This course is designed for art students looking to transition into the creative economy. As the worlds of art and commerce increasingly co-mingle, we will explore how a RISD education and skill set is marketable for business, academia, non-profits, and the gallery world. This hands-on course will include making a business plan, building a brand, finding and dealing with clients, and managing estimates, invoices, taxes, and insurance. Through practical in class exercises, guest lecturers, readings and assignment work, we will address the risks and rewards of making a living as an artist /entrepreneur.

Elective

Photographers and artists have been pushing the limits of what our understanding is of a photographic object for decades. Arguably, even the first pictures made by Nicéphore Niépce and Louis Daguerre could be described as 3-dimensional objects. This course breaks from the 2-dimensional norm and will investigate the philosophical, practical, and material connections between the readymade, sculpture, and photography. Through the making of “photographic" objects and installation, students will further explore the experimental process of making meaning through transcending the everyday.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $175.00

This course is open to non-majors pending seat availability. Contact the instructor for permission to register.

Elective

This course combines an overview of the history, theory, political influences, trends of expression and a survey of past and contemporary artists working in the field, with the opportunity for students to put theoretical study into practice through assignments that aid in the development of one's own project. In weekly critiques of student documentary work including journals that record one's process and self reflection, we will explore the process, grapple with ideological issues that arise, and challenge each other to push our understanding and the development of a documentary language further.

Elective

In this course, students will be introduced to the basic principles of digitally capturing, processing, and printing photographs that are really worth making. We'll cover all the important functions that most digital cameras have in common and we'll go through the fundamentals of using Photoshop to refine and manipulate images. Students will learn their cameras' controls well enough to use the manual settings with confidence, and how to make the automatic features work for them instead of against them. We'll consider what makes a good photograph both technically and creatively, and we'll critique prints made on the Photo department's high-quality Epson printers. Students will need to provide their own digital camera with raw capture capability (DSLR or equivalent), and a portable hard drive (formatted for Mac), both of which they should bring to the first class. (Hard drives will be needed before week 2). Students registered for the course who are in the market for a new camera are welcome to contact the professor for camera purchasing advice.

Elective

In this course, students will be introduced to the basic principles of digitally capturing, processing, and printing photographs that are really worth making. We'll cover all the important functions that most digital cameras have in common and we'll go through the fundamentals of using Photoshop to refine and manipulate images. Students will learn their cameras' controls well enough to use the manual settings with confidence, and how to make the automatic features work for them instead of against them. We'll consider what makes a good photograph both technically and creatively, and we'll critique prints made on the Photo department's high-quality Epson printers. Students will need to provide their own digital camera with raw capture capability (DSLR or equivalent), and a portable hard drive (formatted for Mac), both of which they should bring to the first class. (Hard drives will be needed before week 2). Students registered for the course who are in the market for a new camera are welcome to contact the professor for camera purchasing advice.

Elective

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

The Undergraduate Seminar works in complement with Senior Studio to provide a forum in which students assemble in discussion, analysis and reflection around a set of ideas, practices and histories that are of substantial relevance to photography, its history and its contemporary forms. The content of the seminar will vary from year to year, but students will be expected to read, research, discuss, write about and/or present on the material addressed in class. The seminar will interact with the department's Visiting Artist lecture series, with the SEI Lecture Series, and with MCM events at Brown. Attendance at those lectures is highly encouraged.

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

Major Requirement | BFA 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 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 six-credit course is designed to provide the necessary production time for the realization of the Degree Project, culminating in a well-organized and installed public exhibition of a project or body of work in the department's Red Eye Gallery. The Degree Project must be approved by photography faculty and accompanied by a written Degree Project Thesis. Attendance at all departmental visiting artist lectures is required.

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

Major Requirement | BFA Photography

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

The Graduate Seminar works in complement with Graduate Critique to provide a forum in which students assemble in discussion, analysis and reflection around a set of ideas, practices and histories that are of substantial relevance to photography, its history and its contemporary forms. The content of the seminar will vary from year to year, but students will be expected to read, research, discuss, write about and/or present on the material addressed in class. The seminar will interact with the department's Visiting Artist lecture series, with the SEI Lecture Series, and with MCM events at Brown. Attendance at those lectures is highly recommended.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate Photography Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Photography

In this course, students will re-examine the "Artist’s Book" as a sculptural spatial object, a tactile experience, and a material carrier of information. The journey begins with the introduction of classical binding techniques. Through folding, pasting, and stitching, students will explore the craft of traditional bookmaking, from hardcover binding techniques like the French Link and Egyptian Coptic to softcover scrolls and Chinese thread-sewn (線裝). As students learn these practices, they will develop spatial awareness skills applicable to various artistic forms.

Furthermore, the course encourages us to expand our definition of a book through creating "sculptural books" and "books as experiences." Centered on the "paperless book," students will explore materials that embody the concept of a "page," such as layered clothing, hinged doors, and packaging materials. Students will also be introduced to working with bookboard to create boxes and structural forms. By operating within vertical planes and three dimensions, the course reconstructs the form and scale bounds of the medium.

Students will engage with the framework of embodied knowledge and reflect on the role of the book in the contemporary world. Studying artists like Julie Chen, Lucas Samaras, Akai Miyako, and Joseph Cornell, and complemented by visits to RISD Special Collections, Fleet Library Materials Collection, and Brown University Hay Special Collections, students gain firsthand inspiration from expansive materialities. They will learn to harness spatial structure, temporal sequence, and material texture to craft works that resonate deeply and reveal multifaceted truths.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $150.00

Elective

Across history, color and pattern have functioned as cognitive, cultural and sensory tools for communicating human experience, from cave paintings and hieroglyphs to contemporary printmaking. Students will apply foundational colour theory and pattern-making principles to haptic processes: fiber preparation, pigmentation, sheet formation, pulp painting and ink application. Students will learn how to pigment fibers and make inks with natural dyes, including marigold, brazilwood, cochineal, madder, cutch, henna, myrobalan, Himalayan rhubarb and logwood. Through technical demonstrations, critiques and iterative making, students will explore how different fibers, including kozo, flax, abaca and recycled pulp, can shape layering, texture and form.

The term haptic refers to how surfaces record touch to produce visible traces of contact. Selected chapters from Jennifer Roberts’ Contact: Art and the Pull of Print and Ashley Montagu’s Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin will inform discussions of haptics within the inherently printerly. Visits to the RISD Museum and Fleet Library special collections will support students in developing a portfolio of original works. Situated at the intersection of fine art, science and craft, this course highlights the practical and conceptual importance of the sensuousness of materials in the modern era.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $125.00 - $150.00

Elective

Expanding on the fundamentals of Intaglio, this course will explore the Mezzotint technique that was developed in the mid- seventeenth century. This technique is unique because it achieves tonality by roughening a metal plate with thousands of little dots made by a metal tool with small teeth, called a "rocker". The plate will print with a strong and even velvety black. At this point, the burs created by the rocker are then scraped and burnished away to create arrange of tonality. Students will learn how to rock a plate, develop their drawings, transfer their designs on a copper plate, use a rocker, sharpen a rocker and printing methods. Mixed Media etching methods with mezzotint images will be explored as additional mark making possibilities and color layering. Emphasis will be placed on sound technical execution, image making, and the development of students’ personal artistic language.  Technical demonstrations, individual and group critiques will be used throughout the semester to encourage students’ artistic practice. Let’s “Rock” and “Roll”!

Estimated Cost of Materials: $120.00

Elective

Intaglio: Alternative Practices builds bridges from experience in the medium of intaglio by presenting advanced and innovative platemaking and printing processes using copper, plexiglass, and polymer plate types. Coursework will cover topics such as: custom stop-outs, extended etches, ink interfacing, toner transfers, and extensions into the digital realm utilizing the Benson Hall “Tech Lab” resources. Demonstrations and assignments will focus on the virtues of plating material, not solely as printable matrices, or carriers of transferrable visual information, but also as finished objects. The semester will be driven by demonstration, guided in-class work, independent work focused on experimentation, and conversation geared toward alternatives to substrate (paper), matrix (copper, polymer, plexi), and medium (ink). The semester will culminate in a self-directed final project that requires students to generate a grouping of works that successfully combine a selection of the processes covered which includes a substantial set of proofs, studies, plating tests, and pertinent supplementary visual/technical research.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $125.00

Elective

Pattern and print have been closely linked since the development of printing techniques in East Asia in the 600s. Since then, printed patterns have enriched pictorial art, textiles and wallcoverings - any surface that can take a print. All printmaking methods have been used to create patterns, from the earliest woodblocks to digital printing today.

 This course explores a handmade approach to pattern through drafting on graph paper, working with gouache, carving wood blocks in relief and printing with distemper paints. Emphasis will be placed on developing structures that exploit the fixed size of a block to make patterns that are satisfying when spread over a large area. The potential of the carved and printed mark and impact of layering with a small number of colors will be explored in individual and group projects. Students with prior printmaking experience will be free to execute designs in a range of media such as screenprint, intaglio and letterpress.

The hands-on approach will provide a foundation for exploration of design and printing methods introduced in the second half of the course. Students will work through a series of self-directed projects and apply appropriate computer programs as needed.

 A final portfolio/collection of patterns will employ and potentially combine techniques and methods learned in class. Readings about the history and theory of pattern design will be presented throughout the class and RISD Museum and Fleet Library collections will be consulted for historical background and inspiration.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $120.00

Elective

Performance and printmaking share qualities that can generate innovative and hybrid artistic forms, despite their seemingly unrelated disciplines. This intersection is increasingly seen in contemporary artistic practice but is not often explored in an academic context. This course will focus on the bridges and dynamic potential between theatrical performance, performance art, animation, and printmaking. Throughout the semester, students will learn conceptual and technical aspects of prints and printmaking that relate to and inform multimedia works, ranging from seriality, layering, and duration, to imprinting, documentation, and artifact. 

Students will be introduced to the relationship between prints, theater, and performance in the early- to late-20th century, and will examine recent works that define and explore critical issues of our time. Using RISD’s vast printmaking facilities, and equipment and materials for animation, sound, and performance, students will develop their own methods and combinations using topics such as the body, motion, and time.  

Course format will include lectures, readings, discussion groups, and visits to the RISD Museum’s collection. Students will develop three individual or collaborative studio projects in response to prompts, as well as a self-directed final assignment. Individual and group critiques will help sharpen students’ ideas, skills, and knowledge of prints.

Artists discussed during this course will include, but not be limited to, Marina Abramović, John Cage, David Hammons, William Kentridge, Kakyoung Lee, Poli Marichal, Jason Moran, Bruce Nauman, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Audra Wolowiec, and Yukinori Yanagi.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $200.00

This course is open to Junior, Senior, Fifth-year or Graduate Students. Email the instructor for permission to register.

Elective

This co-requisite interdisciplinary course qualifies for both Liberal Arts Elective credit (LAEL) and either Non-major Studio Elective credit (NMSE) or Printmaking credit, brings together Black literary and print traditions to inform our understanding of American civil society and, more broadly, democracy and its complex relationship to freedom as a cultural phenomenon. Throughout the course, we will examine a number of central questions:  What is the relationship between concepts of political power and the black archive as a blueprint for liberatory praxis? How can we use ideas of liberation found in black letters to narrate through offset and letterpress print design? What is Rhode Island’s role in these histories and stories of resistance?

Rooted in our local histories of Black resistance and offset and letterpress print craft, the first half of this course will use a lecture and group discussion format to examine the importance of the liberatory imagination in primary source documentation. A core objective is to clarify the silences surrounding oppressive ideology and its promotion of racially repressive phenomena through print culture and political counterframes.

This is a co-requisite course. Enrollment includes both LAEL 3150 and PRINT 3250. Students will receive 3 studio/non-major studio elective credits and 3 Liberal Arts elective credits, for a total of 6 credits.

This course is open to junior, senior, fifth-year, and graduate students. This course is not open for self-registration, please contact Marco McWilliams at mmcwilli@risd.edu for permission to register.

Elective