|
|
|
| post-pomp celebration
|
06.20.07 | issue #29
|
|
|
 Playful, eye-catching and full of good energy, this year’s Commencement on June 2 drew a crowd of more than 5,000 people to the outdoor site where it has been held recently, just south of the BEB. Unusually hot and steamy temperatures couldn’t put a damper on the charged atmosphere as 426 undergraduate and 168 graduate students accepted their hard-earned degrees. “RISD is a place that does more than just teach you to sound intelligent by parroting quantities of information you’re compelled to absorb,” declared Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane ’95 FAV, who accepted an honorary doctorate for his work in animation. “[By the time you graduate, you] have grown enough new brain pathways to take the baton and carry it wherever your own distinctive voice desires.” Renowned novelist and essayist Gore Vidal, who also accepted an honorary degree, reminded the crowd that “precise design is not only necessary in the arts, but also in the governance of a nation — certainly one that is constitutionally under siege, as ours is at present.” One guest who had recently attended a different commencement up the hill summed up the ceremony this way: “Brown is all pomp and circumstance. This is wild. This is a lot more fun.”
from the alumni association
• Join us on July 5 from 6-8 pm for the opening of a new show featuring the work of four recent RISD graduates at Cælum Gallery in Manhattan. The exhibition runs from July 3-21 and showcases work by Noah Breuer ’04 PR, Brandon Herman ’06 PH, Myung Rye Kim MFA ’07 CR and Celeste Rapone ’07 IL.
• Artists have traditionally gravitated to cafés for good conversation and networking. Now you can tap into a different kind of CaFÉ to enhance your fine art career. CallForEntry.org allows you to apply online to multiple calls for entry while managing up to 100 digital images of your artwork at their site.
• When Chris Jones ’52 IA lost her husband Dick in June 2006, the couple was in Providence to attend the Alumni Association annual meeting. She says she couldn’t have gotten through that trying time without the help of her incredible “RISD family.” Click here to read her thank you letter to the RISD community.
look around
• Jewelry maker Jan Yager MFA ’81 JM, who often works with the excesses of urban existence (crack vials, needles, nettles), is among the artists featured in the three-part PBS documentary Craft in America, which originally aired on May 30 (listen to a clip of Yager discussing her work). Glass artists Dale Chihuly MFA ’68 CR and Therman Statom ’75 SC were also interviewed for the TV series, which has spawned an exhibition that will travel through 2009.
• If you’re a Sunday New York Times reader, you may have already picked up on Doors Open, the serialized novella by Ian Rankin that began in the May 13th issue. The Times commissioned Mary Kocol MFA ’87 PH to shoot a series of photographs in Edinburgh, Scotland to accompany the story, so every week through August 19 one of her “toy camera” photographs is running in the magazine as the novella unfolds.
• “I tend to go to the dark subjects,” Jenny Holzer MFA ’77 PT says in a review of her recent show focusing on troubling activities in the Bush Administration. “I think the good stuff will take care of itself. The dark things need attention.”
on campus
risd connects with high school students
Short films created by high school students from several Rhode Island public schools were screened at RISD earlier this month. In an inaugural class sponsored by the Surdna Foundation and organized by RISD’s Art + Design Education Department, 10 teenagers learned film and video techniques from graduate students in the Digital + Media MFA program. The class, which will be offered again during the 2007-08 year, is part of the broader RISD High School Student Initiative providing art and design opportunities to underserved students.
ehp doubles
With the start of the 2008 academic year, RISD’s well-loved European Honors Program in Rome will begin offering students the option of participating in the program in either summer-fall or winter-spring. To find out more about the changes afoot, plan to attend a presentation and the screening of a new film on EHP by Professor Peter O’Neill on Saturday, October 8, as part of RISD by Design weekend.
looking for architectural work?
If you’re an architect, interior architect or landscape architect, please remember to register with RISD to receive RFQs for various campus projects. Click here for more details on RISD’s architecture selection policy.
e-views is produced by RISD’s Division of Communications + Design as a complement to risd views and is e-mailed to readers monthly during the academic year. Questions? Comments? Send a message to risdviews@risd.edu.
If you would prefer to receive this newsletter at a different e-mail address, please update your information at www.risd.edu/alumni_directory.cfm.
© Rhode Island School of Design 2007
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spencer Finch MFA ’89 SC
MASS MoCA
North Adams, MA
through spring 2008
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jeffrey Sarmiento MFA ’00 GL
Robert Lehman Gallery
Brooklyn, NY
through July 8
|
|
|
|
|
|
Lisa Nilsson ’85 IL
MASS MoCA Kidspace
North Adams, MA
through September 3
|
|
|
|
|
|
Amy Chan ’00 PT
sixspace
Los Angeles, CA
June 23-July 21
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tim Trelease ’87 IL
The Painting Center
New York, NY
through July 14
|
|
|
|
|
|
Joanne Kaliontzis ’85 GD
Fort Point Arts Community Gallery
Boston, MA
through July 14
|
|
|
|
|
|
Robert Brun ’80 IL
BWI Airport
Baltimore, MD
through September 7
|
|
|
|
|
