This global travel course offers a unique opportunity to experience craft as practiced at the highest level on location in Jaipur, India, with its long tradition and rich diversity of artisan culture, and to explore how digital technologies which pervade contemporary art and design education can act in collaboration. Hosted by DirectCreate, a network and facilitator of collaboration for Indian artisans, students will have first-hand exposure to the artisan’s environment and to observe the production of work hewn by place-based considerations such as regional climate, culture and infrastructure. Guided by project-based prompts and engaging in making activities together, this course invites a conversation about the nature of collaborative practices integrating craft while exploring new potential approaches to advanced technology.
 
There has been an emergence of global interest in craft (DIY practices, revival of sewing and knitting clubs) catalyzed by pandemic-era isolation and disseminated through mediated technologies. This boom in amateur craft stands in stark contrast to the devastation of many professional hand-based craft industries which saw their markets all but disappear and little know-how or access to digital markets. Such paradoxes and the pandemic-era decline of travel and devaluation of live settings in education, act as fitting backdrops for students in this course to become fully immersed within the shifting boundaries between art, design and craft and to foreground questions like "How can traditional craft meaningfully engage tools like 3D modeling or 3D printing" or “What is the role of the hand in the metaverse?"

Registration is not available in Workday. Students must complete an application through RISD Global. A minimum GPA of 2.5 is required and permission of instructor. Failure to remain in good academic standing can lead to removal from the course, either before or during the course. Most courses are open to first year students with approval from the Dean of Experimental and Foundation Studies.

The course will focus on gaining advanced knitting technical skills and exploring social justice issues in fashion: sustainability and body image. Students will apply zero waste principles from design to construction while developing sustainable concepts that redefine body image. This interwoven approach will inspire students to become ethically, socially, and environmentally responsible designers. The course will emphasize the sustainable development of knit accessories, adornments, and garments as one simultaneous process based on craftsmanship and creative research. To realize this process, the course will introduce students to the double bed knitting machine, which allows greater versatility in creating rib structures. The course will also engage students with zero waste knitting, and guide them to develop sustainable design missions. Similarly, students will explore the social constructions of culture, history, age, gender, and identity in relation to how society influences body image. This will allow students to reinvent the concept of body image on their own terms in the Knitting for Diverse Bodies" project. This project will empower students to redefine body image as it connects to their understanding of sustainability, aesthetics, and design identity/identities. To begin the "Knitting for Diverse Bodies" project, students will first be introduced to fully fashioned knit accessories and adornments such as body ornaments, head pieces, neck pieces, gloves, footwear, handbags, masks, etc. Second, students will explore how knit accessories and adornments can open up possibilities for creating new design identities in relation to our bodies. Third, students will create fully fashioned knit garments inspired by their personal research and understanding of body image and sustainability. In doing so, students will follow their original, innovative, creative, and sustainable design missions that integrate with their redefinition of body image/s. Students will be encouraged to engage with historical, social, and cultural movements for inspiration in developing their sustainable design missions and understanding of body image and body positivity. Each student will share their research to the class, and together will discuss as a group how sustainable design has impacted body image issues, and how students can continue to evolve sustainable design missions and address social and ethical concerns as a designer. Throughout the course, students will create a digital documentation of their creative process, suggestions, and ideas by the use of visual, written, and spoken words.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $150.00

Please contact the instructor for permission to register.

Elective

This studio-elective course will follow a series of twelve lectures given at the South Kensington Museum as published in P.L. Simmonds, Animal Products. This seminal work served as a compilation of the trade exhibition collections from the 1851 Crystal Palace exposition that eventually served as the seed for the collections of the South Kensington Museum and finally the Branch Museum of the Department at Bethnal Green. These collections laid the foundation for much of the Victoria and Albert Museum collections (V&A) that in turn influenced the creation of RISD and the RISD Museum in 1877. This course will examine design and fashion, naturalist journals, and literature as a means to develop the students design vocabulary and materials palate. Students will compare the tastes and techniques of the Victorian era to contemporary design practices, with case studies of designers utilizing the natural world as a resource and source for design. Weekly lectures will introduce students to artists and designers of the 19th century and compare them to contemporary artists and designers. These introductory lectures will be paired each week with a specific material examination and hand-on exploration via materials demonstrations and a sample notebook. We will engage in readings, group discussions, critique of student Naturalist Journals, materials demonstrations, and examine historic and contemporary Museum objects within each theme material. Field trips to the RISD Museum will be augmented by visits to the Edna W. Lawrence Nature Lab, RISD Materials library, The Providence Athenaeum, The Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology at Brown University, The New Bedford Whaling Museum, and The Museum of Natural History, Roger Williams Park.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $20.00

Open to Sophomore Apparel Design Students. 

Elective

Dressed bodies, is a course conceived to expose students from external departments across RISD campus to a variety of making practices stemming from traditional apparel design practices. Students are expected to bring their current skill set and their apparel related curiosity with the aims of developing a personal project or enhancing apparel related skills. Clothing development, brand, soft-goods development, principles for creating 3 dimensional works around the body from 2 dimensional sketches and patterns as well as basic sewing skills will be covered throughout the body of this course. Principles learned here may be applied to a variety of fine arts processes as well as product design. Students will be encouraged to develop a better understanding of materials and construction techniques while exploring deeper relationships between 2D shape and 3D form. This dynamic, technical and creative class; supports students further understanding of sewing construction and how it directly relates to- and impacts any creative or technical project, ultimately broadening the students understanding of both material properties and essential technical components of fabric construction.

*Components of this class are seminar and self-directed.

Elective

Dressed bodies, is a course conceived to expose students from external departments across RISD campus to a variety of making practices stemming from traditional apparel design practices. Students are expected to bring their current skill set and their apparel related curiosity with the aims of developing a personal project or enhancing apparel related skills. Clothing development, brand, soft-goods development, principles for creating 3 dimensional works around the body from 2 dimensional sketches and patterns as well as basic sewing skills will be covered throughout the body of this course. Principles learned here may be applied to a variety of fine arts processes as well as product design. Students will be encouraged to develop a better understanding of materials and construction techniques while exploring deeper relationships between 2D shape and 3D form. This dynamic, technical and creative class; supports students further understanding of sewing construction and how it directly relates to- and impacts any creative or technical project, ultimately broadening the students understanding of both material properties and essential technical components of fabric construction.

*Components of this class are seminar and self-directed.

Elective

This introductory course lays the foundation for the design process through draping, pattern drafting and construction. Students make basic patterns and proceed with variations to develop pattern making skills and design concepts. Weekly textile seminars introduce students to fibers and yarns, fabric types, properties and uses.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Majors are pre-registered by the department. This course is a requirement for Sophomore Apparel Design Students. 

Major Requirement | BFA Apparel Design

This introductory course lays the foundation for the design process through draping, pattern drafting and construction. Students make basic patterns and proceed with variations to develop pattern making skills and design concepts. Weekly textile seminars introduce students to fibers and yarns, fabric types, properties and uses.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Majors are pre-registered by the department. This course is a requirement for Sophomore Apparel Design Students. 

Major Requirement | BFA Apparel Design

Building on basic techniques taught first semester, students proceed to more complex cuts for bodices, sleeves, skirts and pants through techniques of draping, drafting and construction. One finished garment is required.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $125.00

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. This course is a requirement for Sophomore Apparel Design Students. 

Major Requirement | BFA Apparel Design

Building on basic techniques taught first semester, students proceed to more complex cuts for bodices, sleeves, skirts and pants through techniques of draping, drafting and construction. One finished garment is required.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $125.00

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. This course is a requirement for Sophomore Apparel Design Students. 

Major Requirement | BFA Apparel Design

This course introduces technical and conceptual grounding in the aesthetics of identity projection through apparel and personal ornamentation. In addition to offering an intersectional lens through which to investigate both individual and social identity, students will learn foundational and interdisciplinary skills for design and construction: from presentation plates to effectively communicate the visual language of their design intentions to digital embroidery, laser cutting, UV printing, etc. to explore novel material and construction strategies. Research, discussions, and collaborative activities investigate how clothing might assume responses for both the wearer and the audience in the context of identity informed by gender, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, religion, and more; both classic and experimental production techniques empower students to more fully realize their concepts of identity representation and projection.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $250.00

Majors are pre-registered by the department. This course is a requirement for Sophomore Apparel Design Students. 

Major Requirement | BFA Apparel Design