The course offers graduate students a forum for exploring historical and theoretical foundations of contemporary design and craft arts. Readings, discussions, lectures, and writing projects address a range of contexts for the practice of design, from materials and making, to ways that objects are encountered, consumed, and lived with, to design's promises and limitations for dealing with global crises of climate, poverty, conflict, disease, and displacement. Weekly meetings are structured around critical themes selected through student input. Readings and case studies offer points of departure for discussion and writing. Guest lectures by designers, curators, and critics provide viewpoints on contemporary practice. Culminating with a final artist statement and presentation, the work undertaken throughout the term will be oriented toward developing historical and critical frameworks in which to situate students' own studio and research practices.

Elective

Materials are often understood through habitual uses and familiar assumptions—how they are expected to look, feel, and function. This intensive studio course invites students to rethink how materials behave and how expectations can be challenged through making. Through hands-on fabrication and experimentation, students explore material properties as flexible and responsive, using making as a way to think and discover new possibilities. Designed to help students expand practice beyond two-dimensional work, the course emphasizes experimentation, risk-taking, and hands-on problem-solving, encouraging students to approach material limitations as creative strengths and to develop a more flexible and inventive approach to materials that can extend into future interdisciplinary projects.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $20.00 - $90.00

Elective

This seminar addresses key critical theory and socio-political aspects of illustration practices from a historical perspective. Reading, discussion, and meaningful integration of ideas into studio writing and activity are goals of the course. Class will meet two times per week including supported research times in various special collections and the library. Faculty determine the content of the seminar each term, balancing attention to issues defined by the expertise and interests of the graduate cohort and subjects of relevance to the field and professional practice. Theorists of special concern to contemporary illustration practice will be highlighted; statistics and technical information about communication media will illuminate how art objects have circulated in their own eras. Critical reading, writing, and presentation will be assessed.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00 - $75.00

Major Requirement | MFA Illustration

In Graduate Jewelry 2, first-year graduates hone in on recognized personal areas of interest specific to jewelry from the Fall semester. Students are encouraged to embrace new studio habits in order for individualized working methodologies to become apparent. Faculty, work with students, to foster the strengths of their natural proclivities and problem-solve areas of personal sabotage. Critical to the success of this course, it is essential that first year students demonstrate a high level of self-direction, curiosity, and drive reflected through their bench work and independent research. Course content continues to focus around jewelry's power and potential as a platform and catalyst for dialogue.

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

Major Requirement | MFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

Graduate Print I will focus on the notion that Printmaking (and its constituent processes/techniques) are a hub within the visual arts. Students will experiment with a multitude of print processes that branch from drawing (a logical creative starting-point between Printmaking and Painting), and form extensions into the mediums of painting, sculpture, installation, and even video. Processes covered will include; drawing fluid/screen filler, screen monotype, image transfer, drypoint intaglio, and various other forms of monoprint. Assignments will require experimentation with each new technique and projects will require the individual exploration of these techniques and application to each students' personal studio practice. Demonstrations, presentations, and group/individual critiques will supplement all work time.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Open to Graduate Printmaking Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Printmaking

Graduate Print I will focus on the notion that Printmaking (and its constituent processes/techniques) are a hub within the visual arts. Students will experiment with a multitude of print processes that branch from drawing (a logical creative starting-point between Printmaking and Painting), and form extensions into the mediums of painting, sculpture, installation, and even video. Processes covered will include; drawing fluid/screen filler, screen monotype, image transfer, drypoint intaglio, and various other forms of monoprint. Assignments will require experimentation with each new technique and projects will require the individual exploration of these techniques and application to each students' personal studio practice. Demonstrations, presentations, and group/individual critiques will supplement all work time.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Open to Graduate Printmaking Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Printmaking

This is a hands-on studio course focusing on three-dimensional object making, primarily working with wood as a medium. We develop an integration of intuitive approaches and structured processes through direct engagement with the materials. In addition to guiding the student through the various technical hurdles encountered as the projects unfold, an equal stress is placed on the development of the ideas and intent - and those ideas successfully expressed through the materials and its manipulation. At critical times, a slide presentation is given, followed by a general, open discussion on the relevant topics and how they relate to the class.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $200.00

Non-majors may enroll pending seat availability. Students may use the 'Request Course Section Prerequisite Override' task to request permission to register for the course.

Elective

This seminar connects sophomore Sculpture majors to significant parts of the ever-expanding discipline of contemporary sculpture. Over the semester the class will explore how methods of artistic production, materials of artistic transformation, and practices of makers participating in various artistic movements have created and sustained the conversations so integral to contemporary sculptural practice. Through a series of film screenings, assigned readings, slide talks, and discussions, students will gain a familiarity with the historic events and trajectories that continue to produce associative canons and relational movements, forming the foundation of their chosen discipline. The course trajectory is coordinated with topics covered in Sculptural Practices I and II and Sophomore Sculpture: Studio I.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00

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

Major Requirement | BFA Sculpture

This seminar connects sophomore Sculpture majors to significant parts of the ever-expanding discipline of contemporary sculpture. Over the semester the class will explore how methods of artistic production, materials of artistic transformation, and practices of makers participating in various artistic movements have created and sustained the conversations so integral to contemporary sculptural practice. Through a series of film screenings, assigned readings, slide talks, and discussions, students will gain a familiarity with the historic events and trajectories that continue to produce associative canons and relational movements, forming the foundation of their chosen discipline. The course trajectory is coordinated with topics covered in Sculptural Practices I and II and Sophomore Sculpture: Studio I.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00

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

Major Requirement | BFA Sculpture

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.

This course is a requirement for Graduate Textiles Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Textiles

“Singapore is known as a nation of food lovers and where eating is a national pastime.” - Vineetha Sinha PhD, sociologist, editor of Food, Foodways, and Foodscapes.

This travel course explores Singapore through its kitchens, hawker centers, and streets, where South East Asian and colonial traditions have mixed for centuries to create a vibrant culinary identity. From kampongs to skyscrapers, food has remained the thread connecting past and present. Students will taste everything from Michelin-starred street food to local dishes like chilli crab, laksa, and roti prata, while meeting the master cooks who sustain Singapore’s UNESCO-recognized hawker culture.

Students will use cuisine to explore ideas of craft, creativity, iteration, cultural identity, and technology. Site visits will range from hawkers who have perfected one dish over generations to large-scale manufacturers exporting noodles and delicious treats worldwide, highlighting the tension between tradition and innovation. Investigations into creative processes—through contemporary makers and modern mechanization—will connect culinary practice to broader design questions. Using mixed media, students will develop recipes for making, articulating the relationship between people, stories, and their craft.

Registration is not available in Workday. All students are required to remain in good academic standing in order to participate in the Wintersession travel course/studio. A minimum GPA of 2.50 is required. Failure to remain in good academic standing can lead to removal from the course, either before or during the course. Also in cases where Wintersession travel courses and studios do not reach student capacity, the course may be cancelled after the last day of Wintersession travel course registration. As such, all students are advised not to purchase flights for participation in Wintersession travel courses until the course is confirmed to run, which happens within the week after the final Wintersession travel course registration period.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $150.00

Turn your ideas into objects. In this hands-on studio you'll get your hands on the machines in CTC's shop and learn to make with them: 3D printers, pen plotters, vinyl cutters and more. Each week brings a new machine and a new way of working. You'll draw a file and watch a plotter turn it into ink on paper, model a form and print it, and cut graphics you can apply to any surface. Along the way you'll make custom tools, parts and pieces that feed straight back into your drawing, sculpture, textiles, design or whatever you love to make. The course is built for first-year students and beginners, so you can arrive curious and leave with a working toolkit, a pile of experiments, and a sense of what computation can do for an artist or designer.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $300.00

Elective

The material qualities of textile design and fabrication refer to our relationship to all aspects of the physical and tangible world. While computation has long been responsible for pushing the traditional techniques of textiles to high levels of mechanical industrial expression, digital sensibility and know-how of digital technologies are now increasingly seen as means to push the frontier and very definition of fabric. Parallel advances in digital fabrication and the invention of smart materials now allow for added dimensionality and functionality in fabric, and computation is a key interface for material exploration. In this course, students will learn to modulate the performance and behavior of fabric through its geometry and other systems of continuous structural surface within a computational framework. This course will provide students with the opportunity to push the boundaries of fabric design across disciplines and studio practices.

Estimated Cost of Materials: varies by individual project.

Elective

For centuries, portraits have created a visual record of someone’s existence. They shape how we understand history, power, and the complexities of the human experience. But what happens when we introduce time to a portrait?

In this studio course, students will explore the history of portraiture while considering what time-based media can offer the form. We will rethink the relationship between artist and sitter, consider who is documented and by whom, and experiment with new possibilities for portraiture today. How might duration, repetition, movement, and performance shape how a portrait communicates?

Looking at the work of artists including Isaac Julien, Gabrielle Goliath, Tacita Dean, Molly Soda, and Tehching Hsieh, students will use moving image, installation, projection, and their own bodies to create time-based portraits that expand our understanding of what portraiture can be.

Elective

During this five-week introductory studio course, students will work at the intersection of glass and photography, exploring how glass can function as both object and transmitter, and reimagining what an image can be when understood through light. Students will be introduced to foundational skills in both disciplines, approaching glass and photography as mediums in conversation with one another. In glass, they will learn basic hot casting, solid working, and cold working techniques including sandblasting and engraving. They will also explore photographic processes including cyanotype and projection. This course emphasizes research, conceptual development, and creative problem-solving, with the goal of synthesizing the two mediums. Students will learn through hands-on work, demonstrations, lectures, discussions, readings, and critiques. No prior experience is required, only curiosity and a willingness to question what these materials are and what they can become.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $150.00

Elective

This introductory metalsmithing course blends technical instruction with an investigation of design and concept as it relates to ornament and function. Students develop confidence and proficiency with the basic skills of forming non-ferrous metal. Specific techniques that will be covered are raising, forging, finishing non-ferrous metals, sawing, filing, drilling, sanding, polishing, annealing, surface embellishment, planishing and patination. We will also cover safety in the studio, proper hand-tool care, and the physical properties of metal. It is the goal of this course for students to gain an understanding of metal as a material and a broad understanding of the field of Jewelry and Metalsmithing. Assignments will build on each other and become more challenging throughout the semester. Each project given will rely on technical, formal and conceptual development. Classroom discussions, demonstrations and visual presentations will focus attention on traditional technical skills, design considerations, and the breadth of this exciting field.

Major Requirement | BFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

Industrial Design bears the burden of planned obsolescence. The way our objects have been and continue to be made, distributed and marketed are embedded with consumerist ideas that in turn, have produced devastating environmental, social and cultural effects.

Electric fans cool, warm, dry, exhaust and circulate air in domestic, institutional and industrial settings. Spinning blades to move air are found everywhere from our living rooms to our laptops. As appliances and simple mechanisms, they are ubiquitous and require frequent repair and cleaning.

So, how do planned obsolescence and fans connect? In this Advanced Design Studio, we will work with the Electric Fan as a guide to analyze and intervene in arrangements of planned obsolescence, production and disposal, maintenance, domesticity and comfort, urgency and efficiency, energy and urbanism, beauty and function. We will learn about the use and development of electric fans in relation to the changing climate, locally and globally.

The first part of the semester’s projects are dedicated to disassembly, reassembly and experimentation introducing you to basic electronics, motor functions, physical computing, and applying strategies to design for repair in mind. We will disassemble products and systems, including manufacturing processes, industrial waste streams and learning about the people who work in these sectors. The second part of the semester is dedicated to self-driven research, prototyping and iteration of your ideas focusing on audience and impact.

We will analyze and practice methods of repair—the tangible and intangible alike— Right to Repair policies and engaging with contemporary and historical cultures of DIY and internet-based open source communities of practice. Our learning will happen through building our studio culture together and developing collaboration skills, making in shops, and field trips to apply concepts of reharvesting and repair at small and large systemic scales. Throughout the semester will be engaging with text, expressing reflections through writing, zines and discussions to develop a critical stance on sustainability and circularity and articulate how you see that applied in your own work and practice moving forward.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design, MID (2.5yr): Industrial Design

Metals and Molds is a hands-on technical studio course that will introduce students to the fundamentals of steel fabrication and mold-making/casting and their creative possibilities, which together afford unlimited experimentation according to each artist’s individual interests. No prior experience is required. Students will not only learn about the long practice of combining mold-making and steel by various contemporary artists, such as Hannah Levy and Martha Friedman, but learn these exact processes and techniques to then apply to their own studio practice. This class approaches traditional techniques as a jumping off point for experimentation and students will be encouraged to develop an intuitive understanding of materials and form that can be applied to contemporary ideas of sculpture.

The first two weeks of the course will focus on obtaining technical skills through in-class demonstrations, immediate material engagement, and various small assignments. In steel, students will start by learning the basic steel fabrication techniques in the foundry, and how steel is both one of the most strong and malleable materials to work with. Students will learn cold and hot bending, cutting techniques (saws and plasma cutter), and Oxy-Acetylene welding (gas welding). In addition, students will learn the most common welding method, MIG welding, as well as grinding and finishing steel.

Mold-making will prioritize teaching the workflow of mold-making and casting, including identifying undercuts and high/low points, planning for pour spouts, and selecting casting materials. Students will specifically learn how to construct 1-part plaster molds and 2-part silicone block molds and how to use these molds with different casting materials to achieve desired results. Additional mold-making techniques may be explored depending on the learning pace and needs of the class.

Once basic skills are mastered the course will transition into how to manipulate these processes according to the students’ unique artistic visions, ultimately culminating in two projects that integrate steel fabrication with cast materials. Students will participate in two peer critique sessions to evaluate the final projects for integration of technical skills as well as conceptual/formal qualities.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $300.00

Elective

This course provides students from any major with the opportunity to explore issues in art and design teaching. As a broad overview, this course will address formal and informal art teaching in K-12 school-based settings, as well as in art museums, and community-based settings. Students will be introduced to ideas about teaching and learning art through a wide variety of experiences, such as observations in diverse art education settings, guest speakers, as well as opportunities interacting with (and teaching!) children and/or adolescents. This course will include seminar sessions, as well as site visits to local schools, museums, and community-based organizations. The content and experiences offered during this class hope to inspire and excite students about the possibilities of utilizing their studio practice as art & design teachers or teaching artists in museum or community-based settings. The course will have particular value to students perhaps considering continuing their studies at RISD beyond undergrad to pursue either a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) or Master of Arts (MA) in Art + Design Education. This course is designed to introduce students to contemporary issues and practices in art education through a variety of spaces. The course content will be divided approximately into three distinct explorations: art and design teaching at the K-12 schools, art museum education, and community-based art teaching. During each exploration, students will be asked to reflect on their own personal experiences with art learning, as well as engage with readings that explore contemporary perspectives on art education. Additionally, each exploration will be enhanced with opportunities for students to experience authentic art education spaces (either digitally or in person) to see how theory can connect with practice. The course culminates in a capstone experience in which students, collaborating in small groups, will lead a short studio-based experience for children or adolescents. This experience will be conducted in partnership with a local education organization such as a school, community arts center or RISD's Project Open Door. Throughout this class, students will be offered a variety of opportunities to connect art education theory and practice, as well as reflect on their own experiences with art learning and teaching.

Elective

Form Flight and Abstraction 

To look skyward is to look inward, into the deep space of the human imagination as we pursue our primal need to believe in something beyond reality. This studio course explores flight as a force of abstraction and the sky as a medium for artistic expression through the design and construction of functional flying objects.

Beginning with simple experiments in paper flight, students will investigate the relationships between form, structure, material, and aerodynamic forces. Through iterative design, prototyping, and testing, the constraints of flight become a catalyst for abstraction. Students will be challenged to abstract their subjects, transforming them into objects that take flight and inspire the imaginations of terrestrial onlookers from the sky.

Computational design, digital fabrication, and programmable technologies will be introduced as tools for experimentation and expression. The course culminates in the creation of an original functional aerial phenomenon: a flying object conceived as a vehicle for communicating ideas, provoking curiosity, and offering an unexpected experience of wonder.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $300.00

Elective