ROSANNE SOMERSON

risd connection: Interim Associate Provost for Academic Affairs;Professor, Department of Furniture Design; BFA in Industrial Design, 1976

about her work: A consummate technician, aesthete and breaker of barriers, Somerson rejects the notion that furniture is an inanimate object. She adds gesture, caprice and mystery to classic forms, transforming exotic woods (bleached rift oak, curly purpleheart) into intimate and evocative functional objects – Deco daybeds, swooning sofas, high-backed chairs. Her work (which sells for $10,000 and up) has been exhibited internationally and is featured in numerous public, private and museum collections. She’s a frequent lecturer, juror and guest critic in the furniture design field, and the recipient of 20 national and international awards.

as a risd student: A photography major who fell into woodworking during a RISD Wintersession class, Somerson traces her yen for wood back to the sights and smells of the childhood home her father built by hand. At RISD, under Danish-born master Tage Frid (who teased her about having “10 thumbs”), she acquired a flawless technical foundation, fully redeeming her nickname. She also landed a fully paid apprenticeship in Scotland along with post-grad jobs as a writer and editor for Fine Woodworking and as a general woodworking teacher.

road to teaching: Having achieved technical confidence through large, complex works, in the early ‘80s Somerson turned to smaller, decorative forms characterized by playful shapes, painted and textured surfaces and expressive detailing. Inspired by an NEA Fellowship in 1984, she continued to let out the stops in a traditionally non-experimental field, drawing upon ornament and imagery from primitive to modern cultures. Her return to RISD in 1985 as a graduate furniture design instructor, along with a second NEA Fellowship in 1988, clinched the cycle of stimulation.

discoveries: (1) “I need to draw all the time.” (2) “My husband [furniture artist Alphonse Mattia MFA ’73 ID] and I are inspired by totally different things. In a museum he heads one way while I head the other.”

education
RISD, BFA in Industrial Design, 1976

awards
James Renwick Alliance of Distinguished Craft Educators Award, 2002
RISD Faculty Development Grant, 1996, 1995, 1990
Visual Artist Fellowship/National Endowment for the Arts, 1988
Visual Artist Fellowship/National Endowment for the Arts, 1984
Grand Prize/The Guild – American Craft Awards Competition, 1987
Award of Outstanding Achievement/Women in Design International Competition, 1983