Before assuming the role of provost at RISD in July 2022, Anais Missakian was the Pevaroff-Cohn Family Endowed Chair in Textiles and professor and graduate program director of Textiles. She has held a full-time faculty position in Textiles for more than 30 years, including as department head for more than 15 years.
Additionally, in partnership between RISD and the Salama Bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation, Missakian served as faculty mentor and academic program director for the Sheikha Salama Bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Fellowship for Emerging Artists (SEAF). She is currently continuing in a consulting role for SEAF, now in its ninth year. Missakian also served as RISD’s dean of Fine Arts from July 2011 through August 2014, providing leadership and support to 10 departments.
In addition to faculty and administrative roles and service on numerous faculty search committees, Missakian served on the Brown/RISD Committee on Institutional Collaboration as well as the Fine Arts Acquisitions Committee, RISD Museum. She was a faculty advisor on the collaborative NIKE Skin Project; Techstyle Haus, Solar Decathalon Europe project; and Art in Embassies Rabat, Morocco Project.
A 1984 honors graduate of RISD, Missakian also attended Central/Saint Martins in London and Michigan State University. Before returning to RISD to start her teaching career, she spent six years in New York working as a designer for textile companies including Decorator’s Walk and China Seas.
As a design consultant for the textile industry, she designs textile collections for architectural interior applications. Past work includes design and production of printed and woven interior fabrics for Laura Lienhard, Inc. In addition, she and Lienhard created jacquard and printed upholstery fabrics for the Kreiss Furniture Company in San Diego, CA. Other clients included Sunbury Textile Mills, Quaker Fabric Corporation, Malden Mills, Martex, Macy’s and Westpoint/Stevens. Missakian’s other clients have included Sunbury Textile Mills, Quaker Fabric Corporation, Malden Mills, Martex, Macy’s and Westpoint/Stevens.
Most recently, Missakian was textile lead at Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA), a nonprofit institute headquartered near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and one of the latest members of the National Network of Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) Institutes. She works with a team of material scientists, engineers, textile designers and product designers to collaborate on projects that focus on the transformation of traditional fibers, yarns and textiles into highly sophisticated integrated and networked devices and systems. She continues to collaborate with close colleagues at MIT, and co-authored a paper on acoustic fabrics that was published in Nature this past March.
Courses
Fall 2023 Courses
TEXT 484G-01 - TEXTILE SEMINAR I
LevelGraduate
UnitTextiles
Subject Textiles
Period Fall 2023
Credits 6
FormatStudio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
TEXT 484G-01
TEXTILE SEMINAR I
LevelGraduate
UnitTextiles
Subject Textiles
PeriodFall 2023
Credits6
FormatStudio
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2023-09-06 to 2023-12-13
Times: TH | 8:00 AM - 1:00 PMInstructor(s): Anais Missakian, Jamall OsterholmLocation(s): College Building, Room 510Enrolled / Capacity: 12Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course focuses on issues in the professional textile field, such as the effect of production parameters and end use on design decisions. While helping students become more familiar with the wide ranging market, from the most innovative to the traditional, this course aims at providing an awareness of how one's own work fits into this context. Lecturers include professionals from the field, who advise on the studio work required in this class.
This course is a requirement for second-year Graduate Textiles Students.
This project represents the culmination of a student's study in the Graduate Program. The design projects can encompass various textile fields in the areas of interior or apparel textiles. A specific architectural context, an area of apparel design, an investigation of a particular technique, or a visual design sensibility and language can provide a framework for the project. The work, executed using any established textile techniques or technique that a student has developed, should manifest advanced original concepts, high quality of execution, and a strong commitment to the field. Written documentation and analysis of the sources of the work, how it relates to the textiles tradition or larger field of art and design, and of the development of the project should accompany the studio work.
Estimated Cost of Materials: varies depending on student projects.
Please contact the department for permission to register. This course is a requirement for Graduate Textiles Students.
Major Requirement | MFA Textiles
TEXT 485G-01 - TEXTILE SEMINAR II
LevelGraduate
UnitTextiles
Subject Textiles
Period Spring 2024
Credits 3
FormatSeminar
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
TEXT 485G-01
TEXTILE SEMINAR II
LevelGraduate
UnitTextiles
Subject Textiles
PeriodSpring 2024
Credits3
FormatSeminar
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2024-02-15 to 2024-05-24
Instructor(s): Anais MissakianEnrolled / Capacity: 6Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course continues from Textile Seminar I and focuses on issues in the professional textile field, such as the effect of production parameters and end use on design decisions. While helping students become more familiar with the wide ranging textile market, from traditional work to the most highly innovative, this course aims to provide an awareness of how one's personal expression fits in to this context. Lecturers include professionals from the field, who advise on the studio work required in this class.
Please contact the department for permission to register. This course is a requirement for Graduate Textiles Students.
The student's project, designed in consultation with the faculty, can be in one of the textile areas or in combination with other disciplines at the school. The project, which will be evaluated by the faculty and visiting critics at the end of the semester, can entail a collection of designs or fine arts work representing the current conclusive state of student's work or an investigation of a new area. The level of concepts, skills, and commitment constitute a major part of the criteria in the evaluation of the work.
Mid-year graduates should seek department permission to fulfill 9 credits in Fall and Wintersession.
Estimated Cost of Materials: varies based on use of advanced equipment; additional fees may incur.
Please contact the department for permission to register. This course is a requirement for Senior Textiles Students.
