to
Lewis for ideas about
how to create depth in
a landscape of snowy
white tundra, he was
treated to a world of
moody blues and
purples, unexpected
shadows and
fantastical shapes.
“The way [Buck] approaches
ideas and characters
is unusual. And it’s pretty
inspiring.” chris wedge, director
are born allow Lewis to unlock entire worlds. Those worlds
can be inner ones—as with Marty, the zebra in Madagascar
yearning for a life beyond the city zoo—or outward-looking,
as with the long vistas of Ice Age landscapes.
“To me, the promise of animation is the way it opens up
reflection on the human condition. It’s very much like science
fiction in that way,” Lewis says. “You can introduce a world to
a viewer—a unique world that you haven’t seen before, but
that’s also somehow universal and hugely relatable.”
When Lewis dives into those cinematic worlds, his peers
in the industry say, the sketches and illustrations that emerge
are extraordinary. “When we worked on Ice Age, Buck came
up with these shapes you wouldn’t expect for glaciers and
these colors you wouldn’t expect to render shadows on snow.
He helped create an incredible sense of mood in a landscape
people would assume was just going to be white,” says Chris
Wedge, the Oscar-winning director best known for Ice Age
and whose Blue Sky Studios produced the new film Rio.
“The way he approaches ideas and characters is unusual. And
it’s pretty inspiring.”
THIS THING CALLED ART SCHOOL
For a lead designer who has produced some of the most
memorable characters in some of the most successful
24
risDXYZ
animated features, Lewis doesn’t sound like someone who’s
used to getting his way in Hollywood. He sounds a lot more
like someone who always had to find his own way, starting
with his blue-collar childhood in West Chester, PA. Except for
his art teacher, no one in his small-town environment knew
anything about art. As a result, he became known as the kid
who hid out in the art room and drew vicious but clearly
advanced caricatures of his teachers.
As graduation loomed, Lewis found himself facing what
he calls his “first big fork in the road:” joining the local chapter
of the Pagans, a national biker gang, or going to college. And
the latter option held almost no appeal. “I was already at a
point where I really wanted to develop my own path in life,”
he says. “Any kind of traditional schooling felt too much like
a template that I was being handed, that I had to conform to.
And that wasn’t interesting to me at all.”
At first, he had no idea that kids could do something radical
and law-abiding at the same time. Then, Lewis says, he found
out about colleges called art schools—and soon applied to
every one he could find. After getting accepted to all of them,
he didn’t know how to choose, so he went with his gut: RISD.
Almost immediately, he gravitated to illustration—a medium
that resonated with his blue-collar instincts to work hard,
produce and excel by proving yourself technically on paper.
Ratatouille invited
audiences into the
world of haute
cuisine and convinced
them to root for an
unlikely hero—a rat
whose predicament
throws light on the
human condition. He
is precisely the kind
of character that
drives Lewis’ passion
for animated film.
discipline literally transformed him from a kid drawing
dragsters to a proficient figurative artist. Yet for all the conflict
and self-doubt, Lewis says, there was no better place for him
than RISD.
“I couldn’t have been in a more perfect place,” he says.
“What’s astonishing and formative and useful about RISD is
the way it’s all about process. It was all about how you engage
creatively. And that answered my original interest in finding
my path and my own journey, because process itself—every
drawing, every creative experience—is a very powerful kind
of journey. I look at process as a way of life, and I couldn’t think
of a more valuable thing to take away from school.”
DEFINING GOOD
Lewis’ intensely personal process has become one of his most
important calling cards, in editorial illustration, in advertising
and especially in animated features. It’s a trait that sets him
apart in the world of character design, where survival often
means never getting too attached to characters that automatically become the property of a studio, but may never make it
to the big screen.
“To Buck’s credit, he gets very emotionally involved with it,
and the characters become a lot more personal to him,” says
Goodrich. “And that’s how it should be.” But the other key to
Lewis’s success is much harder to describe.
“I’ve seen plenty of folks’ portfolios out here, and they all
have a stunning sense of design,” Goodrich says. “But they
don’t have that strange element—that something in them that
makes the characters believable. Buck’s real strength is that
he has great designs but he also has a reality and freshness to
his characters. And that’s really hard.”
Lewis himself has trouble articulating what it is that makes
a character not just well-designed, but vital, though he agrees
with Goodrich that it’s about more than technique.
“Designing lead characters for animated feature films is
kind of a weird super-specialized endeavor,” Lewis says. “As a
draftsman, I’m not as phenomenal as other people I encounter
on a daily basis. But what I have is access to my own process.
If you invite me to work on a story with you, I relate to it
completely differently than most other people.”
“To me, the promise
of animation is the way
it opens up reflection
on the human condition.”
Buck Lewis 81 IL
spring/summer 2011
25
in addition to
designing characters,
Lewis longs to tell
stories. He has
illustrated seven
books, including My
Penguin Osbert in
Love, and is in the
process of developing
the characters, look
and feel (middle
image) of his own
animated feature,
Left Tern.
“I started to feel like I could see
the character, and then fastened
on to it. I went into a zone.”
Buck Lewis 81 IL
Where other character designers like to flaunt their
technical craftsmanship, Lewis says, he instinctively gravitates towards the inner contours of personality and the
universe in which the character lives. “I can’t find my way
to a character with technique,” he says. “I go to an emotional
place. I find the connection with a character, I learn everything I can about them from the inside out, and then I can
create. It has nothing to do with the surface. It has everything
to do with the interior.”
It took about four months for Lewis to find Po, the unlikely
martial-arts hero from Kung Fu Panda. Unlike many projects,
where directors come to him with a fully formed concept and
storyline, Lewis had a hand in creating Po and his panda world
from the ground up. “That was a movie where I was invited by
DreamWorks to be part of a kind of informal director’s think
tank,” Lewis says. “So I was really engaged at the level of the
nucleus of the story.”
At that embryonic stage, Lewis already envisioned Po
as a lovable, improbable Rocky—guided, challenged and nearly
abandoned by his master trainer. It was an homage to the
Kung Fu movie genre wrapped in anthropomorphic farce.
What followed was a flurry of sketches and iterations
of pandas—until he hit on an idea worth pursuing. “I’d get into
a series of five or six different renderings and something would
emerge where I started to feel like I could see the character,
and then I fastened onto it,” he says. “I went into a zone, and
I could feel I was hitting him.”
The promise of Po slaying his master’s shunned protégé,
the evil snow leopard Tai Lung, contained all the elements that
drive Lewis to make animated films. “In what other medium
could you say, ‘OK, what is the most unlikely hero for Kung Fu
fighting you could possibly think of?’” Lewis says. “Well, how
about just a big flabby panda bear? Top that! That’s the fun
of animation. And then there’s that Holy Grail element of
having this world that has its own logic to it and you can build
that out and take viewers on this ride within it.”
In 1991, not long after Lewis got his start in character
design, Beauty and the Beast became the first animated film to
be nominated for an Academy Award for best picture. The last
two years have seen back-to-back best-picture nominations
for the genre, with Up! (the Pixar film featuring the work of
supervising animator scott clark 96 IL) in 2010 and Toy Story
3 in 2011. If some people are surprised at the meteoric rise
of animation in recent years, Lewis is not. “I think good has
a universal definition, beyond just, you know, pyrotechnics,”
he says. “With animation, you’ve got a protracted, years-long
process where everyone involved is asking over and over and
over again, ‘Is this a good idea? Why are we doing this?’ In that
kind of process, chances are you’re going to have a story and
a movie that can do well.”
INvENTING NEw wORLDS
“With Buck, there’s a hidden
artist in there who really
understands the emotional
structure of a film.” chris wedge
key to his animated characters: storytelling. He has already
illustrated seven books, including My Penguin Osbert (2008)
and My Penguin Osbert in Love (2010). He’s written a graphic
novel with his longtime partner, Staci Marengo, and his
three children, ages six, four and two, have become his most
important critics. “They’re my review team,” Lewis says.
“They just respond instantly to stuff, and it’s amazing.”
But to hear his colleagues tell it, there’s one place a
character designer with Lewis’ sense of narrative is bound
to end up: writing and directing his own feature film.
“In animated film these days, you’re pretty much dealing
with collaboration among specialists. It’s rare that you find
artists that can do more than one thing really well,” says
Wedge. “With Buck, he excels at his drawing, which he’s
obviously known for, but there’s also a hidden artist in there
who really understands the emotional structure of a film. He
has an amazing ability to invent stories that are charactercentric and emotion-centric.”
Lewis puts it more simply. “Once I realized I wanted to do
more,” he says, “‘more’ became stories.” And then, without
pictures or a sketchbook in hand, he starts to tell a story. It’s
a story about a bird, co-created by Lewis and Marengo. She’s
a teenager and the oldest daughter in a very large family of
terns who migrate year after year from Maine to Florida. And
she’s completely bored.
“Isabelle, our tern, is just sick of this migrating pattern.
She’s seeing her life flash before her eyes, and she yearns for
a different outcome,” Lewis says. “And in that moment when
she starts to think, ‘What else could there be?’ she fantasizes
about staying behind. And her mother, Alice, who is the bird
equivalent of a Type-A, PTA mom, she’s got a whole team
of families that she’s in charge of when they migrate. They get
all the way to Florida, and her daughter is not there.”
The project, which Lewis is set to direct and is tentatively
titled Left Tern, is the kind of story any parent and child could
relate to. But the heart of the conflict—what will the mother
bird do?—presents the perfect kind of story for Lewis to tell.
“In the bird world, once you migrate, you can’t go back,” he says.
“That’s against nature. So it’s great fun and it’s good entertainment. But having those universal emotions embedded in a
dilemma from a completely different world? That’s what really
attracts me.”
After working on the best animated features in the industry,
what’s next for H.B. Lewis? Perhaps not surprisingly, he now
finds himself driven by the element that has long been the
26
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spring/summer 2011
27
JooHee Yoon 11 IL
r i s D
V i n T a g e
2011
( a
V e r y
g o o D
r ec e n T r ecog n iT ion : one of two top prizes in
the 2011 Society of Illustrators NY competition
n e xT u P : move to New York City to freelance
as an editorial illustrator for magazines,
newspapers, books and posters ; continue making
prints through her new Six Legged Studios
jooheeyoon.com
y e a r )
wh en T h i s y ear ’s sen i o rs an D master’s
candidates graduate on June 4, the RISD
alumni community will welcome 660
newly minted members. In gearing up for
the big transition, all graduating students
presented final projects this spring. It’s
breathtaking stuff, showing the conceptual
depth, mastery of materials, personal
expression and indescribable appeal of the
diverse work emanating from RISD studios.
The handful of examples shown here offers
a glimpse of work by seniors, followed by
grad students.
Avery Reed 11 AP
internships at the
Metropolitan Opera in NYC and Annex Theater
in Seattle, WA
r ec e n T e xP e r ie n c e :
find a position as a costume designer
so that she can to combine her love of fantasy
with her design, illustration, sewing and
construction skills
n e xT u P :
avery-reed.com
Rebecca Manson 11 CR
r ec en T r eco g n i Ti o n : one of 10 students
nationwide to win the prestigious 2011
Windgate Fellowship for excellence in craft
a residency and research in
Berlin, followed by post-baccalaureate study
at California State University, Long Beach
n exT uP
uP:
rebexman.com
28
risDXYZ
“Inspired by the story of
La Esmeralda—an operatic
adaptation of The Hunch
Back of Notre Dame—my
collection emphasizes
the self-mockery and
masquerade of the festival
of fools scene, uniting
the chimerical and frightening elements of the
cathedral’s gargoyles with
the frivolity of the revelers
in the streets below.”
avery reed 11 AP
spring/summer 2011
29
Jennifer Cawley MFA 11 PH
shown here, archival pigment prints,
including Untitled (Airstrip, Vietnam), from the series
Re/constructed Narratives of the American War in Vietnam,
and Untitled (Michael), from the series War Stories
T h es is wor K :
Collin Hatton MFA 11 PT
“I strive to make
my work represent the world as something folded
into itself…. I am interested in the challenge
of creating paintings in which anything can be
included, but still maintain a sense of logic and
purpose. I want to use the fold to access and
embrace it all.”
fro m his Thesi s sTaT emen T:
n e xT u P : work included in Best of the Northeast Masters
of Fine Arts exhibition, on view from June 10–September 5
at the Helen Day Art Center in Stowe, VT
feed.risd.edu
nexT uP: preparing for Small Crowd, a show
of work by RISD MFA 11 Painting grads at Mixed
Greens in NYC, June 16–July 8
williamcollinhatton.com
“I create light-catching, soft,
white, fluid objects that
are hollow, empty, isolated,
barren, over-worked or
tedious. They hold dual
messages—of purity and
loss, of hard and soft, of
weight and weightlessness,
of memory and reality, and
of hope and experience.”
crystal ellis MFA 11 SC
Crystal Ellis MFA 11 SC
Lee Patrick Johnson MFA 11 CR
r ec enT wo rK: Craftswoman, a one-hour performance
piece (based on Paul McCarthy’s Painter) in which he threw
air-dry clay, resin, glitter and crystal on a pottery wheel;
Column, a collaborative installation piece for Sitings at the
RISD Museum
ru Le o f Thum B:
“Apply for everything. You can’t lose.”
leepatrickjohnson.com
fro m her Thes is sTaTem enT: “I grew
up on the vast flat plains of Illinois. It was
empty out there on the land, by the water,
below the sky. My childhood feels like
a sunny place, but it wasn’t always. I had
my imagination, the spaces under a cricket’s
wing or below the belly of a snake, the
freedom of a summer day, the small
and the big together in an open field,
mixed with a myriad of pets, deaths,
pseudo science, winter, divorce,
work and isolation. Somehow,
that is what my work is. I reach in
and I empty these things out.”
nexT u P: keep making art and
reinvigorate Egg Collective, a
three-person design company she
recently helped found
crystalroseellis.com
30
risDXYZ
spring/summer 2011
31
Happy Happenings
Just like the candy store, the regional clubs supported by
Keep connected to RISD through the Alumni Association’s
network of 38 clubs around the country and the world.
Alumni relations offer something for everyone! Clockwise
from top right: 1| in February snow delayed, but didn’t
detract from the warmth at the risD/philadelphia
Valentine’s party, hosted by christine Jones 52 IA (shown
with Laila ahmadinejad 01 GD, risD philadelphia Club
leader, to her left and christina hartley 74 IL, director
of Alumni relations and special events, to her right).
2| in may risD/nY alumni got a sneak preview of the
ENERGIZER
IN CHIEF
For architect Jim
Leggitt BArch 73, the
recession has given
him the wiggle room
to invest energy in
reinvigorating the
Denver-based risD/
Colorado club.
1|
phillips de pury contemporary auction and wine tasting at
Art Thirst, mingling with alumni from Harvard, Brown,
princeton and Wellesley. 3| anne feldmeier adams MFA 02
2|
PH hams it up with olivia Valentine 02 PH, garth Borovicka 02 PH and Kerry hagy 02 PH at the risD/Chicago
mid-winter meet-up hosted by matthew stone 94 ID
at sandbox studios. 4| At a February reception held in
conjunction with the CAA convention, Jean graham,
director of Community relations at martha stewart Living
Omnimedia (where the event took place) connects with
meredith miller 81 GD and hannah milman 82 FAV.
5| members of the risD/nY planning committee enjoying
the art at phillips de pury: Polly carpenter 77 PT (club
co-leader), chardonnay Pickard 07 IL, michael neff 04 PH
DIY TOGETHER
RBD: OCT 14–16
(club co-leader) and Joe Borzotta 85 GD.
3|
robyn ericsson BArch 86 and isaac
regelson BArch 86 began thinking
co Lo r a D o c L u B L e a D e r
Jim Leggitt BArch 73 talks fast—
32
risDXYZ
“I’m 60 years old and I have a new career!” Leggitt exclaims. He
teaches drawing classes, holds workshops and presents lectures at AIA
conventions. He presents drawing “webinars” on land8lounge.com,
an 11,000-member social media site for landscape architects. He has
a website, a blog, a Twitter account, and YouTube and Facebook
pages—all promoting his unique approach to drawing, which combines
the best of technology with hand drawing skills to help people better
develop and realize their design concepts.
“I try to keep everyone in contact
with each other, talking to each other
and having fun.”
Leggitt’s latest project is leading the RISD/Colorado club in Denver.
“Even closing in on 40 years later, I think of RISD as such a wonderful
experience,” Leggitt says. Back then, a 17-year-old Jim and his identical
twin brother John Leggitt BArch 73 both applied to RISD—and were so
certain of their choice that they applied to no other school. Decades later,
he still knows he made the right decision.
“I think I reached a point where I want to give back,” Leggitt says.
“I don’t really have any need to advance my career, so I am just leading
the club for the fun of it.”
Before Leggitt got things going a couple of years ago, there was no
RISD alumni club in Denver. But in 2009 he wandered into an Alumni
Council meeting at a RISD reunion in Providence, listened and soon
Find out more about Jim’s work at jimleggitt.typepad.com + drawingshortcuts.com.
found himself “the go-to guy for
RISD alums in Denver.”
Today, Leggitt sees his role
as energizer in chief. “I look
for opportunities to get together,
I organize them,” he explains.
Last fall the group got together
for a successful opening at the
Museum of Contemporary Art in
Denver. On June 3 the club is
having an open studio event
hosted by sculptor Patrick marold
97 ID. And they’re planning a walk
through the construction site
of the new Clyfford Still Museum
led by chase Deforest MFA 04 FD,
an artist/educator who works
at the new museum.
“I try to keep everyone in
contact with each other, talking
to each other and having fun,”
Leggitt says. “I want to build
enthusiasm about RISD in the
middle of the country because
otherwise we’re so isolated.”
– Paula Martiesian 76 PT
5|
4|
50TH IN MOTION @ 50TH
above: photo #3 by Kyle Henderson BArch 99
rollercoaster fast. Backed by
passion and years of study, this
Denver-based architect (FAIA),
urban planner and author speaks
like a gifted professor, his words
gaining speed, building momentum, steadily climbing to a dizzying
peak. Then the ideas spill out,
as he rides the curve at a breakneck pace to make his point.
Leggitt is, in fact, a teacher.
Like many professionals, he found
in the ever-worsening economy
the perfect opportunity to start
a new career. Two years ago, as
head of the international projects
division for one of Denver’s
leading architectural firms, he was
in the middle of a huge master
planning project in Dubai. “I was
working so hard, always on a
plane,” he says. “Then, the projects
dried up and everything went
belly up overnight.”
Today, he has his own firm,
Leggitt Studio LLC; a new book, the
2nd edition of Drawing Shortcuts
(drawingshortcuts.com); and is
teaching prodigiously in various
media, both traditional and non.
At her 50th RISD reunion,
Linda Dehart 51 AP (dehartart
.com) will present Colors In
Motion: The Human Journey,
a meditative digital media
piece that includes 1,000
of her watercolor paintings synchronized with 10
musical scores. The DVD is used for healing purposes
in hospitals, senior centers and elsewhere. DeHart’s
work will be screened at RISD by Design on Saturday,
October 15, running from 1:30–4:30 pm in the Tap
Room, which is still in Memorial Hall (though the
building itself has been fully renovated).
For clubs and contacts in your area go to risd.edu/alumni.
about their 25th reunion as
soon as their 20th one was over,
surveying classmates post-event
to find out what worked. eric
meier 86 IL confirms that when he
ran into Isaac at RISD Commencement last year, “he only really
wanted to talk to me about our
next reunion, which was kinda
funny, but great.”
OK, so maybe not everyone
is as motivated as these two party
planning pros, but you can’t have
a good reunion during RISD by
Design weekend (October 14–16)
without people willing to organize
it and others wanting to come.
For their 25th, the Regel/Eric/
sons are planning Friday night
drinks at a downtown bar, Saturday
and Sunday brunches at The Met
(refectory), a campus tour and
a Saturday night pizza and drinks
deal somewhere on campus, like
Woods-Gerry or the Tap Room.
(And at their 20th, the fun
continued ’til 3 am on Saturday!)
So, go ahead: start rebuilding
your creative connections by
requesting a list of phone numbers
and email addresses and encouraging people to attend.
Contact Claire Robinson at crobinso@
risd.edu or 401 454 6379 to get going.
spring/summer 2011
33
NEW NETWORKING TOOL
SALEN SELECTED FOR 2011 ALUMNI AWARD
As a designer, Katie salen MFA 92 GD became so fascinated with
the logic and coherence of video games that she realized they
have potential for helping kids to learn. she’s now testing that
theory through an experimental nYC school called Quest2Learn.
At RISD’s Commencement ceremony on June 4, the
Alumni Council will recognize Katie salen MFA 92 GD
with its 2011 Art and Education Award. For the past
decade, this multifaceted artist and designer has
been playing and designing games, using everything
from karaoke ice cream trucks to giant inflatables
to demonstrate the power of games as tools for innovation and learning (see Fall 2010 issue of RISD XYZ).
“I became fascinated with the way that video games
construct worlds,” Salen says in explaining how
a pastime became a passion. “They literally start to
create a kind of logic and a coherence to what you can
do in that space, through the design of rules.” And as
a designer, she adds, “games have become a tool to help
me figure out how to design things that aren’t games.”
Salen’s ever-expanding expertise led to the
seminal gaming design book Rules of Play, which she
co-authored, and to positions at MIT and Parsons,
where she now teaches. It also
inspired her to found Institute
of Play, a nonprofit that stakes
it claim on the idea that gamer
intelligence is not only essential
to 21st-century learning, but
also makes us better risk-takers,
problem-solvers, collaborators
and engaged citizens.
In 2009 Institute of Play
launched its boldest venture yet:
Quest2Learn, a New York City
public school organized around
gaming principles and digital
culture. Since then Salen’s radical
model for what a school can be
has commanded the attention
of politicians, teachers, philanthropists and education-reform
advocates across the country. With
$1.1 million in funding from The
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation and a $2.6-million
grant pending from The Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation,
Quest2Learn is changing the
conversation about how a nation’s
failing education system can
reach a generation of digital kids.
“When I was at RISD, I was really
intrigued by this notion of: How do
you begin to ask questions about the
role of design in the world?” Salen
says. “I don’t feel like I was trained
as a graphic designer. I feel like
I was trained as a design thinker.”
RISDoids BELONG TOGETHER
Dawn Grattan BArch 92 +
Justin Kerr 90 GD
The new alumni online directory is a great tool to help
you connect with each other, submit news and information about what you’re up to and share opportunities
—about jobs, exhibitions, residencies, etc.
Log in to the directory at www.risd.edu/alumni to:
• update your own personal information
(contact, address, family ties)
• customize your own directory landing page
• search a comprehensive database on alumni
• search for or post job listings via ArtWorks
• register for RISD events
The new directory also allows you to submit to
class notes listings online, meaning your posts will
be immediately accessible to fellow alumni who are
logged in to the directory.
The early spring launch of the new directory—
which is in iModules, a content management system
used by a lot of colleges and universities—was a
preliminary step towards creating a new, more useful
and informative alumni site. That process will
continue over the next few months as we work with
a group of alumni advisors to rethink the approach
and create a flexible site that also works as a strong
corollary and complement to RISD XYZ.
RISd SWeeTheARTS
(We got more than our degrees at RISD!)
INSEPARABLE SINCE FOUNDATION YEAR
Katy Dika 03 AP + Paul Osimo 03 ID
PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION, ALUMNI-STYLE
34
risDXYZ
Hoopla re: Hamilton
in June alumni in the new england area are gathering
to celebrate the late great robert hamilton 39 PT,
a well-loved risD professor from 1945–82, at a show
of his work and a screening of a documentary about him.
The event takes place on saturday, June 11 at the Center
for maine Contemporary Art in rockport, where the
exhibition Robert Hamilton: the Last Paintings runs from
may 28 through July 10. His painting Nine Giraffes (from
the collection of Karen and David estey 64 PT) is shown
above. For more information, contact [email protected]
or cmcanow.org.
above right: photo by Valerie Ann Kitchin
meghan reilly michaud 01 GD, who has been a
member of the Alumni Council since she graduated
and has served as vice president since 2009, is assuming
the Council presidency from nat hesse 76 SC when
his two-year term ends in June. As a student, she
was an active member of the Student Alliance, the
undergraduate governing group, and served as
president in 2000.
After practicing as a graphic designer for several
years, Meghan earned an MAE from Salem [MA] State
University and became a National Board Certified
Teacher in 2009. She now teaches fine arts at Andover
[MA] High School and freelances for corporate and
nonprofit clients as principal of Visual Identity Studio.
Paul and I met our very first day
at RISD—back in 1999. We were
both assigned rooms on (everpopular) floor 4 in Homer. Through
a strange twist of fate, we not
only lived down the hall from one
another, but were also assigned the
same Foundation section our first
semester and had all of our classes
together. No matter how different
from one another we may have
seemed, we were destined to be
great friends, especially after pulling
our very first RISD all-nighter
together for a Mark Milloff 2D
assignment.
Paul joined The Nads hockey
team (and still plays with them
today!) and I became a dedicated,
card-carrying, pleated-skirt-wearing “Jockstrap,”
never missing a game. A few years went by and
before we knew it we were totally inseparable. After
graduation, Paul heroically waited for me back home
while I buzzed around the other side of the planet
during my Thomas J. Watson year abroad. He even
scraped up enough money for a month-long visit,
braving March Fly bites and Bull Ant stings to be
with me in Australia.
About three years ago we finally bought our first
house together on the West Side of Providence, where
we now live with our two dogs, Cocoa and Nilla. I work
at the RISD Nature Lab and Paul is the head designer
for a juvenile products company in nearby Mass.
We’re currently spending all of our free time planning
our wedding at the end of July, which will be at what
is still one of our favorite RISD spots—Tillinghast
Farm in Barrington.
For clubs and contacts in your area go to risd.edu/alumni.
I first met Justin at the “Spaghetti That Ate Providence” party he and his roommate Bill hosted
(complete with custom invitations). My roommate
invited me and I didn’t know anyone, but in true
starving student tradition, I went anyway ’cause
it was a free meal—and a good excuse not to spend
the night in the studio working.
When I arrived at the party, Justin was making
name tags, and noticing that he was kind of handsome and funny, I tried to position myself in the
dining area so that he would sit next to me. We spent
a pleasant evening laughing at each other’s bon mots,
and parted ways.
After a few weeks we started dating and a year
and a half later, we were married at Manning Chapel
on the Brown University campus. It was very
important for us to ride in the ’58 DeSoto limousine
Justin had found; design-wise, a contemporary stretch
limo would just not do. His skills also came in handy
when we realized the night before the ceremony
that we had forgotten the wedding program and he
was in the hotel room hand-lettering our program
and discussing paper choices with me.
I think it’s a good thing for RISDoids to marry other
RISDoids. Justin and I have been known to discuss
color in depth while our non-art school friends look
at us as if we’re over-analyzing Jell-O. I don’t think
any mere mortal (non-RISDoid) would be able
to sympathize with a spouse complaining about the
overuse of Trajan as a font. Once you go to RISD,
you look at the world in a whole different way.
What started out as a chance meeting at a spaghetti
dinner has blossomed into six children (our “performance art” pieces) and 20 years of wedded bliss. These
days, I’m no longer focusing on architecture; my days
are now consumed by babies and baking. Justin is
still working in his field doing web design—and even
our kids have started to notice bad letter-spacing.
–Dawn Grattan Kerr BArch 92
–Katy Dika 03 AP
spring/summer 2011
35
summer 2011
summer is alive with
possibilities at risd
•Pre-CollegeProgram
•SummerInstituteForGraphic
DesignStudies
•SummerStudies
•TextilesSummerInstitute
•Careerre:DesignProgram
•StudyAbroadPrograms
•ContinuingEducationSummerTerm
A glimpse of what’s happening at the heart of campus —
with the president, students, faculty and staff.
Registration is happening right now.
risd.edu/summer
continuing education
RISDContinuingEducation
345 South Main Street, 2nd floor
Providence, RI 02903
800 364-7473 (press 2) | 401 454-6200
At risD’s recent Make It Better symposium, artists,
designers, policy-makers and healthcare professionals
shared ideas for injecting more creativity into the
healthcare delivery system in America.
ADDING ART
TO THE
NATIONAL
DEBATE
message by
John Maeda
RISD’s President
Process.
by the time they graduate , RISD students
have learned to internalize the creative process.
They’ve gained amazing lifelong skills and the
ability to see more clearly and see the big picture.
You can become part of the RISD process
by investing in the next generation of creative
leaders. And you can make a huge difference
by simply planning ahead.
To discover the impact of gift planning—which
is itself part of the process of thinking about
your life and legacy—contact Louise Olson at
401 454-6323 or email [email protected].
risd.edu/giftplanning
photos by Alex Forsyth
It’s something art and life share in common.
as i w roT e L asT fa L L , i a m e xc iT e D T h aT
Rhode Island Congressman Jim Langevin (RI–02)
has introduced a resolution to officially turn STEM
to STEAM. In other words, he’s actively advocating
for the need to incorporate the Arts and design
into national education policies that emphasize
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math
(STEM) as key subject areas in our nation’s schools.
In Representative Langevin’s own words, House
Resolution 1702 posits that:
Art and design advance the understanding
of STEM learning and collaboration. In classrooms
and laboratories across the country, the innovative
practices of art and design play an essential role
in improving STEM education and advancing
STEM research.
To build on this, Rep. Langevin is hosting a
Congressional briefing on June 22 to get the word out
to other members of Congress and garner support
for STEAM. The briefing is open to the public and will
include a diverse set of speakers talking about why
the arts and design are indispensible to creating
innovation in America. I will be among them, representing RISD and making a case for the value of art
and design education—and the creative thinking it
fosters—in our 21st-century drive to push the bounds
of human endeavor.
We recently created some STEAM of our own
on campus, with generous support from the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation. Interim Dean of Fine
Arts Deborah Bright and Architecture Critic Brian
Follow John at our.risd.edu + twitter.com/johnmaeda
goldberg MArch 00 led the effort to organize Make
It Better, a symposium in March that looked at how
artists and designers can help improve healthcare
delivery, public health and everyday wellness through
their extraordinary powers of communicating
information and emotion, among other things.
We were pleased to welcome to campus two key
healthcare leaders on the national scene—Dr. howard
Koh , Assistant Secretary for Health at the US Department of Health and Human Services, and Donna
garland, associate director for communication at the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As
keynote speakers, each one presented much to think
about as we continue this vital discussion. We were
also joined by Rhode Island Senator sheldon
whitehouse , who wisely observed that, “Engineers
and designers together created the automotive
dashboard. This type of innovative, cross-industry
collaboration is long overdue in our healthcare system.”
So, we’ve been generating some steam behind
STEAM this spring and hope to build on that
momentum. You can see video highlights from the
symposium at makeitbetter.risd.edu and also find out
more about some of the health-related studios RISD
has been running. If you’re in the DC area, please
join us at the Congressional briefing on June 22. And
stay tuned as RISD continues to engage in the national
debate about healthcare and other issues that can
benefit from the input of our creative community.
For more information on the make it Better symposium, go to
makeitbetter.risd.edu. For information on the Congressional
briefing on June 22, contact Kirtley Fisher at kirtley.fisher@mail.
house.gov or call 202 225-2735.
spring/summer 2011
37
Fun Furniture at iCFF
in mid-may a dozen Furniture Design students
silkscreening for Japan
showcased their work in the high-profile international Contemporary Furniture Fair (iCFF) in new
in response to the march 12 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, risD students
York. Called Recyclable Composites, their show
sakura Bready 12 TX and minami otake 13 TX (both from Japan) led a crew of
featured benches, tables, chairs and light fixtures
volunteers in a day of screenprinting t-shirts to sell to benefit relief efforts. Faculty
made with Twintex®, a flexible glass-fiber filament
member gina gregorio 92 TX helped organize the effort and reached out to alumni
that offers an environmentally friendly alternative
to help defray the cost of supplies. “The day was extraordinary in its spirit of
to conventional composites. eun san ernie Lee
support and community,” notes professor anais missakian 84 TX, longtime head
12 FD experimented with the properties of Twintex
of the Textiles department and the newly appointed interim dean of Fine Arts.
to create a feeling of “fluffiness” in his playful Perm
Chair, and since Twintex is malleable until baked,
alexandra snook MFA 11 FD actually knit her
Saddle Stool.
GRADS GET KIT OF PARTS
SALUTING THE CLASS OF 2011
Approximately 660 students
are becoming bona fide alumni
as they collect their hard-earned
degrees at RISD’s June 4 Commencement ceremony, which
takes place at the Rhode Island
Convention Center. Honorary
degrees are being presented to
three special guests who have
made significant contributions
to the worlds of art, design and
education: national design leader
Bill moggridge, philosopher
and aesthetics expert arnold
Berleant and public/conceptual
artist mierle ukeles.
Moggridge, who is also the keynote speaker at the ceremony, is
the director of the Smithsonian’s
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design
Museum in Manhattan. A visionary
interaction designer, he wrote
Designing Interactions and is one of
the first people to integrate human
factors into computer design.
As a philosopher, musician and
leading figure in the field of aesthetics, Berleant has taken all three
38
risDXYZ
of these disciplines in new
directions by asking fundamental
questions about the nature of
beauty in art, the natural world
and our built environment. A
lifelong academic, he now edits
the online journal Contemporary
Aesthetics and has written seven
books, including, most recently,
Sensibility and Sense: The Aesthetic
Transformation of the Human
World (2010).
The action-oriented public
art Ukeles has been making since
the 1960s—when she released
her well-known Manifesto
for Maintenance Art, 1969!—has
transformed such mundane
routines as cleaning, serving
and maintenance into radical art
statements. Her installations,
performances and public art
pieces have been exhibited across
the country and around the world,
and since 1977 Ukeles has served
as the official, unsalaried artistin-residence at NYC’s Department
of Sanitation.
RISD is again giving graduates an Artrepreneur Kit,
a practical parting gift to help them explore entrepreneurial possibilities. As part of the kit, Etsy is
awarding the first-ever Etsy RISD Fellowship to the
2011 grad whose shop on the recently launched RISD
Team Page shows the most promise. The winner will
receive a $1,500 grant to attend an Etsy-sponsored
summit on small business and sustainability in
Berlin, Germany. Square, Inc. is offering graduating
students the ability to process credit card payments
anywhere via a small square card reader that plugs
into a mobile phone input jack. New grads will also
get free six-month accounts to Prosite, Behance’s
newly launched online portfolio site, and 2GB
accounts from YouSendIt that are free for three
months, followed by discounted service fees.
“With our Artrepreneur Kit, we are providing new
grads with just a few of the online tools and resources
that can help launch their work in the public spectrum,”
notes President John maeda. “It’s just one way to
help them make a living in whatever way they choose.”
MFA PROGRAMS TOP LIST
showtime
JAPANESE LANTERNS
AT NYC BENEFIT
In April students from the Wintersession course
Architectonics joined their instructor, New Yorkbased architect aki ishida, at the Japan Society in
New York City for a benefit to raise funds for the
Society’s Earthquake Relief Fund. They installed
a collaboratively designed piece and ran a full-day
workshop to help visitors add to it.
Inspired by traditional Japanese festivals, the
Luminous Washi Lantern project explored the use of
light and shadow in Japanese architecture and
celebrated the ephemeral, fleeting nature of materials
traditionally used in Japanese rituals. The group
synthesized designs by adria Boynton BArch 15,
fernando Diaz smith 13 ID and Timothy Dobday BArch
15 to develop the site-specific piece installed in the
Japan Society’s skylit lobby. Ishida was pleased that
students helped with Japanese relief efforts in
sharing their “special convergence of interest in
Japan and in teaching the public about design.”
Half the senior class of FAV majors—the ones
in the live action program—posed for this poster
shot, but all 31 screened an amazing range
of new animated, narrative and documentary
work at the senior film show in may. many of the
2011 films will go on to be screened at festivals
around the country and the world—and based
on past performance, a lot of these will not only
be audience favorites, but will win awards.
For the third year running, RISD topped the US
News & World Report rankings for the best Fine Art
Schools, which assess graduate programs throughout
the country. In earning the top spot, it edged out both
Yale and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
In specialty categories, RISD earned a #1 ranking
in graphic design, glass and interior design; placed
#2 in industrial design, metals/jewelry and printmaking; and #3 in ceramics, multimedia, painting,
photography and sculpture. The rankings—determined
solely based on results from peer assessment
surveys—are published on the US News education
website and also appear in the 2012 edition of the
book Best Graduate Schools.
For more on these and other stories, go to www.risd.edu.
spring/summer 2011
39
Faculty newsbites
in late April Digital + media faculty
member catherine D’ignazio
presented The Border Crossed Us,
a public art installation at umass
Diving Warbler with Insect (2011,
oil on canvas, 34 x 33") is among the
paintings by professor of illustration
Trent Burleson MFA 76 PT on view
through August 17 at the newport [ri]
Art museum. The museum will host
an opening reception for Trent
Burleson: Birds and Other Metaphors
on June 10 and the artist will talk
about his work at a luncheon on July
26, followed by a demonstration
of the chiaroscuro process.
Amherst. The piece divided the
campus with a to-scale photo replica
of the fence that runs along the
border between mexico and southern
Arizona. erected in 2007 by Homeland
security, the fence now splits the
Tohono O’odham nation—the second
largest native American reservation
in the country—in two. D’ignazio’s
sculptural intervention included a
sound piece and security poetry that
students responded to by texting.
recent work by Leslie hirst, assistant
professor of Foundation studies, was
included in American Artists and Not,
a satellite show within the VI Biennale
Di Soncino a Marco, held in may in
soncino, italy. The exhibition featured
work by 58 contemporary artists.
professor anais missakian 84 TX,
who has served as head of the Textiles
RISD DEAN BECOMES
PRESIDENT
Dawn Barrett, RISD’s dean of Architecture + Design,
has been selected as the next president of Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt) in Boston,
effective July 1. During her 10-year tenure as dean,
she was instrumental in facilitating curricular and
programmatic advances in the division. Barrett first
taught in RISD’s Graphic Design department in the
early 1990s and just prior to her appointment as dean,
she headed of the Department of Design at the Jan
van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht, the Netherlands.
“Barrett comes to MassArt with an unwavering
commitment to advancing the disciplines of art
and design,” noted richard shea, chairman of the
college’s Board of Trustees. “As a designer, faculty
member and administrator, she is able to see through
multiple lenses and facilitate collaboration among
diverse constituencies.”
department since 2004, has been
named interim dean of Fine Arts for
the 2011–12 academic year.
professor Bill newkirk 68 GD, head
of the graphic Design department,
will serve as interim dean of
Architecture + Design during the
2011–12 academic year.
Film/Animation/Video professor
Peter o’neill recently completed
Better Places, a 52-minute sequel to
his 1981 documentary The Best Place
To Live. Both films are about the
Hmong community, a group of Laotian
refugees who fought alongside the
us in the Vietnam War. The sequel
looks at the new possibilities for four
Hmong families in providence and
was co-directed by Louisa schein,
a Brown graduate who also worked
as a translator and community liaison
on the original film.
professor rosanne somerson 76 ID,
longtime head of the Furniture Design
Department, has been named interim
provost, effective July 1.
in late march, Ceramics Department
Head Linda sormin presented
Howling Room at Holtegaard gallery
in Copenhagen. she also spoke at
a symposium at the royal Danish Art
Academy in conjunction with the show.
40
risDXYZ
MAJOR ENDORSEMENT
Two of the three Rhode Island-based artists who won
prestigious MacColl Johnson Fellowships from the
Rhode Island Foundation teach at RISD. Professor
ellen Driscoll, head of the Sculpture department, and
Assistant Professor of Textiles Liz collins 91 TX/MFA 99
have been awarded $25,000 each—among the largest
no-strings-attached awards given to artists in the US.
The fellowships are intended “to fund an artist’s
vision or voice” and have been awarded to composers,
writers and visual artists every three years since 2005.
Driscoll creates sculpture, installations and public
art works that reflect her interest in social, racial and
environmental justice, with recent studio investigations focused on the architectural and environmental
impact of extracting and consuming natural resources.
She plans to use her MacColl Fellowship to create
outdoor public sculpture involving water.
Known for creating innovative textiles, experimental knitwear and dramatic performance art pieces,
Collins (see also page 52) will use her fellowship to
travel to the Tilburg Museum and Textile Lab in the
Netherlands, where she’ll work as an artist in residence
this August. During the past five years, she has mounted
several Knitting Nation performance pieces in which
a team of machine knitters creates large-scale, on-site
fabric installations. Building on this work and other
experiments, Collins plans to use the fellowship to
generate a new body of work that she hopes to show
more frequently in galleries and museums.
TheRISDMuseum
helped open the world
of art and design to you
when you were a student.
It’s still here for you.
2011 exhibition highlights
Cocktail Culture: Ritual and Invention
in American Fashion 1920 – 1980
Jacques Callot and the Baroque Print
This spring interior Architecture
Department Head Liliane wong and
Assistant professor markus Berger
produced the second edition of Int/AR,
a handsome journal focused on issues
of adaptive reuse of the built environment. Volume 02_Adapting Industrial
Structures presents a series of thoughtful
articles that look at the challenges
of adapting and transforming industrial
structures and sites in europe, south
America, the us and China, which
is just beginning to adopt the practice.
You can order copies of both volumes
at intar-journal.risd.edu.
Newly restored Ancient, Medieval and
Early Renaissance galleries
Building Blocks: Contemporary Works
from the Collection
risdmuseum.org
20% of your Alumni Membership is directed to
the Phil Seibert [BFA ’67 IA] Alumni Acquisition Fund,
which supports the purchase of works of art by
RISD alumni. Jointoday! Call 401.454.6322 or visit
us online at risdmuseum.org/join.
Skateboarders is among the drawings printmaking faculty
member Brian shure is showing in Shadow Play, a solo
show that continues through June 11 at the museum of Art
at the university of maine in Orono. This is the first time
he has exhibited drawings unaccompanied by his paintings
and prints. shure’s work is also on view through June 30
at Lenore gray gallery in providence.
A look at some of the many ways people invest in RISD
and support current and future generations of students.
NICOLE MILLER
INVESTS IN
RISD TALENT
Celebrities such
as Lauren Hutton,
Beyoncé and Cate
Blanchett choose
the comfortable and
flattering looks for
which nicole miller
73 AP (shown here
on the runway
herself) is known.
“RISD-educated
designers are far
more experimental
than at other
schools.”
s h e h as BuiLT o ne o f The mosT
42
risDXYZ
SWAG WITH A DIFFERENCE
Despite the demands of running a high-profile design business, Miller
often hosts class visits to her NYC headquarters and serves as a visiting
critic and lecturer. In fact, she has volunteered at RISD since 1987, just
a year after opening up her first New York boutique on Madison Avenue.
The opening marked a major milestone in Miller’s ascendancy in the
fashion world. In 1982, together with business partner and CEO Bud
Konheim, she co-founded the Nicole Miller company, launching a label
that has expanded far beyond women’s apparel—to handbags, footwear,
jewelry, bridal wear and men’s sportswear.
Now, with 15 namesake boutiques nationwide and more than 1,000
specialty and department stores carrying her designs, Miller still thinks
fondly of Carr Haus, Benefit Street and the studios where students
burned the midnight oil. And she can always tell what makes RISD students
stand out: “RISD-educated designers are far more experimental than
at other schools,” she says. “They really push the boundaries, so you see
a lot more innovation. It may not always be the most commercially
viable, but school is an important time to be experimental and creative.”
Find out more about nicole’s work at nicolemiller.com.
Known for the superior cut
and construction of her dresses as
well as her striking graphic prints,
Miller has built her premier label
by avoiding trendy fads in favor
of designs that are iconic and
dramatic at the same time. She
has often credited her father, an
engineer, and her Parisian-born
mother, who gave her an early taste
of French style, as influences in
the evolution of her signature style.
“A lot of my clothes really
require a lot of construction and
very complex pleating,” she says.
“I like things that are a challenge
to be made, rather than something
that’s simple. The complexity of
engineering in the clothing is one
of the most fun parts to me.”
photos by Melinda Rainberger 04 FAV
timeless brands in
American fashion, with designs
worn by iconic beauties from
Lauren Hutton to Cate Blanchett
to Beyoncé. Now, nicole miller
73 AP wants to help up-and-coming
RISD designers to realize a vision
of their own.
After several meetings with
President John maeda to discuss
her philanthropic interests, Miller
is establishing an eponymous
endowed scholarship that builds
on her long history of support
for her alma mater. “I think RISD
has been a little under the radar
design-wise, and it really should be
brought out into prominence more,”
says Miller, a full member of RISD’s
Board of Trustees from 1993–98
and an honorary trustee ever since.
During the Future by Design
capital campaign, she volunteered
as one of two national campaign
chairs, helping to raise more
than $100 million for the school.
Miller, who has always maintained a close connection with the
Apparel Design department, has
chosen to invest in today’s students
because RISD was critical to her
own development as a designer.
“Freshman Foundation alone was
so great, so challenging,” she says.
“It showed me a methodology,
a unique way of thinking about
things and a method for taking
on challenging projects.”
D i sT i ncTiVe,
In Hollywood, SWAG stands for Sealed With a Gift,
and usually involves goodie bags filled with luxury
freebies celebrities don’t really need. This year
RISD launched an altogether different kind of SWAG:
Students Who Are Grateful. It’s a campaign to
raise awareness about RISD’s Annual Fund, which
encourages alumni and parents to help support
a portion of the cost of educating each student.
“The tuition dollars families pay only covers about
70% of the cost of attendance per academic year,”
says Assistant Director of the Annual Fund Kenneth
fonzi, who worked with students to launch the
campaign. “If you start spending tuition money on
the first day of classes in September, we calculated it
would run out by roughly March 16.” Since most
students either don’t realize that RISD depends on
donations to the Annual Fund to help offset operating
costs or what impact those donations have on them,
SWAG volunteers—mostly students who are on financial aid themselves—put up posters around campus
saying, ‘Imagine that you could not finish this painting”
or “that you could not finish developing your film.”
For more on giving to risD, go to www.risd.edu/give.
The awareness campaign culminated in a SWAG
event on March 16 that drew about 100 students.
Several students had made a roughly seven-foot-tall
tree from recyclable materials, and everyone who
attended wrote small thank you notes to donors on
leaf-shaped paper and then hung them on the tree’s
open branches.
The awareness campaign was meant to engage
students in a different way from the more traditional
senior gift model. In the past two years, graduating
students have donated funds to start a materials
library and support recycling efforts, but enthusiasm
for those efforts fell short, in part because of lack of
student awareness and in part because the restrictive
nature of the gifts meant the funds couldn’t be used
for other important needs.
“I think SWAG is a model that works well for RISD,
as opposed to seniors saying, ‘Hey, let’s buy a bench,’”
Fonzi points out. “It’s a way to connect students
with donors and remind them of the importance
of giving back.”
spring/summer 2011
43
underGraduate Class notes
William Killen TC and Bill
Killen 93 FAV , an RI-based
father-and-son team, worked
together to create Killen Studio’s
RISD Acrylic Color, a complete
student-grade paint system
under the RISD label. The line
was introduced at the risd:store
last fall and has been “extremely
well received,” they report.
661 36
new alumni as of 6.4.11
Graphic Design
% of males graduating
The paints actually originated
20 years ago when Bill
challenged his father to create
an acrylic paint system superior
Mary (Padykula)
Kosowski 49 AP
department with the most graduating students, along with illustration (82 each)
Anne Karpis
MAT 83
line William produced
mary is thrilled that her work
will be on view in two shows this
summer: one at the providence
Art Club from June 12 – July 1
and the other at the Attleboro
[mA] Art museum from August
12–september 10. The retired
teacher lives in smithfield, ri
and is still happily drawing
and painting.
Jon Naiman
89 PH
Rachel Schreiber
87 GD
to what was commercially
available; as a result, he used the
Victo Ngai
10 IL
throughout his RISD years and
has stuck with it ever since.
Helen Webber 63 AE
1960
Helen recently created two murals that “glow like stained glass
with back LeD lighting” for Coasta Cruise Lines’ new ship Favolosa.
she works out of her studio in exton, pA.
In February Jean Winslow IL*
(Lowell, MA) showed work in
A Print is a Print is Print, an
exhibition at The Brush Gallery
in Lowell, MA that was part of a
citywide printmaking exposition.
Nathalie Jolivert
BArch 12
In March Robert Nason PT
showed 50 years’ worth of pastel
figure studies and portraits at
Addison Woolley gallery in
Portland, ME, where he lives.
Carlos Cedran
96 PT
1954
1933
441 179 118
AE
AP
# of grad students graduating
Arch
CR
DM
relative # of Class of 11 graduates per department
44
RISDXYZ
cutest risd wannabees in class notes
earliest class year referenced
loveliest name in class notes
FAV
FD
22,261
IL
ID
IA
JM
1958
# of alumni now in risd’s database
# of international students graduating
GD
Fabulous Fakes: Jewelry by
Kenneth Jay Lane, a retrospective
featuring 400 archival pieces
by Kenneth Jay Lane AD , ran
earlier this year at the Norton
Museum of Art in West Palm
Beach, FL. The exhibition built
on one that originated at the
RISD Museum in 2007 by adding
approximately 50 pieces dating
from the 1960s and ’70s.
Jewel +
Pearl
Moon Jung Jang
# of seniors graduating
1961
1949
Carol Anthony
66 IL
LA
PT
PH
PR
SC
TX
David Kelley GD reports from
Falmouth, MA that he had “a
very satisfying 2010,” with pastel
paintings accepted in four
national and two regional juried
shows, and several first-place
awards overall. Two were for
family portraits: Grace Dore,
a painting of his mother as a
young woman, which won the
Open Juried National Exhibition
at the Cape Cod Art Association,
and Aileen, a portrait of his
daughter, honored in the Open
Summer Juried Exhibition at the
new Falmouth [MA] Art Center.
50th Reunion
1959
From 1995 to 2005, Robert
Cronin PT (Falls Village, CT;
October 14 – 16, 2011
1963
Two computer-photo montages
robertcroninart.com) worked
by Deena des Rioux IL (NYC)
exclusively on imaginary figure
are included in the fifth edition
paintings. Selections from
of Robert Hirsch’s Exploring
this body of work were shown
Color Photography, which
last winter in Be Mine, a solo
was published by Focal Press
exhibition of “couples paintings”
in January 2011.
at Sanford Smith Fine Art in
Great Barrington, MA.
1964
Elizabeth “Chickie” Sommers
In April and May Wendy
Busch AE (Glenburn, ME)
Ingram SC/MAE 77 had an
is completing a large-scale piece
exhibition of Paintings &
titled Inside, Outside at the New
Handmade Paper at the Central
Mexico Scientific Laboratories
Congregational Church in
in Albuquerque. Selected through
Providence, where she lives.
an open national competition,
she took inspiration from both
the landscape outside the lab
and the hidden landscape
of cells to create a work that will
fill an entry atrium when it
is installed late this summer.
“Eleven individually hung,
painted, digitally printed and
woven units will fill a 65 x 30'
space,” Chickie explains. “I have
obtained digital plant, animal,
human cell images… [and]
transferred them to transparent
UV acetate. I cut them all into
strips and interweave them into
the New Mexico landscape.”
Elissa (Scott) Della-Piana IL
curated and presented Points
of Departure, a spring exhibition
of non-objective works at her
Gallery Della-Piana in Wenham,
MA. The show featured works
by Michael Pasquale BArch ,
Robert Cipriani 60 GD and
Pamela C. Shaw 09 PR .
Work by Eric Engstrom IL
(Fairfax, CA) has been featured
and reviewed on several blogs
recently, including architectsandartisans.com, modenus.com
and roamingbydesign.com.
As one of the authors of the
educational program Prentice
Hall High School Math Digital
Path, Stuart Murphy IL
(Boston) was among the team
that earned a 2010 Award
of Excellence from Tech &
Learning magazine. Stu lives
in Boston and continues to
be an active member of RISD’s
Board of Trustees, serving as
vice president.
Nancy H. Taplin PT (Warren,
VT) showed work in Hello from
Vermont, a group exhibition held
in February and March at Maison
Kasini in Montreal.
Elaine (Mendolia) Longtemps 63 GD
Based in Brooklyn, elaine has been on a roll, exhibiting work in quite
a few current and recent juried shows, including: Marylou Hillyer
25th International Juried Show, held in march at the Visual Arts Center
of new Jersey in summit; Green: the Color and the Cause, which
continues through september 11 at the Textile museum in
Washington, DC; the invitational exhibition Uncommon Threads:
The Fiber Show, march–April at Trenton [nJ] Artworks; Fiber
Plus, march–may at the Blue Door gallery in Yonkers, nY;
the National Fiber Directions Exhibition 2011, march–may
at The Wichita [Ks] Center for the Arts; and Hinoki
(right) in The Northeast Regional Juried Fiber Exhibition,
April–may at the rochester
[nY] Contemporary
Art Center.
To submit updates for class notes, email [email protected].
spring/summer 2011
45
Jillian Barber 68 CR
Doppelganger, one of Jillian’s
recent photographs, was
included in two recent national
juried shows: Spectra 2010 at
The silvermine guild Arts Center
in new Canaan, CT (fall 2010)
and Seeing Double at the
Attleboro [mA] Arts museum
(summer 2010). Jillian is based
in Jamestown, ri.
and boxed collages—from each
of the four decades she taught
at the college. Maureen is retiring
knowing how well we complement each other, we see that
as the Joanne Toor Cummings
joining forces will benefit both
’50 Professor of Studio Art, and
firms,” says Craig, whose former
has been one of the longest-
firm, DuBose Associates, will
tenured professors at Connecticut
maintain an office in Westerly,
College. Her work is in the
RI under the Tecton name.
collections of museums and
1969
Ed Baranosky PT (Toronto,
Ontario) had two poems
included in Lynx XXVI:1
Carol Anthony 66 IL
Beloved Paint Brush is among the oil crayon paintings Carol will
show in Landscapes of Memory, her next solo exhibition at gerald
peters gallery in sante Fe, where she lives and paints, happily
unplugged from the wired world. The show runs from July 8
through August 5.
(February 2011), Plein Air and
Voyageurs. In January he offered
a demonstration and workshop
on acrylic seascape painting
at Lucsculpture School &
Studios in Toronto.
1966
45th Reunion
October 14 – 16, 2011
were recent paintings and drawings full of “unsettling images
of a world gone awry,” depicting
post-apocalyptic landscapes
Clay monoprints by Marsha
and scenes of global warming,
Dowshen PT (Bordentown, NJ)
urban decay, eating disorders,
were on view in April in the
art gallery at Pebble Hill Church
overconsumption and war.
in Doylestown, PA. Marsha
1967
describes her technique: “The
Moments of Grace: Fine Art
process starts with a flattened
Family Portraits, a show by
slab of stoneware clay that
Ben Larrabee PH (Darien, CT;
In May Jack Dickerson GD
exhibited a large new body of
work entitled Crabs of Cape Cod
at his own Dickerson Gallery in
Brewster, MA.
Bruce Helander 69 IL/MFA 72
Sconset Cafe in Siasconset,
rollers. This is what gives the
images their depth, texture, and
richness of color. The image
is carefully transferred with
pressure using a hand roller onto
a special non-woven fabric. The
process leaves the monoprint
archival since the clay is inert
and the pigments are permanent
and stable. Each clay monoprint
is an original.”
In April Karen Moss PT
Mary Curtis Ratcliff AE
(Berkeley, CA) had a show
titled Encounters with Light
in March at Mercury 20 gallery
in Oakland, CA.
1968
David Foster BArch and
His piece JV was included in
a review of the show on the blog
Steven Alexander Journal.
Lois Brezinski AP (Delray
.com) invites all RISD alumni
to visit her new gallery, Lois
Brezinski Artworks in West Palm
Beach, FL, to see her own work
and the work of other artists. The
gallery opening was supported
In his editor’s message, Bruce
PI Fine Art of Toronto, and her
describes it as a “handsomely
commissioned work can be seen
at hotels and resorts including
“carefully examines the active
careers and financial successes
of prominent living artists.”
In February he also moderated
a panel discussion entitled
The Curious Economics of Art
at the American International
Fine Art Fair, which took place
OK) is a blues musician with
the band Selby and Blues on the
Move. Visit dcminnerblues.com
for song clips, performance
dates, Blues Club nights in
Rentiesville, OK, and the annual
Dusk Till Dawn Blues Festival,
which was founded by her late
husband D.C. Minner. Selby
Beach, FL; loisbrezinskiartworks
of her paintings published by
Phyllis Limbacher
Tildes 67 IL
Will You Be Mine? A Nursery
Rhyme Romance, phyllis’ 18th
picture book for Charlesbridge,
was released this spring.
it’s a compilation of mother
goose rhymes that, when strung
together, create a whimsical
love story between a cat and
a poodle. phyllis works out
of her studio in savannah, gA.
mother,” writes Candy Kugel IL
(NYC). “After caring for my
mother who suffered a massive
stroke in 1994 and then survived
with expressive aphasia (the
inability to find words) for
another 12 1/2 years, I produced
and created a 17-minute
animated film, It’s Still Me! A
Guide for People with Aphasia
and Their Loved Ones. The
National Aphasia Association
(NAA) is distributing it for us
Jennifer
Davies 68 IL
and I worked with 4 aphasia
The pieces on view in Jennifer’s recent solo show at City gallery in
new Haven, CT represented a variety of materials and techniques,
including layered or woven abaca and kozo fibers, sometimes dipped
in a slurry of handmade paper, as well as clay, plaster and earth.
Jennifer lives in nearby Branford, CT.
guide I give hints about how to
groups in its creation. In this
communicate without words….
I continue to get letters from
family members of people with
aphasia, saying how much it
has meant to them. The NAA just
assembled From Black Town
Diane Tasho TX and Barbara
To Blues Festivals, an exhibit on
Fleischer IL along with faculty
view last winter at the Frisco
members James Fowle and
Depot in Muskogee, OK.
Dean Richardson 56 PT , can
Neal Rantoul PH/MFA 73
(Boston; nealrantoul.com) had
two solo shows last fall and
winter: Twenty-Five Years at
Boston’s Panopticon Gallery in
be seen on YouTube.
1973
got a grant to translate it into
Spanish and we will re-record
Jo Ann Secor 73 AE
the voiceover and remake it to
A principal at the Lee H. skolnick Architecture + Design partnership
in nYC, Jo Ann recently worked on a nontraditional and highly
acclaimed design for summit elementary school in Casper, WY. The
$16.6-million facility features moveable walls, a cross-disciplinary
creativity suite and a “village center” that doubles as a public event
space. The school grounds house wind turbines that send excess
power to another part of the state.
serve this very large community.
I love that this film, above all
my other work, has made a big
difference in people’s lives!”
Brian Dowley PH/MFA 75 FAV
Masters of Studio Glass: Toots
(Cambridge, MA) was director
Zynsky, a survey of the work
November 2010, and Collections
of photography on Dinosaur
of Toots Zynsky GL , is on view
Wars, a documentary about the
at the Griffin Museum’s Digital
at the Corning [NY] Museum
discoveries and feuds of pioneer
Silver Imaging in Belmont, MA
paleontologists Edward Cope
in January and February. He also
and O.C. Marsh. The film aired
was an invited speaker at the
in January on the PBS series
February Yuma Art Symposium
American Experience.
in Arizona. In addition to
teaching in the Department
Henry Isaacs PT (Sharon, VT)
of Art + Design at Northeastern
will be offering the third annual
University, Neal serves on the
Islesford [ME] Plein Air
boards of the Photographic
Workshops in September. Visit
Resource Center in Boston and
his website (henryisaacs.com)
the Griffin Museum of Photo-
for more information on the
graphy in Winchester, MA.
three-day painting program.
1972
showed paintings in Scale:
The 1972 film Maiali delle Strade,
directed by Barry Koch IL
(Nyack, NY) and featuring EHP
alumni Rob Saunders IL
(Brookline, MA), Jeff Janson*
(Rome), Beth Miles GD
(Washington, DC), Carlton
Fletcher PT (Washington, DC),
and the RISD Museum Board
explains. Students and faculty
of Glass through January 29,
of Governors.
from Webster University [in
2012. The exhibition features
her signature filet de verre (glass
1974
Kodachrome from May through
thread) vessels—pieces that
Susan Hacker Stang 71 PH/
December 2010. Susan’s essay
St. Louis, MO] engaged in shooting
MFA 74 recently co-edited a book,
in the book, which includes
and deserved acclaim for their
Kodachrome, End of the Run:
a selection of 69 images from
often extraordinary and always
Photographs from the Final
the Webster project, discusses
unique explorations in color,”
Batches (2011, Webster University
the film’s historical importance,
in the words of the show descrip-
Press), with colleague Bill
its unique scientific formulation
tion. Toots lives in Providence
Barrett. “The book grew out of a
and how the introduction
and is an active member of
discussion in my color photo-
of Kodachrome gave birth to
both RISD’s Board of Trustees
graphy class last spring,” she
modern color photography.
“enjoy a widespread popularity
C. Richard Kattman BLA
Experiencing Size, Surface and
Story, a three-person exhibition
held in April and May at the
Attleboro [MA] Arts Museum. He
lives in nearby Holliston, MA.
“I thought you might be
interested in a project I did last
in West Palm Beach, FL, his
longtime home.
Craig Saunders BArch recently
Connecticut College recognized
merged their two Hartford, CT-
retiring studio art professor
based architectural firms into
Maureen McCabe SC (Quaker
one, retaining the name of David’s
Hill, CT) with a retrospective
practice: Tecton Architects
exhibition in February. Swan
titled Dissonant Worlds at Fourth
(tectonarchitects.com). “Having
Song featured examples of her
Wall Project in Boston. On view
worked together previously and
art—mixed media assemblages
RISDXYZ
of small works on paper at Janet
Kurnatowski Gallery in Brooklyn.
aimed at art lovers and collectors.
(Brookline, MA) had a solo show
46
in Paper 2011, a winter show
Authority. Lois has had many
designed and understandably
Nantucket, MA.
Tim Casey PT* (NYC) had work
a glossy new monthly magazine
written” publication that
various tools, and inlaid with
Selby Minner FS (Rentiesville,
by a $20,000 grant from the
benlarrabee.com), is on view
40th Reunion
October 14 – 16, 2011
1970
city’s Downtown Development
through September 22 at the
1971
Bernice Mast PH (see page 3)
PT was recently appointed editor-
becomes the ‘canvas.’ Colored
This spring Christy (Bradley)
Colebank IL coordinated an
exhibition at the Wimberley [TX]
United Methodist Church and
participated in events at the
Wimberley Valley Art League
and the New Braunfels [TX]
Art League. In March she
concurrently exhibited colored
pencil drawings at both galleries;
called Flying Frog and Song of
the Owl, they were a “flash back
to Nature Lab days,” she writes.
galleries around the world.
in-chief of The Art Economist,
slips are applied to the slab.
The slips are layered, altered with
at the end of this academic year
year, as a tribute to my late
Breakers, Palm Beach; Ritz
Carlton, Grand Cayman; and
Marriott Grand Harbor, Orlando.
(see also page 7)
Chip Simone 67 PH
The Resonant Image: Photographs by Chip Simone, which runs at
Atlanta’s High museum of Art from June 18 to november 6, features
64 color photographs, including 11 pieces the museum recently
acquired for its photography collection, and presents what Chip
describes as “the most intimate images i’ve ever shown, not for
what they depict but for what they reveal.” Chip made the photographs in and around Atlanta, where he lives, and in his home
state of massachusetts.
To submit updates for class notes, email [email protected].
spring/summer 2011
47
Christine Hanlon 76 PT
In Terza Rima, which ran at
Christine (christinehanlon.com) created the cover and was profiled
in the winter 2010–11 issue of Sea History, a publication of the
national maritime Historical society. she has work in the current
show Hobos to Street People: Artists’ Response to Homelessness
from the New Deal to the Present, which is traveling around
California until 2012. Her painting in the show is from her 1997
mFA thesis exhibition at the Academy of Art university, which was
produced as a fundraiser for the Coalition on Homelessness.
she also participated in the 22nd Annual Spring Open Studio 2011
at Hunter’s point shipyard in san Francisco.
Alt/Space LA in Los Angeles,
where he lives.
1979
Terry Siebert SC (Bainbridge
Island, WA) has a new website:
terrysiebert.com.
1980
David Laferriere IL is working
led to growth of the business,
for The Literary As Muse, a show
which creates more jobs for the
held in February and March at
local community and will also
Pawtucket [RI] Arts Collaborative.
allow him to take on high school
apprentices. The Owl Stool was
featured in the Furniture Society
booth at the March Architectural
palette of both washed-out
Digest Home and Design Show in
tones and dense, electric hues,”
New York City.
according to the gallery.
1976
After having lived in Stonington,
35th Reunion
CT since 1978, Karen Rand
October 14 – 16, 2011
Anderson CR (karenrand
On January 11 an AP photo
of Chandini Bachman AP
(Washington, DC), a tour guide at
the US Capitol, was selected by
PBS.org as its photo of the day.
Wendy Hollender TX (see
page 7)
Barbara Bernstein 75 PR
Patterns of Love and Beauty, Barbara’s solo site-specific installation
with related drawings, continues through June 28 at Artspace in
raleigh, nC. A lecturer in risD’s sculpture Department, she recently
teamed up with Jeff poland in risD’s Hpss Department to teach a
spring course called Truths and Consequences, which was supported
by a Kyobo grant for interdisciplinary and Collaborative Teaching.
1975
Charles Cunniffe BArch (see
page 9)
Peter Curran PH helped to
organize DECON’11, the biannual
conference of the Building
Materials Reuse Association
(BMRA). Held in May at Yale
University, the conference
focused on how to make building
demolition greener by addressing
issues including building
material salvage and reuse,
deconstruction and workforce
development, rebuilding
distressed neighborhoods and
recycling construction and
demolition debris.
Paul Housberg PT/MFA 79 GL
(Jamestown, RI) was selected
to create a series of glass
installations for the corridors
48
RISDXYZ
of Princeton University’s new
Frick Chemistry Laboratory.
Bold, large-scale watercolors on
paper by film director Gus Van
Sant FAV were on view earlier
this year in Gus Van Sant / James
Franco at Gagosian Gallery in
Beverly Hills, CA. The exhibition
featured a film called My Own
Private River that actor/multitalented media star James
Franco MFA 12 DM made from
out-takes—mostly focused on
River Phoenix—from his friend
Gus’ well-known movie My Own
Private Idaho. Working from
found images, Gus created complementary portraits of young
men who recall characters in My
Own Private Idaho, “employing
brushwork that alternates broad,
limpid strokes with an assiduous
attention to detail and a varied
1977
anderson.com) relocated to
Providence last fall and reports
that she’s “impressed and
inspired by the dynamic art
scene in the ‘Creative Capital,’
and I have a studio at the 545
Mill in Pawtucket. I received my
Geoffrey Warner Studio
my work is 2- and 3-dimensional
(geoffreywarnerstudio.com),
mixed-media. My daughter
the Stonington, ME furniture
Danica Mitchell 15 ID has just
workshop operated by Geoffrey
completed her freshman year in
Warner PH* , has been awarded
the Brown/RISD dual degree
a $25,000 federally funded
program, majoring in Industrial
micro loan/grant to support
Design at RISD and Environ-
expansion. He explains that the
mental Studies at Brown.”
success of his Owl Furniture has
Karen had two pieces selected
College in Norton, MA, where one
of his primary responsibilities is
handling design and illustration
for their alumni magazine.
George Clark BLA (Harwich,
MA) writes: “Daughter Carolyn
Sally Mara Sturman 76 PT
got married last summer and
As a full-time illustrator and part-time fishmonger, sally (sallymarasturman.com) has embarked on a series of watercolors called
Fish Chronicles. “i started doing them last november when hit by a
huge wave of claustrophobia, hemmed in by my giant co-workers
and impatient customers [at the Brooklyn nY farmers market]!...
The paintings are my observations, painted from memory, of the
other side of the counter.”
Anna will be married this
summer. Sons are doing well.
Tim is at BC and the hockey
team has done awesomely. He
is in charge of their communications etc. Keith is at CORO in
See more about his business
and idea.” One of the works from
Education in Bronx, NY, and
on page 7.
the series was also included
her exhibition The Dream
in Couplings at Gallery 110 in
Paintings was shown in December
Seattle, where it won an
and January at Galeria NH in
David Coleman BArch 79
honorable mention from curator
Cartagena, Colombia.
David was recently elected to the College of Fellows of the American
institute of Architects for making “a significant contribution to
architecture and society on a national level.” He’s principal of David
Coleman Architecture in seattle, which just launched a new website
(davidcoleman.com). The firm’s Zig Zag House was featured in the
march–April issue of Design Bureau magazine.
Rock Hushka and a people’s
During her artist residency
at the Morris Graves Foundation
in May, Deborah Gavel IL
(Albuquerque, NM) focused on
Linda MacNeil 76 SC
in march Linda was one of five
artists throughout the country
to earn national recognition
as a winner of the 2011 master
of the medium award, presented
by the James renwick Alliance
(a nonprofit affiliated with the
smithsonian’s renwick gallery
in Washington, DC). Linda lives
in Kensington, nH.
Stacy Jannis Tamerlani FAV
(Silver Spring, MD) let us know
that she “completed a computer
animation package for the
Alzheimer’s Association, and
a series of videos for the National
Cancer Institute’s Cancer
Genome Atlas. I also worked as
St.Louis, training future leaders.”
MFA in 2010 from Johnson State
College/Vermont Studio Center;
as a graphic designer at Wheaton
choice award.
SKD, the product design firm
where Stuart Karten ID
Valerie Hird PT (Burlington,
(Marina Del Rey, CA) is principal,
VT) created two paintings for
won a 2011 CES Innovations
the new book The Canal of Many
Award for the Hitachi LifeStudio
Colors: A Whimsical Trip Through
digital devices.
the Panama Canal by Carlos Weil.
a collage series “using vintage
awards.com), a competition
Her video animation Superheroes
In April David Schoffman PT
stamps, drawings, watercolors
whose mission is to “showcase
was featured in a winter show
showed work in the three-person
and the codes of text messaging,”
the global best digital
at Casita Maria Center for Arts &
exhibition The Gasp Of Love
she says. “Code-Talking is
advertising creative work, the
a continuation of a series
pioneers of the 21st century
of collages I showed in Rota
in creativity, design and
Kenneth Lewis BArch 83
Fortunae last summer.”
advertising communications.”
As an architectural project manager at skidmore, Owings & merrill
(sOm), Ken oversaw the design of two new buildings for the World
Trade Center site in lower manhattan. He recently gave a talk at
risD about the challenges sOm has faced throughout the five-year
process, including designing structures that could withstand future
attacks while providing art and inspiration for tenants and visitors.
glass maverick James Carpenter 72 IL collaborated on the project,
installing active surfaces that illuminate a wall with blue LeDs
as pedestrians walk by.
Last winter Carol Peligian IL
(NYC) had a solo show titled
Sosomuch at Dean Project in
New York City.
New paintings by Daniel
Rosenbaum PT* (Brooklyn)
were on view this spring in Terra
Aerial Visions, a month-long solo
show at Yes Gallery in Brooklyn.
His canvases focus on real and
surreal landscapes presented
from soaring heights and
incorporating layers of ink on
paper or polyester that are then
covered with iridescent, metallic
and fluorescent acrylic paints.
Robert Tucker ID* (NYC)
He recently married Misa Hirai,
designer/owner of Hagi Jewelry.
1978
In February and March
Karen Hackenberg PT (Port
Townsend, WA) had a show
a K-12 outreach coordinator for
student programs for the first
USA Science & Engineering
Festival, and I’m preparing for
the 2012 festival.”
1981
30th Reunion
October 14 – 16, 2011
1982
On a recent trip to China, Donald
Friedlich JM (Madison, WI;
donaldfriedlich.com) delivered
lectures at China Academy of Art
in Hangzhou, Tsinghau University
in Beijing and Shanghai
University. He was also a visiting
artist at Alberta College of Art
and Design in Calgary, Canada.
This summer he will be teaching
at The Studio of the Corning
Museum of Glass and will be the
keynote speaker at the annual
conference of the International
Society of Glass Beadmakers in
Louisville, KY.
titled Watershed at Vermillion
Gallery in Seattle. In her artist’s
statement for the show, she
writes: “Beach-found detritus—
PETE water bottles, plastic toy
animals, and consumer product
packages—are the subject and
medium of my current artwork.
Painting traditionally with
oil and gouache, I lovingly and
meticulously craft images
of trashed commercial beach
is CEO of Global Best Digital
flotsam, creating a provocative
Advertising Awards (digitalad
visual juxtaposition of form
To submit updates for class notes, email [email protected].
spring/summer 2011
49
Poulin + Morris, the NYC design
In February Eileen Ferara IL
Humanities & Sciences and an
firm where Douglas Morris GD
(Jersey City, NJ) participated
associate professor at the
is a principal, recently completed
in 365 Days of Print (365days
California College of the Arts
KEY
environmental graphics and
ofprint.com), an online artist’s
in Oakland/San Francisco.
current majors
identity design projects for MSG
residency/blog for which artists
Apparel Design
read and interpret the newspaper
1988
AP
Media and Hudson Square
Connection, both in NYC, and
through their art. Last year she
Lucas Michael: 10 Years in LA,
Arch
Architecture
the Sephardic Center in Brooklyn.
was one of three artists who
a show of video, sculpture,
CR
Ceramics
They also designed Building
created a centennial mural for
photographs and drawings by
DM
Digital + media
FAV
Film/Animation/
Video
Suzanne Scripps 89 PT
FD
Furniture Design
suzanne has opened a new
gallery in santa Fe, where she
shows her own paintings—like
this one, Grand Central Annie
(oil on canvas, 36 x 36")—along
with sculpture and jewelry.
GD
graphic Design
GL
glass
IA
interior Architecture
ID
industrial Design
IL
illustration
JM
Jewelry +
metalsmithing
PH
photography
Connections 2010, the annual
the Greenville firehouse of the
Lucas Michael ID (NYC), was
exhibition of the Center for Archi-
Jersey City Fire Department.
on view last winter at the city’s
tecture Foundation illustrating
the benefits of design education.
1986
25th Reunion
October 14 – 16, 2011
Manhattan-based interior
designer and writer Patrick J.
Hamilton GD (NYC) recently
contributed his personal stories
to It Gets Better: NYC Designing
Richard Goulis FAV
(Providence) filmed the videos
and Scott Lapham 90 PH
(Providence) shot the stills for
NetWorks, a series of documentaries about Rhode Island artists
that aired on PBS (and is now
available on YouTube). Joseph
Chazan produced the videos
in conjunction with AS220, the
Newport Art Museum and
Gallery Z; among the RISD alumni
profiled are Ben Anderson 84
SC , Leslie Bostrom MFA 85 PT ,
Daniel Clayman 86 GL, Yizhak
Elyashiv MFA 92 JM , Erminio
50
RISDXYZ
MA) has had sculpture work in
three shows this spring: Waiting
in Memery: Imitation, Memory,
(Needham, MA) and her
husband John showed paintings
together in Adjacent Rooms,
an exhibition at the Dover [MA]
Public Library.
Adam Silverman BArch
and Internet Culture, at MASS
(Los Angeles) showed ceramic
MoCA through July 31; OMG! in
work in a winter group exhibition
Scott Lindenau BArch 86
recent solo shows: Infinity: The
Dreamtime, held in February
at Kean University in Union, NJ,
and Urban Patterns in April
scott established studio B Architects (studiobarchitects.net) in
Aspen, CO in 1991. “in 20 years in practice,” he writes, “i/we have
garnered 50 AiA design awards, including the Colorado Young
Architect of the Year 2000, AiA Colorado mentoring Firm of the Year
2003 and AiA Colorado Firm of the Year 2009.” scott was recently
elected to the College of Fellows (FAiA) and will teach a grad studio
at the uC-Denver school of architecture this summer.
artcenter.org) several years ago
at UMASS Amherst, March-April;
to encourage local interest in the
and the installation Free WiFi
arts; the organization recently
1989
also included a photographic
Fred Lynch IL , a senior critic
at the Cambridge [MA] Arts
reached an ambitious fundraising
In the Outside, a mixed-media
print of the field project she
in RISD’s Illustration Depart-
Council gallery, March–May.
goal, allowing them to purchase
installation by Karen Gelardi
conducted in June 2010 in Leaf
were included in the exhibition
I’m still a painter. But the food
a building. Once remodeling
PT (South Portland, ME), was
River, IL. A four-page spread of
for the Photography Prize 2011
writing has become quite
of the former boat repair garage
exhibited in February at Gallery
So Yoon’s Dreamtime paintings
of the Canton of Bern, on view in
important as well.” Check out
was featured in Cabinet
March at PhotoforumPasquArt
both aspects of Peter’s work
Magazine #40 (winter 2010-11),
in Biel, Switzerland, where he
online: barrettart.com and
which was themed “Hair.”
lives (see more on page 8).
acookblog.com.
Four photographs by Jon
1990
Ian Bohorquez PT married
in On Location: Drawing Every
Day, a show at Monstserrat
College of Art in Beverly, MA.
Ki Ho Park PH/MFA 10
(Barrington, RI; kihoparkphoto.
com) showed photography
in Everything Must Go, a winter
solo show at the University
of Vermont in Burlington.
1987
(Simpsonville, SC; urbanpea-
Pinque 83 FAV , Kenn Speiser
Brian Kane PT (Cambridge,
Claudia’s nail polish painting
Apparition won the roger King
Fine Art Award (for First place
in painting) in the 2011 Annual
Members’ Juried Exhibition at the
newport [ri] Art museum. The
show ran from February to may.
Gallery Incubator Project Space
ment, exhibited work last winter
68 SC , Wendy Wahl MAE 85
of Autophagy magazine.
Claudia Flynn 84 SC
at Manhattanville College in
In March Kavita Bali GD
In March and April Meg Alexander GD showed drawings,
sculpture, prints and digital media
in New Landscapes, a solo show
at Gallery Kayafas in Boston. She
lives in nearby Concord, MA.
for the November 2010 issue
In March Caroline Rufo GD
of Ceramic Art at Acme gallery.
growing up gay.
1984
NY) created the cover illustration
at the Los Angeles Museum
of videos for teens about
This ri-based sculptor recently completed one of his “most challenging and significant commissions to date”: The Ark at Temple
Beth elohim in Wellesley, mA and the accompanying Yahrzeit
memorial, which includes more than 1,500 names on individually
engraved bronze plates. The project involved sensitive spiritual and
ceremonial issues along with spatial and architectural needs and
a complex fabrication and installation process. Over a five-month
period, peter incorporated more than 4,000 pounds of bronze,
a quarried slab of limestone imported from israel, a custom carved
and cast glass panel, a structural steel substructure, upholstery
and custom wood veneer panels to create “a spiritually charged
design intended to last for generations.”
Trine Giaever IL (Piermont,
[RI] Arts Center (JAC; jamestown
Men (itgetsbetter.org), a series
Peter Diepenbrock BID 84
Emma Gray HQ gallery.
A Tool is a Mirror at the Hampden
In honor of Women’s History
Month, Lisa Ann Palombo IL
is complete, they hope the JAC
(Caldwell, NJ; lisapalombo.com)
will become a hub of artistic
gave a lecture on Women
activity in the community.
Impressionists and Myself
at Reeves-Reed Arboretum in
Summit, NJ in March. The talk
was the opening event for
Impressions of the Garden, an
exhibition of Lisa’s oil-on-linen
paintings of garden scenes.
Gender and Activism in a Little
Magazine: the Modern Figures
and McDonald Wright 96 PH .
Furman University in Greenville,
Lily Prince PT (Stone Ridge,
Journey, the program included
NY) recently shot compelling
portraits of Pete Seeger, Sheryl
Oring, the late Howard Zinn and
a dozen other activists profiled
in Something to Say—Thoughts
on Art and Politics in America
(2011, Leapfrog Press), written
by her husband Richard Klin.
four of her short films and her
SC. Titled An Urban Peacock’s
poem “The Horseman Has Come.”
So Yoon Lym PT (North
Haledon, NJ) exhibited hair and
braid pattern paintings in two
Naiman PH (jonnaiman.com)
of the Masses, a new book by
in February. She completed
her PhD in History at the Johns
Kate Petrie BArch and Lizzie
Hopkins University in 2008
Congdon founded the Jamestown
and is currently director of
David Holmes 84 GD
David’s painting Welcome to Minneapolis was chosen by the state
Department for display at the us embassy in sarajevo; it was also one
of three pieces that he exhibited in the juried realism invitational held
in April at mason murer gallery in Atlanta. He recently had a solo show
at robbin gallery in robbinsdale, mn. David lives in minneapolis.
NYC-based artist SoHyun
her new website: sohyunbae.
released by Ashgate Publishing
com. Please check it out and let
Farsad Labbauf BID 87
left: Farsad showed this recent
painting in My Super Hero,
a group exhibition that opened
simultaneously at morono
Kiang gallery in Los Angeles
and Aaran gallery in Tehran,
iran and was on view at both
venues in march. Farsad lives
in Jersey City, nJ.
her know what you think.
Peter Barrett PT (Woodstock,
NY) writes: “I just got the
[XYZ Winter 2011 issue] today,
and it looks great. I was a little
disappointed, though, that
I didn’t know you’d be focusing
on food; I’ve been writing a food
blog for five years that recently
both New York magazine and
Michael Ruhlman have
mentioned positively. I also have
a gig as the food and drink writer
for Chronogram, a monthly
magazine here in the Hudson
Valley. This is all a side project to
my art career; first and foremost
Siulam Iliana Fernandes CEC
on May 9, 2009 in Providence.
SC
sculpture
TX
Textiles
Art + Design
education
LA
Landscape
Architecture
MD
machine Design
TC
Textile Chemistry
TE
Textile engineering
5th-year degree
BArch Architecture
BGD
graphic Design
of Creative:interactive, Inc.
BID
industrial Design
in Providence, and Siulam
BIA
interior
Architecture
BLA
Landscape
Architecture
is a graphic designer.
After working as an art teacher
for years, Emily Cohen IL
(Los Angeles) discovered a gift
for teaching kids to swim, and
has built a successful business
called The Water Whisperer
(see page 6). “In the off season
I work as an illustrator,” she says.
master’s degrees
MA
Art education
(formerly mAe)
MArch Architecture
MAT
Teaching
MFA
Fine Arts
MID
industrial Design
(lovemily.com) and recently had
MIA
interior Architecture
a drawing published in the new
MLA
Landscape
Architecture
“I have a separate art website
book The Good, The Bad, and The
Barbie (2010, Viking Juvenile).”
other
A recent article in The Sherman
CEC
Continuing
education Certificate
FS
enrolled for
Foundation studies
only
*
attended risD, but
no degree awarded
Oaks Patch (2.11.2011) described
how Emily used her art as
ethel’s mixed-media sculptural
work was on view earlier this
spring in a solo show at OK
Harris gallery in nYC. The artist
(ethelpoindexter.com) is based
in Vancouver, BC.
Advertising Design
AE
former 5th-year degrees
a springboard for swimming.
Ethel Poindexter 88 ID
AD
is founder and creative director
Madeleine Bolger PT*
To submit updates for class notes, email [email protected].
printmaking
They live in Lincoln, RI. Ian
1985
(Norfolk, MA), Karole
Nicholson CEC 95 (Attleboro,
MA) and Judith Moffat, an
instructor in RISD’s Continuing
Education division, exhibited
together in February at the
Norfolk [MA] Public Library.
painting
PR
former majors
Bae PT is excited to announce
Rachel Schreiber GD , was
cock.com) presented an evening
of short films and poetry at
37-A in Portland, ME.
Purchase, NY. The exhibitions
PT
In April and May Patrick
Keesey PT (NYC and Marfa, TX)
showed new drawings and
paintings in Fragments & Refractions, a solo show at Blackston
gallery in New York City.
spring/summer 2011
51
premiered at the Bayerische
Staatsoper in Munich in
March 2010.
1994
TX; alycesantoro.com) exhibited
Marcia Patmos AP was among
at the Marfa [TX] Ballroom as
the dozens of New York-based
part of the spring Texas Biennial.
designers who joined forces for
She is a member of Sonic Dis-
Fashion Girls For Japan: 60+
obedience, a group devoted to
Designers/60+ Rolling Racks,
“works of sonic activism.” In
a designer sample sale to benefit
December their piece WIKILEAKS
Japan Society’s Japan Earthquake
SAMBA—“an ode to freedom
Relief Fund, the Red Cross,
of speech and press in perfor-
and NYC’s Japan Earthquake
mance-art form”—appeared on
and Tsunami Fund. The event
democracynow.org and hit the
took place in April at the
top spot in the UK viral video
Bowery Hotel.
chart. She entered the 2011
1992
with her project The Instant
Recent paintings and large-scale
& Efficient Comprehensive &
drawings by Bo Joseph PT
Synergetic Omni-Solution.
the Sears-Peyton Gallery booth
In February Dan Sousa IL
at the Pulse NY art fair.
(Providence) discussed his
(Bridgeport, CT; dsquilts.com)
announced her company’s first
quilt sewing pattern for the
animation work in a talk at
Harvard’s Carpenter Center,
interspersing his commentary
with screenings of his five films.
McCall Pattern Company. Based
Work by Nakhee Sung PT was
on Denyse Schmidt Quilts’ Spool
on view in April in Within, a solo
design, “the pattern makes it
show at Doosan Gallery in Seoul,
Liz Collins 91 TX/MFA 99
easy to replicate the improvisa-
Korea, where she lives.
Liz (top) and her partner Julie Davids have a son, Winter edward
Collins, who was born at home on December 23, 2009. Liz is an
assistant professor of Textiles at risD and recently received a 2011
macColl Johnson Fellowship for Visual Art (see page 40). As part
of a fall exhibition at iCA Boston called Dance/Draw, she will stage
two different, day-long KNITTING NATION events in the magnificent
theater space there—on October 30 and november 25.
tional feeling of my design, so no
two blocks look alike,” she says.
curated Lucien Aigner: Photo/
gratification, the finished quilt
Story, a major exhibition that
Schmidt Quilts’ website.)
1993
20th Reunion
GA) is showing work in Memery:
(Clinton Corners, NY) crafts
Imitation, Memory, and Internet
Elisa were each diagnosed
with aggressive cancer within
days of each other. Find out
more at friendsofnathanandelisa.
blogspot.com.
gemstone jewelry that can now
Katherine Daniels PT (NYC;
be found at Egan Day boutique
MASS MoCA. His work inspires
katherinedaniels.com) showed
in Philadelphia.
work last winter in Veil,
a site-specific installation in the
Donnell Library windows in
NYC, and in the group show
An Uncommon Thread at Front
Room Gallery in Brooklyn.
Chris Eboch PH (Socorro, NM;
chriseboch.com) has had two
books for juvenile readers
published recently: The Eyes
of Pharaoh (2011, CreateSpace),
an adventure story set in ancient
Egypt, and Rattled (2011, Pig River
Karen Meleney Green SC
culture and media through
“subtle, sedate portraits of
popular Internet content that
Weathervanes, a bespoke
are both familiar and uncanny,”
sculpture studio based in
according to the show’s site.
was commissioned to create
a monumental 3D copper
weathervane of Lady Liberty to
celebrate the opening of the
American Museum in Britain’s
In March Andrew Crawford SC
(Onset, MA) was recognized by
the City of New Bedford, MA/
Mass DOT for her entry in the
Whale’s Tooth Station Design
Competition. Hailed by the
judges as “fun, creative, and…
a signature gateway,” The Whale
Over Route 18 received an
Honorable Mention Award for
the Iconic Treatment of New
Arnor Bieltvedt 92 PT
Halos (36 x 24") was among the works featured in Flowers, a march
solo show at the gallery estudio Luna in Winnipeg, Canada. Arnor
(artistarnor.com) creates work based on his childhood memories
of the spectacular icelandic landscape and his interest in the
flora and brilliant light of southern California, where he now lives
(in pasadena).
Vanessa (Brawn) Cruz FAV
(Palm Coast, FL) submitted this
good news: “I wanted to share
that I am now a Fulbrighter!
I was selected by the Fulbright
Commission in Ireland and
the National College of Art &
LEVEL UP, a TV movie David
opened with the unveiling of the
new weathervane on March 12.
Oaks, CA) co-wrote and coexecutive produced, premieres
on the Cartoon Network this fall
name Kris Bock), a suspenseful
(Oakland, CA) had photographs
and will be followed by the
romance that takes place
featured in the program book
series, which will start airing in
in “the dramatic and deadly
accompanying Dialogues
early 2012. An online video game
southwestern desert.”
des Carmélites, an opera that
will be released at the same time.
Chryssa Udvardy
91 SC
Shadow (2010, stoneware,
20 x 13 x 34") is one of
the sculptural works in
Shadows and Objects, a solo
exhibition held in February
at As220 project space in
providence. Chryssa lives nearby
in Bristol, ri.
Bedford’s Character. Anthi drew
from the composition of a
whale’s skeleton in a nod to New
Bedford’s long history of whaling.
The design can be see at archit8
.com/issuu.php.
Christopher Frederick PH
stars in Snuggle Bunny
(funnyordie.com/snugglebunny),
a three-part web series directed
by Joe Leonard, who edits for the
hit TV series Glee. Christopher
designed the news anchor
backdrops used in part 2
(where he appears in full bunny
costume) and retouched the
still images in part 1.
In March Tess Giberson AP
opened a flagship boutique on
Crosby Street in New York, and
during Fashion Week she was
selected as one of the emerging
designers promoted through
the W Hotels’ 2011 Fashion Next
program. Her collection is also
available at Barneys New York,
Intermix in New York and Ron
Herman in California.
Turtles Swimming in a Plastic
Ocean, a painting by Lee Lee PT
(aka Lee Erin Leonard), was
a finalist in The Chaco Waves
for Change Art Contest, which
addresses the environmental
impact of plastic on the planet’s
oceans and sea life. Lee splits
her time between Denver and
Taos, NM.
Botanical Garden of Georgia.
Schneiderman FAV (Sherman
Anne and Joe morse were
married on August 28, 2010 in
her hometown of Bronxville, nY.
Joe is a sales engineer at
salesforce.com and Anne is
“still running a maintenance
gardening business in san
Francisco but [is] in the process
of making a career change
(career yet to be determined).”
Bruno, CA) is curating Japanese
Art, a show at Gensler’s home
office in San Francisco. The
show runs from September 29
through December 2, with daily
public viewing hours.
sculpture in Forged from Nature,
new Folk Art Gallery, which
Anne Frost 97 GD
Jody Goodman BArch (San
a solo show at the State
Allyson Hollingsworth JM
RISDXYZ
Anthi Frangiadis BArch
(Atlanta, GA) exhibited recent
Books; written under the pen
52
GD and her husband Steven
welcomed their second son,
Shayne Aurelius, on January 31,
2011. Shayne joins his big brother
In recognition of his social
activism work in the Philippines,
Carlos Celdran PT (Manila;
celdrantours.blogspot.com) was
named to Forbes magazine’s
list of People You Need to Know
in 2011. Carlos is an advocate
of reproductive health and
education for the poor, and is an
outspoken critic of the Catholic
Church’s stance on contraception and reproductive freedoms.
new perspectives on popular
is the head designer at Greens
England. Last fall the studio
Christine (Knof) Arakelian
After nearly five years leading
the design and user experience
of New York Media’s digital
products (nymag.com,
menupages.com, vulture.com,
among others) Ian Adelman ID
joined The New York Times this
spring as director of Digital
Design. In this capacity, he’s
working with a team of visual
designers, information architects
and creative technologists to
shape the Times’ multiple digital
publishing platforms, including
the nytimes.com website and
news applications.
Annette Ferdinandsen JM
Culture, a group exhibition that
15th Reunion
October 14 – 16, 2011
1995
Nathan Bond PT and his wife
continues through July 31 at
1996
ran earlier this spring at the
deCordova Sculpture Park and
Museum in Lincoln, MA.
Mark Callahan PR (Athens,
delicate gold, silver and
October 14 – 16, 2011
Farm Stand Display, Fryeburg Fair
was among the photographs
included in At the Fair, a solo
show held in march at Clark
gallery in Lincoln, mA. Thomas
is based in Harmony, me.
Blake, who is two. The family
lives in Maplewood, NJ.
left: photo by Karen Philippi
1991
Jennifer Uhrhane PH guest
(And for those seeking quicker
is also available via Denyse
Inigo Elizalde PT lives in New
York City and has a textile and
rug design company called Inigo
Elizalde Rugs (inigoelizalderugs.
com). The company exhibits
regularly at trade shows,
including the annual International Contemporary Furniture
Fair held in May in NYC.
Thomas Birtwistle
91 PH*
Buckminster Fuller Challenge
(NYC) were on view in March at
Denyse Schmidt GD
Design for a US Fulbright Scholar
Award in Mixed Media Art at
National College of Art & Design,
commencing in January 2012.
My research will focus on my
new animated film/installation
with the working title of Ruin.”
Alyce Santoro CEC (Fort Davis,
1997
Ellen Godena PT (working
under the name Sara June;
Boston) had a solo show titled
To submit updates for class notes, email [email protected].
PLEO SERIES III: Convergence
pop-up shop at the Lace boutique
in March at Mobius Artists Space
(all in Miami Beach, FL) and had
in Boston. The 48-hour intensive
a Pop-Up Studio in New York
performance/installation event
City for a week in January (see
featured “multiple late-Creta-
also page 11).
ceous dinosaurs, birds, humans,
and robots in performance
of their evolution…[to] provide
commentary on the attachment
relationship as a key neurobiologically-evolved component
of survival in several species,”
she explains.
Work by Tina McCurdy IL (East
Haddam, CT) will be included
in the Colored Pencil Society
of America’s 19th Annual CPSA
International Exhibition, which
runs June 29-July 30 at the
Charles W. Eisemann Center in
Richardson, TX. She also had
Karelle Levy TX (Miami),
work in three shows last winter
the knitwear designer behind
and spring: RANDOM at Paris in
KRELwear, discussed her
Plantsville [CT], [un+art] Show
creative process at an Artists in
at ArtSpace Hartford [CT], and
Action! event in March. Presented
Tina’s Art at 70 Main Coffeehouse
in Fort Lauderdale by Girls’ Club,
Gallery in East Hampton, CT.
the series introduces local artists
to the public through informal
talks and presentations. Karelle
has also participated recently
in a pecha kucha event at the
Bass Museum and a fashion
presentation at the Mondrian
Hotel, opened a temporary
Minh Reza 96 IL +
Ali Reza BArch 96
Big sister Ara reza (3) joined her
parents in welcoming a new
baby girl, minaal reza, into the
family on October 12, 2010. The
rezas are having fun together in
Walnut Creek, CA.
spring/summer 2011
53
In March Anna Schuleit PT
featured recently on the design
real estate development in
(Dublin, NH; annaschuleit.com)
blog apartmenttherapy.com. The
Oakland, CA. Build It Green is
presented a visiting artist lecture
couple and their toddler daughter
a nonprofit whose mission is to
Gere live in Providence’s
promote energy- and resource-
Monohasset Mill complex.
efficient homes in California.
watch (dubbed the “new tradi-
2000
2002
tionals”) by Traditional Home
Several RISD alumni were
Louise Lemieux Bérubé FS
songwriter Tift Merritt for The
recipients of this year’s Rhode
(Quebec) exhibited jacquard
focus of the first issue of trad
Spark on Marfa Texas Public
Island State Council on the Arts
textile work last fall in Jacquard
Fellowship Awards: Tzu-Ju
2X2/Montreal-Tokyo, a show at
Chen JM , Victoria E. Crayhon
the Embassy of Canada in Tokyo.
Anna was interviewed by the
Radio; the 40-minute interview
is available at marfaspark.com.
1999
Joe Bradley PT* (Brooklyn)
showed in two simultaneous
exhibitions last winter: Mouth
and Foot Painting at Gavin
Brown’s Enterprise and Human
Form at CANADA (both in NYC).
He was interviewed on Art
International Radio by Brooklyn
Rail publisher Phong Bui. Joe
was in the band Cheeseburger
when he was at RISD.
James Holland FAV (Brooklyn)
created the motion graphics
MFA 97 PH , Ruth F. Dealy 71 PT/
MFA 73 , Joshua J. Enck MFA 03
FD , Lorelei Pepi 87 IL and
Daniel Sousa 94 IL (all are RI
residents). The fellowship
winners’ artwork was exhibited
in February at the Artists Cooperative Gallery of Westerly, RI.
Jewelry by Lara Kurtzman PT
home, the magazine’s digital
spin-off, which launched in May.
In March John C. Gonzalez IL
(Boston; johncgonzalez.com)
answered with the production
Jason Herron GD submitted
showed his MFA thesis
of 52 oil paintings, which contrast
this upbeat message: “For the
exhibition for the School of the
the anonymity of the individuals
past eight years, I have been
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
depicted within them against
an art director in the movie
at Lufthansa Studios. His work
the Western construction
advertising field in Los Angeles.
consisted of a collection of
of an aesthetic concerned with
I am currently at a company
paintings purchased from an
hyper-individuality that places
called Ignition and have designed
oil painting manufacturing
value on individual autonomy.”
movie and TV posters for The
company in Dafen, China. The
Pacific, Friday the 13th and Red
curatorial statement accompa-
Bjorn Iooss PH (see page 10)
Anthony Dihle GD (Washing-
michaelneff.com) and Brad
a cover illustration, title and
Ewing MFA PR (Woodbury, CT)
masthead redesign for the “Sex,
exhibited together in Light Leaks,
Drugs, and Rock n Roll” issue
a show held in February and
of Barrelhouse magazine. His
March at Joe Bar in Seattle.
work was included in FLURRY,
Michael exhibited photographs
a holiday 2010 show at Pleasant
and sculpture, Brad showed
Plains Workshop in Washington,
screenprints and letterpress
Ridinghood, and I received a Key
Gallery in Brooklyn (see also
Step Brothers in-theater standee.
of client, artist, collector, and
Noah Breuer PR (Brooklyn)
I am grateful that I’m in a field
curator, he presents paintings
created the cover artwork for
that hasn’t been affected by the
made in response to his request
the newly released book The
Plains on February 24 at GMU’s
page 11).
Wired for Change conference,
10th Reunion
Stephanie Diamond PR
held in New York City in
October 14 – 16, 2011
nying the show explains:
“Assuming the various roles
2004
DC, where he lives. Additionally,
he writes: “I gave a talk on design/
printmaking/Fire Studio/Pleasant
economy. But it didn’t come
that each artisan hand-paint
Internet of Elsewhere: The
Fairfax Campus. I showed many,
without hard work. This industry
a portrait of him or herself.
Emergent Effects of a Wired
many slides detailing my design-
is extremely fast-paced and my
This self-reflective task was
World by Cyrus Farivar.
print process, and talked some
graphic design skills grow daily.
about opening a bricks-n-mortar
Claire Bigbie ID and Jay
I try and give back to RISD as
work/show/sell space. I also
The converted mill living space
Shapiro welcomed a son,
much as possible by volunteer-
that McKenzie and Joel Taplin
Nicko Rhodes Shapiro, on
ing as a portfolio reviewer at the
ID outfitted with salvaged, thrift
December 4, 2010. The family
and handmade furnishings was
lives in San Francisco.
February.
National Portfolio Day here in
Ben Blatt IL (Brooklyn) showed
watercolor paintings last March
in Hotbox Devolution, a solo
Nancy Wells 03 AP
Last fall nancy (nancywells.com) presented a new collection of women’s contemporary garments—her
first in four years—including highly detailed, feminine interpretations of classic women’s designs, suitable
for office, evening and weekend wear. she launched her eponymous line in 2003, and in addition to
her design work and fashion journalism for Examiner, Plaztikmag and Smashing Darling, she is currently
working toward a certificate in Creative entrepreneur Ownership at Fashion institute of Technology in
nYC. in February nancy was filmed for a TV pilot as a fashion expert and style correspondent. Editor’s
note: Apologies for the inaccuracies about Nancy’s career presented in the Fall 2010 issue of RISD XYZ.
show at Half Gallery in NYC.
Last winter Jonah Koppel PT
(Long Island City, NY) showed
Andrew Kennedy 02 IL
Veteran of the Bulge (oil on
canvas, 72 x 44") was included
in Emerging Artists 2011, on view
in April at the Limner gallery
in Hudson, nY. Andrew is based
in montclair, nJ.
Southern California for the last
four years. Our RISD community
here in LA is growing and the
camaraderie between alums is
life-changing. RISD truly has
a worldwide family.”
Jessica Hess 03 IL
Jessica (san Francisco) is collaborating with Berkeley-based
sculptor Christa Assad on a project titled Street Wise, which features
Jessica’s paintings on Christa’s porcelain objects. Their work is on
view through July 23 in Pursuit of Porcelain at Ferrin gallery in
pittsfield, mA, and has also been exhibited recently at sOFA new
York (April) and ArtmrKT in san Francisco (may). Jessica showed
work last winter in Vivid Summit, a group show at pandemic gallery
in Brooklyn, and It’s a Strange World at Brick Bottom gallery in
somerville, mA.
three large-scale paintings on
canvas at the new location of
Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery
in New York City. Towards a New
Impending Idiot Utopia was his
third solo show with the gallery.
Margaret Wuller FAV (Los
Angeles) and Rachel Tiep-Daniel,
co-workers at Dreamworks
Animation, have started a 501c3
nonprofit organization called
The Picture Book Project
Foundation. Their mission is to
“create an avenue for animators
and illustrators to help and
inspire children in need,” and
they recently organized a charity
hosted an art/printmaking
workshop at the [pop-up shop]
Mt. Pleasant Temporium open
to second graders only. I’m also
on board with the Temporium as
a sponsor and vendor. Stemming
from the Temporium workshop,
a big new group show at our little
edition that was available as
a take-home for visitors. Michael
and his work have been featured
lately on Craft + Creative, a series
produced by Advertising Week
Social Club; the GOOD magazine
website; Urban Omnibus and
This Blog Rules.
2005
“Aloha from Hawaii!” writes
Jamie Allen IL (jamierallen.
com), who left New Jersey last
June for the tropical islands. In
April he took part in a benefit
MONSTERS, opened in May.
for local artists and the Contem-
Screenprinting (Rotovision UK)
out this spring.”
others for an eBay auction on
prints, and the two collaborated
on a letterpress and inkjet
space on Georgia Ave, WE ARE
Look for our work in Reinventing
Disney, AOL, Digital Domain and
Michael Neff PH (Brooklyn;
ton, DC; ant-hive.com) created
Art Award for my design for the
1998
RISDXYZ
magazine. The hot list was the
Tobacco Flowers (colored ink
on silk, 50 x 72") was among
the paintings in Tiffany Pollack:
Room, a winter solo show at
gasser/grunert gallery in nYC.
The exhibition featured more
than a dozen silk paintings
shown alongside her first largescale dyed silk installation. she
lives in Brooklyn, nY.
group show HONEY at Liloveve
2001
54
up-and-coming designers to
Tiffany Pollack 03 PT
(NYC) was on view in the winter
title for the Ford Foundation’s
(NYC) collaborated with Adia
Millett on You Are Here, an
interactive project that opened
in January at Cabinet Magazine
in Brooklyn and MASS MoCA
in North Adams, MA.
(NYC) was named one of 20
of Memory/Memory without
Mild Acts of Trespassing.
Bear With Me, the first children’s
book max has written and
illustrated, was released in may
by penguin. The story follows
Owen as he deals with major
household change—in the form
of gary, the bear his parents
bring home “without even
asking!” The book is aimed at
the 4-8-year-old demographic
and has received positive
reviews from Publishers Weekly
and Kirkus. max works out of his
studio in Los Angeles.
Nina Freudenberger BArch
at Brown University titled Sites
Site: Painting, Public Art, and
Max Kornell 02 IL
2003
porary Art Museum in Honolulu,
“which is going through some
drastic changes and economic
hardships. Mahalo!”
March 12. Proceeds from the
Elizabeth Hostetler FAV (Los
auction will pay for boarding
and education costs for 13
orphaned children in Ho, Ghana.
For more information and to
support the project, visit
picturebookproject.com. In
Angeles) sent in two updates: on
Work by Jenny Bradley JM
the professional front, she is a
(High Falls, NY) is on view
producer on the Iron Chef America
through June 25 in Jewelers of
series on the Food Network. And
the Hudson Valley at The Forbes
on the personal side, she and
Galleries in Manhattan.
Kory Lanphear will be married
addition to managing the
on September 24, 2011.
foundation, Margaret is a visual
development artist at
Dreamworks Animation, where
Christina Rodriguez
03 IL
she recently worked on the film
How To Train Your Dragon.
Christina (christinarodriguez
.com) created the illustrations
for My Mom’s Deployment,
a new children’s book written
by Julie LaBelle. The activity
book is geared towards children
of parents deployed in the
military and is a companion to
My Dad’s Deployment (2009).
Mint Condition Homes, the
art auction to benefit orphaned
urban redevelopment company
kids in Ghana. Art Blocks for
operated by Mila Zelkha BArch
Ghana collected 200 original
(Palo Alto, CA), was named Build
works by artists and illustrators
It Green’s 2010 Green Building
from Dreamworks Animation,
Champion, in recognition of its
Pixar, Blue Sky, ILM, Sony,
efforts to transform residential
To submit updates for class notes, email [email protected].
spring/summer 2011
55
2005 continued
Hillary G. Broder FAV wrote
career and the film, which won
Will Harris 10 ID
the grand prize at the SXSW
Building on a project he started in the risD course Product Design
and Development, Will has been working at Design that matters
in Cambridge, mA on a low-cost device to treat newborn jaundice
in Vietnam, built using locally available materials. Design that
matters has been developing the Firefly design concept he and
Alicia Lew 11 ID initiated as students and Will recently helped
field-test the system in Vietnam. “it’s a very exciting project,” he
says. “it demonstrates the thoughtfulness of the risD education
and the amazing opportunities afforded to risD alumni even
in this difficult job market.”
film festival.
in to let us know that her art
class at JFK High School in
In May SHOOT magazine named
Bellmore, NY was chosen “to
Hayley Morris FAV (Brooklyn,
design and construct a 25' wide
NY) to its New York Directors
x 10' high collage depicting the
Showcase, selecting her as one
story of the Triangle Shirtwaist
of the top 32 best new directors
Factory fire of 1911. The project
in the world. She was also
was done in conjunction with
invited to be one of six panelists
Adelphi University and will
to present during a screening of
be shown at Cooper Union’s
the directors’ films. Hayley’s
Great Hall in recognition of the
music video for Joker’s Daughter
centennial of the disaster that
is also featured in Papercraft 2, a
inspired many changes in
new book about paper art.
worker’s rights in the 20th
century.” She also participated
in a panel discussion held in
March at Cooper Union about
was held in March at the Starving
work for Pentagram, Apple, Inc.,
Artist in Keene, NH. She’ll be
and The New York Times, among
illustrating next year’s issue as
other clients.
Sophy Tuttle IL (Jamaica Plain,
well (and she got the job through
MA; sophytuttle.com) had a solo
RISD’s ArtWorks job board).
show in conjunction with the
how art can be used to instruct
students in other disciplines.
release of Antioch University’s
New York-based designer
Whole Terrain magazine,
Jessica Walsh GD was selected
“Significance of Scale” issue
As the owner of Spirare Surfboards (spiraresurfboards.com),
Kevin Cunningham BArch
as a 2011 NVA (New Visual
(no. 17), for which she did all the
Artist) winner by Print magazine,
illustrations. The exhibition
based on the strength of her
(Providence) is undertaking
debris and trash in production
Lila Ash 11 PT
on functional fine art surfboards,”
he explains. “The beaches we
award for web design. The
IL , was published last spring by
open a new natural food store
all love to visit are being plagued
founders have been getting a lot
Houghton-Mifflin. Alison works
and café on Westminster Street
with trash: trash that washes up
of positive press on their startup,
out of her studio in Providence.
in downtown Providence. The
onto the shores from the massive
including several recent profiles
drifts of debris in the ocean.”
in Forbes (11.18.10 and 4.5.11).
He plans to use that trash to
2006
initiative was started in 2009
“by a group of artists, farmers,
Last winter, as an artist-in-
and generally resourceful folks
Jennifer Chachenian
06 TX
Jennifer and her husband
Christopher welcomed twin girls,
Jewel simone and pearl simone,
on October 13, 2010. The family
lives in Houston, TX and Jennifer
already has them pegged as
“future risD graduates.”
build surfboards for exhibition
Regina Mamou PH (Chicago)
residence at the Fairmont Dallas
who wanted to be more in touch
and sale around the country;
co-curated Remember Then:
[TX] Hotel, Sean Springer SC
with the earth and our sources
a Kickstarter campaign is
An Exhibition on the Photography
(Dallas; springerdesignstudio.
of sustenance here in the city
underway to support the project.
of Memory, held in the spring
com) worked on two lines
and bring neglected spaces
at the Center for Government
of furniture and showed work
to life through art and food
and International Studies at
at the hotel’s Ross Akard
gardens,” Andrea explains. They
2008
Harvard University.
Gallery; at the conclusion of the
plan to open the food store as
A graphic and web design
residency he presented a piece
a worker-owned co-op in June,
consultant by day, Alex Blue ID
for the hotel’s permanent
and have a Kickstarter campaign
(Seattle) recently began
collection. Sean crafts furniture,
going to support the build-out.
producing and selling handmade
home accessories and sculptures
Jessica Pollock 07 IL is
kitchen knives under the
from salvaged wood, creating
creating screen-printed promo-
company name Blue Knives
functional pieces from landfill-
tional posters to give the store
(blue-knives.com). He makes
bound materials.
a graphic boost, too.
each knife himself from
The Fertile Underground
2007
travel service founded by Joe
Gebbia ID and Brian Chesky
04 ID (both San Francisco), has
Sunday Love, the second
been nominated for a Crunchie
children’s book by Alison Paul
Lila (lilaash.com) recently designed the logo and branding for the
2011 Valentines Day Luncheon at the plaza Hotel hosted by rush
philanthropic, a nonprofit group spearheaded by russell, Joseph
‘rev run’ and Danny simmons. The event, called rush HeArTs
education, raised funds to provide public school students with arts
education and emerging artists with exhibition opportunities.
(fertileunderground.com)—
an urban agriculture and art
initiative spearheaded by several
alumni, including Andrea
Starr BArch and Nina
Maxwell PR —won the bid to
Lisa Petty 11 IL
Lisa recently completed a commission to illustrate Matilda &
Maxwell’s Good Night, a picture
book for kids designed to accompany Good Night, an advice book
that’s part of the new GoodParentGoodChild book series.
RISDXYZ
turns old books into new blank
journals and sketchbooks using
the Coptic stitch. She sells
her creations on Etsy and was
interviewed in February on
Megha Khandelwal GD and
Ajit Gupta were married earlier
this year, with a ceremony in
India and a wedding on April 15
in NYC, where they live.
2009
Photography by Tom Prado PH
(NYC) was on view in March
and April at Raandesk Gallery in
Manhattan. The exhibition
Optical: Staged featured work by
the five finalists in the gallery’s
annual international competition; Tom was awarded second
place. He also presented
Construct. Repeat. at Salon Ciel
in NYC, also in March.
2010
Staci James CEC and Jason
Korske were married at the First
Congregational Church in
Falmouth, MA on July 31, 2010.
As a user experience designer
at Google, Willem VanLancker
Damascus or carbon steel—a
56
Books, Angela Wehrle FD
(Providence; angelawehrle.com)
bookbindingteam.com.
a new project to “use reclaimed
AirBnB, the web-based budget
As the maker of Bound Again
process that takes more than 10
Project, a museum “street view”
feature that allows computer
users to roam the halls of
museums around the world and
GD (willemvanlancker.com)
inspect artworks up close. The
contributed to the Google Art
application launched in February.
hours, most of it at a belt grinder.
climate has been a tough but
rewarding challenge. I appreciate
Send us your XYZ info!
Tell us what you’re up to and we’ll share
your news with the RISD community.
at RISD and I use them every day
Here are some of the ways you can contribute to your magazine:
upcoming deadlines:
NJ) exhibited new work in April
to create my knives.”
1/ submit updates (professional and personal) to class notes
September 1 for Fall 2011 (due out in October)
2/ comment on the content of each issue
February 15 for Spring 2012 (due out in April)
3/ submit exhibition information for current + upcoming shows
To submit information via post, write to:
show at SOHO20 Chelsea Gallery.
Jay Zehngebot PR showed
Furniture, a 2010 indie film
new prints in Our Sentry, a solo
written and directed by her high
made her acting debut in Tiny
show held in March at R.K.
school friend Lena Dunham.
Projects in Providence, the city
She was interviewed by Esquire
where he lives.
about her budding acting
managed to make competitive
sport this year. “We’re the only
all of the skills that I picked up
Jemima Kirke PT (NYC)
Evan Murphy FD , founder
of the RISD Cycling Team,
art school in the whole nation
Celeste Rapone IL (Wayne,
in Costume Required, a solo
Rebecca Manson CR (see
page 28)
cycling RISD’s first varsity-level
He reports that “starting
a business in this economic
2011
email [email protected]
RISD XYZ, Two College Street, Providence, RI 02903
For address updates/mailing issues: [email protected]
competing in cycling as an
organized team,” he says. “It’s
kind of a big deal.” Evan also
qualified for the Collegiate
Road Nationals, competing in
Madison, WI in early May. After
graduation he plans to work with
artist Tom Sachs building and
maintaining “quasi art bikes”
for Sachs’s 2012 Armoury show.
He’ll also continue racing in
NYC and already has a team to
support him there.
To submit updates for class notes, email [email protected].
spring/summer 2011
57
2011 continued
RISD swept the Animation
category at the Society of
Illustrators 2011 competition
with graduating seniors Caleb
Wood FAV winning a $750 First
Place prize for his film Little
Wild, Ted Wiggin FAV placing
second for Terra Firma and
Kenneth Onulak FAV winning
third prize for Paper Dreams.
Caleb also won first prize in the
2010 competition.
2012
Work by Rose Dickson PH
(rosedickson.com) was selected
entries. She also took second
One weekend in January Max
for publication in Aesthetica
place in the Workbook Next
Frieder PT brought his
Magazine’s Creative Works
Generation Competition for two
Foundstrument Soundstrument—
Annual 2011. She was one of 30
Photoshop montages inspired
an interactive percussive
artists selected from 4,000
by family photographs.
sculpture created from found
materials and reclaimed
junk—to crowds of curious kids
Nathalie Jolivert BArch 12
at the Providence Children’s
nathalie is thrilled to have won the 2011 gensler Diversity scholarship, which will cover the cost of her fifth year at risD and offer her
a full-time internship at the san Francisco-based architectural and
design firm this summer. The scholarship recognizes emerging talent
among African-American college students and was awarded based
on the quality of the work she submitted—a project to create
sustainable buildings for an indigenous group in Colombia. “not only
does this scholarship bring financial relief to my family,” the Haitian
students notes, “but with the mentorship and internship programs
provided, my education will surely be enriched.”
Museum. As children explored
the sounds, from “bops of plastic
pipes to chimes of cast glass
to the bing of reverberating
metal,” he also led a collaborative mural-making activity.
The Fabled dress, a garment that
Ryan Novelline IL constructed
out of recycled children’s Golden
Books, was featured on the
Commencements Past
Armando Veve 11 IL + Ivy Tai 11 IL
risD graduates have historically had a natural knack for
several illustration majors won cash prizes in the 2011 society of
illustrators competition in nYC. Armando won $2500 for Mysteries
that Howl and Hunt (above left) and ivy won $1000 for Absolute
Ivy (above). in addition, JooHee Yoon 11 IL (see also page 29) won
$5000—one of two top prizes—for her mixed media piece Elephant,
while Dadu Shin 10 IL earned $2500 for his piece Lost Dog and Kevin
Laughlin 11 IL won $1000 for Minotaur. Works by Ole Tillman 11 IL,
Marina Loeb 11 IL and Kyle Norris 11 IL were also selected for inclusion
in the sOi nY exhibition.
celebrating Commencement right, embracing the event for what
it is—the exciting culmination of a crazy, wonderful, intensely
meaningful period in their lives. While other colleges opt for
a stiff interpretation of whatever “pomp and circumstance”
suggests to them, risD prefers to do it differently, whether that
means draping a live boa around your neck as the accessory
du jour, chatting with a puppet counterpart or processing across
the stage buck naked. And in 1990, when hundreds of oldsters
were invited back to campus to collect “honorary BFAs” because
Today show on April 1.
they graduated in the years before risD was first allowed
2013
Egle Paulauskaite AP
in the RateYourStudyAbroad
.com Fall 2010 Travel Writing &
Photography Contest for the
essay Inside Out—about
interning at a sewing atelier
deathS
Jacqueline Yvonne Horning
William Brandau Landgraf
50 TX of Beaverton, OR on
William C. Perry 59 ID*
DIP 33 MD of Dublin, OH on
November 11, 2010.
of North Smithfield, RI on
December 23, 2010.
March 23, 2011.
Esther Lois (Rosenberg)
Nemtzow 42 GD* of Coconut
Creek, FL on December 25, 2010.
Catherine Walcot (Rodwell)
Hill 43 PT/MAE 64 of New York,
Ralph J. Hartman 51 LA* of
Pawtucket, RI on March 16, 2011.
J. Paul Guertin 61 ID of East
Donald A. Jasinski BArch 51
Greenwich, RI on January 29,
2011.
of Waterville Valley, NH on
January 5, 2011.
NY on December 23, 2010.
Thomas Sanford Bockoven,
Richard Ballou 49 PT of Rhode
2010.
Island on March 21, 2011.
Robert Edwin Hill 50 AR of
Bristol, RI on December 5, 2007.
58
RISDXYZ
Sr. 53 ID of Hanover, PA on May 1,
E. Michael Horn 54 PT* of
Rumson, NJ on November 18,
2010.
Robert E. Leach 61 MD of
in Rome during her RISD EHP
experience. Rudy Maxa, host
of The Savvy Traveler on NPR
and RudyMaxa’s World on
PBS, judged this year’s travel
essay contest.
to grant bachelor’s degrees, the long wait simply made it that
much sweeter to finally receive a degree from risD.
Maria Canada AP was selected
as the winner of Project Beethoven,
a garment design competition
that challenged student designers
to create eveningwear inspired
by Beethoven’s music.
Ronald O. Wilczek 64 SC of
Dighton, MA on January 20, 2011.
Michael Dinsmore Bigger
Carol J. Pentleton Robinson
68 SC* of Minneapolis, MN on
74 GD of Chepachet, RI on
February 16, 2011.
February 2, 2011.
Patricia (Cseplo) Sloan
Peter V. Grajirena 75 PT* of
Mancos, CO on February 18, 2011.
69 IL* of Fort Worth, TX on
October 15, 2010.
Knoxville, TN on December 29,
2010.
of Taos, NM on January 13, 2011.
Jean Blake White 63 PT* of
Eileen Yee 70 IL* of Portland,
Franklin, MA on March 12, 2011.
OR on October 14, 2010.
Charles “Pete” Libby 64 IL* of
Alburgh, VT on February 12, 2011.
Donald Janney 72 GD of New
York, NY on February 18, 2011.
Richard N. Tipton BArch 69
Robert Seydel MFA 90 PH of
Amherst, MA on January 27, 2011.
Dennis Charles Theisen
MFA 95 FD of Grand Rapids, MI
on April 6, 2011.
Justin M. Yuen 06 IL of NYC/
Hong Kong on March 4, 2011.
images courtesy of the RISD Archives
earned an honorable mention
spring/summer 2011
59
Graduate Class notes
Dale Chihuly MFA 68 CR
for Helsinki—designing smart
Through the Looking Glass,
a major retrospective of Dale’s
glass work, is on view through
August 7 at the museum of
Fine Arts, Boston. The selection
includes chandeliers, a 60'
Mille Fiori, a Persian Ceiling and
several other installations.
demand management solutions
to enable people to save energy.
The project is called Low2No
and is a joint project with Arup
engineering, Sauerbruch Hutton
architects and us. We will design
and build by 2012 a district in
Helsinki Harbor to the highest
energy-efficient demands.
Susan Jamison
MFA 91 PT
part by grants from the RISD
Professional Development Fund.
Above the Pack (egg tempera on
panel, 88x72") is among the
recent work featured last year in
Into the Forest, a six-month solo
exhibition at the Taubman
museum of Art in Virginia. susan
(susanjamison.com) works out
of a fun studio in roanoke, VA.
1991
Daphne Minkoff MFA 91 PT
the Seattle Art Museum’s SAM
sance Theories of Vision (Ashgate
Gallery. The exhibition in her
Publishing); Architecture as
home city focused on artists who
“recycle, re-purpose and reuse
(Peter Lang); and Robert Grosse-
their artwork.” Daphne’s work
reviews from Publishers Weekly
teste: Philosophy of Intellect
and School Library Journal,
and Vision (Academia Verlag).
which wrote: “Van Allsburg’s
The books were supported in
foray into nonfiction is filled
have thrilled readers of his
surrealism, and menace that
fiction.” Chris is best known for
his picture books Jumanji and
The Polar Express, both of which
were made into movies.
Shahzia Sikander MFA 95 PT/PR
MFA PT (NYC), was included in
Shahzia Sikander: The exploding company man and other abstractions
continues through June 25 at the san Francisco Art institute.
This still is from her HD video animation The Last Post, which is
among several animated drawings and live performances included
in the exhibition.
Artillery magazine’s video screening in April. The selection of
eight films, culled from a national
call for entries, was screened
at The Standard’s Purple Lounge
in West Hollywood, CA.
Last winter Joseph Wheel-
1979
1983
In February Linda Hudgins
Linda Arbuckle MFA CR was
Art Gallery in Keene, NH, where
MAE showed work in an
presented with an honors award
he was awarded third place
exhibition at the Upstairs
for service to the field at the
in the 2011 Biennial Regional
Artspace in her hometown
annual conference of the
Juror’s Choice Competition.
of Tryon, NC.
National Council on Edu-
wright MFA SC (Dorchester, MA)
NH. He also participated in
exhibited in Love, a solo show
a show at Thorne-Sagendorph
of sculptural work at Boston
Sculptors Gallery.
1978
Ronnie McClure MFA PH
(Canterbury, NH) showed
In February and March Kristin
work in a variety of media in
Occhino MAE (Attleboro, MA)
Ambiguities and Lucidities,
exhibited paintings in a four-
a spring exhibition at the Rivier
person show at the Woodshed
College Art Gallery in Nashua,
Gallery in Franklin, MA.
included collage and encaustic
on board.
change.” He and his wife
Marguerite Kahrl MFA 95 SC
live in Torino, Italy.
1996
Work by Milissa Galazi MA is
on view in June in two twoperson shows: at The Mill Gallery
in Pawtucket, RI and Ernden Fine
1997
Architects Peter Gill Case MArch
and Joe Haskett MArch 02
(both of Providence)—creators
Design professor at RISD,
of The Box Office, a RI office com-
exhibited work in Abstractions,
plex built of recycled shipping
Christine
Vaillancourt MAE 75
a recent two-person show at
containers—have teamed up with
Providence’s Lenore Gray Gallery.
RISD and Brown to investigate
(christinevaillancourt.com)
is an art teacher in the
newtown, mA public schools,
and is represented as a painter
by galleries in san Francisco,
georgia and Toronto. she and
her husband live in a 47-unit
artist building in the Fort point
neighborhood of Boston.
1993
the potential for building sustainable and energy-efficient homes
Jan-Christoph Zoels MID is
and other buildings from similarly
senior partner and design director
repurposed containers. The
at Experientia, an international
partnership has been awarded
experience design consultancy.
a $150,000 federal grant from
He writes: “Currently we are
the Small Business Administration; RISD students in the spring
course Re-BOX developed design
plans and researched viability.
Peter and Joe also just launched
the new startup UbiGO to bring
cation for the Ceramic Arts
Kana (kanatanaka.com) recently completed Bubbles to the Sky (2011,
glass and steel wire, 8x7x8'), a public art project for the Bay Farm
island Branch Library in Alameda, CA. Commissioned by the city, the
suspended sculpture is composed of thousands of handmade glass
beads, with blue tinted beads forming a mother dolphin and a baby
dolphin, and clear beads representing bubbles in the ocean.
Art gallery in Provincetown, MA.
Matt Monk MFA GD , a Graphic
working on a beautiful project
Kana Tanaka MFA 99 GL
their concepts to market.
2001
El Velador (The Night Watchman), a new film by Natalia
Almada MFA PH (Brooklyn;
altamurafilms.com), premiered
at the March New Directors/New
Films festival in New York City.
The film, which looks at the
war on drugs in Mexico from
the point of view of a cemetery
guard, screened at Lincoln
Center and MoMA.
2002
Ren (going on 5) is adjusting
to his new baby sister. Yuki is
still designing products (modern
goods.com) and making art in
sunny Santa Fe.
Building on his inspiring
personal experiences in Ghana,
Jonathan Thurston MFA SC
(Edgewater, NJ) founded the
International School of Art,
Business and Technology (isabt.
org), a nonprofit focused on
bringing educational resources
Yuki Murata MID and her
to impoverished communities in
husband Chris Long welcomed
West Africa. He has succeeded in
their second child on October 28,
supplying schools with computers
2010. Tei Nozomi Murata-Long
and thousands of books, and
is named after her paternal
has developed a program to
great-grandmother and maternal
allow schoolchildren to create
grandmother. Tei’s older brother
their own published books.
1980
(NCECA), held in Tampa at the
In May Sharon Lynne Safran
end of March. Spirit of Ceramics,
GAME, a two-person show
56 PT*/MAE (Annandale, VA)
an artist DVD series produced
featuring the work of Gayle
exhibited A Colorful Life: A
by NCECA, also focused on the
Mandle MFA PT/PR and her
David W. Radabaugh MFA 01 GD
Retrospective of Sharon L. Safran’s
Florida-based ceramist and was
daughter Julia, was on view
Last summer David (Denton, TX) began working as design director
of American Way, American Airlines’ twice-monthly inflight magazine.
in January he and his team launched a cover-to-cover redesign of
the publication; the first issue featured musician John Legend, Frank
gehry’s new World symphony building in miami and a look at the
inner workings of google Labs.
Multidimensional Art at the JCC
released at the conference. Linda
from April 27–May 20 at Leila
of Northern Virginia in Fairfax.
contributed to 21st Century
Taghinia-Milani Heller Gallery
The career-spanning show
Ceramics: The First Decade (2011,
in NYC. Gayle is living in
included all types of work—
Lark Books) and had work
Doha, Qatar with her husband
from watercolors to scarves.
published in Majolica (2011,
Roger, who served as RISD’s
A&C Black) by Daphne Carnegy.
president from 1993–2008.
Anne Karpis MAT has retired
1998
1982
Brad Buckley MFA SC has been
promoted to professor of
Contemporary Art and Culture at
from Fulton County Schools
Since 2006 Kristin Surette
in Atlanta, GA and is now
Undhjem MLA has operated
working full-time as an artist
gardenstore, an artful landscape
in Nicosia, Cyprus.
and gardening shop in Telluride,
dean of Research.
1984
e-commerce website later this
John Hendrix MAT has been
year. She also continues to run
My Atlas: Lindsay/A Report to
teaching at RISD as an adjunct
KSLA, her landscape architec-
an Academy, a short film by
instructor for several years and
ture firm, and do floral design for
Anne Sherwood Pundyk
is also a professor of architec-
weddings.
Sydney College of the Arts at the
University of Sydney in Australia,
where he is also the associate
RISDXYZ
published three books: Renais-
barrel and has earned starred
Queen of the Falls, the latest
book by Caldecott Medalwinning author/illustrator
Chris Van Allsburg MFA SC
(Providence), was released in
April by Houghton Mifflin. It tells
the true story of the first woman
to go over Niagara Falls in a
60
mations, a March-April show at
discarded materials to create
with the same suspense,
This spring Alan showed photos
from poland at providence
College and works on paper at
gallery Z in providence, where
he lives. The prolific artist also
creates serigraphs, silkscreen
prints and colorful glass works
such as this one 166 Valley Street
(2001, stained glass, 16 x 28").
Lincoln in the UK. He recently
and English Gothic Architecture
1975
Alan Metnick MFA 73 PT
showed new work in Transfor-
Cosmology: Lincoln Cathedral
1965
In April Alan Stecker MFA PT
(Barnesville, GA) exhibited
digital art in People in the Paint,
a solo show at A Novel
Experience in Zebulon, GA.
tural history at the University of
Our task is very specific: using
design to support behavioral
CO. She plans to launch an
To submit updates for class notes, email [email protected].
spring/summer 2011
61
are paid 5¢ per drawing, which
are automatically assembled
Painting, a winter exhibition
into a large computer-generated
sponsored by the New Wilming-
grid,” explains an article posted
ton [DE] Art Association.
on wonderhowto.com.
2005
Bowie Zunino MFA SC and Jeff
Jesse Burke MFA PH (Rumford,
Barnett-Winsby MFA 06 PH
RI) had a winter solo show titled
(jeffbarnettwinsby.com) will
Low at the Perth [Australia]
be married on June 18, 2011 in
directors of The Wassaic Project
over the past few months: The
(wassaicproject.org), an arts
Truth is Not in the Mirror: Photo-
organization in upstate New York
at the Haggerty Museum of
gabriela’s installation Robert Moses, He Knows Us was on view from
December to February at flatbreadaffair in Brooklyn. she also
showed work in 2010 Studio LLC, a group exhibition held last winter
at the Jamaica [nY] Center for Art & Learning, and had a piece
published in the “Black and White” issue of Color & Color magazine.
Milwaukee; the RISD Faculty
Biennial; Postcards From The Edge,
dedicated to supporting emerging
artists. Bowie founded the
project as a free summer festival
while she was at RISD, and it
and Let’s Be Friends at Residence
Gallery in Long Beach, CA.
Last winter Greg Hopkins MFA
PT (Brooklyn; greghopkinspaint
and new media to highlights
ings.com) had a solo show of
from sports and video gaming.
acrylics on canvas and linen at
2004
In March Katie Commodore
MFA PR (Brooklyn; kcommodore.
com) and Kelly McCallum
01 PH (Toronto, Ontario) showed
work together—Katie’s new
drawings and paintings and
2003
Joshua Enck MFA FD , who
Kelly’s sculpture and jewelry
work—in London vs. New York,
teaches in RISD’s Foundation
an exhibition at space fiftyfour
Studies and Furniture Design
in Shoreditch, London.
programs, has won a 2011
Fellowship in Three-Dimensional
Art from the Rhode Island State
Council on the Arts. One of
his new metal sculptures was
included in the 2011 RISCA
Fellowship Exhibition and he
had his first solo museum show,
entitled The Gesture Contained:
Recent Sculptures by Joshua
Enck, earlier this year at the
Museum of Art at the University
of Maine in Bangor. The show
included nine sculptures
in wood and metal, as well as
process sketches.
Jecca MFA PH (NYC) was
Last September Regin Igloria
MFA PT (Lake Forest, IL)
opened North Branch Projects
(northbranchprojects.com), an
arts project space in Chicago’s
Albany Park neighborhood
New American Paintings, no. 92.
Li Li Zhao MFA CR (Stamford,
CT) launched a handbag
line last fall—check it out at
zhaodesigns.com.
2006
Helen Lee MFA GL (Fremont,
CA) worked with Alexander
(Atlanta, GA) had a show titled
200 submissions from artists
Singularis last winter at Buffalo
in 13 countries; the organizers
[NY] Arts Studio.
funded the effort through a
successful Kickstarter campaign.
2007
They explain their organizing
Christopher Robbins MFA DM ,
principle: “This show features
John Baca MFA DM and Chris
artists whose works inhabit so
Mendoza MFA DM (Little Neck,
many places simultaneously
NY; Nevada City, CA; and Pro-
that they might not fit into any
vidence, RI) collaborated on next
of them. {SUPERPOSITION}
time almost, a March installation
consists of works that directly
in a bank of windows in midtown
address this condition of being
Manhattan. The piece presented
in multiple places at once,
a network of conveyor belts
as well as projects produced by
made of fake grass that dropped
artists who inhabit the fringes
hollow plaster houses on the
of genres.”
floor, causing them to smash.
Szosz 07 GL to organize
projects.com), a group show on
view in June at the Center on
Contemporary Art in Seattle. The
juried exhibition of “sculptural
depictions of our built environ-
Ben, a critic in risD’s Furniture Design Department, has a solo
exhibition of sculpture and design work at Louis Boston from April to
August. Among the steel tube structures on view is elephant, a
full-scale sculpture of a female African elephant.
ment and its relation to the
Moon Jung Jang MFA GD had
a solo exhibition titled A Minor
2009
is an arc of a circle measuring
Sarah Gross MFA 09 CR
sarah’s piece The Street Where You Live 2 (2011, recycled clay) was
among the works on view in Arabesques, her recent show with
sanam emami at the Belger Art Center in Kansas City, mO. “i seek to
activate space by building screens,” sarah explains. “my exploration
is rooted in the institution of veiling in islamic society.”
“The space provides an outlet for
exploring the creative process
in a neighborhood where few
been selected by curator Ursula
recent research focuses on the
Ilse Neuman for the permanent
transformation of a minor arc
collection of the Museum of
or a minor arc sector in visual
Arts and Design in New York City.
communication. I explore the
This highly selective collection
dynamic relationship of colors,
houses nearly 500 art works
angles, orientations, scales
documenting the development
relating to metaphors and nar-
of jewelry art, ranging from the
rative principles. This exhibition
pioneering work of early American
consists of books and research
Studio jewelers to the ground-
posters, visualizing the meaningful
breaking and nontraditional
metamorphosis of a variety
methods of contemporary artists.
are working on a neighborhood
(Southampton, NY) exhibited
archive, consisting of sketch-
in the Korean interior design
mixed-media pieces involving
books hand-bound by visitors
magazine BOB (2.2011). A new
video, audio and tangible objects
area rug he created was on
thoughts, etc., along with other
participation in The Big Screen
format…. Our aim is to encourage
Project (bigscreenproject.org),
dialogue between artists, non-
a jumbotron HD format LED
artists, and everyone in between
screen in a midtown Manhattan
in an inclusive setting, making
plaza that showed an eclectic
it possible for ideas to have
range of cultural content—from
a positive impact in society.”
exhibit catalog, to announce
shows and press, and more. The
RISD alums at our festival, and
look, feel and functionality of
Flatfile is inspired by the
used Amazon’s Mechanical Turk
continue to have great RISD
labor market to “guide workers
alums as artists in residence,”
physical flat file cabinet…. There
through the execution of simple
she says. And: “Jeff and I also
are infinite ways to put it to use.”
LeWitt forgeries. The workers
run a bar in Wassaic!!!”
Visit flatfile.ws for a tour.
Eli Levenstein MFA FD (NYC)
and his work were featured
projects which utilize the book
“perfect for a portfolio, for an
Kim MFA JM (Providence), has
Courtney Leonard MFA CR
to record stories, drawings, ideas,
to create Flatfile, a website
Reconfiguring the Ordinary,
resources for the arts exist. We
and made available to the public,
Caserta (thedesignoffice.org)
a brooch piece by Yong Joo
less than or equal to 180°. My
of minor arcs.”
RISD Graphic Design Critic John
is where these two meet in dyna-
County Public Library in her
“Mathematically, a minor arc
MFA alums who worked with
construction; and the third world
mic reaction and adaptation.”
describes the theme of the show:
natural landscape.” He has also
to the festival (August 5–7).
“We have shown a number of
among a handful of other RISD
world is one of Western Imperial
Arc last fall at Athens-Clarke
hometown of Athens, GA. She
Rosenberg GL and Matthew
{SUPERPOSITION} (hyperopia
Ben Blanc MFA 04 FD
2008
bookbinding facility,” he explains.
involved in the New York
RISDXYZ
His work was also featured in
was selected from more than
“that serves as a community
Foundation for the Arts’ recent
62
Sloan Fine Art in New York City.
Hye Yeon Nam MFA DM
right: photo illustration by Laurel Schwulst 10 GD
Washingtons was among the
new paintings and drawings
Heather exhibited in Success
Story, a solo show at providence
College’s reilly gallery. she is
an assistant professor of
painting at the college, but
commutes from Brooklyn.
the best in the arts, cinema
glass and glass-related sculpture”
Andrew LeClair MFA GD was
notes that the platform is
a residency program in addition
CRG Gallery in New York City;
2012
template for visual artwork. John
has since expanded to include
a visual AIDS benefit hosted by
Chace Center’s Gelman Gallery.
Work by 20 graduate and
included in the show.
Wassaic, NY. The pair are co-
Gabriela Salazar MFA 09 PT
Phoebe Stubbs MFA GL
curated Break It Down, a winter
undergraduate students was
Centre for Photography, and has
graphy and a Constructed Image
Mimi Cabell MFA PH and
exhibition held at RISD in the
had work in several group shows
Art at Marquette University in
Heather McPherson
MFA 08 PT
2011
Mark Pack MFA PT showed
work in New Wilmington
in Cur.rent Car.ri.er, a winter
display in February at
show at the Julian Akus Gallery
Meulensteen gallery in NYC.
at Eastern Connecticut State
University in Willimantic. She
Recent projects by Clement
describes the thematic basis
Valla MFA DM (Brooklyn)
of her work: “As an Indigenous
include Postcards from Google
woman [a member of the
Earth, Bridges, a “conservation”
Shinnecock nation], I navigate
project of screenshots from
three worlds: the first world is
Google Earth to preserve the
that of indigeneity; the second
software’s “strange, surrealist
To submit updates for class notes, email [email protected].
risd:store
risdstore.com
30 North Main Street | Providence | 401 454-6464
find us on
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spring/summer 2011
63
8)
how much of the monthly emailed
newsletter (formerly known as eviews,
now called XYZmail) do you read?
all of it
most of it
some of it
i delete it without opening
9)
if there were more XYZ content
and updates about alumni available
online, how likely would you be to go
to the website to read it?
very likely
i might look on occasion
not at all likely
Rate XYZ
10 )
Please indicate any actions you
have taken as a result of receiving
RISD XYZ:
Now that you’ve seen the first four issues of the new alumni magazine, we’d like to
contacted a classmate/friend/
faculty member
know what you think of it. Please take a few minutes before June 21 to respond to the
recommended risD to a potential
student
online version of this same survey at www.risd.edu/xyzsurvey. Or fill out this one and
mail it to: RISD XYZ, Two college street, Providence, ri 02903 before June 21, 2011.
submitted information for inclusion
discussed or shared an article/copy
saved an article or issue
4)
how much of each issue of the magazine
◀ no opinion
◀ poor
◀ acceptable
◀ good
volunteered for an activity
all of it, cover to cover
• cover imagery
most of it
• design/layout
some of it (mostly pictures and captions)
• overall content
none of it (this is the first time i’ve ever opened it)
• writing
written a letter or email to the editor
• feature stories
other
• relevance of articles
none of the above
how often do you refer to RISD XYZ for the
• for professional contacts
◀ never
◀ rarely
◀ sometimes
• to keep informed about risD
visited the risd.edu website
11 )
◀ very often
• to find out about friends
and classmates
made a donation to the risD
Annual Fund
• class notes presentation
following reasons?
5)
how much would you prefer to see photos
what do you like most about
RISD XYZ?
of alumni on the xyZ covers instead of artwork?
definitely prefer people pictures
• out of intellectual curiosity
3)
attended an event
following aspects:
do you usually look at and/or read?
2)
updated my mailing address
Please rate the quality of RISD XYZ in terms of the
◀ excellent
1)
might prefer, on occasion
Please indicate your level of interest in the
do not prefer photos of alumni over art/design works
12 )
no opinion
RISD XYZ?
what do you like least about
• Look
◀ low
◀ moderate
• Conversations/10 Words
◀ high
• feature articles
◀ very high
following content:
6)
how much do you prefer thematically
focused content (as in the food issue) over
a mix of unrelated articles?
13 )
are there any changes or
• Listen
definitely prefer themes/topics as a focal point
improvements you would like to
• risD sweethearts
do not prefer themes
suggest?
• club/council news
prefer a mix of the two approaches
• campus news
no opinion
• fundraising news
• class notes
• images of alumni art and
design work
by
Sarah Haskell
76 TX
64
risDXYZ
my life always comes back into focus
through my artwork. i recently got back
from a 5,000-mile trans-Atlantic
passage on a 43-foot sailboat and kept
a journal while i was on the voyage.
it was a way for me to process the
experience—through a combination
of drawing, writing and collage.
Please submit a page from your own
sketchbook (showing anything that’s
on your mind). Our favorite will appear
in the next issue. Questions? Email
[email protected].
7)
in the future, i would like to see more feature
stories on:
14 )
have you ever donated to risD?
yes
• alumni profiles
the professional accomplishments of alumni
• photos from the risD Archives
alumni showing in major exhibitions
• photos of alumni
• wedding pictures
the impact of creativity on issues such as educational
or healthcare reform
• baby pictures
alumni who are working outside of visually creative fields
• sketches / work in progress
the broad value of art and design to society
16 )
small groups of alumni who are collaborating on projects
from risD?
practical topics like how to find a creative niche or start
a business
Q&A interviews with diverse alumni and/or faculty
Fill out this survey online at:
the links between art and... science, music, learning, etc.
www.risd.edu/xyzsurvey
current students and studio projects
risD’s global reach
15 )
no
are you a non-alumni reader?
yes (skip to question 18)
no
what year did you graduate
17 )
what was your major?
18 )
gender:
Non-Profit Org.
U.S. Postage
PAID
Rhode Island School of Design
Two College Street
Providence, RI 02903 USA
Burlington, VT 05401
Permit No. 19
october 14 – 16, 2011
alumni reunion +
parents’ weekend
risd by design 11
connect
relax
recharge
Return to RISD from Friday, October 14 – Sunday, October 16
for a weekend full of people you want to see, artwork and other
great visual stimuli and fun things to do.
travel + lodging suggestions: www.risd.edu/rbd
more program info: rbd.risd.edu
questions? contact claire at: [email protected] | 401 454-6379
Illustration by Aaron Meshon 95 IL (www.aaronmeshon.com)