This period is designed for the student to evaluate and analyze and pursue the directions he/she established in Grad Paint Studio Critique I. Group and individual critiques will occur by resident faculty and visiting artists and critics during the semester.

Open to Graduate Painting Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Painting

This period is designed for development and presentation of a body of work supported by a written thesis in consultation with resident faculty, visiting artists and critics during the semester. A final exhibition of work will be evaluated by a jury of Painting Faculty Members.

Open to Graduate Painting Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Painting

This course is an ongoing discussion of individual work with special reference to current issues and concerns in contemporary art. Each student will be required to show and discuss work. Grades by participation.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate Photography Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Photography

This course is an ongoing discussion of individual work with special reference to current issues and concerns in contemporary art. Each student will be required to show and discuss work. Grades by participation.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate Photography Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Photography

This course supports students in the initial stages of the graduate thesis process. Working closely with a faculty advisor, students refine their research topic and develop a formal thesis proposal or research plan.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Photography Students.

In this continuation of the graduate thesis sequence, students complete the research and writing outlined in their approved thesis proposal. Under faculty supervision, they analyze findings, draft and revise chapters, and prepare the final thesis for submission and defense.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Photography Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Photography

This period is dedicated to the development and presentation of a body of work supported by a written thesis in consultation with the student's Thesis Committee. The final exhibition and written thesis will be evaluated by the Thesis Committee which will submit a final grade to the Graduate Coordinator.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Photography Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Photography

In today’s competitive higher education landscape, MFA graduates must go beyond artistic excellence to secure a full-time teaching appointment. MFA Forward: From Studio to Professorship equips emerging art professionals with the essential tools for thriving in academia. Through a focused blend of workshops and practical exercises, students will learn how to build compelling cover letters, refine portfolios of both personal and student work, write impactful teaching philosophies and diversity statements, and secure powerful references to support their candidacy.

Students will also receive in-depth guidance on crafting a polished curriculum vitae that highlights their unique blend of creative and pedagogical strengths. Interactive sessions on acing the job talk and navigating the campus interview process prepare students to present confidently to search committees. Finally, the course addresses how to sidestep the “adjunct trap” and plan a more sustainable, long-term career trajectory. By synthesizing these professional development strategies with each student’s creative vision, MFA Forward cultivates artists who can seamlessly transition from the studio to the classroom—and ultimately, into full-time professorships that recognize and reward their investment in artistic and academic excellence.

Elective

What is the curatorial imperative? By incorporating curation into studio practice, artists understand the context for placing new combinations into the world. Collecting, archiving and critical analysis of source material will develop a philosophy of stewardship. Central questions about printmaking as a crucial core for many disciplines that incorporate the relation between matrix and formed object, layers, reversals, positive and negative and replication of original and appropriated media will provide a structure. The state of print publishing, art fairs and current curatorial literature will inform ongoing discussion.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate Printmaking Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Printmaking

What is the place of printmaking in the art-world and the world at large today? Central questions about printmaking as a crucial core for many disciplines that incorporate the relation between matrix and formed object, layers, reversals, positive and negative, the replication of original and appropriated media will provide a structure. The state of print publishing, art fairs and current critical literature will inform ongoing discussions, research, and presentations.

Major Requirement | MFA Printmaking

Strategies for analysis and documentation are presented and discussed as students combine their research and reflections on their own evolving production into an illustrated, written thesis that organizes, focuses, and articulates their ideas. Artist's books, online publications and other formats will be explored. Intensive support for development and production of the thesis in relation to studio practice will be given.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate Printmaking Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Printmaking

Advanced Critical Issues Seminar 2 introduces a rigorous theoretical framework for thinking and writing about contemporary sculpture practice. Each seminar develops from a specific theme drawing on research from Grad Critical Issues 1, current debates in the field and contemporary events. Past seminars include: Artificial Natures, Precarious Relations, Frankenstein and Crime, Vanishing Points, as examples. Trespassing across sculpture, performance, cinema, fiction, feminist, queer, race and political theory and back again, we will address writings by Walter Benjamin, Lauren Berlant, Judith Butler, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Maggie Nelson, Claudia Rankine, Jacques Rancire (as examples) in conversation with contemporary artists writings and projects to cultivate a conceptual grammar to extend to our studio practice. Approaching issues in contemporary sculpture through these discursive perspectives generates new strategies simultaneously material, conceptual, and critical.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Sculpture Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Sculpture

Graduate Sculpture Critique II/IV builds upon topics discussed in the previous semesters during graduate critique I/III. It continues its form as a discussion-based, collaborative critique seminar that makes space for multiple voices and ways of being in community; foregrounding and supporting the burgeoning artistic practices represented in and across the grad cohorts. This course builds upon the intellectual and artistic intimacy among cohort mates and between cohorts established in the first semester of each year. The risk-taking, question-asking, and reimagining of predetermined boundaries in the second semesters yields new critique and research methodologies that in the case of first year grads supports the lead up to their summer studio intensive or residencies. In the case of second year grads, this semester of intensive critiques supports their capstone thesis presentation and the group critiques and final thesis committee meetings that characterize the end of their work at RISD. As a practice in need of continual commitment, students are asked with great intention to continue to expand the discussion around intersectionality, interstitially, and interdisciplinarity and how the space between things comes to bear on the method of critique.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Sculpture Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Sculpture

Graduate Sculpture Critique II/IV builds upon topics discussed in the previous semesters during graduate critique I/III. It continues its form as a discussion-based, collaborative critique seminar that makes space for multiple voices and ways of being in community; foregrounding and supporting the burgeoning artistic practices represented in and across the grad cohorts. This course builds upon the intellectual and artistic intimacy among cohort mates and between cohorts established in the first semester of each year. The risk-taking, question-asking, and reimagining of predetermined boundaries in the second semesters yields new critique and research methodologies that in the case of first year grads supports the lead up to their summer studio intensive or residencies. In the case of second year grads, this semester of intensive critiques supports their capstone thesis presentation and the group critiques and final thesis committee meetings that characterize the end of their work at RISD. As a practice in need of continual commitment, students are asked with great intention to continue to expand the discussion around intersectionality, interstitially, and interdisciplinarity and how the space between things comes to bear on the method of critique.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Sculpture Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Sculpture

Students in the MFA program pursue individual work under advisement of resident faculty, visiting artists and critics. This tutorial experience has been organized to nurture student work toward a set of goals and outcomes through routine conversations with faculty and their cohort. The priority is to assist students with recognizing new objectives in their practice.  Faculty work with students to develop new or hone existing skills to set priorities and meet  goals and deadlines. At the MFA level students will experience a deeper sense of individualized mentorship.  While advising students on the material aspects of their work, faculty will simultaneously  guide students toward new conceptual, theoretical and or philosophical frameworks for their work.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Sculpture Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Sculpture

The final semester in the MFA Sculpture Program is structured around the development of a written thesis and culminating in a body of work, components of which may be exhibited as part of the school-wide MFA Thesis Exhibition. This work is nurtured by tutorial studio visits with faculty, visiting artists, and thesis committee members during the run of the semester.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Sculpture Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Sculpture

This course, a major component in the student's can entail two types of activity: 1. Participation in sophomore, junior or senior level courses to strengthen technical skills and design vocabulary; Including Design for Printed Textiles and Fabric Silkscreen and 2. Individual projects undergraduate advisors to clarify personal concepts and format of the work. This semester's emphasis is on enlarging and solidifying the student's background and defining direction for the work.

Please contact the department for permission to register. This course is a requirement for Graduate Textiles Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Textiles

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

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.

Major Requirement | MFA Textiles

This written portion of the Thesis Project helps students to analyze their working process and its results, as well as inform future work. While the length and style of the written thesis may vary, the paper should contain: an identification of the project goals and an analysis of the sources of inspiration; the context in which the work fits into the textile area and larger field of art and design; a description of the working process, techniques, and materials used and their connection to application and end use; and finally, an evaluation of the project. Accompanying the paper will be visual documentation of the project.

Please contact the department for permission to register. This course is a requirement for Graduate Textiles Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Textiles